I have such a hard time not picturing Geoff Manaugh in a pith helmet. Not the military variety, but the ones you typically associate with 19th-century British explorers on safari. I know, it’s very silly (and totally un-PC), but in my mind, Geoff is a modern explorer, a cyber-age synthesis of Ferdinand Magellan/Jules Verne/Neil Armstrong/Le Corbusier.

His new book, The BLDGBLOG Book, is based on a blog by the same name, which he has been writing since 2004. It’s a feast for the imagination, weaving together architecture, science fiction, and pop culture into a fascinating collection of illustrated essays that speculate on the future of our built environment. GOOD magazine posted a great review of the book last week that does far more justice to the work than I can in this short space.

Geoff took a short breather from safari on an abandoned island in Sydney Harbor to share his thoughts with us on The Book vs. The Blog, his fantastic summer voyage, and his next big plans.

You are known for your musings on the future of built environments. I’m curious, with all of the rhetoric around the future/death of print in the digital age, what do you think of the BLDGBLOG book as a tangible object in comparison to the blog?

Having a tangible book in this case is quite interesting, I think, because reading a printed artifact has very different requirements than reading a blog. In other words, with a blog – indeed, with anything written online – you need, at the very least, electricity, internet access, and a computer, but with a book you can just sit out in the park on a Saturday afternoon and do some reading. You can take it deep into a building that has no wifi signals and still read it – and you can take notes, photocopy things, travel with it, and so on. So it’s quite a different experience. After all, it’s very easy for a blog to become inaccessible – even something as simple as staying in a hotel with no internet access means that my blog effectively doesn’t exist. On the other hand, you can lose a book quite easily…

I’ve been following your tweets this summer and you seem to have covered an amazing amount of ground. Can you give us a recap of your travel itinerary and share some highlights?

This summer has been a great mix of work and vacation – we’ve been down in the catacombs of Rome, out on an abandoned industrial island and former prison in the Sydney Harbor (where I’m teaching a two-week design studio), in a museum full of old scientific equipment in Paris, and then the big book launch was back in London in early July. There are a few more side-trips within this larger trip yet to come, mostly to speak at conferences and so on, but my wife and I also have some pure vacation days built into this. To make a long story short, it’s been fantastic so far.

My god, I’m exhausted just thinking about an average day in the life of Geoff Manaugh. But it seems like you’re only just getting started. Got any big plans for the future?

When we get back to the States we’ll be starting off in NYC for another book launch – the North American one – and then we’ll be driving across the country to do some more lectures, visit family and friends, and just see things and hike and have a good time. That brings us back to Los Angeles at the end – and, yeah, I would definitely say that I have big plans, from future books and films to videogame ideas, architectural designs, and hopefully some teaching. We’ll see if any or all of those come true.

You can read Geoff’s musings on his blog here and tap into his wanderlust on Twitter here.

More: 10 Reasons to Read the BLDGBLOG Book

Popularity: 2% [?]

In celebration of Change the World Day on May 1, Chronicle employees were given the day off to volunteer in the community. This was part of our outreach efforts to spread the word about We Are What We Do, a movement inspiring people to make a difference in the world, one small action at a time.

Habitat for Humanity crew modeling hard hats. Photo: Ryan Deane

Teams of eager volunteers dispersed throughout the Bay Area, building homes with Habitat for Humanity in Oakland, collecting stuffed animals and children’s books for Project Night Night in the Tenderloin, painting a mural at a Western Addition youth center, wrangling chicken wire at the San Francisco Zoo, and mucking compost at urban community gardens on both sides of the bay, to name just a handful of the projects we tackled that day.

Helping paint a mural for Opportunity Impact. Photo: Sandy Davis

Despite a total downpour that afternoon, everyone I’ve talked to had a fantastic time, and Change the World Day taught us a lot. The Reluctant Activist took one more step on his personal journey towards world improvement. And Suzanne found inspiration in the ridiculous book covers her group unearthed at the SF Library donation center.

Amy is the definition of a trooper at the SF Zoo. Photo: Amelia Anderson

While my own day volunteering at the farm was great fun, I have to admit that my favorite part of Change the World Day has been the aftermath, watching an amazing collection of photos and videos take shape in our new Chronicle Books Flickr pool. If you haven’t paid us a visit there yet, I highly recommend hopping over and becoming a member of our group (all are welcome!). There’s a wild assortment of photos to browse, not to mention some buried treasure in the captions…

Steve comes up with a new product for the Pirate Store at 826 Valencia. It’s the little IKEA tool transformed: A Swedish Barnacle Wrench. Doesn’t your bi-valve need tightening? Photo (and caption): Christina Amini

But, pirate jokes aside, in the end, I think the true lesson of Change the World Day was summed up best in the closing frames of this video that Molly created with the Project Night Night team:

We Are What We Do! Video: Molly Jones

So tell us, how did YOU change the world today?

Guinevere de la Mare
Community Manager

Popularity: 2% [?]

Troy Paiva boldly goes where you’re not supposed to go. In Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration, he glides through abandoned industrial complexes, military installations, junkyards, asylums, hotels, and gas stations, capturing stunning images of urban decay. Troy is one of the foremost photographers of the UrbEx (or UE) movement and his distinctive blend of atmospheric night photos and lighting effects are the visual hallmarks of a scene whose participants seek to investigate, to discover, and to soak up a forbidden atmosphere. I caught up with Troy last week to talk about his work.

How do you see yourself within the context of the UrbEx movement?

People have photographed ruins since the invention of the camera. People have taken pictures at night and done light painting almost as long. As near as I can figure though, I was the first person to combine all three. I’m amazed that so many people are doing UE night work now and it’s a thrill to be the guy that invented a whole genre of photography like that. But when all is said and done, I’m just another tourist wandering the ruins, taking it all in. UE is generally a secretive pastime. Most of us are loners and don’t talk much about what we do. Consequently, I think UE is bigger than any one person.

What draws you to exploring these abandoned spaces?

The epic solitude and the mystery. Alone, at night, these places take on an amazingly surreal atmosphere, totally unlike the “real world.”

Can you share any particularly vivid experiences you had during your explorations?

There’s nothing that can prepare a person for the sight of a headless and wingless airliner sitting on its belly in the sand, or a tract of hundreds of homes, abandoned on a decommissioned military base in the middle of nowhere. I love the moments like that: they are timeless explorations of just how small humans are in the grand scheme of things.

How did you first get into photography?

I am a career graphic designer and illustrator. Back in the late 80s I was painting and drawing for a major toy company as a full time job. The last thing I felt like doing when I got home was drawing and painting, so I was desperate to find a new creative outlet which was separate from my day job. I stumbled onto night photography and immediately connected it with the abandoned places I was already exploring. I hit the ground running and never looked back.

Do you have a favorite image from the book?

No, that’s like picking a favorite child! The airplane Boneyard is my favorite location, though, because it’s just so unique. So consequently it’s probably my favorite section of the book.

What would you like people to take away from Night Vision?

That we are living in a golden age of abandonment and urban exploration. There were more buildings and infrastructure built in the 20th century than in all the rest of human history combined. I want it to make others feel like getting their shoes dirty too and also, to give the “armchair explorer” a chance to experience these places.

Have more questions for Troy? Ask away! He’s volunteered to guest moderate the comments, so now’s your chance to find out everything you wanted to know about UrbEx, night photography, and headless airliners.

Guinevere Harrison
Copywriter

Popularity: 5% [?]

There are a few things that nearly all Chronicle designers love: Books, Art, and Anthropologie. (At least, those of the fairer sex. Jake would definitely swap Surfing into that three-spot.)

So as you can imagine, there’s been quite a bit of chatter around here about the current window displays in Anthro’s retail outlets around town.

Anthropologie’s endlessly crafty window dressers have salvaged thousands of tattered old paperbacks to create a sculptural mise-en-scène in which to display their glamour-gear for the literary set. Removing from the equation all of the aspects of the book that one would normally associate with design and décor—e.g. covers, illustrations, typography—the books are reduced to their purest form: letterforms on paper.

On Market Street here in San Francisco, the book interiors hang suspended from the ceiling like Noguchi lanterns. The folded paper, spiraling around a central axis, is reminiscent of origami, yet the shadows of text receding into the space between the pages lend tension to these angular forms. The books belie a presence that is at once weightless and solid.

The Corte Madera store just over the Golden Gate Bridge applies a different tactic, rounding the pages into the spines to create a flowering, organic frame for their display. The faded fore-edges of these abandoned books lend bursts of muted color to the composition, and you can almost smell the musty odor seeping from the yellowed pages.

In the comments on a post about the Berkeley store over on Casa Sugar, a few readers lament that so many books were ruined in the process of creating these displays. I don’t see it this way at all. These are old recycled books, stacks and stacks of which end up in landfills and shredders each year (btw Chronicle has a policy of avoiding the practice of remaindering at all costs). If throwaway paperbacks can have a second life as works of art, or better yet inspire people to create their own design projects, then I’m all for it. Isn’t that the whole idea behind reevaluating the life cycle of our products?

Agree? Disagree? Jump in! Meanwhile, check out dreambird’s Flickr photos of the Anthro window display in Kansas City, or scout out some of your own and send in a link!

Guinevere Harrison
Copywriter

Popularity: 6% [?]

Reverends gone wild (first Wright, now Jackson?). Teleprompter mishaps (can you say Lex-ing-ton Proj-ect?). Terrorist fist bumps (yep, that one’s still got legs). And my favorite breaking news to date: the “Mental Recession.” Just in case you’re counting (and if you have one of these, you know you are), there are 112 days left until the general election. Which means the worst is yet to come. It’s monsoon season in politics, so we caught up with David Borgenicht, the mastermind behind the wildly popular Worst-Case Scenario series, to find out how to prepare for the flood.

GH: What inspired you to take on politics in this latest Worst-Case Scenario Almanac?

DB: It’s the time of the season, as they say—when we started to think about what the next Worst-Case Scenario book should be, the campaign was already upon us—mud was already being slung, the parties were warring with each other and with themselves, and it just seemed like a hot topic at the time. Little did we know that everyone would already be sick of politics long before the election….

GH: Well, we still have a long way to go until November—I’m sure there will be surprises in store. The book is filled with some pretty obscure facts. How did you and co-author Turk Regan approach the research for this almanac?

DB: These almanacs are a huge undertaking—they’re like writing three books in one. Plus, apart from the How Tos, each entry is only a page or less—so we’re talking 200+ topics for every almanac we do! There’s really no way to go about it except for just diving right in. We left no stone unturned, no turn unstoned when it came to finding information for this book—we used primary interviews, books, the Internet, government publications (from all different governments), history books—everything and anything we could find. Except for Swift Boat ads.

GH: Did anything you stumbled upon in your research leave a particularly strong impression on you?

DB: The most striking thing you come away with after writing a book like this is that no matter where you go in the world, politics is pretty much the same—it’s hopeful, it’s a scam of the elite, it’s democracy, it’s dictatorship, it’s honesty, it’s manipulation. And it’s highly unpredictable. Mao once referred to politics as “war without bloodshed,” though Winston Churchill pointed out that in war you can only die once, but “in politics, many times.” It’s the human factor—humans are unpredictable and that makes them dangerous.

GH: Are the scenarios in this book based on actual advice that political consultants have offered their clients, or were you guys making this stuff up?

DB: Much of the advice in the How Tos we’ve included in the book does indeed come from political consultants and spin artists, especially when it comes to things like “How to Survive Being Grilled by a Reporter,” and “How to Survive a Sex Scandal.” But we had fun with the information and research as well—I’m not sure anyone would admit to using “How to Camouflage a Boondoggle.” But they do it….

GH: Did you have any specific politicians in mind when writing the book?

DB: We had every politician in mind. We wrote the book for an internationally minded audience—not just for the U.S. From handy how-tos to useful historical facts (that bear knowing, lest they be repeated), from charts and diagrams to lists, dos, and don’ts, The Worst-Case Scenario Almanac: Politics is written for presidents, candidates, senators, premiers, prime ministers, dictators, city councilmen, and just plain old citizens.

GH: So, if you could direct our presumptive presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, to a particular chapter or scenario, which would it be?

DB: There’s really something for everyone in here—it’s hard to pick any one piece of advice for Obama and McCain. If pressed, though, I’d push Obama towards page 68, “How to Counter a Smear AD” (I’m sure it’s coming), and McCain towards page 44, “How to Pretend You Care.”

GH: Anything else you’d like to add about politics, WCS, or your experience working on this almanac?

DB: Just vote early, vote often, and buy the book….

Guinevere Harrison
Copywriter

Popularity: 4% [?]