fascinating lecture by MIT’s Neri Oxman on ‘Design and the intersection technology and biology’ at TED-2015. Imagine the possibilities for our immediate environment when structure and materials merge and create a sphere which adapts and transforms; imagine the possibilities when this development is linked to the increasing internet of things/people connectivity and what this implies for our way of building. Do we need a built environment as the only way to provide shelter and privacy?
Metabody
recently published: the Metabody Journal of Metacultural Critique, nr. 1. the Metabody project is an EU-supported project and will last 5 years, i.e. from 2013-2018. It covers various disciplines : music, dance, architecture, media, etc.; but above all “the context of the project is an unprecedented control society, with the onset of Big Data as new economy that aims to reduce all reality to traceable data” .(p.4) TU-Delft’s Hyperbody Lab represents the Architecture section. The Journal, accompanied by a dvd with works, prototypes and subprojects is available via the website.
Warren Ellis at ThingsCon
Disruptive, fascinating, out-of-the-box, playful and, above all, a true attentive keynote from Warren Ellis at ThingsCon 2015 in Berlin. While using the house and its – assumed – internet of things connectivity as an example he illustrates that we need to think a lot harder to come up with real adequate solutions if we really want to add meaning to the place we call our home.
smog free tower
After his first smog-project in Being, artist/designer Daan Roosegaarde – based in Rotterdam – now focuses on his own city. Supported by a crowd-funding action he plans and designed a 7 meter Smog-Free Tower in Rotterdam, to be completed in September 2015. After being presented in Rotterdam the tower will travel to other countries. Participants/partners that donate at least € 50,- receive an object containing the dust taken from the air; for € 250,- you can wear it as a ring: techno poetry………….. Let’s hope the tower will remain and/or others will follow……
cells
Until August 2nd. this year nobody should miss the beautiful exhibition in Munich’s Haus der Kunst of Louise Bourgeois’ ‘Cells, Structures of Existence‘ , a series of intimate spaces created in a decade between 1998 and 2008, just 2 years before her death in 2010. The `Cells’ represent the remembrance of her life and – in particular – childhood. They show a remarkable ability to transfer memories and events
into spheres recognizable for many; with simple materials – in particular doors rescued from e.g. her studio – the small spaces become a reference to often lost experiences.
Engage Rotterdam
Constructive meeting and – above all – breakout sessions – yesterday on the 14th floor at Central Post Rotterdam as part of Engage Rotterdam; organized by Hogeschool Rotterdam and Livework on Smart City-issues. Once again a call for ‘rethinking the future’ (Ingrid Mulder, TUD & HR) and various attempts to create real participatory projects, some of which will be added to the CityLab-010.
IoT-MeetUp on WW-IoT-day
On April 9, 2015 , the 4th Internet of Things & Built Environment MeetUp was held in Rotterdam, after 3 years now back at V2. In combination with a parallel program at HR and WdKA in their own venues; we had an interesting series of presentations and debates on the actual issues concerning iot and smart city. See the recordings at https://vimeo.com/channels/908003/ and listen back.
Internet of Things & Built Environment, April 9.
Coming up; the 4th. Internet of Things, Built Environment & Smart City MeetUp in Rotterdam on the evening of April 9, WW-IoT-day. Location is V2, with a fine line-up of speakers that promises an actual state of affairs as well as an interesting discussion. For now: Nimish Biloria (TU-Delft/Arch.) Floris Schiferli (Superuse Studios), Bem van Lier (Centric), Cristina Ampatzidou, Jan Belon (Buitengewone Zaken), Elizabeth Sikiaridi (hybridspacelab). We plan debate with local politicians on the ‘Smart City’.
HR as well as WdKA will organize parallel programs within their own venues that same day.
admission is free but strictly limited to 75 visitors. More info and registration soon on the MeetUp-site.
the Dilapidated Dwelling
Recently published on the Architecture_MPS website : an article by Patrick Keiller on housing in which he refers in particular to the situation in the UK, but nevertheless touches upon a contemporary issue: “Perhaps we are all ‘others’ when we are at home?”. Maybe the most interesting statement is that “the history of house-building suggests that the market will never be able to modernise dwelling on its own.(..) If there is to be any possibility for a more promising approach to dwelling, it is very unlikely to come from the conventional house-building industry.”. This is a challenge not for architects only, but rightly so, for the whole building industry involved.
two spaces?
While cleaning up my overloaded bookshelves I retrieved some magazines and checked them for articles worth keeping. One of these was an issue of Archis, the architectural magazine that has devoted many articles to the – at that time already – increasing developments in virtuality. In 1997 the symposium Transarchitectures 02 took place in Paris, accompanied by an exhibition curated by Paul Virilio. An interview (originally in Archicree, 279) with him was published in Archis, issue 1998/11 in which Virilio stated: “The problem is that the architect is back to working with two types of space. He has to build real space and allow immediate – meaning active – space, and virtual – meaning latent or potentially present – space to co-exist.”
Now, almost 20 years further, we may come to the conclusion that ’the problem’ still exists; only a few very architects succeed in really ‘ mixing’ both types of space. Worth reading in this is also the book by Ole Bouman: ‘ Real time in quick space’ ; also as series of essays, still actual. (NAI-Publishers, 1996)