Washing Machines

I was doing a lot of washing in the washing machine at the weekend and it got me thinking.
The settings on our machine are quite stupid. There's a dial for changing the temperature so the settings don't relate to temp. They seem to overlap.
Here's my suggestion for washing machine settings:
Jeans
Towels
Delicates
Cottons/Linens
Woollens
Whites
Blacks
Colours
Fast Wash
I don't know the technicalities of what changes happen in the background to make certain cycles more suitable to certain clothes but there goes! Ideas have to start somewhere.

Irish Tourism Posters & Benches

Was in Mayo at the weekend - one of my favourite counties in Ireland: lakes, monuntains, the sea = beautiful. Called in to Turlough Park, the museum of country life. The main exhibition is exactly as it was a few years ago, and while its a fantastic, interesting, informative display, I had no desire to walk around it again. But more on this later.
In a side room, there was a display of tourism posters: "Come Back to Erin". There were some beautiful illustrations by Paul Henry (unfortunately they weren't for sale, they were 5 posters available for purchase). The posters had images of mountains, lakes, horse and carts, aran jumpers, peak caps and all the other cliches that we wonder how they spread around the world! We were responsible - our own tourism industry!
Also on display were about 25 benches designed by students from Letterfrack furntiture college. I think that they were all given a particular spot as part of the brief. Some of the benches were very suited to their position, some were beautifully made - material or workmanship, some were very comfortable. And it gave people a reason for strolling around and checking out all corners of the museum, especially if like me, they'd been there before and as I said above weren't keen on checking out the exhibition again. Their were catalogues available at reception to refer to as you walked around but they had to be returned and they weren't for sale in the shop.
The bench that stunned me most was made from upturned reeds, designed by Eric O'Donnell. It was warm to sit on and very comfortable. Such a clever, innovative use of materials. I checked out the website he has with a colleague: http://www.designonion.net/. It has a "commission" page with examples of furniture given as wedding presents - what a lovely idea, though probably more expensive than the wedding presents I've given in the past!

Temporary Public Toilets

Twice over the past weekends I noticed temporary men's toilets signs hung up around College Green in Dublin. They pointed towards the portico at the Bank of Ireland. Beside it was a mini marquee, apparently with urinals inside!
I've checked the Dublin City Council site (their logo was on the signs) - no reference. And I've googled, and blog-googled and nothing. Has anybody else noticed them? Is anyone using them?! I'll try and get a photo of them.

Sub Urban to Super Rural

Last Thursday in the OPW offices, the exhibition of Ireland's 2006 entry to the Venice Biennale went on display. Entitled "Sub Urban to Super Rural" it looked to the future and how the country would look in 2030, assuming a consistent growth in population.

I was less than impressed. In fact it reminded me why I left architecture and reassured me that I had made the right decision. I remember a similar project we did in college. It was set in Dundalk and we had to come up with a proposal to cope with an 8-fold growth in population. The proposals were exhibited with DIT students who had done the same project. It might have been a competition actually. I remember speaking to one of the DIT students at the exhibition and he commented on a ridiculous proposal (I can't remember his exact words) that was just three paragraphs one each in Irish, English, Dutch. It was my project he was talking about. But I didn't own up to it at the time! The paragraphs were a response to reading MVRDV's SMLXL and I think they basically recommended leaving things as they were and making small incisions... I can't remember exactly, I'll have to dig it out! But seeing Ireland's Biennale submission brought up the same feelings in me - proposals such as ODOS' Vertical Sprawl, whereby we build up with cantileverin ramps, are ludicrous - what happens to shadows! Do the lower level people reside in perpetual greyness? Though the look of the presentation, the cartoons, are really great.
Or de Paor's suggestion that we retain the footprint of rural houses but make four families live on the plot in a tower house?! It defies the motivation people have for living in the countryside. Although the tower house itself is nice.
I liked FKL's admission that "People want to drive cars, work in town and live in the countryside" - tell it like it is!
Henchion+Reuter's high-speed train network seemed the most realistic though I did feel sorry for Donegal, Kerry and Connemara-Mayo abandoned to the realm of scenery or landcape, unspoilt beauty/difficult to access.
Dominc Stevens, as is to be expected, proposed a very naturalistic, fluid solution. Make use of the river and have facilities that move on the water to places they are required. This is a lovely slow-living suggestion assuming people are happy only going to the market on thursdays and maybe the library on mondays and are willing to forego 24-hour Tesco's.
The other architectural firms involved were: Boyd Cody, BucholzMcEvoy, heneghan.peng (I was disappointed with the notion that they believed a radial city could "become" linear) and MacGabhann. It was commissioned by Shane O'Toole and Ciarán Ó Gaora.
A great piece of work, due credit to all involved, the programme is supersized and informative but it's not my cup of tea and I'm not surprised that the general public/media aren't discussing it; Shane O'Toole expressed concern, disappointment and bewilderment at this fact in his talk. In my opinion there are very few practical, implementable ideas put forward.

The Sea Stallion of Glendalough

Yesterday at lunchtime I went down to the Eastlink bridge to see the "Sea Stallion of Glendalough" arrive. It's a reconstructed Viking ship that has been sailing for the past 6 and a half weeks from Denmark. At first I was standing at the office block on the Ringsend side of the bridge, there were some mothers with their kids and a guy with a camera and a fancy lens. Nothing was happening for ages and then we heard the noise of the ferries hooters. I went onto the bridge and waited another few minutes until at last the LE Róisín spraying water out its sides came into view, and right behind it the viking boat. It was beautiful as it drifted in along the Liffey. There were loads of other boats around it. Little rowing boats, one of them a currach with 3 old men rowing away! And some boats from rowing clubs I imagine.

Chatting about it with people since I've learnt that there's no cover on the boat, the crew had to sleep in the open, there's no loos so it was just a bucket and the crew apparently learned quickly that "everybody is in the same boat..." so just get on with it.

The Sea Stallion is being moved to Collins Barracks til next year.

Bio Bottle made from Corn

Belu mineral water have started packaging their product in a compostable bottle made from corn. The lid still has to be recycled with other plastic products.

Another clever environmentally-friendly aspect of this company is that their water is sourced in the UK and sold in the UK thereby reducing transport pollution and costs.

There's a wee something in me that isn't convinced! The "composting" page on the website details temperature / humidity and other conditions that are required to compost the bottle. So how bio-degradable is it? What happens in a landfill? I'm just being a bit cynical - I do think it's a good start to the idea of using other materials than plastic. The Q&A part of the website says this much:
Q: What are bio-bottles made of?
A: Bio-bottles are made from corn but could equally well be made from potatoes, rice, beetroot, bio-mass or pretty much any carbohydrate or sugar. The corn goes through a fermentation and distillation process similar to making corn whisky and is reduced to a monomer called lactic acid (which you can also find in ice cream and pickles). This lactic acid is then spun, linked into polymer chains and moulded into bottles.

http://www.belu.org/

The Aquada

Heard an interview on Sean Moncrieff's programme on Newstalk about this amphibious car: the Aquada. Gibbs technologies have a range of vehicles that work on road & water. Aparently they are a sports car on road and a speedboat in water! Sounds fab and the interviewee said he imagines they'll cost around E60,000 when they come on sale in Ireland.
http://www.gibbstech.com/aquada.php