Archinect - News

Satellites could outnumber all visible stars soon

2019-06-03T14:21:00-04:00

Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos.

“This has the potential to change what a natural sky looks like,” Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer who promotes night skies told The New York Times.

Astronomers and night sky-enthusiasts worry because SpaceX is planning to send potentially thousands of satellites into orbit as part of a new business venture aimed at connecting the entire planet to the internet.

Other technology companies, including Amazon, are also making plans for coming space internet ventures, raising the possibility of a night sky filled with more satellites than visible stars in the very near future.

Get Lectured: Georgia Tech, Spring '19

2019-03-27T16:03:00-04:00

Archinect's Architecture School Lecture Guide for Spring 2019

It's time for Archinect's latest Get Lectured, an ongoing series where we feature a school's lecture series—and their snazzy posters—for the current term. Check back regularly to keep track of any upcoming lectures you don't want to miss.

Want to share your school's lecture series? Send us your school's lecture series poster and details to connect@archinect.com.

The Georgia Tech School of Architecture's lecture series is described as “a whole curriculum in itself that brings together students and faculty from across disciplines to engage with the leading thinkers and practitioners of the day” and also highlights alternative practices. Upcoming lectures include “Redesigning Cities Against Climate Change” featuring Peter Calthorpe and Rob Kunzing, and “Gentrification without Displacement?” with Joseph P. Riley and Jess Zimbabwe.

Upcoming symposia include: “Creating the Next Modeling System”, “Designing the Future of Health...

Do robots dream of dancing sheep?

2017-11-21T15:28:00-05:00

Harmoniously weaving together the art of dance and the science of mechanical engineering, Huang Yi performs a man-machine dance duet with KUKA -- a robot he conceptualized and programmed -- set to stirring cello by Joshua Roman.

During aTED Talk event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Taiwanese choreographer and engineer Huang Yi performed an absolutely gorgeous pas de deux with an emotionally responsive, intricately reticulating single arm robot affectionately named KUKA. For this performance, KUKA was programmed to move not only in harmony with both the graceful movements of the dance but with the sound of Joshua Roman‘s starkly beautiful cello solo.

Do robots get a lunch break?

2017-11-13T12:18:00-05:00

The construction sector is going to look very different in a decade or two – and so is its workforce. Are we going to be ready for it? Or will we fall behind?

What will the future of construction sites be? What will they look like and who will be wearing the hard hats. Does technology need a hard hat? With the industry shifting with 3D printing, robotics, artificial intelligence and increased productivity, how then will the construction industry at large change?

For more, listen to a podcast on the shifts in the construction industry.

Google's Sidewalk Labs contemplates building an entire city

2016-04-06T12:49:00-04:00

The Information notes that building a city could allow Sidewalk Labs to “rethink government, social policy, and data-driven management.” [CEO Dan] Doctoroff explained that “thinking about a city from the Internet up is really compelling,” while also noting that “cities are hard. You have people with vested interest, politics, physical space…But the technology ultimately cannot be stopped.”

Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs joins the rarefied stable of companies potentially looking to expand from an initial service (in this case, improved WiFi access and traffic flow in cities) into a fully-fledged social experimentation machine. Will they build 21st century company towns or create a genuinely new, technology-based approach to living?

Here's a round-up of other mass-scale experimental projects:

MIT's "Placelet" sensors technologize old-fashioned observation methods for placemaking

2015-08-18T19:49:00-04:00

With a $35,000 grant from the Knight Prototype Fund, [MITs Elizabeth Christoforetti] and her team are working on a project called Placelet, which will track how pedestrians move through a particular space. They’re developing a network of sensors that will track the scale and speed of pedestrians [and vehicles] over long periods of time. The sensors, [currently being tested in downtown Boston], will also track the 'sensory experience' by recording the noise level and air quality of that space.

Dump your old vector files in the Digital Junkyard to be recycled into real-world objects

2015-07-24T21:28:00-04:00

The Digital Junkyard is an experiment in virtual salvage. It is a repository of donated digital information that is used to generate real physical and spatial objects...This project is an embodiment of the growing collective intelligence that technology affords us; and an experiment in ideas about digital ecology. It also honours the time and energy that designers put into testing and making mistakes.

No, this isn't some snarky Craigslist ad. Recently launched by architecturally trained designer and artist Car Martin, the Digital Junkyard is a website with a mission to transform as much of your unwanted vector files into a new physical object or creative idea of sorts, in the real world. In addition to "dumping" their files, users can "salvage" and download donated files, and can eventually check out the resulting "artifacts" -- although that section of the site is yet to be filled.

The Digital Junkyard accepts a maximum of 250 MB and is mainly looking for vector files. More specifically:

Adobe (.ai .eps .pdf)
Autodesk (.dwg .rvt)
Mcneel/Rhino (.3dm .gh.ghx)
Sketchup (.skp)
GIS (.mxd & shapefile folders)
Other (.svg .dxf)

Screenshot via djunkyard.com

While the Digital Junkyard can be a practical outlet for architects and designers to clear up their digital workspaces, Martin's website has an introspective side to it that is greatly relevant at this point in our tightening relationship wit...