Essey is an engineer at Uber and an early adopter of the Internet of things. He can control his lights with his Amazon Echo or an array of touchpad sensors he has installed throughout the home. Sensors tell him when there's water in the basement or a leak under the sink.
While Essey's setup might sound a little like science fiction, it's a prototype of the future. Some critics are worried these devices won't be secure and that companies will use them to spy on us to make money.
— NPR
As the Internet of things becomes more ingrained in our daily lives, some people are turning ordinary homes into smart homes. One way of doing that is by integrating smart appliances (dishwasher, fridges, microwaves, toasters, etc). That strategy, however, can be expensive and not very... View full entry
Gregory Ain, a midcentury champion of modern architecture whose students included Frank Gehry, is virtually unknown outside Los Angeles today. His left-leaning politics made him the object of decades-long F.B.I. surveillance [...]
Even the fate of his most important commission — an exhibition house in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art — is a mystery. That house is now the subject of “This Future Has a Past,” an installation at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village.
— The New York Times
This Future Has a Past opened in July at the Center for Architecture in New York and still runs through September 12. The accompanying event Who Was Gregory Ain? on September 7 will feature the installation's producers, Katherine Lambert and Christiane Robbins, as well as other speakers. View full entry
A pair of USB ports on a console on the front of the bench provides juice from the solar panel mounted at lap level between the seats. Who wouldn’t want to hang out at a bench like this? It certainly catches the eye of passersby. What these kids might not realize, however, is that this bench is watching them back. — Landscape Architecture Magazine
"Smart" benches are spreading—recently a series of them, manufactured by Soofa, was installed in a tiny neighborhood park next to I-77 on the north end of Charlotte, North Carolina with the intent of the neighborhood's analysis and redevelopment. Soofa, founded in 2014 by three graduates of... View full entry
Although it's not shocking that companies like Gensler have automated on/off sensors in their lighting grid to save energy when no one's in the office, it's slightly less comforting to realize that many companies are now using sensors to monitor when employees are at their desks, if they're... View full entry
The Intercept has published a fascinating, and eerie, investigation into the iconic Brutalist tower at 33 Thomas Street in Manhattan. Built to withstand a nuclear bomb, the modern fortress has no windows. At night, the building is a dark shadow blocking the illuminated towers around it.But... View full entry
A mass shooting scenario changes the function of every object in the built environment. [...]
The buildings themselves, the fabric of the city, ends up not mattering so much. In fact, sometimes it becomes a kind of enemy. [...]
Americans aren’t going to rebuild their cities to accommodate the possibility of violence. The people who protect the people in those cities will just have to learn to see them differently.
— wired.com
Related on Archinect:Guns in the Studio: Texas' new campus carry law prompted Architecture Dean Fritz Steiner to resign. He joins us to discuss the law's effect on architecture education, on Archinect Sessions #55The Architecture of Loss: How to Redesign After a School ShootingHow Jeanne Gang... View full entry
Wrapping up our special editorial theme for June 2016, Privacy, Archinect writers Julia Ingalls and Nicholas Korody join us on the podcast this week to discuss two of their recent features—Julia's piece on banking security with input from a reformed robber, and Nicholas' interview with... View full entry
If the founders of a new face recognition app get their way, anonymity in public could soon be a thing of the past. FindFace, launched two months ago and currently taking Russia by storm, allows users to photograph people in a crowd and work out their identities, with 70% reliability.
It works by comparing photographs to profile pictures on Vkontakte, a social network popular in Russia and the former Soviet Union, with more than 200 million accounts.
— the Guardian
"In future, the designers imagine a world where people walking past you on the street could find your social network profile by sneaking a photograph of you, and shops, advertisers and the police could pick your face out of crowds and track you down via social networks."For related content:France... View full entry
The police had allowed me to fly with them so that I could see the world from their perspective. Through its aerial patrols, the division has uniquely unfettered access to a fundamentally different experience of Los Angeles, one in which the city must constantly be reinterpreted from above, in real time, with the intention of locating, tracking and interrupting criminal activity. This also means that the police are not only thinking about Los Angeles as it currently exists. — New York Times
"Their job is to anticipate things that have yet to occur — not just where criminals are, but where and when they might arrive next. They patrol time as well as space. In this sense, although it has been in continual operation for the past 60 years, the division has much to tell us about... View full entry
The NYPD has used cell-site simulators, commonly known as Stingrays, more than 1,000 times since 2008, according to documents turned over to the [NYCLU]. The documents represent the first time the department has acknowledged using the devices.
The NYPD also disclosed that it does not get a warrant before using a Stingray, which sweeps up massive amounts of data. Instead, the police obtain a “pen register order” from a court... [which] do not require the police to establish probable cause...
— theintercept.com
Stingrays operate by imitating cell phone towers, sweeping up massive amounts of user data without their knowledge or permission. They force cell phones to connect to them and then track the user's location. Originally a military technology, they have been increasingly bought and used by local... View full entry
According to leaked documents France's Ministry of Interior is considering two new proposals: a ban on free and shared Wi-Fi connections during a state of emergency, and measures to block Tor being used inside France.
The documents were seen by the French newspaper Le Monde. According to the paper, new bills could be presented to parliament as soon as January 2016. These proposals are presumably in response to the attacks in Paris last month where 130 people were murdered.
— Ars Technica
According to the report published by Le Monde, the French Ministry of Interior has developed two frightening new security proposals that may be presented to parliament early next years.The first, as reported by Ars Technica, would block free, public WiFi during a state of emergency. On November... View full entry
Thanks to Big Data, it is now next to impossible to reside anonymously in a modern city.
Why?
Because data anonymization itself is almost impossible without using advanced cryptography. Our every transaction leaves a digital marker that can be mined by anyone with the right tools or enough determination.
— Cities of the Future
That’s not to say that all circular buildings represent some emergent 21st-century order. It is interesting, though, that past precedents have usually been buildings designed for spectatorship: sports stadiums or, more resonantly, panopticon prisons, where inmates’ cells are arranged in a ring so they’re visible to guards in a central observation tower. Take away that tower and you have the Apple campus. — The Guardian
Circles are an emerging form of office buildings (e.g. Apple HQ, Zappos, Government Communications HQ) and organizing people (Holacracy), as they convey positive qualities like transparency and open collaboration. But, as one New Zealand artist warns in his work, what sinister undertones linger... View full entry
Visitors to the garden bridge in London will be tracked by their mobile phone signals and supervised by staff with powers to take people’s names and addresses and confiscate and destroy banned items, including kites and musical instruments, according to a planning document. [...]
Caroline Pidgeon [...] said she feared the bridge was following “a worrying trend of the privatisation of public places, where the rights of private owners trump those of ordinary people”.
— theguardian.com
Previously on Archinect:London Garden Bridge wins new supporters with revised funding dealFurther legal setbacks for London Garden BridgeCheeky "A Folly for London" winners announced View full entry
We were invited to Qatar by the prime minister's office to see new flagship accommodation for low-paid migrant workers in early May - but while gathering additional material for our report, we ended up being thrown into prison for doing our jobs.
Our arrest was dramatic.
— bbc.com
Previously:A Memorial for the Workers Dying While Constructing the Qatar World Cup StadiumWorld Cup ‘slaves’ scandal: Qatar holds 2 UK rights researchers over ‘emigration violations’ View full entry
