Wednesday, August 18. 2010
Via Mammoth
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[Housing in Hong Kong, from photographer Michael Wolf's series "Architecture of Density"]
In the latest Foreign Policy, Parag Khanna argues that the city is increasingly becoming a more important geopolitical entity than the nation-state:
The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not — and will not be — one global village, so much as a network of different ones…
Time, technology, and population growth have massively accelerated the advent of this new urbanized era. Already, more than half the world lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. But just 100 cities account for 30 percent of the world’s economy, and almost all its innovation.
Neither 19th-century balance-of-power politics nor 20th-century power blocs are useful in understanding this new world. Instead, we have to look back nearly a thousand years, to the medieval age in which cities such as Cairo and Hangzhou were the centers of global gravity, expanding their influence confidently outward in a borderless world. When Marco Polo set forth from Venice along the emergent Silk Road, he extolled the virtues not of empires, but of the cities that made them great. He admired the vineyards of Kashgar and the material abundance of Xi’an, and even foretold — correctly — that no one would believe his account of Chengdu’s merchant wealth. It’s worth remembering that only in Europe were the Middle Ages dark — they were the apogee of Arab, Muslim, and Chinese glory.
While the article is too brief and too wide-ranging to treat its thesis (really, theses, as Khanna makes a host of relatively provocative claims through pure assertion) as thoroughly as it deserves, it is an interesting read. Perhaps his forthcoming book will explore the ideas outlined in the article in more depth? (I have to admit that I am, predictably, partial to his earlier assertion that “independence without infrastructure is futile”.)
Monday, August 16. 2010
Via Mashable
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by Brenna Ehrlich
Ayn Rand is getting some pretty heavy endorsement via GPS of late, as one man — Nick Newcomen — recently drove 12,328 miles across 30 American states to scrawl “Read Ayn Rand” via GPS data inputted into Google Earth.
Newcomen — who explained to Wired that he undertook this mission simply because he is a Rand fan — took more than 30 days to execute this task, using a GPS logger (Qstarz BT-Q1000X) to create the letters. He started in Marshall, Texas, where he began writing out “Rand,” and then drove on (turning off the GPS whilst not writing) until the entire, “Reading Is Fundamental” sentiment was complete.
You can check out more info on the site World’s Biggest Writing, which also features David Lynchian videos of locations Newcomen visited, most ending with a shot of his almost expressionless face (see below).
Although we understand that Newcomen is passionate about the famed Atlas Shrugged author (we’re all groupies of someone, amirite?) we can’t help but wonder what Rand herself would have thought of the stunt. After all, part of Objectivism, a philosophical system she developed, states: “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
To that end, perhaps Newcomen should have scrawled his own name across the States — but, you know, whatever floats your fountainhead…
Personal comment:
If it happens to be true, and it looks like, we just found yet another crazy (gps) person... Welcome Nick Newcomen!
Via Pruned
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by Alexander Trevi
(Image by Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office.)
Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office have teamed up together to design a “shape-shifting energy generation park” in Abu Dhabi as their entry for the Land Art Generator Initiative competition.
(Image by Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office.)
The team's project statement is worth quoting at length:
Unlike current renewable energy fields where technologies are publicly inaccessible, static, and always on, WeatherField offers a range of public engagement dependent upon wind, sun, and moisture. Energy generation becomes a public performance, dynamic, reactive, and interactive. The park is active when weather events are active, and calm when weather is calm, in each instance offering the public a compatible experiences.
The park is organized and designed to respond efficiently and creatively to climate. The intention is that the park serve as a barometer of regional weather events. WeatherField is simultaneously a public space, a dynamic energy icon, and a public weather service. The field is a registration of daily weather events including weather events such as Shamals winds, dense fog, and sandstorms, among others.
The Yas Island energy park is comprised of a field of 200 “Para-kites,” each is equipped with a base station of two flexible posts. Except for the posts that tether the para-kites, the ground and aquatic ecology is undisturbed. The para-kites use a parafoil system to remain aloft and a Windbelt™ system to harvest “flutter” energy from the wind.
At the Yas Island test site, the 200 para-kites extend across the site in a 60 meter grid that marks the tide levels. Each para-kite is capable of 6,220 kwh annually. Preliminary calculations generate approximately 21.6 kwh/month for each cell of the para-kite. With 24 cells per para-kite, that yields 518.4 kwh/month for each para-kite. Across the WeatherField, we calculate 1.24 GW annually, or about 620 energy-efficient homes. Or, more colloquially, each para-kite is able to power three homes for a year.
Whether these calculations are accurate or not, it should be noted that the competition is an art competition, and entrants were briefed to conceive their installations as art first and power plants second. The goal was not to design and engineer a device that provides cost effective renewable energy generation. Rather, the proposal should function primarily on a conceptual and aesthetic level.
(Image by Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office.)
(Image by Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office.)
Quoting the brief again at length:
As a park, visitors or residents can witness and experience their commitment to renewable energy field in many different ways. They can be stake holders, investing in a single generator para-kite. The investor receives energy equivalent to that harvested by that generator, as well as a live feed view of the landscape from the para-kite into their home. This in house artwork serves a weather gauge and a ‘living’ landscape painting. Visitors to the energy park can also approach the support posts and have a ‘periscope’ view from the ground of the para-kite’s view. And finally, a visitor, may elect—with managed permission—to ride up in a para-kite. This allows the economic models for the implementation of the project to be distributed either before, through residential stakeholders, or after capital costs, through tourism. The project has an entrepreneurial spirit.
The park generates other phenomenal events such as playful shadows on the ground and dynamic patterns in the sky. These geometries could be commissioned to environmental artists, or could be coordinated with regional events or seasonal holidays.
Unlike large-scale energy infrastructures that are out-of-scale, off-site, and off-limits, WeatherField is interactive, and its energy capacity is scalable to the size of a single-home. In other words, energy use is quantifiable and qualitative at the scale of a single user, promoting energy efficiency and energy consciousness.
Be sure to check the Land Art Generator Initiative website for other entries, which are being posted one by one on their blog until the winner is announced in January 2011 at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dbahi.
(Image by Paisajes Emergentes and Lateral Office.)
More Paisajes Emergentes:
Parque del Lago
Rainwater Harvesting in Quito
A Proposal for an Aquatics Complex
Four Plazas and A Street
Clouds
See also:
Balloon Park
Tuesday, August 10. 2010
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by Koert van Mensvoort
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