Hello! Some updates! The Built Blocks website is on hiatus while I focus more on the Portland area and development, real estate and (as always) adaptive reuse and preservation. Check it out at Small-Scale City. See ya there! Advertisements
What exactly is a food forest? I wanted to find out more so I visited the Winslow Food Forest located on the border of Milwaukie and Portland, Ore. I visited in the fall, and even then, the place was thriving with herbs, the last of the summer crops, and other late fall crops. After the […]
Does it ever. RISE & WIN Brewing Co. BBQ & General Store located in Japan was designed and built from scrap materials. Their approach to architectural design was accomplished by using local materials like doors, windows and furniture dumped in the rubbish collection station and using returnable bottles that can be used again. For their […]
If you were to ask me what my dream library would look like, it’d look very close to Studio North’s Library Shaft. Located in a converted warehouse in downtown Calgary, the library is in a former unused space that was once part of the building’s industrial elevator shaft. At 100 square feet, this small space […]
This episode’s guest, Pete Bell from Hops on Lots Pittsburgh (HOLP), calls it “the wall.” Sure, it’s a wall. But it’s a wall—with hops growing up it, grown by the organization and volunteers. It was created in 2016 when the Stanton Heights Community contacted HOLP to grow hops to cover up the unsightly retaining wall along Stanton Avenue. […]
The world keeps getting smaller. For instance? Instagram is one of my favorite apps – I like to follow people from different cities, towns and countries. Like me, they’re snapping every-day shots of buildings in their cities, street shots, the architecture. It’s the daily stuff, the grind that I really love. It’s not […]
The first time I visited Ex Novo, a brewery in Portland, Oregon, I was struck by its design. It felt…designed. It wasn’t a cold space with some chairs and stuff thrown together. There was some thought put into it. From where we sat, we could see the brew tanks, bar action, interesting lighting, the […]
Yeah, I say “neat” a lot. But this project from Heineken is well, neat. It’s always interesting to see brands taking on altruistic social campaigns. The latest is Heineken’s Cities Project that aims to help restore 10 sites in cities across the U.S. Now in its fifth year, there’s actually been some progress made (it’s more […]
I remember picking up a wonderful zine, Urban Pantheist, when we lived in Boston in the early 2000s that focused on wild animals living amongst us in the city. (There was a huge rat problem in Back Bay —and I did spy various critters in The Fens, Somerville, and even Allston.) Here in Portland, there are all […]
In case you missed it, I interviewed Kevin Cavenaugh from Guerrilla Development a couple months ago about his almost-completed Fair-Hair Dumbbell project. With that behind him, he’s been a busy guy. The proof? His newest development in Portland, Tree Farm, might even be more stunning. At least the renderings are. From the website: The design of […]
