Make a Rain Barrel

...nstorms. I put this rain barrel together as a test and because I was tired of looking a blue drum that sat in the backyard for a year giving our patio a methamphetamine lab vibe. Again, for complete instructions and a list of parts visit Chenkin’s ehow page or, if you’re not adept at perusing the isles of the local hardware store, buy a kit from him through Aquabarrel. [Editors note: due to spamming (are rain barrel enthusiasts really that excited...

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Shelter

...topics anticipated the non-hierarchical structure of the Internet. On one page you’re looking at Turkish rock houses, and on another geodesic domes built out of scrap materials. The lessons I’ve learned from Khan’s work are the importance of context (site, cultural, weather etc.) and the joy of putting hammer to nail to build something yourself even if you don’t know what the hell you are doing. Sometimes the most ramshackled comedies of architec...

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Nomadic Furniture

...shelves, lamps made from milk jugs, hexagonal dining sets as well as a two page hymn to the waterbed (ok, not sure about that thoughtstyling). The subtitle of the book sums it up, “how to build and where to buy lightweight furniture that folds, inflates, knocks down, stacks, or is disposable and can be recycled.” You can see more of their work thanks to a recent retrospective of their work in Vienna. My favorite project in the book is the series o...

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