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REBEL MATTERS | ecosistema urbano in genova

Category: ⚐ EN+ecosistema urbano

Next Friday 4th the International Seminar REBEL MATTERS I. SOUTH‐NETS will take place in the University of Genova.

Rebel Matters identifies a series of international seminars, promoted by ADD (Scuola di Dottoratoin Architettura e Design – Doctoral School for Architecture and Design) in collaboration with DSA (Dipartimento delle Scienze Architettoniche – Department of Architectural Sciences) and the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Genoa. The idea is to convey a new architectural, urban and contemporary design approach based on complicity, innovation and relational involvement as a possible alternative both to iconographic marketing and show business, the disciplines traditional tools (formal, typological, commercial, etc). continue reading

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Visualizar 11: Understanding Infrastructures. Open Call

Category: ⚐ EN+espacios sensibles | sentient city

Medialab-Prado and the Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI)presentation of projects and papers to be produced and presented during the Visualizar program workshop that will take place between June 14 to July 1, 2011

Directed by José Luis de Vicente. With the support of Bestiario.

Deadline for proposals: March 21, 2011

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Guggenheim side effects and the Architects’ originality obsession

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+open culture

In a recent coffee-break in Ecosistema Urbano we have been discussing the project for City of Culture of Galicia by Eisenman Architects and one of us used the expression “Bilbao effect”. Inevitably, this reminded me of a post I had written some time ago for the blog complexitys (HDA | Hugh Dutton Associés) and I would like to share my ideas with our readers:

A recent article on ArchDaily talked about our ‘in progress’ footbridge at La Roche sur Yon.
We’re pleased to be a subject of interest for a such an important architecture website, and what we appreciate even more is the public feedback and the list of comments left, which have inspired some interesting reflections about our work here at HDA.
I would particularly like to share some thoughts on the idea (or even obsession) of “being original” in architecture, the meaning of copying someone or something, and what this could imply nowadays, in a time when everybody is talking about copyright and how it’s changing with new communication technologies. continue reading

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URBAN PROTOTYPE PLAZA ECOPOLIS to Compete for the 2011 Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Category: ⚐ EN+ecosistema urbano+sustainability


Madrid, Feb. 14th

WASTE TO RESOURCES- URBAN PROTOTYPE PLAZA ECOPOLIS led by ecosistema urbano is proud to announce our submission to the Buckminster Fuller Challenge. Named “Socially-Responsible Design’s Highest Award” by Metropolis Magazine, the Challenge is an annual international prize program that awards $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a solution that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.

We are thrilled to be a part of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge review process, which brings together influential design science leaders such as Josè Zaglul, Vandana Shiva, Danny Hillis, William McDonough, John Thackara and Hunter Lovins.

We entered this competition because of its reputation as the most prestigious Prize concerning social issues. continue reading

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Invisible Cities: A Transmedia Mapping Project

Category: ⚐ EN+city+espacios sensibles | sentient city

What social media activity has to do with the literal lay of the land.

By Maria Popova

In December, the now-infamous map of Facebook friendships revealed an uncanny cartography of the world depicted purely through social relationships data. Now, a project by Christian Marc Schmidt and Liangjie Xia is taking the concept ambitiously further: Invisible Cities is a transmedia mapping project, displaying geocoded activity from social networks like Twitter and Flickr within the context of an actual urban map — a visceral, literal embodiment of something VURB‘s Ben Cerveny has called “the city as a platform,” the idea that cities are informational media and living computational systems for urban society. continue reading

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ecosistema urbano lecturing in Berlin. Closing event FORMULA_X DAZ-Berlin

Category: ⚐ EN+architecture+ecosistema urbano

Next February 18th a closing event for the FORMULA_X  exhibition series will take place at the Deutsche Architektur Zentrum DAZ in Berlin.

A brief lecture by each of the participating teams: Plasma Studio (Londres), ecosistema urbano (Madrid),  y AFF Architekten (Berlín) will be followed by an open discussion moderated by Kristien Ring, DAZ Director and curator of the exhibition.

The event will start at 19.00 at the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum, Köpenicker Str 48/49, 10179 Berlin-Mitte
Free admission.
More info continue reading

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Innovate, create

Category: #follow+#followresearch+⚐ EN+creativity

Innovation, creativity power fresh thinking at Harvard

The heart pacemaker. Surgical anesthesia. Facebook. Even breathable chocolate.

Harvard’s combination of questing minds, passionate spirits, and intellectual seekers tackling society’s toughest problems fosters a creativity that has produced a stream of innovations, from novel inventions to history-making devices that provide profound benefits to the public.

Creative thinking is a key component of Harvard’s Schools, centers, and institutes. Many innovations have come from looking at old problems in new ways, from recognizing the importance of serendipitous results, and from understanding that failures are steps to success. That innovative spirit has long been part of Harvard’s DNA, leading to the first use of anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1846 and the development of the pacemaker by Paul Zoll in the 1950s.

President Drew Faust highlighted this University role when she took office, noting that an institution of higher education has an “accountability to the future.”

“One of the most significant things about our research universities,” she told a gathering of civic and higher education leaders in Boston, “is that they are engines that also produce the fuel — the scientists, physicians, and engineers, the thinkers and ideas … that spur the new products, new jobs, and new companies that will help renew our economy.” continue reading

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[im]possible living

Category: ⚐ EN+creativity

Today we present [im]possible living: an interesting project made by Daniela Galvani and Andrea Sesta.

“Abandoned buildings are everywhere: in city centers, suburbs, countrysides, mountains, seasides, everywhere! They are left there, day after day, night after night.

They don’t scream, they don’t bleed, they just loose a little piece everyday, so you don’t really realize that a certain place is falling down, until one day it’s impossible to recover it and the only thing that is possible to do is … breaking it down!!

How is our society managing those buildings? Most of the time it’s ignoring them, preferring to leave them behind and build new buildings instead! This approach it’s cheaper in the short term, but definitely it is not in the long run. continue reading

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Nearer, better

Category: ⚐ EN+research


Photo Credit: Kyungjoon Lee

Link found between physical proximity of researchers, impact of work

The above schematic represents the relationship between intra-building collaboration and citations. The height of each building reflects the average number of publication citations originating there, and the color reflects the degree to which authors on those publications cohabitated (from gray=low to blue=high). The graphic depicts that, in general, buildings with more intra-building collaborations produced studies with higher citation rates.

Absence makes your heart grow fonder, but close quarters may boost your career. continue reading

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Bucky on stage

Category: ⚐ EN+creativity

Photo courtesy of the American Repertory Theater

Harvard gave R. Buckminster Fuller a gift beyond academics, his biographers say: a lifelong preoccupation with human welfare, and the social, technical, and economic problems that vex the modern age. “R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe,” a two-act monologue performed by A.R.T. veteran Thomas Derrah, explores the life and ideas of the inventor and futurist.

R. Buckminster Fuller, the self-taught architect, inventor, and futurist who coined the term “Spaceship Earth,” entered Harvard College in the fall of 1913. But by 1915, he had been thrown out twice — he preferred the term “fired” — and never returned for a degree. continue reading