One of the more interesting articles

Earlier this month, national security scholar Patrick Doherty published a proposal in Foreign Policy magazine for America’s next “grand strategy,” a plan for how the U.S. should reposition itself in a world defined less by threats from communism or terrorism and more by the global challenge of sustainability. His offering is among a crop of such foreign policy tracts all aiming big ideas at the newly re-inaugurated president.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/housing/2013/01/walkable-urbanism-foriegn-policy/4547/

 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/09/a_new_US_grand_strategy

 The strategic landscape of the 21st century has finally come into focus. The great global project is no longer to stop communism, counter terrorists, or promote a superficial notion of freedom. Rather, the world must accommodate 3 billion additional middle-class aspirants in two short decades -- without provoking resource wars, insurgencies, and the devastation of our planet's ecosystem. For this we need a strategy.

AU: Efficient Pipe Designs ...

That was an good class, I wish I hadn't missed it.

This class will show you how to manipulate and generate pipe parts lists and networks to efficiently design complex pipe networks using alignments, profiles, intersections, and pipes. You will see a 3-staged approach to design and output for creating a custom pipe fittings library, for generating multiple complex pipe networks and merging them together into 1 interactive network, and then moving this data to constructable plan sets. The class will contain instructions on how to add structure fittings and blocks to the existing pipe catalog and then assign styles to those fittings to represent the item graphically. We move on with a basic layout using alignments, then produce a profile of the center of our pipe. From this we will use intersections to tie the branches of our network together and then extract the feature line to create the pipe. Finally we will produce constructable documents using this data with labeling and math. 

Time I did a little bit of additional work

Lets start with some Civil 3D Pipe Networks.

Much of our Pipe Network modeling seems a little on the fly with not much of the way in terms of procedure. I'm going to stop that.

Bits of Old Animations

Wireframe and LowRes shorts of Mountain View Road.





Might try youtube's editing feature later.

Good ...

http://sf.streetsblog.org/2013/01/04/the-new-sunday-in-sf-fewer-cars-clogging-up-your-commercial-street/

Happy New Year, indeed. This Sunday will mark the day when San Francisco finally catches up with the times and runs parking meters during business hours on Sundays, ending the nonsensical weekly tradition of allowing prime parking spots in front of shops to sit occupied for free while drivers circle endlessly around the block.
The meters will run from 12 to 6 p.m., when demand for parking is highest. That means turnover will be higher and fewer drivers be distractedly searching for spots, wasting gas and adding to the noise, air pollution, and danger on the streets.

sf.streetsblog

Polk Livable Streets

I do like public participation in charettes and such like, it does lead to people thinking about the practical difficulties involved in trying to please everybody.

Tight spaces, multiple competing interests, limited budgets and all sorts of restrictions. Interesting.

Complete Streets - Polk

SFMTA - Complete Streets Polk

Saturday, 10/27/12, 9:00 am    Walking Tour #4: Start in front of 1300 Polk Street, at Bush Street

Design Charrette: Saturday, October 27, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, at the First Congregational Church. Drop in to discuss design ideas and trade-offs.