Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome | Video on TED.com

Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome | Video on TED.com

Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome | Video on TED.com

Sebastian Seung: I am my connectome | Video on TED.com

Inverted Infrastructural Monuments

Inverted Infrastructural Monuments

Prompted by an excellent text entitled "Three Doors to Other Worlds" by Andrew Crompton in the JAE from last November, we are following him down the rabbit hole. (Get the complete PDF here.) Crompton positions architecture within the cognitive sciences with a fancy for the grotesque / Baroque. In this particular text Crompton is seeking to chart and qualify architectures that elude description through drawing or photograph, instead requiring something more, err, cognitive. A tall order, and possibly one that were it actually taken to task would be a very short list in architecture, though maybe longer in art and media, and surprisingly engineering. One case in point in Crompton's search is the architectural equivalent of a black hole. It is a bellmouth spillway. In particular Crompton refers to the Ladybower bellmouth constructed in 1935 near Sheffield.

U is for Utopia

NOW from Antti Seppänen on Vimeo.

Helsinki-based architect Tuomas Toivonen raps (yes 'raps'!) about the history of urbanism and systemic change! For more information and other great posts like this, check out Dan Hill's CityofSound.

Making Future Magic

Making Future Magic: iPad light painting from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

Here is an amazing video (that I found on Bldgblog) which uses quite low tech processes to construct 3D light structures. The process uses 3DS Max to construct simple animations which can be converted into 2D sections - the sections are combined to make a second animation which is then played on an ipad - and this is then filmed with a long exposure camera.

Enjoy!

Meeting_00

Please meet us in room 706 on Friday 1st October at 10:00.

See you then.

Field Trip 2010

Something we forgot to mention in our unit presentation today:
We will be having a field trip this year! We will be joining Re_Map on a field trip to Braunschweig, Germany.

eVolo Skyscraper Competition

We will be taking part in the eVolo 2011 skyscraper competition this year.
Here is a link to last years winners.

"The annual eVolo Skyscraper Competition is a forum for the discussion, development, and promotion of innovative concepts for vertical density. It examines the relationship between the skyscraper and the natural world, the skyscraper and the community, and the skyscraper and the city.
The exponential increase of the world’s population and its unprecedented shift from rural to urban areas has prompted hundreds of new developments without adequate urban planning and poor architectural design. The aim of this competition is to redefine what we understand as a skyscraper and initiate a new architectural discourse of economic, environmental, intellectual, and perceptual responsibility that could ultimately modify our cities and improve our way of life.
The use of new materials, technologies, aesthetics, and novel spatial organizations, along with studies on globalization, flexibility, adaptability, and the digital revolution are some of the multi-layered elements that the participants should take into consideration. This is also an investigation on the public and private space and the role of the individual and the collective in the creation of a dynamic and adaptive vertical community.


There are no restrictions in regards to site, program or size. The objective is to provide maximum freedom to the participants to engage the project without constraints in the most creative way. What is a skyscraper in the 21st century? What are the historical, contextual, social, urban, and environmental responsibilities of these mega-structures?"

Neri Oxman: On Designing Form

Neri Oxman: On Designing Form from PopTech on Vimeo.

Neri Oxman discusses the use of computational design methodologies to design multifunctional architectural forms which are efficient, performative and based on biological principles of ecology.

Check out her blog: Material Ecology for more

Hull - Still worst place to live in the UK?

In 2005, Channel 4's "The Best and Worst Places to Live" voted Hull the worst place to live in the UK based on statistics for crime, education, employment, environment and lifestyle.

Armed with statistics from all 434 UK local authorities, researchers said Hull saw around 69 crimes a day. Whilst places such as Epsom and Ewell was singled out for high education standards, large open spaces and very low crime rate.

Nottingham, where the Queen's Medical Centre deals with more gunshot wounds than any other UK city, was ranked as the second worst place to live in the programme presented by property experts Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer. The Midlands city was also found to have the highest number of burglaries in the UK.

10 Best Places to Live in UK
1 - Epsom and Ewell
2 - City of Westminster
3 - Harrogate
4 - Ashford, Kent
5 - Stratford Upon Avon
6 - East Hertfordshire
7 - South Cambridgeshire
8 - Mole Valley
9 - Guildford
10 - West Oxfordshire

10 Worst Places to Live in UK
1 - Hull
2 - Nottingham
3 - Strabane
4 - Hackney, London
5 - Middlesbrough
6 - Mansfield
7 - Blaenau Gwent, S Wales
8 - Merthyr Tydfil, S Wales
9 - Salford, Gtr Manchester
10 - Easington, County Durham

Hull, which has 101 chip shops, was also deemed the fattest town in the UK.
The MP for Hull East and deputy prime minister, John Prescott, defended the town in light of the programme's findings.

"It is arrogance beyond belief to proclaim Hull the worst place to live.

"I challenge them to come to Hull and I will personally show Phil and Kirsty that it's a great northern city and a great place to live and work," he said.

More info at BBC.com
Is Hull still the worst place to live in the UK 5 years down the line?

Ave Maria

Ave Maria, Florida, is the first 21st Century town created in the "middle of nowhere" with a Catholic oratory and university at its heart. The future 11,000 houses, townhouses and apartments will consume the 5000 acres (2000 hectares) "nowhere" of farms and wetlands and force the future residents to drive miles to work and the local cities.


See Aesthetic Grounds for more.

New Town Institute

Check out the New Town Institute for constantly updated research into new models of urban living worldwide.

World’s Fastest-Growing Megalopolis Hides in Fog

China’s Chongqing municipality with a population now at 32 million is the fastest-growing urban center on Earth. Economic migrants from the countryside and neighboring provinces have swelled Chongqing at a rate of between 500,000 to 1 million people every year.

A decade ago — as part of plans to raise living standards in the western provinces — the Chinese government put Chonqing at the center of a $200 billion program of investment in infrastructure and commerce. The Guardian has described it as “the biggest megalopolis you’ve never heard of.”

City of Ambition, an online “gallerybook” by Turkish photographer Ferit Kuyas, is a spectral and haunting look at the drastic urbanization of what was once a relatively modest-sized metropolis. Chongqing’s population in its main urban areas was a little over 5 million in 2000. By 2020 it’s estimated that it will be 20 million.

Read More @ Wired.com

MadDecent - MajorLazerApp - FaceTracking

Here is a quick application I made using the OpenCv with processing (JAVA).  Remember kids … “guns don't kill people... lazers do”  

Feel free to download the app and have a play!  It should work fine on OSX but is untested on other operating systems. (Use at your own risk!!!)  

http://www.loganandwilcox.co.uk/loganandwilcox/about_files/MadDecent.zip  

I will also make the code freely available so you can do what ever you please!!! Enjoy!  

Love from Manchester. Vik