Broadway Shuttle on NextBus

Via ABO's twitter feed, I learned that finally the Broadway Shuttle is on NextBus. In a test run yesterday, I noticed similar problems with timing I found when NextBus first arrived, but those seem to have since worked themselves out, so I'm hopeful.

I'm amazed this service didn't launch with NextBus. A good deal of the FreeB's utility derives from the fact that one can take it on short hops during a lunch hour to save time and increase the range of accessible places. It helps not to have to wait 10 minutes on the front end of the trip.

Overall I love the Broadway Shuttle, and think it is a great addition to both AC Transit and downtown Oakland. I've been taking it once or twice a week since service began, and it appears to be well used. I have further thoughts that I've been meaning to write for months, which I hope to get to soon. Stay tuned.

Seeing Orange

Across the Bay this week is Dutch Design Week SF, which "presents the best of the Dutch creative industries in all areas of design." As you can see from a few of my previous posts, I'm a bit of a Dutch designphile. The image above is of Wilo by Benthem Crouwel Architects, which was Daily Dose of Architecture #457.

Tonight is a lecture by Karen Van Den Brandt and Alex Clay of Lesley Moore. Afterwards, the results of a weekend workshop they held at the CCA will be presented. I'm hoping the workshop perhaps addressed the awful graphics of AC Transit.

On Wednesday will be a lecture by Caroline Bos on the Deep Planning of UNStudio. I'm a bit skeptical that there is all that much to it, so I'm looking forward to learning more. Regardless, from what I've seen their architectural and graphic work is beautiful, so if nothing else it should be a visually interesting lecture. See you in Orange!

Filming in Old Oakland

This is way too late for a blog that is posted to so infrequently these days, so this is mostly for posterity, but I wanted to point out that tonight (all night) is the last day of shooting for a Lincoln car holiday commercial in Old Oakland. Like most movies and commercials, this is facilitated by the Oakland Film Office, who have a great name and a really cool logo - they really should be selling their t-shirts to the public, rather than only giving them away as a thank you to crews that film in Oakland.

Anyways, it is worth heading down to Old Oakland tonight, if only to see some vacant storefronts filled in with fake holiday window displays. It suggests an interesting strategy for down on their luck retail nodes to present a better face, at least until Oakland facilitates new establishments by deregulating the retail sector.

2010 Bike to Work Day

Today is Bike to Work Day!

Park(ing) Day 2009

Today is Parking Day!

Architecture + The City 2009

It is nearly half over, but September is the Architecture + The City festival sponsored by the American Institute of Architects San Francisco chapter. The most intriguing event is the symposium California and The Netherlands: A New Alliance for Climate Change Adaptation , which unfortunately is already on a wait list. But there are still plenty of tours, lectures, and exhibitions to attend.

The most interesting among them was canceled. Gardens are for People: The Innovative Landscapes of Thomas Church at Park Merced was to explore the some of the gardens and courtyards of the site, as well as the larger, shared open spaces. Hopefully Docomomo, who would have lead the tour, will try again next year.

The Americans

Though today I will be doing the typical 4th of July BBQ, if you are looking for something different and yet still uniquely patriotic, I highly recommend going to see the exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Robert Franks' book The Americans entitled Looking In. Though I've seen many of these photographs before, I've never seen the book itself, and this exhibit displays all 83 photographs in the order they appeared, along with artifacts from its development and examples of his earlier and later work.

Another reason to go today, or at least very soon, are two smaller exhibits that close on Tuesday. Patterns of Speculation shows the work of Berlin-based architecture studio J. Mayer H. using images of their work along with a site-built installation. Though the exhibit somewhat falsely claims the firm's unique approach (or at least doesn't explain enough what makes it so unique), it does provide an interesting example of one of the foremost trajectories in architectural thinking over the last decade, that of turning the invisible fields of information and data that surround us into built form.

Also closing Tuesday is Otl Aicher: Munchen 1972. This exhibit highlights the incredible graphic program of the '72 Olympic games. As someone who spends a lot of time complaining generally about signage in California, and specifically about the terrible graphics and design program of AC Transit, this exhibition is like a cool bay breeze on a hot summer day.

SFMoMA also has the newly-opened rooftop sculpture garden. It is summer in San Francisco though, so be sure to bring your winter jacket.