Archive for January 2010

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A model of a taco truck by Donna Kacmar's design studio at the Initiatives for Houston exhibition.

  • Jessica Winegardner
  • Jan. 19, 2010
  • 2:21 PM

Strategies for Changing Houston

The conversion of the Architecture Center Houston (ArCH) into a think tank of what Houston is, could be, and should be is worth the visit. The curated exhibition of Rice Design Alliance’s Initiatives for Houston Grant Program captures ten years of thinkers, dreamers, and designers putting their heads together to better understand our city and steer its future.

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Lakes of Cypress Forest [Photo from Hendricks Interests]

  • Raj Mankad
  • Jan. 5, 2010
  • 11:43 AM

Headlines December 23 to January 4

The coming of the new year brought year-end and decade-end posts including the Swamplot awards. “Lakes of” won favorite Houston design cliché of the year. Christof Spieler looked back on a decade of transit megaprojects. Also of note, the Chronicle published two pieces on philanthropist Cynthia Woods Mitchell, who passed away (1, 2). A good story I missed in the last headline post was the Rice News piece on Chris Hight’s and Michael Robinson’s studio on Brays Bayou and their website hydraulicity.org.

Monday January 4

Black medical museum to honor pioneers Facility will be located in historic Freedmen’s Town and focus on the struggles of black doctors to provide care [Houston Chronicle] “Historians hope to restore the home at 1319 Andrews owned by the Rev. Ned P. Pullum, a minister and entrepreneur, and transform it into the Pullum Health and Business Museum. The Pullum Museum would become part of an educational and cultural park corridor in Freedmen’s Town that includes the Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum – another reclaimed historic home. Freedmen’s Town, just west of downtown, is the only remaining post-Civil War, freed-slave historic district of its kind.”

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  • Steven Thomson
  • Jan. 4, 2010
  • 6:26 PM

Wallpaper City Guide: Houston

Rather than plainly document a bounty of recreational attractions, the recently-released Wallpaper City Guide: Houston (published jointly by the Wallpaper magazine and Phaidon) postures itself as the “fast-track” guide for the discerning traveler, offering a “tightly edited,” “ruthlessly researched,” “rigorously selected,” and “discreetly packaged” list of the city’s design-conscious locales. Instead of the design-minded denizen, the target audience is the weekend tourist or business traveler — so it’s tempting for a local to scrutinize the 100-page volume.

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