TYLER WALKS (December 2022) – Vancouver, city, southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It is the major urban centre of western Canada and the focus of one of the country’s most populous metropolitan regions. Vancouver lies between Burrard Inlet (an arm of the Strait of Georgia) to the north and the Fraser Riverdelta to the south, opposite Vancouver Island. The city is just north of the U.S. state of Washington. It has a fine natural harbour on a superb site facing the sea and mountains. Pop. (2011) 603,502; metro. area, 2,313,328; (2021) 662,248; metro. area, 2,642,825.
History
The region had long been inhabited by several Native American (First Nations) peoples when a trading post, Fort Langley, was set up by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1827 near the mouth of the Fraser River. Few people of European descent lived in the area until the late 1850s, when the town of New Westminster (now a suburb of Vancouver) was established near the site of the original fort (in 1839 the fort itself had been relocated a little farther upstream).
Thousands of miners, mostly from California, flooded into the region in the 1860s, attracted by the gold rush in the Cariboo Mountains to the northeast. Besides the Scottish, who were very influential in Vancouver’s early years, Americans had a notable impact on the city. The suggestion to name it Vancouver was made by an American, William Van Horne, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
And the city’s most-often elected mayor (nine nonconsecutive terms from 1919 to 1933), L.D. Taylor, was originally from the United States. Moreover, the first important industry in the area, a sawmill on Burrard Inlet, was owned by an American. Finally, the first major industry not reliant on local natural resources, a still-active sugar refinery, was started by an American.
“This cover feels simultaneously classic and entirely new. It’s slightly reminiscent of 1970s science fiction covers (albeit much more restrained), and yet I’ve never seen anything quite like it. That custom type! That illustration! Is it a world? An eye? Something else? All of the above? As a reader, I don’t typically gravitate toward sci-fi, but this cover is so compelling that it made me immediately want to buy the book.”
“There were so many eye-catching covers this year, but the one that constantly stood out for me because of its stunning simplicity, beauty and mystery was designed by John Gall: No Land in Sight. In a sea of gorgeous covers exploding with kaleidoscopic colorful backgrounds, with elements twisting and intertwining, with the title and author type set in sans-serif condensed fonts, Gall’s cover was refreshing for its clean layout, tasteful typography, elements that are balanced and non-overlapping, in an austere monochromatic palette. Timeless.”
[Cover Images: Picador]
MRS. DALLOWAY & THE HOURS, DESIGNED BY PABLO DELCAN
“The whole package is stunning and smart—words I use a lot to describe Pablo Delcan’s works. The covers evoke introspectiveness and intimacy in such a beautiful way. Everything from the type to the flower placement feels considered and intentional. I love how both sides mirror and work with each other visually and conceptually.”
“This cover is a feast of dualities: both a figurative scene and an abstract texture; a figure seen far off in the distance and a marbled paper viewed at almost 1:1 in scale; a formal, rigid, block colored layout, and a big, expressive interruption in the middle. The slightly muted colors are so refreshing, especially in a year when we’re reaching peak ‘pop,’ and David shows us here that you don’t need neon Pantones or massive type to create a big, bold, absorbing cover. I love that the type is almost pushed to the peripheries by the sprawl of the illustration, as if it’s something that’s happened over centuries; it makes everything feel massive in scale. Also, the silhouette of the figure is from a photo of the author, which is a perfect Pearson point of detail! There are worlds existing in this book cover, and I find it very easy to get lost in them.”
December 5, 2022: China boosts online censorship and surveillance following zero-covid policy protests. G-7 sets $60 crude oil cap on Russian oil. United Nations representatives meet with the Taliban.
The move, which the government did not confirm, might be a concession to the protest movement that erupted after the death of a young woman in the custody of the morality police.
A Colorado graphic designer says she has a First Amendment right to refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings despite a state anti-discrimination law.
CBS Sunday Morning (December 2022) – We leave you this morning with Nature’s great spectacle at the Mauna Loa volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Notice that Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, was going to erupt — as it did this week for the first time in nearly four decades — came to people on the Big Island of Hawaii an hour before the lava began to flow. Public officials scrambled to alert nearby residents. Scientists rushed to predict which areas of the island might be in danger. The curious made plans to observe what could shape up to be an event of a lifetime: the exhalation of a massive mountain.
CNET (December 4, 2022) – Archer Aviation introduced its first production model eVTOL that’s called Midnight, an electric air taxi designed for high-demand urban flights. United Airlines has put down a deposit for 100 Midnights to begin passenger service in 2025.
Video timeline: 0:00 Intro 0:55 Midnight eVTOL 1:54 Maker Prototype Test Flight 2:29 Archer x United 3:26 Conclusion
Dezeen (December 2022) – Continuing our 2022 review, we have collected 10 residential extensions featured on Dezeen this year, from a weathering steel structure perched on top of a bungalow to a pair of concrete volumes added to a remote farmhouse.
This weathering steel-clad asymmetrical house extension is perched two centimetres above a family bungalow in Austin, hence its name. Architect Nicole Blair was tasked with expanding the occupants’ living space without sacrificing any of the home’s existing back garden.
The unusually shaped extension rests on four steel columns and was assembled off-site to avoid disrupting the lot’s vegetation. Inside, living spaces are dressed in pinky hues and framed by tongue-and-groove wooden planks on the ceilings and walls.
A rectilinear metallic frame in a dark shade of green forms Cascada House, an airy apartment nestled within a lush surrounding that tops an existing 1950s concrete building in Mexico City.
Architects Ana Nuño de Buen and Luis Young designed the structure with two roof slopes that drain towards a central gutter which manages rainfall, while inside, the steel structure is left exposed to create a distinctive interior.
Local architect Marc Perrotta replaced a “clumsy” volume with a concrete, glass and brick extension at Casa San Cristobal, a house in Mexico’s Mérida.
Containing most of the living spaces, this two-storey, U-shaped addition creates a trio of courtyards filled with lush native plants that are designed to provide relief from the tropical heat.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, Xi Jinping’s zero-covid policy, why trustbusters should let Microsoft buy Activision Blizzard (11:44) and why emigration is in the air for Britons (16:38).
Boomers Daily 