We’ve been slowly plugging away at the new CTlab site. I decided not to make the same mistake I made when I started the CTlab project, which was to do all the web development myself. I’m not a developer, and it shows; and all the time spent on it over the last year took away from everything I should have been doing. So Stu’s been familiarizing himself with the template – we’re starting with a Mimbo Pro baseline and working from there – which has freed me up to focus on other things. Not sure how long it’ll take to complete and transfer site content and domain over, but we’re not in too much of a rush. Better to take the time it takes to make sure it’s what we want, before going live.

Test

I’ve taken a short break from blogging at CTlab to concentrate on managing/coordinating some of the things we have cooking for 2009, including a busy schedule of book symposia. Tom Vigar is putting together a promotional poster for it, and I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like. We’ve also started work on the new CTlab website using a new platform, which opens up some exciting possibilities.

I recently finished reading Eyal Weizman’s Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (Verso, 2007), and I’m now in the midst of transcribing my reading notes into Endnote. It’s a remarkable text, in its narrative of spatial gerrymandering and in its sensitive articulation of applied architectural theory.  There are a couple of passages in particular (bridging archeology to architecture in Jerusalem; the palindromic commonality of architectural and legal “space”; Gen. Kochavi’s rejection of Derrida in favor of Tschumi; bridging from Fanon and the Algerian experience), that suggest my research is on the right track. I’ve discussed this a bit with Matt and Tim, who tell me there’s a similar tale to be told wrt British approaches to Belfast and Derry during The Troubles.

I’m going to be inporting some research content from a previously private blog. Around October-November 2007 I started putting research notes and various book and PhD related meanderings online, and had actually forgotten some of it once I started spending every spare waking moment building CTlab. I’m revisiting it now as I prepare the book outline and prelim draft chapters.