Friday, January 24. 2014
A new call by the very interesting Bracket magazine/books!
Via Bracket
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Dear Bracket friends,
We hope you consider submitting. Please also pass this along to anyone you think might be interested.
The deadline is quickly approaching — February 28th!
Best wishes,
Neeraj & Mason
Bracket [takes action]
“When humans assemble, spatial conflicts arise. Spatial planning is often considered the management of spatial conflicts.” —Markus Miessen
Call for submissions
Hannah Arendt’s 1958 treatise The Human Condition cites “action” as one of the three tenants, along with labor and work, of the vita active (active life). Action, she writes, is a necessary catalyst for the human condition of plurality, which is an expression of both the common public and distinct individuals. This reading of action requires unique and free individuals to act toward a collective project and is therefore simultaneously ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’. In the more than fifty years since Arendt’s claims, the public realm in which action materializes, and the means by which action is expressed, has dramatically transformed. Further, spatial practice’s role in anticipating, planning, or absorbing action(s) has been challenged, yielding difficulty in the design of the ‘space of appearance,’ Arendt’s public realm.
Our young century has already seen contested claims of design’s role in the public realm by George Baird, Lieven De Cauter, Markus Meissen, Jan Gehl, among others. Perhaps we could characterize these tensions as a ‘design deficit’, or a sense that design does not incite ‘action’, in the Arendtian sense. Amongst other things, this feeling is linked to the rise of neo-liberal pluralism, which marks the transition from public to publics, making a collective agenda in the public realm often illegible. Bracket [takes action] explores the complex relationship between spatial design, and the public(s) as well as action(s) it contains. How can design catalyze a public and incite platforms for action?
Consider two images indicative of contemporary action within the public realm of our present century: (i) the June 2009 opening of the High Line Park in New York City, and (ii) the January 2011 occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo. These two spaces and their respective contemporary publics embody the range within today’s space of appearance. At the High Line, the urban public is now choreographed in a top-down manner along a designed, former infrastructure with an endless supply of vistas into an urban private realm. In Tahrir Square, an assembled swirling public occupies, and therefore re-designs, an infrastructural plaza overwhelming a government and communication networks. This example reveals a bottom-up, self-assembling public. But what role did spatial practice play in each of these scenarios and who were the spatial practitioners and public(s)? The contrast of two positions on action in a public realm offers an opening for wider investigations into spatial practice’s role and impact on today’s public(s) and their action(s).
Bracket [takes action] asks: What are the collective projects in the public realm to act on? How have recent design projects incited political or social action? How can design catalyze a public, as well as forums for that public to act? What is the role of spatial practice to instigate or resist public actions? Bracket 4 provokes spatial practice’s potential to incite and respond to action today.
The fourth edition of Bracket invites design work and papers that offer contemporary models of spatial design that are conscious of their public intent and actively engaged in socio-political conditions. It is encouraged, although not mandatory, that submissions documenting projects be realized. Positional papers should be projective and speculative or revelatory, if historical. Suggested subthemes include:
Participatory ACTION – interactive, crowd-sourced, scripted
Disputed PUBLICS – inconsistent, erratic, agonized
Deviant ACTION – subversive, loopholes, reactive
Distributed PUBLICS – broadcasted, networked, diffused
Occupy ACTION – defiant, resistant, upheaval
Mob PUBLICS – temporary, forceful, performative
Market ACTION – abandoning, asserting, selecting
The editorial board and jury for Bracket 4 includes Pier Vittorio Aureli, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Adam Greenfield, Belinda Tato, Yoshiharu Tsukamoto as well as co-editors Neeraj Bhatia and Mason White.
Deadline for Submissions: February 28, 2014
Please visit www.brkt.org for more info.
Thursday, January 09. 2014
Still online in 2014...
From the Cybernetic Meadow Collection of the Consortium for Slower Internet. Therefore and from now on, it seems that concrete means "slow", "heavy" and "out of the cloud"! (it once meant "modernity")
I enjoy their "products" presentation that make fun of the recent evolutions of our electonic environment: " Purchase additional drives as your storage needs grow. No monthly fees, no terms of service." & "The Consortium for Slower Internet does not participate in PRISM." Can you see how personal computers and storage were in fact utopian?
So, if you didn't get it for Christmas, just buy it for yourself now, it's still time!
Via The Consortium for Slower Internet
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Heirloom JPEGS
Drop out of "the cloud" with this concrete photo display and 16gb USB drive.
- Comes with one uniquely distressed concrete USB flash drive.
- Purchase additional drives as your storage needs grow. No monthly fees, no terms of service.
- The Consortium for Slower Internet does not participate in PRISM.
- Cork lined bottom with solid oak slats.
- Perfect for 4" x 6" prints or smaller from printstud.io or printstagram.
Saturday, November 23. 2013
Note: here comes the "peace drone"!
Via Transit-City
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Dans le cadre de l'exposition " Air Right" montée par le Drone Research Lab, on peut découvrir un joyeux et très conceptuel Peace Drone censé pouvoir lutter contre la violence non pas tant grâce à sa bonne bouille hilare que par sa capacité à distribuer par les airs de l' oxycotin, un puissant analgésique anti-douleur utilisé par certains toxicos comme une drogue euphorisante.
En découvrant ce projet je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher de penser à la parade imaginée par le Joker dans le Batman de Tim Burton, au cours de laquelle il espère pouvoir diffuser son fameux gaz vert, l' Hilarex, pour prendre le contrôle de Gotham City.
Ou quand une certaine pop culture permet d'aborder un peu autrement les nouvelles fonctions et les nouvelles formes possibles des drones et de leurs dérivés dans le futur. Pour rester dans le ludique, voir par exemple là pour les drones, et là pour les ballons.
Tuesday, November 05. 2013
Via Designboom
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Ryue Nishizawa & Nendo in Kyoto.
More about the project HERE.
Thursday, September 05. 2013
Via Make
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Designed by Roberto De Luca and Antonio Scarponi as modular office space—Hotello is portable space. Packed into the bright red trunk is everything you need to create a 6.5 × 6.5 ft square workspace in minutes. From the metal frame, to the furniture, to the curtains surrounding the space itself.
The workspace
Trunk and workspace
The workspace
The workspace
The trunk
The open trunk
Meant to convert the vast echoing and often abandoned spaces in our cities—empty warehouses and factories—into liveable space, the Hotello has a serious side, as in a disaster situation private space could be created for large numbers of people in a relatively short amount of time.
You just have to remember, “… it’s bigger on the inside, that’s all.”
Wednesday, September 04. 2013
Via Transit-City / Urban & Mobile Think Tank
Si vous avez été à Beijing, vous avez forcément vu ces machines légères et hybrides. Leur esthétisme est souvent douteux, mais leur rôle bien réel car elles offrent une autre mobilité que certains considèrent comme dépassé. On peut au contraire imaginer qu'elles représentent l'avenir d'une nouvelle mobilité urbaine qui s'installera de plus en plus entre les voitures et les vélos, et ce aussi bien dans les pays riches que dans les pays pauvres.
Ces planches sont tirées du superbe "Anatomie d'une ville chinoise" réalisé par deux jeunes français qui ont voulu "aborder le contexte urbain chinois à l'échelle macroscopique, c'est à dire humaine". Je n'ai retenu pour ce post que les illustrations liées aux petits véhicules, mais il y a évidement bien d'autres lieux et objets qui sont décrits dans cette très belle réflexion.
Ce travail rappelle le passionnant " Micromachins" sur les services urbains décentralisés en Asie du sud, et qui est désormais téléchargeable, là.
Via Make
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By Stett Holbrook
Iconoclastic economist Herman Daly helped popularize the term “steady state economics.” It’s a concept many makers are already familiar with whether they know it or not. You can read all about it here, but at its essence steady state economics is a closed loop system that mimics nature in that it does not need new inputs or materials to keep running. It runs at a steady state and doesn’t grow lest it overshoot the carrying capacity of the natural resources on which it depends. Repair, repurposing, and recycling are what make the system work.
Of course, we live in the opposite system, one that requires new resources to build new things to replace last year’s model and all the stuff we throw away because it’s broken or out of style. One of the features of this model is “planned obsolescence” It’s a great system for getting people to buy new products, but it’s not so great for the planet (see the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, landfill leachate, and climate change for examples).
But like I said, many makers already know the virtues of repurposing and fixing “broken” stuff. One of my favorite examples is the humble Fixers Collective. They describe themselves as an “ongoing social experiment encouraging improvisational fixing and mending and fighting planned obsolescence.” The New York-based group gets together to fix broken appliances and electronics and to give them a second life. The project began as an art project in 2008, but lived on when participants realized they liked the experience of getting together to fix stuff and teach others.
The Fixers Collective will be returning to Maker Faire New York this month. They invite attendees to bring their broken stuff and learn how to fix it. But Vincent realizes many people don’t want to lug broken appliance to the fair so they may also have appliances on hand that people can take apart to see how they work and what’s inside.
Program director Vincent Lai says reusing or fixing objects is often better than recycling, citing figures that only 40 to 60 percent of recycled material avoids the landfill. Beyond that, he says it’s fun to watch the “eureka moment” when participants pull the chain on a formerly broken lamp they learned to fix themselves.
Even if you aren’t ready to embrace stead state economics it’s empowering to know you can fix that old toaster or lamp sitting in your garage. The Fixers Collective can show you how. While the Fixers Collective is based in New York, there are other likeminded groups all over. Here’s a map.
Via Dezeen
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German designer Samuel Treindl has made a clock, lamp and other products from shapes cut out of existing furniture.
Samuel Treindl from Münster in Germany used what he called a "parasite strategy" to create new products from existing furniture items and intends for the final pieces to reflect the manufacturing process.
In the collection - called Parasite Production - Treindl created a clock from material cut from a peach cabinet and a desk lamp from shapes cut out of an Ikea PS cabinet.
More recently the designer cut a range of components such as a hooks and hinges from a brass book shelf.
His process means that the original cabinets can still be used. "In order to work in a more economic way, I superimpose different objects on a single metal sheet," said Treindl. "So the same material would be used twice."
All of the objects have been produced in Germany as limited editions. Triendl's work will be exhibited at London's Mint Shop during London Design Festival next month.
Parasite Production was first shown as a prototype at the SaloneSatellite showcase for young designers at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in April, that also featured squishy lamps made out of rubber by Thomas Schnur.
Photographs are by the designer.
Here's a full project description from Treindl:
Parasite Production
This work is based on a parasitic strategy. The cabinets and other products are produced simultaneously. The results therefore reflect the manufacturing process and history of the production.
As a producer and designer I have to pay attention to the manufacturing of a product, but also to offcuts and loss of material.
In order to work in a more economic way, I superimpose different objects on a single metal sheet. So the same material would be double used. And the question is, where is here the rest? According to which other objects are currently produced, the obtained ornaments as well as the thickness of the material of the shelf can differ.
Example: If an industrial company produces spoons and forks, I will make a spoon shelf. If lamps are produced, I make a lamp cabinet. That way, I don't want to design furniture, but I create a process which uses industrial production for generating and designing objects.
Material: brass steel, aluminum, powder-coated, laser cutting method. The IKEA PS cabinet/lamp was hand-cut.
Via Dezeen
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A 3D printer approved by NASA will be flown to the International Space Station next year so astronauts can print components, tools and equipment on-demand in space.
More about it HERE.
and HERE.
Monday, August 12. 2013
... and now, the blog will slow down for some time while I'll go in the mountains & somewhere in the Atlantic! Or both, the moutains in the Atlantic.
Via Fubiz
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