Whittier, Alaska, is a town of about 200 people, almost all of whom live in a 14-story former Army barracks built in 1956. The building, called Begich Towers, holds a police station, a health clinic, a church, and a laundromat. Its hallways resemble those of a school . One can often find residents shuffling around in slippers and pajamas.
Because the winters are so ferocious, the town’s only playground is indoors.
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This is some dystopian young adult novel bull.
To be fair pretty much all of Alaska is some dystopian young adult novel bull in one way or another.
I have only been to the outside of Whittier, that one time I took the ferry from Valdez, and it’s grim-looking as hell.
This also neglects to mention that the only ways to reach Whittier are either the aforementioned ferry, bush plane, or a 2.5 mile-long, approximately 15′x15′ tunnel through a mountain that looks like this inside:
The AKDOT website reassures us that “During the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake (the greatest magnitude earthquake ever recorded in North America) the tunnel suffered no significant structural damage and no cave-ins.”
Also please note that though most of the population now lives in the Begich Towers, the townspeople used to reside in the Buckner Building, which is now abandoned and just. Sitting there. Empty. The building that used to be a whole town. Looking super fucking haunted:
“The constant sound of cascading water echoes throughout the complex. Bears have been reported both wandering the upper floors in the spring and hibernating on the lower floors during winter.”
that last building isn’t abandoned, it literally says the bears live there now.
I just read the links, and omg this is even better.
So I looked at it and knew it was using the open courtyard and the pools and fountains to do a lot of the work of cooling the house, but it’s also got drip irrigation for all of those plants (which adds more moisture to the air and also helps cool it in addition to being an effective and efficient way of watering the plants), it’s got a roof garden and other eco-conscious stuff. It combines modern construction techniques with classic Arabic art and architecture.
And his home is a cultural center.
He holds lectures, concerts and salons in his home, with guests and speakers from around the world. He’s founded multiple institutions to preserve Islamic history and architecture. He’s an activist against the extremist factions he says are trying to hijack Islam.
His home is going to be part of an international institute offering degrees in Islamic history and science, as his legacy, housing a collection of over one hundred thousands of his photos, drawings and writings about Islam and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
This is serious real-life Islamic solarpunk for real.
Tumblr likes the idea of solarpunk, even if there’s not a real body of work about it yet. Well, we’re missing that people are already doing this for real, and have been for a long time.
I am not generally an architecture fan. It’s nice and all, but it doesn’t do a lot for me, especially modern American stuff. But I am totally bowled over by this and must now go look at everything he’s ever designed.
blackash26 