View Local+Living: PASADENA in a larger map
View Local+Living: PASADENA in a larger map
Photographer Xavier Nuez
Photographer Xavier Nuez ventures late at night to places you are warned not to go, drawn to document bleak urban spaces. However, his photographs transcend the gloom and uncover the sublime; while some photos display an aura of foreboding, many reveal an uncanny sense of calm seemingly at odds with reality. Nuez offers a glimpse of his forays into these forbidding realms in the Alley Stories section of his website.
I've been chased by violent street gangs, accosted by crazed addicts and drug dealers, and have been held at gun point. If the police see me lurking in a dark alley, often I am questioned and searched. And yet under these trying conditions, and within the filth and stench of the city's gutters, I find inspiration. With a family history of homelessness and with a belief that I was next, I found the need to create monuments out of these shunned places.Nuez uses three Hasselblad film cameras, two of which are more than 50-years old. To capture the vivid colors in his images, he shoots with battery-powered lights and colored gels that are combined with long exposures.
Xavier Nuez's photographs have been featured in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States and in Canada
A selection of Nuez's photographs will be on exhibition August 24 through September 27, 2009, at the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts in Tallahassee, Florida.
Link: Xavier Nuez
Slideshow: Alleys
Water Sports Center in Zahara de la Sierra, Cádiz, Spain
Spanish architect Julio Barreno Gutiérrez designed this boathouse just outside the small town of Zahara de la Sierra on the shore of the man-made lake, El Embalse de Zahara. The small structure serves as a boat storage facility and also houses changing rooms and restrooms for boaters, and is meant to be part of a larger recreation area in development.
While small and utilitarian, the structure responds elegantly to the native landscape, the high waterline of the resevoir, and the local vernacular of the "pueblo blanco" hillside town. The design was awared the 2008 Torres Key Prize by the College of Architects of Cádiz given every two years to honor the best new buildings in Cádiz. The architect describes the town "as a dense liquid falling down along the slope" and the small parcels and buildings along the shore as "small white pieces" scattered below; a green and white pixelated landscape.
Architect Julio Barreno Gutiérrez is an Associate Professor for the School of Architecture at the University of Seville.
Location: L+L Maps - Paisaje de Canoas
Integrated kitchen components
We've admired the high quality kitchen systems designed by Seattle-based Henrybuilt for many years. Henrybuilt offers an American alternative to the sleek European kitchen systems we drool over.
The latest expansion to the line--the Workspace Component Group--builds on their well conceived backsplash panel system adding smart functionality. The components are a set of sculpted functional blocks: a cutting board, colander, and knife block. Like the existing accessories in the system, these components are designed to integrate with Henrybuilt's customizable backsplash panel system offering flexibility in configurations and changing needs. The colander and cutting board not only store neatly on the backsplash, but are designed to function with Henrybuilt's recessed countertop sink and drainboard.
Additional components are in the works as well.
Link: Henrybuilt
Video: Workspace Component Group demo