In theory the mechanism is really quite simple:
1. A sensor detects the rumblings of an earthquake.
2. Within .5 to 1 second an air tank pushes air in-between an artificial foundation and the actual structure of the home, lifting it as high as 3cm off the ground.
3. While the earth below violently shakes, the levitating home quietly and patiently waits, returning back to the ground once the tectonic plates have settled.
— spoon-tamago.com
The glasses will use the same Android software that powers Android smartphones and tablets... equipped with GPS and motion sensors. They will also contain a camera and audio inputs and outputs.
Through the built-in camera on the glasses, Google will be able to stream images to its rack computers and return augmented reality information to the person wearing them. For instance, a person looking at a landmark could see detailed historical information and comments about it left by friends.
— nytimes.com
Tina Uznanski, a student in the interior design program at the Pratt Institute, has recently been announced as winner of the 2012 Gensler Brinkmann Scholarship competition. Along with this award, Tina will receive an academic scholarship and a summer 2012 internship with Gensler’s London office. — bustler.net
Openarch is a real prototype of a smart home. The first home designed from scratch to incorporate a digital layer connecting the house and its elements to the Internet. Its inhabitants lead a new digital and connected life. It is flexible and thanks to its ability to transform, it can adapt to any condition that the user requires. — openarch.cc
The Buckminster Fuller Institute has published 103 entries to this year's Buckminster Fuller Challenge in the IDEA INDEX— BFI's ever growing repository of whole systems solutions to the world's most pressing problems. Entries were submitted from all parts of the world— the US, the UK, India, China, the Sahel, the Arctic, South Africa, Rwanda, Barbados, Haiti, and Afghanistan, among others. — bustler.net
Developed by Jaewoo Chung at MIT's Media Lab, Guiding Light consists of a wearable badge with magnetic sensors and a software app that makes use of a projector built into many Samsung smartphones to cast arrows onto the ground in front of you as you walk.
The system relies on a map of the building based on fluctuations in its magnetic field, created by the presence of steel in the walls, floor and ceiling. In tests, Guiding Light was able to determine a user's position to within a metre.
— newscientist.com
The project of Lacaton-Vassal-Druot is a brilliant contemporary example of working within built-up heritage, solving with an exceptional industrial and even adaptable solution the problem which many European cities face. — Domus Magazine
While European cities present very low demographic growth today, they have extraordinarily urban and even agriculturally built environments. Adding to these circumstances circumstances certain environmental and social sustainable values, and bearing in mind the current economical situation, you... View full entry
...will re-examine the built environment of the arid and semi-arid west as a vast field of opportunities for design innovation at a range of scales, from building systems to infrastructure and landscape spaces. The conference will present and debate a portfolio of design strategies generated in response to the challenges set forth in ALI's Drylands Design Initiative... — Arid Lands Institute
Registration is currently open for the forthcoming Drylands Design Conference being held March 22-24 at the Woodbury School of Architecture. This event is the conference part of the Drylands Design Competition you can see the work by the winners at the competition website here. View full entry
Yu is a soft-spoken engineer with great power: He sets the timing for all of L.A.’s stoplights. His department has to take it all in: bikes, trains, big events and, of course, lots and lots of cars. Los Angeles has one of the nation’s worst reputations for automobile congestion, but that’s a simplistic way of looking at things. Its freeways are still the most congested in the nation, but L.A. has 36 times as many miles of surface streets as it does freeways. — forbes.com
....breakthrough ideas still come from individuals, not committees. “There is nothing democratic about innovation." — New York Times
David Galbraith has embarked on a fascinating journey, exploring the notion that the flow of people and their interactions inside buildings, is similar in design to the flow of data and user interaction of Web apps.
Could best practices in Web app design be applied to architectural design?
— zdnet.com
Also, check out Archinect's interview with David Galbraith. View full entry
-- asked what bugged him most. “Ninety-nine percent of all cars,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of all sneakers. Ninety-nine percent of all cellphones. Ninety-nine percent of all door handles.” — New York Times
Steering pedestrians away from neglected areas only prolongs their “ghetto” status, denying the attention needed to fill storefronts with businesses and populate streets with enough people to counteract crime. Making it visible to outsiders, on the other hand, can call attention to a neighborhood’s potential and allow it to move away from stagnation and blight. — americancity.org
Downtown Toronto is filled with architectural masterpieces, designed by the likes of Calatrava, Gehry, Liebskind and Alsop. A new app developed at Ryerson University will allow tourists, Torontonians and architecture fans to delve into the design, function and history of many of downtown Toronto’s most significant buildings. — ryerson.ca
Archinect member applet sounded offended by Sherin’s focus on passive technologies writing "The information you are writing is so main stream and only shows you are just discovering things known to first year architecture and design students". Yet, as Amy Leedham, correctly pointed out "While the passive strategies here sound obvious and simple, most people are not using them, hence the need to remind people."
Sherin Wing, brought the research for the newest installment of the COUNTOURS feature, wherein she looks at New, Energy-Efficient Technologies, in which she explores passive technologies such as the solar shading CRATE system, developed by a team consisting of... View full entry