The St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center in Portland has begun deconstructing its sanctuary. The historic Congregational Church on Congress Street began its transformation into a community arts center in 1998. The first phase of the project included the renovation of a small 100-seat theatre that is now used for theatre performance, music, church worship, [...]

[Read more →]

The New York Times had the following piece on the former mayor of Providence, Vincent Cianci. After serving four and a half years for racketeering, Buddy is now back; live on the air at WPRO 630. Four hours a day, five days a week, the story continues…
Read the article here
Image Source: New York [...]

[Read more →]

We’ve posted about lovely urban “street furniture” before– mostly in reference to the Steel Yard, where Peter helped start a custom urban furniture business that employs local artists. But these streetlamps are taking it to the next level.
Artist and lighting designer Robert Rausch designed these street lamps for the new urbanist development of Serenbe in [...]

[Read more →]

Four crews swept Baltimore streets from all compass directions last time we were in town. We noticed the giant broom sculpture earlier in the day and caught up with some sweeper after our visit the Map Through Time And Space show at the Walters Art Museum. The broom sculpture turned out the be a giant [...]

[Read more →]

Smart or not, we climbed the scaffolding at American Brewery in Baltimore’s East Side to get a view of the skyline. (wicked) The scaffolding kept going to the peak but Sally and I stayed put while Bill checked it all out. Notice the girds of row homes, especially in the third image. Baltimore is filled [...]

[Read more →]

While we were in Baltimore last weekend for Bill’s birthday party we were able to schedule a last minute tour with organizers of Community Greens, a back alley park project. Sally will post more about Community Greens later. I posted these photos because one of Bill’s early projects involved the renovation of row-homes up [...]

[Read more →]

We had a great time at ILAP’s Cele Soirée Fundraiser last weekend. It was hoppin! They ended up having more than 400 people attend the event this year– more than they have had any other year. And they managed to raise some money– always a good sign with a fundraiser. I was on the event [...]

[Read more →]

Heading to the train station while we were in Baltimore last weekend we passed by what looked to be a new community bike shop. On return we caught a flock of bikers locking up shop. Great opportunity for a follow up…
At Velocipede’s cooperative bicycle shop, people can buy ready to ride second-hand bikes, claim and [...]

[Read more →]

“Technology that only takes one architect to install…” Rick Renner

Our friend Rick Renner recently completed Portland, Maine’s first LEED Platinum project. It was the renovation of a two story brick building into a first floor office for his architecture firm and a second floor apartment for himself. Rick is a principal of Rick Renner [...]

[Read more →]

I always seem to find a new hidden gem while driving through Baltimore, probably because I am usually a passenger. The City is sprinkled with spray paint graffiti, stickers, stencils, vacant storefront paintings, and temporary public art. The stencils in this post remind me of Chris Stain. Chris has images posted on his blog of [...]

[Read more →]