Archinect - News

“In which the solid buildings would be replaced by the accumulation of foam”

2019-08-19T14:30:00-04:00

Prada Poole conceives the city of the future through what he calls “the three stages of a nonexistent architecture.” In this conception, the traditional city would, in successive transformations, morph into an immaterial city, without inertia, in which the solid buildings would be replaced by the accumulation of foam that would “appear and disappear, converge and disperse according to the different needs.”

Antonio Cobo examines the revolutionary work of Hippie Modernist architect and theorist Jose Miguel Prada Poole for Mas Context.

Airbnb invests in a blockchain future

2016-04-13T15:02:00-04:00

Home-rental company Airbnb has “acqui-hired” the majority of the team behind ChangeCoin, a startup that runs a bitcoin-based micropayments service, according to four people with knowledge of the deal. The alternative lodging site has been looking at a few bitcoin and blockchain startups, according to two sources, to study what the technology could do for its services.

Have you heard of bitcoin but still can't get your head around the technology behind them?

Last fall, I sat down with FOAM, a "decentralized architecture office" that believes the blockchain may revolutionize architecture (and so much more). The interview frames a handy introduction to the technology, with particular attention to its spatial implications. Check it out here.

For more on Airbnb, take a look at some of these links:

Flaunting foam and function in An Insulation Installation at Makeshift Society Brooklyn

2014-07-18T18:40:00-04:00

From preventing drafts and keeping moisture out of walls, to being used as inexpensive material for crafting 3D models, rigid insulation foam is a familiar friend to many architects and designers during the creative process. But what to do with all those scraps?

Designers Elisa Werbler and Lucy Knops of The Foam Agency (TFA) are inviting architects and designers around the Brooklyn community to send their foam scraps to be permanently showcased in An Insulation Installation at the Makeshift Society's newest location in Brooklyn.

The installation reclaims the foam back to their original place in a transparent wall, while also sharing the back-stories of the collected foam pieces that'll add a collaborative vibe to the Makeshift space.

Werbler and Knops -- who are both product design grad students at New York's School of Visual Arts and are doing their summer residency at Makeshift -- established The Foam Agency this year to celebrate the foam and its purpose in the creative process.

TFA'...