Consider this required reading: over at Spacing.ca, Shawn Micallef wrote about one his more recent trips to his former hometown, Windsor. Driving down Walker Road again after spending much of his time in Toronto walking, a lot, made him realize just how staggeringly huge these auto plants are, and he questions what we’re all wondering—what will happen when these plants entirely shut down?
Go, read it.
Thanks for passing this along, Rod.
In the spirit of combining parades, cars, and clever sculpture, I bring you Benedict Radcliffe and Ben Wilson’s “Lambo!” functional sculpture. This project is basically a steel 3D contour drawing of a Lamborghini Countach that can be driven by two-person peddle power. I think “clever” isn’t quite strong enough to properly describe this work. Would anyone like a Lamborghini that doesn’t require any gasoline? In their words, “the work questions the combustion engine, celebrates bicycle efficiency and the striking design of the Lamborghini arguably one of the most iconic super cars of all time…”
Since yesterday’s weather was soul-enhancing, to be dramatic, I decided to unload the small stack of tickets in my backpack and distribute them in the parking lots near the University of Windsor. I seem to be getting more and more sly with handing these out, which I’ll attribute to practice. It seems I’ll be able to continue handing tickets out for most of the summer, judging by how relentless the CUPE strike has been. Stay tuned.
So, back to the old sly-as-can-be ticket dispensing! It was a beautiful day, so handing out parking tickets was more of a joy than a chore. I’ve been letting my intuition and somewhat-extensive automotive knowledge guide me in choosing the cars I feel are “fuel efficient.” This Toyota Corolla (pictured) averages about 7L/100km, whereas the Dodge Viper (your average over-achieving American sports car, pictured below), averages around 14L/100km. Thanks to all of you who don’t mind sacrificing speed for fuel efficiency!
Broken City Lab met in December of last year to visualize, create, and link our goals for 2009 and created a large mind map to help with this process. One of the ideas brought up at this time was the following: create parking tickets that resemble those distributed by City of Windsor or University of Windsor Parking Service officials, but spin the ticket information in a way that compliments the owner of the vehicle instead of notifies him or her of impending fines. The first series of tickets display the message “operation of fuel efficient vehicle” in the space where “parking violation” or something similar would usually appear. I’ve posted the initial ticket design and two examples of the types of vehicles receiving these tickets. This will most likely be an ongoing process that I will complete throughout the summer, but since the City of Windsor Parking Services is currently on strike, these tickets should appear slightly confusing to the vehicle owners.