I just picked up something great off the deck of the SS Trudeau (something which Scott had snagged from the World Changing site on one of his knowledge plundering expeditions), a wonderful little mention of a activist architecture prank group called Heavy Trash and a recent project of theirs in LA which called for several orange viewing towers to be setup outside of exclusive gated communities. Here’s a clip from the Heavy Trash site:
On April 24, 2005, Heavy Trash volunteers deposited bright orange viewing platforms in front of three Los Angeles gated communities; Brentwood Circle, Park La Brea and Laughlin Park. The purpose of these viewing platforms is to draw attention to the phenomenon of gated communities — the fastest growing form of housing in the United States. “There are now more than 1 million homes behind such walls in the greater Los Angeles area alone,” according to Setha Low, a professor at the City University of New York.
Brilliant, simple, beautiful.
12 Comments
Inspired idea. Gated communities are the fastest-growing form of housing? Depressing.
I loved it. It was one of the most beautiful, inspired things I’ve seen in some time… the kind of idea I dream of having.
From this month’s Harper’s Index:
Ratio in America of mobile homes to gated communities: 1:1
If only we could get them to fight one another.
Maybe we could fit the mobile homes with battering rams.
Lovely idea, Jim.
Please ask “Master” webmaster Steven to do something to block the blog spam robots… Do you even have a robots.txt file?
Sorry, Andy…. I’ll take care of it… Oh, and you don’t mind if I call you Andy from now on, do you John?
Mark,
You’re paranoid.. Dunno who Andy is.. But if you want to call me that, its probably nicer than the other things you’ve called me “Hate Filled Troll” comes to mind, Maybe you should chill out with Chris and have a joint.
Sorry John. You took me figuratively, as in “the insurgency is in its last throes”. No, see when I said I was stoned I meant it literally. As in, I was caught kissing the same sex and Christian fundamentalists egged on by self serving Republicans, threw stones at me. And as a result I was rendered…well, silly actually.
I for one support two women kissing (unless they’re really ugly)
HEEEY! You remembered I am a woman. Alright!