"Many, because orchids"

Half a century later, it is impressive how Reyner Banham's text "A Throw-away Aesthetic" is still one of the most important insights on design in our time.

there's something too perfect in the kingdom of denmark

Following on Yimei's post on Bruce Mau, it is adequate to check again the "Too perfect" project/exhibition he curated in 2004. This is described as a set of "pragmatic utopias" shaping possible futures for Denmark. With contributions by Mau's studio, and danish firms Arkitema, Kontrapunkt, NORD, SRL Arkitekter and (the irresistible) PLOT.

A bit of Pynchon

Regarding the previous post, some characters with a "Dr." prefix may come to mind (Frankestein, Octopus, the like), as well as distopian and technophobic themes and stories.
But things are never as simple as we would like them to be. Maybe this text (from 1984) by Thomas Pynchon is adequate for our meditations on these issues:
Is it O.K. to be a Luddite?

(file under obscure)

On nature and technique, part VII

Maybe it is just me, but it seems that the amount of news regarding experiments and research that blur the distinctions or frontiers between the organic and the technical is growing a lot lately.

Roland Piquepaille writes about the first "bionic woman"; researchers at Princeton and the University of Cambridge are developing a stretchable electronic skin; and researchers at Harvard are working on hybrid structures of neurons and nanowires.


(Quote from this article: "The neurons grew on the chip and made connections with the nanowires". And these are only a few examples.)

Bruce Mau

One hour interview about Massive Change on The Connection.

photovoltaic interlude, part III

"Solar Cells for Cheap" is a quite interesting interview with Michael Grätzel (from EPFL) on what might happen soon (next couple of years) in the realm of photovoltaic systems.

Algorithms at work

Some hands on algorithms for construction elements.
architectural finishes (column covers, walls and ceiling systemns) using AlgoRhythm technologies to efficiently bend sheets of metals into complex forms, by Haresh Lalvani (Pratt institute).

On dynamic arch

As always, just dropping the thing
here is an inspiring animation of the inner life of a cell

"Nuclei, proteins and lipids move with bug-like authority, slithering, gliding and twisting through 3D space"

On nature and technique, part VI

The theme of swarms deserves its own series around here (one of these days). But this project is too interesting to be left out of our current focus: Swarm-bots (pdf).
More info here.

(on a related note, I also like the shrimp)

NodeBox

No time really to post, sorry
I just found this site by chance and had no time to go thru
but it looks promising
http://research.nodebox.net/Index

Under 6,000,000 m3 of concrete

Pictured: Andrea Bassi, Fabian and some guy called Carlos.

All under this unique place.

Bliki

blog + wiki = bliki
I was thinking of the possible potential for a hybrid between these two apparently opposite approaches to web publishing when... I found it is well developed already.
Then I thought of PROTO.lab and the possibility of organising the class in a bliki format.

Belated thoughts on blogs and wikis by J. Tauber, the founder of Leonardo, a Python based bliki server