Build Oakland and Our City instruction signage creation

A Dad and Daughter creation 

Hard at work on the process of masking and painting the wood panel pieces...

Brett and Seth at work on the city grid floor panels above...

Trademark Gensler red paint for the edges of the wood panels below...

Meeting of the Gensler Principals in San Francisco 2015

...putting down the first steps for developing a banner to celebrate the moments of the meeting of the Gensler Principals in the city of San Francisco in September 2015...

selection of some iconic pieces, the bridges of the bay, the Tonga Room, a cable car, and Bimbos for a start...

Bound and Tied Palms

Notes about the bound and tied palm trees that can now be seen at the Bay Bridge approach from the Oakland side.  I could not resist trying to capture the unique image of those towering trees. 

Palms have a relatively shallow root system for a tree their size. The leaves or fronds are tied up after transplant with biodegradable material to prevent the wind from knocking them over (the overall surface area is larger for untied palms than tied palms).  Once the roots become more established, the ties can be removed and the fronds/leaves can be free.

In addition, the tied up fronds/leaves lose less moisture than freed ones. Water is very critical right after a palm is transplanted, and leaving the leaves tied up helps to conserve the palm's moisture levels.

The ties rot after several months, by which time the tree has established enough roots to fully supply its water needs.

Tech and the City, Godzilla and San Francisco

Tech and the City, Godzilla and San Francisco, a photo by douglaswittnebel on Flickr.

the recent news articles and posts about the adverse reactions against the tech-sters has provoked me to create this view, Tech "Kaiju" and the City by the bay...