Karachi headquarters office of Emaar, a Dubai-based real estate company [Photos Sehba Sarwar]
At a March 2009 ceremony in Houston, Mayor Bill White and Syed Mustafa Kamal, the mayor of Karachi, Pakistan, declared the two cities sisters. The connection between the two cities was not new to me. Back in 1992, when I followed my then-boyfriend-now-husband René to Houston, I remember absorbing concrete sprawls of apartment complexes, and thinking of Karachi, my home city. Since then, over the years, I’ve been writing and exploring the multiple parallels between Karachi, where I return often, and Houston, where I’ve been based for some time.
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If you are intrigued by David Cobb’s art and reflections on rail, industry, and culture, check out the Cite Infrastructure Issue.
I began painting the railcars or “rolling stock” back in my college years at the University of Houston as a project for my undergraduate studies. I was helping my father, Tom Cobb, digitize his extensive collection of slides he’d taken of the Southern Pacific railroad, mainly from the 1970’s and 80’s. As we scanned and doctored images I became enthralled with the photos of boxcars. Simple, utilitarian, industrial, vital, yet so commonplace they seem to go unnoticed. I was hooked. It was time to honor the boxcar. The idea of using the rolling stock as my reference for the modern day railway instead of the typical grandiose depiction of a steam engine or diesel locomotive muscling its way through an open landscape seemed to been more honest.
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Rice University ZEROHOUSE integrates line drying laundry in the sun [Photo Stefano Paltera, U.S. Department of Energy; all other photos Christof Spieler]
At the end of day five, the Rice Solar Decathlon team is in third place behind Team Germany and Team California. The Rice entry tied for first in the hot water category, and came in second for both architecture and market viability. For updates on scores, visit the Solar Decathlon website.
Today, on the National Mall, in front of the Museum of Natural History, there’s a house built by Rice students. It’s one of 20 entries in the Solar Decathlon, a Department of Energy-sponsored competition to build a highly efficient yet livable solar-powered house. I came to DC for the installation as the structural engineer for the house.
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The proposed use of stimulus funds to build Segment E of the Grand Parkway through farmland and prairie is doomed according to a Chronicle report. Other major headlines from the last month include new momentum to establish high-speed and commuter rail lines (1, 2, 3). The old Savoy Hotel in Downtown Houston was demolished but the Flagship Hotel on the Galveston Seawall remains. Montrose is named a top ten neighborhood nationally by the American Planning Association. And listen to the NPR series on Houston by Steve Inskeep if you haven’t already.
Friday October 9
Grand Parkway stretch in W. Harris Co. not so shovel-ready after all “Harris County officials will ask the state to shift $181 million in federal stimulus funding from a controversial toll road portion of the Grand Parkway to other local projects, citing delays obtaining federal permits that ‘might never be issued’….’This is stupendous news’ said David Crossley, president of the non-profit Houston Tomorrow.”
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Originally published in Fall 2007, Cite 72 is now available free online in pdf format. Click on the titles below to download.
Letter from the Guest Editor
By 2035, the Houston Area will grow by 3.5 million people. That’s the forecast from the Houston-Galveston Area Council (HGAC), and while there may be argument about the numbers, there’s no doubt the region continues to become more populous. The big question is how Houston will grow. There are fundamentally two choices: Extend outward or densify inward. The former has been the pattern for 150 years, but it comes with high costs. Low-density housing takes up vast tracts of land, requires significant new infrastructure, and forces residents to drive more and more just to meet everyday needs. The HGAC extrapolates current trends and redicts the loss of virtually all open space in Harris County, including wildlife habitats in the Katy Prairie, an increase in driving from 26 miles a day to 30 per person, doubled commute times, and 32,000 lane miles of new road and highways to accommodate that scenario.
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Houston METRO has installed bike racks on its buses and the usage of these racks has grown at a phenomenal rate. METRO failed, however, to extend rush hour access to the light rail train, despite exemplary equipment and policies that have been successfully deployed in other American cities. Now is the time for cyclists to ask for full, unencumbered access to the light rail train.
I emailed the four major Houston mayoral candidates and asked each of them whether they would influence METRO to install bike hangers in the light rail vehicles and allow bicycles in the vehicles during rush hours. Here’s what they had to say, in order of their reply.
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Mount a map of Harris County on the wall. Throw a dart at it. Photograph the little map quadrant where the dart lands — not with the idea of necessarily taking pretty pictures but to document what the area looks like. That was Paul Hester’s assignment to his Rice University photography students last Spring.
The students posted their photographs to Flickr and I selected out a few with special permission. Click the map links for their other photographs.
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Rice Solar Decathlon House on National Mall [Photo Eric Hester, darnart.com]
Students from Rice University are putting the final touches on their entry for the 2009 Solar Decathlon. I spoke with one of the lead student designers, David Dewane, to get an update.
RM: What’s it like putting a house together on the National Mall with Lincoln staring down at you?
DD: It’s pretty exciting because you do it 24-7. You are there [on the Mall] in the middle of the night, when the moon is rising, when the sun is rising. A lot of energy. A lot of public wandering by who are curious and excited. You are symbolically in the middle of the country.
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Photos courtesy of Dean Liscum
A sign blocks the steps to the porch—plywood with orange spray paint bearing a three-digit address. You step around it and onto the screened porch. Two bright orange stickers from the city’s Code Enforcement Group pasted to the window announce the obvious—you should not be here. This building is condemned and slated for demolition. You hold your hands to the glass and look through your reflection into a house with no roof, no floor, no inside. Beyond your reflection, open to the elements, lies an ovoid hole.
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David Chipperfield speaks at the Menil [Photo by Raj Mankad]
During his presentation to a packed audience at the Menil yesterday, David Chipperfield referred to the Richmont Square apartments as “the great big thing,” “this thing getting in our way,” and a “nonconforming” space. Charged with developing a master plan for an expansion of the facilities for the Menil Collection, he quickly identified the redevelopment of that site as the key to expanding while also maintaining the positive qualities of the current campus.
Before the internationally renowned architect spoke, the director of the Menil, Josef Helfenstein, announced the plan had been unanimously approved by the board.
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