Stories indexed with the term ‘cross walk’

The Ann Arbor city council has directed city administrator Steve Powers to provide a funding and implementation strategy for elements of the city’s non-motorized transportation plan. The first part of the funding plan is due to the council by Jan. 1, 2014 – to enhance and improve traffic enforcement at and around crosswalks.

In its originally proposed form, the first step was supposed to cover a specific funding and implementation strategy for rectangular rapid flashing beacons that are highlighted in the non-motorized plan. But during council deliberations on Dec. 16, 2013, the council modified the resolution to remove explicit mention of specific technologies, to explicitly include mention of the city’s traffic engineers, and to include specific mention of the downtown … [Full Story]

Earlier this month (March 8), the Toledo Museum of Art hosted a program featuring Jay Shafer, the founder of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company and one of the proponents for the tiny homes movement. “Tiny” in this case means only a few hundred square feet, and most of the Tumbleweed designs are under 200 square feet. A newly constructed, 65-square-foot Tumbleweed house, mounted on a trailer and parked on the front steps of the Museum, is among the works presented in the Museum’s “Small Worlds” exhibition.

I attended this program, in part, at the invitation of a friend who lives in Toledo – because I am an architect, and I am working on the design of a small bunkhouse for their summer cottage in Ontario.

Architecture is about creating meaningful spaces and about communicating that meaning to the occupants and users of those spaces. For me, the Small Worlds exhibition triggered a series of thoughts about elements of physical culture in Ann Arbor and whether that culture is successfully serving its purpose in the city.

I’m going to wrap a lot into this notion of physical culture – from pedestrian amenities, to accessory dwelling units, to a phone booth. The phone booth is something I’m planning to add to the physical culture of my own workspace – at Workantile on Main Street in Ann Arbor. So that’s where I’ll start, with something tinier even than Jay Shafer’s 65-square-foot house. [Full Story]