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Architect Koolhaas sees economic woes blunting excess SEOUL (Reuters Life!) – Architect Rem Koolhaas, renowned for his striking designs and musings on cities, believes the global economic downturn will lead to less ostentatious, more "socially responsible" buildings that better serve the public. The Dutch architect, whose firm designed the gravity-defying CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, Casa de Musica in Portugal and the Seattle Central Library, said more emphasis will now be placed on the efficient use of space during these lean times. "The last 10 years have been noteworthy for the excess in the private sector," Koolhaas told Reuters at the opening of a sleek temporary exhibit hall he and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture designed for fashion house Prada in Seoul. "What we are going to see is a return to the public sector. This is a healthy thing," he said on Wednesday. The Prada Transformer structure, located next to an ancient palace in central Seoul, will open on Saturday with a fashion display. The tetrahedron-shaped steel building, covered in a translucent white skin, is designed to be lifted by cranes and rotated so that it can best use each of its differently designed sides to show movies, host fashion shows or hold art exhibits. Koolhaas said the building provides a bit of lightness -- constructed at a reasonable costs -- that is needed during an economic downturn. Prada would not provide the amount it paid to construct the building. (Editing by Miral Fahmy)
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Deflation a concern in North America By Paul Vieira, Financial Post February 20, 2009 OTTAWA -- Inflation in North America is to remain benign for the months -- and perhaps years -- ahead, analysts say, as a shrinking global economy undercuts commodity prices and inventories in Canada remain at excess levels. Data were released in both Canada and the United States on Friday. The Canadian numbers, Bay Street economists say, further strengthen the case for the Bank of Canada to cut its key lending rate by a further 50 basis points on March 3. Further, the data indicate deflation remains a concern for policy-makers on both sides of the border. Statistics Canada said the headline inflation rate dropped for a fourth consecutive month, to 1.1% from 1.2%. The Bank of Canada’s core rate, which removes elements subject to volatile prices, such as energy, dropped to 1.9% from 2.4%. That is in contrast to the United States, where the cost of living rose 0.3% in January, the first climb in six months based on stronger energy prices. Last month, prices fell 0.8%. The U.S. numbers initially eased deflationary fears. Analysts, however, were not so confident. "The near-term risk has lightened a little bit, but if anything the medium-term risk may have been ramped up a notch or two by the clear evidence about how the global economy is sliding," Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, said. "The deep dive in the global economy threatens to further undercut commodity prices, and more broadly, pricing power in other industrial goods." Mr. Porter said the BMO economics team envisages the global economy shrinking 0.5% this year. As it happens, economists at Toronto-Dominion Bank issued an updated outlook that forecasts a similar contraction in the world economy -- the first since the Second World War. "Deflation is not a paramount risk right now -- but it is a risk when you are looking at a global contraction," said Richard Kelly, the TD senior economist who issued the revised global forecast. The Bank of Canada had forecast inflation would dip below zero for two quarters this year, largely based on the big drop in energy prices. However, the central bank has dismissed concerns about deflation, calling risk "remote." Mr. Porter said he believes Canada can avoid deflation, "but my conviction is weakening given just how weak the global economy has become." In a related report, David Wolf, chief Canadian economist at Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch, said inventory held by Canadian companies remains at higher levels compared with their U.S. counterparts. As a result, this excess supply will attract lower prices -- which will further drive down inflation. Mr. Wolf added there remains an "excess" overbuilding of housing supply in Canada. "That will continue to be a factor that will put a lot of downward pressure on prices," he said, adding that new house prices make up a small component of the consumer price index. © Copyright © National Post
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Excess wind energy to be stored underground for future use Posted Oct 5th 2007 8:57PM by Darren Murph Filed under: Misc. Gadgets We've seen some fairly impressive uses of wind power, but a group in Iowa is looking to actually capture and preserve excess wind energy for use when demand peaks. At the Iowa Stored Energy Park, a number of local utilities is "building a system that will steer surplus electricity generated by a nearby wind farm to a big air compressor," which will be held deep below the ground for future use. The project is being backed by the Energy Department, but more than a hundred municipal utilities in surrounding states are shelling out $200 million to construct the 268-megawatt system. As it stands, Iowa's compressed air energy storage (CAES) installation will be the first of its kind when it's completed in 2011, but there's already work being done in Texas to build a similar unit.
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Reuters Life!: Montreal restaurant an ode to culinary excess
un sujet a posté mtlurb dans L'actualité
Montreal restaurant an ode to culinary excess Wed Sep 19, 2007 7:10am EDT By Lionel Perron MONTREAL, (Reuters Life!) - When patrons walk into Martin Picard's popular eatery in Montreal's trendy Plateau district, they'd be well advised to leave cholesterol concerns at the door. As the name Au Pied de Cochon (The Pig's Foot) suggests it's all about slabs of pork, beef, venison, lamb and duck with one recurring ingredient -- foie gras. "It's my favorite gourmet food, but a lot of people are reluctant to try it", says Picard, referring to the delicacy made from the livers of ducks and geese. "But when I mix it with fast-food dishes, they seem to forget they're eating foie gras". He lavishes the stuff on everything from hamburgers to poutine (French fries, gravy and cheese curds), a delirious offshoot of Quebec's alternately beloved and despised fast-food icon, to its signature preserved duck in a can. The menu is a foretaste of Picard's love affair with foie gras and Quebec's culinary tradition of rich, hearty, filling main courses. The "Happy Pork Chop" is in itself an ode to excess; one pound of meat stuffed with foie gras, lots of it. "What Martin does at Au Pied de Cochon is right in my emotional comfort zone. It speaks right to my heart, as a cook and as an eater", says Anthony Bourdain in the introduction to Picard's self-published cookbook. Three years ago, tourism officials invited Bourdain, an American celebrity chef, author and TV personality, to sample some of Montreal's finest restaurants and he fell head over heels for this former pizza joint. Picard roasts almost all his falling-off-the-bone meat dishes on a rotating turn inside a brick oven in the middle of an open kitchen. "I was adamant about removing the brick oven when we took over the building in 2001, but I didn't have enough money to do it. Luckily it's become the soul of my restaurant," said Picard. Young kitchen staffers in jeans and funky T-shirts add to the establishment's laid back atmosphere. "It's the kind of nonsense and frippery-free food that resonates with other chefs -- who inevitably 'get' what Martin is all about: The Good Stuff prepared skillfully and without pretension, and a shared philosophy of 'too much of a good thing is seldom enough'", Bourdain added. Just like the restaurant, the cookbook is unconventional. It opens with a photograph of Picard in a meat locker slugging a split pig like a punching bag while his shirtless staffers look on. With no book advance, tour, let alone a publisher, the book, sold out its first press run of 6,000 copies (5,000 in French and 1,000 in English) three weeks after its release last October.
