some thoughts on building design in wildfire prone areas and ignition resistant construction and wildfire mitigation efforts
Colorado burning, fighting wildfires with building design
perspective v. elevation
all architects are intimately aware of the difference between drawing a building in elevation and seeing it in perspective. The mechanistic elevation drawing renders all the three dimensional aspects of the drawing into a flat, single plane. Perspective is much more closely how we actually see real buildings in space - the structure diminishes as it recedes into space, both horizontally and vertically.
mississippi river mansions, repost
On a narrow spit of land, at the confluence of two mighty rivers, lies ancient Cairo. Not the one in Africa, with pyramids and camels, rather the one along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers: Cairo, Illinois.
Cairo has seen better days, the 1920 population of 15,000 having dropped below 3,000 souls. Once a shipping center strategically located at the two rivers, the city later developed as a rail center, consolidating its status as a bustling nexus of commerce
Houvenweep and Mesa Verde
I recently took a short trip to a series of amazing Native American settlement sites in south Colorado and Utah. Mesa Verde National Park is the more established, better known, site, located just outside of Cortez, Colorado. This is the location of the iconic cliff dwellings, dramatic masonry construction tucked under massive sandstone overhaning cliffs