Hasta La Ideas

Archtober is nearly upon us, and the designtastic autumnal fun gets off to an urbane start with City Modern, celebrating the best in New York design and architecture. Now in its second year, the collaboration between Dwell Media and New York magazine kicks off next Friday with a Meet the Architects celebration, followed by a weekend of City Modern home tours in Manhattan and Brooklyn (the one pictured at right is “Skyhouse,” a project by architect David Hotson and interior designer Ghislaine Viñas that occupies a previously vacant four-story penthouse at the summit of one of the oldest surviving skyscrapers in NYC). The week continues with programming led by New York design editor Wendy Goodman and Dwell editor-in-chief Amanda Dameron, including a sure-to-be-stimulating conversation among Paola Antonelli of MoMA, the one and only Michael Bierut, and architecture critic Justin Davidson about “What Design can Do For New York City.” Get the full scoop on all eight event-packed days here.

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The helmet worn by FDNY Engine 16 Lieutenant Mickey Kross, who survived the collapse of the North Tower. (Courtesy Skira Rizzoli)

At the distance of a dozen years from September 11, 2001, a new book relives the tragic events of that day through a selection of artifacts—Minoru Yamasaki‘s World Trade Center model, shattered plane fragments, the four-inch heels worn by Michele Martocci as she walked down from the 62nd floor of the South Tower and onto St. Vincent’s Hospital, and the wallet and wedding ring that once belonged to Robert Gschaar, who worked thirty floors higher.

The Stories They Tell (Skira Rizzoli), edited by Alice M. Greenwald and Clifford Chanin, also offers a preview of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, slated to open early next year. “At the 9/11 Memorial Museum, every object tells a story, bringing history into vivid focus,” writes Joe Daniels, president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, in the book’s introduction. “The objects connect us to people who owned them, made them, used them, or survived them.”

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September is National Preparedness Month in the U.S. Obviously, you can’t plan for emergencies, but you can be organised and prepared for emergencies. And, unfortunately, a few summers ago, I spent quite a bit of time in hospital waiting rooms and I came up with some organisational tips that will help keep you prepared for these unplanned events.

Keep your first aid kit up to date. Ensure your antibiotic creams have not expired. Make sure your supply of bandages is replenished regularly. Keep an assortment of bandages on hand such as those for knuckles, fingertips and large scrapes. You can use clean feminine protection products or diapers to stop the bleeding of larger wounds so consider keeping a few of each in your first aid kit.

Are your first aid techniques up-to-date, too? While you may not need to know how to put on a tourniquet, you should be able to give correct treatment for cuts, scrapes, burns, strains, sprains, fractures, and animal bites. St. John’s Ambulance and the Red Cross offer first aid courses, and classes may also be available through a local community center or department of health.

Keep your pantry stocked with ingredients for healthy meals you can make in less than 30 minutes. These things can include:

• frozen casseroles;
• frozen or canned vegetables;
• frozen or canned fruits;
• spaghetti (an all time favourite);
• chicken strips;
• fish sticks.

Keep a stash of healthy snacks you can quickly toss in a bag and take with you such as:

• juice or milk in tetra pacs;
• frozen muffins;
• granola or cereal bars;
• bite-sized cereals (wheat squares, oat rings, etc);
• raw vegetables (mini carrots, cauliflower, broccoli);
• fruits (bananas, apples, pears, grapes);

You may want to keep a small cutlery set in your purse or backpack just in case you need to cut things into pieces.

Keep a few ice packs in the freezer for applying to injuries and for stuffing in a bag to cool your snacks during the long wait at an Emergency Room and/or Walk-in Clinic.

Carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer with you because you may sitting at the hospital with sick people.

Have an “entertainment pack” ready to go. Items that can be included are:

• a deck of cards;
• portable gaming devices and their chargers;
• some books;
• a pack of crayons and colouring books;
• a favourite stuffed animal or blankie.

Make sure you know whom to contact at your spouse’s/partner’s office should he/she be injured.

Have a friend or neighbour you can call on in a crisis to come and mind the kids in the middle of the night. Offer to return the favour.

Make sure your car has enough gas to handle an emergency, such as driving to the hospital in the middle of the night. Keep at least $20 cash in small bills in a secret place in your wallet or in your car in case you have to pay for a taxi or for parking in a cash-only car park.

Do laundry regularly so you have clean clothes handy. If you’ve been called to the emergency room, take a change of clean clothes for the injured person. The emergency room nurses may have had to cut the injured person’s clothing to remove it.

Ensure parents and caregivers have copies of heath services registration numbers and health insurance numbers. Store this information in a secure file in your smartphone or carry a copy in your wallet. Children should also know where to find copies of this information and, if they are old enough, have a copy stored on their smartphones. Keep your cell phone charged in case you are out and need to call 911. Program an emergency contact number into your cell phone so someone can dial that number if you can’t do it yourself. Label it “!Emergency!” so it is on the top of your contact list and “In Case of Emergency” since that is another contact someone might look for on your phone.

If you go for a run or bike ride, take your health insurance information and identification with you. Print business cards with contact information on them (names, address, phone number and email address) to put in every backpack and wallet, including the kids’ bags and backpacks. Consider registering with ROAD ID. It is an easy way to carry identification and medical information with you at all times. Anywhere in the world, first responders can access your medical information and emergency contacts.

Although I hope you never have to go through a crisis, by following these organisational steps, you’ll be able to survive with much less stress.

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Are even tinier apartments the answer to better accommodating the emerging housing needs of major cities? An exhibition at the Museum of City of New York suggests as much, and the “live smarter and smaller” theme seems to be resonating—the popular show on new housing models has been extended to September 15. We asked writer Nancy Lazarus to head over to the museum’s fully built “micro unit” and make herself at home.

About thirty curious visitors filed into a 325-square-foot full-scale studio apartment model on a recent Friday afternoon. The occasion wasn’t a real estate open house, but a chance to experience a highly touted micro-unit called “The Launch Pad.”

The furnished model (pictured above) serves as the centerpiece of “Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers,” an exhibition on view through September 15 at the Museum of the City of New York. Amie Gross Architects and interior designer Pierluigi Colombo, founder of Resource Furniture, collaborated on the unit’s design.

Architectural models and design solutions from New York and selected cities worldwide are also showcased. These coincide with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s initiative to offer more affordable, though smaller-scale, housing options for the growing ranks of single city residents.

An open ambience prevailed inside the micro-unit, not claustrophobia, as skeptical attendees may have expected. They soon learned key elements for optimizing space from Jeffrey Phillip, an organizing pro who specializes in blending style and efficiency.

“We all struggle with living in small spaces, but small spaces are also grand spaces,” Phillip said. He showed visuals to illustrate the advice he offers to space-challenged clients. While a few concepts were conventional, others were counterintuitive. Some mini spaces benefit more from design makeovers.
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It’s not easy to stand out at NYNOW, a roiling trade show sea of tote bags, trinkets, exotic papergoods, Gehry-esque building blocks, eco-friendly umbrellas, geodesic birdhouses, and the odd visiting monarch. But this season, the pause that refreshes comes at booth #7654, where Lost & Found (paired with the Philadelphia Museum of Art) is offering among its nifty wares the work of UnBeige favorite Reed Seifer.

Making its debut at NYNOW is “Validation,” a self-empowering stamp that comes tucked inside in a white box. “What inspired me to create this work is the discovery that validation is something that we have to provide to ourselves,” the artist and graphic designer tells us. “I’d also like to add that I only use Helvetica when I want something to look uber-generic and not call attention to itself via typography.”
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.