John Maeda author of Laws of Simplicity is now President of the Rhode Island School of Design. “RISD is MIT for the right brain,” he tells the WSJ. “Everyone asks me, ‘Are you bringing technology to RISD?’ I tell them, no, I’m bringing RISD to technology.” The article says he spends an hour a day blogging “unmediated” — “so you get the real me, typos, spelling mistakes, you name it.” (via.)

Lisa Selin Davis has a story in Salon about the couple who lived in the Providence Mall (It was covered extensively on the blogs last year. See Ballardian and the artists’ website here.) The couple Michael Townsend and Adriana Yoto crafted a secret apartment inside the massive Rt 95 eyesore. “The mall adventure was to last a week; it went on for four years. If Townsend hadn’t been nabbed by security and charged with criminal trespassing last October, they’d still be camping out there today.” Davis smartly compares their experience to the $1m+ Natick Mall luxury condos just a few miles north in suburban Boston (I’ve been meaning to write a post about the hilarious pseudo-poshness of the “Natick Collection” — its ant farm like freeway chaos and American-travels-the-Continent decor. Eventually.) Of course JG Ballard and Romero allusions can be made, but what I think is interesting is that most science fiction visions of futuristic architecture tend to imagine a massive space — a city or multiple cities — enclosed. (Usually for the purpose of some nuclear disaster or space colony.) Is this a subconscious projection of the shopping mall of the future by the authors? A claustrophobic vision or one of a comforting incubator?

The Anti-Architecture of H. P. Lovecraft (via.) “Lovecraft lived a manic intellectual existence where an unabashed love for historic preservation was counterbalanced by a deep hatred for modern architecture.” Here are some photographs of Lovecraft’s Providence and a map of landmarks.

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