Friday, February 26. 2010
by Ruairi
Joshua Noble’s new issue of Vague Terrain is definately worth a look. He described this issue as “an exploration of space, functionality in space, and the relationship of the body to the systems around it. All technologies reshape the body and the space around the body, from the bow and arrow to the steam engine to the telephone. It may be that we are beginning to truly see how computing and ubiquitous devices will once again reshape our bodies and our conceptions of ourselves in space. It is with this emphasis that we present a selection of thinkers, artists, architects, and designers and examine and explore how their ideas will shape art, aesthetics, design, living spaces, and social structures and how those ideas will ultimately be shaped by their users and their spaces.”
Articles have been written by Golan Levin, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Marilena Skavara, Mark Shepard, Pierre Proske and Joshua himself.
-----
Via Interactive Architecture
by Sebastian J.
-----
Via ArchDaily
Tuesday, February 23. 2010
by noreply@blogger.com (Geoff Manaugh)
[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].
In a fantastic issue of AD, edited by Sean Lally and themed around the idea of "Energies," a long list of projects appeared that are of direct relevance to the Glacier/Island/Storm studio thread developing this week. I want to mention just two of those projects here.
[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].
For their "Reykjavik Botanical Garden," Rice University architecture students Andrew Corrigan and John Carr proposed tapping that city's geothermal energy to create "microclimates for varied plant growth."
"Heat is taken directly from the ground," they write, "and piped up across the landscape into a system of [pipes and] towers."
Zones of heat radiate out from the pipes, creating a new climate layer with variable conditions based on their number and proximity to each other. These exterior plantings are mostly native to Iceland, but the amplified environment allows a wider range of growth than would normally be possible, informing the role and opportunity of this particular botanical garden. Visitors experience growth never before possible in Iceland, and travel through new climates throughout the site.
Amidst "hydroponic growing trays and research laboratories," and sprouting in the climatic shadow of complicated "air-intake systems," a new landscape grows, absorbing its heat from below.
[Image: "Reykjavik Botanical Garden" by Andrew Corrigan and John Carr].
The climate of the city is altered, in other words, literally from the ground up; using the functional equivalent of terrestrially powered ovens, otherwise botanically impossible species can healthily take root.
This domestication of geothermal energy, and the use of it for purposes other than electricity-generation, raises the fascinating possibility that heat itself, if carefully and specifically redirected, can utterly transform urban space.
[Image: Produced for the "Vatnsmyri Urban Planning Competition" by Sean Lally, Andrew Corrigan, and Paul Kweton].
A variant on this forms the basic idea behind Sean Lally's own project, produced with Andrew Corrigan and Paul Kweton, for the Vatnsmyri Urban Planning Competition (a competition previously discussed on BLDGBLOG here).
Their design also proposes using geothermal heat in Reykjavik "to affect the local climatic conditions on land, including air temperature and soil temperature for vegetative growth." But their goal is to generate a "climatic 'wash'"—that is, an amorphous zone of heat that lies just slightly outside of direct regulation. This slow leaking of heat into the city could then effect a linked series of hot zones—or variable microclimates, as the architects write—that would punctuate the city with thermal oases.
Like a winterized inversion of the air-conditioned cold fronts we feel rolling out from the open doors of buildings all summer long, this would be pure heat—and its attendant humidity—roiling upward from the Earth itself. The result would be to generate a new architecture not of walls and buildings but of temperature thresholds and bodily sensation.
Indeed, as David Gissen suggests in his excellent book Subnature, this project could very well imply "a new form of urban planning," one in which sculpted zones of thermal energy take precedence over architecturally designated public spaces.
Of course, whether this simply means that under-designed urban dead zones—like the otherwise sorely needed pedestrian parks now scattered up and down Broadway—will be left as is, provided they are heated from below by a subway grate, remains, for the time being, undetermined.
This is all just part of a much larger question: how we "renegotiate the relationship between architecture and weather," as Jürgen Mayer H. and Neeraj Bhatia, editors of the recent book -arium: Weather + Architecture, describe it. The Glacier/Island/Storm studio will continue to explore these and other abstract questions of climate and architectural design throughout the spring.
-----
Via BLDGBLOG
Thursday, February 18. 2010
by Jennifer Van Grove
A new website called PleaseRobMe.com does nothing more than aggregate publicly shared check-ins, but its name and purpose attempt to shed more light on the dangerous side effects of location-sharing.
It’s no secret that when you share your location via Google Buzz and Foursquare you’re exposing information that could put you at risk. Many of us location-sharers get so caught up in the novelty and bonuses associated with our behavior that we forget the implications of our actions. PleaseRobMe.com seeks to make us more aware.
While the functionality of the site is minimal at best, the fact that you can view a livestream of check-ins — with data aggregated from Foursquare and Twitter — and filter by location or Twitter name is meant to be a bit jarring.
The point is driven home with the site-wide terminology, which caters to hypothetical would-be burglars. Check-ins are referenced as “recent empty homes” and “new opportunities,” and the name of the site alone is sure to raise a few eyebrows.
The site was created by three enterprising individuals who aren’t really out to get you robbed. Here’s how they describe the problem created by check-ins and the purpose of the site:
“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”
These guys have a legitimate point. Stories about status updates leading to burglaries are becoming commonplace. You may remember that video podcaster Israel Hyman was robbed after tweeting that he was out was out town, and there’s even evidence to support the notion that burglars are turning to social media to find their targets.
So are Foursquare, Loopt, Google Buzz and all the others just sites that make us all easier targets? Location-sharing is becoming such a popular trend this year that it doesn’t seem likely that the site will do much to curb the behavior. If there is such a thing as safe location-sharing, however, we hope you practice it.
Reviews: Foursquare, Google Buzz, Twitter
Tags: foursquare, location sharing, Mobile 2.0, social media, trending
-----
Via Mashable
Personal comment:
Side effects...
Tuesday, February 16. 2010
by Koert van Mensvoort
Recently some scientists in Britain have recommend planetary ‘geoengineering‘ to avoid climate change. And as politicians are listening, it is time to explore the options. New Scientist published this rather lovely diagram of the effectiveness and viability of nine different geoengineering schemes, from space mirrors to planting reflective crops.
Although geoengineering might be a viable escape from an overheated planet, before we dive in the game of deliberately manipulating the Earth’s climate to counteract the effects of global warming, let us realize that maakbaarheid is never finished: Every cultivation of nature typically causes the rising of a next nature that is wild and unpredictable as ever. Just like the inventor of the fridge did not anticipate a hole in the ozon layer, we should be bracing ourselves for some serious side effects of geoengineering.
Perhaps rather than desperately attempting to stop all changes in the climate, we should as a culture gain more of a flexibility towards a constantly mutating environment. After all, change happens.
- Pimp My Planet
- Artificial ‘trees’ should stop climate change
- Fight climate change: Hack the Planet
-----
Via NextNature
|