Bill MacEwen / Blog

I was out at UBC the other day and met up with my friend Mat from The Elysian Room at the new cafe on campus.  There wasn’t really any quality coffee around when I was a student, so it’s nice to see a good operation go up.  The design is very simple white…the colors provided by the latest fads the students are wearing on their backs, packed in there hacking away on their essays.  The place is well layed out, ~1250 sqft. of floor space.  A few interesting things…the menu comes off a digital projector so (presumably) it can be updated on the fly.  Good idea but poorly executed as the resolution is quite low and the whole thing is rather cluttered.

Most importatly the coffee is great.  They’re serving up 49th Parallel (Piccolo’s) through a pair of La Marzocco FB70’s.

More at Vancover Coffee and The Boulevard Coffee.

Good design is affordable.  Has anyone said that yet?  If not I claim it. Woot!

You can buy this bad boy for $56 USD.

I’ve been shooting film for two happy months now.  The camera was cheap but the film and processing is expensive.  I’ve been getting it done at Custom Color in Yaletown, and just wanted to give all you photogs out there a heads up on the new location on Beatty & Smithe.  Although I don’t have much to compare it to, they seem to be doing a good job.  This cuts my weekly walk up there by a solid eight blocks…awesome!  If any of you have some better alternatives, let me know!

I posted an image a short while ago of a building concept with window panes of varying sizes and orientations. I assumed that this was purely theoretical, because it must cost a fortune to coordinate the construction, delivery, and installation of all those different pieces of glass. Cubed recently posed a few more image from what appears to be an actual proposed project. If they can solve the logistical and economic costs hats off because it looks beautiful!

[Left: copyright ArchPartners 2007; right: copyright dbox 2007/www.dbox.com]

Crazy…

I’ve often wondered what would happen with this empty lot across from Shangri La, and I had heard about this project some time ago…but not much since.  Regardless it does look like the 59 storey, 600 foot Arthur Erickson Tower will move ahead.

The model looks incredible, but the more recent rendering looks much less attractive.  The balconies have become curved rather than rectangular, rounding out the edges of the building and making the distinctive twist (which was so cool) fade into an vague ellipse instead.  Obviously when you twist a perfect circle nothing appears to change.  The more they move away from that original right angle design, the more regular the building will look. The other thing is that in the model it appears as though the glass runs uninterrupted right to the top.  Now on the new illustration it stops short.  Not sure what the considerations were for these changes…probably wind resistance or something else to do with ‘physics’. boo.

More info at pacificmetropolois.com

Boom., originally uploaded by MacEwen.