Round Museum

Barrels and barriers and reflective tape and a saturation of orange will set off a construction zone, but flashing lights are a sure way to get your attention. The pulsing glow marks a perimeter in staccato rhythm. No parking on the dance floor, ya'll.

11.18.16

Randomly generated choices, the key to a fair raffle. The numbers get tumbled around in the drum, and a blind selection determines the winner. Just cross your fingers that you didn't lose your stub.

Long Beach Island Museum
New Jersey

11.15.16

Down and distance. In football the bright orange yardage markers manned by a "chain gang" define both the spot where you start and where you have to go. Without a clear target in front of you, how can you measure success?

11.13.16

On the short list of comfort food – chocolate, ice cream, pizza, mac and cheese, chicken soup – the donut is an any-time-of-day coping mechanism. Tasty, sweet, warm, soft, and... snuggly!

11.12.16

In the colorful geometry of nautical communication, flags are designed to represent letters of the alphabet as well as standard messages. The combination of colors, lines, squares, crosses, and circles distinguishes the visual code. This flag is the "I" or "India" flag, which means "altering my course to port" when flown by itself.

11.10.16

A short walk in the woods might lead you to this green knobby brain-like discovery. The Osage Orange, sometimes called a hedge apple, is a fruit with a tough, stringy pulp and as many as 200 small seeds each inside a slimy husk. Sounds... delicious. If you're a squirrel.

11.09.16

This is the kind of fan that could be blowing back fashion models' hair in a haute couture photo shoot, or simulating a powerful storm in a TV show, or drawing out dust and exhaust during parking deck renovations. Eh, its probably the latter.

11.07.16

SUNY Purchase is part of the New York state university system and founded in 1967 as a college for the arts. The "city within the country" campus was envisioned as an architectural “collection” with buildings designed by several famous architects such as Philip Johnson, Venturi & Rauch, Giovanni Pasanella, among many others. This Student Services Building was designed by Hom + Goldman Architects in 2006 with a grand, Round clock facing The Great Lawn and the fields and meadows beyond.

11.06.16

Everything is more fun with googly eyes. The cartoon eye is the geometric epitome of body part simplification, a Round within Round. Little Orphan Annie's wide ovals were all empty white sclera with no iris, and Charlie Brown is the beady opposite, all iris no sclera. The Simpsons' ping pong protrusions may have achieved bug-eyed perfection, while the Power Puff Girls' blinking orbs nearly cover their whole face - giant irises, fully dilated pupils, with a tiny spot of highlight. Googly.

11.04.16

The south side of the Annenberg Center for Communication opens onto the tree lined Locust Walk on the campus of UPenn. Clad in limestone, the building went up in 1962, with additional improvements in 1982 and 1998. The structured facade is complemented by a geometrically detailed plaza and anchored by... a round window on the centerline.

11.03.16