A wooden skyscraper that Austrian architects say will be the tallest of its kind in the world is to be built in Vienna next year. The 84-metre (276ft) HoHo project in the Seestadt Aspern area, one of Europe’s largest urban development sites, will house a hotel, apartments, restaurant, wellness centre and offices, and is expected to cost about €60m (£44m). — The Guardian
Designed by Rüdiger Lainer and Partner, the skyscraper would consist of 76% wood. The material choice, according to project developer Caroline Palfy of Kerbler, is largely ecological. While wood requires hewing down trees, its net environmental impact is far lower than concrete: construction... View full entry
It’s not uncommon to live in Los Angeles and still feel like a tourist. The author and seminal California-commentator Carey McWilliams remarked that it took seven years of living in Los Angeles before he no longer felt in exile, and the city has struggled with a history of atomization and... View full entry
“Silicon Valley has been the cradle of a series of innovations that, over the last decades, have propelled technology and [the] world economy, but all of the resources, all of the intelligence, has been invested into the immaterial, the digital realm, the internet,” asserts Bjarke Ingels of... View full entry
The HY-Bol Pavilion, designed and built in the summer of 2014 by students of the Spitzer school of Architecture at City College New York, was the culmination of a series of courses devoted to the expression of complex geometric curvature. Contemporary architecture theory has witnessed an new... View full entry
Outside, across the car park of this otherwise unremarkable industrial estate, is a grand, neoclassical mansion that recently became a global internet sensation . It is the world’s first 3D-printed villa. [...]
Not all architects are convinced that 3D printing is good for architecture as a discipline. [...] "It may come without economic cost at a small scale but in architecture, if we are not careful, this is at the expense of integrity.”
— theguardian.com
Previously: Rapid Construction, China Style: 10 Houses in 24 Hours View full entry
The push is on to incorporate brain science into design and architecture...
Hopefully, the days of windowless classrooms to prevent vandalism and distraction are over.
— Al Jazeera
Science once agains confirms what we already know, and architects turn it into a marketing tool. View full entry
This week, [Google] is expected to propose new headquarters — a series of canopylike buildings from Heatherwick Studio, a London design firm known for works like the fiery caldron at the 2012 Olympics, and Bjarke Ingels [...]
The project in Mountain View, which Google has not made public but has discussed with members of the City Council, is likely to aggravate an increasingly testy relationship between the company and community leaders who fear the company is overrunning their small city.
— nytimes.com
Both Heatherwick Studio and BIG have gained global success working on an impressive variety of scales, from the infrastructural to the sculptural, and also happen to both have relatively young founders (Heatherwick is 45, Ingels is 40). While details aren't expected until later this week, it feels... View full entry
Spirit of Space, in collaboration with Trahan Architects, has created a short film featuring the award-winning design of the Louisiana State Sports Hall of Fame and Regional History Museum in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The museum was recently awarded the prestigious 2015 AIA Institute Honor Award... View full entry
Residents of the world’s most polluted city—New Delhi, in case you were still wondering—can now find out exactly how toxic the air in their neighbourhood is. [...]
“People are clueless about the air they are breathing. If there is fog, they think it might be pollution,” he said. “People will have this information on their fingertips now.” [...]
While the government figures out a way to bring pollution under control, this app could help people buy time.
— qz.com
Related View full entry
Apple design chief Jony Ive and retail head Angela Ahrendts are working together on a redesign of Apple's retail stores — a different approach that will make them better suited for selling the fashionable Apple Watch, according to a new report. [...]
And while Apple Stores are known for their carpet-less floors, Ive did tell Parker that he overheard someone say they wouldn't buy a watch from a store if they weren't standing on carpet.
— appleinsider.com
Nanyang Technological University's (NTU Singapore) start-up Blacksmith Group today launched the world's first compact 3D printer that can also scan items into digitised models.
Named the Blacksmith Genesis, this user-friendly device allows users without much knowledge of 3D software to scan any item, then edit the digitised model on the computer and print it out in 3D.
— sciencedaily.com
Funded through an Indiegogo campaign, the printer-scanner contains a 2-inch LCD display, Wi-Fi capabilities, an SD-card reader and a USB connection (but only weighs 6kg). The device utilizes a unique rotary platform and can print objects twice as large as similar-sized printers currently... View full entry
Despite its odd appearance, the Gimball is the first collision-tolerant drone that could prove itself useful in a variety of applications, from everyday tasks to hazardous situations. Designed by Flyability, the Gimball recently won a $1 million prize in the UAE's Drones for Good international... View full entry
By manipulating the structure of steel on a nanometre scale, [Hansoo Kim and his colleagues at the Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea] (have) produced a material which has the strength and the lightness of titanium alloys but will, when produced at scale, cost a tenth as much. — The Economist
The new, potentially-revolutionary alloy utilizes nickel, in addition to aluminum and iron, to create a metal that is as strong as steel but much lighter and cheaper. The scientists created the alloy using nanotechnology to manipulate the structure of steel on a minute level.Noting the decrease in... View full entry
The issue of homelessness in SimCity was recently taken on by an article at Vice News’s tech blog, Motherboard. The article focuses on Matteo Bittanti, a professor at Milan’s IULM University, who became increasingly interested in homelessness in the game. [...]
Bittani was so interested in it that he began compiling quotes from SimCity users intent on dealing with the virtual homeless, ultimately publishing them in a 600 page, two volume mega-book called “How to get rid of the homeless”.
— thisbigcity.net
Related:Exclusionary Strategies: Laws and Designs Used to Oust Homeless PopulationCan a City Really 'End' Homelessness?Honolulu Law Criminalizes Homelessness View full entry
The popularity of video games shows no sign of waning, and museums have ramped up their interest in the medium. [...]
“Sorry MoMA, video games are not art” was the headline on Jonathan Jones’s blog [...] after New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced the acquisition of 14 video games, including 1980s classics “Tetris” and “Pac-Man”. “All hell broke loose in an interesting way,” said Paola Antonelli, a senior curator in the museum’s department of architecture and design [...].
— theartnewspaper.com
Related: Tate Museum Creates Minecraft World Inspired by Famous Paintings View full entry
