Informing the community
notitia insula
- Order
supellex - Family
viso - Genus
notitia - Species
notitia insula
Description
A bulletin board monolith to hang community announcements, with address ring on top.
Identification
Cylindrical concrete monolith 1.5-2m in diameter, often with taped paper; with red metal top, often with spray-painted address.
Habitat
On Main Street sidewalk and plazas on Roosevelt Island.
Range
On Main Street sidewalk and plazas on Roosevelt Island.
Examples
Discussion
Putting up a bulletin board or community board or information kiosk feels like a 1970’s trope; especially in the context of Roosevelt Island, but they are extremely useful ways to channel community events and announcements into one place. There’s a reason why every coffee shop or school in America has them.
A bulletin board was originally patented in 1924 by George W. Brooks of Topeka, Kansas and like all things, often have stringent rules (both written and unwritten) of how to use them.
The Roosevelt Island Bulletin Boards are an interesting hybrid: some of the kiosks have address labels on the red ring at the top, and some address rings are just plain red. This drift is certainly Stewart-ian, in a How Buildings Learn fashion.
We’ve counted five of them during our initial survey on Main Street, but don’t think that’s a complete number.
Climate impacts
Reinforced concrete is such a successful building material that it’s use constitutes about 8% of the annual global CO2 emissions. Besides the initial embodied carbon of the reinforced concrete monolith, there is continued carbon costs of tape and paper to host the announcements, and the occasional repainting which has to happen.
Further reading
- Bulletin board – Wikipedia
- US Patent US1494583A – Bulletin board and the like to George W. Brooks residing Topeka, Kansas
- Embodied Carbon in Reinforced Concrete
