| helsinki city planning | |
this is the title screen to a little flash presentation done by the helsinki city planning department (click on "flash presentation" for the erm flash presentation).
this multimedia presentation introduces four recent urban projects by the helsinki city planning department: arabia waterfront, pikku huopalahti, ruoholahti and viikki.
all the areas presented here are close to parks or the sea, and all incorporate some educational establishments or research institutions of university level. along with good public transport connections, each area has its own profile and character, a feature adopted as a major objective for the modern urban environment. the variation stems from local conditions and the different planning ideals of the project leaders.
i could never imagine something like this happening in ireland. the concept of "forethought" just isnt a factor in many of the planning ideas there. that was until i read an article in todays irish times. (you need to pay to see the article. doh). but here is an extract:
adamstown development zone approved
(site of 550-acres 10 miles from dublin city centre to have phased delivery of 10,000 new homes)
there are to be 13 phases of house-building, each phase dependent on a level of infrastructure such as roads, railway, services or schools being in place before housing can proceed.
significantly, the board decided that the development should not proceed beyond the first 1,000 houses until the upgrading to dual-carriageway of the outer ring road between the development and the n4 road is complete. the council said yesterday it expected this road to be ready by 2005.
a new railway station must also be provided as part of phase one. another condition is that the rail link to dublin must have the capacity to carry 3,000 passengers per peak hour before the developers may build beyond 4,000 homes.
there are to be four schools provided as part of the scheme, the first of which is to be in place before the number of houses can rise above 1,800. there should be a second school at 3,400 houses, a third at 5,000 houses and a fourth at 6,600 houses.
not less than 14 per cent of adamstown must comprise parks, playgrounds, playing pitches, tennis courts and landscaping.
things like this just dont happen too often in ireland. normally, the houses are built, then the school/shops/services are built (sometimes not built at all). hope this goes as well as it looks on paper.
| bbc style | |
from 24th september : this week affordable city centre living, the building that taste forgot, britain's new bridges and ireland's national gallery.
from 1st october : this week the 80's buildings revival, art deco in miami, the fall and rise of the high rise and the old meets the new at lords cricket ground.
from 8th october : this week the dreamspaces team visit the hip city of antwerp, and look at re-used nuclear bunkers, parks designed for play and the inside out building, lloyds of london.
from 15th october : this week dj bars, architecture in brazil, new embassy's in berlin are all investigated in dreamspaces, plus nick moran visits one of london's most famous towers.
from 22nd october : this week dreamspaces does it helsinki style, they also visit london's last power station, and visit the office of the future.
im looking forward to that helsinki one in a few weeks. the one that was on this week showed the national gallery of ireland, with its new extension. hurray for bbc world!
| huono messu | |
| edward said | |
new york times obituary
robert fisk talks about said too
| messu | |
| last three | |
wednesdays movie was "last party 2000" narrated by philip seymour hoffman. it dealt with the american presidential election in 2000. visiting both the republican and democratic conventions, and then going to flordia to see a bit of the vote counting. a very good documentary although it did have a little too many famous people talking about issues in it. but still worth the 6,5� of the ticket.
the first movie tonight was "interstella 5555". this was the movie to the soundtrack that was daft punks last album "discovery". it reminded me of one of the old silent movies. just music, no talking, with gestures etc. to tell a lot of the story. "interstella 5555" had no dialogue, and a minimal of character exploration. it did have almost 70minutes of japanese directed animation about the kidnapping of a pop group from a far off planet and then being taken to earth. very good, a shame that the focus was out in a few of the reels in the cinema and that some of the songs from the album/soundtrack were a little weak.
the second movie tonight was gus van sants "elephant". a slight retelling of the events of the columbine shootings in america a few years ago. the film was slow, laborious (intentionally so) and the tension was almost unbearable near the end of the movie. very well made and edited, although it did have one of two things that irritated me slightly but by and large it was a very good movie that shakes you a lot over the last ten minutes.
anyway, no more movies for me to see now. im glad i went and it was well worth it. the "in america" movie was by far the best of the six movies.
| half way mark | |
"live forever" covered the 1990's british music industry, concetrating on blur, oasis, the labour party, massive attack and a few others. i enjoyed it a lot more than i was expecting and had some very funny moments in there, including a big "blur versus oasis" bit which talked about when they released singles on the same day back in 1996 i think. (i bought the blur single, cant remember why).
the second film i went to see was oliver stones documentary and interview of cuba's fidel castro, called "comandante". i didnt really get too much from this documentary because of the norwegian subtitles, spanish interviewing and very hard to hear english translations being spoken in the background. from the 30% or so that i did understand, it was very interesting, strange to see a countries leader with almost no entourage, and his governmental offices seemed to have layabouts hanging around the place, slouching there in the leather chairs. stone did ask some pretty pointed questions, castros answers too were pretty good, refreshing to hear a leader free of soundbytes. his human rights record is a different thing though and wasnt discussed too much in the documentary.
the third movie i saw was jim sheridans movie "in america". im literally just in the door from seeing it, and it was one of the best movies ive seen in a long long time. semi based on sheridans own experiences of moving to america (new york city) with his family back in 1982 (the only real time reference in the movie was to the movie e.t.). a fantastic fantastic movie that was just a delight to watch. a very emotional movie too, it has to be seen to be appreciated.
| winters coming | |
at one stage we turned right instead of going down the more familiar route to the left, we ended up on a street called liminagantie. it was a wonderful street, full of old wooden houses painted bright colours, each with its own huge garden full of hammocks and funny small buildings that held the garden equipment, each of them also seemed to have a little plot of land for growing food, and an odd rabbit runing around here and there. i have to admit to being very very impressed. in a few weeks i think im going to be getting a lend of a digital camera, so hopefully i will get some pictures of some of the houses.
| photos | |
h�r�ur -------> images here (click on "finnland")
gwen --------> images here
thomas -----> images here
(a few more links to come)
| live movie soundtracks | |
la haine to get soundtrack from adf"la haine" is one of my favourite movies, and there was a time when asian dub foundation was a favourite of mine back a few years ago. would be nice to see this.
asian dub foundation will perform a live soundtrack to the award-winning film 'la haine' as part of the dublin fringe festival.
adf were formed in london as part of a community workshop in 1993, during a time of anti-asian violence in the uk. the band have been vocal in their stance against racism and are closely aligned with the anti-fascist movement.
released in 1995, mathieu kassovitz's 'la haine' has been acclaimed for its study of racism and urban frustration in the parisian suburbs. adf first performed their live soundtrack to the film in march 2001 at the barbican in london.
this irish performance, in association with the british council ireland, will take place at the temple theatre on monday 22 september.
| tickets booked | |
- 20.09 1600 comandante
- 23.09 1600 in america
- 24.09 1830 last party 2000
- 25.09 1830 interstella 5555
- 25.09 2100 elephant
| smelly | |
| cover stars | |
anyway, in stockmann on saturday evening, i finally gave in and bought a p�p magazine. i have been talking about this for quite some time. i finally did. then, we went after that to a local bar, tori bar, to have dinner and on our way inside we noticed a supercool jack russell dog just inside the window sitting beside two people. while waiting for dinner (takes a long time there on weekends) i was flicking through the p�p magazine. i noticed that the dog on the front cover looked a lot like the dog we had just seen in the window. [from where we were sitting now we could see him occasionly as he was sleeping]. we spent some time while waiting for the dinner trying to sneak glances of him, to see if his features (all white except for a brown circle around his right eye) were the same as those of the dog in the picture. we were about 80% sure that it was. i then noticed that the dog in the picture was wearing a ladies scarf. then i looked at the dogs owner, she was wearing the exact same scarf!. we nearly jumped out of our seats when we realised it was the same dog. what are the chances?.
| film festival | |
one film i want to see is "interstella 5555", the daft punk produced film that was made to act as a companion to their "homework" album (i think).
oh! i just saw this:
elokuvat ovat englanninkielisi� tai niiss� on englanninkielinen tekstitys,that basically means, all films are in english or english subtitles, except for the ones with the (s) or (r) images beside them, and that means about 80% are in english or have english subtitles. wahoo.
poikkeuksina:= suomi,
= ruotsi.
a pdf format version of the programme is available here
| ilmapallo | |
| one more... | |
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