Lifting Venice – Again

Turns out those plans for elevating Venice aren't even new!


[Image: New Scientist, July 2004; worth clicking on to enlarge].

BLDGBLOG has been doing its homework, and we've found that the New Scientist explained all this way back in 2004: "Venice's problem is largely one of subsidence, both natural and man-made. From the 1930s to the 1970s, fresh water was pumped out of underground reservoirs beneath the city to supply surrounding factories. As the water was pumped out of these aquifers – which are rather like rocky sponges – their water-filled pores compressed and the ground sank. Combined with sea-level changes, this has produced an effective rise in sea level of 23 centimetres over the past 100 years."
Thus the whole raise-the-city-with-water-pumps idea.
"Numerous plans have been proposed to prevent Venice succumbing to the floodwaters, many of them controversial," New Scientist continues. "But if the latest idea gets the go-ahead it will raise more than a few eyebrows. Rather than trying to control the rising water level by keeping the sea out, engineers at the nearby University of Padua want to lift the entire city out of harm's way by raising the ground upon which it sits."
Fair enough.
But I still think they should put the whole thing onto an arched labyrinth of mechanized legs – inter-connected offshore oil platforms that can walk – and let the city flee inland by itself.
King Kong 2: Contro Venezia! The love-crazed simian dukes it out – with Spider-Venice.

Get Yr $$ On

Just in time for the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year in these old United States, Oprah Winfrey told millions of people what to buy for the Holidays. For those of you residing in the States - though this might apply much elsewhere - you've probably been bombarded one way or another by holiday consumer hype much earlier than usual this year, as companies try to make for anticipated drops in consumer spending caused by higher energy costs and such.

Personally, I'm aiming to make my gift-giving (and receiving) this year less about material goods and more about life's intangibles, such as donations to public radio, music classes, etc. This approach is more difficult than procuring "stuff" but ultimately a bit more rewarding, if not initially appealing to people.

The opposite end of Oprah's spectrum, though, is Buy Nothing Day, taking place on Friday in the States and Saturday in the UK. Billed as "a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life," this movement may or may not have been created by Adbusters but the organization definitely plays a hand in promoting it. Looking at their "BND Action Pyramid", buying nothing isn't enough. Non-spenders should spread the message via posters, t-shirts, banners, join Jammergroups, and generally get in shoppers faces with commentary on consumerism and corporations.



But does Buy Nothing Day really have a noticeable impact? Probably not. Like other "days" (Earth Day, Great American Smokeout, etc.), it's more publicity than anything. And while that might call attention to something, the next day people usually just go about their business, in this case shopping. An extension of the day that might have a slightly better chance is the Buy Nothing Christmas, though I don't know how anybody can pull that off.

In both cases, the emphasis on Nothing might be the biggest problem. Instead of countering 1 with 0 (in binary terms), why not counter 1 with 0.5? or 0.33? That might not get as much attention or publicity, but it's more realistic, especially given that so many people live in society's dependent on the commercial market. As an individual, to abandon it completely is so difficult that people probably won't even bother or pay attention, but to be more responsible about what, how much, and why we spend, is more feasible and may be more effective.

(thanks to Maria for the head's up)

UPS Vernacular

I was looking at this UPS label when I realized it contains some interesting architectural assumptions.


It offers me a porch, a deck, a garage, a back door, a patio, etc., on which to collect my package.
But no cheese cave or tower or footbridge; no Zen rock garden or prefab container village; no offshore Texas tower; no private helipad...
How does UPS account for other architectural styles? Oh – you tic Other! Now I get it. The international option.
"Just leave it in the harem," I'll say. "Leave that one beneath the torii gate, sir." "Leave it in the Other."
It's the UPS Vernacular.

Lifting Venice

"Italian experts are proposing a dramatic new solution to the watery threat facing the city of Venice," the BBC reports.


"Rather than battling to keep the sea out – they want to use it to help raise the sinking island-city. The scheme would involve pumping huge quantities of sea water into the ground beneath Venice down 12 pipes each of which would be 700m (765 yards) long. The sea water would make the sand beneath the city expand lifting Venice by 30cm (11.8 inches) in 10 years."


This, of course, comes after the so-called "Moses Project," which, as the BBC describes it, is "a series of 78 mobile steel barriers to be activated during exceptionally high tides. The barriers, due to be in place by 2011, will lie on the seabed most of the time, but will be filled with air to create a dam when Venice is threatened."


Of course, soon they'll just put the whole city atop a mechanized webwork of spindly little hydraulic legs that will stand up and walk inland – taking the Bridge of Sighs with it. The fully automated Robo-Venice of the future.
Meanwhile, for comparison, there's always the Thames Barrier –


– but everyone knows that won't save us...

Amazonia Britannica

"The team of architects behind the Eden Project in Cornwall is planning to turn a Lancashire rubbish dump into a tropical rainforest which would heat itself with decomposing garden and kitchen waste."


That doesn't excite you?
Well, the plan also "includes one of England's highest waterfalls, walkways through the treetops and possibly Europe's biggest compost heap, capable of using most of the green waste of a city the size of Manchester."

Monday, Monday

My weekly page update:

Colonie in Paris, France by BOB 361 Architects.

The updated book feature is A Guide to Contemporary Architecture in America: Volume 1, Western U.S.A., by Masayuki Fuchigami.

Some unrelated links for your enjoyment:

Brand Avenue
Blog on "Place, Space, & Identity." (added to sidebar under blogs::urban)

All Jurors Wear Black
"Architecture is hard to understand. Noble minds and smart people have advanced it's debate in spite of their abilities. The observations, notices, and insights recorded here are to help the rest of us understand what's going on. Sometimes its a lot of hype, other times its pretty inspiring." (added to sidebar under blogs::architecture)

Design Spotter
"The web-based platform for publication and publicity for designer-makers."

Bedrock: The Film

In the previous post – about the films of Stan Brakhage – I complained that you could not make a film using bedrock; but I stand corrected.
"It is entirely possible to project light through bedrock," an email I soon received explained. "Thin sections, samples of rock ground to a thickness of 30 microns for viewing under a microscope, are a standard tool of petrology."
So I was pointed to a website, did some research – including petrographic imagery at Humboldt State University, a Parisian Atlas minéralogique, and some "plutonic microtextures" at UNC-Chapel Hill – and it's true: you can make your own Mothlight using slices of bedrock. The continental plates as a kind of underground Hollywood. Film in mineral form.
Some examples? Just look below:


How would you do it? As but one example, you could animate the following sequence –


– which would not only display a very obvious sense of visual continuity, it would offer its own short geo-metamorphic narrative: anorthosite becoming gneiss becoming biotite-rich granite.
You could explain and demonstrate simultaneously the formational history of the earth, using abstract patterns of mineral imagery.
Bedrock: The Film.

(Thanks to Mike Weber for the initiating email; and all images above are by Kent Ratajeski at UNC-Chapel Hill).