May 13, 2008
Category: ⚐ EN+findings+sustainability+technologies
Re:Vision is a diverse group of people focused on changing the urban landscape by reimagining all the components that make up a city block. From energy to transportation to commerce to community, we believe that by finding innovative, healthy and sustainable ideas to help revitalize one urban block, we can create a blueprint for better cities everywhere.
Interesting innitiative…They have also a tv channel.
April 30, 2008
The author of this is proposal is Michael Jantzen. This is an observation tower where people can walk through to view the surronding landscape, while the five wind activated segments of the structure rotate aroud them in diferent directions.
April 13, 2008
From May 30 through June 14, 2008
Projects and Papers’ Submission Deadline: April 25
Open call for collaborators: May 9
With Simone Jones, Alvaro Cassinelli, Julian Oliver, Daniel Canogar & Pablo Valbuena.The workshop aims to use open hardware and open code tools to create prototypes for exploring image technologies and mechanisms of perception.
April 8, 2008
“Odo” by Sony is a new generation of toys that takes advantage of child-generated kinetic energy, and which can be used without ever having to be plugged in for a recharge. Products are inspired by children’s imagination & curiousity designed to provide new experiences, a sense of ecological values, environmental issues and energy sources. They are an invitation to enjoy a new level of interaction with devices, having fun moving parts, turning cranks, and using your body to generate energy as you play with them.
Toys are familiar and accessible even to young children. The product body itself is made of recycled or vegetable-based plastic as a commitment to the environment
March 27, 2008
From May 30 through June 14, 2008
Projects and Papers’ Submission Deadline: April 25
Open call for collaborators: May 9
Pablo Valbuena-Augmented Architecture (2007)With Simone Jones, Alvaro Cassinelli, Julian Oliver, Daniel Canogar & Pablo Valbuena.
March 8, 2008
First realized as an Industrial Design Thesis project at Pratt Institute in Spring 2005 by Samuel Cabot Cochran, GROW.1 employs thin film photovoltaics with piezoelectric generators and screen printed conductive ink encapsulated in ETFE fluoropolymer lamination.
February 29, 2008
December 26, 2007
Last Wednesday, I (Domenico) had the chance to attend the event held at Medialab (Madrid) about Wikis and Knowledge Standards. I could only watch the round table chaired by Adolfo Estalella, who was joined by Antonio Lafuente, Platoniq and Juan Freire.
Antonio Lafuente talked about the capacity of new virtual communities to generate knowledge that would never be possible without the use of new technologies, such as wikis. He talked about the production process of lay knowledge, which obtains a percentage of “error” of 6%, that is, lower than what is obtained in normal scientific processes.
Platonig talked about some of their most interesting projects, such as the BCC Banco Común de Conocimientos (Shared Knowledge Bank), concerned about favouring free broadcasting networks and free contents (education p2p).
What I most liked about Juan Freire (who I finally met) was his thoughts about the wiki technology: it allows us to generate knowledge while we design it, something that previously couldn’t be done. I’d like to add that it also allows us to associate a static element (design) to a dynamic element (knowledge). He also talked about the concept of standard, describing it as something arbitrary, something that doesn’t depend on nature and that isn’t inevitable.
Talking about Wikipedia, he pointed out how the whole debate about its functioning is taking place with full transparency, thanks to the very essence of the wiki system. All this is new, very new. We were used to standing aside this kind of debates between a few “chosen” ones.
Wikis are introducing transparency standards never seen before. I think we could take example and start thinking about the possibility of similar standards applied to public spaces. Is there a public space where one can enjoy the same transparency standard as in wikis? What would this space be like? I will carry on thinking about this topic, see if something interesting comes up… what do you think?
Ps. I met Marilo from La Fundacio, who told me about a very interesting project: http://projecte3.pbwiki.com/ I will write more about this in future posts.
November 28, 2007
It is difficult to summarise the interesting, fun and educational conference given by Juan Freire last week at Medialab Prado. Our attempt to do so comes in “tags” format:
Juan Freire talked about:
The tragedy of the common, the tragedy of the anti-common, sheep in Scotland, Sao Paulo without publicity, Burning Man VS Fallas de Valencia, Quartzsite Arizona, virtual reality VS physical reality, physical reality and hybrid reality, hybrid public spaces, knowledge chefs, knowledge like water or electricity, [ecosistema urbano] (thanks, Juan!), recetas urbanas, open code architecture, Sociopolis, information layer on the ground, hiper-local networks, google maps VS open street maps, real time rome, technology isn’t important – applications are.
I hope to get through the idea of the complexity and relevance of the topics covered at the conference (I want to thank our Domenico for getting us into this 2.0 world, without his help I probably wouldn’t understand much about some of these issues).
Thanks, Juan Freire, we hope to see you in Madrid again soon.
P.S. I have added links to as many concepts as I have been able to, to make this post into a hiperpost ; )
November 26, 2007
“Toledo creates Toledo” is an interactive exhibition aiming to connect art, architecture and public action and to make citizens see themselves as active parts, conscious of their critical and creative capacity.
“Toledo creates Toledo” is the first event-exhibition of a line of action through which we want to link architecture, action and city, bringing citizens closer to the physical and mental space where they can be conscious (doing-acting) of their critical and creative abilities as active builders of their city… parallel to the project they have set up a blog (www.toledocreatoledo.blogspot.com) and a meipi (wikimap meipi) that help it stay active and accessible. The exhibition is set up as a lab where the visitor can watch the works at the same time as it can take part in the creative process throughout 10 days full of events.
“Toledo crea Toledo” has been organised around 6 actions concerned with different architectural scales and concepts (#01. Intercambios de Identidad –identity exchanges-, #02. Safari fotográfico –safari in photos-, #03. Atmósferas de jabón –soap atmospheres-, #04. Casa de Toledo –house in Toledo-, #05. Atlas, #06. Paraísos personales –personal paradise-).
PKMN [pac-man] is a team of architects developing in Madrid since 2006 as an open group for the production and widening of architectural/interdisciplinary ideas, tools and projects, developing theoretical/practical studies of concepts and realities such as action, city, body, identity, trace and memory [www.pkmn.es]
