Sticks and Stones

For the last thirty years one of the loudest way to demonstrate wealth was by building a McMansion. These ostentatious homes could be built on a budget while retaining a grand appearance. Building with pre-fabricated materials, not hiring an architect, and skimping on design by only having the face built in stone - or even out of composite that looked like stone, cut costs dramatically, allowing people to build houses that looked more expensive than they were.

The result was ugly, disproportionate homes. They had glamorous faces but sides built with plywood and very few windows. These homes had large heating and cooling bills. They loomed over their diminutive lawns. They were unoriginal; that cost-cutting decision to not have an architect meant many houses looked alike.

What few people predicted was another format growing around the same time: prefab modular houses, would later rise from its roots as trailer-park centerpieces to the sort of thing Silicon Valley billionaires like Phillipe Kahn want to live in. The difference is of course a dramatic change in style and building quality; but two things remain the same: affordability and convenience.

I was drawn to Marmol Radzinger’s designs for a totally different reason. It seems odd to say these homes are beautiful - they are designed to be purely fuctional and completely ignore aesthetics  - but in their drive to lower costs and reduce the amount of energy needed, the designs bear a striking resemblance to the work of the Internationalist architects of the 1930s - 1970s. The homes are not adorned with pediments and columns, they are purely functional, which ironically forms a style of their own.

Firms like Resolution: 4, Marmol Radzinger, and Jeriko House have designed striking model homes. These can be up to 5,000 square feet and include pools, second floors, and garages. These three firms in particular, along with LivingHomes and Michelle Kaufmann design beautiful modern homes for six, sometimes seven figures. Those on a much tighter budget can also build their own brand new, green, modern homes from Rocio Romero, whose LV homes can be bought, built, and completed for $80,000.

Some of the particularly appealing aspects are the modular designs, which allows for easy extendability and customisation: if you choose to add a library, it’s fairly simple to do so, and that library can be built exactly to your specification. Another recent draw is green technology. Marmol Radzinger offers the option of installing solar panels, and all firms use materials and building techniques which limit the impact on the environment. Most firms build to LEED certification.

In these ways, the firms have turned a cheap, efficient, and highly customisable medium into a luxury good. They come with 20 year warranties, are built to a truly impressive standard with high-grade materials, and by being easily customised are usually unique. The only downside is that as a relatively new phenomenon; you can’t just go and buy one on the street. While appealing because you can build exactly what you want, in densely packed, highly urbanised cities and suburbs, the cost of tearing down an existing house is included. Nevertheless, the impressive qualities outweigh these costs, which is why this option is growing in popularity so rapidly.

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I have never been afraid to show my hatred (and hatred is the correct word) of the Chavez-loving, Jew-insulting, self-inflated megalomaniac who runs the office of Mayor of London. His latest actions, if anything, typify why I loathe him so much.

Ken has just announced that cars with high emissions will be charged £25 to drive into their own capital city, compared to £8 or nothing for lower emission vehicles. Lets just look at everything that is wrong with this.

First, surely a congestion charge should aim to defeat congestion and not save the planet at the same time? Clearly there are some ulterior motives!

Second, if you are rich under Ken’s scheme, you can go out and buy a nice new low-emissions vehicle, as he has done, by buying a Prius, whilst poorer families with lots of children who may have no option but to own a large people carrier are being penalised for their family situation!

Third, who cares if high-emissions vehicles are being driven!? It is not a crime, global warming will happen despite them, and maybe Ken, if he is so scared of the impending Armageddon, should lower his own carbon footprint by limiting how often he jets to South America to suck up to his socialist heroes!

Rant over. But I still hate him.

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Ken Livingstone’s newest proposal is to introduce a city bike hire scheme with up to 6,000 bikes located across docking stations every 300 metres. It is rare that I support just about anything he does. I am not a fan of his transportation policies in general, nor do I like the fact that cost of living in this city keep rising. He acts as though he is a friend of the poor, one who wishes to make life cheaper for those south of the Thames: the section of London which elected him, and yet has done exactly the reverse, with mass transit fares rising year on year!

However on this occasion he has done something I like. The city bike hire scheme is, unlike the Low Emissions Zone, a good idea. Although they stem from the same environmental policy, the Low Emissions Zone hurts London by making it transportation costs for businesses rise. As a business gets richer, its transportation costs rise: consider it a penalty for success. This is because the larger the vehicle needed for supplies, the higher the emissions, the higher the L.E.Z. penalty.

From the press release about the bike hire scheme:

A Central London bike hire scheme, similar to the recently launched Paris scheme, with up to 6,000 bikes located across docking stations every 300m so Londoners and visitors have quick and easy access to a bike. This will be supported by a series of easily navigable routes so that people can enjoy London’s sights by bike.

The city bike hire scheme only applies to pedestrians, and is a genuine convenience; thanks to this measure, people can get around the vast city faster and cheaply: two things the rest of his massive transportation bureaucracy completely fails to achieve.

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The fire had ravaged across the plains for days, taking with it many acres of gnarled barley, burled corn, and a few ramshackle towns. The authorities had arrived on time but just one year after the collapse of the markets, the farmers could no longer afford the insurance necessary for protecting their lands.

Poor and without hope, Dara knew his father’s farm would be lost. He also knew the racist firemen would not waste their water on a black man’s property. So, he sat on the corner of his measly half-acre and worked out his losses on a spare piece of news-sheet. Mr. Crow’s farm would have been saved by now, no doubt his ranch house protected and his family safe. Who knew where Tyrone and Nigella were; an hour ago they would have been panicking, forced to pick whatever cotton they could save on Mr. Crow’s land even as the flames licked at their heels.

Dara sighed. Nightfall was approaching, after which his mother and brother would not be able to return home safely. His prematurely wizened features crinkled as he thought of their fate. The withering flames crackled and cackled, their soft glow casting shadows and highlights on his dirty oily skin. Brow furrowed, he sighed once more and dropped his heavy face into his leathery hands.

He heard the steady rhythmic pattern of Nigella’s feet. He looked up and saw what he thought was Jim Crow’s Model A. It seemed unlike that Mr. Crow would show kindness to poor black folk, but there he appeared to be, having driven Tyrone and Nigella to safety.

But the orange haze and choking smoke plays tricks on his mind yet again. He wakes up anxious and fearful. Vietnam is dangerous this year. Lying there he can’t forget his family, dead in the burning prairies on old Jim Crow’s watch.

Saigon is drenched in choking smoke and covered in orange haze today; just like Oklahoma was, that day, three decades ago.

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This weekend has seen London’s first incandescent light-bulb amnesty. With many believing we need to rid the streets of “the most successful city in the world” (to quote the Mayor’s office) of guns, knives and drugs, people are right to question why so much energy is being devoted to make war on the traditional light bulb. The humble bulb has been illuminating our lives and our homes since Swan and Edison began production in the 1880s, but now the eco-warriors want to see its final blow.

The rival, an energy efficient bulb. The ones being given away this weekend are all produced by Phillips and are sponsored by British Gas and B&Q. The idea is that the Mayor colludes with three big corporations in order to try to pull off a publicity stunt. The “amnesty” ignores the facts that energy efficient bulbs do not produce the same quality of light, take considerably longer to turn on, don’t work with dimmer switches which are extremely common, take a lot of energy to produce, will leak mercury into your home and look hideous. All of the sorry excuses for the inadequacies of the energy efficient bulb can be found on the official web-site.

However one accusation remains unanswered. By driving to B&Q, just to exchange one (or two) bulbs, will the carbon emissions from my car not greatly exceed those that I will save by switching to energy efficient bulbs?

It really is time to focus our energy on real improvements to our lives.

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