Exploratorium - Strandbeest Preview

We were able to attend another fun and amazing members preview at the Exploratorium, San Francisco's well-loved, hands-on science museum – a show featuring Theo Jansen and his Strandbeests (beach animals). The show gives visitors an overview of all the work that goes into one of these amazing "animals": the evolution and the death of various types of beests, their musculoskeletal systems, their rudimentary cardio-vascular functions, and their still simple nervous system abilities (more advanced species can sense their environments as well as save information).

Outside, in the plaza, visitors can also push a beest, feel the systems at work (they are surprisingly heavy but easy to move).

Here, Jansen explains how the "gills" drive a cam and fill the bottles with pressurized air, and then there is a way for the Strandbeest to test the hardness off the sand, so it knows how close it is to the surf (and doesn't walk into the water).

And here is the Strandbeest in motion – if it senses that it is too close to the water's edge, it can change direction.

One imagines that if you could figure out the mechanical engineering to just make the legs, and you might be very happy with that. Over the last 25-plus years, Jansen has added ways for the beests to "live" autonomously on the beach; "breathe" air to metabolize; and "see" the shoreline and avoid waling into the sea.

Jansen explains that his dream is to have the beests live and die, evolve and grow on their own – that he can release them into the wild and have them survive. It was a true pleasure to have the chance to see the beests and meet the artist – fascinating and beautiful.

Electric Car - Phase 1: Plugin Hybrid

Our car is recharging. It's in the driveway, a pulsing green light on it's nose, attached to a complex cord that plugs into the wall. It's gathering electrons. It's going to need those electrons when we drive down for Mother's Day Brunch tomorrow.

This is our new 2016 Audi A3 Sportback e-tron. It's a plugin hybrid with about 20 miles of electric-only range, and a total range of about 500 miles. It's Florett Silver on the outside and almost all black on the inside.

A few years after we traded-in our 1999 B5 A4 Avant 2.8 quattro (also silver on black -- or, Aluminum Silver on Onyx), we are back in a car that feels like an offspring of that wagon: solid, competent, useful, and slick as a German mechanic can make. The interior design is clean and simple; it's a pleasure to be in that space.

So the basic math is this, best case scenario: the car should get about 35mpg on gas alone. My commute is 25 miles each way each day. But I can re-charge at school, so I should be able to get the same electric miles in both directions. I'll still need to use gas for 5 miles of each leg; in seven legs, or three and a half days, I'll have used a gallon of gas to travel 175 miles. And since we have solar panels generating the energy at both ends -- well, this is about as green and carbon free as I can get for now. And even if I get half the mpg's, I'll be happy.

In any case, it's on a three year lease, after which we hope to be in a new Tesla Model 3. That'll be Phase 2.

And a hearty congratulations to the Audi Sport Team Joest car number 8, who won the World Endurance Championship race at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium this weekend with the e-tron's much bigger brother: the Audi R18 e-tron Quattro.

UPDATE 1 (May 22): Our first tank of gas: 8.895 gallons for 665.1 miles, or 74 mpg. To be honest, I thought number might be over 80 and close to 90, but a couple of highway trips actually dropped our mileage, cause the car used the battery less. Still, a big improvement over the 28/29 mpg that we typically got in the Civic (which never really got to the 31mpg that is was supposed to get).

UPDATE 2 (June 10): Our second tank of gas: 8.762 gallons for 829.4 miles, or 95mpg. Pretty darned good. Total for both fill-ups: 17.657 gallons for 1494.5 miles, or 85 mpg. And about three weeks between gas stops. Also, now that the level-2 charger has been installed, short-hop style trips will be more EV and less ICE, since we can charge more often and faster.

UPDATE 3 (July 3): Our third tank of gas: 8.01 gallons for 794.8 miles, or 99mpg. Total for all fill-ups: 25.667 gallons for 2289.3 miles, or 89 mpg. 

SFMOMA Members Preview Day

Another weekend museum opening: SF MOMA's new addition - a new building really - opened for a Member's Preview Day this weekend. This was special - it's a true gem.

Designed by Snohetta, the new building creates both a back-drop for the older Mario Botta building from 3rd Street and the Moscone Center, and a new "face" and entrance on Howard Street, a wavy, rhythmic sheet of stone (fiberglass reinforced polymer). Climbing the angled, wide stairway, one enters a broad and open lobby.

Off to the left, back down toward the street level, there is a seating area for talks and events and a special gallery for a Richard Serra installation - a series of curled steel panels that creates both courtyards and alleys. The piece is called "Sequence, and acts as a very tempting appetizer.

From the new lobby, one can see the "Living Wall" in the courtyard just above, and the grand stair draws you upward. However, we took the elevator to the top floor (the 7th) and stepped out onto a sunlit balcony - views over the roof tops toward the Bay, and then back to the upper edge of the "wavy" wall. From here, one can see and feel the mezmerizing layers and ripples of that surface.

Stepping back into the galleries, and there is a series of flowing areas - a bit less than discrete rooms, but a lot more than a continuous hall. The galleries have an unfinished feel; I wonder if the ceiling are showing their final finish.

Downstairs, the galleries maintain a similar flow, with views between and around the artwork; each gallery space gives peeks ahead and back. Here, the ceilings are finished, and there is more of a "white room" kind of gallery space working. The space just behind the wavy wall acts ad a stairway and vertical connector, though the stairs don't connect one right into the other, inviting visitors to stop at each level and explore.

On the 5th floor, is one of the main galleries for the Fisher Collection. Here the galleries feel truly polished and special, with a coved ceiling detail providing indirect and diffuse light. Again, the wall panels, never surround you; the corners spill into two or three adjoining spaces, and one wanders from moment to moment, artist to artist, and art piece to art pice. Several artists are features at the opening, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Agnes Martin are all given special spaces. There is a bit of magic in the scale: big enough to allow the over-scaled pieces to breathe, but small enough to give the spaces a room-like feel. That is, a room of Ellsworth Kelly "shapes" allows the viewer to enjoy each piece as well as the gathered pieces.

A crossing hallway on the 5th level re-connects the Botta building and the older Sculpture Garden, with a view down through a lighting grid to a special event space. On the 4th level, the same crossing hallway ends at the "Living Wall" courtyard - which is accessible from the 3rd level. On this Sculpture Terrace, one can truly enjoy the architecture and see how several of the larger building parts come together. Looking up, you can see the "bridge" connecting to the older Sculpture Garden on the 5th level, as well as the towers of the adjacent buildings. Looking back through the glass to the galleries, you can see past to the older Botta building. Peers around the corner and you can see the "cut" edge of the "wavy" wall, the joins between the old and new, and the street beyond. Walk to the other end, and you can see the Howard Street entrance and the other publics spaces below. Just inside the Sculpture Terrace. there is a special gallery showing Calder mobiles.

Just around the corner from the Calder gallery is a showcase of models and sketches from Snohetta showing the design process for the new building.

From there we descend the main stair in the new Howard Street Lobby, and through to the Botta building. We recall that there used to be a dark, square stair cased the previously connected all levels; the staircase has been removed, and the main space opened up to the older 3rd Street Lobby below - with a Calder mobile and a new, zig-zaggy, Snohetta stair back down to the street level.

And that's it, we did not finish our tour - the new building is just huge and it's difficult to imagine covering the whole thing in one morning. SF MOMA now has the scale, stature of collection, and sense of place to compete with any of the big modern museums. Can't wait to return.