Monday, July 20. 2009The Street Finds Its Own Uses for Street-Warhttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/07/ethnic_clashes_in_urumqi_china.html *A bunch of well-chosen photos here of ethno-religious rioters busting up the joint in central Asia… ugly, of course, but nothing particularly remarkable there… However, check out the atemporal cellphone/spiked mace techno-mashup brandished by this agitated local urbanite. You see that hardware? He probably invented that. He made that gizmo up and he assembled it himself, I reckon. That’s kinda like MAKEZINE gear for instant ethnic pogroms. Maybe somebody passed him an instructable through that nifty camera phone. *In another, similar pic, some jittery street-kid brandishes a spear-shield combo that would be straight out of the Roman Empire, if he hadn’t, in fact, clearly copied it from the crypto-medieval gear of contemporary Chinese riot cops. *Thanks, Anne-Laure! Facial Recognition + Social Networks = Augmented IDIt’s a conceptual piece, but alarmingly plausible. Be careful you don’t venture out to the Republican fundraiser with your Gay Disco Party Animal ID turned on. ----- Via Beyond the beyond (Bruce Sterling's blog on wired) Personal comment: Une vraie scène d'horreur! "Hmmm, cette semaine j'ai des bons ratings!" ...
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Science & technology
at
13:34
Defined tags for this entry: 3d, artificial reality, hybrid, identification, mobility, science & technology
Comfort in a Lower Carbon SocietyThe following are a collection of abstracts from a 2008 Special Issue of Building Information and Research entitled "Comfort in a Lower Carbon Society". The issue establishes a sound theoretical argument for revising current building comfort standards, which can be traced back to the rise of artificial air conditioning in the early 20th century United States. This area of focus has been given short shrift in architecture schools and amongst architecture circles, but seems important given the fact that the addiction to air conditioning over the past fifty years has essentially relegated architects to designers of fully controllable, sealed containers.
Please read and discuss. For more information on obtaining the full articles, feel free to e-mail me at jared.langevin@gmail.com.
Air-conditioning and the 'homogenization' of people and built environments. Healy, Stephen
Recent research contests dominant conceptions of thermal comfort and the forms of life these constitute motivated by the energy-intensive character of thermal monotony. Thermal monotony is maintained via scientifically delineated norms of thermal comfort that configure a standardized, homogenous 'comfort zone'. The homogeneity of this zone is reflected in complementarily homogenous embodied dispositions, cultural norms, buildings and built environments that increasingly displace heterogeneous alternatives. The complex interdependencies among these things is explored by investigating how thermal comfort standards fundamentally shape forms of life and the built environments supportive of them. The analysis applies a, primarily, Foucauldian perspective to historical accounts of the emergence of air-conditioning to illuminate how the power of thermal comfort standards can be explained in terms of how they are constructed. The final section explores the relevance of these insights for the promotion of alternative approaches to thermal comfort.
Cole, Raymond J.,
Robinson, John,
Brown, Zosia
To what extent can the urgency of climate change and an evolving concept of agency (at the individual and social levels of building users) create a new context for rethinking the notion of comfort? A new, emerging notion of comfort is explored that embraces engagement with new conditions, new experiences, and new types of interactions between inhabitants and building systems and unfamiliar technologies. The emphasis is on communication and dialogue as two dynamic and adaptive processes necessary to achieve optimal building performance while valuing and responding to inhabitant knowledge and agency, and enhancing indoor environmental quality from the standpoint of the inhabitants. A primary conclusion is that the goal of shifting into a lower carbon society has created a new context for comfort, from its conventional emphasis as automated, uniform and predictable, to a broader notion that takes into consideration dynamic, integrated, and participatory aspects. The key dimensions of this emergent broader view of comfort are examined and the relationships between them revealed.
Harris, Howell John
The history of the revolution in heating and cooking technology in the United States in the first half of the 19th century is explored along with the resulting transformation of the American indoor wintertime climate. It is argued, contra William Meyer (2000, 2002), that the reasons for this massive behavioural change are traceable to an underlying demand for greater comfort, and to the complex market forces involved in the development of the technology to satisfy it and an industry to create and sell the resulting appliances, rather than simply to the increase in the price of the prevailing fuel: firewood. An attempt is made to extract 'lessons' from this history - plausible parallels with later transformations in the technology of comfort.
Parkhurst, Graham,
Parnaby, Richard
The recent growth in European use of mobile air-conditioning (MAC) in transport is examined with reference to the experience of the longer-established trend in the buildings sector and to experience in the US. Air-conditioning is identified as significantly undermining improvements in energy efficiency, whilst the penetration of MAC is observed as having been particularly rapid and deep compared with static air-conditioning (SAC). A conceptual framework for the adoption of MAC is then proposed, which draws on sociological and psychological concepts as well as technical considerations in characterizing the processes influencing the adoption and use of MAC. The availability of empirical evidence to validate this model is then considered, with the finding that significant gaps in knowledge exist about why MAC is adopted, who benefits from its adoption, how the systems are used in practice, and the extent of satisfaction of travellers with the comfort of the environments of 'mobile buildings'. Although social norms and behaviour with respect to MAC are flexible, and hence subject to influence by climate change policy, significant further research is required to inform the specification of that policy.
-----
Via Jargon, etc.
Related Links:Personal comment: Ici je ne peux que renvoyer à RealRoom(s) (2005)... La monotonie thermale (mais aussi celle du confort), décrit comme une forme d'espace abstrait global, y était le thème central du projet.
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Architecture, Sustainability
at
13:15
Defined tags for this entry: architecture, artificial reality, climate, conditioning, energy, research, sustainability
Inverted Infrastructural Monuments, pt.1As the looming threat of global warming persists, one of the most prominent effects has been the erratic nature of weather patterns with pronounced emphasis on weather extremes. Some areas of the world are accustomed to such polarity. In Western India, for instance, three months of a healthy monsoon is followed by nine continuous months of arid weather. The polarization of weather promotes renewed interest in ancient infrastructures that could mitigate these extremes through sustainable means. In the case of the dry weather in Western India, this was done with Stepwells. Dated to 600 AD, stepwells are essentially inverted ziggurats excavated from the earth, producing an infrastructural monument to water collection. Like most great inventions, the concept driving a stepwell is surprisingly simple and composed of two parts – a well and access route. The large well is used to collect monsoon rain, which then percolates through layers of fine silt (to screen particulates), eventually reaching a layer of impermeable clay. Eroded rock from the Western Himalaya, further refined through several centuries of farming has produced a fine alluvium soil for the wells, which acts as an ideal filter. With larger sediment gathering at the top, the stepwell operates like an underground aquifer. The second component of the stepwell, are the steps or access passages to collect the water. Unlike traditional wells, stepwells allow one to enter, manage and maintain the well, creating a spatial occupation of the infrastructure. Some stepwells contain continuous transport infrastructure, such as ramps, to allow cattle to reach and transport water. More elaborated stepwells host galleries and chambers surrounding the passageways that were ornamentally sculpted. It is no surprise that these wells that allowed communities to sustain their crops during the arid months, eventually became religious temples dedicated to water. The functional characteristics of stepwells, soon made them a metaphor for the Ganges – the largest and most divine river in India. What is intriguing about stepwells is that they were both an infrastructure to collect water as well a space of gathering and leisure. As a subterranean landscape, the base of the inverted pyramids provided a cool microclimate to escape the hot conditions at grade. As such, these became central public spaces of gathering and architectural significance. The collection of water also attracted large ecosystems of bees, fish, lizards, parrots, pigeons, and turtles amongst other species. Each monsoon would reinvigorate these stepwells and promote new life. As a functional, religious and social infrastructure, these became the central spaces for many communities to gather, bathe and converse. The British Raj phased out the use of stepwells during the 19th century due to concerns over water borne parasites. Beyond the architectural beauty of stepwells, was an infrastructural intelligence, which is of importance today. These wells acted as water filters as well as mega storage and irrigation tanks in a completely sustainable manner. As weather patterns continue to polarize, these local infrastructures could provide clues on how to handle and store water for irrigation. For further reading, Morna Livingston has a great book on Stepwells, which I highly recommend. ----- Via InfraNet Lab Personal comment:
Etonnant encore une fois de constater à quel point les architectures vernaculaires, antiques, etc. (pour faire simple, les architectures pré-industrielles et surtout pré-climatisation) fonctionnait comme des systèmes socio-climatiques, économes avec les ressources et souvent intelligents. Des systèmes générant par ailleurs parfois des formes assez hallucinantes et radicales, comme ici. Amazon DeKindles OrwellIn an amazingly Orwellian twist, Amazon has dekindled George Orwell's works -- 1984 and Animal Farm -- from Kindle "owners" worldwide. David Pogue gets the inherent wrongness involved, but doesn't go far enough into this post-industrial accident, perhaps: This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned. 1984A screen shot from Amazon.com The MobileReference edition of the novel, “Nineteen Eighty-four,” by George Orwell that was deleted from Kindle e-book readers by Amazon.com.
But actually its not like that at all, since it would a/ require hundreds of thousands of thieves to break into hundreds of thousands of homes, physically, and then b/ find, and ultimately c/ steal the books. This is logisitically impossible, and even if it were possible, it couldn't be done by one person hitting the delete key on some queen bee server at Amazon. And, of course, d/ this would be a felony, or better, a hundred thousand felonies. Amazon sort of explains their so-called thinking: [from Mysterious George Orwell refunds - kindle Discussion Forum]
Since when does pulling a title from a digital store lead to it disappearing from the shelves of those that bought it in the past? If Amazon markets the Kindle device and the digital content it delivers as a rental service, well, fine. And if the "owners" of these devices go along with it, cool. But the reality is somewhat more sinister, since the marketing hype is that Kindle is 'your library', which is generally conceived of as comprising the books I possess, not the ones I get from the library: [from Amazon Website]
Unless, of course, Amazon hits the kill switch. We've known from the start that Amazon's approach to digital books is all about money, not high fidelity allegiance to the nature of books. You can't loan a Kindle book to a friend, for example, or sell one. It interrupts all the wonderful social fabric that surrounds books and reading.
In a way, we shouldn't be too surprised at the newest infraction of our e-dreams about the Kindle. After all, we've known from the start that Amazon's approach to digital books is all about money, not high fidelity allegiance to the nature of books. You can't loan a Kindle book to a friend, for example, or sell one. It interrupts all the wonderful social fabric that surrounds books and reading. And, this was their choice, of course. No book "buyer" ever said, "Please free me of the distractions of loaning my books to others: what a bother!" No one ever said they'd like to buy a book they cannot sell. You can make a case that Amazon had no choice, that the publishers wouldn't go along otherwise. This is just digital music and Apple's iTunes all over again. Although I don't recall Apple ever deleting my Massive Attack discography. And, unlike Kindle, iTunes allows me to bring in my own digital content: I can rip music from CDs, and those tracks are unencrypted. And iTunes at least allows me to share even my encrypted music with five computers -- like my family or close friends. Not a great social model there, but it's at least something. Amazon's world is hermetically sealed by comparison. What does this say about our rights? Can we sign away implied rights but agreeing to the small print of megacompanies' terms of use agreements? Apparently we can, at least until someone -- please? -- sues Amazon for this action. And, since they have gone ahead and built this dekindling doomsday device, couldn't a repressive government use it to degauss questionable books? It goes beyond censorship, to the undoing of history. Our past purchases of books are erased. A Cheney granted the Messianic control that he desires might have deleted every Paul Krugman or John Rawls book in existence. Or the Chinese politburo -- in a future China, bursting with Kindles -- might delete or block the sale of millions of titles. Would Amazon go along with that? This is mere conjecture, I grant you. But tools like this have a way of being used, just as Google and Yahoo have worked with the Chinese government in the past, to block searches and track keywords. The brightest light can make the deepest shadow, and just so, the Web and its myriad shiny objects form a Gahan Wilson silhouette, casting a spectre of frightening possibilities. What Pogue and other take as irony -- the dekindling of Orwell -- portends a darker future than they might want to consider. ----- Via /Message Personal comment: Problématique non?
Posted by Patrick Keller
in Culture & society, Science & technology
at
10:56
Defined tags for this entry: books, culture & society, marketing, science & technology, shopping, surveillance
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fabric | rblgThis blog is the survey website of fabric | ch - studio for architecture, interaction and research. We curate and reblog articles, researches, writings, exhibitions and projects that we notice and find interesting during our everyday practice and readings. Most articles concern the intertwined fields of architecture, territory, art, interaction design, thinking and science. From time to time, we also publish documentation about our own work and research, immersed among these related resources and inspirations. This website is used by fabric | ch as archive, references and resources. It is shared with all those interested in the same topics as we are, in the hope that they will also find valuable references and content in it.
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