bird in a box

Birds love wine.

Wineberry has designed these pine boxes to reduce the carbon footprint of a glass of wine. The wood is sustainably grown in the same region the wine is produced (Bordeaux). Not only does the shape and weight of the box requires far less energy for production and transportation, the design also prevents oxidation of the wine. Once the wine has been consumed, the box can be reused in other practical ways, i.e. winehouses.

roof run

The largest indigenous HIV/AIDS support organization in Africa, TASO provides HIV/AIDS-affected children with chickens and support to develop sustainable, small-scale poultry holdings. The Poultry Project addresses the persistent poverty and malnutrition plaguing HIV/AIDS-affected children in Uganda. In 2010, the Poultry Project called farmers, designers, thinkers, architects, artists, and locavores to design a chicken coop for use in urban or suburban backyards. The ideal coop would integrate aesthetics with utility and make creative use of local materials.


Roof Run (RR) takes precedent from the vertical programming of cities. As an urban coop, it must fit into the dense urban fabric, i.e. a patio. In order to minimize its footprint yet still provide sufficient space for the birds, it was necessary to consider vertically stacking the program. The result is a series of perches that lead to a rooftop run.






Like a roof garden, the run provides food, temperature control and recreational activities. With a rooftop run, the chickens and compost access more sunlight. This is a concern in locations where tall buildings limit the daylight and therefore the egg production. Hens also want access to grass and soil. RR creates a protected space where the birds can dig for bugs. As a composting site, the urban farmer can place food scraps on the roof. What the chickens do not consume will attract bugs for further decomposition. The soil becomes fertilized with the manure of the birds. Eventually, this peat can be used for vegetable production. A cyclical system is born.

As a prototype, RR is a flexible system. Reclaimed wood is fastened to a steel structure and ventilation holes are drilled for air circulation. If necessary, insulation can be installed and the holes plugged as the farmer responds to his particular climate. The simple design can be commercially manufactured or handmade in Uganda. RR responds to diverse climates and their local materials, hoping to produce a sustainable home for hens in any part of the globe.


Understanding that a coop must be convenient for an urban farmer, Roof Run allows easy access for egg collection, food and water replenishment, and coop cleaning. The design even includes a droppings drawer with a removable tray.

palett palate

A banquette with more diversity than a NYC subway car.

Of all the benefits accrued from using salvaged shipping palettes for cladding, the least expected was the quality of the found lumber. However, sure enough, the diverse species of wood extends from ash to walnut.

they still exist

Hydro+Logic was an installation at the Columbia Waterfront District's Urban Meadow in Brooklyn. Intended to continue the dialogue concerning the wasted resources of bottled plastic water, the project arranged thousands of discarded bottles into an area of respite.


The vast majority of all plastics ever produced still exist, somewhere. Consider your ecological footprint when you drink bottled water versus tap:

The plastic water bottle that takes just 3 minutes to drink can take up to a 1000 years to biodegrade.

We pollute nearly 7x more water to make the plastic bottle than it actually holds.

Bottling increases water extraction in areas near plants, leading to water shortages that affect local consumers and farmers.

About 1/3 of tested* bottled water contained levels of contamination, including synthetic organic chemicals, bacteria and arsenic.

Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year (47 million gallons of oil) and over 80% are NOT recycled.

Corporate bottlers like Dasani (Coca Cola) and Fiji are stripping developing nations of their self-determination, environment and natural resources.


*Results published by the National Resources Defense Council after a 4-year study of the bottled water industry.

Move to Dialog

“…meanwhile, organic entities…begin to display a new vitality, each coaxing the breathing body into a unique dance. Even boulders and rocks seem to speak their own uncanny languages of gesture and shadow, inviting the body and its bones into silent communication.”
[David Abram, Spell of Sensuous]

If we consider the body with its surrounding entities, are we then concerned with a sensuous dialog that surpasses oral communication? Texture incites tactile exploration. Movement of shadow illustrates reciprocity of observer with observed and fluidity of form. Echoic tones imitate surfaces with translated reflections. These external entities provoke and stimulate a multiplicity of conversation. Although results remain relative to particularities, stimuli motivate response. Therefore, understanding the body’s correspondence requires understanding one’s self and the significance of its context: from the ground to the heavens.

The sun announces its existence and orientation with heat and light energy. All beings simultaneously obstruct the radiance and project a shadowed assertion of their own identity. The rock intercepts the incidence and its profile casts to a surface beyond. A passing ant discerns the darkness and instinctually perceives the presence of the mass. As the insect advances back into the sunlight, in turn, it interrupts the lit passage. The ant’s profile casts onto a pebble beyond. These shadows endure with light, yet transform with time as all beings revolve and weather with every aurora. As such, the sun unites and illuminates the exchange of the earth’s phenomena. It vibrates the phenomena into being. Oscillating back and forth from volatile to restrained postures, these bodies collide and transfer their fed energy with one another.

Bodies want to move. An embryo begins to beat its heart within three weeks of fertilization; it pursues motion before it receives nutrition from the mother. Throughout development, the inherent expression of manual gesture evolves. Beings begin to imitate audible sounds to complement kinesics. Although spoken language tends to succeed gestural communication, words remain only to represent these physical manifestations. The tongue articulates kinein and yet exploration of such only transpires through palpable activity. (Perhaps the attempt of writing about motion is the greatest paradox.)

As a body slides through space, it manipulates the medium with each action. As witnessed by a swimmer, the cupped stroke of the arms, the alternating torsion of the body, and the flitter of the feet propel movement through water. The body displaces the liquid as it would elements of air. The body wants to move. Even a seemingly static posture pushes and pulls its surroundings with every in- and exhalation. The perception merely exists at a smaller scale. These involuntary systems collect a repertoire of internal rhythms and sequences of motion. Perhaps these natural cadences influence our personal evolution toward patterns of speech or gait. Perhaps the heartbeat has held more significance than just controlling blood. Perhaps it persists as the primary pulse, influential of all fashioned rhythms.

A collective effort recorded electric signals from human hearts, both healthy and diseased. Mapped from the data, the musical notes transformed from anatomical pulse to song. The Heartsongs ranged in complexity according to the health of the heart. Heart signals normally have a subtle variability between beats as the nervous system fluctuates in speed. This resultant plasticity offers a complex frequency with the mathematical structure of a fractal of self-similar sequences . Once translated to music, healthy hearts provide a sound with interesting note sequences while diseased hearts translate to a monotonous repetition. The Music of the Heart Project validates the complexity of natural phenomena and offers further inquiries about one’s perception of the natural order. Insight about the body’s variability and our accord with these internal sounds continues to support the mind/body cohesion. The body wants to move. It pulsates and alternates motion. It dances.

Honeybees dance to announce sources of nectar and birds perform mating dances during breeding seasons. Animal expression pervades aesthetic constraints. These dances have an objective, but with a priority of species’ survival. The physical expression of humans, however, varies from the synchronization of gesture invoking rain to the subconscious sway of comforting an infant. The range of motion varies as great as the intention. Perhaps our comprehension of existence stretches the ability, the composure, and the implication of movement. Our multiplicity of identity (national, political, local, gender, sexual, and religious) conditions our movement. Traditional Balinese dances burst from restrained postures and return to realigned composure while the traditional Chinese dances sustain the fluidity. Mexican tradition emphasizes the regular rhythm, but choreographs around the foot as an instrument. Our exchange with our self and our surroundings conditions our movement. Sound influences motion while motion inspires sound. Instruments may give and take according to a dance, while the dancer claps, taps, pants, and chants in response.

At any particular essence, its body contains natural intuition and rhythm. It becomes an ever-changing collection of past experiences and influences. It simultaneously coordinates with our sensory organs to formulate thought and action. Neuroscientists are currently observing the human brain’s response to architectural stimuli, hopeful of the appreciated strategies once we have more information about spatial psychology. While science understands efficient methodology, architectural design must consider a range of factors that should not be simplified by statistics or formulaic insertions. Patterns will emerge, but may only be particular to a region or similar demographic. The analysis of dance demonstrates this complexity of provocation. A personal introspection about our exuberance or anxiety about dance suggests the intricacy of our development and the environmental factors involved. Should an architect consult an anthropologist and a neuroscientist through the course of design? Perhaps these scientific fields can integrate with analysis derived from other built precedents.

The infinite possibilities retract with every design decision and with a termination at construction. Beings occupy and employ according to their own intuition. An architect predicts his/her influence, but only returns to observe the actual interaction. Designed for the education and administration of Cal Poly’s architectural student population, Building 5 subsists with a variety of aliases: storage, think tank, dwelling, lap-top plug station, as well as: dance, in situ. Perhaps the scent of resin, spray paint and Red Bull hypnotizes dancers to coordinate movement. Perhaps the glow of the sodium vapor bulbs and the illuminated desk lamps coax choreography. A building with substantial covered, exterior space for movement may be a significant explanation for the draw of these dance groups. Regardless of the motivation, the concrete contains memories of design through and through: from the intended architectural studios to the guerrilla-like dance surfaces that have since arrived. Preposterous for an architect to assume his institutional enclosure to give life to salsa rhythms and hip hop-influenced body manipulation, but yet it exists as such. An exact replica of the building in a different context, however, would yield different results. Perhaps this leaves the sculptor of space with some humility about design intention. We know the body will move. We know the movement will be capricious. We must then design for the improvisation of being, with the silence for the body to speak and be heard.

4500 Public Ghosts

A month after Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Gulf Coast, the city of New Orleans reopened its confines to allow residents to return home. Stores and supplies were sparse, but so were the people trickling in to assess their damages. The lack of infrastructure, jobs, and finances proved difficult for those hoping to rebuild. Still others faced greater problems like steel security plates over doors and windows of their former units. In an effort to deter residents from reoccupying structures because of “security and safety concerns,” the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO) barred over 4500 families from re-inhabitation.[1]

"HANO put fences around the development. At Lafitte, they spent millions of dollars putting these steel doors on there,” said Dr. Jay Arena, a public activist and member of C3/Hands Off Iberville. “We broke in, we led people back into their homes. We broke through the police lines. We highlighted the contradictions of what the government was saying."[2]

With proposals to demolish and build new units at four housing project sites, HANO hopes to revitalize the nature of tenement housing with mixed-income development. The plans' controversy stems from a history of mistrust of the Housing Authority. Many believed the damage reports to be unfounded. Contractors agreed the units would be safe for inhabitation with a minimal amount of repair. Even HANO’s own documents reported the cost benefit of re-modernization versus demolition and new construction.

The Associate Professor of Architecture at MIT, John Fernandez, inspected 140 HANO apartments and stated, “no structural or nonstructural damage was found that could reasonably warrant any cost-effective building demolition. Therefore, the general conclusions are: demolition of any of the buildings of these four projects is not supported by the evidence of the survey, replacement of these buildings with contemporary construction would yield buildings of lower quality and shorter lifetime duration; the original construction methods and materials of these projects are far superior in their resistance to hurricane conditions than typical new construction and with renovation and regular maintenance, the lifetimes of the buildings in all four projects promise decades of continued service that may be extended indefinitely."[3]

With displaced residents eager to scrub and gut the damages themselves, HANO’s resistance initiated frustration, demonstration, and civil disobedience. With leases in hand, many residents took direct action to re-occupy their former neighborhoods. None was allowed to stay, all arrested for trespassing and some at gunpoint.

Opponents of the demolition believe the new development signals a racial and class cleansing. Activists refuse to accept the inadequate housing stock for low-income families. Since Hurricane Katrina, HANO only serves a third of the families that once relied on its assistance. Because 95 per cent of the public housing population was African American, The Advancement Project filed a federal class-action lawsuit against HUD and HANO for racial discrimination, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit asked the court to bar the demolition of any public housing apartments and permit residents to return to their units. Both the federal court and later the U.S. Fifth Circuit denied the legal challenges.

Despite the grassroots’ dissent of HANO’s proposals, the end of 2007 would mark a unanimous decision by the New Orleans City Council to demolish the city’s four largest housing developments: Lafitte, C. J. Peete, B. W. Cooper, and St. Bernard. Although people often hold sentiment and respect for one’s heritage, these historic relics have been deemed dispensable. The seventy-year old brick buildings were once constructed by some of the city’s finest artisans. The concrete structural framing, brick facades, terra cotta roofs and wrought-iron rails not only appealed aesthetically to the neighborhood, but also served a practical function to resist deterioration in the humid and flood-prone region.

New York Times Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff stated the Lafitte Housing Projects were, “scaled to fit within the surrounding neighborhood of Creole cottages and shotgun houses. To lessen the sense of isolation, the architects extended the surrounding street grid through the site with a mix of roadways and pedestrian paths. As you move deeper into the complex, the buildings frame a series of communal courtyards sheltered by the canopies of enormous oak trees. Nature, here, was intended to foster spiritual as well as physical well being.”[4]

The history of New Orleans is both rich and tragic; a microcosm can be viewed within the Faubourg Tremé, a neighborhood directly north of the French Quarter. At the end of the 20th century, the Tremé neighborhood included one of the country’s oldest African American communities, with the history of initiating housing for free people of color and introducing jazz music to the world. Prosperous, politically active and ethnically diverse, Tremé had become a bustling community of craftsmen, artisans, writers, and musicians. However, following the Second World War, the once prosperous shipping canal that bisected the community was labeled unnavigable and was filled. The Tremé Market, a key component of the neighborhood’s economic stimulus, was removed and replaced with the Municipal Auditorium. By 1941, the Fair Housing Act replaced all but six structures of the infamous Storyville ‘red light’ district in order to construct the Iberville Housing Development for Caucasian servicemen. The Lafitte Housing Development for African Americans replaced an existing fabric of shotgun houses and Creole cottages.

Although well intentioned, well planned, and well constructed, the developments of the forties demolished the old infrastructure with idyllic hopes for alleviating unemployment and unsanitary slums that had developed during the Great Depression. The years following the Works Progress Administration (WPA) era of hope and revitalization included the social mobility of the middle class to the suburbs, the replacement of a thriving tree-lined boulevard of businesses with an elevated interstate, and the removal of thirteen square blocks of houses, stores, and clubs as part of an urban renewal project. Initially financed by the WPA, social services like nursery schools and adult education programs no longer were provided. The neglected community deteriorated and worsened with every budget downsizing. Violent crime infiltrated and became the scapegoat for the urban, low-income problem. However, the community that was Tremé had long ago been destroyed.

Although these housing projects survived the wind and water of nature, they crumbled before the forklifts and bulldozers of impatient leaders. The director of the New Orleans field office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Walter Gallas laments, “We're going to see wood-frame construction replace solid masonry buildings. People have these visceral, negative feelings about these buildings, that (they) caused drugs and social problems, so by destroying the buildings everything will get better. Everybody knows that (is) not the case.” Unfortunately, the Tremé neighborhood knows the circumstance a little too well. While HANO promises an improved life of carpeted apartments and pastel facades, the cultural heritage of New Orleans has lost more of its infrastructure. Maybe one day the edifice will no longer be the only culprit.[5]

[1] HANO: Housing Authority of New Orleans, 2005, .
[2] Cardinale, Matthew, “(IPS) Public Housing on the Chopping Block,” Atlanta Progressive News, 30 August 2007, .
[3] Anderson v. Jackson, 556 F.3d 351, 2007.
[4] Ouroussoff, Nicolai, “All Fall Down,” New York Times: Architecture, 19 November 2006, .
[5] Burdeau, Cain, “Demolition Begins on St. Bernard Housing Complex, WWLTV, 19 February 2008, .

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