The sensory limitations of these vehicles must be accounted for, Nourbakhsh explained, especially in an urban world filled with complex architectural forms, reflective surfaces, unpredictable weather and temporary construction sites. This means that cities may have to be redesigned, or may simply mutate over time, to accommodate a car’s peculiar way of experiencing the built environment... — Geoff Manaugh on The New York Times
"...The flip side of this example is that, in these brief moments of misinterpretation, a different version of the urban world exists...If we can learn from human misperception, perhaps we can also learn something from the delusions and hallucinations of sensing machines. But what?"As self-driving... View full entry
In the near-future, Dubai Civil Defence officers may be zooming in on to the scene of building fires using futuristic personal jetpacks.
Designed by New Zealand-based Martin Aircraft Company, the jet-packs can be operated by a single pilot for 30 minutes at ranges of between 30 and 50 kilometres at altitudes of up to 3,000 feet.
The pilot stands on a platform in a 'pilot module' between two propeller engines, which look like large versions of those commonly found on civilian drones.
— Khaleej Times
I'm not sure when or how it happened, but apparently jet packs are a real thing now. On Tuesday, the Dubai Civil Defense service signed a deal with Martin Aircraft for the future delivery of jetpacks, training material, and spare parts. Dubai's towering skyline necessitates a degree of vertical... View full entry
Ever since Apple announced the launch of the supersized iPad Pro tablet and its Pencil companion, the anticipation grew which new apps—specifically developed for designers and creatives—could fully make use of the enhanced capacity: a more powerful A9X processor, larger 12.9-inch Retina... View full entry
But some designers are toying with another idea—that there’s a different way to build that exploits randomness rather than avoids it. This kind of building will rely on new kinds of granular materials that when tipped into place, bind together in ways that provide structural stability. [...] Sean Keller at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and Heinrich Jaeger at the University of Chicago explain how this kind of “aleatory architecture” is finally becoming possible. — technologyreview.com
That will have a profound effect on the process of design. “As a result, preplanning is freed from considering the local structural detail,” say Keller and Jaeger. “Instead, the main task now becomes generating the proper particle shapes as well as the overall boundary and processing... View full entry
[...] one year after announcing the concept of its game-changing MULTI elevator technology, ThyssenKrupp unveils a fully-functional 1:3 scale model at its Innovation Center in Gijn, Spain. The MULTI system uses linear motors instead of ropes, enabling horizontal movement and transforming conventional elevator transportation into vertical metro systems. — bloomberg.com
Previously on Archinect: ThyssenKrupp's cable-free elevator test tower tops out in less than 10 monthsUp and Down, Side to Side; ThyssenKrupp's cable-free MULTI elevator to begin testing in 2016 View full entry
Virgin Media has joined forces with Chiltern District Council in the U.K. to blanket Chesham’s high street with super-fast Wi-Fi. The unlimited service is available to all 21,000 residents and businesses in the town as well as visitors [...]
The Smart Pavement enables those in the area to ‘streetsurf’ with speeds of up to 166Mbps, which is seven times the average U.K. broadband speed.
— psfk.com
More on the internet and civic infrastrucutre:China's New Weapon to Censor the Internet'Internet Slowdown' Campaign Aims to Raise Awareness of Threats to Net NeutralityMap Plots the World's Internet DevicesInfrastructural Tourism View full entry
Tomorrow (!!!) we'll premiere season two of Archinect Sessions, and in anticipation of the launch, we've been posting Mini-Sessions – interviews recorded during our first-ever live-podcasting series, "Next Up", held at Jai & Jai Gallery in Los Angeles' Chinatown and at the opening... View full entry
First, there was a competition: specifically, the What-To-Print-In-3D? design contest, in which Planbureau studio won a Makerbot Replicator 2 capable of printing 100 micron resolution samples for the molds of their LOGIPLACES 3D concrete puzzles. So far, they've created 16 to 36 piece puzzles of... View full entry
Tokyo-based Robot Taxi ... is still on track to start field tests of its driverless taxi service in one region of Japan by the end of next March [...]
The company, a joint venture between DeNA (one of Japan’s mobile internet pioneers) and ZMP (a robotics firm; tagline “Robot of Everything”) is not building its own cars from scratch. Instead, it’s focusing on adding driverless capabilities to existing cars and designing, creating, and marketing the taxi service.
— qz.com
More on the lead-up to Toky's 2020 Olympic Games: Zaha Hadid ineligible to participate in Tokyo Stadium design-build competitionJapanese government hopes to cap Olympic stadium costs at US$1.28 billionZaha's Tokyo Olympic Stadium cancelled – Abe calls for a redesign from scratch View full entry
Apple has a secret app in the App Store which allows some iPhone users to map the interior of a building using their handset. First discovered yesterday by developer Steve Troughton-Smith, an app called Indoor Survey has been available on the App Store since last week.
The software is currently hidden in the App Store and is not operational, suggesting that the official launch is around the corner.
— idownloadblog.com
The indoor positioning app "Indoor Survey", which allows users to pin their location on a map within a given structure, seems to also function as a mode of "crowdsourced Ground Truth" to improve Apple Maps' accuracy. As the app is still "hidden" and not searchable, the only way to download is... View full entry
A presentation about a world that is increasingly mediated by screens and digital conceptualizations of space on three screens with digital conceptualizations of space is not just meta: it was the engaging and immersive format of Liam Young's lecture/performance Wednesday night at SCI-Arc, "City... View full entry
Hippie modernism focused not on rigorous form but rather on a kind of socially inspired bricolage. Hippie modernism has been not only misunderstood but also underestimated. Buckminster Fuller’s concept of a ‘design science revolution’ inspired the hippie bricoleurs to shoulder their generation’s emerging notion of environmental stewardship. — PLACES JOURNAL
Greg Castillo pens a great article about one of the most overlooked and often dismissed role of hippies in what we have today greedily claimed by the millenials and known as "environmental movement."“Hippie Modernism” is published in coordination with the Walker Art Center... View full entry
Choosing building materials is a delicate balance of factors – looks, quality, price, environmental impact and sustainability all contribute to the success and overall value of the product. When data about building materials are illegible or biased, the construction process can become convoluted... View full entry
When Airbnb put up ads suggesting various ways San Francisco could use the company’s tax payments, it was undoubtedly aiming to drum up good will.
“Dear Parking Enforcement,” one of the ads read, “Please use the $12 million in hotel taxes to feed all expired parking meters. Love, Airbnb.”
[...]
But instead of good will, the flippant tone of the ads, which went up on billboards and bus stops around the city on Wednesday, unleashed a torrent of sarcasm and anger on social media.
— NY Times
Last week, a deluge of anger and annoyance rained down on Airbnb after their new ad campaign popped up around San Francisco. Billboards plastered with phrases suggesting ways various government agencies could better use the roughly $1 million in taxes per month generated by the company were... View full entry
Zurich-based architects and roboticists have created the In-situ Fabricator, an autonomous construction robot capable of laying bricks into pre-programmed structures. Designers at the Swiss National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Digital Fabrication laboratory believe a future generation of the robot could be used widely on building sites. — Reuters
According to Mathias Kohler of ETH Zurich, "The benefit from an architectural point of view is that you can really design the construction directly, so you can plan for how it is built instead of designing your plan and then that plan afterwards being converted on the construction site. So it... View full entry
