Tuesday, September 20. 2011
Wikihouse
Via Beatrice Galilee & The Gopher Hole
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Dear friends,
The first event of The Gopher Gala will be the story of WikiHouse, one of the most innovative global open source architecture projects today.
WikiHouse is an open community construction set. Its aim is to make it possible for almost anyone, regardless of their formal skills, to freely download and build structures which are affordable and suited to their needs. There is no single design, or single designer. Houses and components are designed by an open community of designers and users, of which you are invited to be a member. The presentation by architecture00:/ will include speakers from other open source design projects. The discussion will be chaired by Chris Foges, editor of Architecture Today.
Doors open at 6.30pm, tickets are free, there will be drinks and gala-themed party food! Reserve your seat: rsvp@holygopher.com
Architecture00:/
Architecture 00:/ is an architecture and strategic design practice based in London, whose work explores an expanded field of activity for design. Many of their projects test new kinds of social production and involve intense collaboration with innovators from other disciplines.
The Gopher Hole is an architecture, art, music, design, literature & miscellaneous culturegallery/venue in Hoxton.A collaboration between aberrant architecture and Beatrice Galilee, our agenda is to explore new waysof curating ideas in popular culture and to provide a forum forcritical debate on the arts and society.The Gopher Hole is part of ElPaso, a bar, workplace and dinerlocated in Shoreditch in East London.
The Gopher Gala is a week long event as part of Shoreditch Design Triangle which is promoting young design and projects in London. It ispart of a rolling programme of exhibitions, events, talks andscreenings that we hope will provide an open house for ideas that cross cultural boundaries, promote political and sociological thinking and encourage debate and exchange between disciplines.
Monday 19th‘The Wikihouse & Other Stories’ Architecture00:/ present their project WikiHouse and discuss the possibilities of open sourcedesign. Chaired by Chris Foges, editor ofArchitecture Today
Tuesday 20th ‘Archive of Spatial Aesthetics’Curator Tina Di Carlo presents the Archive of Spatial Aesthetics and Praxis. ASAP aims to be the foremostcollection of spatial practice today, collecting and exhibitingarchitecture as part of a broader social, political, and aesthetic discourse.
Wednesday 21st 'Young London: The Best of 2011' ′The best projects of 2011 will be presented in an all-nightextravaganza by a score of young London design studios, includingtalks by Revital Cohen, Nelly BenHayoun, Assemble, Something & Son, The Decorators, Klassnik Corporation, Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, Kieren Jones and Bedford Press. Music by Type Two Error. Curated by Anna Bates & The Gopher Hole.
Thursday 22nd 'Exploding China – China’s New Megacities' Talk and booklaunch’Shanghai-based multidisciplinary think Go West Project will be in London to discuss their newbookHow the City Moved to Mr Sun in conversation with Beatrice Galilee.
All tickets are free and events start @ 6:30pm to reserve yours please rsvp@holygopher.com
Related Links:
Personal comment:
Unfortunately the opening was yesterday, but the event goes on for the week.
Therefore more about community architecture & open source approach during this week at the promissing Gopher Hole that is run by Beatrice Galilee & aberrant architecture in Hoxton/London.
Architecture for Humanity Acquires Worldchanging
Over the next six months Architecture for Humanity plans to transform their current Open Architecture Network, an online network that empowers architects, designers, builders and their clients to share architectural plans and drawings, into a robust platform that provides dialogue and tools to support a shared vision of a more sustainable future across sectors. The combined strength of these communities, both created out of the TED Prize, will help spur innovation, learning, and best practices.
Personal comment:
We used to be Worldchanging readers, now we'll probably become Open Architecture Network's ones as well.
Thursday, September 08. 2011
Test City
[Image: An otherwise unrelated photo of Playas, New Mexico—a different kind of "test city"—taken by Steve Rowell for CLUI].A private consulting firm in Washington D.C. is developing a "test city"—one "with no permanent population"—in the New Mexico desert, according to the Albuquerque Journal. It will be "a privately financed, small city on 20 square miles in New Mexico for testing and evaluation of new and emerging technologies," run from afar by Pegasus Global Holdings.
This as yet unnamed location will be devoted to the "'real world' testing of smart grids, renewable energy integration, next-gen wireless, smart grid cyber security and terrorism vulnerability," making it a life-size trial for private sector urban management—Cisco's city-in-a-box and IBM urbanism wrapped in one.
I'm inclined to ask what it might look like if other corporations were to launch their own "test cities" in the desert somewhere—an REI city, complete with artificial whitewater rapids, campfires, and outdoor climbing walls; a Playboy city, complete with unlockable shared doors between neighboring bedrooms; an AMC city, with screens and streetside auditoriums, and massive projectors on cranes like new constellations in the sky.
What if the city you live in is simply an immersive product demonstration for a group of private companies? Or is that what cars did to the American city long ago?
(Thanks to Chris Kannen for the tip!)
Personal comment:
I'm particularly impressed by the image of the test city. It looks like two images taken of the same site in different temporalities and light conditions. Did they set up a giant mirror on a moutain facing de valley?
Tuesday, September 06. 2011
Yesterday's Architecture of Today
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Whenever I find old copies of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui, I sit down and browse through their proclamations of what the future will be like.
Would we be living in computer-chip environments?
of course we would
would we be putting together apartments like giant Tetris modules?
of course we would
would we love rhomboid patterened cartoon lightning decorated public buildings?
of course we do (Alfred Neumann, public building at Bat-Yam, Israel, 1968)
flipping through pages of early computer generated modular systematic housing nightmares
I seem to nod off into catterpillar town suburbias
little beehive modular cellular non buildings in India
and more organic 60's circular extravaganzas
jolted awake by sudden robot weirdness in Israel (Mexico Olympics 1968)
only to realise that I am looking at Satellite stations in Ahmedabad
half awake confusing satellite hats and head-carried dishes
but further, more radical advertising strangeness follows
flamboyant architecture of illustration
beyond computer systems, beyond modules, beyond strangess one can only go back to the desert
fabric | rblg
This 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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