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CHIP Off a New Block

There are two facts about living in Los Angeles: real estate is expensive, and cars are beloved, if only out of necessity. A team of students from Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) created CHIP, an affordable home that acknowledges both facts while saving energy. This 2011 Solar Decathlon entry employs conventional materials in unconventional ways, offering a new prototype for living in LA (and, yes, it protects your car, too).

Completed in 2006, the University of Cincinnati’s 350,000 sq ft Campus Recreation Center, designed by Southern California based Morphosis Architects Inc., is a successful attempt at weaving four distinctly different programs into one comprehensive building.

Because the Solar Decathlon competition stipulates that homes’ interiors measure less than 1,000 sq. ft., many teams choose young or retired couples as their target market. However, Team Massachusetts, which is comprised of students from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, created a home fit for a family of three. They articulated spaces with flexibility in mind in order to meet occupants’ changing needs throughout their lives: the 4D Home is three-dimensional over time.

In our last article on DIY painting basics, we discussed setting up an effective workspace and managing the workflow. We're now ready to work, and we'll discuss tips on preparation and finishing your interior painting project. Painting serves two purposes -- to beautify and to protect surfaces. Beautification takes a more prominent role in interior painting than in exterior, where protection is your higher concern. Proper surface preparation is equally important in achieving both purposes. Preparation is the most time-consuming and difficult aspect of any painting job, although it is also the most important. Proper preparation will produce a finish that will look great and last far longer than poor preparation will.

Make your basement feel like it's above grade with these helpful tips.

Architect Tracy A. Stone’s expertise in historic preservation guided her renovation of a 123-year-old carriage house near downtown Los Angeles.

Don't Mow Your Lawn

Prevailed upon by a technocratic society, people are frequently alienated from nature and social interaction. As such, rumor has it that ecological outdoor living spaces are greatly coveted safe havens. The sky’s the limit; an outdoor living space or room can take on the functions of any interior home space within the constructs and limits of any locale. This is green architecture at its best; it brings the residents and their visitors' mental, emotional and physical conditions back into sync with nature.

Find out, step by step, how to upcycle an old door into a unique bathroom storage unit. To see Rachael in action, watch {Re}habitat, her upcycling and repurposing video series.

Most bathrooms could benefit from added storage and a splash of color. An old wooden door, some knobs and racks, and a fresh coat of paint will help you to keep your bathroom organized and give it some character. This storage unit is perfect for bathrooms and other small spaces, but it can add functional, funky vertical storage to any room of your house. Join Rachael as she demonstrates how to turn a salvaged wooden door into upcycled bathroom storage.

Although it is surrounded by water, New York City offers few opportunities to physically interact with the shoreline. The new Brooklyn Bridge Park proves an exception; its 85 acres of green space and recreational facilities, designed by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, will span 1.3 miles of post-industrial waterfront between the Manhattan Bridge and Atlantic Avenue, bracketed by the East River and Robert Moses' tiered Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

I recently had the opportunity to visit Bing Thom’s much talked about and long-awaited Arena Stage renovation and expansion project in Washington, D.C. With slightly more than two years of construction completed, the $125 million, 200,000 square foot project is in the final stages and is due to open its doors on schedule for the inaugural 2010/11 theater season later this fall.

The recently opened, award-winning Chandler City Hall in Arizona, a $47 million complex that covers two city blocks, seeks to express the new economy that has come to this "Old West" town. Founded in 1912, the town of Chandler spent its early decades as a quiet agricultural and ranching community. More recently, it has experienced a population boom and expanded its economic base to include electronics and manufacturing. As Chandler extended its town borders, it was also forced to decentralize its municipal offices, which came to occupy various leased spaces.

Paint failure occurs for many reasons, but moisture is a common cause. It is important for a homeowner to not only notice moisture problems, but to hire a competent painting contractor who can identify their causes and make the necessary corrections. Moisture as a source of paint failure falls into three general categories: systemic moisture, structurally caused moisture, and moisture caused by human error.