urbanism – landscape – ideas – theory – whimsy

Sub-Prime Crisis in Cleveland

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BBC News presented this set of maps in an article on the sub-prime crisis in the US (The US sub-prime crisis in graphics). Cleveland has been particularly hard hit by housing foreclosures, as the maps show, but when “one in ten homes in Cleveland had been repossessed” (as of late 2007) and “Deutsche Bank Trust, acting on behalf of bondholders, was the largest property owner in the city”, you begin to grasp the true horrible scale of the problem and are left wondering if this is the tip of the iceberg.

Bricoleur’s Habitat

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A friend sent a link to this photo entitled “Redneck Mansion”. There’s a certain genius to the way this has been done (and the colours are fantastic) – it could almost be a Bricoleur’s version of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat in Montreal (and would cost a hell of a lot less). The staircases are even reminiscent of Montreal’s exterior walkup duplexes/triplexes/multiplexes.

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Edit:

Unfortunately (I might say), it turns out that the intriguing caravan-sculpture masterpiece is an Amsterdam theatre set from 2005 designed by Catherina Scholten for a production of Checkov’s Ivanov. What a great idea for a theatre set! I say unfortunately because part of me dearly wished that some inspired bricoleur out there had actually dreamed up and executed such a wonderful habitat – alas no!

Here you can see some of the audience:

Photo: HetGelaat

The original photo posted was by Elmer Kroese.

Thanks to Space & Culture for linking to adaptivereuse.net‘s discovery of the true origin of the photo and work.