my friend ruby came up with a humanitarian solution for all the plastic bags stashed in your kitchen. she’s been hosting utility quilt events around oregon, the next being on april 24th from 10am-5pm at southridge high school in beaverton. there you can donate bags or time towards her goal of sending 100 utility quilts to haiti! click right about here: plastic bags for haiti if you want more.

i’m pretty jazzed on this brewing technique. it produces just about the ‘cleanest’ cup of coffee possible, and looks really good doing it. the downside: a 12oz cup of vacuum pot coffee can set you back about $10 in one of those high-falutin’ cafés (like barista in portland).

“Invented in France in the 1840s, [the vacuum pot] was favored in early 20th Century America but got muscled out by automatic drip. With the renewed interest in fine coffee brewing, the vacuum has made a comeback. The device consists of a glass coffeepot and an upper glass chamber connected by a siphon tube. Water is placed in the lower coffeepot while ground coffee goes in the top chamber, fitted with a cloth filter. When the water heats to a boil on a stove, it travels up through the tube into the top chamber to mix with the coffee grounds. When the device is removed from the heat source, coffee is pulled back down through the filter into the pot, finishing with a gurgly flourish. It creates not just a complex pot of java but also a fun show. Good for those who want to retain richness from coffee oils, have the patience to carefully monitor their coffeepot, and enjoy a good spectacle.”

6 months down, 2.5 to go. i ended the first term (schematic/conceptual design) of my thesis project, the bootstrap union, three weeks ago. for the first time in my architecture career, i am able to use the suggestions of my final reviewers and implement them in my design. the final ten weeks (tectonic development) begin tomorrow. this is what i’ve come up with so far:

extra words and images: more.

finally got this in the mail!

look at this storefront i found in paris. who do they think they aren’t?

fresh off the cutter, a few handfuls of “not” stickers. catch them around the pacific northwest.

the first snowboard video i’ve been excited about in years.

- that was supposed to take 6 hours
- that had 2.2 million surfaces to bounce light off of
- that put us 30 hours behind schedule, 24 hours before it was due
- that finished, but took 2 hours of photoshop work to make it presentable

massing model for a highly-visible, mixed-use residential high-rise that i’m in the process of designing. it’s on burnside ave, at the intersection of the city grids in portland, or. basically, this is a dream project on a dream site for a studio under the supervision of nico larco and will bruder. too bad i’m getting paid -$10,000 for this.

more.