some of the hanaford-jensen family (the littlest one is my grandma)

gonna die with my hammer in my hand

Indecision led to what I'm doing now, and I suppose that's ok because building helps me think.

We fix houses for people that can't afford it.

This was the 2nd worst mobile home I've ever seen. Georgia Johnson spent her life savings raising 22 foster children over a period of 40 years, never having any of her own. Her husband's sudden death left her with nothing, and health problems led to her nigh imprisonment in a trailer that I had trouble even entering because of the rotten steps. The roof was caving in and the plumbing hadn't worked in a year. Extension cords ran all over the house from the single working outlet and her house was heated by turning on the oven. 25 volunteers and I cleaned and painted her house, fixed the electricity and plumbing, and replaced her porch and stairs.

Working at a non profit I've gotten used to hearing stuff like "draw up blueprints" even though I have no experience in engineering / architecture. This ramp is what I came up with and built this week, and it's let Georgia leave her house independently for the first time in years, which I definitely got a big kick out of seeing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no idealist, and I suppose that alienates me from most of you, dear readers. To me, rebuilding is an act of defiance-- staving off the inevitable entropy towards which we are all speeding. I enjoyed seeing a community come together and give dignity to a woman that has gone by unnoticed for far too long, but will probably remain that way.

If any of you are interested in getting involved, drop me a line. It doesn't matter where you are, we're everywhere. I'll be damned if I can remember where I call home these days.

Today is a normal day and we are just normal people trying.

I'm trying to do something new,
moreugly and blurry
and failure
and family; it's called the big heart show,
it's about showing what we've found.

Here are the first three epidoses for your disapproval...

This is the Big Heart Show!

A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Today is Tuesday and we are just normal elephants

lveo. peace~

around the world in fourteen months

they are trying to take away my dirigible. it's too dangerous. too combustible, they say. well, so be it. i'll think of it less as my castle in the sky, and more as a cocoon that I have to leave behind. i won't mourn it. i don't need it to fly. after all: I am becoming flight.

a floating world

"The Waterpod demonstrates future pathways for nomadic, mobile shelters and water-based communities, docked and roaming.

It embodies self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, learning and curiosity, human expression and creative exploration. It intends to prepare, inform, and provide an alternative to current and future living spaces.

In preparation for our coming world with an increase in population, a decrease in usable land, and a greater flux in environmental conditions, people will need to rely closely on immediate communities and look for alternative living models; the Waterpod is about cooperation, collaboration, augmentation, and metamorphosis.

As a malleable and autonomous space, the Waterpod is built on a model comprised of multiple collaborations. The Waterpod functions as a singular unit with the possibility to expand into ever-evolving water communities; an archipelagos that has the ability to mutate with the tides.

The Waterpod is mobile and nomadic, and as an application for the future it can historicize the notion of the permanent structure, simultaneously serving as composition, transportation, island, and residence. Based on movement, the Waterpod structure is adaptable, flexible, self-sufficient, and relocatable, responsive to its immediate and shifting environment.

As with art, architecture is largely about stories: stories of its inhabitants, its community, its makers and their reflections on the past or expectations of the future. The Waterpod is an extension of body, of home, and of community, its only permanence being change, flow, and multiplicity. It connects river to visitor, global to local, nature to city, and historic to futuristic ecologies.

With this project, we hope to encourage innovation as we visualize the future fifty to one hundred years from now."

more here and here