Oakland A's New Stadium to get Touchscreens in Every Seat
If it's not bad enough having to look through a sea of back-lit mobile phones and cameras at concerts, the proposed interactive wireless touchscreens built into each seat at Cisco Field, future home of the Oakland A's takes us one step closer to the Buy n Large utopia envisioned in WALL-E.
via dvice
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Not Just Another Brick in the Wall
New York based Contemporary Architecture Practice created The Wall of the Future using state-of-the-art robotic manufacturing techniques for MoMA's exhibition Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling which opened last week.
The wall (9.6 x 7.6 x 0.8 feet) explores the possibilities of architecture in the near future combining space, structure and skin into a single form. While the title may sound a tad self-important, the concept highlights an intriguing trend we're seeing emerge in the world of architecture and generative scripting.
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Spring Water on Tap (?)
AT&T recently announced a contract with Spring Water On Tap, an Atlanta-based natural spring water supplier that maintains fresh spring water supplies in large local tanks for all of it's customers' personal uses.
The solution which attaches ultrasonic sensors and interlinked cellular-based modems to 65-gallon water tanks, allows the company to discern water levels and alert delivery trucks to bring more of the wet stuff. Claiming that "AT&T takes a very broad holistic view of RFID." Percy Jones, CEO of SWOT, says:
AT&T has enabled our company to provide customers with a seamless supply of fresh spring water at all times while unobtrusively monitoring the water levels in our customers' homes.
Given the fact that Georgia is experiencing severe to moderate drought in all but 5 counties, we're wondering: shouldn't they be using this for monitoring the aquifers instead?
Via RFID Journal
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The new bright red Italian train
Finally EU competition is also affecting Italian train service. Twenty-five red high-style trains, each with 11 carriages and 460 seats, will soon travel at 360 km an hour on the Italian tracks. Run by Nuovo Transporto Viaggiatori (ntv), an independent company, the trains will compete directly with Trenitalia, the main Italian train company.
See also here and here for more images.
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Couture Motorcycle Helmets for the Great Escape
No stranger to accidents, French designer Jérôme Coste has survived six cranial traumatisms, one of the contributing factors leading to his interest in crash helmets. Inspired by Steve McQueen, science fiction and Japanese biker gangs who eloquently blend street culture with vintage motorcycling, he founded Ruby in 2004.
>> see more
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Feel the Burn with Airun Plus Trainers
The Airun+ -- not to be confused with another shoe company using the "+" sign for their iPod combo -- is designed with a built-in Smart Technology Controller that calculates the exercisers' stats and recommends adjustments to their daily workout.
Intended for people focused on fat burning cardio workouts, the Airun Plus comes with two interchangeable weighted insoles based on the sandbag weight training principles. The lightweight insole weighs 106grams and the heavyweight insole weighs 588grams. The weights load the body resulting in accelerated weight loss and enhanced fitness levels. Apparently wearers can get the same value from a 30 minute exercise as they would from an hour long exercise using normal footwear.
The controller on top of the shoe wirelessly receives real time information from a sensor located inside the sole. The sensor not only measures the speed but also the weight applied from each step, a first in footwear technology allowing statistics calculating your performance to be collected more accurately. It may not play music but the idea is good, just don't trip while trying to read the display on the treadmill.
via engadget
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photo: FatMandy
The Clever Creative, Languishing in the Genius Trap, by Carl Alviani
It might take a genius the same amount of time to find what they are good at as it would a dedicated learner to practice their way into genius-hood. Over at Coroflot's Creative Seeds Carl Alviani enters the dichotomy of the gifted the talented and the downright challenged in the creative industry:
More than in most fields, our careers live and die by our ability demonstrate specific skills, and our employability is largely a function of convincing those in charge that we've got them. And this is exactly why one of Dr. Dweck's "fixed mind-sets" can be so very damaging.Think of it this way. Two students enter, say, an illustration program at a prestigious art school. One is convinced of her innate talent and skill, the other unsure, but deeply excited about learning and doing illustration, even if it doesn't impress the way her fellow student's does. The first has been told all her life that she has natural talent, and she's there to develop and express it, the second merely enjoys the process, and the acquisition of new skills. Who will wow the teachers first semester? That's an easy one. But who will ultimately be the more successful, able to grow, keep things fresh, take advantage of new media and technologies, avoid getting pigeonholed? That's probably an easy one too.
Unfortunately, the obsession with genius, already strong in North American and Western European societies, is inflated to legendary levels among creative professionals...
>> view article
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Frog Design Launches Print Magazine
Frog Design is jumpin' into print. Yup. They've just launched a new magazine called 'design mind', written by frog designers, technologists and strategists. We got a sneek peek at the debut issue - full of juicy articles on China's mobile market, the potential of in-game brand placement and the creative process. This publication has as a goal to "open up new channels for frog to communicate [their] thought leadership in a highly visual and dynamic way." (oh yeah, there's a website too.) It's a tightly designed, thoughtful tool that promises to publish 3 times a year. We're looking forward to seeing how this frog....er...flies.
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Droog Aalto wins Climate Competiton
Czech designer Jan Ctvrtnik has won the Climate Competition organised by Droog. A vase based on Alvar Aalto's famous design, but modified to express the effects of global warming received 32% of all votes by visitors to Droog's website.
The original Aalto vase was inspired by the outline of a Finnish lake and Ctvrtnik's design suggests how the lake's shape could change due to climate change. Ctvrtnik says:
Climate changes are visualised mostly by numbers and scientific measurements. In order to show changes, it is good to have a reference point. And so the Aalto vase became that reference point with its shape originating from the shape of a Finnish lake. The 'Droog' part of the title can be translated as 'Dry', obviously relating to global warming.
>> see more
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Icare motorcycle concept
The Icare motorcycle concept is a cross between something from Tron and "a kind of Porsche or Aston Martin for the two-wheeled world," according to France-based Enzyme Design, the minds behind the concept. It's intended to have a six-cylinder 1.8 liter Honda engine, which is more than what you'd find in some compact cars. Will it ever go into production? No word, but Enyzme's earlier L'atomo concept did, so future bikers will have some hope.
>> see more
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Cameron Sinclair vs John Thackara
There's a (heated?) dialogue going on between John Thackara and Cameron Sinclair over JT's recent piece on Design Observer. If you missed the original text, we blogged it a few days ago. Choc full of Thackarian nuggets on the benefits of staying in the backyard, the essay focuses on the benefits of locality and culture (which, by the way, happens to have striking similarities to a graduation speech funny-man Patton Oswald gave in June....read it n weep. please.) Regardless, Cameron Sinclair's got some interesting responses (to Thackara, not Oswald). Here are a few bites:
"I find it a little arrogant of writers to speak of design and architecture as a 'western' or 'developed world' notion - and then occationally insinuate the 'look at what they are forcing on them' self-guilt world view. There are designers, both licensed and unlicensed, all over the world. They are not divided by boundaries but by skill and desire. There will always be the Zaha Hadids and Karim Rashids of this world but there are also the Diebedo Francis Keres, the Rodney Harbers and the Yasmine Laris of this world. For as many designers working in the realm of architectural plastic surgery, there are just as many working in the emergency room. The difference is that the latter are not seeking accolades and therefore do not grace the covers of magazines and the design media. In addition to training more global architects we need to encourage and develop new schools of design where the work is. Ie currently we are training 70% of the worlds' architects in the developed (over developed) nations, yet 70% of the work is in emerging nations.Yes, there are a dozen 'examples' where we can point to designers screwing up, getting it wrong, undervaluing the input of the community. Yet there are hundreds of stories where quiet moments of innovation have been an element of incredible change in a community. Most of us who are actually building look at bemusement to all the structures going up in Dubai and Doha - why are those deemed as great feats of 'design excellence' but yet a community led participatory process is often scrutinized by cynical, often western, eyes.
Perhaps it is time to write stories of the successes on the ground. Come join any of us, but do expect to pick up a shovel when you are on a site visit."
Read the entire response at Doors of Perception.
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Interview with Method's Designer Danny Alexander
Josh Spear catches up with industrial designer Danny Alexander who moved to San Francisco to join the people against dirty, Method just over a year ago.
Growing up I always loved to create. Whether it was origami, painting, assembling furniture, etc., I was always working with my hands. When I grew up a bit, I began to think that industrial design was the perfect combination of left brain and right brain thinking, but the thought of creating more junk to fill landfills weighed seriously on my conscience.
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Microsoft's Folding Arc Mouse
Microsoft's new wireless Arc Mouse folds down to save space during transit, anyone that's used one of those mini-travel mouse devices will appreciate the full size body. It's questionable whether the space saving benefits are really necessary but you know you'll look like the man breaking one out in the airport business lounge. It will retail for approx. $60 US later in the year.
via gizmodo
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Michael Somoroff Sculpts Light
Recently reinstalled at the Fields Sculpture Park in Ghent, NY is artist Michael Somoroff's Illumination I . Somoroff used a myriad of 3D visualization software to create the large-format sculpture.
Originally commissioned by the non-denominational Rothko Chapel in Houston, the 12-ton project is a cross between sculpture and architecture that gives sheltering form to the lighting conditions in a scared space. Based on images of various mosques and holy ruins, Somoroff began by building a virtual mosque with 3D compositing software. He applied a computer program that could chart sunlight moving through the mosque's window and across it's interior based on a specified date and location.
Somoroff then used modeling software to simulate the effects of forces such as gravity, space/time, and other atmospheric contingencies at the chapel on models of that light. The final translation of this light relied on CAD software and CNC milling to create a 20' high sculpture in foam which was then cast in fiberglass and finished in stucco.
A commercial photographer and TV spot director by trade, Somoroff views art as a spiritual practice whose purpose is to assist in the negotiation of reality, virtual or otherwise.
>> see more
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Oink Oink, Chocolate for Fat Pigs
Well anyone with a chocolate addiction, The Brooklyn Brothers (who have 2 offices, neither in Brooklyn) recently completed the packaging design for chocolate maker Fat Pig Chocolates. Fat Pig is an organic milk chocolate bar currently available in one flavor and they assure us it has none of the bitter after taste of regular milk chocolate.
Self confessed chocolate pigs who want to know more about what makes some chocolate taste better than others should check out BBtv's visit to the homebrew chocolate technology startup TCHO.
via ffffound
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Special thanks to toolgirl and Mark Vanderbeeken for their contributions to this week's newsletter!
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