Archinect - News

Inside a new robotic housing factory in British Columbia, Canada

2021-10-20T11:50:00-04:00

Intelligent City, a Canadian company focused on innovation in housing, has offered a glimpse inside their new factory in Delta, British Columbia. The facility, which has now begun building mid-to-high-rise urban housing projects for Canada and the United States, will use advanced robotics to automatically assemble mass timber building systems.

Intelligent City's new factory in British Columbia. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

The company was founded in 2008 by German-Canadian architect Oliver Lang and Canadian designer Cindy Wilson, who also comes from an architectural background with a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia. The team is currently working to deliver 2,880 homes in Canada and 1,400 homes in the United States, with delivery of their first projects expected in early 2022 in Vancouver.

Intelligent City's new factory in British Columbia. Image courtesy: Intelligent City

The company’s approach is centered on the use of mass...

Welcome to the Hudson Yards, c. 2019: the world's most ambitious "smart city" experiment

2016-04-26T20:55:00-04:00

The observation deck won’t be finished for a few years yet. If you want to see the future of New York, walk north along the High Line, round the curve at the rail yards, and turn your back to the river. Amid the highway ramps and industrial hash of far-west Manhattan, a herd of cranes hoists I-beams into the sky. This is Hudson Yards, the largest private real-estate development in United States history and the test ground for the world’s most ambitious experiment in “smart city” urbanism.

Last year, I reviewed Mattern's book Deep Mapping the Media City, in which she delves into some of the issues surrounding so-called "smart cities." Check out the review here.

For more on the implementation of surveillance and other technologies in the city, check out these links:

Losing yourself in the smart city

2015-12-03T18:35:00-05:00

Thanks to Big Data, it is now next to impossible to reside anonymously in a modern city. Why? Because data anonymization itself is almost impossible without using advanced cryptography. Our every transaction leaves a digital marker that can be mined by anyone with the right tools or enough determination.