Syd gave JoAnn a blue hydrangea for her birthday. It's a total doll, an "Endless Summer," the kind they have at Pikes, Home Depot, and Intown Ace. You can probably buy them on Amazon.
It's just a little puppy which is OK because we have a little puppy house.
We tried it all over the yard and decided it needed a sister, one for over here and another for over there.
So I had to drive to Pikes, Home Depot, AND Intown Ace on Highland and On Scott Boulevard to find a mate.
On "Ask this Old House" this is barely a 15 minute job.
At OUR house it takes a little longer.
Gentle husband/wife design discussion and location trials. At THIS point I started sweating if you know what I mean.
Dig out the nandinas.
Dig out the vinca minor
Heavily prune the other nandinas.
Plant the left hydrangea.
Repeat steps 2, 3, 5 for the right hydrangea
Prepare soil and relocate vinca minors.
Prepare soil and relocate nandinas.
Do some balance pruning.
Gentle spousal discussion about what to do with the "holes" I left behind.
It all seems better in this 71 second time-lapse with ambient music.
125. STAIR SEATS ". . . we know that paths and larger public gathering places need a definite shape and a degree of enclosure, with people looking into them, not out of them...Stairs around the edge do it just perfectly...Wherever there is action in a place, the spots which are the most inviting, are those high enough to give people a vantage point, and low enough to put them in action." A Pattern Language
Natural light permeates all 5 floors. But the best place may be the West Gallery.
The best stair in Atlanta? "Wherever there is action in a place, the spots which are the most inviting, are those high enough to give people a vantage point, and low enough to put them in action." This is a fun place, a theater that can activate our mundane chores.
Up to the roof.
Lightning rods.
This is the roof, a garden growing wild (172. GARDEN GROWING WILD). The path connects cozy sitting niches...
...and leads to this view of Midtown.
The north facade.
For my fellow Tech alums: the Clough adjoins the library on the West and occupies the hill, the old library parking lot, and a bit of the EE parking lot. You can't drive through there any more. Skyles is on the other side in this picture.
Kinder Baumgardner is Principal and Director of SWA Houston. He spoke last night at Georgia Tech. As planner dialed to "11" he presented breathtaking ideas to engage the public and excite the stakeholders.
"Push your client to do something great."
Your humble architecture tourist has expended big chunks of his life on the downtown connector. But I've never connected the connector with "beauty" until last night, listening to Mr. Baumgardner.
Left: the "green" layer. The connector corridor is a huge swath of land and there is room for trees and vertical gardens, a lot of room. Center: the "lighting" layer. Right: the "art" layer. The blue circles are art centers we already have.
"Art Tourists Spend More Money. It's a demographic to cultivate."
Folk Art Park is smack on top of the connector right now.
After a few more layers, I felt a bit hopeful.
I was thinking about the 5th Street Bridge which covers a bit of the connector. It demonstates how often-competing stakeholders can partner to do something great.
Students, professors, Midtown Alliance, and Central Atlanta Progress folks got an eyeful and an earful.
If you've been around Atlanta much, you'll recognize Steve. He's giving an incidental thumbs up. It was actually an artist talk from the man who has the whole concept in his head. We got a walking tour, a house tour, a neighborhood tour, a new urbanism tour, a government relations tour, and a land use planning tour, a TND tour, a sustainability tour, a form based code/transect tour and more.
Steve even showed us his kitchen and introduced his dog. That's what we give our highest awards for.
For me the day started with a carpool meet-up at Glenwood Park with some Young ICA&A folks. That's Clay Rokickiin the baseball hat and Capella Kincheloe in the straw hat. You know who they are, right?
We rendezvoused at Serenbe's Blue Eyed Daisy Bakeshop and Steve took it from there.
Here is Steve discussing using porches instead of lawn chemicals.
Then we went for a walk, taking advantage of the Omegas. Ask me about Omega design some time.
This the Serenbe real estate office, a mighty nice room. This is where we started our talk and walk...
To a southern vernacular single family. This shape is etched my brain from childhood drives in Randolph County with my parents.
A shady hill-side balcony in the live-work building.
Steve led us down some stairs to a gravel courtyard with arbors and fountain hiding 30 geothermal wells. It's by Ryan Gainey.
We followed Steve another few steps to a shady gravel path that linked Omegas.
We couldn't see houses from the path but we soon emerged on a street of single families.
Steve told about porch requirements, yard requirements, streetlight requirements, and the composting garbage concierge. It seemed like a lot of requirements.
But Steve's explanation of the concepts helped us grok the details. This was an artist's talk after all.
We took another path through the woods to the dog trot house. I'd be happy with the steps, even one step like these.
We'd only seen a tiny bit of Serenbe but it was plenty to get us thinking.
Hapeville was a street car suburb, site of Georgia Baptist Children's Home from 1899 to 1968. It's south edge was consumed by the world's busiest airport and a Ford Assembly Plant. Somehow it retains it's small town character, including an active main street.
Look at this sidewalk on a tiny side street. I don't know of another like this in Atlanta. It's just one house wide and seems like a park.
Two columns, no, three, wow.
Good grief, there is a house in this garden.
I noticed a man walking his dog. I'm sure he noticed me looking out of place and bearing a camera. I asked if he knew anything about the house. He said, "It's mine," and invited me in.
