appeal [for] the real

i didn't know what to expect sitting down in woord auditorium to hear a lecture titled; appeal of the real. my interest was peaked - i guess - by the fact that i have a few freinds getting their degrees at MIT and since speaker sheila kennedy is a faculty member there i'd try and make some connections between our two institutions.

she says the title of the lecture is a little mis-leading, but i think it works - she shows projects that take very theoretical concepts and [attempts to] makes them concrete. maybe the title should have read; appeal for the real. the projects she chose to show dealt mostly with the fine line between prototyping and production and "explores architecture, digital technology and emerging public needs."

her firm, KVA; MATx boasts a large r&d department - which is a little unorthodox for a mid-sized firm - generally. it works though, MATx is producing some truly incredible and liberating design concepts; the interactive wall @ PENN's SOE, the east river ferry project, their ocean [in]sight competition entry, the portable light initiative, and their soft house competition win -for example.

a few highlights were;

the portable light initiative. it seeks to replace the fire as a source of illumination is rural and developing areas. the technology utilizes flexible pv panels in a modular, flat packed assemby that soaks up the sun during the day and gives a family light at night. new versions now incoroprate usb plug-ins for recharging phones. now the idea is being adapted all over the world from applications in handbags, to hospitals blankets.

yeosu; living ocean comp. the marcus prize group - silofill will like this one. the repurpose a set of silos in korea with emphasis on advancing knowledge and technology concerning the oceans and coasts. it's a really bold proposal. the inhabitable space is surrounded up ocean water that is pumped up via pv and creates a visually stunning effect. it also reflects the local vernacular of rooftop water towers prevelant in the area. it's called ocean[in]sight

lastly. they've recently won the iba hamburg competition with their proposal; soft house. it's pretty incredible infrastructure for local energy generation. cleaver and seductive in the design - it uses pv embedded curtains to generate power as well as a LED display to simulate the wind [similar to the PENN project].

happy hunting.

Musings on Contemporary Design

The details and delineation that have, in our recent past, defined us and our environments— pieces, originally made to sit side by side, categorized, are rusting together and inside of one another. Nothing is separate from one another-- neither in physical expression nor in thought.

I have begun to read my home in such ways. There was a time when, growing up in the spreading out of the Midwest, I saw it as one set of pictures with the same caption. But, I see its pieces now, no longer separate. Each piece and picture is an identity that gives way to identities. They are changing and moving. And in this change it is not that they require new environments, but simply new environments come about, and dialogue is begun. We belong, as designers, to a landscape of dialogue. A landscape which pauses, reacts. We cannot examine space, program, structure as singular, as individual and timely choices. Design is now, more than ever, about complex relationships, their identities and intensities. The city is experiencing the complexity effected by a substantial rusting.

This set of identities is not unique to Milwaukee, but to today's City itself. There is nothing I find more interesting, nothing more cross-disciplined than the study of cities and the participation in them whether that is walking down a street or designing in its context. It is important for me to be part of that dialogue as a critical and conscious observer and doer. I need to be plunged into new intensities, to understand different identities and their relationships. It is a concept to me, that seems, once understood completely, to govern the spaces that will change everything. But it is dynamic, quick and growing. It is large and small. It brings to mind movement and a designer's need to move with it-- literally. Extending limbs, touching, drawing-inward, outward, running, being-in. This exasperation, this shortness of breath is then, a design of participation and it is design through which I can hope to participate in this movement.