The Decatur Daily Review, Illinois, April 8, 1947

we all have a brickaday within us

Small town culture is knowing that there are Old Folks with strange nicknames but never knowing the stories behind them.

Of course, I made the mistake of asking why everyone calls this one guy Brickaday and it turns out that he worked at a brickyard for 40 years, stealing exactly one brick every day and making no particular efforts to conceal the theft. Nobody thought anything of it until years later he was discovered to have built three houses.

His boss is said to have shrugged and made some remarks about the importance of coming up with a plan and sticking to it.

I‘m trying to arrange my face into an appropriate approximation of silent bafflement and failing miserably.

Doughnut whale sharks 🍩✨

the Guardian

US buildings kill up to a billion birds a year. These architects want to save them

Highly transparent glass can lead to devastating collisions. But innovations in design are creating safer skylines – without sacrificing bea

"Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.

In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.

As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.

As awareness grows of the dangers posed by glistening towers and bright lights, architects are starting to reimagine city skylines to design buildings that are both aesthetically daring and bird-safe.

Pictured: Chicago's Aqua Tower was designed with birds in mind.

Some are experimenting with new types of patterned or coated glass that birds can see. Others are rethinking glass towers entirely, experimenting with exteriors that use wood, concrete or steel rods. Blurring lines between the indoors and outdoors, some architects are creating green roofs and facades, inviting birds to nest within the building.

“Many people think about bird-friendly design as yet another limitation on buildings, yet another requirement,” said Dan Piselli, director of sustainability at the New York-based architecture firm FXCollaborative. “But there are so many design-forward buildings that perfectly exemplify that this doesn’t have to limit your design, your freedom.”

How modern buildings put birds in danger

For Deborah Laurel, principal in the firm Prendergast Laurel Architects, the realization came a couple of decades ago. She was up for an award for her firm’s renovation of the Staten Island Children’s Museum when the museum’s director mentioned to her that a number of birds had been crashing into the new addition. “I was horrified,” she said.

She embarked on a frenzy of research to learn more about bird collisions. After several years of investigation, she found there was little in the way of practical tips for architects, and she teamed up with the conservation group NYC Audubon, to develop a bird-safe building guide.

The issue, she discovered, was that technological and architectural advancements over the last half-century had in some ways transformed New York City – and most other US skylines and suburbs – into death traps for birds...

At certain times of day, tall glass towers almost blend into the sky. At other times, windows appear so pristinely clear that they are imperceptible to birds, who might try to fly though them. During the day, trees and greenery reflected on shiny building facades can trick birds, whereas at night, brightly lit buildings can confuse and bewilder them...

Pictured: A green roof on the Javits Convention Center serves as a sanctuary for birds.

The changes that could save avian lives

About a decade ago, Piselli’s firm worked on a half-billion-dollar renovation of New York’s Jacob K Javits Convention Center, a gleaming glass-clad space frame structure that was killing 4,000-5,000 birds a year. “The building was this black Death Star in the urban landscape,” Piselli said.

To make it more bird friendly, FXCollaborative (which was then called FXFowle) reduced the amount of glass and replaced the rest of it with fritted glass, which has a ceramic pattern baked into it. Tiny, textured dots on the glass are barely perceptible to people – but birds can see them. The fritted glass can also help reduce heat from the sun, keeping the building cooler and lowering air conditioning costs. “This became kind of the poster child for bird-friendly design in the last decade,” Piselli said.

The renovation also included a green roof, monitored by the NYC Audubon. The roof now serves as a sanctuary for several species of birds, including a colony of herring gulls. Living roofs have since become popular in New York and other major cities, in an inversion of the decades-long practice of fortifying buildings with anti-bird spikes. In the Netherlands, the facade of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters, a futuristic structure that looks like an undulating blob of mercury, contains nest boxes and spaces for birds and bats to live.

The use of fritted glass has also become more common as a way to save the birds and energy.

Earlier this year, Azadeh Omidfar Sawyer, an assistant professor in building technology in the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, working with student researchers, used open-source software to help designers create bespoke, bird-friendly glass patterns. A book of 50 patterns that Sawyer published recently includes intricate geometric lattices and abstract arrays of lines and blobs. “Any architect can pick up this book and choose a pattern they like, or they can customize it,” she said.

Pictured: The fritted glass used in Studio Gang’s expansion of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz, depicts the animals in the local ecosystem.

Builders have also been experimenting with UV-printed patterns, which are invisible to humans but perceptible to most birds. At night, conservationists and architects are encouraging buildings turn off lights, especially during migration season, when the bright glow of a city skyline can disorient birds.

And architects are increasingly integrating screens or grates that provide shade as well as visibility for birds. The 52-floor New York Times building, for example, uses fritted glass clad with ceramic rods. The spacing between the rods increases toward the top of the building, to give the impression that the building is dissolving into the sky.

Gang’s work has incorporated structures that can also serve as blinds for birders, or perches from which to observe nature. A theater she designed in Glencoe, Illinois, for example, is surrounded by a walking path made of a wood lattice, where visitors can feel like they’re up in the canopy of trees.

Pictured: The Writers Theatre, designed by Studio Gang, includes a walking path encased in wood lattice.

Rejecting the idea of the iridescent, entirely mirrored-glass building, “where you can’t tell the difference between the habitat and the sky”, Gang aims for the opposite. “I always tried to make the buildings more visible with light and shadow and geometry, to have more of a solid presence,” she said.

Gang has been experimenting with adding bird feeders around her own home in an effort to reduce collisions with windows, and she encourages other homeowners to do the same.

“I’ve found that birds slow down and stop at feeders instead of trying to fly through the glass,” she said.

While high-rise buildings and massive urban projects receive the most attention, homes and low-rise buildings account for most bird collision deaths. “The huge challenge is that glass is everywhere.” said Christine Sheppard, who directs the glass collisions program at the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “It’s hard to know what I know and not cringe when I look at it.”

Tips for improving your own home include using stained glass or patterned decals that can help birds see a window, she said. ABC has compiled a list of window treatments and materials, ranked by how bird-safe they are.

Whether they’re large or small, the challenge of designing buildings that are safe for birds can be “liberating”, said Gang, who has become an avid birdwatcher and now carries a pair of binoculars on her morning jogs. “It gives you another dimension to try to imagine.”"

-via The Guardian, December 27, 2023

This photoshoot is dedicated to all the South Asian women out there who are often underrepresented in media simply because the color of their skin doesn’t fit South Asia’s unreasonable, fair&lovely, eurocentric beauty standards. As we all know, colorism is huge in India and Pakistan. Our society has come to the point where people talk about fighting oppression and uplifting women, but no one actually does anything about it. In this photoshoot I wanted to help represent darker skinned girls in the media, and address an issue through fashion photography.

Little girls grow up with their mothers bantering them about their skin color and how a man would never want them because they’re too dark. This does not help a girl’s self confidence, and it’s important to teach them from a young age that they’re beautiful and worthy in order to prevent them from being a self conscious teen. It’s also important to teach other girls that are lighter skinned to support these girls. In high school, a South Asian boy my friend had a crush on said that she was “too dark” and basically implied that’s the reason why he wouldn’t want a relationship with her. Comments like these are what destroy girl’s self confidence, especially when they’re young, vulnerable and lost. Support and help your sisters!

With the rise of young South Asians taking their pride in jewelry and colorful clothes to Instagram, it’s important not to romanticize the culture. Every culture has it’s good and bad, and although it’s totally fine to appreciate and be grateful for the good, we shouldn’t be silent about the bad especially if we are privileged. While our own South Asians are constantly romanticizing our culture, but not acknowledging it’s dirty laundry they are also promoting social marginalization. Women are treated horribly, LGBTQ isn’t a thing (especially in Pakistan), and more of our afro-south asian brothers and sisters are murdered on the streets the longer we stay silent. Instead of bringing light to these issues, our culture keeps quiet.

- Photographer Simrah Farrukh

pom

“ Phyllorhiza punctata “ // © Discover Earth  

is a species of jellyfish, also known as the floating bell or Australian spotted jellyfish. The species originates from the western Pacific from Australia to Japan, but has now been introduced in other places too. They feed on zooplankton and can reach a diameter of up to 50 centimetres.

Music:  Soothing Sparrow - In The Forest (Extended)

今日の白黒兄弟。キャットニップの見張りかもしれない(嘘)

Today's white and black brothers. They are probably guarding their catnip in my garden...(sorry, it's just kidding...)