yesterday was a perfect sunny day, a perfect day for helping plant new ecoroofs at harpoon house! some of you may remember my design sponge guest post on the harpoon house a few months back. well, the roof planting party signifies that it’s nearly complete!
the promise of seeing a huge box of succulent clippings and helping spread them on the topmost roof of this new house helped me overcome my fear of heights and ladders. it also helped that we worked mostly on our hands and knees!
meanwhile, a second crew down below on the second floor roof garden was busy planting native plants.
before the big move-in day, katherine and matt are hosting a public open house for anyone who loves modern architecture, small homes, sustainable building and ecoroofs.
so, if you’re in portland next sunday, you’re invited! 10 am to 4 pm at the corner of se 17th and ash.
at first glance, this project by karin mientjes [yeah, yeah, dutch] doesn’t look very impressive. until you realize the scale and see that these are stacked poster tube boxes.
then, if your brain works like mine you say ‘whoa, that’s like a cardboard version of a corn maze or a richard serra piece’ [below].
the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) here in portland is dedicating one of their rooms as a Yeti Research Station! Many local artists are contributing to the permanent installation such as lori d, scrappers, betsy walton, jess hirsch, bwana spoons, tim
karpinski, and me!
IPRC Yeti Research Station
opening: march 4th, 6-9 pm
917 sw oak st. #218
at the same time, downstairs at reading frenzy, brittany powell is unveiling her dog show!
dawn recommended the elegance of the hedgehog last week, and as luck would have it a friend had it and lent it me.
my favorite quote:
“Personally I think there is only one thing to do: find the task we have been placed on this earth to do, and accomplish it as best we can, with all our strength, without making things complicated or thinking there’s anything divine about our animal nature. This is the only way we will ever feel that we have been doing something constructive when death comes to get us.”
second favorite:
“In Japanese “wabi” means an “understated form of beauty, a quality of refinementmasked by rustic simplicity.”
related to my love of simply made diy furniture, i came across enzo mari’s “autoprogettazione” furniture on the container corps blog.
roughly translated as “self design,” enzo’s 1974 book gives instructions for building easy-to-assemble furniture using rough boards and nails. above are two examples of container corps’ beautifully made versions of autoprogettazione pieces.
further google research revealed more historical autoprogettazione designs…
which reminded me of countless other designer’s work and gives me a nice historic context it didn’t have before. two examples that come to mind: piet hein eek’s work, and the studio mama pallet project.
below is a page from the autoprogettazione book and an example of studio mama’s pallet lamp, made from cast-off wood pallets.
you can buy diy instructions for some of the pallet furniture on studio mama’s website. below see how amistad o nada, a non-profit in buenos aires, has taken studio mama’s design to make and sell pallet chairs from local materials for the local market which gives people jobs as a result. diy indeed.
love. love. love. the most beautifully made hand-bound book i’ve seen in a long, long time!
i’m not sure if i’ll use mine, although the container corps swears that if you bring yours to the shop here in n.e. portland they’ll take out the block of pages for your archives and put in a fresh set for a small fee.
last week, and as luck would have it a friend had it and lent it me. 
