damn.
Is Sun providing just technical support or will they provide hosting support as well.. Or is this going to be more Peer to Peer?
This sounds damn cool.

Sun is providing everything. They have going to use a new system in global grid computing... the whole thing hosted on super-computers around the world.

sounds amazing, though still pretty theoretical. but, that could just be my own ignorance.

i think even if AFH never built a single shelter anywhere on the planet, the work you have done in creating a network now is really just as, if not more, powerful than any actual building. this new tool sounds like it will really take that to the next level, and bring the collaborative process of design response down now sort of out of AFH's personal domain and into the field, so to speak. Democratizing AFH. Now, hopefully, that will translate to many more built products out there where endlessly needed. but, i think you have amazingly assembled an infrastructure of key players and actors, and perhaps once they are operating on the same page swapping resources and needs all on their own -- without the need for AFH, ironically enough -- that it might just be like adding water to a dried up farm. In extinguishing your own organization, man, suddenly projects will spring up all over the place! Seems like so much has been going into the piecemeal making of AFH with all these different projects in the mix, simultaneously, hopefully this will really help to reify things in a collective streamlined process now.

not sure if any of that made sense, but i see swarm disaster response, self-suturing micro communities, bureaucracy expedition, spontaneous architectural activism, guerrilla humanitarian response. it sounds like the ultimate database and palm pilot for AFH. or, maybe i am just romanticizing things a bit.

it actually sounds like a database that i proposed wanting to build a couple years back for the Bay Area, if you remember that, projects, firms, maps, resources, uploadable/downloadable, cross-indexing everything related all in one place to get the design community and the relief community working together, instead of requiring coordination though a 3rd party. guess what Cam, this was my idea, so, yeah, you ripped me off! just kiddin...

nevertheless, congrats dude, will be anxious to see how you implement it and how it will actually translate into self-assembled shelters galore around the world.

I thought it was a theoretical idea until I sat down with Sun and they happened to be working on a similar system.

it is actally the idea of many folks. check out this guy -- http://en.osafa.org/

we're going to build the system but it will take the architectural industry to make it happen. If no-one uses the tools then it won't work.

So how was the lecture and after party?? I wish I could've made it... especially disappointing since my office is only two blocks away!

shame... it was open bar and food afterward. Around 100 folks showed up.

I believe it will be podcast later this week.

The London Design Museum show opens tomorrow night.. I'll be there before heading to india...

damn carmeron - i did read the 'nect yesterday and i could have swung around the design museum last night with a couple of buckets of spondulies so will have to wait to your next journey through --