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Some ongoing projects.

Click on photos to see a limited number of images, more can be made available to the interested on request.

Project: Sheds

Sheds are rural architecture without architects. As a farmer/user you build what you need, measured in height and spans. The construction is easy, the structure can be screwed or welded together, the roof, sides and front and back can be made from corrugated iron sheets, a material invented/patented in 1829 by Henry Robinson Palmer. Its durability, ease to use and its stability made it a material omnipresent in structural buildings. With this project I am looking into the variety and ingenuity this material is used in the local farming community.

Project: Lethbridge

In the wide flat prairies of western Alberta, Canada, one encounters, very unexpectedly, one of the world's  marvels of bridge building, indeed it still is the  highest and longest steel trestle railway bridge, spanning the 'Old Man River'. It was designed by John E. Schwitzer and built in two years, 1907-1909, by the Canadian Bridge Comp. and John Gunn&Co. For over a hundred years this bridge has served the Canadian Pacific Railway well, 2009 marked its one hundredth anniversary, in itself a remarkable feat. Added to that it has up to today held the record of longest and highest steel trestle bridge in the world with 1.6 km length and 100 m of height! Over 2 km long freight trains still cross the bridge every day.

Project: Collectors

Life has trained early man to survive through hunting and gathering. He had to learn to store things away in days of plenty to provide for days of need.
Today hunting has mainly become an activity of leisure, but it seems that deep within us remains the insatiable urge and instinct to gather, to collect, to accumulate and to store away. And there seems to be no item under the sun which has not found somebody who started a collection. As a spin-off, this activity has developed in to a veritable and 'essential' help tracing an preserving manufactured goods of the past, widely contributing to the under-standing of mankind's history. I have been able to trace some of these collectors and their stored away artefacts in sheds, outhouses and other spaces and got the permission to take photos.

Project: Watermills

Harnessing the power of water must have been a dream of mankind, only put into reality by the Greeks in about 300 BC. Ever since then water powered mills have helped to irrigate fields [water lifting], grind grain, operate spinning machines, help tanneries to crushed oak bark, crush ore, cut timber as well as drive a wide range of mechanical machinery. 
In developing flat belts, cogs, line shafting and speed control through pulleys permitting to run machinery in different sites of the mill simultaneously, driven by one or more water wheels, new technologies were developed by the milling communities that spear-headed the industrial revolution.

Project: Mali Adobe

The Great Mosque of Djenne is probably the largest adobe building in the world. While this mosque was rebuild in about 1907, it stands on a site of an older one from 1834, which again replaces an older mosques dating back to 1200. The fact that the structure is permanently eroded by sun, wind and rain means that every year repairs have to be made, sometimes even substantial ones. The advantage of this is and was that a core of people, master masons, always knew the technologies to be applied and passed their skills and knowledge to younger members of the trade.

Project: Coastals

Once we comprehend/understand that there is only one EARTH available to live on it should become obvious that not only do we have to treasure what is still left of NATURE, but do everything we can to safeguard at least the status quo. We have to re-learn respect for nature and re-connect to her. Furthermore, at this stage of destruction, there is an urgent need to reverse any activity that further impacts the integrity of the planet earth and unbalances its fragile ecosystem. The coast as a boundary between ocean and terra firma acts as a marker for the state of health oceans and other water bodies find themselves in: the tons of  beached debris, plastic, bottles, fishing gear, etc.  highlights the almost criminal negligence society shows towards global pollution and environmental destruction.





Project: Piano piano il pianoforte crolla e sparisce

An old piano, left outside facing the elements, gradually looses its integrity and revolves back to the beginning, when all it was were bits and pieces. What skilled hands assembled to create a synergetic instrument, has now disintegrated into a heap of nonsensical non-usable pieces of wood and metal. The process is ongoing and it will be interesting as well as sad to see the end, which may be nigh.

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