surplus to the rescue

while devastating in scope, a great opportunity - even necessity - exists to put concept to action. below is a terrific diagram from SEED, a group of researchers from clemson university, illustrating the surplus of shipping containers found throughout the caribbean.



their research is very graphic, informative, visual, and clean. great examples of innovative thinking. great opportunities available.

essay imagery

i've been fascinated by these word clouds for years. it struck me to make some of my own. these two word clouds were made from two essays i wrote for my graduate admissions...

we're #12

came across this article on mothernaturenetwork. it's a great article that highlights some of the city's best green locations, markets, and activities.
among the highlights are;

"reclaiming wisconsin’s largest brownfield for energy-efficient buildings and greenspace produced 2,100 new jobs, and a similar effort is planned to renew the 30th street Industrial corridor as a "greenlight district" for jobs."




they also remark on some the city's 'greenest architecture.'

"perhaps the most notable is hotel metro, located in a historic art deco building on the corner of milwaukee and mason streets downtown. The first hotel in wisconsin to apply for LEED certification, hotel metro features bamboo planking and cork public area flooring, recycled carpeting in guest rooms and architectural features made from reconstituted forest products and recycled glass."

"nature lovers can observe the local flora and fauna at the city’s many parks, take a hike at the schlitz audubon nature center or explore the gardens, natural habitats and trails at the wehr nature center."

... i was surprised to notice the city's urban ecology center, and will allen's growing power failed to make mention... the article also overlooks a lot of the cities more local attractions, like the riverwest farmer's market, sweetwater organics and others that are more neighborhood related [local] attractions. these are, in my opinion, the city's greatest contributions to green living.

no more remotes

the nytimes article reports on last week's consumer electronics show in vegas, where one of the most significant changes to human-device interfaces since the mouse appeared next to computers in the early 1980s...

moving away from remote controls, mice and joysticks to something that arrives without batteries, wires or a user manual.

it's called a hand.

flat packing

what took so long?

"shipping containers revolutionized commerce and the transportation of goods, and almost singlehandedly made globalism possible through a dramatic reduction in shipping costs, time and losses. but they are not problem-free; unless trade is balanced they tend to pile up at one end of the line. they are expensive to move when empty, particularly on trucks, where it costs the same to move an empty one as a full one."



cargoshell, a dutch manufacture, has engineered a new shipping container that folds down to one forth the size of conventional containers. it is made of composite materials, making it lighter than its precursor.

the use of composite materials also offers other added features including;

- the composite walls act as an insulator, eliminating condensation.
- it is low maintenance; the composites don't corrode.
- gps can be built into the container because the composite, unlike steel, does not block the signal.
- steel containers need a lot of paint, with a lot of toxic rust inhibitors that are pollutants; the composites need no paint.
- to top it all off, they even have float bags built in so that if they go over the side of the ship (not an uncommon event) they will float, and can be traced back by the built-in gps system quickly.

check out the full story via gizmag

steven holl wins Glasgow school of art comission

Same old Steven.


article in BD

shigeru ban

here's a quick little video i stumbled upon. brought to us by L|studio [lexus]
it interviews architect shigeru ban and hits on everything from furniture design to student projects, current works and remarks on his innovative paper tube structures.
there's information containing his conceptual thinking, his process, and his motivations.

the video merely touches on some of the architect's concepts and ideation... it's an advertisement, but still really interesting

woods of net

this project is like lincoln logs meets art meets awesome.



the japanese tezuka architects teamed up with tis & partners to create a unique space for net artist toshiko horiuchi macadam. it sits in the hakone open-air museum. no metal was used in the construction of the pavillion. the joinery is derived from thousands years old japanese wooden temples in nara and kyoto.



"this is a permanent pavilion for a net artist, toshiko horiuchi macadam. the artist knitted the net entirely by hands, which is designed for children to crow in, roll around, and jump on the net. it was easy for us to see the artwork being outside even when it cannot be exposed to rain or ultraviolet light. we wanted to design a space as soft as the forest where the boundary between outside and inside disappears. the space attracts people like campfire. the children play inside of the net just as fire and parents sit around and lay on the woods."

living building challenge

i cruise archdaily as i sit in my living room enjoying the festive atmosphere. the smells and sounds of family gathered for the holidays.

completely unrelated, i've been participating in a project through our university [uwm] and the urban ecology center - a local organization that seeks to instill the values of respecting mother earth to urban communities in milwaukee. they're experimenting with a the idea of a satellite branch and i've been heading up a design team - partnered with the other design school [miad] in milwaukee.

the goal was to collaborate and synthesize a new design for our client on the edge of the glacial valley. we aimed to meet the "living building" challenge. this desire pushes pragmatic and fiduciary design into realms not yet achieved. we are operating in a dense urban environment. our design was to be three stories. more later....



this project caught my eye. it's a new facility for manitoba hydro by kpmb architects. below is a quote explaining the project. i couldn't help but marvel at the diagrams and the similarities in design intent [though with a much larger budget]



"manitoba hydro is the major energy utility in the province of manitoba, the fourth largest energy utility in canada and offers some of the lowest electricity rates in the world. owned by the provincial government, nearly all of its electricity comes from self-renewing water power. Its new headquarters tower, manitoba hydro place, is the first of the next generation of sustainable buildings integrating time-tested environmental concepts in conjunction with advanced technologies to achieve a “living building” that dynamically responds to the local climate... manitoba hydro place sets a precedent for the seamless integration of architectural excellence and climate responsive, energy efficient and sustainable design while enhancing and improving the quality and comfort of the human experience and the civility of urban life."



check the link for more info...

design genius

here is a great TED talk about the design genius of Charles and Ray Eames presented by their grandson Eames Demetrios.

cop15

been trying to follow the cop15 conference
the optimism...
the compromise....
the frustration....
the hope...
the disappointment....

i was intrigued by this first hand account by thom yorke. acquiring a press pass he has logged thoughts at deadairspace

here are a few of his thoughts;

"and as i wrote the previous entry my battery goes dead and obama walks past with a very grim expression, everyone thought he was stroming out but no he'd just been in talks with the chinese. just now a french delegate tells me that brazil has stormed out of the talks. this is all so sad. still peace and goodwill to all men. love and understanding.

just no more business as usual ok?? this is all starting to really feel like some enormous vaguely pointless corporate expo."

"well ... i am truly disgusted about the way things have ended here. if you read in tommorrows headlines that a deal was reached?? remember it was nothing like what was needed and was filed by a bored complicit press who needed to show something for two weeks of crap.. and that it reflected the wests inability to lead decisively.
that it will make alarm bells ring throughout the world.
we have no international agreement. this is all too too late.
i feel deeply traumatized by the whole experience. if you'd been there you would also have been."

i also stumbled upon an interview via pitchfork brought to you by the age of stupid


please leave your thoughts if you're at all concerned, outraged, inspired, hopeful....

2aem

thank you,

Why we might need to pay for our name. The fight begins.

2AEM is a 1 chain structure of sequence from Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus. Full crystallographic information is available from OCA.

wpa 2.0 [working public architecture]

"Federal attention to America’s infrastructure is a critical part of our nation’s economic recovery plan, but we must also consider how that investment in the next generation of bridges, roads, and waterways will create more sustainable, more engaging, more livable cities. This symposium gathers some of the country’s most talented young designers –finalists in the WPA 2.0 competition, together with design talent recognized internationally, to address a new future with policy makers. Innovative ideas drive the work that will be presented; technical and practical sensibilities demonstrate that those ideas could be the basis for a Working Public Architecture."

check these great works of digital animation and film from the finalists at the wpa 2.0 finalists.

carbon tap:



hyper local networks:

WPA2 : Local Code / Real Estates from Nicholas de Monchaux on Vimeo.

vals [redux]

here's a clever little project that has found a place at the feet peter zumthor's thermal baths....



the dutch architect's[SeARCH] ask;
"shouldn’t it be possible to conceal a house in an alpine slope while still exploiting the wonderful views and allowing light to enter?"



the steep topography of the site provided opportunities for expansive views across the valley while views from the bath house remained unspoiled.


true to form [as we all learned in architectural history] the swiss required a timber frame model of the residence to be constructed at the site for neighbors and authorities to critique. the residence is a great example of pragmatic, unobtrusive development; neighbors were delighted.




photos © iwan baan

camel medical clinics

of all the mobile medical clinics that have been thought up by sympathetic designers, i think this is one of the most ingenious. it's practical, cost-effective, creative, and uses existing infrastructure, namely camels...



these animals have been used forever to transport things and people across the hot, dry deserts. now, with the help of a simple photovoltaic panel a refrigerator can keep critical medicine and vaccines at the right conditions to deliver to remote villages in africa - for now, kenya and ethiopia.

these mobile health units will allow medical supplies to keep up with nomadic communities as well as remote villages.



headed by the nomadic communities trust, partnered with California’s Art Center College of Design’s Designmatters and Princeton’s Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials [PRISM].

check the link for more specifics....

work + process

i've been back in school working towards completing a sculpture minor as a supplement to the architectural design degree we three have [or are working towards]. i'd like to share some photos of the work in progress.













'tiles' made from a plaster cast
[clay tile + two part rubber + plaster]













modification for connection













structure + surface













variation_complexity through repetition


the work complete and illuminated to follow shortly.

2A_eM; marcus prize participant

as this semester winds down, and anticipation of upcoming events begin to take hold of my mind, i'd like to give a short update [more to follow] regarding upcoming endeavors.



next semester i will be participating in the marcus prize studio, with distinguished architect alejandro aravena. this prestigious studio will begin an exciting experiment in collaboration. not only will we be learning from an internationally acclaimed architect, but will be collaborating across campus and disciplines. this studio, though small, will incorporate students from the arts, as well as city planning in addition to traditional architecture students.

never before have i had this experience during my architectural education, and now that i'm on the arts side [more on that later], it should make for some great, innovative, provocative works.

BlickFang 2010

Heres an interesting design build project that recently caught my attention. while my search for the holy grail I found myself looking at Voronoi geometry. of course I can't say I understand it since I am still in the beginning process of learning parametric ideas, But... I can say I like it :P heres something on the side that reminded of what I was looking at.

the project is pretty wild yet simple, all the extruded (Packed) pentagons point and bend towards a certain object in the exhibition. and on top of that changes thickness from top to bottom I'm guessing for structural reasons.



There is a simple 3 and 4 prong solution that holds the pieces together. I have also recently ran into a plugin for rhino called Rhinonest, its used for so for to unwrap models and tag them for fabrication, maybe in a couple of months I'll figure it out so we can use it for something interesting :D



heres the link for where I found it originally.
and heres the link for their own blogs and updates.

shadow art

legos have been receiving a lot of love recently.
everyone it seems is using these building blocks that have powered so many of our imaginations growing up.

there's james may's lego house.... sadly destroyed.



then there's Jean-Charles de Castelbajac's, a famous fashion designer, accessories strutting down the catwalk.



but, this project absolutely blows my mind. while i maintain a personal nostalgia for these little modular building blocks this project utilizes these tiny pieces in combination with light to create amazing works that shape shift before your eyes.



"the program called shadow art is an amazing new computer model that allows designers to create objects based on the multiple and highly specific shadows that those objects will cast when lit from different angles."

i don't quite understand how or what these designer/artists are doing, or how they are able to combine images into a three dimensional work, but it's an amazing process with equally supreme results.

Paris, and then all of Spain

While I am away in Europe studying, I set up a blog for my trip. the entire blog is filled with images I have taken and is updated almost daily until now. so I hope you like it, and I'll be back in the states in roughly two weeks. maybe then after we'll do another competition in celebration of my return??? :P

My Blog

is there such thing as a 3d pen?

finally a tool that allows you to draw in the digital world, and i'm not talking about cad people! With the combination of a track ball and tablet this program allows us to draw freely in euclidean space, i can only image the fun things nick and jessie could dream up. is the gap between hand drawings and digital accuracy dwindling? or am I just day dreaming?

I excited to see what happens next, that or maybe we'll just have to take the exploration into our own hands. :D

Rhonda:3D Drawing tool

PLAY

This video on TED is a good illustration of howPlay is important. However, the short lecture made me think further on several things. One, the man giving the speech, while most likely a veteran public speaker, seemed very much at ease. He was not simply sharing and spewing his passion, he was enjoying himself as well. The images he chose to show, too, were designed to be playful... visually playful anyways, and hitting something in a collective consciousness of pop culture. His allusions to animals seemed more astute, but it wasn't until Homer shows up on screen that people actually participated in laughter.
The topic of work and academic-frameworked play was especailly interesting to someone like myself, thinking of the way in which we 'work' or create. I wonder if those students who made that great movie about an alternative form of meeting dressed in a suit and tie and lived ina bad office building while they came up for schemes of the film, or ideas about what a "meeting" was. Putting Csikszentmihalyi in there, too, made me think. The philosophy in "FLOW" is very appropriate to an individual's outlook on whatever task he or she is doing, but my problem with using it in the interpretation of this film is that it is still somewhat protestant in a way. One can experience FLOW in anything, but there is also something to say about finding what gives you FLOW. Did the character in that film enjoy working in a suit and sitting at a computer all day? Well, maybe he did, but the fact that a mundane office beauracracy like a "meeting" had to be turned into a FLOW experience, makes me wonder if the task of sitting at a desk all day could be transformed bodily to give it more of a FLOW experience for this young man. Professional firms like Google, Apple and IDEO seem to respond to this principle.

This could open up so many more conversations, then, about creating for yourself, creating for many, the biological political/systems impact on the workplace and on what we consume.

I just want to play.

the fun theory

link to a bunch of clever projects intended to make the world a little brighter, cleaner, and healthier... and more fun.

5

the beauty of nature touches us as something great that goes beyond us. man comes from nature and returns to it. an inkling of the measure of human life within the immensity of nature wells up inside us when we come upon the beauty of a landscape that has not been domesticated are carved down to human scale. we feel sheltered, humble and proud at once. we are in nature, in this immeasurable form that we will never understand and now, in a moment of heightened experience, no longer need to because we sense that we ourselves are part of it.
i look out into the landscape; i gaze at the sea on the horizon, look at the masses of water; i walk across the fields to the acacias; i look at the elder blossoms, at the juniper tree and become still.
she is bathing in the sicilian sea and dives under water. her heart misses a beat. a huge fish passes close by silent and infinitely slow. its movements are untroubled and powerful and elegant. they have the self-evidence of millennia.

-peter zumthor
thinking architecture

experimenting with perception

after a long night, some strange thoughts flicker through one's head.

my roommate and i have endeavored on a new experiment with the qualities and synaesthesia.

the idea is to play an in congruence with an instrumental piece of music as a driver for another, secondary spark of creativity.
quick writings, inspired by vibrations. a dialogue built between two, could be infinite, furthers depth, weaving the tapestry into focus...

play while reading. play while writing. play while thinking....

[push play]


[read]
the music rises and falls, undulating like the surface of the sea. am i lost? am i on a nautical navigation to some sort of distant destination?

Mother nature, evident in the Midwest. Harmonies exist between men and their mothers. Inland America, the statistical average of the sea to shining sea. Are we forgotten? Is our fate nothing else but to be mocked by the 'united citizens'?

the horizon breaches... a glimpse of a tail dives back beneath an azure blanket. comforting...

Another day dawns upon us. Who are we? What are we? What are we capable of? insecurity threatens our existence like a cold war - when will we dispose of our preconceived notions? when will things change?

central park yelps. rat dogs. slow rain. heavy drops dance across the window pane...

I see a crane. Is development to be taken literally, or figuratively? Is it a mere coat of arms for a society or something more?

bring your coat, we're going out. to where? its not about the destination.

It's about the journey. Imagine an apple core... how did it come to be? Where did it come from? Who harvested it? What were they like?

eyes squinching shut on an undersized couch. no comfort. head spinning. gaining bearings, smacking lips, cotton mouth, nothing to do but wait it out.

I can't sleep. Am I awake? There's nothing I can do but shake.

on the edge of a cliff. waiting for gravity to release me. wind steals droplets from my face. the hike down through pine canopies, yellow stones, chipmunks, squirrels, into the unknown. don't feed them, just jump in.


Please leave a comment on how the two work together.

botany + architecture

stumbled upon this project on inhabit




eco-architects, Mitchell Joachim, Lara Greden, and Javier Arbona, designed the structure combining contemporary digital technologies with some great concepts drawn from various vernacular sources. The result, a living, growing structure: a microcosm of ecology and high technology.




TerreformONE, the collective, is a non-profit design group... wow. according to the site, "Terreform ONE is a unique laboratory for scientists, artists, architects, students, and individuals of all backgrounds to explore and advance the larger framework of green design. The group develops innovative solutions and technologies for local sustainability in energy, transportation, infrastructure, buildings, waste treatment, food, water, and media spaces."

here's a link to their blog

meltwater

this post is long over due, but i'd been helping construct uwm's first entry into the solar decathlon. this is building competition that 'joins 20 college and university teams in a competition to design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.'


© stefano paltera

the project is the culmination of two years of design and execution. i jumped in during the last 6 months of the project as a builder. not really having much formal training in carpentry, i learned on the job, fast. we all did. the house was showcased in dc from october 9 - 18, 2009.



the project - meltwater - uses nature as a model. much of the region around milwaukee has been shaped by glacial forces. the earth's shaping strength is articulated in the butterfly roof and along the south facade. the design was stimulated by a desire to harness the limitless power of solar energy and our finite fresh water resources.



the rain screen ungulates over the surface, giving depth and allowing shadows to paint its surface. 'the topographical facade sweeps across the front of the building reminding the building and its maker where we come from, and our indelible ties to our region.' we worked closely with the aldo leopold center, many of the materials used in the house were sustainably harvested from the foundation's grounds - including the rain screen.



the form and potential of the home takes on the strength characterized by the natural process that reworked our regional landscape.

we constructed in multiple locations around milwaukee, including our newly renovated kenilworth building - with historical ties to milwaukee's long tradition to industrial processes - and the courtyard of the school of architecture and urban planing. we had eight days to reconstruct the house on the mall - the heart of washington dc. we were in the early morning shadow of the us congress and the evening shadow of the washington monument.



there, we ran into some snags and our competition scores reflect. it began after we were re-routed around indiana and later getting into washington dc. the deliveries put us two days tardy... growing pains. it's all a learning process.