Dematerializing Samples

A granite paving sample fell on my friend and co-worker Jooyeon's foot yesterday and bruised her. I don't think it she was using it for the purposes that the sample was issued, in fact I think she was using it to stabilize a book that she was photographing because she couldn't be bothered scanning, so maybe its the sample's way protesting its abuse. (I have been reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). But the incident got me wondering if there was a better way to manage the millions of paving samples that we receive constantly - I request new ones for every project because its simply too hard to find the ones I want in the existing sample collection. And voila ~ the interior designers have already come up with a way of doing this...

"In 2002 the Chattanooga-based sustainable-design-services company Tricycle launched an alternative sampling option for the interiors industry; manufacturers outsource the process to the company, which produces and delivers extremely realistic paper samples—called SIMs—to specifiers instead of actual carpet slabs. The idea quickly took off and has become widely implemented (and widely imitated) in the industry. Tricycle estimates that in four years its service has saved about 26,000 gallons of oil and kept more than 155,000 pounds of waste out of landfills.

At this year’s NeoCon World’s Trade Fair, Tricycle launched a significant expansion of the program, called Tryk. Previously the company could only cre­ate samples of tufted carpet, but Tryk works with woven carpet as well as wall-coverings and fabrics. It also allows for different scales and larger sizes—and the image quality is improved. “We continue to move toward a more photorealistic image,” says Michael Hendrix, Tricycle’s creative director and chief brand officer. “If you could see an image from three years ago, the tufts looked flatter. We’ve been able to improve the perception of volume in the overall look.”

The company is also launching a new Web platform, which will be fully functional by January. “It’s more robust,” Hendrix says. “It’s giving more features to the user, and it’s actually better integrated with the business practices of manufac­turers.” The end result is an even more efficient, easy-to-use, and realistic tool for designers to sample materials—without wasting them."

Via Metropolis Mag

Pure Geography or perhaps Pure Landscape Architecture

Without Standards and Codes.
Oh to design without consideration for Public Liability.

El sendero by Teresa Moller

"Punta Pite is a 27-acre piece of land that follows the contours of a bay between Zapallar and Papudo, two sea towns located 93 miles north of Santiago, Chile. A residential development planned and built here between 2004 and 2006 takes its name from this place and is laid out in a way that surrenders to the power and beauty of the ocean. It was developed as a series of parts connected by a walking path, one part of which seems to be sculpted out of the existing cliffs, while the other part passes through a restored creed that were meant to create one single spatial experience of the site."

the Pruned article says it all...

All the world's problems...

"Vote for the Drivers of Change that you think will influence your area of work. Vote as many times as you like and add your own if you feel that a driver is missing." ...vote here

I love that the current one has STUPIDITY as a problem... its funny coz its true...

Pneumatic Anatomica

In the artist, Jason Freeny's words -
"After months of observations, dissections and a 25 minute intro to clown school, I have finally successfully mapped the inter workings of the domestic balloon dog."

via Boing Boing

StarSight : Useful Street Lighting

Not that normal street lights AREN'T useful, but this one is even more so as its a solar-powered street light and WiFi in one.

A StreetLight System consists of a kit that contains several components.

This kit is intended to be mounted on "one" pylon. Typically 11 "Lights" network with one central control.

The kit contains :

• Lamp - StarSight Lamp Model 1021 is the "Light" of the Street Light.
• Battery Subsystem - StarSight Battery Subsystem provides power when the sun has not been available for an extended period of time.
• Solar Array Subsystem - This is the main power source.
• StarSight Controller - This unit integrates charge controller, radio, cpu, and anti-theft into one unit.

Things not included:

• pylon due to its weight is supplied in country. The system supports a varity of pylon designs.

Developed by Kolam Partnership, Ltd and currently used in the Ivory Coast, Cameroon and the Congo.

via PingMag

ESCHEW EXCESS VERBIAGE

An old housemate of mine had the theory that people who really knew what they were talking about could explain anything very simply in a very short amount of time. A postgrad I know once summed this up as "the cocktail line" i.e. what you told people that you met at cocktail parties when they asked you what your phd was about and you only had 30seconds of their interest.

For us of the generation that want to know everything but have the patience of a newt.... 60 Second Lectures -

"Every spring and fall, the School of Art and Science faculty at the University of Pennsylvania take a minute out on Locust Walk to share their perspectives on topics ranging from human history and the knowable universe, to fractions and fly-fishing. While not every speaker makes it under the one-minute mark, they all deal with their chosen subjects with intellectual agility and wit." ... lectures from here

Bureau of Workplace Interruptions

"We harness interruptive technology to expose the secret possibilities of the workday. As a time-stealing agency, the Bureau of Workplace Interruptions works directly with employees to invisibly insert intimate exchange into the flow of the workday. Our promise is to create interruptions that challenge the needs of our users and the social and economic conditions of the modern workplace.

You know how receiving flowers at work can put a buzz on the rest of the day? So do we. That's why we create surprise, the kind that slices through the banal and opens up new places for your mind to wander. The ruptures we create are temporary spaces for open dialogue, invisible resistance, and general amusement. In short, we hope to invigorate some of the time you spend at work in order to create new experiences and possibilities outside the flow of capital."

Because, like, why not?

via Guerrilla Innovation

10 Mile Spiral

"A Gateway to Las Vegas"

I love this project. Its a great example of what I like to think of as Design "Science Fiction" noun a form of fiction that draws imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation in its plot, setting, theme, etc.

Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch propose, among other things, a "10 mile spiral" that will "serve two civic purposes for Las Vegas": First, it acts as a massive traffic decongestion device... by adding significant mileage to the highway in the form of a spiral. The second purpose is less infrastructural and more cultural: along the spiral you can play slots, roulette, get married, see a show, have your car washed, and ride through a tunnel of love, all without ever leaving your car. It is a compact Vegas, enjoyed at 55 miles per hour and topped off by a towering observation ramp offering views of the entire valley floor below.

Although, I think this project may be more suitable for Dubai, where Traffic Engineers reign supreme and drivers would rather keep driving round and round than slow down.

via BLDG BLOG

Internet messiness : Everything is Miscellaneous

Recently I refiled the office's "web images downloaded" folder into some sort of respectable order, like getting rid of folders called "michael" (created by michael) and attempting to set in place a system that educates the staff by osmosis - for example, project images are filed designer_project rather than 366621521_534ed7f150.jpg (i love flickr but it really becomes quite problematic when clients ask "where is that project?" and the response is "...????... your guess is as good as mine...????... europe somewhere?.. no wait, japan... but i think the designers were dutch...")

Then yesterday, while I was out of the office my boss was trying to find an image which he described as "you know, THAT image" followed by some tantie throwing when the image wasn't found and I started to think maybe I should reinstate the "michael" folder for the benefit of all the staff in the office who haven't yet learnt how to read michael's mind. Or perhaps design a way to tag all our images idiosyncratically to our hearts content so we don't have this problem anymore - I wish my technological talents were as advanced as my technological "If only's".

Anyway, I think I will buy this David Weinberger's book "Everything is Miscellaneous" for the office library.

Infrastructure as ART

Not that long ago I told an architect that I was working with we were never going to be able to "integrate" the 2ML water tank the engineers were proposing into the landscape and that perhaps we can convince the client to let the The Graffiti Project people turn in into an artwork instead. Today... while flickering for interesting water features, I came across the Valence Water Towers in France designed by Philolaos Tloupas in 1969 and I was ashamed as a designer that I have failed to see the possibility in the form of water towers and tanks. Australian designers can be so quick to label the French conservative and yet we are so far behind them...