Archinect - News

The New Urban Cemetery

2014-09-09T13:06:00-04:00

The idea of the Future Cemetery is to create a place for people to connect with death. What that actually means and looks like is still in development, Troyer says, but in the first stage of the project they did everything from projections to audio installations. Now, they’re working on developing augmented reality experiences in cemeteries—elements that are only visible with certain devices and if you know they’re there. The idea is to allow people to add to their own cemetery experience...

One way to "Play with Your Food": create a Food Machine from the Swedish forest

2014-06-27T19:57:00-04:00

For some meals, it's not the food that makes it special, but how it was prepared. A cake made by a dear friend can taste better than the one bought from the bakery; instant oatmeal becomes transcendent made over a campfire in the woods. The traditions of cooking that we abide by are part economical, part chemical science, part sorcery — what comes out the other end is an alchemy.

"Play with Your Food", the AA Visiting School being held this summer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, wants to investigate that alchemical process from an architectural perspective. What can the design process of architecture learn from the designed process of cooking and mixology? One experimental approach to this way of thinking comes by way of the "Food Machine", an automated kitchen device cooked up by a group of Swedish designers. Petter Johansson, Christian Isberg, Lasse Korsgaard and Carl Berglöf created an open-source cooking device, that can be accessed by multiple people at once from anywhere in the worl...

Healthcare.gov aside, government and tech are starting to get along

2013-12-04T15:00:00-05:00

At the intersection of these two domains – technology and civic life – a small and fascinating sector has been taking root for the last few years. [...] Together, these types of companies and organizations have loosely come to define "civic tech" – and the potential for a future where technology finally, seamlessly, significantly alters how we relate to government and our neighbors.

Not without its growing pains, the U.S. government is slowly learning to effectively use technology to connect to its citizens. The expanding field of "civic-tech" focuses on the sharing and distillation of government data, to grease the bureaucratic wheels and ramp up personal civic engagement.

Explore the world of civic tech with this interactive network map, courtesy of the Knight Foundation.