Lafayette was the first urban renewal project in the US and remains an intimate, dense community of differing scales within a suburban, yet shrinking, city.

The annual MCA Bella Dinner will soon be held in Sydney.  An annual event, the dinner also hosts a prize draw which costs $1000 to enter, but entrants are guaranteed to win one of 30 fine contemporary pieces. This year they even have a Kusama in the mix (see below).

The Kusama is by far the most valuable piece – and a stunning work in its own right – but for sheer beauty,whimsy and originality, my favourite has to be the Lionel Bawden sculpture made from coloured Staedtler pencils (above).

You can view all the works here.  If you want to enter, you’d better be quick, as the draw is notorious for selling out before you can say “Bargain”.

It could be said that architecture is one of the most humanist pursuits, existing solely to make humans happy.

The always clever BLDGBLOG this week features the Bat Spiral, a project by UK architecture firm Friend and Company which shows that animals can get just as much enjoyment from architecture.

Based just outside of London, the Bat Spiral is designed to provide a roost (cave?) for the 17 bat species that are native to the UK.  The 45 square metre structure can house about 330 bats who are attracted to the structure for its dark spaces, and for the warmth generated from the black timber walls.

It is also surprisingly beautiful with its simple, reed-like support columns raising it above the swamp, and its graceful painted timber curves.

Australia is a funny place. We laugh at the commercialism of the US but spend ourselves silly on credit.  We welcome people from all nations, yet shun our own ancestors.  Or, as the recent Australian film Samson & Delilah showed, we pay exorbitant amounts of money for Aboriginal art, with most of the funding going to the gallery owners and only a pittance to the actual artist, who often lives in squalor.

Welcome to Franck Gohier‘s world, currently on display at Ray Hughes Gallery in Sydney.  Gohier uses his acerbic wit to comment on themes such as the Northern Territory invasion (ahem, intervention), the credit crisis, and global warming.  This wit, combined with the pop-art aesthetic, sends a powerful message about where our country is headed.  The bullet holes aren’t so subtle.

Technology doesn’t normally feature on culturepublic, but this is just too cool to ignore.  US aviation company Terrafugia has just released the Transition, the world’s first street-legal aeroplane – yep, a plane that turns into a car.

It’s surprisingly cheap, priced at $190k, and they’ve already taken deposits from over 100 eager US-buyers who are due to receive their new toys sometime in 2011.

Apart from $190k, all you need to fly the Transition is a sports pilots license, which takes only half the time to obtain than a full license.  Once you’ve got that, you’re all set.  Transition’s wings fold up in 15 seconds, and although it chews through the fuel (11kms per litre in the air, and not much better on the ground) this little beast is sure to make you the envy of all your friends as you fly over the freeway, looking down at their gridlocked SUVs.

Being nomadically inclined, I’ve always understood the appeal of running away and joining the circus. In fact, if it weren’t for shared bathroom facilities and a little too much socialising for my tastes, I would probably have already done so.

F-Stop have released a new issue of their always awesome e-zine, focusing this month on the theme of Amusement.  Their featured artist is Lacey Terrell who has spent the past 13 years documenting what she calls one of America’s last nomadic tribes, the Culpepper & Merriweather Great Combined Circus.

The circus travels continuously for eight months of the year, mainly throughout the midwest, and is otherwise based in the remote town of Hugo, Oklahoma – perculiarly, the town of 5,000 people seems to be the winter home of about a dozen competing circuses.

Anyway, back to the photography.  Terrell’s work captures the essence of what the circus is all about: bright colours, movement, and the promise of something new every day.  It also goes behind the scenes to depict the reasons that circus performers choose this lifestyle in the first place: for some escapism, others restlessness, boredom, cameraderie or sheer desparation, for the lack of a better option.

The Passing Ring is a culmination of over a decade’s hard work, and the quality of the images definitely reflect the artist’s dedication. You can see more of Terrell’s work via West Hollywood’s Kopeikin Gallery.  Also worth checking out is the F-Stop group gallery exploring similar themes.

Edit: after hearing from Terrell herself, she suggests some more reasons why people join (and stay) with the Circus:

One thing not mentioned was that many of the performers are true artists, trained in Circus arts since they were children. So there is an artistry element, as well as a life-style element that factors into the reason for being with the show. Other non-performers have many reasons as well. For some, it’s a business. For some, an adventure. For some, a second chance at life away from hardships experienced in the past. And for others, it’s what they know. Circus is a way of life, offering a sense of community and family to many. EB White wrote, “The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything i know; it is universal and complex magic.”

All photos copyright Lacey Terrell.

Once a city of innovation, by all accounts, Detroit is today a city in ruin: the Pompeii of our times.  The statistics are frightening: unemployment amongst the highest in the nation, population decreases surpassing even east-Berlin after the wall came down; and not a single supermarket within city limits.

Hantz Farm in inner-Detroit is set to change this.  John Hantz and Matt Allen have created this innovative approach to save the local community.  They realise that much of Detroit is simply “too broken to fix”, so aim to reinvigorate it by creating 100 acres of urban farms – former residential or commercial plots of land which they will clear and transform into a thriving agricultural area, for a relatively low cost. They cannot reinvigorate the fledgling car industry which has devastated the local – and national – economy, but they can create jobs, stimulate the local economy, and give residents a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

It’s an inspiring idea that will create jobs, increase the health of its denizens, aid in smart energy use, lower crime rates and free up emergency services to look after the inhabited areas of the city.

Natty little logo, too.

Family portraits.  It’s somewhere we’ve all been; somewhere few of us want to return.

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember some classic photo shoots – heads stacked on top of each other in a bizarre human Christmas tree; my brother pouting below a street sign bearing his name; and those awful, forced poses that the photographer would always get you to do: “put your arm on your brother’s shoulder”, “Turn to your left”, “Look at the watering can”, “For god’s sake, just smile will you”.

The guys over at Art Fag City have taken me back recently with their link to awkwardfamilyphotos.com, a seriously disturbing, yet seriously addictive site showcasing the best and worst family photos of all times.  It’s all there – terrible 80s and 90s fashions, enforced ‘fun’, couples with matching clothes, and holiday snaps gone awry.  Take a look, if only to ease your mind that weirder families than your own really do exist.

You’ve heard of Paris, Texas.  But Louisiana, Denmark?

This sleepy satellite suburb on the outskirts of Copenhagen is home to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, a stunning seaside building established in 1958 as a showcase for many of the world’s finest contemporary artworks and sculptures.

The museum is currently exhibiting Green Architecture for the Future, a multidisciplinary exhibition examining the pending, fundamental changes to three areas of design: The City, Climate & Comfort, and Metabolism.

The City examines the global population drift towards urban living, and various responses to this, both current and future.  It includes an ambitious Foster + Partners design for Masdar City – a purpose-built, sustainable city in the United Arab Emirates – as well as a Sarcozy-sponsored redesign for Paris by MVRDV, and the tree-like Tower of Tomorrow by William McDonough & Partners.

Climate & Comfort and Metabolism explore themes of renewal, rebirth and reappropriation, such as a building made from empty water bottles (now there’s an intelligent solution, Mr Rees).

Via Arcspace.

Masdar City

Tower of Tomorrow

United Bottle

In property, it is said, location is everything. This was put to the test in San Diego when architect Lloyd Russell and his artist wife Ame Parsley managed to buy a vacant block in San Diego’s Little Italy neighbourhood for a bargain $50,000 – not surprising considering the property is an oddly shaped wedge of land sitting between the i-5 freeway and the busiest single-runway airport in the USA, San Diego International Airport (with 600 departures and arrivals per day).

This site couldn’t be noisier – check out the Google Earth satellite photo below for proof – there is even an aeroplane on approach passing almost directly overhead (see if you can pick the site, the triangular building just north of the jumbo)

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Russell set to work designing his new home – the R3 building, a triangular gallery-cum-residence complete with triple glazing, commercial air filtration system, and walls that are stuccoed to help bounce sound waves back onto the freeway.  There is also a killer integrated sound system in case any pesky noise still sneak through.

In designing R3, Lloyd Russell has proven that the most exciting architecture is often, if not always borne from the most difficult challenges.