dialect design

Live Modern!

2012-01-11T12:36:00.001-05:00

addon • kitchenre-do • changethe bathroom?

We'vegot a few ideas.

Puton the tea kettle. We’re coming over.

Free consultation from Jan. 15 – Feb. 15!

Call,email, text, facebook, twitter, link in, or messenger pigeon us to make yourappointment - before our schedule fills up!

DialectDesignwon't just think outside your box.

We’ll design it, we’ll build it!

704.763.0506 • 704.488.6811 • email • dialectdesign.com • facebook

More Modern House Plans

2011-09-16T16:23:00.001-04:00

More modern house plans on our new website Cool Modern House Plans Dot Com ! We are feverishly working on increasing our selection of modern homes. Now that our stand alone site offers us all the bells and whistles of presenting contemporary houses nationwide, we are developing more products.

The C.1 is our newest modern plan . It is designed for a sloped site and grand view, ideal for a mountain lodge or lake side cabin. It offers a daylight basement and magnificent views through large picture windows, a curved metal roof and an open floor plan. You can't go wrong with this one.

We also slaved over a brand new rendition in our T-House series, the magnificent mac daddy drop dead gorgeous "T.2", 2,245 heated square feet jamb packed with pure modern sexy. Glassed garage doors in the living room, sliding panels, open floor plan, concrete or optional exposed cmu walls, a flat roof box style, large banks of windows, a reflecting pool with rain water collection, and more. This house is designed to be inhabited by a single family or to be used as a duplex. Have a look!

Cool Modern House Plans

2011-09-02T12:14:00.002-04:00

We have worked on a major over-haul of our alternate site Cool Modern House Plans! Have a look, Here we offer our sets of modern house plans that we sell nation wide as a good alternative for our local design build efforts. These home plans are quite cost-effective as a purchase and in terms of construction. We are currently working on another modern house that we are going to put online in the upcoming days.
We hope that the shopping experience is much more straight forward and this site and will make it easier for our customers to buy a set of construction drawings.
Go ahead and browse the selection of European style modern homes. You will find contemporary box designs, butterfly roof homes, concrete walls, curved roofs, roof terraces, flat roofs, open floor plans, compact designs, pod houses, and lots more.

See you at Cool Modern House Plans !

Time Magazine & Dale Beatty

2011-08-29T14:58:00.015-04:00

We tip our hats to the efforts of our former client Dale Beatty, as his tale is told in this week's Time magazine.

Six years ago we were approached by Dale and his family to help him in the design of his new home in Statesville, N.C.. He had returned from his National Guard duty as a double amputee and needed his house to respond to his physical needs. We looked at door widths, level entries, wheelchair turning radii, and a residential elevator. We took care to integrate these measures inconspicuously. Instead of having a ramp, for example, we used the slope of the garage entry and several level connections to the interior instead.

Even though, it wasn't our usual modern fare, we adjusted the proportions of the exterior and the floor plan, too.

Dale's efforts in the construction of his own house took him and his friend John Gallina to the creation of Purple Heart Homes, an organisation through which they help other veterans, working on handicap-accessible projects.

Read more about Dale's story in the Time magazine. Here is an excerpt from the Article "The New Greatest Generation" by Joe Klein:

<< John Gallina and Dale Beatty were best friends. They joined the North Carolina National Guard while they were still in high school. They served in Iraq together, and they nearly died together on Nov. 15, 2004, when their humvee was blown up by an antitank mine. Beatty, a staff sergeant, was riding shotgun; Gallina, a specialist, was driving. The humvee flew 200 ft. (60 km) through the air and landed upside down. Beatty realized he was trapped, crushed, the only one still inside. Gallina had been thrown from the vehicle and was out cold. When he came to 45 minutes later,... <<

read the full article at the Time Magazine Website .

Dialect is Mad about Modern

2011-05-11T15:53:00.006-04:00

Come and visit the Schoenberg Residence during the "Mad about Modern" home tour that Historic Charlotte, Inc has set up for the upcoming Saturday.

Saturday, May 14th

10 am - 4 pm

There are a total of eight mid-century and current modern homes on the tour. Our sexy baby you can visit at 4015 Arborway.

As you know the Schoenberg Residence is for sale and currently still available. Sooooo, if you have toyed with the idea come by on Saturday and take a tour. We'll be present to answer questions.

We'll see all of you on the tour, look at all of the homes, love modern , live modern!

Caught in the Act - A Photo Session at Dialect

2011-03-24T15:34:00.013-04:00

Wonderful Jessica Milligan of Jessica Milligan Photography visited us at Dialect and involved us in a photo shoot. She described to us the session as an "environmental photo shoot". The idea was to show us in our natural habitat, doing what we do. So we went ahead and acted as if we design and actually work for a living.

She was amazing in making us feel comfortable despite the important photo equipment she had set up. The images turned out beautiful.

Jessica offers a whole slew of photography from fashion to portraits and everything in between. As if she didn't already flattered us enough with her gorgeous photography she also posted a delicious write up on the shoot and us on her blog.

Design with us for Free!

2011-03-16T14:48:00.002-04:00

Vivian Maier - A Photographic Journal Rediscovered

2011-03-10T10:38:00.004-05:00

The New York Times: >> Vivian Maier, evidently one of America’s more insightful street photographers, has at last been discovered. The release of every fresh image on the Web causes a sensation among the growing legion of her admirers. (Frankly, Lens is late to the table.) Ms. Maier’s streetscapes manage simultaneously to capture a redolent sense of place and the paradoxical moments that give the city its jazz, while elevating and dignifying the people in her frames — vulnerable, noble, defeated, proud, fragile, tender and often quite funny. Harry Callahan is just one of the masters with whom Ms. Maier is already being compared. <<

Read the full article at the New York Times and see the images on the blog created in dedication to Vivian Maier.

Dialect Meditates w/ John W. Love. Jr.

2011-02-14T15:46:00.003-05:00

If you haven't heard: John W. Love Jr. holds a guided mediation at Dialect every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. To join you can contact him through our website at dialectdesign.com or his contact info below. But whatever you do, please make sure to read his latest email invitation. And just to let you know they are this juicy evvery single week:

MONDAY - Dialect Design

TUESDAY - Dialect Design

WEDNESDAY - Dialect Design

FLY

When Despair arrived...this time she was already standing at the door with a mantra on her lips and a sachet of silky and crystalline vision tucked behind her third rib; standing at the door clothed in nothing but her radiance and her highest heels.

"Everything I do brings me joy and I enjoy everything I do...I bring joy to everything I do...I bring joy to everything I do...", she murmured. Then bolted.

"So you're running now.", Despair spat into the wind. "You're running from me but what are you running towards, LaDonnia?! Who's your lover now, my desperate dearest?"

"Perpetuating joy, I bring joy to everything I do...I bring joy to everything I do...", she whispered over a bare shoulder. "It is with pleasure that I'm leaving your vile ass you intoxicating sonuvabitch. I am my lover now! I am running into the tear stained face of Bliss! I am running into the ceaseless embrace of The Lovely! I am running into the endlessness of The Yummy! I am running into the endlessness of The Yummy! I am running into the endlessness of The Yummy!", and without warning she took flight startling even the wing-ed ones charged to accompany her on her journey.

Take unabashed flight and let all of existence catch up with you. Take unabashed flight and look back only to entertain yourself with how pretty your ass continues to look. Take unabashed flight and apologize for nothing. Your current has arrived. Your winds should be picking you up right about...now!

Breathe. Fly into your Yummy. Breathe. Fly into your Yummy. Breathe. Fly. Breathe.

To CONFIRM attendance:
EMAIL me by 10AM THE DAY OF THE MEDITATION
CALL OR TEXT by 12 NOON THE DAY OF
If I don't hear from anyone, the evening's session will be canceled.
If I do hear from you, you know the times and places...

6:30p MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY

Dialect Design

3204-C North Davidson Street
Charlotte, NC 28205
[Between the blocks of 35th and 36th,
Across the street from Cabo Fish Taco and Dolce Vita Wine Bar,
To the right of the fire station,
Above the old Center of the Earth Gallery,
Upstairs and to the left!]

$15 or WHATEVER YOU'RE MOVED TO DO donation/love offering

Bring a cushion, blanket, or pillow if you'd like the floor.
We also have very limited chair options!

If you're interested in private sessions or group sessions on other days, speak it!

L
704 807 1110

Dialect Night "T2 - An Exhibition Of 3D Animatioin & Sound Artwork

2011-02-08T18:00:00.001-05:00

Come on out to our next Dialect Night, this Friday, February 11th, from 6 to 9 pm. We will be exploring art through digital media:

Tohm Judson and Thomas Tucker will talk and showcase their collaborative experimental drawing/sculptural/animation/sound artwork on Friday, February 11, 2011. Tohm will talk about his approach toward electronic sound design using software created with Max/MSP/Jitter. The sounds created for this project are derived from the visual forms and structure created in the 3D space, tracking both the real-time video and the permanent piece and using it for sound creation. Thomas will talk about the collaborative process and the different uses of 3D animation using particle systems, 3D printouts, layered drawing and laser cutting.

See our invitation on our Dialect Design website, or on our Dialect Night facebook page!

John W. Love Jr. in Charlotte's Creative Loafing

2011-02-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

Read a wonderful article on John W. Love Jr. in Charlotte's Creative Loafing:

<< "All the labels don't really mean anything to me, but they help people in terms of figuring out a place to put me," he said. "For me, it's all about creativity; it all comes from the same place. It's all rich expressions of this crazy imagination of mine, and I will use whatever medium is at my disposal."

Love, a Charlotte native, has traveled the world performing and showing his work, which has appeared in exhibits, on stage and in public spaces across the globe — from the bright lights of New York to Sweden. He has a strong drive to create and finds the beauty in the simplicity of everyday life.
"Everything is an influence," he said. "I'm inspired by the poetry of life ... by the poetic moments of existence. That can be the way an elderly person is walking down the street or it can be something gorgeous that I just read or witnessed." But Love is quick to point out that he doesn't draw his inspiration from other artists.
"As a creative, I've never been one to emulate others," he said. "I've never been one to sort of look for myself in somebody else's work. I don't get my validation creatively from that or get my validation as a human being that way."
As all over the place as Love is with his artistic pursuits (he even teaches a meditation class three times a week at Dialect Design), there is structure in his madness. A trained dancer, singer and actor, he takes his work seriously. "A lot of people think that artists just do what they feel, which makes me chuckle — because the reality is, even if you're doing what you feel, there has to be a level of craft and discipline to bring what you feel to life," he said. "I'm incredibly analytical when it comes to my work, and I think that shows." >>

Read the whole article and find a video clip at Creative Loafing.

Dwell - Featuring Armando Bellmas' Photos

2011-02-08T14:44:00.006-05:00

Armando Bellmas, who has graciously worked with us, beautifully documenting our modern architecture, has had his photography published in the last Dwell magazine:

It is an interesting read and, of course, magnificent imagery. Armando's work is as always inspiring!

See it all at Dwell!

"Lucy + Bart" - what at treat

2011-01-04T15:46:00.009-05:00

We just stumbled over Lucy and Bart. You have to see this:

TATSUYA NAKATANI and GREAT ARCHITECT and DIALECT STUDIOS' ARTISTS

2010-12-21T10:42:00.014-05:00

We enjoyed an intriguing Dialect Night Special this Sunday at our studio gallery. Brent Bagwell had organized a performance by his free improv Jazz ensemble Great Architect and a musical percussion-sound-performance by Tatsuya Nakatani. Meanwhile the artists creatively working in our studios displayed their work.
All their efforts formed into a magical night with a lot of wonders and creative energies overlaying themselves to a sexy fabric.
Great Architect played for the third time this evening at Dialect and this time calmly and groundedly found a rhythmic base and creative interplay that showed a comfort and trust in the space and their creativity. it was their best performance yet.

Tatsuya Nakatani, meanwhile, filled the place with reverberating deep bellows and changing rhythmic overtones with gongs of different size and tonality. He squeezed and gently tickled a cacophony of sounds out of them with mesmerizing artistry. He moved on to a toolbox full of collected percussion toys and found objects that he had dance on a snare drum in an acrobatic frenzy, creating magical sounds, drawing unimaginable sound images out of his instruments, while finding percussionist vibrations with various mallets and a smoothly vibrating fluttering right foot on a base. It was mesmerizing.

If that wasn't enough, Taryn Rubin, Amy Bagwell, and Rae LeGrone showed off their visual and poetic artistry with a carefully crafted exhibition. Their work was playful, meticulous, and searching for questions unasked.
We walked away invigorated, tossed about, and greatly inspired.
Thank you!

Beijing architect lives in egg-shaped house

2010-12-13T14:59:00.004-05:00

We were made aware of this article on Shine from Yahoo, today. How about going really small?:
>>

Beijing Egg House

The house fits neatly on the sidewalk.

Photo by: AFP / Getty Images

By Lori Bongiorno and Trystan L. Bass
More from Green Picks blog

Dai Haifei, a 24-year-old architect in Beijing, China, found an ingenious solution to live rent-free. He built himself a mobile egg-shaped house that is powered by the sun.
The 6-foot-high structure, which is small enough to fit on a sidewalk, is made of bamboo strips, wood chippings, sack bags, and grass seed that’s expected to grow in the spring.
The pod features a solar panel on the roof that powers a lamp in the cozy space. The house cost around $1,000 to build (6427 yen), according to China Daily.
It seems Haifei has taken the trend of living in tiny spaces to a whole new level. <<

You can read more and see lot of images at Shine from Yahoo.

Lynn Marentette: A blog post on the last Dialect Night!

2010-12-13T13:13:00.007-05:00

Lynn Marentette posted a thoughtful piece on the last Dialect Night:

>> Interactive Surveillance: Live digital art installation by Annabel Manning and Celine Latulipe

Interactive Surveillance, a live installation by artist Annabel Manning and technologist Celine Latulipe, was held at the Dialect Gallery in the NoDa arts district of Charlotte, N.C. on Friday, December 10th, 2010. I attended this event with the intention of capturing some of the interaction between the participants and the artistic content during the experience, but I came away with so much more. The themes embedded in the installation struck a chord with me on several different levels.

Friday's version of Interactive Surveillance provided participants the opportunity to use wireless gyroscopic mice to manipulate simulated lenses on a large video display. The video displayed on the screen was a live feed from a camera located in the stairway leading to the second-floor gallery. When both lenses converged on the screen, a picture was taken of the stairway scene, and then automatically sent to Flickr. Although it was possible for one person to take a picture of the scene holding a mouse in each hand, the experience was enhanced by collaborating with a partner.

In another area of the gallery, guests had the opportunity to use wireless mice to interact with previously recorded surveillance video on another large display. The video depicted people crossing desert terrain at night from Mexico to the U.S. In this case, the digital lenses on the screen functioned as search lights, illuminating - and targeting- people who would prefer not to be seen or noticed in any way. On a nearby wall was another smaller screen with the same video content displayed on the larger screen. This interaction is demonstrated in the video below.

A smaller screen was set out on the refreshment table so participants could view the Flickr photostream of the "surveillance" pictures taken of the stairway. On a nearby wall was a smaller digital picture frame that provided a looping video montage of Manning's photo/art of people crossing the border.

The themes explored in the original Interactive Surveillance include border surveillance, shadow, and identity, delivered in a way that creates an impact beyond the usual chatter of pundits, politicians, and opinionators. The live installation provided another layer to the event by providing participants to be the target of the "stairway surveillance", as well as play the role of someone who conducts surveillance.

Reflections:

In a way, the live component of the present installation speaks to the concerns of our present era, where the balance between freedom and security is shaky at best. It is understandable that video surveillance is used in our nation's efforts to protect our borders. But in our digital age, surveillance is pervasive. In most public spaces it is no longer possible to avoid the security camera's eye. Our images are captured and stored without our explicit knowledge. We do not know the identities or the intentions of those who view us, or our information, remotely. <<

Read the full post on her blog and watch her own surveillance video of the show on vimeo.

Ultra-small is beautiful for Japanese homeowner - CNN News

2010-11-16T13:04:00.003-05:00

How about it? Could you imagine. Slim down your life to the essential in an urban setting?
Read the article at CCN.

Charlotte's appetitie for avant-garde jazz at Dialect Design is juiced up - Read the Article!

2010-11-14T20:19:00.006-05:00

From the Charlotte Observer's pages - an article by Courtney Devores last Friday:

>>Experimental avant-garde jazz isn't necessarily popular with mainstream audiences, but local musician Brent Bagwell (Great Architect, the Eastern Seaboard) says there's a market for it in Charlotte.
"There are probably 500 people in Charlotte that would like this (music) if I could reach them consistently," says Bagwell, who has booked fringe jazz and improv artists at The Milestone, Lunchbox Records and Century Vintage since moving to Charlotte from Brooklyn in 2004.

His latest venture is a monthly Modern Music series at NoDa's Dialect Design, which kicked off in October with Chicago Luzern Exchange, a collaboration between American and Swiss musicians. Trumpet and bassoon soloists Jacob Wick and Katherine Young will perform Wednesday. Japanese percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani ends the three-month series on Dec. 19. Great Architect will also perform at each event, and Bagwell hopes to book more shows there in 2011.

"I'm a hopeless optimist," says Bagwell, an S.C. native who studied English at the University of Georgia before turning to an intense, self-guided private musical instruction program and playing in bands while living in New York.

"It's unfamiliar music. It reflects things that are happening right now. Anyone I could coerce into coming to see a show, they're going to be into it when they leave. I was not so sure about things a few years ago. Now I feel like there is this influx of people in their early twenties... they know everything from the Internet," he says of young audiences that are as familiar with John Coltrane's later catalog as they are with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore.

"There is also the McColl fellowship art sorts who love it, too."

The NoDa art space's cork floors, exposed brick and intimate setting make it a great place to hear soloists like Nakatani, whose work he describes as "riveting." Of Wick he says, "I think he likes to do this solo thing as a test of his own mettle. I set him up with a house show. He wanted to play something super-intimate with 20 people. By the end of his set, everyone was paying attention - and that's some serious authority for someone in his early twenties to yield." <<

you can pick up the whole article at the observer

"A truly meaningful skill: Telling, listening to stories" - Kay McSpadden, The Charlotte Observer

2010-10-23T10:59:00.000-04:00

As we read in today's paper. Strangely seems like what we do at Dialect:

>>When I was a new mother, more than one person took me aside and warned me not to blink or my children would be grown.

It was true. Even though my sons were babies and toddlers forever - the nights of sleeplessness never-ending - I blinked one day and realized that they were both young men, out of college, older than I was when I married.

Every year at this time I remember that the same time warp happens at school - that my students will slip out of my life almost as soon as I get to know them.

On block schedule this is especially apparent. Now I see the same faces for 90 days before another group takes their place.

This week marked the end of the first grading quarter, something that caught me, as it always does, by surprise. In many ways my students and I are just now falling into a comfortable rhythm, although the comfort may be more mine than theirs.

Before one of the first unit tests, for instance, my English IV students looked askance at the checklist I handed out detailing what they needed to study.

"Is Chaucer going to be on the test?" Brianna asked, her face pinched in near-pain. I knew what she meant. We had gone carefully through the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, talking extensively about each of the characters, focusing on Chaucer's jaundiced attitude revealed through his sarcastic diction. We read every line - took copious notes - made out organizers and debated which characters were truly good and which much sketchier.

"That was so LONG!" Brianna said, her face still screwed up.

And then she did something so teenagerish that I laughed.

She smiled - a big, happy, toothy smile - lifted her eyebrows, and added, "But it was GOOD."

A few weeks later and those same struggling readers are in the middle of Macbeth. On my board we are keeping the Macdeath toll - that's right, Macdeath - the list of people who end up as lifeless bodies by the end of Act 5.

Shakespeare is harder to read than a modern translation of Chaucer, so I'm not sure if Brianna will pronounce it GOOD when we finish. At the end of Act Three, one student still wasn't quite sure who King Duncan (dead since Act Two) was.

We may be moving too quickly through the play. Perhaps less blinking is in order.

It's hard to slow down - ahead of me I see John Donne and Milton, Pepys and Samuel Johnson, Robbie Burns and William Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge and Keats and Shelley and Tennyson and Housman - not to mention the whole host of splendid modern and postmodern writers.

And underneath them all, the real reason we read - to untangle the messages of writers through the ages, all of them showing us, again and again, what it is to be human.

More than mere literacy, literature's human connection might be the most important thing our students learn in school. My students are amazed that the 14th century people described by Chaucer and Shakespeare's contemporaries 200 years later had the same strengths and weaknesses as people today.

Cultures change, they discover, but human nature stays the same.

Listen to what passes these days for public discourse and you might hear a different view - that differences define us. Illegal aliens, gays, people of different faiths - ignoring our common humanity is an abnegation of what literature teaches us.

"Tell your story," John Quincy Adams advises the mutinous slaves in Steven Spielberg's "Amistad." There's was a compelling one to tell, involving an unjust enslavement and a desperate attempt to return to Africa.

But until their story was told, they were numbers - 57 slaves at the mercy of the American judicial system. Their story turned them into humans - and the U.S. Supreme Court found the courage to let them go free.

As humans we need stories. That's how we make sense of the world and of each other. In this week's Newsweek, Doug Imbruce writes about his new Internet search engine, Qwiki, which purports to turn search results into "story, a quintessentially human way to experience information."

Instead of getting unrelated nuggets of information, Qwiki is supposed to be able to offer "a curated information experience," connecting pictures and interactive media into a voice-narrated story.

Those of us in education are constantly being told to prepare our students for 21st century skills - facility with technology being primary. But reminding them of the oldest skill of all - telling and listening to stories about other human beings - might not only help our students participate more meaningfully in the world now, but help them get ready to make sense of the world that will be here in the blink of an eye.<<

Guest columnist Kay McSpadden is a high school English teacher in York, S.C., and author of "Notes from a Classroom: Reflections on Teaching." Write her at kmcspadden@comporium.net.

Read the full article here:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/10/23/1780524/a-truly-meaningful-skill-telling.html

"Great Architect" presents Modern Music at Dialect

2010-10-15T15:26:00.007-04:00

This fall jazz innovators "Great Architect" are teaming up with dialect design to bring some of the best players of the national and international improvised music scene to Charlotte. In a series of three concerts, we are presenting musicians from New York, Chicago, Switzerland, and Japan. It is our hope that the intimate environment of the dialect space will provide an up-close chance to see these folks working out the sounds of the future.

We couldn't be more excited about the three nights of music we have lined up. These are some of the heaviest hitters on the scene. Now is the time to catch them at the height of their game(s).

Fri., 10/29
@ dialect design
3204-C N. Davidson
8pm
Chicago Luzern Exchange
...
Working on nearly five years of collaboration across an ocean, the four players in (the incredibly literally-named) Chicago Luzern Exchange are a pure force of improvisational communication. The three Chicago components - cornetist Josh Berman, reeds player Keefe Jackson, and drummer Frank Rosaly - first met Swiss tuba virtuoso Marc Unternahrer when a grant from the Swiss government provided a cultural exchange opportunity with Chicago's incredibly vibrant jazz scene. This band works the history of jazz - from the heyday of the '20s (cornet and tuba, after all!) to the outer fringes of modern composition - into their inimitable improvisations. It is no exaggeration to say that these individuals are among the finest living players of their instruments. When that personal skill is coupled with the communication they have developed through many tours of the US and Europe, the group is frighteningly taut and brimming with ideas.
http://chicagoluzernexchange.blogspot.com/
http://www.delmark.com/delmark.561.htm

Wed., 11/17
@ dialect design
3204-C N. Davidson
8pm
Jacob Wick - solo trumpet
Katherine Young - solo bassoon
...
Jacob Wick is part of Jason Ajemian's HighLife band (among several others) and has been to Charlotte several times, both with that group and twice to perform his solo trumpet pieces. Easily one of the most accomplished trumpet players working today, his solo work is technically jaw-dropping. Much more importantly, however, is the passion and purpose with which he conveys his ideas in this stark, demanding setting. His own remarkable endeavors include a trio collaboration with two Irish players that recently toured India, a Brooklyn-based group called Hungry Cowboy that utilizes graphic scores to explore the fictional world of Cormac McCarthy, and a powerful curatorial presence in NYC's New Music scene.
www.myspace.com/jacobwickmusic
www.jacobwick.info/
...
Katherine Young is a bassonist of incredible range. A Wesleyan graduate, she studied composition and improvisation with Anthony Braxton (who tapped her to be a member of his astonishing Falling River Quartet) and legendary American composer Alvin Lucier. She has been commissioned to write string quartets, plays in a number of NYC's best improvised music ensembles, and regularly contributes to a terrific pop band in Chicago....! Her duo with violist Amy Cimini, Architeuthis Walks on Land, is a masterful combination of sounds and ideas. Her solo bassoon work is nothing short of amazing.
http://katherineyoung.info/
http://katherineyoung.blogspot.com/
www.myspace.com/oneyoungbassoon

Sun., 12/19
@ dialect design
3204-C N. Davidson
8pm
Tatsuya Nakatani
...
One of the most engaging and inventive musicians out there, Tatsuya Nakatani creates a world of sound during his solo percussion performances. Drawing on jazz, traditional Japanese music, and even Johnny Cash, his work with bowed cymbals and unconventional percussion instruments is a marvel. His ceaseless touring and commitment to collaborate with musicians of every stripe from all over the globe make Tatsuya a one-man unifying force in the New Music and jazz scenes. Never less than completely enthralling, his solo performances leave every listener (literally!) ringing with possibility.
http://www.hhproduction.org/TATSUYA_NAKATANI_WORKS.html

All shows are donations-based. With a suggested donation of $5. Needless to say, this is a steal for music of this caliber!
Locals Great Architect will also play on each bill - often in different configurations and instrumentations....!
www.myspace.com/hellogreatarchitect

Openhouse at Schönberg Residence with art by Regine Bechtler, Andreas Bechtler, and jazz by Great Architect

2010-10-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

We enjoyed a great get-together at the Schönberg Residence, the modern addition we designed and built in Charlotte.

The home owners, Caroline and Matthias, invited us and a large crowd for a wonderful late summer evening. We toured folks through the modern home and received a lot of compliments and positive comments.

The most lasting words were from Andreas Bechtler, the Swiss art collector, who has worked with the world famous architect Mario Botta on Charlotte's new museum of modern art. He shared with us that our architecture was "most exquisite, even for European standards". This was after he studied all our details at length and discussed his Bechtler Museum by Botta and compared it with our work.

He showed his own personal art during the evening as well, but mostly his wife and artist Regine Bechtler with some breathtaking sculptures and paintings.

We were also happy to enjoy live jazz by Brent Bagwell and his drummer from Great Architect.

Take part in the wonderful evening trough the images below by Armando Bellmas.

Dialect Night - a discussion on TEDx and Censorship

2010-10-07T15:02:00.005-04:00

The summer is over, folks - "Dialect Night" is back on - Sept. 10, Antoine Williams & Kirsten Hemmy

2010-09-07T10:41:00.006-04:00

Come on out for great night with exceptional art from Antoine Williams and poetry by Kirsten Hemmy!

Take a Seat

2010-07-23T15:12:00.002-04:00

Thank you Judy for the tip. We love it!

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art - a field trip

2010-07-22T15:33:00.005-04:00

We had a chance today to stop by Charlotte's Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. A long overdue field trip to the city's premier and shiny new example of truly modern Architecture. It was a feast of modernity both in building and art. And it was a momentary experience of urban life. As much as we critiqued and questioned all we saw, we were thankful for Charlotte offering a glimpse of the great city it seems to be growing into; with public transportation, plazas, a bustling street life and tightly woven multi-functional common spaces. It was blissful.

We leave the critique of the art and architecture to both of our more eloquent friends Manoj Kesavan and Phillip Larrimore (see links below). However, we shall say that Mario Botta's design allowed us to marvel at architecture, art and the city all at the same time. It's openess and constant views to the urban surroundings was pleasant. As were the occasional interior views through the building itself that let us experience the structure throughout the visit.

As for the art, we were excited about the playful mingling of truly wonderful examples of modern art centered roughly around the middle of the 20th century. An unassuming arrangement that allowed us to see each piece freshly and with a presence you would see in Bechtler's own residence.

The art itself also inspired us to lengthy excursions into our own work and aspirations both in our architecture, as well as our Dialect Nights. We drew fresh energy and ideas out of an art that was often structural, sculptural, searching and experimental. The art certainly was touching in its energy and trust in skill.

Thank you Bechtler Museum for making us feel at home, both as citizens and modern architects in Charlotte.

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art
Charlotte Magazine - Manoj Kesavan

Charlotte Viewpoint - Phillip Larrimore

Charlotte Viewpoint - "Taste and See: Commentary on Local Visual Art"

2010-06-18T12:04:00.003-04:00

Phillip Larrimore wrote a wonderful piece on Charlotte's art scene in Charlotte Viewpoint and Dialect's Dialect Nights got to shine:

<< Recently and with a dawning sense of wonder it occurred to me that there were artists working here whose work I would find interesting if I saw them in New York or L.A. Because this is new work by artists who are even now evolving, it seemed best to write briefly about them, as a part of ongoing relationship to something new rather than embalm them in "expertise." My own basic criterion is fatally simple: I know something is good if I remember it, and I see great deal that I quickly forget. But I encourage you to look yourself, and moreover, to “taste and see.” * * *

Frequently, I don't know what I think about something until after I have “sat” with it, and this may be a matter of months, or even years. There is a pre-digested or miscellaneous abstraction that immediately induces boredom. This I know that I think about.

There is a realism that is merely paint-by-numbers rather than observed. Likewise, there is work that tries to rattle my bones, but they've already been rattled, and I don't care. But when a work puzzles, genuinely puzzles, then I know I have something to work with.

Barbara Schreiber’s work has plenty of this anomalous something. Her paintings are almost tiny, and done in seemingly guileless illustrational technique remindful—to me, at least—of Francophone colonial children's book illustrations from the pre-WWII colonial period, of Tintin or Babar. Her earlier work was captioned with phrases that seemed dropped from some missing haiku, compounding the puzzle. Her latest series, the Boarding series, are views from the oval-esque window of an airplane, and depict a sequence of pilots, stewardesses, passenger… and locusts… seen on the boarding ramp.

There is something of the between-destinations quality of a Hopper train-passenger painting to them, something of the sleepy, half-aware state a passenger feels watching the lives which one will never know except by fragment and deduction en route to their destinations. But how does she manage to make these images feel like a CAT scan or microscopic cross-section of a narrative that may be reconstructed? The strength of the work lies in this sense of narration which is partially available, partially cancelled, and reminds me of certain writers, really, rather than painters—Yasunari Kawabata's Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, which hang narrative fragments out to dry, or the water-colors described by Georges Perec in Life: A User’s Manual, which are sent from foreign places to be turned into jig-saw puzzles and then boxed, mailed, and then destroyed on arrival at their final destination. At any rate, this moment of puzzlement proves to be as durable as an epiphany.

By fluke I got to see three different shows by Diana Arvanites in rapid succession, the first at a studio she was closing, the second as an installation at Dialect Design, the third at McColl Center, where she is now in residence. The studio show featured modular abstractions, generally consisting of two larger rectangular panels and a third narrower one. These use a cunning array of tromp l'oeil textures in which, for example, sponging turns into drawing or collage—in a variety of minty greens, subtle aquas, cool pre-dawn pinks, or residual sunset apricots along with a few caustic citrines. (I haven't figured out WHY these panels can be re-configured and will interface, but they do.) >>

Read the full article here.

McColl Center 7 to show for a Dialect Night! - Tonight June 11

2010-06-11T10:53:00.003-04:00

TED Talks - Thelma Golden: How art gives shape to cultural change

2010-05-20T13:05:00.005-04:00

This did give us renewed sense of purpose in or efforts with Dialect Nights. It also assured us that, yes, the art that we are experiencing in Charlotte and that we help to foster is essential in our understanding in architecture and our work.

>> See TED Talks for this talk and others <<

NYTimes: Architects at Play, Dangling Medals

2010-05-19T21:16:00.005-04:00

From The New York Times:

>> Architecture's luminaries gathered at Ellis Island to bestow their version of the Nobel, the Tony, the Oscar.

THE veterans debated over which was more memorable: the Versailles dinner, with fountains and all, for Tadao Ando, or the gilded reception for architecture's queen bee,Zaha Hadid, in St. Petersburg.Rem Koolhaas had his shining moment beneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, while the Clintons brought out the White House welcome mat for Renzo Piano in that heady, pre-dot-com-bust year of 1998.

But guests heading to the ceremony and dinner that awarded this year's Pritzker Prize— often called the Nobel of architecture —to Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of the Japanese firm Sanaa were greeted by an altogether different sign of the times: a line leading to airport-like security.

On May 17, for the first time since 1983, when I. M. Pei was bestowed the honor at the Temple of Dendur at theMetropolitan Museum of Art, the Pritzker Prize ceremony took place in New York: specifically, on Ellis Island. And for the huddled masses yearning to partake in architecture's biggest night of the year, head lice exams gave way to X-ray scanners, as design titans, masters of the universe and assorted well-coiffed others awkwardly deposited their Constructivist jewelry and Ferragamo belts in plastic bins on conveyors.

"I wonder, just how much metal is Sejima wearing?" Anthony Vidler, the architecture dean at the Cooper Union, said jokingly about the night's co-honoree as he waited patiently for the boat to depart for the island.

Still, with buckles readjusted and bangles back on wrists, any inconveniences were soon forgotten as the evening took on a lightness befitting Sanaa's sublimely elegant buildings: the see-through Glass Pavilionfor the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio; the undulating slice of Swiss cheese that is the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne; the mesh-clad New Museum on the Bowery.

"Sanaa did my store on Crosby Street," said the fashion designer Derek Lam, sipping red wine as a string quartet played. "That's why we're here to celebrate them."

Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann, Mr. Lam's partner and the company's C.E.O., said, "Actually, Sejima was our first customer when we started the business."

"She got a black double-breasted trench coat," Mr. Lam said.

"It was more like a Bordeaux red."

"No, it was definitely black."

For her part, Ms. Sejima, who is doing double duty this year as director of the Venice Architecture Biennale, was standing with Mr. Nishizawa near the Peopling of America exhibition. A petite woman, she was coddled within the voluminous, definitely black, ruffle-dappled dress that the Comme des Garçons designerRei Kawakubo had made for her.

"I am very pleased to be here," Ms. Sejima said before flashing a warm smile and being whisked away for a cigarette break.

Founded by the late Jay Pritzker and his wife, Cindy, of the Hyatt hotel fortune, the Pritzker Prize was started in 1979; Philip Johnson was its first recipient. It has become architecture's most prestigious honor, its adjectival use signaling the subject's place in the pantheon of living architects.

In the first century B.C., Vitruvius assigned to great buildings the three attributes of firmitas, utilitas, venustas: firmness, commodity, delight. Pritzker winners receive a bronze medal inscribed with that motto and translation, and $100,000.

But perhaps it's the canonization of the Architectus Celebritatus, that exotic species also known as the starchitect — a crossbreed between temperamental artist and brilliant problem-solver, idealistic do-gooder and opportunistic megalomaniac, starchy geek and shameless glamour puss — that is the prize's most enduring legacy.

There, in one corner, were the lanky Thom Mayne (Pritzker, '05) and Renzo Piano ('98), grazing not far from Christian de Portzamparc ('94) and the silver-haired Richard Meier('84). Though not a Pritzker winner, Rafael Vinoly appeared, as he usually does, as the eight-eyed savant wearing three pairs of spectacles: on the nose, around the neck and propped on his head, all at the same time. <<

read the entire article here:

http://nyti.ms/cHmnJz

The Charlotte Observer today - "To keep busy, many contractors turn to renovations"

2010-05-11T15:00:00.004-04:00

We stumbled over this article by Kerry Singe in the Charlotte Obsever today:

>> Two years ago, interior designer Irene Suchoza spent most of her time working on the insides of new, multimillion-dollar buildings.
Today, the associate at Gantt Huberman Architects is helping clients rethink existing structures, figuring out how to give old buildings new life and do so on a tight budget.
As demand for new commercial building projects has dried up, more contractors, designers and architects are finding themselves chasing smaller jobs that they might have once been too busy to do.
In March 2008, about a third of commercial building permits issued that month in Mecklenburg County were for renovations. In March, renovations and upfits accounted for more than 60 percent of permits issued. An upfit is work done to an existing space to fit a tenant's needs.
The total number of commercial building permits granted has plummeted since peaking in 2008. The Queen City was once dotted with construction cranes as firms, particularly banks, expanded. The growing demand, combined with easy capital, fueled a building spree. Then the recession hit, banks cut their spending and developers abandoned projects.
To survive the doldrums, construction companies are wooing firms that are either downsizing or adding employees but staying in their existing space.
Some building owners are taking advantage of relatively low labor and material costs to make their buildings more energy efficient. Other clients simply don't have the money to build as big as once planned but want to make changes.
"Upfits is definitely one of the big names of the game right now," said Dave Simpson, N.C. building director for Carolinas AGC, a contractors' trade group. "People in the construction industry are interested in doing any kind of construction, whether it be new buildings, old buildings, upfits, downfits, you name it. They're extremely hungry right now."
Getting more for their money
Johnson C. Smith University had planned to build a new student union building. Then the recession hit, and the university couldn't afford a $15 million center, said Gerald Hector, the university's vice president for business and finance.
So, the university reached out to its architect, Gantt Huberman Architects, to see what could be done to update the existing center, with its confining offices and stark blue and gold color scheme.
The firm spent 10 months redesigning three floors. Ultimately, the university spent around $1.5 million on changes that included updating the cafeteria flooring and ceiling, modernizing the color scheme and creating a contemporary glass partition that doubles as art.
Recyclable carpet and new lighting fixtures were installed in the upstairs lounge, along with a flat-screen TV and surround sound. The bottom floor, known as the bullpen, was opened up and modernized to create a more friendly gathering place.
When the renovated space was shown to alumni at homecoming last year, they were "blown away," Hector said. Besides making students happier, Hector said, the space could encourage alumni to donate more money.
"We could not afford to go out and borrow or pay for a new building out of whole cloth, but we had to do something," Hector said. "Sitting back was not an option for us. We were able to get a lot for a lot less money."
The senior designer on the project, Suchoza said she and her colleagues were able to negotiate with manufacturers who shaved as much as 10 percent off prices. She found a manufacturer, for example, willing to offer "rock bottom" prices on environmentally sustainable linoleum, keeping with the university's interest in using "green" building materials.
She said she's looking forward to designing a new student center when the university is ready. But it was nice to see fast results. She estimates it would have taken up to three years to design and build a new student center.
"It's really nice to have immediate gratification," she said.
A different type of work
Because renovations and upfits are typically quicker to complete and cost less than new construction, companies rely on a steady supply of the smaller jobs.
Of the $172 million worth of building permits issued in March, renovations accounted for $55 million.
"It's why architects are struggling these days," said architect Harvey Gantt, a former Charlotte mayor. "You have to do a lot of them."
RT Dooley Construction Co. is doing a large number of renovations in uptown, benefiting from the center city's oversupply of new office space.
Office vacancy rates have risen to recent highs - hitting 8.8 percent last year, up from 2.5 percent the year before - as an expected 3 million square feet of new space comes on the market. Tenants have been able to negotiate cheaper leases and upgrade existing space. Or they're moving to newer buildings.
"It's steady work," CEO David Dooley said of tenant upfits. His firm has been busy preparing the 48-story Duke Energy Center for occupants. "I think over the next five years, you'll see a pretty active market."
Interiors work requires different thinking and customer skills than new construction, said Dooley, whose firm was acquired last year by Balfour Beatty Construction U.S. Renovations are sometimes done at night or weekends. Employees may work in occupied spaces.
"You've got to be very detail-oriented," Dooley said, "and you've got to over communicate because you've got people working around you." <<

Read the whole article in the Charlotte Observer

The Charlotte Observer - "A cabinet of curiosities and one-person shows"

2010-04-23T15:50:00.006-04:00

This is what Linda Brown wrote in the Charlotte Observer about our current show:

"At Dialect, which functions as an architectural studio in NoDa by day, a multimedia art exhibit, Instructions for Displacements combines fiction, photography, sculpture, and sound design. Themes include "Lost children, found trash, dirt-encrusted manuscripts, secret chambers, and hypnotic soundscapes."

A free-form wall piece by Diana Arvanites, "Mister Pastor's Wall of Curiosities," constructed of string and found objects, includes a real-life cassette tape. This obsolete artifact swings indolently above a dangling plastic Batman figure. Nearby, limbs of chubby china dolls, a bottle opener, tiny vertebrae, a cicada shell, red wax lips, various knobs, spools and buttons, and a couple of 19th century silhouettes are suspended by thread.

In some ways, Arvanites' installations revisit 19th-century "cabinets of curiosities," such as the collections by the natural scientist Albertus Seba. But whereas Seba focused on things rare and marvelous, Arvanites highlights the commonplace laced with post-modern irony.

Across town on the edge of South End, Joie Lassiter has provided Barbara Schreiber and Peggy Rivers with the discrete spaces needed to showcase their very different art."

Read the full article here >>

The Battle of Algier - This Sunday in NoDa

2010-04-23T15:39:00.004-04:00

Or in Jeff Jackson's won words:

"I wanted to let you know that I’m resurrecting the NODA Film Festival name to show THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS next Sunday at 4 pm at the Neighborhood Theater. It’s a one-off screening with the Light Factory and God City.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS is both a thought-provoking political film and a gripping action thriller. It’s not well known because it was suppressed in the years after its release. It was initially nominated for 3 Academy Awards. The Pentagon made it required viewing for their staff before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It’s still timely and entertaining and something that needs to be seen on the big screen.

As always, this is a super-grassroots initiative"

Dialect Meditates w/ John W. Love Jr.

2010-04-19T13:09:00.005-04:00

Dialect Meditates with John W. Love Jr. on Tuesdays. Here in our studio gallery. Read his last invitation. If you like to join, call him. Or go to our webinfo on the meditations. Or send him and email (love@johnwlovejr.com)!

TUESDAY! - Dialect Design

A SIMPLE YES

Make it as simple as possible.
Breathe yourself into yes...and enjoy.

Breathe. Enjoy. Breathe. Allow. Breathe. Flow. Breathe. Vibrate. Breathe.

To CONFIRM attendance:
EMAIL me by 10AM TUESDAY
CALL OR TEXT by 12 NOON TUESDAY
If I don't hear from anyone, the evening's session will be canceled.
If I do hear from you, you know the time and place...

6:30p

Dialect Design

3204-C North Davidson Street
Charlotte, NC 28205
[Upstairs and to the left! New Tuesday location!]

$15 or WHATEVER YOU'RE MOVED TO DO donation/love offering

Bring a cushion, blanket, or pillow if you'd like the floor.
We also have chair options!

If you're interested in private sessions or group sessions on other days, speak it!

L
704 807 1110

Symphony Guild Designer House Charlotte 2010

2010-04-17T10:05:00.021-04:00

Yesterday was the big opening of the Symphony Guild Designer House in Charlotte. It is a gigantic fundraising effort for the Charlotte Symphony. This year local interior designers got to spruce up several Condos at the Metropolitan in Charlotte. Their work can be visited for the following weeks for an entry fee that benefits the effort.

The most modern piece was given to Monika Nessbach of Designbar and Sarah Rees Hamilton, a master suite, with bedroom, closets, and bathroom.

(This image is from a Charlotte Observer's web page. It shows the bedroom and the head board over the bed.)

(This image is also from the Charlotte Observer web page. It shows Sarah's amazing shoes in the redesigned closet spaces and the bathroom beyond)

They approached us to help them out with the head board for the bed and the tile work and mirrors in the bathroom. We went to work and started with blowing the heard board apart. We redesigned the whole thing into a multi-layerd, rambling set of boxes. They are partly usable with touch-to-push-open cabinets, shelves, ledges and hidden cubicles, and partly decorative elements.
We called up our cabinet guru Kevin Gavagan of Q Fine Cabinetry, who took the beast over and finished it brilliantly. He gave his talent and skills for free, as did Sam and Madalin Urs of Quality Floorz. Those two guys, our hardwood flooring and tile specialists, finished out the bathroom, a gorgeous mosaic tile work (we'll post images later [see more images at our architizer site]).

It all turned our beautifully. Both Monika and Sarah loved our work, and last night, the grant opening, was a total success.

(Here you can see the head board in progress in Kevin's shop)

(This is our sketch, from which we worked with everybody involved)

(And here is our own Jahan, Kevin, and Monika, looking over her plans, discussing the first steps.)

Please come out the Metropolitan an view the work. The opening times are:
April 17 to May 9th 2010
Wed -Sat 10:00a - 8:00p
Su 1:00p - 6:00p
1225 Baxter Street, Charlotte

Our contacts:
Moniks Nessbach - Designbar 704.488.5389
Sarah Rees Hamilton - Sarah Rees Hamilton, Inc 704.451.4103
Kevin Gavagan - Q Fine Cabinetry Inc. 704.277.6733
Sam and Madalin Urs - Quality Floorz Co. 704.905.1281

and of course yours truely:
DIALECT 704.763.0506 , 704.488.6811

"Instructions for Displacements" - Jeff Jackson, Armando Bellmas, Diana Arvanites, Ross Wilbanks

2010-04-06T14:54:00.004-04:00

See you this Friday, April 9th, for another gorgeous Dialect Night ....mmmmhh, delicious!

Bring a bottle of wine or your favorite Tea. This one is going to be off the hook. You are going to walk away loving your self, loving life, all over.

This Friday: Dialect Night with Phillip Larrimore!

2010-03-11T07:32:00.001-05:00

Modern Charlotte Realty

2010-03-03T11:26:00.004-05:00

We met with Gail Jodon of "Modern Charlotte Realty", a great resource for mid-century modern real estate in the Charlotte Metropolitan area. Gail also is running a wonderful blog on all things modern in Charlotte on her website at: http://moderncharlotte.com .
She has dug up absolutely stunning architecture in Charlotte. We posted a few pictures of one her houses from her website. She has a great eye for materials, spaces and artful qualities. Of course, she flattered us with mentioning us in her blog recently. How not to like her taste?!
If you are looking for a mid century modern house in Charlotte, NC, cal her up.

New Studio Space available in NoDa!

2010-02-25T11:30:00.006-05:00

We have added on to our studio/gallery and are now offering studio spaces for artist or folks who need a small office space in a creative environment.
Come by and take a look!

Forum explores Charlotte's solar power future

2010-02-25T09:42:00.002-05:00

Today's Charlotte Observer got our hopes up on the development of solar power:

>> A rapt audience heard a new way Wednesday to boost renewable energy in the Charlotte region: Follow the example of Gainesville, Fla.

Gainesville became the first U.S. city to adopt "feed-in" rates to boost solar power. Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan described how it works at a forum hosted by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

The city contracts to buy solar power from local generators at guaranteed rates. The rates are initially high to encourage solar development and subsidized by electric customers, adding about 70 cents a month to residential bills.

In return, the city expects to steadily increase its use of a free, nonpolluting resource. The program's first nine months saw new solar capacity nearly double that of the previous 28 years. The rates it pays solar generators should fall over time as costs drop. ... <<

Read the full article here:
Forum explores Charlotte's solar power future

Symphony Guild Designer House in Charlotte

2010-02-18T16:08:00.004-05:00

We met today with "Designbar" to help out in there effort to redo a condo at the Metropolitan for the Symphony Guild Designer house in Charlotte. They orderd lime green Barcelona Chairs - Hot, Baby!

Above you see our own magician Jahan, our cabinet maker Kevin, and Monika from Designbar.

Friday 12th - Dialect Night! - Don't miss it!

2010-02-10T13:42:00.003-05:00

This time we are going to push your button! Guarantied! So, dress warm, buckle up, and get ready for some crazy mojo!

Architectural Record - "Residential Showcase"

2010-01-11T13:46:00.004-05:00

Architectural Record is featuring an image of one of our modern houses online! All right!

Examiner.com - "Charlotte painters Osiris Rain and Joshua Gage exhibit at Dialect Design "

2010-01-11T11:50:00.004-05:00

This came out with the opening of the show, at Examiner.com:

This month, Dialect Design presents Charlotte painters Osiris Rain and Joshua Gage in their loft space in the historic NoDa neighborhood. A Charlotte native, Rain has studied under several notable artists, including Odd Nerdrum in Norway, Michael John Angel at the Academy of Art in Florence Italy, John Seibels Walker, Steven Assael, and Jacob Collins. An avid traveler and adventurer, one senses this broad exposure to the world in his handling of imagery. Rain's works in the show are new explorations, largely comprised of figurative works in which he infuses unusual light and color into his classically based imagery. The painting depicting a woman holding a canary in a coal mine is particularly striking. His small still life, entitled Bachelor, draws the viewer in with a strong composition, and arrangement of objects of alcohol, cigarettes, and the like.Capturing urban scenes with a bit of grit, Joshua Gage transforms often overlooked places into compelling works of art. Highlights include the old rusty Coffee Cup sign and a train stretching into the distance in font of the Charlotte skyline. Both works are successful in evoking nostalgia. Known for his mastery of trompe l' oeil, Joshua incorporates this proficiency into his slightly decayed subjects. Gage's family is full of artists; his Great Grandfather was a faux finisher in the 1800's. He hails from Wisconsin but has been happy to live and exhibit his work in Charlotte.
Dialect Design's loft is inviting. Situated on the second floor of the historic Louder building, the exposed brick and beams showcase the artwork well. Dialect is a design build firm with a focus on modern and European design. Partners Toby Witte and Jahan Nourbakhsh are filling a void in Charlotte's cultural landscape in hosting these exhibits and art talks. The pair do not take a commission on sales but rather exchange a tiny work from the artist. The focus is put squarely on the art and ideas at hand. Stop by for a glass of wine and mingle; there is always sure to be a friendly, smart, and thought provoking crowd present.
OPENING RECEPTION AND PUBLIC ARTIST’S TALK: Friday January 8th, 6 pm, 3204-C N Davidson St.
EXHIBITION: January 8th – February 7th
To learn more about this event and for more information about Dialect please visit www.dialectdesign.com

Dialect Night Tonight! - see you then

2010-01-08T08:50:00.000-05:00

A quick sketch animation of our P.1 house

2010-01-05T20:00:00.003-05:00

And also from the Charlotte Observer's front Page: "Utilities start soaking up sun"

2010-01-03T11:00:00.004-05:00

And another piece of interest for us in the Charlotte Observer this morning - go Charlotte!:
"Thousands of panels are soaking up the winter sunshine as Duke Energy launches its solar rooftops program under North Carolina's new green energy law.
For the first time, in a small but significant step, Duke and Raleigh-based Progress Energy will have to make a smidgen of their electricity this year from the sun.
Energy from other renewable fuels, such as wind, wood wastes and chicken manure, will join the mix in two years. Renewables have to account for 12.5 percent of utility retail sales by 2021.
Renewable-energy mandates like North Carolina's, the first in the Southeast and one of 29 nationwide, won't save consumers money. Duke will add 16 cents a month to residential customers' bills to cover its costs.
Advocates say their value is in prodding utilities and smaller operators to invest in power that pollutes less than the coal that fuels much of the state, leaves no radioactive waste and taps free energy.
Large-scale solar is making its debut across the Piedmont.
Duke's panels are going up atop a Childress Klein Properties industrial building in Charlotte, National Gypsum's wallboard plant in Mount Holly, a Food Lion distribution center in Salisbury and an industrial building in Greensboro. All will be online by April.
Duke will announce more commercial, industrial and residential rooftop sites as the year unfolds. The $50 million program will make 8 megawatts of solar power, enough to supply about 1,300 homes.
Construction is also under way on one of the nation's biggest solar farms, a land-based installation in Davidson County, 50 miles northeast of Charlotte.
Its owner, Maryland-based SunEdison, will sell Duke the 16-megawatt output. The first phase went online Christmas week. SunEdison is also under contract with Progress Energy for a smaller solar farm in Wilmington.
Large-scale solar power hasn't previously gotten traction in the Carolinas, despite abundant sunshine, because it's expensive to produce and operates only about 20 percent of the time.
Solar produced less than 1 percent of the nation's electricity this year and has grown little since the 1990s, the Energy Information Administration says. Wind power, by contrast, produced about 2 percent of U.S. energy but has nearly doubled since 2007.
Duke warms to technology
Duke probably would not be heavily investing in N.C. solar without the green energy mandate, said renewable energy chief Owen Smith. But the company is warming to the technology.
"Solar is probably the piece of the renewables requirements that we feel like we have the best handle on," Smith said. "We've received (more than 65) solar proposals from various developers, and costs over the last 12 months have declined."
Companies that generate solar power also are growing innovative, he added, in how they site projects and take advantages of tax credits and stimulus money.
Duke can reap federal tax credits for 30 percent of its investment. North Carolina awards tax credits worth 35 percent of the investment and excuses property taxes on 80 percent of the property's value.
Steve Kalland, director of the N.C. Solar Center, said the marketing clout and public profile of the nation's third-largest utility will give solar power new credibility.
"There's also the concept that a rising tide lifts all ships," he said of the effect on smaller solar companies.
Companies host solar arrays
Duke expects to have no problem hitting this year's solar-power target of about 9 megawatts.
In addition to its rooftops program and SunEdison agreement, Duke will buy credits - proxies for solar power - from two Asheville-area firms, FLS Energy and Vanir Energy. It also plans to buy solar credits out of the state.
Power tools whirred last week as workers labored under a cold, gray sky to install 2,314 solar panels on a Childress Klein Properties building on Reames Road.
As it did with the three other sites announced so far, Duke leases the rooftop and owns the solar array. Its 532 kilowatts won't power the building, instead connecting directly to the electrical grid.
Childress Klein, a real estate company, hasn't invested directly in solar power because it would take years to recoup the money. But the firm proposed three buildings for Duke's rooftops program to help avoid the need to build more power plants.
"We just decided it would be a good way to get our toe in the water," said Chris Daly, a partner in the company's industrial division.
The sites were picked because of their ready access to the grid and potential for making solar power. Apart from modest leasing fees, the companies who agreed to host the solar arrays say they will benefit from solar power's green aura.
Food Lion, which prides itself on energy efficiency, volunteered as a low-cost way to explore energy alternatives. Among them is whether the supermarket chain could expand use of solar power in its 1,300 stores.
National Gypsum's 400,000-square-foot plant makes recycled-content wallboard from gypsum, a byproduct of pollution controls at Duke's power plants. The solar panels on the roof, said spokeswoman Nancy Spurlock, "just add to the fact that it is a green process. >>"

From the Charlotte Observer: "Bechtler evokes feel of New York in Charlotte - 20th-century modern art museum is a first for the Southeast."

2010-01-03T10:54:00.004-05:00

From the front page of the Charlotte Observer this morning:
"With a splash of color, whimsy and fun, the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art opened Saturday - moving Charlotte into a new artistic league.
More than 5,000 visitors from across the Carolinas filled the four floors of the building, waiting in lines that spilled out of the lobby and into the adjoining Knight Theater.
"Cool," said 5-year-old Whit Wright of Charlotte, grinning as he danced around a rhythmically rocking sculpture by Jean Tinguely.
"Sexual," said Charlottean Tyler Lee, 30, gesturing toward a maze of abstract body parts woven into a Picasso tapestry.
"Amazing," said art history student Catherine Holt, 25, of Charlotte, who for years has heard teachers preach the importance of seeing art in person. On Saturday, she saw her first Edgar Degas original and said she knows now how right they were.
After a chilly ribbon-cutting outside around noon, visitors got in free to the Southeast's only museum dedicated to 20th-century modern art.
Many of the 116 pieces on display - drawn from a collection of more than 1,400 donated to the city by Swiss-born Charlotte resident Andreas Bechtler - have never been exhibited publicly in the United States.
The striking terra cotta building - one of only two in this country designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta - is as much a work of art as the pieces inside.
The building was financed by the city and county and built by Wachovia/Wells Fargo for $17million, with Andreas Bechtler contributing $3 million to construction costs.
The museum is part of the South Tryon Street cultural campus, which also includes the Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, the Knight Theater and the new Mint Museum Uptown, which will open this fall.
At the Bechtler opening, a mix of visitors - families, bohemian types, women in trendy scarves and teens in fleece jackets - seemed equally delighted with the museum.
"I feel like I'm in New York," said Charlottean Fielding Williams, 43.
"I haven't seen such a collection since I was in some European museums," said Mary Kendrick, 41, of Charlotte, who brought her two young sons to the opening.
Four-year-old Ian Kendrick thought the Picasso tapestry looked "kind of Chinese." His 8-year-old brother, Nathan, noticed how much a wooden Max Ernst sculpture looked like "a laundry rack."
Dan Prickett, former chairman of Charlotte's Arts & Science Council board now living in Charleston, made the trip to town just for the opening.
"This is going to draw people into the city in large numbers," he said. "Rarely do you see in one place in America - outside of New York - a collection of this caliber."
In the fourth-floor main gallery, Charlottean Paulette Henry, 48, looked at a framed painter's towel, complete with paint smudges and ragged holes. On the back, it's inscribed to the Bechtler family by artist Joan Miró.
"Different," Henry said with a bemused expression.
"You'd be surprised what can make art these days," said her stepdaughter, Christina Forbes, 19, of Raleigh.
But Emily Lorance, 28, of Belmont, enjoyed the "playfulness" of the same towel. "It's not often you go to a museum and find such personalized messages," she said.
Architect Botta spoke at the ribbon-cutting and drew impromptu building sketches afterward for visitors, including Mecklenburg County Commissioners Chair Jennifer Roberts.
Through an interpreter, he said he "tried to create a little treasure chest within the city" with the Bechtler building.
Judging by Saturday's reaction from the public, the building and its art have managed to do just that. >>"

Happy Holidays You All: "http://gapingvoid.com/2009/12/24/our-time-together"

2009-12-25T10:41:00.000-05:00

Just Gorgeous

2009-12-16T13:46:00.005-05:00

This gorgeous small abode comes to us from "Trendir - modern house designs":

A tiny treasure in the Australian outback, this cool, tiny house design by Australia architects Casey Brown Architecture brings a bit of the unexpected into its natural surroundings. This prefab cottage measures only 10 by 10 ft., clad in copper with a glass-enclosed lower level revealed when the shades are drawn. This rustic house style boasts a simple cube shape with unadorned, unpretentious interiors with a relaxed, casual country-chic character. But there’s more to this countryside home than meets the eye. An eco sustainable home design, this compact house incorporates passive heating and cooling technologies, and a water-harvesting system for some keen “green” appeal.

To read the whole article go to: Trendir

Get ready for this Friday's Dialect Night

2009-12-07T14:32:00.004-05:00

Dialect Art Night is for Charlotte's local artists to shine. All proceeds go them, a hundred percent.

Plastolux' Pick of the Day

2009-12-07T12:59:00.004-05:00

Plastolux shared this modern house with us:

"I love this home by Stockholm based Widjedal Racki Bergerhoff. WRB is focused on smaller thoroughly designed private houses. The Casa Barone project is stunning with all the black, white and minimal space. Oh and I love how this home sits into the hillside. More after the jump."

http://plastolux.com/modern-minimal-black-and-white-wrb.html

"A vivid fresh look at hip hop" - Charlotte Observer

2009-11-29T16:51:00.003-05:00

We opened the Charlotte Observer on a story about two of our artists today. Antoine still has his art up at our gallery space for another week.

A vivid, fresh take on hip-hop

>>Ask UNC Charlotte grad Antoine Williams to describe the influence of hip-hop music in American culture, and the 29-year-old can show you his paintings.

They're large, colorful and rife with political and social symbolism. The paintings also open a door on the often enigmatic urban youth point of view.

Williams also points to works by 10 colleagues, all members of the art group God City, artists who find creative inspiration in hip-hop music.

Their works, some of which are featured in an exhibit at UNCC through Dec. 19, acknowledge feelings of being powerful, powerless, conflicted, disconnected or plugged in.

The 15 works in God City's "Indie-Visual" exhibit certainly are not mainstream art, sometimes portraying comic book and movie-character figures and employing graffiti-style art techniques.

But the collection defies prevalent images of hip-hop culture, which often gets recognition for preoccupation with money, profane lyrics and unflattering portrayals of women.

That's why the exhibit is important, Williams said. These artists argue that today's hip-hop music and the international youth culture that sustains it are multidimensional and not easily categorized.

Within the culture, there are mainstream, alternative and underground movements, each with distinctive art and music. God City represents a glimpse at one part of the whole.

"Art is a way to let people see different perspectives of the world," Williams said. "We want to show the creative and intelligent aspect of hip-hop. Those are things that our community does not often get to see."<<

TEDTalks (video) - John La Grou plugs smart power outlets - John La Grou (2009)

2009-11-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

Check out this episode of TEDTalks (video) at John La Grou plugs smart
power outlets - John La Grou (2009) - http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TEDTalks_video/~3/9bAuhgq71jw/566

Happy Birthday Elayne!!

2009-10-20T16:23:00.006-04:00

We helped a client of ours by preparing a drawing for a birthday gift. We enjoyed working on it. It shows an addition of porches and a pool that we are currently involved with.

White House pushes for weatherization of homes

2009-10-19T12:43:00.000-04:00

As we read it today in the Charlotte Obserber:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/business/story/1008267.html

WASHINGTON The White House will release a plan today that is intended to remove some of the obstacles that prevent middle-class Americans from getting energy audits and making their homes more energy-efficient.
America's nearly 130 million homes generate about 20 percent of the nation's emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal heat-trapping gas, says a report being released today by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Vice President Joe Biden's Middle Class Task Force. McClatchy obtained an early copy.
The plan would add jobs that couldn't be outsourced and would make it easier for families to save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Biden said.
Installing more insulation and more energy efficient doors, windows, lighting, water heaters, air conditioning and appliances can reduce energy use in a house by 40 percent, adding up to significant savings on utility bills.
The White House estimates weatherization also could lower greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 160 million metric tons annually by 2020.
But one of the biggest hurdles to greater energy efficiency is cost. Energy efficiency retrofits can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on how much work is needed. The new recommendations use existing federal funding and include ways to finance projects so homeowners will be more likely to undertake them.
The new program is intended to expand a national energy retrofit market beyond the $5billion weatherization program for low-income households in this year's economic stimulus package. A family of four that earns less than $44,100 a year, or $55,140 in Alaska and $50,720 in Hawaii, can qualify for the low-income program.
The report suggests three ways to make financing for efficiency improvements more attractive:
Add the cost of retrofits to a homeowner's property tax bill. If a house is sold, the buyer continues to pay for the improvements through the tax bill. The costs would be spread out over enough time so that the monthly payments generally would be lower than the savings on utility bills.
Make energy efficiency expenses part of the mortgage when a house is bought or refinanced. That program is already available, but the report said there have been "significant barriers" to widespread use. It suggests ways to overcome those barriers, such as making it easier to rate a house's energy performance.
Expand state revolving loan funds, which help consumers borrow money for weatherization at lower interest rates.
The report also recommends improving information about weatherization - for example, a label for houses with efficiency upgrades that's similar to the Energy Star label for new houses. The plan calls for national certification and training standards for workers making the improvements.
A new $454 million program from the Department of Energy will look for ways to retrofit residential and commercial buildings in entire neighborhoods or communities to take advantage of economies of scale that would lower individual costs.

stopping by a local acrylic manufacturer

2009-10-09T16:27:00.001-04:00

We are working out a few details on a modern house of ours with
acrylics. It is going to be gorgeous.

Dialect Night tonight with Felicia van Bork

2009-10-09T15:38:00.003-04:00

We will see you tonight. We are all cleaned up and looking spiffy. Felicia's work is amaaaaaazing.

stopping by our cabinet maker

2009-10-09T10:18:00.001-04:00

Drab Wardrobes at War

2009-09-23T14:36:00.006-04:00

We had a little fun designing a “coat closet” for a client of ours. It is actually using an exisitng built in unit, extending it, adding a few bells and whistles and finishing it up with the proper details and finishes.

How the world is going solar without us - Charlotte Observer

2009-09-17T09:18:00.001-04:00

Thomas Friedman's take on solar energy this morning in the Charlotte Observer:

"Applied Materials is one of the most important U.S. companies you've probably never heard of. It makes the machines that make the microchips that go inside your computer. The chip business, though, is volatile, so in 2004 Mike Splinter, Applied Materials' CEO, decided to add a new business line to take advantage of the company's nanotechnology capabilities – making the machines that make solar panels. The other day, Splinter gave me a tour of the company's Silicon Valley facility, culminating with a visit to its "war room," where Applied maintains a real-time global interaction with all 14 solar panel factories it has built around the world in the past two years.

Not a single one is in America.

Five are in Germany, four are in China, one is in Spain, one is in India, one is in Italy, one is in Taiwan and one is even in Abu Dhabi.

The reason all these other countries are building solar-panel industries today is because most of their governments have put in place the three perquisites for growing a renewable energy industry: 1) any business or homeowner can generate solar energy; 2) if they decide to do so, the power utility has to connect them to the grid; and 3) the utility has to buy the power for a predictable period at a price that is a no-brainer good deal for the family or business putting the solar panels on their rooftop.

That is what Germany put in place, and that explains why Germany now generates almost half the solar power in the world today and, as a byproduct, is making itself the world-center for solar research, engineering, manufacturing and installation. With more than 50,000 new jobs, the renewable energy industry in Germany is now second only to its auto industry."

Read the full article at the Charlotte Observer:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/336736.html

Dialect Night is back with "Hollywood Africans"

2009-09-09T16:53:00.004-04:00

John Hairston Jr. and Diangelo Dia are celebrating the life and times of Jean-Michel Basquiat this Friday night, September 11th, 6-8 p.m.

Home Sales Are Up

2009-07-28T07:45:00.000-04:00

From AP News:

WASHINGTON - New home sales rose last month at the fastest clip in
more than eight years as buyers eagerly took advantage of bargain
prices - a clear sign, economists said, that the real estate market
finally may be bouncing back.

Historically low interest rates and a federal tax credit for first-
time homeowners also helped push home sales to their highest level
since November, the Commerce Department reported Monday.

While home prices still are falling around the country, sales have
risen for three months in a row. Construction of new homes is at the
busiest level since fall. And home resales rose in June for the third
consecutive month.

"The worst of the housing recession," said David Resler, chief
economist at Nomura Securities, "is now behind us."

As with the overall economy, the "recovery" is likely to be slow and
arduous, he said.

Put in perspective, the sales improvement is modest. The pace of sales
for new homes in June still was 72 percent below the peak of four
summers ago, and there still is an enormous inventory of homes
lingering on the market.

"There's been signs of improvement, but we're a long ways off from
being back to a normal market," said Corey Barton, president of CBH
Homes in Meridian, Idaho.

Sales were up there in June, but Barton stressed, "It wasn't our
biggest jump in eight years."

But there were clear signs the housing market is showing more life
than at any point since the recession began. New home sales for June
clocked in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 384,000. The figure
is up 11 percent from May, and the increase is the largest since
December 2000. Sales were strongest in the Midwest, where they jumped
43 percent from May's total. AP

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=k6QMAEyt

Architectural Field Report from Hamburg Germany (3)

2009-07-07T09:56:00.003-04:00

Old and new are integrated in this city to a seamless whole. Old structures are being re-used, the new architecture and materials growing almost organically out of the existing buildings. I wondered if the re-building process in the bombed-out cities after the Second World War generated an acceptance of the new and the innovative. The need to create a great distance to an uncomfortable past might have also contributed to an ease towards new looks. The glamour of an architectural past did not need to be re-created. This would be most likely too simplistic a reason. But the look of this easy merge of new and old is also made wonderful to watch as it seems to be so ingrained and natural. New life growing out of the old; growing out of a similar DNA, but yet so vastly different.
As Germany’s history in general and Hamburg’s in particular is long, rich and varied, it is also lasting. Old structures are not necessarily torn down, neither. The abundance of brick piles, mostly in the shape of mercantile or manufacturing buildings, offers an interesting playground for new materials, construction methods and contemporary needs. These old brick buildings were modern and innovative once and meant for a specific use at its creation. The new use asks for its own architecture and makes use of the building customs available today.
The picture above might not be the most telling, but you get the idea. The city is nothing but made out of moments of cutting edge architecture dancing in step with the old charm of Hamburg. And it reads as if nobody thinks twice about it.

Architectural Field Report from Hamburg Germany (2)

2009-07-04T11:00:00.006-04:00

The detailing is amazing to what I am used to see in the States. This is a typical window unit for a residential multifamily building, somewhere in the medium range of pricing. The expectation in the quality of construction and materials is much higher here. I am sure the average cost of construction must be higher, because of it, I do not know though. I love to see it of course and am envious for the means available. The price fighting is here just the same, but the financial tightjackening seams, from an outside view, to be already in a higher range.

Architectural Field Report from Hamburg Germany (1)

2009-07-02T09:41:00.005-04:00

This place is off the hook. This is an image from the "Hafen City" project, a major revitalization project in an area of the harbor. Hamburg's sea port is the second largest in all of Europe and has a rich and long history to offer. This project is gigantic and is trying to create an urban landscape around an old port layout. Its goal is also to bring the varied and lively city closer to the river, yet. The finished areas of this "Hafen City" project is actually already full with people, unlike this image might suggest.

Climate bill may spur energy revolution

2009-06-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

AP News Analysis: Climate bill may spur energy revolution

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16048/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=QgsEfAIS

Let's hope this helps to create more smarter and better built houses.

50 Strange Buildings of the World

2009-06-26T09:18:00.002-04:00

Thank you Amy Forsyth to share this website with us. We indeed
smiled. There are some fun and amazing pieces of architecture among
these 50 buildings.
http://www.essential-architecture.com/MISC/MISC_50.htm

Rufina Wu and Stefan Canham on Hong Kong's Informal Rooftop Communities

2009-06-18T16:13:00.008-04:00

This is an amazing documentation on urban living in HongKong. Here are some pieces we found online:

"Self-built settlements on the roofs of high-rise buildings have been an integral part of Hong Kong´s history for over half a century. Rooftop structures range from basic shelters for the disadvantaged to intricate multi-storey constructions equipped with the amenities of modern life. Rufi na Wu (Canada) and Stefan Canham (Germany) utilize the tools of an architect and the tools of a photographer to document rooftop communities on five buildings located in older districts in the Kowloon Peninsula, slated for redevelopment by the Urban Renewal Authority of Hong Kong. Text records of the residents´stories, measured drawings of each distinct rooftop structure, and high-resolution images of the domestic interiors of more than twenty households off er an unprecedented insight into the everyday life on Hong Kong´s rooftops. An outstanding documentation, that won the 3rd prize at BAUHAUS AWARD 2008 "

http://www.25books.com/25_books_detail.php?book=2881&cat=&img=1&lang=en

" “You have to be careful. It is very dangerous up there. Those places are filled with thieves and drug addicts. It is easy for them to hide from the police on a rooftop – if you don’t know the place, you’d get lost for sure…”
No publicly accessible maps or guidebooks offer the specific locations of Hong Kong’s rooftop communities. The best way to find them is to walk through the city with your head tilted upward. We discovered a broad range of informal rooftop structures after climbing countless flights of stairs—more often than not, there are no elevators. In more affluent areas, the improvised structures are now used as storage sheds, or as living space extensions from the floor below. But it is the roofs of tenement buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s that are often transformed into affordable living space catering to low-income groups, particularly immigrants. Some of these intricate two- and three-story-high structures are equipped with amenities like high-speed Internet; others provide little more than basic shelter."

http://artforum.com.cn/angle/1701

NPR Mobile - Pondering Google, Facebook And Wasting Time

2009-06-03T09:48:00.000-04:00

info@dialectdesign.com thought you would be interested in this story at NPR: Pondering Google, Facebook And Wasting Time.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104841491&f=100&sc=13

All Things Considered, June 2, 2009 · When she was 10, my wife, Laura, belonged to a junior librarian club whose motto was, "We never guess; we look it up!" Bless their little hearts. Her club came up when I was complaining about the tons of e-mail I get asking questions people can look up. I thought about signing off with, "Don't ask me anything you can Google," which is kind of rude but necessary in these days of little time and too much communication.

If you ask me anything you can Google, then you force me to waste time being Google, just another appendage of an empire that's already stolen half my waking hours.

After some well-meaning fan put up a Facebook page for me, I signed up for it myself, and now I get messages on Facebook that I could have gotten just as easily in my regular e-mail, a time-wasting redundancy that also carries other time rip-offs with it.

My regular e-mail now tells me I have Facebook messages, forcing me to go to Facebook, which is slow on account of the jillion egos battling for verbal-audio-visual attention. And when I get there I find some cute thing that it's taken me years to ignore in real life, and I start wandering involuntarily among postings in the hope of something to get that sickly saccharine taste out of my mouth, and I find more cute -- a real sugarplum tree made by millions of bored people. After that honey bath, I'm ready to Twitter in rude Anglo-Saxon.

The new media's given me several new insights:

1. Most people have too much time on their hands;

2. Most people are passive receptacles for whatever goes by;

3. Most people are not bothered by redundancy -- they can do the same thing three or four times in a row without feeling defrauded; and

4. Most people want to be recognized for something, even if it's just dumb repetition.

Maybe there is an upside to this, something organic that's good for evolution, but I'm inclined to think that it's deliberate extortion by aliens.

Google me timbers!

The name alone is so cute, you can hardly go on for an hour without hearing or saying it.

Google. Google. Yo Google.

If Google ever takes off its mask, you might be surprised to find that it doesn't look cute at all, that it's more insect than human, like almost happened when it agreed to censor itself in China. I suspect, too, that this Google is just the first of many coming Googles, one cuter than another, each with more time-chomping jaws than the next.

I wonder where all this time we seem to have come from? Did the washing machine and the car really create such leisure time that we are giving it over to Google? Are the machines really working that well together?

I guess, but I just don't know. And this time I can't just look it up, oh junior librarians, 'cause there is no Google for this question.

Soalr Water Heating

2009-06-02T17:23:00.003-04:00

We are about to install a solar water heating system into a modern addition to a house, here in Charlotte, NC.
This system is going to heat the water for the entire house, the existing part included. Basically it comes down to two solar panels on the roof and a water tank with an electrical backup heating system. The water will be heated and kept hot to a temperature above your demand. So you can continue taking hot showers.
The solar heating system is going to supply the needed hot water at a range between 90-100% of your usage. That means that you will only very rarely be using the electrical backup heater.
Now, the exciting part comes in the cost. >>

Read the rest at our website's rss feed http://www.dialectdesign.com/rss_%20solar_water_heating.html !

Local Home Prices Rrise

2009-05-27T09:19:00.000-04:00

We saw this story and thought you may be interested:

Local home prices rise, best among 20 markets

There might be signs for a change. We are certainly ready for your plans on building that modern house, you were dreaming about. Visit us at http://www.dialectdesign.com !

Modern or Not

2009-05-25T22:57:00.002-04:00

We visited a house recently that was admittedly modern looking and was understood to be contemporary. We were quite underwhelmed and disappointed, however. We discussed afterwards at length all the details and issues that were so dissatisfactory.
But it took a couple days and an absent mind for one of us to blurt out that he would rather live in one of those refurbished mill houses looking as if they came straight out of a Pier1 Import magazine, or something, than in the house we visited. And that’s us talking, living and breathing a modern aesthetic. Well, then it took another few days and a different discussion for us to say that this made sense. Because, we do not subscribe to the modern design aesthetic as one would to a fad. The modern house we had visited was as void of life as any of the common sub-division houses that are around. No, what we love is something quite different. We yearn for the spatial and material qualities that a built environment can have. We are after the experience that a place can invigorate in you. It’s those rich textures of sensual moments that so make the fabric of the human experience, our everyday life. It happens to be that we find in the modern contemporary design language the means to follow these yearnings. They seem to give us the freedom of design we need. But the richness, the goal for which we strive is rooted into something felt much deeper. It is about spatial qualities, about juxtapositions of materials and forms. It is about memories and rituals. About pockets of pause, where life can take place.
We think as we will dive fully into our new services of offering modern house plans online, we will discover more of these moments. We are certainly looking forward to the ride. Visit us at dialectdesign.com !

Ikea and our Modern Design Sensibility

2009-05-22T14:39:00.006-04:00

Thanks Turk (http://www.turkakbay.com/blog) for this fun little Ikea spot. It's right on. By the way Turk is without doubt the best dog tainer in Charlotte, NC (http://www.sitmeanssitcharlotte.com/). He brings his students every now and then to the Smellycat Coffehouse, our favorite hang out - go figure. Dogs at Smellycat.

The plant hunter | CharlotteObserver.com

2009-05-19T18:24:00.001-04:00

There was a title page article about our "mushroom man" at the
Charlotte Observer today. Those are actual wild mushrooms for a
delicious dinner. Not what you might think. He has given us a whole
delicious bunch.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/732214.html

NYTimes: Starring in True-Crime Tale, an Unwitting Tenant

2009-05-16T12:37:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times:

Starring in True-Crime Tale, an Unwitting Tenant

By AL BAKER and MATHEW R. WARREN

Rumors of a $900,000 stash within his walls suddenly explained the odd events at a man's uptown apartment....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/nyregion/16inwood.html

What kind of ghosts are hidden in your home, we wonder. Maybe it's time for an all new super cool ultra modern house, an affordable contemporary home that you can have your own ghosts move in.

Original Design

2009-05-08T15:38:00.003-04:00

We spent some time with renowned writer, actor, force-of-live, performer John W. Love Jr. in our studio. He took us deep into the world of theater, including the dynamics between play write, producer, director, and actors.

Part of our discussion hovered around the origin of a specific piece of creative art; may it be a play or a beautiful well designed modern building. The parallel, of course became fascinating, as any modern house would have a designer, a builder and a developer and/or home owner.
In either case, play or architecture, all parties are involved bringing richness to the work at hand. They shape and are integral in the final full experience to be had.

With the play, however, we named the play write the originator of the piece. The play write conceives of a lived experience, to which all other participants bring their talent and skills. They bring it to life on a stage. There is an intent and an original thought, vision, questioning and creation that are all asked to be understood and developed to its full intended being.

Well, this morning we saw an article in the Charlotte Observer about the present state of architects in this city, emblematic we are sure, for the entire nation. The unfortunate aftertaste, reading the article, was that of a dis-connect of the architect from the art of their craft. The short pieces of interviews read as sad reactionary attitudes towards the direction given by the Developers or the Investors; the architect rendered voiceless as the mere technician, the executer of only monetary interests.

The play write, we are sure, often writes a play, without maybe a specific venue or production in mind. Even though the reverse happens, too. The architect, of course, is being called in when somebody with the finances says “go” first. But what then? Does that make the faceless number-driven developer the originator? Or is it still the artist, the play write, the designer? And we mean the art of a building, the true lived experience, the life it breathes.

There are creative developer-designer-builder teams or entities out there that might be all in one. And we enjoy working with creative minds and give great credit and much thanks to all of our friends who have brought challenging propositions to us. Once we get going, though, we tend to create a piece of art that wasn’t there before. We induce our own seedling into the process that grows into its own artistic experience, into a building that will give you goose bumps when you will finally enter it in person (good goose bumps, of course ;) ). In that sense we think of ourselves as the ones that create as artist the lived experience of a modern house. It is not that we don’t execute our clients’ wishes or needs and we also do not disregard economic parameters. But we take all the pieces, hundreds of them, and shape them into a true piece of art. We live through a creative process that dreams up, develops, and truly lives the experiences to be had in a specific built environment, a specific contemporary home. When we got to build it ourselves, we got to direct and act a little. And when we developed ourselves, we got to produce a little. But, we think of ourselves as play writes maybe first and foremost.

It occurred to us that offering our modern house plans online, makes us then truly the play write. The original design lies in our fingertips. We create these modern house plans as creative expressions as a result of our artistic needs.

The clarity in this realization meant for us that you are sure going to see designs coming up that are much more free in nature; designs born out of our expressive need maybe, more so than pragmatic needs. They will be buildable and they will be beautiful, and they might be for just the few of you, who want just that one special, crazy, cool modern house design that will make you live a life you always wanted and could never dream of.

In any case, though, it means for us that there is going to be much more fun yet to be had for us and for you.

To have this kind of art developed between you and us, please continue to enrich us with your valued comments, ideas and wishes at www.dialectdesign.com .

More Than One Cent

2009-05-06T09:56:00.000-04:00

Megan Deal is selling her life, one item at a time. The price? At
least one cent a piece.

http://www.goodbyewafflemaker.com

Getting Our New Modern House Ready For The Web

2009-04-29T16:15:00.006-04:00

We are getting our first "Pod" design ready for the web. We uploaded the floor plans on our Dialect Design page and will dazzle you with the exterior look soon. The idea behind this modern house design is that, as a base unit, it is efficient and small, and very affordable to build. In addition, you can choose several add-on units to increase the square footage. You can do that right from the get-go or later in the future, as your life changes.

The base unit, we call our P.1 modern house. The actual main floor is on the second level perched over an open and covered entertainment area or carport. This main floor is perfect for a single person or a couple. You can use it as your home, a guest suite, studio space, beach house, or mountain retreat. We worked on keeping the square footage small, but offering a spacious sense of living with all the amenities.

Here is a sneak peak:

We are finalizing the design of the exterior right now and will feature it online soon. We are also going to add more detailed information on our new info service on each set of modern house plans to give you the scoop behind the scene at http://www.coolmodernhouseplans.com.

By keeping this building small and economical, we are working towards a very low construction price, our self imposed 60K benchmark. The beauty of the design is its flexibility. You can start small and grow as your life style of finances change. Not only can you build out each base unit, but by exchanging the semi-exterior stair tower with a different "connector" you can string up several units and create a larger floor plan or community of living units. Each unit is designed to be used as a fully functioning dwelling, to be subleased again as your nest is emptying or you might need to rely on extra revenue.

We will add more pieces to the puzzle as we are working along. Make sure to stay tuned.

NPR - The Magic Of Tarell McCraney's 'Distant Present'

2009-04-28T10:20:00.002-04:00

We thought you would be interested in this story at NPR: The Magic Of Tarell McCraney's 'Distant Present'.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103410868&f=100&sc=13

Alano Miller. Credit: Courtesy of McCarter Theatre
All Things Considered, April 24, 2009 · After years of presenting premieres by some of the world's greatest living playwrights, the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., is featuring a trio of plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a virtually unknown 28-year-old African-American playwright who has been generating a lot of buzz among theater aficionados.

When theater people talk about McCraney, words like "singular" and "poetic" and "bold" pop up frequently. Ben Brantley, the chief drama critic for The New York Times, calls the playwright's voice "authentic."

Brantley wrote a rave review of McCraney's play Wig Out!, which was presented off-Broadway last fall. He describes the play -- about drag queens in Harlem -- as a work with an enormous scale of reference: "It's Biblical, Shakespearean, the Supremes [and] B-movies," he says. "But, it's not just quoting. It's been absorbed and synthesized into this truly musical language that has its own rules."

McCraney may be young, but he's accomplished beyond his years. As an actor, he's worked with the great British director Peter Brook. As a playwriting student at Yale, he was the late August Wilson's assistant. And now Princeton's McCarter Theatre will be presenting McCraney's Brother/Sister plays, a trilogy set in a housing project in Louisiana, in what the playwright calls "the distant present."

In these plays, McCraney wraps familiar issues of family, community and coming of age in a dizzying mixture of West African mythology and theatrical storytelling devices. He says that the variety of techniques he uses serve a specific purpose.

"I have a job," McCraney says. "My job is to sort of keep people engaged into the theater. So, I find as many things that I think are powerful, palpable, visceral and engaging to do that."

Tina Landau, who has directed two of McCraney's plays, says his work encourages a sense of self-awareness in the theater.

"Even though the place of the story that's being told is 'the distant present,' Tarell demands that an audience and the actors acknowledge that we are in this room together, for this amount of time," Landau says.

Emily Mann, the artistic director of McCarter Theatre, says she hasn't felt this strongly about an artist or a fellow playwright in 20 years. She says McCraney's Brother/Sister trilogy covers some pretty basic human experiences.

"A broken heart is something we all understand. The loss of a parent or loss of someone great -- he understands that," she says.

The most performed work in the trilogy, The Brothers Size, is a taut three-person play about brotherhood that has touched audiences around the world.

"We did this play in Ireland and there are people who wrote in to the Abbey in Dublin saying, you know, 'I totally understand these characters, because my brother is just like that,'" McCraney says.

Like the other plays in the trilogy, The Brothers Sizeis staged with minimal sets and costumes. The focus is always on the words, the music and the movement of the bodies of the actors.

"I don't work on plays like normal playwrights, because when the actors are staging this stuff I'm onstage with them, staging it, and it's exhausting and emotionally challenging," McCraney explains.

The playwright adds that putting so much into his plays pays off in the end: "I think what the audience gains out of that is an incredible trip to a place that they've never been. ... They come out feeling like they've been to the foreign and it's been made familiar."

image: Tarell Alvin McCraney's theatrical trilogy Brother/Sister is being featured at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J. Courtesy of McCarter Theatre

image: Alano Miller (as Elegba, left) and Kimberly Hebert Gregory (as Aunt Elegua) in McCraney's In the Red and Brown Water.Courtesy of McCarter Theatre

image: Marc Damon Johnson plays Ogun Size in In the Red and Brown Water. Courtesy of McCarter Theatre

Image Credit: Alano Miller. Credit: Courtesy of McCarter Theatre

A Mistake That Was Meant

2009-04-24T15:59:00.003-04:00

We had a little bit of fun with our website and created a custom error message. You know the one that indicates a "broken link" and says something like "404 Error". We had moved around our Internet pages on modern home plans and had changed the architecture of our Dialect Design web site so much that we had accidentally deleted a few vital ones. Well, a kind individual in Germany who had browsed our site was so kind and informed us on our own broken links. He also gave us an idea and so we sat out to have some more fun with our website and created this custom 404 error message: http://www.dialectdesign.com/modern_house_plans_404.html. So, even if you cannot find your modern house plans anymore, hopefully we still get you to smile.
Oh, and then we, of course, did the same for our new site at http://www.coolmodernhouseplans.com .

Cool Modern House Plans

2009-04-23T20:48:00.004-04:00

Coolmodernhouseplans.com is our new Internet portal to offer our modern house plans. It won't replace our DialectDesign site. However we are going to use it to try out different ways to share our contemporary home plans. It has been a fun ride to dig deep into the Internet's ways of marketing and networking. Modern and green living is a means to a better live. It is also an innovative approach to truly understanding our relationship to our built environment. At DialectDesign we continue to improve our services and to offer our ever changing approach to modern dwelling. Please return to our new site as we are going to update it. And always be invited at DialectDesign.

WE GOT BLOGGED

2009-04-20T10:48:00.007-04:00

http://www.coolmodernhouseplans.com Grassrootsmodern.com has picked us up on their blog. A wonderful write up about our website on modern stock home plans at DialectDesign.com:

"Dialect Design
20Apr09
Last week I touched on the subject of stock modern house plans. I wanted to throw one more hat into the ring. Dialect Design is an up an coming architectural duo based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Both founders John Nourbakhsh and Toby Witte have an international background and an obvious love for modern design. On their website they have 3 modern stock plans available with one more (a 60k house) on the way. Full floorplans can be reviewed before purchasing as well as the estimated price per square foot to build. All the plans claim a $105 sq/ft construction cost but I’m sure that price would balloon depending on where you live. Prices for stock plans start at $1,400 and include 6 printed sets of drawings with all the usual goodies.
Modern stock house plans from Dialect Design."

Thank you Creede for the kind words, exposure and your absolutely fascinating site and blog on all things modern at Grassrootsmodern.com !

Also see our work on modern house plans at Cool Modern House Plans

Dorothy Podber

2009-04-13T17:34:00.003-04:00

We just had an exchange with Matthew Rose through Facebook as we were both commenting on a "Bunny" drawing by Ray Johnson, which had been posted by Little Shiva. The short exchange prompted Matthew to post an entry from Wikipedia on Dorothy Podber. Here is the full article:

"Dorothy Podber (September 15, 1932 - February 9, 2008) was an American performance artist.
Born in the Bronx to a mother who had tried repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, to abort her, and to a father who worked for the Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz, Podber was later remembered as a disruptive influence by classmates from West Walton High School [1].
A wild child of the New York art scene in the 1950s and 1960s, she helped to run the Nonagon Gallery, which showed the work of a young Yoko Ono and was known for jazz concerts by such performers as Charles Mingus. However, her greatest fame—and notoriety—came from her work as a muse and collaborator with more prominent artists. On one occasion, she turned up at Andy Warhol's studio and put a bullet through a stack of his silk-screen paintings of Marilyn Monroe. These four paintings, thereafter, were called The Shot Marilyns.
Podber revelled in her bad-girl reputation. In an interview in 2006, she said:
"I've been bad all my life. Playing dirty tricks on people is my specialty."[2]
When funds were low, she found unorthodox ways of making money, engaging in businesses as diverse as dispatching maids to doctors' offices in an attempt to gain access to their drug cabinets, and running an illegal abortion referral service. She did paperwork for B'nai Brith long enough to pick their safe and use its contents on her own check-counterfeiting machine. Her attitude to these enterprises bordered on indifference. "I never worked much," she reputedly said.[3]
She was married three times, and had numerous casual liaisons. Her last husband was Lester Schwartz, who died in 1986.[3] One boyfriend was a banker with whom she would have sexual intercourse only on the banknote-strewn floor of his firm's vault. She had no children by any of her partners.
She died in her Manhattan apartment on February 9, 2008, from natural causes."

Now is the time for a new mortgage!

2009-04-09T20:02:00.001-04:00

Obama says timing right for millions to refinance.

Read the APA news:

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_7731/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=FOIYEiS9

Join Us For Dialect Night April 10th

2009-04-02T09:36:00.001-04:00

A European Style House For An Affordable Price

2009-04-01T11:03:00.002-04:00

The present worldwide economic strain has changed the expectations home buyers have of their houses. They need to be affordable and efficient. And they need to be able to adjust, once their situation improves again. Our new P.1 home is designed as a European style house that can do that for you.
It starts at a 24 feet by 24 feet one floor base unit. It will offer all the amenities you expect from your modern dwelling. The base unit will be designed to be affordable to build. Keeping local building cost and current local prices for trades and materials in mind we are aiming at a $105 per square foot price, giving you a European style house for $60,480 construction cost. This price will have to adjust, of course, to your local pricing standards and the final design. The cool thing about this concept is for one that it is designed to function in many different ways right of the bat. It could be your starter home, an independent guest house, a home office, a rental unit in your back yard, a vacation cottage in the mountain or at the beach, an addition to an existing house, and much more. Secondly this “pod”, as we call it, is also conceived to be able to grow right from the beginning or in the future as your needs or economic outlook changes. In other words this pod can function as a base unit that can be added on with one or more additional pods. By offering this you can have an affordable European style house that can serve any life style and change in lifestyle. If you are a single parent with in-laws living with you, a single professional with a home office, a larger family with a independent live-at-home teenager, a couple of two, or anyone else, this simple and affordable European style modern house could be ideal for you.
We are interested o get your feed back at this point of the game to see our planning challenged and adjust to your input. Please write as an email at info@dialectdesign.com, if you are interested and want to keep in touch, or comment to this blog. Please also visit our online selections and ability to order a set of modern home plans at http://www.dialectdesign.com and at http://www.coolmodernhouseplans.com/

Twouble with Twitters

2009-03-29T20:00:00.001-04:00

If you are adicted to your social networking sites, this video on
YouTube might help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w

NYTimes: Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don’t Work?

2009-03-28T15:09:00.001-04:00

Of course we incurrage the use of all sustainable measures. Be aware
of there pros and cons. The energy savings of flurescent bulbs are
certainly admirable, but not always. We would also like to suggest
that using flurescent light bulbs in a five thousand square foot house
for a four person family isn't exactly the ideal for saving energy.
On our website we offer a few ideas on how to live with less: http://www.dialectdesign.com

And now from The New York Times:

Do New Bulbs Save Energy if They Don't Work?
By LEORA BROYDO VESTEL

Consumers who are trying new compact fluorescent bulbs say they
sometimes fail to work, or wear out early....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/business/energy-environment/28bulbs.html

Planting the seeds of a revolution

2009-03-27T10:58:00.002-04:00

This article is a nice addition to the discussion we had during our "Urban Farming" presentation at Dialect Night last month.

____________________________________________________________

The following appeared on Boston.com:
Headline: Planting the seeds of a revolution
Date: Mar 27, 2009

"YOU HAVE to admit that this gives new meaning to the idea of a "shovel-ready project." There are now 1,100 square feet on the South Lawn of the White House being transformed into a kitchen garden. If Americans follow the first family's lead, the seed pack will become the new stimulus package. At least we'll have something to do with ..."
____________________________________________________________

To see this recommendation, click on the link below or cut and paste it
into a Web browser:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/27/planting_the_seeds_of_a_revolution?s_campaign=8315

Lights going out to make a point - Charlotte Observer

2009-03-24T10:22:00.003-04:00

At 8:30 p.m. on this upcoming Saturday it is lights out for the Charlotte metropolitan area. Here is the Charlotte Observers article: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/618601.html

Compact Efficiency

2009-03-18T20:13:00.005-04:00

This is what we consider modern, European style, compact efficiency. A car for your purse:

Ikea's Newest Offer

2009-03-16T20:12:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of Diana Arvanites!

More Green

2009-03-15T21:06:00.001-04:00

Here is another link through Steve Macomber from Ki Home Inspections for good healthy building resources: http://www.healthyhouseinstitute.com/ !

NYTimes: Cultural Post at White House

2009-03-14T16:13:00.001-04:00

From The New York Times:

ARTS, BRIEFLY: Cultural Post at White House
By ROBIN POGREBIN; Compiled by Patrick Healy

President Barack Obama has established a staff position in the White
House to oversee arts and culture....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/arts/14arts-CULTURALPOST_BRF.html

Gentrify Me: Artists’ Perspectives on Community Change

2009-03-12T20:52:00.002-04:00

Meika Fields just sent us the following email:

Greetings:
This April a group of Charlotte artists and I are developing an art show in North Davidson about community perspectives on neighborhood change.
Leading up to the art show entitled “Gentrify Me: Artists’ Perspectives on Community Change” we are surveying interested members of the Charlotte and North Davidson community including artists, community members, investors, planners and designers for their suggestions on how planning efforts can better integrate the needs and concerns of an extended community, specifically in regards to affordability and maintaining neighborhood diversity. This effort comes out of the desire for increased public participation from community members and artists regarding the form of, and planning decisions made in, their communities.
We hope that you might be able to participate in our online survey, and pass it on to other community groups or individuals that may find interest. The survey is online and entirely confidential. We would also like to invite you to attend the art show “Gentrify Me: Artist’s Perspectives on Community Change” which will be held at Dialect Gallery, located at 3204-C North Davidson St, for the month of April.
Community Survey:http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228X4U9QH69

Meika Fields
Artist and Master’s Candidate in Landscape Architecture

What art?

2009-03-11T16:57:00.002-04:00

You live art when that experience transcends skill. When it grabs a work of pristine execution and takes it into a realm of lived riches, endured pain, yearned memories, and quenched desire. When you catch a glimpse just to be drawn into sucking up the rest, leaving no crumbs behind. When your living is being touched, almost explained, without ever understanding it.
That art comes into being with a blind hand that does not dwell on its skill but searches for that understanding. A hand that screams out or quivers under duress, that shakes because of that beauty felt.
And that experience can be had with everything you do. Art is the art of being alive. It is that simple.

(our blog can be found at http://dialectdesign.blogspot.com/)

Federal Green Specs

2009-03-10T09:10:00.005-04:00

This just came in from Steve Macomber for all you building professionals:
In case you haven't seen this, I wanted to pass along an interesting link related to "Green Specs". To address the need for a comprehensive guide for procuring green building products and construction services within the Federal government, EPA has partnered with the Federal Environmental Executive and the Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) to develop the Federal Green Construction Guide for Specifiers. You can download the specs or view them as HTML.
http://www.wbdg.org/design/greenspec.php
Best, Steve

What a car! 300 mpg??

2009-03-10T09:04:00.002-04:00

Patrick Glover shared this video clip wit us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfv7wMXarig
It is under consideration for our company car :) !

Make Charlotte Weird

2009-03-08T14:48:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the Charlotte Observer's Mary Newsome pleaded in their Viewpoint section for Little Shiva to return from Belgium for the sake of Charlotte's richness.

http://www.weirdcharlotte.com/

Norman Foster on TED

2009-03-06T14:39:00.002-05:00

Watch Norman Foster's speech on sustainable issues and architecture on TED:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/norman_foster_s_green_agenda.html