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Our technology-first approach has failed the city of the future. So-called “smart cities,” powered by technology, carry the promise of responding to the great pressures of our time, such as urban population growth, climate instability, and fiscal uncertainty. But by focusing on the cutting-edge technologies themselves and relying on private companies to move forward, we have lost sight of what we even want our cities to achieve with all that tech. — wired.com
What is said to be the largest private real estate development in US history is set to become the country’s first “quantified community” as well. Hudson Yards, a 17 million-square foot [...] development on the far west side of Manhattan, will be embedded with technology to monitor environmental conditions, energy production and usage, and traffic flows among its soon to rise towers. The developers are partnering with New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) [...]. — urbanomnibus.net
I’d asked Stokes whether the technology challenges of designing a building to last 100+ years are more difficult today than they were in, say, 1900 — or if it’s as difficult, just different. He said the challenges might be more difficult today, but regardless, maybe technology is changing the solution: we shouldn’t try to design buildings today to last 100 years, but design them so they’ll last for, say, 20 years and then be replaced. — radar.oreilly.com
Light-absorbing glow-in-the-dark road markings have replaced streetlights on a 500m stretch of highway in the Netherlands.
Studio Roosegaarde promised us the design back in 2012, and after cutting through rather a lot of government red tape we can finally see the finished product.
— wired.co.uk
Zero waste, lower transport costs and recyclable materials – is 3D-printing the future of housebuilding? Dutch architects are putting the process to the test for the first time in Amsterdam — theguardian.com
The Palo Alto, Calif., company outlined plans for a factory that would employ up to 6,500 people and cover as many as 1,000 acres, including solar and wind farms to supply its power needs. It is evaluating sites in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas, Tesla said in a regulatory filing.
The proposed 10 million-square-foot facility would make the powerful and pricey lithium-ion batteries that power its Model S and future vehicles.
— online.wsj.com
On its Tesla Blog, the company claims that "by the end of the first year of volume production of our mass market vehicle, we expect the Gigafactory will have driven down the per kWh cost of our battery pack by more than 30 percent."Is the electric car not so dead after all?See some slides from the... View full entry
The disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant marked the beginning of the "Robotics Challenge." Developers were rankled by how helpless robots were as they wandered through the radioactively contaminated reactor building. As they swerved around aimlessly in the steam, cables broke and the operators lost contact with the robots. [...]
They compiled a list of eight tasks that robots would have to master in the future to be capable of performing well in disaster response.
— spiegel.de
The tech sector is, increasingly, embracing the language of urban planning — town hall, public square, civic hackathons, community engagement. So why are tech companies such bad urbanists? — nytimes.com
"Our goal was to develop a device to be used on construction sites. We created a highly portable large format display device with a rugged and weatherproof case that could hold all the CAD drawings a team needs. This makes designs available virtually any place and any time," — Dmitriy Shemet, head of research and development at PocketBook, E-Ink press release
E Ink announces the 13.3" Fina E-ink Display in conjunction with Pocketbook announcing the new PocketBook CAD Reader. Utilizing the Fina display and running Android 4.04, the larger tablet was explicitly designed to display CAD drawings and be utilized in the field for construction. It utilizes... View full entry
In light of the upcoming prestigious ICON Magazine Awards 2013 taking place on Dec. 5 at the Oval Space in East London, we're excited to feature industrial design studio RoboFold, who is one of this year's "Emerging Design Studio" nominees.
Before RoboFold's establishment in 2007 at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, Gregory Epp — who was a student there — spent more than a decade researching curved folding techniques.
— bustler.net
“Arum” Sculpture by Zaha Hadid Architects. Image: Matthias Urschler. “Infinity” Sculpture by Stathis Lagoudakis. Image: Tracy Woodford. View full entry
[...] London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, who yesterday announced that almost all ticket offices on the London Underground transport network would close by 2015 [...]. There are 268 ticket offices on the network in total, and around 260 are set to close [...] Ecommerce giant Amazon is reportedly in talks with Transport for London to use the closed ticket offices as “drop off” points for deliveries. — techcrunch.com
It makes plenty of sense for Amazon to be eyeing up prime Tube real-estate — which could enable it to build out a whole conveniently-sited network of its delivery Lockers in the U.K. Capital — giving London’s commuters a handy stop-off point to get their goods. View full entry
The Spacemaker VR by Digital Physical is a virtual reality software system that can add some new perspective to the entire design process. The Spacemaker lets designers export their 3D files and test out their creations, even during the design process. The software also includes customizable... View full entry
The New Museum will be opening an incubator for art, technology, and design next summer in the institution's adjacent building at 231 Bowery in New York. SO-IL architects in collaboration with Gensler will design the new 11,000 sq.foot facility, which will be located inside a 19th-century... View full entry
We typically see photovoltaic panels up on roofs, as they're broad, open surfaces that receive a lot of sunlight. You know what else spends a lot of time in the scorching sun, though? Sidewalks. With that in mind, a team at Washington DC's The George Washington University has created what is claimed to be "the first walkable solar-paneled pathway in the world." — Gizmag
But can my car drive on it? Built by Studio39 Landscape Architecture, the solar-sidewalk is installed on GWU's Virginia Science and Technology Campus. View full entry
Every year, London's Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) hosts collaborative workshops that challenge an international group of student participants at different levels of architectural experience [...].
The AA DLAB VIsiting School 2013 marked its completion with the recent installment of its final prototype, "Light Forest." This year's workshop took place at AA London and AA Hooke Park from July 22-Aug.4.
— bustler.net
You can check out previously featured AA DLAB projects here and here. View full entry
