Archinect - News

Larry Tesler, creator of "cut," "copy," and "paste" computer functions, has passed away

2020-02-19T13:44:00-05:00

Larry Tesler, who passed away on Monday, might not be a household name like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, but his contributions to making computers and mobile devices easier to use are the highlight of a long career influencing modern computing. ...Tesler worked with Tim Mott to create a word processor called Gypsy that is best known for coining the terms “cut,” “copy,” and “paste” when it comes to commands for removing, duplicating, or repositioning chunks of text.

After graduating with a degree in computer science from Stanford University, Tesler began working with the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1973 until 1980. PARC is most famously known for developing the graphical user interface we all use in computers today. From 1980 to 1997, Tesler worked at Apple Computer, helping to develop its products and innovations. In 2001, the computer scientist joined Amazon as VP of Shopping Experience and in 2005 transitioned to Yahoo to head its user experience and design group before he progressed to 23andMe as a product fellow in 2008 until 2009, Gizmodo reports.

From Archinect Features: Never Meant to Copy, Only to Surpass: Plagiarism Versus Innovation in Architectural Imitation

Tesler's contributions to personal computing and his legacy in technological innovation is an undeniable influence in our personal and professional computing pursuits.

This tool instantly draws all of the streets in any city

2020-01-24T15:13:00-05:00

City Roads, an online tool developed by software engineer Andrei Kashcha, allows users to search any city and instantly receive back only the streets by pulling data from OpenStreetMap. Simply search, click, and enjoy the beauty of urban planning. You can print your city of choice on a mug for purchase, save it as a .png file or even as a vector file.

Here are a couple of US cities generated from the online tool:

And here are some outside of the US:

Optimizing floorplans via experimental algorithms

2018-12-21T14:13:00-05:00

Recent computational tools that model the simulation of traffic, acoustics and heat conservation, among others, are allowing a more quantitative objective evaluation of forms. The metrics could be expanded to include terrain maps, sun paths, existing trees and other environmental input, allowing the buildings to be highly adaptive to their context. The physics simulation could force certain boundary shape constraints.

Evolving Floorplans is an experimental research project created by a New York-based programmer, Joel Simon. When approaching floorplan design solely through the angle of optimization, a genetic algorithm arranges the rooms and the flow of people in a manner that minimizes things like walking time, the use of hallways, etc. The layout 'grows' from the encoding using methods such as graph contraction and ant-colony inspired algorithms, resulting in something 'biological in appearance, intriguing in character, and wildly irrational in practice'.

A bread baker first

2014-09-26T11:25:00-04:00

"We have been spending eight months in the neighborhood, getting ideas from the residents, thinking about how do we repurpose these vacant lots...They can't all just be parks"

Natalie Gallagher profiles Kansas City Art Institute alum and community/social practice artist, Sean Starowitz. Some of Starowitz's projects include; Fresh Bread, Bread KC, Lots of Love and the Talk Shop.

MIT develops self-assembling modular robots

2013-10-04T18:49:00-04:00

Known as M-Blocks, the robots are cubes with no external moving parts. Nonetheless, they’re able to climb over and around one another, leap through the air, roll across the ground, and even move while suspended upside down from metallic surfaces [...] As with any modular-robot system, the hope is that the modules can be miniaturized: the ultimate aim of most such research is hordes of swarming microbots that can self-assemble, like the “liquid steel” androids in the movie “Terminator II.”

MIT, you've done it again. And again. A team at CSAIL, MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, has developed M-Blocks -- robotic cubes that can self-assemble into practically any configuration, through a system of carefully aligned magnets and flywheels. Even at their current scale (about the size of an apricot), the M-Blocks could be used to "fill-in" damaged bridges or buildings in an emergency, or serve as adaptive support systems in construction.

But the smaller the blocks can be built, the more versatile their application -- and the more subtle their shapes. Think of a semi-liquid material that can be poured onto the floor and then spring into the shape of a chair, in whatever design you prefer. The modules could also be outfitted with individual components, like cameras or thermometers, to perform a specific function in the horde.

Check out the videos below to see the M-blocks in action.

Coding Emergence

2011-09-13T19:17:08-04:00

We present a system called CityEngine which is capable of modeling a complete city using a comparatively small set of statistical and geographical input data and is highly controllable by the user.