By now, many of us are aware of the Leap Motion, a small, $70 gesture control system that simply plugs into any computer and, apparently, just works. If you've seen the gesture interfaces in Minority Report, you know what it does. More importantly, if you're familiar with the touch modality -- and at this point, most of us are -- the interface is entirely intuitive. — Technology Review
This is an abandoned farm house that artist Heather Benning turned into a human-sized dollhouse (provided a human-sized dollhouse is just a regular house with no wall on one side). — geekologie.com
Mark Dery, reflecting on his recent life as a self-described ‘career patient’, implores hospital architects to collaborate with interior designers, psychologists and neuroscientists in order to eradicate forever the pain of ‘medical incarceration’. — australiandesignreview.com
"I think that [austerity] is used as a cliche because people don't have ideas, they want to crib [old ones] to do bad stuff," she said, in a Q and A session with Guardian deputy editor Kath Viner. "Schools, housing, hospitals – I think the government should invest in good housing." — guardian.co.uk
provisional structures that keep out the elements and provide some small degree of the comfort of having a place, of home. From the outside, they are a messy conglomeration of whatever materials were at hand and would stand upright. The insides, however, are tidy and carefully arranged, jackets hung and blankets folded. — Places
Over at Places journal Henk Wildschut presents photographic documentation of camps of transient immigrants in Calais, Dunkirk, Malta, Patras, Rome, southern Spain. Taken after he returned from documenting the aftermath of an earthquake in Pakistan with new ideas about how... View full entry
The U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, organized by the Institute for Urban Design on behalf of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, will be devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The exhibit features 124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods and cities. — bustler.net
Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. View full entry
What people said concerned them the most was a growing sense of isolation and disconnection. They said we live increasingly in silos, separated by ethnicity, culture, language, income, age and even geography. They lamented what they saw as a deepening civic malaise that has resulted in more people retreating from community activities. They said this corrosion of caring and social isolation hurts them personally and hurts their community. — Vancouver Foundation
Regardless of its textbook urban success with its new buildings, neighborhoods, geography and living standards, Vancouver also faces some disturbing truths about creeping isolation, loneliness, racial and ethnic intolerance and other psychosocial urban perils. Perhaps these... View full entry
But despite the many and varied predictions of the death of criticism — of architecture as well as other forms of culture — it seems to me that a radical rethinking of critical practice might be prompted by the potentials of writing for online media, and that this rethinking might result in a new belle-lettrism. — Places Journal
How will the accelerating transition from print to digital publishing affect the practice of architecture criticism? On Places, Naomi Stead surveys the scene and is optimistic about the possibilities. View full entry
A massive and thriving colony of bees living in an abandoned industrial site in Buffalo has been moved into a brand new home, designed for them by architecture graduate students in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. — phys.org
What About It? Part 2 to be released on July 7, 2012 The second issue of the graphic narrative in magazine format by WAI Architecture Think Tank includes essays, Manifestos, Projects, Collages and a series of Conversations with: Simona Rota (Madrid) Zhang Ke / standardarchitecture (Beijing) Bernd... View full entry
Yes, it's still a bus shelter, but the idea is to make it both more useful and more of a social space. People may come here for a range of things other than catching the bus, so that social interaction and the life of the street intermix with waiting to produce a more vibrant, interesting, and safe environment. — humantransit.org
The project IlluminAction by UrbanoActivo, an open design collective from Puerto Rico, has been selected to represent the island in the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy this fall (August 29 – November 25). The selection was narrowed from 450 project submissions nationwide and will be presented as part of the Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good exhibition by The Institute for Urban Design. — bustler.net
This exhibit will be part of an archive of actionable strategies around U.S. cities to improve the public urban realm. Click here to see more Archinect News posts related to the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. View full entry
Charlie Rose will be interviewing Tod Williams & Billie Tsien on tonight's show. Check your local listings for broadcast times. View full entry
It took Dubai more than five years to build the 828-meter Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (for the moment, anyway). But Chinese architects and engineers reckon they need a mere 90 days to leave the Emiratis in the dust. At least, that's what they've claimed. — cnngo.com
BSB is renowned for its eye-opening construction efficiency. Its portfolio includes assembling a 15-story building in six days in June 2010, and erecting a 30-story hotel in 360 hours in December 2011. The key to achieving such stunning speed is an innovative construction technique developed by... View full entry