Aussie, Aussie...er, hang on a minute

We can sometimes be a conceited bunch us Aussies - proud of 'the lucky country'.

Remember that Donald Horne, who coined the phrase, was actually having an insightful dig at our lazy prosperity.   "Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck."  His argument was that most industrialised countries have prospered economically from ingenuity and dogged enterprise, and politically from suffering and great struggle.  European Australians, on the other hand, just plundered "terra nulius" and adopted the Westminster system - piece of piss mate!

Our (misguided?) conceit stems from endless beaches, sporting prowess (up the... ahem... Wallabies?), pristine wilderness, global envy, etc. etc.  But there's one race we are sadly winning and it seems as though it might be an extension of the thoughtless good fortune we have enjoyed for a couple of hundred years.

I stumbled across this troubling post http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house  

Australia has by far the biggest new house size (Gold for Australia!) with an average of 214 m², ahead of the US with 201 and the Canada with 181.  More telling perhaps is the per capita rate of residential floor space available where we smash the seppos by over 15% with a whopping 89 m² per person compared to 77 in the US (Gold, gold gold!).

And check this out from the post...

In London they have a new minimum space standard as part of the London Plan.  For new flats the minimum standards are 37 m² for one person, 50 m² for two people in one bedroom, 61 m² for three people with two bedrooms, and 74 m² for four people in three bedrooms.

Poor pommies, doing it tough.  But are they really?

There's heaps of stuff out there about small = beautiful = smart = eco, go find it yourself and start shrinking.  Nothing quite like a scary infographic to put a cracker under you.

The sanctuary. The afterglow.

What a splendid weekend...some of us are less splendid than others as a result, but all worth it.  One highlight for me and my beloved was falling into a tent at the end of the night donated to us by the one and only DFJ - who was being soccer mum (at 2am?!) for some others in the crew.  The sanctuary of a tent, bed, sleeping bag, and spoon at the end of hilarious night is a true delight.  And the-day-after-the-night-before afterglow, when you wake up with your mates full of stories and self-congratulation, can rival the night itself.  So, how much better would all that be if the camp site wasn't such an ugly bomb site of k-mart tents and ripped tarps?

Belgium.  Where even sketchy festival campsites...aren't.

http://b-and-bee.com/gallery/

Ugly? A matter of perspective

There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about urban sprawl, on the blight of which has been written endless column inches and blogs...but not this one!  Christoph Gielen has managed to capture a mesmerising beauty in  places many of us would turn away from in high indignation.  We know there are serious social, environmental and cultural impacts associated with urban sprawl, but it seems it's all just a matter of perspective...and a hot air balloon.

Check out more here

http://www.christophgielen.com/category/work/

Re-imagining urban spaces - or trespass...

...well, that depends on your point of view, like everything else.  Here's a "Dangerous Idea" care of the 2014 Sydney Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FoDI).  Should we reclaim, rediscover, re-imagine urban spaces that are forgotten, forbidden, off-limits?

Here's part of the summary of Bradley Garrett's upcoming talk at FoDI

 [our] culture of safety brings limitations and fears that have the capacity to turn us into passive spectators in our own lives, especially in cities where high land values create dense areas of exclusion. Yet there is always a city within the city to explore. 

Underground and in the sky, the secret arteries of infrastructure and the forbidden heights of buildings are open to urban explorers who want to reclaim lost history and their right to roam the urban wilds. Bradley Garrett argues that rather than accepting the pre-packaged, safe, passively consumed entertainment on offer, we must make our own adventures by embracing the unsafe city as our playground. 

And to those of you tut-tut-ing at these trespassers, they like to think of themselves rather as "place hackers" with their own ethical code... no vandalism or theft, take only photographs, leave only footprints.  But I guess we will still have to pay for rescue and health costs if these cheeky monkeys come to grief? 

Whichever way you think of them, there's no denying they create to some wonderful pictures...

http://news.yahoo.com/photos/place-hacking-new-global-movement-to-find-adventure-in-forbidden-places-slideshow/

Do you have a dangerous idea?

effective + efficient = good design?

There are lots of pithy definitions of what makes a good design.  This example is surely every one of them put into practice.  Although these wouldn't last long as satchels in the wet, a garbage bag cover would sort that.  Check this video, complete with soaring music and transformed smiling kids... but really, the fancy pants ad types from DDB weren't necessary, this sells itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_10AyjJD8A4