Setting their sights high

Here's another fun Friday post: For those readers following the development of The High Line on the West side of Manhattan (which officially opens in a few short weeks!), The Sundance Channel has a great collection of stories about the project. Among those interviewed: Liz Diller and Ric Scofidio, Robert Hammond and Joshua David, Diane Von Furstenberg, and Kevin Bacon. No, really! Here's the first in the series, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik.

Want more? The full lineup is here.

Hardly child's play

While we normally focus solely on commercial design, we couldn't pass this by: The PBS show Design Squad recently held a competition called Trash to Treasure. Co-sponsored by Intel, the competition challenged kids to design entirely new products from discarded items and materials. The entries had to move things or people, protect the environment, or be played with inside or outdoors. 

Here's the part us social responsibility nuts love: The winner was 12-year-old Max Wallack, who crafted The Home Dome, temporary housing for those in need of shelter, out of packing peanuts and plastic bags. The dome is anchored by a built-in bed that uses the weight of the dome's occupant to anchor the structure. 

Even more fun, as part of his prize, he got a trip to the Newton, Mass. offices of Continuum (the minds behind a bevy of products, including Allsteel's Acuity Chair), to build a prototype. Check it out:

Off the screen

Hugh Laurie as Gregory House, www.fox.com/house

Of all the medical dramas on TV, I'm most addicted to House, the FOX series starring Hugh Laurie as the namesake lead. So I was amused this morning to hear that House's stomping grounds, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, is, in real life, relocating to Plainsboro, N.J. 

RMJM and HOK are joining together for the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro (UMCPP). Scheduled for completion in 2011, the high-tech facility is costing over $440 million.

The teaching hospital for the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School will be the centerpiece of the 160-acre campus, which will also include a medical office building, a skilled nursing facilties, a health education center, a fitness and wellness center, a senior residential community and a 32-acre public park.

Other features include self-check-in kiosks, computerized medical records and other digital tools; 238 private patient rooms with large windows and family zones; and sustainable features including 100 percent fresh air, sustainable construction materials and interior finishes, and environmental control systems.

Think the ever-cranky Gregory House would approve?