A major insurance company is suing Chicago-area municipal governments saying they knew of the risks posed by climate change and should have been better prepared. The class-action lawsuits raise the question of who is liable for the costs of global warming. [...]
“What the insurers are saying is: ‘We’re in the business of covering unforeseen risks... But we’re now at a point with the science where climate change is now a foreseeable risk.’”
— washingtonpost.com
A fully automated mobile platform for 3D printing capable of producing objects of limitless scale does not currently exist.
In the hope of remedying this situation, Gensler’s Los Angeles office initiated Mobile 3D Printing, a Gensler research project born from an observation of present-day 3D printing technology and its limitations.
— gensleron.com
For the latest edition of The Deans List, Archinect spoke with Chris Knapp, Discipline Leader of Bond University's Abedian School of Architecture in Queensland, Australia.Therein he argues "Investigating things materially is something very, very important for us, and engendered in the philosophy... View full entry
As fossil fuels become more expensive and the number of urban dwellers continues to rise, urban farming will help feed the population without increasing the cost and pollution of food transport. [...]
The rise in rooftop farming isn't limited to commercial operations. "Rooftop farming and gardening has become extremely diverse, and in that sense a more 'normal' presence in cities"
— news.nationalgeographic.com
Last week, the Van Alen Institute hosted an interdisciplinary event relating brain activity, new technology and our response to the built environment. The event included a tech demo of brain computer interfaces and a conversation involving architects, neuroscientists, psychologists and... View full entry
Longtime partners Bohlin Cywinsky Jackson and Eckersley O'Callaghan have been brought in to revamp the 93-year-old former United States Mortgage and Trust Company building at the corner of East 74th Street and Madison Avenue, according to New York City building permits. — appleinsider.com
A Finnish company called IndoorAtlas has figured out that all buildings have a unique magnetic “fingerprint” — and has solved how to use that to determine locations inside a structure to within six feet. That is enough to take a consumer to a product in a crowded supermarket, or figure out the location of, say, a half-dozen workers in a building full of them. It’s also much better than cell phone towers can do. — bits.blogs.nytimes.com
Super-starchitect Lord Norman Foster and his friends at the European Space Agency stunned the world last year with a plan to build a lunar base by 3D-printing it with moon dust. But what happens when you try something like that on Earth? How is 3D printing changing the way we build cities?
I got the chance to ask Foster just that question at the Center for Architecture in New York City last night.
— gizmodo.com
Previously on Archinect: Foster + Partners works with European Space Agency to 3D print structures on the moon View full entry
Summer DLAB from London's AA School of Architecture is back again for its 2014 cycle. The summer-long workshop emphasizes the integration of algorithmic / generative design methodologies and large scale digital fabrication tools.Continuing its color-based agenda with White, this year's Summer DLAB... View full entry
She explains "Our role then, in Shenzhen, wasn’t to play cultural ambassador or artistic exposition-ers, but to effectively perform the moods of Los Angeles from a distance, through whatever interpretative media each individual deemed to be most fit"...
Amelia published What is the Los Angeles Biennale of Architecture / Urbanism? She explains "Our role then, in Shenzhen, wasn’t to play cultural ambassador or artistic exposition-ers, but to effectively perform the moods of Los Angeles from a distance, through whatever interpretative media each... View full entry
The European Court of Justice said Google must remove links in search results when requested by individuals, such as the Spanish man who brought a case against the search engine in order to remove links to a 1998 newspaper article about the sale of property to settle his debts. The court said that the “initially lawful processing of accurate data” could, over time, become “inadequate,” “irrelevant,” or “excessive” in the eyes of the people who feature in the material. — qz.com
MIT Prof. Mark Jarzombek on the notion of primitive, the worldwide evolution of the housing, and the fate of the native populations in the modern environment
When does the architecture begin? How the pit house can explain the global migrations and links between the Navahos and first men in Europe? MIT Professor of the History and Theory of Architecture Mark Jarzombek clarifies the essence of the problem.
— serious-science.org
A special construction material keeps concrete whiter than white. — CNN
The first application was on Richard Meier's Jubilee Church in Rome. View full entry
Most discourse on “smart” and “sentient” cities, if it addresses people at all, focuses on them as sources of data feeding the algorithms. Rarely do we consider the point of engagement — how people interface with, and experience, the city’s operating system. — Places Journal
As we enter the era of so-called “smart” cities, Shannon Mattern argues on Places, we need to consider how citizens interface with the city’s operating system. What does a “right to the city” mean for our future cities? “Can we envision interfaces that honor the multidimensionality and... View full entry
Some writers and people who talk about 3D printing get over-enthused. Most of the stuff they talk about will happen someday—eventually. But there’s the here-and-now and the near-term future, where a lot of that stuff is definitely hype and won’t happen. I’m very steeped into what can happen in the relatively near term. So I just tend not to pay too much attention when the hype gets too obscure. — qz.com
