Wondering if they'll let us take a peek

Birds, amongst other animals, already see more than us puny simian mammals.
But, more and more, there are new entities glimpsing through the spectrum:
"Handheld device sees more colours than humans"

hacking google maps

This is a beautiful script that allows (at least allowed, I have not tried yet) to build large maps from google.
also in Noah Vawter (a huge gray area project)
he also has a beautiful master thesis at MIT that has just gotten some publicity on making music out of urban noise, you can check it out here.
I am thrill with the idea of being high on noise.
I wonder if you can also get a pair of glasses
that combination should be called the "i-pot"

New Scripting links

Find some new links on scripting. Smart geometry. A school named Stevens Insitute of Technology and this guy Axel Kilian at MIT.

The expanded classroom

Webcasts have still a long way to go, in terms of quality (sound, etc), access and availability.
But some are really worth it:

from the GSD website (via archinect), take, for instance, Jeff Kipnis, Keller Easterling, and many others;

from the EDA/UCLA archive, there's this Kwinter lecture, and a Marcos Novak one from a series led by Casey Reas, and an impressive list of many others;

and from the Tate archive, don't miss (again, among many others) this great one from Manuel De Landa: Nature Space Society.


Update:
from the MIT Museum, check the "Soap Box" series, from which I strongly recommend this one on energy: "The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy". The first 20 minutes are a must - clear, informative, mind-boggling.

Gazprom City - St. Petersburg

Six internationally known architects have submitted their designs.



Herzog de Meuron



Rem Koolhaas



Libeskind

Urban Cactus

Urban Cactus is a housing project in the Vuurplaat section of Rotterdam by UCX Architects / Ben Huygen and Jasper Jaegers and done for Vestia Rotterdam Feijenoord/Estrade Projecten.

Geogreetings

Had this been posted before?? Just for fun!

Virtual Earth 3D

In addition to Photosynth that was posted earlier, Microsoft also launched online 3D mapping. Here is the article and the link to download. In commercial applications, there is something called Second Life which is a also total virtual world.

Giant robots

Interesting studio by Greg Lynn on aesthetic culture of robots to produce new forms of architectural spectacle. Watch this video.

Cecil Balmond's Architecture












An Engineering Magician, Then (Presto) He’s an Architect
NY Times interview

Photosynth

You might have heard of this already... Photosynth by Microsoft Live Labs. Watch this video. It would be interesting to see different applications into architecture.

Glass house with nanotechnology

In case you haven't noticed

This blog has been running in hybernation mode.

Let's see when spring arrives.

Telegraphic post of the week

For the love of _______ [insert your own deity here], go and check this great text by Stuart Kauffman and J. Lanier's wisecrack response to it.

More Kauffman here (this time on economics).
Update: forgot to add this other great text of his: "The Sciences of Complexity and 'Origins of Order'".

On one hand, on the other hand

"The Dichotomy of Design and Evolution" on The J Curve.

via the indefatigable Resarch. The dichotomy thing reminded me of this B. Steele article, that played around with the dichotomy/simmetry themes as well. And speaking of simmetry...

biovertigo

Where would you begin, if you wanted to set up a panorama of "bio everything" today?
Just merely attempting it is enough to make one dizzy...

Biomimetics (or bionics or even biomimicry or...) is fast becoming, or so it seems, an established field in its own right. It can also be understood as phenotropics. And what about synthetic biology? Check one of their wikis, for instance.

Is this going to affect material production, as we know and practice it, right away? Perhaps.

On nature and technique, part IX

It's the second time I refer to John Walker's site in this series, but "Seventh Industrial Revolution: Replicating Machines", part of a larger text and written back in 1990, is well worth checking out.

frontdesign - from sketches to life

interesting furniture designer's demonstration of sketching. watch this video.

KrazyDad

This guy is a programmer-artist and he has some fun projects to look at. The most impressive in his series is the Whitney music box and the color picker. The color picker also extends into a flickr series of mosaic images collection like this one and this one for halloween. More coverpops can be found here. His new book flikr hacks is on sale at amazon.

One more for the agenda

This year's edition of Art Futura doesn't have Theo Jansen or Usman Haque as it did last year.
But it is always an event worth experimenting, if you happen to be in Barcelona from the 26th to the 29th October.
This year, they bring us the infosthetics guy for a talk, they will show "A scanner darkly", and much, much more...

photovoltaic interlude, part IV

Little by little, more promising news regarding photovoltaics are appearing, such as breakthroughs in efficiency, and, hopefully more than just a P.R. move, Google going solar. (googleblog post here. these guys were involved)

The architecture of cloud computing

A single word invoking more than a thousand images: cloudware.
(this is only a nice article on the upcoming changes in computing/networks and the like. But the key word is just beautiful. it's also interesting to check how many times the word architecture is used)

Faraday's wave garden

Faraday's wave experiment,
from Pruned, by Alexander Trevi
must see the video.

Is better than the milk drop experiments

On nature and technique, part VIII

Everything Computes: an eminently readable essay by Peter Bentley. (there are many other good texts and relevant information in his site. He also authored and edited several books, such as this one)

Scalae Podcast Barcelona

An interview by Felix Arranz at the Scalae BCN podcast on Barcelona architecture.

Just some shockwave fun

In telegraphic mode, just a few promising toys (the respective sites are also worth checking): soundmap and doodle.

Container Home Kit

Interesting prefab by LOT-EK. Take a look at the video.

"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

mapping some more

a new mapping tool, this time by recopilating global data to map through a wiki called MG dedicated to mapping globalization by Princeton University and University of Washington.

via WorldChanging, by Sarah Rich

On nature and technique, part V

Eugene Thacker is one of the few guides we may have when confronting the complex issues regarding what is usually called biotechnology, or, as he suggests, Biomedia.

His articles for C-Theory, such as "Biophilosophy for the 21st Century" are worth checking out, as well as the collective project "biotech hobbyist".

four letter words to shout in the tube

Nuno, don't get me started, I have so much to do!

following your link about the factbook, ... I think its worth of its own link
viz4all of University of Maryland
specially the works of Karsten Schmidt on 4 letter words in english and Tom Carden on london's tube traveling time.

kk's street use

Kevin Kelly has expanded his site with a new section: street use, in which are shown all kinds of unexpected of unintended modifications of machines, artifacts and technologies that occur a bit everywhere.

Pictured examples: an old school bus used for storing vegetables, and this airconditioner fan hack (we should have built a similar one in July).

talking about mapping

I hate to refer to the CIA in these pages but I found this document on world mapping to be quite surprising, if anything for being public (since 1975!!).
I have to see if they say where the nuclear weapons are hidden in irak.
It seems very useful information, I just can't bring myself to look at it as a inoffensive little book
CIA World Factbook

a large cabinet of curiosities

Many blogs are, to some extent, wunderkammers. But the closest I know to such a description is the Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society. The kind of site worth checking by the end of the day. For example, take this series on Pentecost Island land divers.

On nature and technique, part IV

An interesting interview with Daniel Dennett, by Hari Kunzru .

(warning: it will get more and more indigestible from this point onward. i'm so sorry)

On nature and technique, part III

"Recycling Recycling" by Mark Wigley.

(oldie but tremendously goodie. pdf version here)

On nature and technique, part II

"Revisiting The Natural Contract", by Michel Serres.

On nature and technique, part I

It's about time we start a series on this subject. Avoiding the typical cliches, prejudices and parochialisms that hinder a serious approach to the theme is difficult, but let's try...
(... this is going to be a long one...it would be great if it initiated a good discussion...)

"Computation, Memory, Nature, and Life" is a mind-boggling text by Autodesk founder John Walker, really, really worth reading.

worth (more than) a detour

Pictured: these stone quarries, definitely worth visiting (maybe this is too obvious for my catalan co-bloggers, but you never know)

SANAA Glass Pavilion, Ohio

What do you think about this plan? Does it look familiar?

integrated actions

interesting program at the university of berlin
hands on
a reference for protolab

Using Processing for physical pixel

Ping genius loci - This project by Aether Architecture using Processing is quite interesting. Check it out!

Bioprinting

Print me a heart and a set of arteries - 3D prototyping technology finds its applications in tissue engineering as well. This is the original blog from bldgblog.

Flexibility

No time left for posting, so here goes, in telegraphic mode:

the structures and ideas of Chuck Hoberman

and an interesting new material: d3o

insectivora arch.

You have to check this out
enjoy

Grancrete

It may be a bit old. Just in case you have not read it before.

Olafur Eliasson

Do you remember Carlos? This guy is making an exhibition in Madrid until Aug. 27th, so if anyone is around Madrid, take a look.

AA showcase

This is probably why this gentleman has not updated for several weeks: experimentaation

Worth checking: everything, but specially diploma 4, emergent technologies and, of course, drl

Tensegrity in a cell

This is a very interesting article. It's really worth checking the interactive feature, and, specially, the articles, animations and links that are found at the end.
The lab behind it is run by this guy who does not shy away from being inspired by art and architecture.

Raphael Navot

I had seen this work long time ago (Frame 03)
and I thought it was very advance in the sense that it brought in a certain sense of nostalgy for the digital imaginery. I don't have a clue of how it may relate to us, but I am glad I found it again and I am dropping in just in case it helps to open a door.

Earth Surface Machine

Very elaborate post on BLDGBLOG about Philip Beesley's work in Toronto that is worth checking out. Wonderful images.

mapping blogosphere

another interesting work on mapping. this time the world of blogs.
data mining
nothing new, but still good to keep

design sponge

design sponge is a popular blog site to promote new ideas, also a place where inspiration could be drawn

Websites as graphs

This is fun!
Credits to Processing, traer.physics and HTMLParser.
There is a source code too.

Wikipedia se defiende de los vándalos

Los editores de la enciclopedia libre bloquean artículos conflictivos.

programming design I

...or designing by music.
divertimento
"Giant Steps" by Michal Levy

David, I think you should take this one further.

Contour Crafting

is like that breath in the back of your neck
check out the demo videos

countour crafting (CC) is a layered fabrication technology developed by Dr. Behrokh Khoshnevis of the University of Southern California. Contour Crafting technology has great potential for automating the construction of whole structures as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single run, embedded in each house all the conduits for electrical, plumbing and air-conditioning.

industry shift

industrial manufactures are steping in.
welcome to a brave new world...
panasonic
toyota
ikea

nanotechnology in architecture

here is a site recently launched about nanotechnology and architectural implications. It also linked to this site by Peter Teadon and another one on consumer product applications and many others....

lets step out and take some fresh air...

"It took us a long time to realize that the power of a technology is proportional to its inherent out-of-controlness, its inherent ability to surprise and be generative. In fact, unless we can worry about a technology, it is not revolutionary enough"

Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?
by Kevin Kelly

Keller Easterling at the CCCB

Keller Easterling is one of the most important contemporary writers working on the issues of urbanism, architecture and organization in relation to the phenomena commonly defined as globalization. She wrote books and articles on organization and outlaw spatial products.
One of her themes is the high-tech agriculture at Almeria (pictured).

She will be (hopefully) at the CCCB on Monday, the 19th, at 20:00.

photovoltaic interlude, part II

Expressways could be retrofitted with vast, overbearing tensile structures supporting photovoltaic materials, thus becoming distributed energy producers. Their spreading and implied connection with urban and industrial structures would help minimize the waste of energy that occurs with its transport from production to consumption sites, that here would almost coincide.

Some art for the weekend

In retrospect, we don't have many posts on "contemporary art" as such. Or have we? Can we still take neat, compartmentalized categories seriously? Anyway, here's some Tony Cragg.

On a different note, vvork is a great source for many great stuff out there. It points us towards the likes of Roxy Paine, Simone Decker, Chris Jordan, Julia Lohmann, demakersvan, Tara Donovan, and many, many others.

(warning: as with everything, proceed at your own risk)

the.very.many

Some updates on the.very.many site and many scripts files for reference information and testing.

Minimal Surface

A new world of surfaces is coming... Take a look at this site.

Architecture and mathematics

A little bit of history on architecture, mathematics, geometry and art tought by Juan Monterde teacher at the University of Valencia. It's just an overview, short an simple.

On energy, hydraulics and deviations - part IV

Wilson Bentley's beautiful images of snowflakes.

Engines of Creation

One of the key books regarding nanotechnology is now online, for free. And also, Eric Drexler's site is worth checking. As well as this one.

It will still take a couple of decades for this technology to be available for making truly gravity-defying architecture, for example. Or truly smart architecture. Or...

Let's hope the trend of crucial books being made available by their authors continues.
(There was already John Frazer's, as well as S. Wolfram's A new kind of science, and certainly more that I don't remember right now)

On energy, hydraulics and deviations - part III

Turbulence.

Two events in Barcelona

1,2,3,4 of June - an installation by Architects-of-Air (images) at the CosmoCaixa museum. Not as mind-bending as this one, but still worth a visit;

from 26 to 30 of June - Arduino workshop (tutors website here).

On energy, hydraulics and deviations - part II

Pruned has lots of good posts somehow dealing with this theme: this one, this one (alluvial valley), this one , and this account of a damn' good project - wave garden by Y. Obuchi.

On energy, hydraulics and deviations - part I

The work of Hans Jenny: emergent patterns within liquids affected by sound vibrations.

(a pity that this gets wrapped up in somewhat mystic blabber, but nothing's perfect)

"We might just be insects pollinating machines that do not happen to have their own reproductive organs right now."

An oldie but goodie: interview with Manuel De Landa (circa 1992), worth reading every bit.

(warning: not for the faint of openness. For a more rigorous, dense interview check this one)

Kinetic Design Group

Besides the work they're doing, there's an interesting workshop with some nice case studies.

Math in Architecture (cont'd)

Inspiration study on mathematical formula.

chaoscope

Chaoscope is a 3D strange attractors rendering software. It's a computer tool used to help comprehending dynamic systems, a superset of the strange attractors. (most of them based on mathematical models) Also check out this sculptor's website and his experiment with math as well.

Plant Cellular Anatomy

For inspiration only: the architecture of plant tissues.

Math in Architecture

Architecture and the Rhino Math Plug-In - Twin dwelling

The studio focus its investigation by exploring recent advancements of surface theory in mathematics, architecture's return to material practices, industrial shifts from mass standardization to mass customization, and new socio-economical programmatic relationships.