This textile sample was given to me by Andy McDonald, a researcher within the Centre for Advanced Textiles at the Glasgow School of Art. He was at the end of a speaking tour in N. America and had with him this small sample of fabric designed by celebrated Glasgow designers Timorous Beasties. It’s digitally printed, but digital processes have become so advanced that it is becoming very hard to tell digitally printed fabric apart from fabric printed the traditional way. I played with this sample until Andy finally gave it to me. The Centre for Advanced Textiles seems quite far ahead of what we’re doing in North America, both in terms of textile quality and design policy. Through the combination of academic research and commercial services, CAT provides an important link between education and industry and receives substantial R&D support from a forward-thinking, relatively design-industry-friendly state. From the standpoint of the small, independent designer, digital printing is extremely liberating. For example, in its textile printing bureau CAT Digital has a selection of over 30 natural fabrics that can be printed with your design (from a digital file), and because there’s minimal set up, they will print as little as 50cm (20 inches) for you. Perhaps only designers who use textiles will understand how completely thrilling and revolutionary this is – we can design our own patterns! Among other things this is going to mean a degree of democratization of textile design and the encouragement of smaller local manufacturing. You probably can’t tell from the scan above, but the quality, tooth, weight and drape of the cotton that CAT’s printing system can accommodate is superior to much of what’s available in digital printing in North America right now, and they can print on many different fibres – heavy linen, wool, silk. And you can get fine control over colours; if you look closely in the scan above you can see the subtle grey-on-cream pattern in the background. It’s surprisingly well done, even when compared to traditional printing. And yet it’s not prohibitively more expensive than what most N. American printers are doing on thinner, cheaper cotton. With luck this will change soon, and it seems that First2Print in New York is quickly catching up. It isn’t an economy of scale problem, after all, considering we’re a continent of nearly 350 million. Still, the modern textile industry was born in Scotland, England and Holland, and Europe has long been a fussy, demanding, educated textile market, so maybe it’s not surprising Glasgow has a head start in terms of both innovation and quality. See also CAT’s classic textiles line – classictextiles.com; two samples are below.

If you’re a textile nerd, you may be interested in an interesting article by CAT’s original director on the local economic benefits of digital textile printing, and an interesting mention of a project to reproduce and archive rare antique designs in small print runs. See Scottish Heritage Textiles Online:

“Textile printing in Scotland was a major industry in the 19th century but went into a steady decline after the First World War, with the last major factory closing in 1960. However the advent of this new digital technology, which is ecologically sound, an important factor in an industry with a poor environmental record, as well as labour and space efficient, creates the opportunity to stop the migration of production to the Far East and mount a revival.”

I spent hours as a kid making marble runs, using anything that was lying around my dad’s tool area. I’d usually start with a big chunk of solid wood (usually cedar, left over from deck-building) and make the marble wind around it in a spiral, down tracks made of elastic bands stretched between two pairs of nails, thin slats with grooves whittled out, leftover copper plumbing pipe etc. I was the artsy type l so I was trying for an aesthetic effect but that’s not necessary! My dad’s friends would play with the runs when they came over, so I know they’re not just for kids. On a whim I searched Flickr a few days ago and found many marble runs, none of which resembled mine at all, but all of which are amazing. This is only a tiny fraction of what I found. They’re not all DIY – there are some out there that span several floors and are permanently installed in museums, and there are many plastic commercial models – but they’re all interesting. Look at this ingenious one hipnerd made for his child. In memory of my childhood fixation, my sister recently bought me a beautiful, traditional woodblock marble run set, and naturalmom on Flickr has the same one! (Below.) Below that is a slightly less safe marble run made from glass tube, but it’s stunning. Click on the photos to go to their Flickr pages for more information. Thanks to all the photographers for designating these Creative Commons. If you’re searching, also try “marble roll” as a search term.

New house in an old neighbourhood of Wroclaw, Poland, in the NYT today. Spruce on the outside, particle board on the inside, and the whole thing cost US$80,000 to build. It will fade to grey. This seems equivalent to laneway housing in Vancouver – and memo to Vancouver: modern mixes well with traditional architecture. Take a chance! I just hope they used non-formaldehyde particle board in the interior, because if not that’s a lot of off-gassing. Photos: Olo Rutkowski. See more current Polish architecture here.

Hallowe’en is over but this fantastic Japanese raccoon figure survives. I wish it could stay there all winter. It was seen at this cool little bungalow – brick, which is unusual for Vancouver – a block away from the studio. The owners refurbished it and landscaped it themselves, but I was still taken aback by their pumpkin carving skills.

PS Addendum to this post: Scott Plumbe, the carver of this tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) pumpkin, wrote in to say he took a night photo of it below and he has kindly let me add it here (see link for story). Farther below that is the “No Face” pumpkin carved by his wife Rosemary a few years ago. No Face is a character in my favourite animated film of all time, Spirited Away by Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Scott, not surprisingly, turns out to be a professional illustrator. This is an interesting way to meet your neighbours. See also this post on a house a few doors down from Scott and Rosemary’s.

This house, as any Vancouverite knows, is what is known as a Vancouver Special. It’s a type of generic builder’s house, built mostly between about 1965 and 1985, that is entirely specific to this city. While it’s slowly gaining a sort of ironic or retro fan base, it’s not generally viewed as Vancouver’s best contribution to architecture. All of these photos were found on the amazing archival site Vancouver Special, a project of artist Keith Higgins. Not only is the site amazingly complete, but he’s set it up so that can cross-index these houses depending on whether you want to see all the Vancouver Specials on corner lots, or only the ones with lions, or with only vertical siding, or with stonework. It’s strangely mesmerizing.

A few years ago, a small number of Vancouverites began to figure out that these deprecated houses are actually smart purchases. For one thing, they tend to be cheaper than average (granted this is still not saying a lot, given Vancouver prices, and it probably won’t last), and for another, it doesn’t take much alteration to fix them up. Vancouver Specials have a relatively modern shape, something that’s otherwise nearly completely lacking in Vancouver, and while these places often don’t look all that prepossessing on the outside, inside they have a liveable and spacious layout. The next posts, titled Vancouver Special: After, will show some of the improvements people have been making to these places. Note: the house directly below is 2 doors to the west of me.