I don’t tweet or do Facebook. I use a computer for email and searches but not for design. I walk around the office giving out pens and saying, “Try that, you might like it.” You should conceive and sketch first. Architects get seduced by wild shapes designed on a computer and build these things whether they work or not in the environment. That’s the danger of computers: There’s a facility about them that allows you to do charming, seductive things that have no deeper meaning. — nytimes.com
Recently: Moshe Safdie to receive the 2015 AIA Gold Medal View full entry
Remember the memorable double sunset on the desert planet Tatooine in the original Star Wars? As it turns out, such a vista isn't unimaginable – if you can get to Kepler-16b, an exoplanet about 196 light years away. Of course, if you did get there, you might be disappointed to find that the... View full entry
A little over a year ago, Seattle sought to determine the quality of TNCs like Uber and Lyft relative to taxi services, and the result was a stinging indictment of traditional taxis' speed, convenience, and ease of payment. [...]
In response to competition from the Ubers and Lyfts of the world, taxi operators across the country have done more than complain about the loss of their monopoly on for-hire transportation ... and actually worked to improve service to be competitive
— planetizen.com
It's important to remember that in the midst of Uber's corporate gaffes and other criticisms of alternative Transportation Network Companies, taxi companies are struggling, but operating. And as Shane Phillips, Masters of Planning student at USC, points out in his Planetizen blog, a silver lining... View full entry
[NYC] neighborhoods with the best access to transit, usually in Manhattan...also have the highest median household income, and the lowest unemployment rate...
Neighborhoods with the worst access to transit (South Staten Island) had lower median incomes... and slightly lower unemployment rates...The neighborhoods with limited access to public transit, like the Flatlands in Brooklyn, fare the worst: their unemployment rate is nearly 12%, and their median household income is around $46,000.
— Gothamist
That or the subway was designed around, and continues to serve, historically-affluent communities...The study was conducted by NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. View full entry
Technofuturism:Aftershock #4: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Neuroscientific Architecture Research: Bringing the brain into evidence-based design, one EEG-measured dérive at a time. Reporting from the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture's conference in San Diego, California.Working... View full entry
The smart city is, to many urban thinkers, just a buzzphrase that has outlived its usefulness: ‘the wrong idea pitched in the wrong way to the wrong people’. So why did that happen – and what’s coming in its place? — theguardian.com
Let's admit it, we architects much too often get lost in narcissistic own-horn-tooting, passionate ego-inflating, disillusioned navel-gazing, vile shit-flinging or simply in the mundane day-to-day operations for the paying clientele. But all is not completely lost thanks to the tireless work and... View full entry
Paul Keskeys examined the the state of residential development across The Pond, and asks the question: How can we rock the status quo? Therein he diagnoses the root cause "They will tell a tale of mass production, of value engineering, and of misguided nostalgia...It is economic pragmatism gone... View full entry
I’ve been collecting corridors from sci-fi movies for almost 3 years now as part of an artistic project.
For ‘Maze Walkthrough’, I’ve selected some of those corridors, made 3D reproductions of them, and built a virtual maze putting them together. The final result is a desktop application that puts the user inside the maze, allowing him or her to navigate and explore it, kind of a FPS video-game without the shooting.
— prostheticknowledge.tumblr.com
The mortar resists microcracking through in situ crystallization of platy strätlingite, a durable calcium-alumino-silicate mineral that reinforces interfacial zones and the cementitious matrix. The dense intergrowths of the platy crystals obstruct crack propagation and preserve cohesion at the micron scale, which in turn enables the concrete to maintain its chemical resilience and structural integrity in a seismically active environment at the millennial scale. — Berkeley Lab
These sorts of structural deformations are not new — researchers have already demonstrated “memory” and “smart material” properties. One of the most popular technologies is known as shape memory alloy, where a change of temperature triggers a shape change. Other successful approaches use electroactive polymers, pressurised fluids or gasses, chemical stimulus and even in response to light. — kurzweilai.net
A Hyperloop in California could be built within a decade, for between $7 and $16 billion and there are no technical showstoppers, Ahlborn says.
In other words, while Musk’s initial estimate of $4 billion was somewhat optimistic, it wasn’t exceptionally far off, especially given that Ahlborn believes the ultimate number for the hyperloop between San Francisco and Los Angeles would come in toward the lower end of the range.
— forbes.com
While independent communications infrastructure, renewable energy, and resilient heating and power systems may all be major priorities in contemporary urban development, the three aren’t typically incorporated into the same project. Beyond The Grid — an ambitious plan underway in the Two Bridges neighborhood of Lower Manhattan — does just that. And the fact that the proposal has been created in this neighborhood is no accident. — urbanomnibus.net
[...] Argonne scientists are taking on a challenge not usually associated with sophisticated computing: urban design. They say that for such large-scale developments, expert opinions, or even standard modeling, will no longer do. Instead, we need detailed simulations that will integrate immense amounts of data into one framework and project different scenarios for the designers to consider. Their initial prototype, called LakeSim, focuses on Chicago Lakeside. — nextcity.org
According to the terms of the proposed draft order, every taxi in Los Angeles would have to become accessible via a mobile application similar to the ones used by Uber and Lyft. These applications will require certification by the Taxi Commission, which can then specify things like pricing maximums and limits on hours worked in a single shift, and can perhaps even set up a rating and complaint system for passengers. — the New Yorker
