As I ate French toast this morning (made with Italian bread) thumbing through the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe I noticed a familiar image of a flying car that is making headlines across the internet. What I didn’t know about this futuristic invention is that the company, Terrafugai, Inc., is based in Woburn, Massachusetts (45 minutes away). Contrary to being a flying car, this new prototype, called Transition is defined as a “roadable aircraft” and is targeted at changing the burdens of owning a small aircraft by making the common plane capable of being used as a ground vehicle. read more »

This morning I noticed gas priced at a quiet $2.98 for regular unleaded and it made me wonder about everything being associated with a gas price. We have all been subject to higher gas prices for the last 12 months, reaching a record high of over $4.00 and causing us to rethink where we drive, what car to purchase next and most importantly where the oil is coming from. In a study I read a few months ago it recorded how much gas the country consumed in the first three quarters of ’09 compared to ’08 and concluded that we were using far less gas, changing our driving habits, and purchasing more efficient vehicles. With that being said, it was apparent to me that gas could not continue to increase in price with demand being lower than the previous year. I was wrong, the price continued to increase until now.

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This morning I attended a guided walk-through of the new Chase Center Museum of Art in Providence RI. The building is a long awaited extension for the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) art collection on what previously was an urban parking lot. Designed by the office of Architect Rafael Moneo (the 1996 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate) as a modern addition to the historical street-scape of downtown Providence, the building creates a new vision of modernity that compliments the growing status of an evolving city.

The event, led by Museum Assistant Director, James Hall, covered the history of the building’s site since WWII and the characteristics of the new spaces. The five story building features a first level that was purposely designed to function while the rest of the Museum spaces are closed, providing a new “civic space” for the community. The first level includes the main entrance, gift shop, and auditorium. The second floor contains the student gallery and is finished with bare concrete floors and open ceilings that allow just about any type of exhibit to be accommodated, without worry of damaging floor, wall and ceiling finishes that may otherwise require replacement. Adjacent to the student gallery is an outdoor space, covered by the floor above. This space is a useful instrument to the understanding of how this modern building created a marriage between old and new. Looking around one can see exterior walls of buildings hundreds of years older. The featured main gallery is placed on the third level and is accessed from the first level by means of a three story escalator. Most visitors will begin by viewing the third level and then the student gallery on the second floor. The fourth and fifth levels are reserved for staff and RISD students. read more »

The latest Renzo Piano project opened this weekend in San Francisco, CA. The California Academy of Sciences “is believed to be the greenest museum in the world, and is on course to earn the highest rating possible for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).” The building features a 2.5 acre ”living roof” of greenery, an array of energy collecting solar voltaic panels and wall cavity insulation made from recylced denim. Built for a reported $500 million, “the new Academy is a single structure but contains multiple venues, including the aquarium, the planetarium, the natural history museum and the 4-story rainforest. In addition, there’s a new 3D theater, a lecture hall, a Naturalist Center, two restaurants, an adjacent garden and aviary, a roof terrace, and an Academy store. The new building also houses the Academy science labs and administrative offices, including an extensive library and scientific archive consisting of more than 20 million specimens.”

source: CAS

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