“Bang Goes The Theory presenter Jem Stansfield is attempting to fly a human-powered plane.
Jem designed the plane which works on pedal power and has been doing intense training to prepare himself for the aircraft’s first – and possibly only – flight.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17754246
Great video!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2012/04/bang-human-powered-plane.shtml
“The Water Cathedral is a large, horizontal urban nave for public use, discreetly exposed so that enigmatic and semi-dark atmospheres can be made out through its topographic lines of floor and ceiling. Both topographies are surface systems shaped by numerous slender, vertical components, which hang or rise like stalactites and stalagmites in a cave, varying their heights and concentrations. A physical organization with regimes of proliferation and differentiation; a series of columns, platforms, arches, curtains, domes and caverns emerge, qualifying the project spatially and atmospherically.Water embedding / Dripping, duration, delay by integrating water within its spatial and material logics, the project promotes a form of architecture that systematizes dripping pulses and speeds, consistently exacerbating the water drop as primal atmospheric matter.”
“This is accomplished through the hanging components of the roof topography, constituted geometrically and materially like textile prisms placed upside-down with a partial granular substratum filling. They are fed by a hydraulic network that continuously irrigates using measured doses. When filled with small amounts of water, these elements act as regulators or atmospheric interfaces, experiencing a phenomenon of absorption and release where, through capillarity, water drops gradually flow against gravity along the prism edges, slowing down the time of concentration and fall. This delay process that consequently produces multiple dripping rhythms over the ground topography, formally demonstrates management of duration. It materializes an architectural form in which water can be particularized in a system that has extensive effects over an area. The delay principle, established through mediation by the prisms, is translated into the possibility to define the layout and use the water as it drops.Form Principles as an abstraction and geometrical transposition of the stalactite, a three-dimensional spatial component, is developed. A three-phase prism with an equilateral base that varies in height and area. These elements proliferate in a grid system, forming curves of different lengths and intensities. This variation capacity component, allows to effectively producing diversity of spaces, textures, patterns and interactions with environmental dynamics based in a principle of material abundance.Geometrical studies from two dimensional curve variation and three dimensional arrangements constrained to equilateral modules. These forms of proliferation deliver rich arch formations, defining interiorities, structural points and modular connectivity.”
Cyprus 1974: A War
Since 1974 the political act of partition on the island has been manifested as a rapidly erected and expedient physical partition. The forced geographical separation of the two main communities of the island, the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, today have been developed back to back, creating two realities separated but joined by the third space, the Buffer Zone. Since then, the Cyprus Problem has remain unsolved and the faith of the land and properties laying inside the Buffer zone remains uncertain.
2012: Famagousta “The Ghost city of Europe”.
Every four or five years since 1974 the issue of opening the abandoned and fenced city, that lies inside the Buffer Zone of Cyprus, is brought forward. The discussion is based on the argument whether the city should be returned right away in its current condition to its inhabitants or it should be kept fenced for some years more in order to be restored and rebuild, since after 37 years of abandonment virtually all its infrastructure, if not the whole built environment, is not reusable and beyond repair.
The no-man’s land project is an architectural case study and a future challenge for Cyprus which is based on the hypothetical return of the abandoned and fenced city of Famagousta to its former inhabitants and beyond. It brings an opportunity for an innovative urban space. Different teams under the umbrella of the Project explore different scenarios for the future of the city worth to look at.
More info: http://www.ecovativedesign.com/
Below is an inspiring documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept of the chemist Michael Braungart and the architect William McDonough:
Summary of the C2C approach:
“Rather than seeing materials as a waste management problem, as in the cradle-to-grave system, cradle-to-cradle design is based on the closed-loop nutrient cycles of nature, in which there is no waste. Just like nature, the cradle-to-cradle design seeks, from the start, to create buildings, communities and systems that generate wholly positive effects on human and environmental health. Not less waste and fewer negative effects, but more positive effects of regeneration, seed, growth, plant, product, “upcycle” and/or seed, growth, plant, product etc etc. One organism’s waste is food for another, and nutrients and energy flow perpetually in closed-loop cycles of growth, decay and rebirth. Waste equals food.
This is not just wishful thinking or “concept” design. The cradle-to-cradle philosophy is driving a growing movement devoted to developing safe materials, products, supply chains and manufacturing processes throughout architecture and industry. It is being adopted by some of the world’s most influential corporations, including Ford Motor Group, Nike and Herman Miller Furniture. Even densely populated China is looking at development and the impact of the rapidly growing population on housing development.”
via designindustry
Above: Nike Considered Design, made respecting the C2C protocol
Above: Herman Miller Mira Chair based on the C2C protocol
Above: The Ford Model U and its compostable body parts. Made respecting the C2C protocol
Above: Ford Motor Company River Rouge production plant (Michigan, USA)
Above: Ferrer Research & Development Center, Barcelona; a.k.a. “The Butterfly Building” by William McDonough + Partners
Above Cradle to Cradle certification
Above: William McDonough (Architect) and Michael Braungart (Chemist)
More on Cradle to Cradle:
-Link to the book: Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things
-Wikipedia article
-Cradle to Cradle Community
-Cradle to Cradle Facebook Page
-Interview of McDonough
For more documentaries, go to http://documentaryheaven.com/
via Rory O’Grady from A Beautiful Planet
This model takes the Latex & Thread Skin Model 01 to a larger scale developing the minimal system and forming a 1:20 fragment of a potential skin. The result is an intricate but surprisingly strong web.
This small scale model attempts to create cleaner intersections between threads of the minimal system by using latex instead of resin, previously explored. The latex forms a web like surface joining the threads smoothly. This model is made by cross referencing all points i.e. each pin is connected to all other pins by the thread. The latex is then applied and the model is then relaxed to allow the overlength of thread to form find its minimal path.
Vertical growth/closed loop production has been developed by biofuel companies to produce algae faster and more efficiently than open pond growth. With vertical growing, algae are placed in clear plastic bags/tubes, so they can be exposed to sunlight on all sides. The extra sun exposure increases the productivity rate of the algae, which in turn increases oil production. The algae are also protected from contamination due the closed envionment of their growth.
This small scale experiment shows the growth of algae in a clear plastic tube of rainwater exposed to sunlight. An air pump is used to circulate the algae solution and to provide ample ‘dirty’ air including carbon dioxide. The rainwater provides nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus also required for algae growth. It can be seen that algae grows rapidly – in a matter of days – unlike seasonal crops.
Here are the results of my initial experiments in developing a blood based glue for used as a structural binding agent. Unfortunately the glue was not entirely successful due to its setting by water loss as opposed to chemical reaction. On to round 2…
The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief. Alain de Botton’s idea is to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings from religion to give people a better sense of perspective on life.
He plans to build a £1m “temple for atheists” among the international banks and medieval church spires of the City of London. De Botton said he chose the country’s financial centre because he believes it is where people have most seriously lost perspective on life’s priorities.
“Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good,” he said. “That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don’t believe but aren’t aggressive towards religions.”
The temple features a single door for visitors who will enter as if it were an art installation. The roof will be open to the elements and there could be fossils and geologically interesting rocks in the concrete walls. Details within the temple aim to evoke more than 300m years of life on earth. Each centimetre of the tapering tower’s interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.
The philosopher said he has raised almost half the funds for the project from a group of property developers who want to remain anonymous. He hopes to find the rest of the money with a public appeal, and construction could start by the end of 2013 if permission is granted by the Corporation of London.
De Botton has insisted atheists have as much right to enjoy inspiring architecture as religious believers.
Within my project I am going to take some of Alain Botton’s ideas of a new atheism forward through my ‘Quasi-church’, but looking to develop a project in France as they continue to grow as one of the leading nations turning their back on religion.
Below is Alain de Botton’s TED talk on Atheism 2.0.
