Carpets and counting: Five of the web's oddest communities
For a while, one of the UK's free morning newspapers - Metro - ran a column named The Ridiculant. Its tagline was "things we found down the back of the internet".
Because it's down there - right down there, if you stretch a bit - where you can find some of the most intriguing, compelling and downright bizarre corners of the web.
Places where people all over the world gather for the most pointless of reasons, yet feel some reward from it.
The BBC decided to stick its hand down the back of the internet to see what it could find. The results, in no particular order, and for no particular reason, can be found below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26343700
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a cult of fans of its carpet. They are finally going to replace the carpet and that has caused some uproar.
It has its own Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Carpet-at-Portland-Airport/184979948195916
(new carpet on the left, old on the right)
There is no other carpet in the world that has the cult following that the Portland Airport International airport's enjoys. It has its own Instagram tag (#pdxcarpet), no fewer than three related Twitter accounts, not to mention a growing collection of socks and t-shirts.
So what's the story behind it?
Designed by SRG Architects in 1987, the iconic carpet was a big change for the Port of Portland. In those days, PDX employees were sick of hearing the click and clack noises that repeatedly smacked the hard terminal floors. The airport was ready to welcome locals home with cozier floor.
SRG principal John Schleuning (who helped design the carpet) recalls visiting at least five different airports before buckling down to design the PDX carpet
“Airports were just like subways!” says Schleuning. “They were very utilitarian.”
Earth tones (think beige and oatmeal) were standard for airport carpets in the 80s, Schleuning says. Indeed, he says one airport chose its dull carpet color to blend in with fallen cigarette butts.
The SRG team wanted the carpet to be northwest to the core, so they settled on blues and greens early on in the design phase. The final pattern corresponded to Portland's intersecting North-South runways, as seen from the control tower. ...
http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/travel-and-outdoors/tripster/articles/a-brief-history-of-the-pdx-carpet-december-2013
