PrairieMod

New Breed Furniture

Post 27, the hip home decor boutique on Chicago's west side, is offering a new line of furniture called New Breed. More after the jump...

Ethics And Unity Temple Meet

70 scientists, researchers and faculty recently convened at Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, IL to discuss the role of ethics in science and answer an important question for our modern time: “How do we act with the power that we have?” Read more about this event here.

Image by Eric P. Skalac/MEDILL

Divided In Oak Park

Geo Science has been in the news quite a bit lately—mostly the quaking kind. It was interesting to come across a Wednesday Journal story on an interesting aspect of Oak Park, IL that isn't Frank Lloyd Wright or Ernest Hemingway-related: The fact that a Continental Divide runs right through the town! Read more here.

Image via The Wednesday Journal

Meet The Frank Lloyd Wright Of The Sea

Minus the pork pie hat and cape, of course. Researchers at Florida State University have studied the habits of the Red Grouper and found that it is both an undersea architect and ecosystem engineer—thus bestowing the moniker "Frank Lloyd Wright of the Sea" on it. Read more about this fish tale here.

Image via Wikipedia

Why The Golden Ratio Works

Artists and architects across the ages have utilized the "golden ratio" in their masterpieces, imbuing them with a pleasing mix of proportion and balance. But why does the golden ratio work? Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, thinks he has the answer: the human eye is capable of interpreting an image featuring the golden ratio faster than any other. Read more here.

Nature Makes Us Nicer

Seems that Transcendentalist thinkers like Emerson, Thoreau and Wright were on to something when they placed a capital "N" on Nature. According to new research, maintaining a connection to the natural world can not only decrease stress and promote healing, but it can also make us better people. Read about it here.

Tricking Out Bricks

Bricks have been around forever as a building material, mostly because they are strong, have great thermal mass and are made to last. However, they can be tricky to work with and it's hard to build anything beyond boxes with them. However, Professor Ingeborg Rocker and students at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard have taught a computer to do it. Check it out here.

Image by Jessica Rosenkrantz/via Treehugger.com

Power House for Learning

I had to write more about the Power House by Thames & Kosmos, which was featured in the Smart Home. The kit was designed by physicist Uwe Wandrey and cleverly combines science and adventure. Instead of a regular instruction booklet on how to build the house, you get a manual that follows the story of a “group of island dwellers who must learn to live sustainably using the resources available to them.” You then build models based on entry journals of the islanders. There are more than 20 projects to make life comfortable on the island, some of which include building a solar cooker and a sail car.

Photo by Allison Coffee