Archinect - News

Exploring empty architecture in the age of social distance

2020-03-25T13:14:00-04:00

"I'm going around the world photographing places using live feed cameras," proclaims Twitter user Noah Kalina — kicking off a fascinating and chilling collection of empty streets, vacant squares, deserted piazzas, and desolate agorae.

Public spaces and tourist magnets, once bustling with life, are now, in the sudden age of COVID-19 social distancing and shelter-in-place orders, devoid of the human occupants and civic life they were designed for.

St. Peter's Square. Vatican City. 3/24/2020 13:44 pic.twitter.com/0ZfL3JmfbI
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 24, 2020 Times Square. New York City. 3/24/2020 08:15 pic.twitter.com/ep4HINXmGF
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 24, 2020 Trevi Fountain - Rome. 3/23/2020 16:40 pic.twitter.com/N2jDCuXbm1
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 23, 2020 Bourbon Street. New Orleans, Louisiana. 3/23/2020 14:43 pic.twitter.com/RSteFfcjpn
— Noah Kalina (@noahkalina) March 23, 2020 Milan Cathedral. Milan, Italy. 3/23/202 17:49 pic.twitter.com/xntheacv2n
— No...

Microsoft’s undersea data center now has a webcam

2018-08-23T13:10:00-04:00

Microsoft has been experimenting with undersea data centers for years, and the current installation in the Orkney Islands will be deployed for around five years. There are 12 racks with 864 servers and 27.6 petabytes (27,600 terabytes) of storage [...] The data center is powered by a giant undersea cable that also connects it back to the internet, and the findings could mean the company will scale this project up to more powerful data centers in the future.

Microsoft has now installed a webcam by its undersea data center located off the shores of Scotland. The video stream is part of the company's efforts to observe environmental conditions of Project Natick, a research project aimed at determining the feasibility of subsea data centers powered by offshore renewable energy.

Check out the live video stream here.

London Garden Bridge will track visitors' phone signals, submitted plan says

2015-11-11T04:00:00-05:00

Visitors to the garden bridge in London will be tracked by their mobile phone signals and supervised by staff with powers to take people’s names and addresses and confiscate and destroy banned items, including kites and musical instruments, according to a planning document. [...] Caroline Pidgeon [...] said she feared the bridge was following “a worrying trend of the privatisation of public places, where the rights of private owners trump those of ordinary people”.

Previously on Archinect:

Hidden cameras in Berlin will record century of urban development

2014-07-30T19:15:00-04:00

As we speak, pinhole cameras are being placed in secret locations all over Berlin. Each will each take a single photograph with a 100-year exposure. Volunteers will place the cameras in neighborhoods throughout the city, keeping the location a closely guarded secret until they grow old or ill, at which time they will pass the information on to someone in the next generation. In 2114, the people they’ve told will retrieve the cameras from their hiding spots

The Building Has 1,000 Eyes

2013-10-20T11:10:00-04:00

Choosing the areas to monitor within a building can be “an art,” said Paul Gottsegen, the president of the Halstead Management Company. “You want information that is important to the security of the building"...

Joanne Kaufman digs into the growth of New York residences with surveillance cameras. Whether it be the newest luxury condominium looking to attract celebrity clients, a building beginning renovations (with subsequent rise in nonresidents coming into the building) or because of changes in the neighborhood (to address "loitering" and other "criminal" behavior) Increasingly, such equipment is becoming part of building "décor".