I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky.

I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms.

I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan (1967)

SOPA http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-3261
PIPA http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s112-968

A project with the Google Chrome team and Hyperakt by Vizzuality.

Dave Jordano & Aaron Rothman: Detroit Re-Photography via Design Observer
Waiting Room, Michigan Central RR Depot, Detroit, 1973-2010

We are encountering with increased frequency that architectural designs are being copied all over the world. Internet is partly responsible to the speed of ideas dissemination, but also it seems conceptual design lacks the specificity of a handcraft, copying is easy and cheap and fast.

The context for many offices in crisis requires taking risks to survive. Yet competitions are investments with very low probabilities of success. So who can invest in originality anymore? Innovation requires patience, specially if you want to be original as well! Meanwhile clients demand fasterer and faster designs. Plans are seldom required; while a selling render is sufficient as long as it is exciting and provided in short notice. Cad becomes distant, photoshop reins.

We propose a method of to cope with the new demands, copying from the existing, systematically, openly and without guilt. In order to be able to move faster sources of design should be acknowledged as in most other human enterprises, yet the original must be improved or challenged. The result is shown in a video tutorial of how to do architecture in 3 minutes using photoshop and a selective library. This architectural tutorial for photoshop will give you a bonus to your design by indicating the steps followed from the original to the new copy.

via The Why Factory

Summer Restaurant, Ufenau Zürichsee by Peter Zumthor (2003)

The research aims at reconstruction and visualization of “Virtual Time-Space of Kyoto” which provides 3D-GIS of Kyoto, starting from the present going back to the past through 20th to 17th century, and finally to Heian period (12th to 8th century, when Kyoto was the capital), based on 3D city model and available historical documents and information, employing new visualization technologies including virtual reality (VR) and Web3D-GIS. It has introduced 3D city model of present Kyoto, which has been automatically generated by recently developed software, using LIDAR data, 2D digital map, and aerial photograph. There remain a lot of Kyomachiyas (traditional townhouse in Kyoto, machiya hereafter), temples, shrines and modern heritage buildings in the city because it eluded damage from World War II. At present, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and VR technologies have been applied throughout the research; (a) to store locations and attributes of presently existing buildings including machiyas, shrines, temples and modern heritage buildings as a database; (b) to archive and geo-reference cultural and historical materials including Yamahokos (floats) of the Gion Festival, as well as old cadastral maps, street photos and aerial photos; and (c) to visualize urban landscape changes through times using aforementioned materials. Moreover, the newly developed 3D urban information system on web has achieved transmission and reception of a great amount of urban information with interactive manipulation of detailed 3D city models linked with GIS on ordinary internet infrastructure such as DSL. And in 2005, the transmission experiments of “Virtual Time-Space of Kyoto” are to be conducted using the system.

http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/lt/geo/coe/pdf/02_018.pdf

Gertrude Goldschmidt (1973)

New Taipei City Museum of Art competition entry by Federico Soriano y Asociados

Pons + Huot in Paris, France by architecturespossibles (2006)

“ANnalyse du vir.age” by Gianni-Emilio Simonetti (1967)

“Control and Choice Dwellings” by Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton and Ron Herron (1967)

Baron House by John Pawson

Seen is an extrapolation on Watch, using the whole of Piazza San Marco in Venice as the source material. The installation is made up of 4 video projections whose video material are calculated live from a single video source. (Due to the extraordinary expense of running a live satellite feed from the piazza to the Canadian Pavillion on the Biennale graound, I recorded about 30 minutes of material and burned it to DVD to be the source.) The first and fourth projections are effectively colour versions of “Watch”, in which what is moving is separated from that which is still. In this case, what was moving were the people milling about the piazza and the famous San Marco pigeons. What was still was the architecture of the piazza, and the kiosks selling souvenirs and corn with which to feed the pigeons. The middle two projections offer different perspectives on the patterns of flow through the Piazza. The blue projection (2nd) takes the first image (motion) as a source and feeds it back on itself at a delay of 1/2 a second. This turns each individual person into a Muybridge motion study, or a procession of themselves. Areas which experienced the greateest density of traffic in the recent past would be quite densly packed and less travelled areas would be sparser, providing a kind of probability plot of activities in the space. This video stream has a strangely archaic appearance, looking very 17th century for some reason. The third projection traces the recent trajectory of each moving thing in the Piazza in a colour gradient estqablishing the direction of movement of each thing. The processing was performed at full video resolution, meaning that every pedestrian and pigeon on Piazza San Marco left a trace. Flying pigeons drew the arc of their flight, running pedestrians keft trails showing their dodges and turns as they wended their way through the crowds. The walking pigeons produced patterns looking rather like arabic lettering as they chased after the scattered corn.

Seen was first shown at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2002.

Urbanized is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers. Over half the world’s population now lives in an urban area, and 75% will call a city home by 2050. But while some cities are experiencing explosive growth, others are shrinking. The challenges of balancing housing, mobility, public space, civic engagement, economic development, and environmental policy are fast becoming universal concerns. Yet much of the dialogue on these issues is disconnected from the public domain.

Who is allowed to shape our cities, and how do they do it? Unlike many other fields of design, cities aren’t created by any one specialist or expert. There are many contributors to urban change, including ordinary citizens who can have a great impact improving the cities in which they live. By exploring a diverse range of urban design projects around the world, Urbanizedframes a global discussion on the future of cities.

Produced and Directed by Gary Hustwit

There is a good write up by the Guardian’s Justin McGuirk available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/oct/25/urbanized-documentary-design-7-billion

Programme of events for the 2010 International Perspectives Conference, International Perspectives on Art & Design Pedagogy held at Leeds College of Art.

The programme took a simple and professional layout, using a strict column grid and controlled colour pallette.

Logo by Angus Macpherson.

Client: Leeds College of Art

http://www.thisiscatalogue.co.uk/ipc-booklets/

Architecture of Fear explores how feelings of fear pervade daily life in the contemporary media society. The cause of fear seems interchangeable and constantly fluctuating. Shifting from one thing to the next, often relating to invisible or indirect phenomena’s (terrorism, viral diseases, pollution, financial crisis), anything has the ability to become a potential threat. Rather than an immediate emotional strategy for survival fear is becoming a constant low level feeling in the background that gives rise to a new global infrastructure based on security, prevention and risk-management.

Architecture of Fear brings together a selection of international artists and designers thatreflect in different ways on the society of fear, ranging from registration and critical research, to exploring its emotional, social and spatial mechanisms.

Shortlist artists: Bureau D’Etudes, De Geuzen, Floris Douma, Laurent Grasso, Ilkka Halso,Susanna Hertrich, Charlotte Lybeer, Jill Magid, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Tracey Moffatt,Trevor Paglen, Marie Sester, Kin Wah Tsang and Els Vanden Meersch.

http://www.z33.be/en/projects/architecture-fear

My favourite ‘Top 10 unbuilt tower’ – a part of Building Design‘s ongoing The Buildings That Never Were column – has to be the Palace of the Soviets by Boris Iofan. A close call over the Bangkok Hyperbuilding by OMA and the Atlanpole project by Hans Kollhoff, Iofan’s creation, a ludicrous skyscraper almost 500m tall and topped with an 80m statue of Lenin, was the winning scheme chosen from 272 concepts, submitted in 1931 by the likes of Corbusier, Urban, Gropius and Mendelsohn.

Construction of the beast began in 1937 but was terminated due to the German invasion in 1941, its steel frame being disassembled for use in essential fortification and infrastructure.

An infographic dissecting the nature and ramifications of Stuxnet, the first weapon made entirely out of code.

I’m all for infographics but I find this a bit over the top. Edward Tufte would be apalled. Clair has done something similar for the equally tenebrous world of Mark Rich and Glencore.

Direction and Motion Graphics: Patrick Clair patrickclair.com
Written by: Scott Mitchell

Production Company: Zapruder’s Other Films

Manuel Bürger and Jörg Albreght got together to create this third part of the »shake your tree« edition, which primarily addresses the topics of nerdism, knowledge, complexity, flow and tourism.

Take a trip with the complexity tours to parallel worlds and discover a new applied logic!

via thebeardshop.de

whatever that means.

Getting all HAL 9000 [2001]: Introducing Siri, Apple‘s new voice recognition technology for iOS 5.

The Carlos Ramos Pavilion, a restored FAUP building in Porto by Álvaro Siza.