The Revolution of Old School....

Just a quick post for this morning.

My friend, Deena, sent me a link to this obvious, but amazing, doctor who is trying something new...kind of...



The people of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Manhattan now have Jay Parkinson, MD.

Lucky New Yorkers...

He's combined tech and medical savvy to form a new kind of practice: a flat-rate, insurance free/abled, accessible, mobile, chat-enabled, instant messaged, e-visit experience.

I encourage you, the reader, to visit his site regardless of your health.

I encourage you, the doctor, to follow his lead and copy EVERYTHING he is doing.

If there's grass on the roof...

Green roofs, while conceptually and environmentally brilliant, have been plagued with something we are all to familiar with in the Midwest: weight.

In most cases, the majority of existing buildings have the space, but can't afford the load weight. Or often times, the building can afford to hold the roofing system, but would crumble under an additional moisture load. Such added weight is even a problem with on sloping roof systems.

"...green roofs can retain as much as fifty to seventy percent of water that falls onto a roof. Retention varies according to climate. Hutchinson et al reported that a 10 to 12 cm vegetated roof in Portland, Oregon retained 69% of the total rainfall with peak flow reductions of 80% during a 15-month monitoring period. Investigations in East Lansing, Michigan cdompared a gravel roof and a vegetated roof with the mean percent rainfall retention ranging from 48.7% for a gravel roof to 82.8% for a vegetated roof. A similar range was seen on two roofs of different slopes in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Total rainfall retention was 55% for the sloped roof and 63% for the flat roof. Peak flow was reduced by 57% for the sloped roof and 87% for the flat roof." WEBSITE

Poundage-be-damned, green roofing companies are finally beginning to recognize that the existing market is far more available than the future market, and have consequently begun to reduce the load weight in their systems. On company that caught my eye is GreenTech, a Roswell, Georgia based company that specializes in athletic fields, landscpaing systems, golf course systems, and yes, green roof systems.


They're no newcomer to the game, though. In addition to laying claim to New York's largest greenroof and the grass at Wimbledon, GreenTech has found a way to box out the weight and open up the lane to a lighter, newer, more accessible green roof.

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From their website:

The GreenTech Roof Garden System weighs less than comparable systems for a couple reasons. Forklift and drainage channels displace soil with air. But more importantly, no drainage medium (gravel) is required in the system. This feature works to reduce weight of the system as well as cost of materials and labor.

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So why is this system able to shed the pounds?

The system has built-in drainage channels that allow the water to flow through the soil into open channels and directly to roof drain outlets. At the same time, each high-density polyethylene module protects the roof surface from root infiltration and damage to the roof membrane. The result is a large planting surface -- with the all-important root depth -- that's more lightweight and flexible than other green roofs. Given the fact that it still discharges the water, some might view the system as less than substantial as other systems, but it needs to be kept in mind that the grey water discharge can be stored for landscape use.

Additionally, the GreenTech allows for almost 40 times the drainage and air flow capacity of conventional drainage systems. Even the drainage channels displace soil, resulting in a 20 to 40% weight reduction. You can even remove the individual sections to replace, repair, or modify the existing system.

But this is what I like most:

The system can be installed in very unlikely places. A back patio loft in the city can suddenly transform into a mini Central Park. You drop the crates, fill with dirt, cover with sod, and finish the edge (simplified, yes, but it is undoubtedly FAR MORE basic than most systems on the market). I like.

If only they were cleaner on the inside...

While the New York Time's City Room Blog has some less-than-kind things to say about the aesthetics of New York's new hybrid turbine buses, I think they're Airstreamariffic.



From William Neuman's article:

The city’s other hybrid buses run like hybrid cars. They run off battery power some of the time and diesel or (in the case of many cars) gas engines at other times. And the braking action helps charge the batteries.

The test bus is different in that it runs on battery power all the time. It has a diesel engine, but that is used only to charge the battery, although the bus also uses the brakes for that purpose. The diesel engine is different too. It is a turbine engine.

Read more here...

They've captured New York, too!!!

I've commented about the suburbanization of America before, but I don't seem to have the literary smarts (nor the patience!) to write something extensively long. These posts usually begin, and end, after the third line is written.

The good people over at A Daily Dose of Architecture have made my job easier, seeing as I'm hitting (yet again) my delete button and trashing (yet another) post. I'm just linking straight to their site instead...

Sue me, I'm tired.

John Hill, blogtender extraordinaire, serves up an excellent review of the essays compiled in The Suburbanization of New York?, a new book by Jerilou and Kingsley Hammett.

This style of suburbanization is uniquely different from the suburbanization I usually rant about.

For anyone familiar with Anthony Bourdain, you're well aware of the tragedy afoot. It's the plasticizing of iconic America - from the loft converts that jack up the rents of inner-city neighborhoods, to the Bubba Gumpish restaurants that squat in Times Square. We've turned into a culture that franchises the unique, and just like Bourdain, it frustrates me so.

I'm looking forward to checking it out. Read Hill's review HERE or buy the book directly from his site HERE.

On a sidenote...

...if you are, in fact, Anthony Bourdain and just happened to stumble on to this blog by googling your own name (would AB even google?): one day, before I die, I will drink a whiskey/rocks with you. We will complain about the bad for hours on end. Nothing fancy...just a cocktail > in dirty glassware > garnished with sarcasm > served at a place of ill repute > enveloped in smoke > with Anthony Bourdain. I will then die happy.

1980 New York, the good ol' days....

At lease they got the pill-poppin' part right....

Just Imagine:

New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea.

Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man.

It's no Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo, but the strength of the plots are about equal.