New Post has been published on http://supernicecity.com/?p=1883
Cloud Parking
Created by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya back in 2011, Cloud Parking is a magical installation that gave people a chance to walk through clouds or, depending on how you look at it, a heavy blanket of fog. (“Scientifically, cloud and fog are the same,” stated Nakaya, “but conceptually, there is a big difference.” She describes fog as “an interactive media” which “conjures dialogue with nature” and “reveals the innate” whereas clouds have “never left the realm of romanticism.”) Located in Linz, Australia, on the rooftops of buildings, were these artificially created clouds that enveloped its visitors completely.
more at: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/fujiko-nakaya-cloud-parking-linz
New Post has been published on http://supernicecity.com/?p=1880
Evolution of my Research Question
First DA Draft
Second DA Draft
Current
This is an overview of how my thinking around my research question evolved. I am still quite fond of my first approach of finding existing performative spaces in cities and understand why they are working and what we can learn from them to make new interactive spaces in cities.
My current approach rather uses prototypes of interactive opportunities to see how places change when interactive opportunities are implemented and what behaviour they provoke and what ideas they might inspire. They are a combination of rapid prototyping and cultural probing.
New Post has been published on http://supernicecity.com/?p=1873
Unseen Damascus
A state rules society by weaving its logic of power into the fabric of society. In a city like Damascus, power configures space.
As part of workshop at University of Damascus, twelve students were asked to describe places that are mysterious, off-limits or such whose function may be obscure to the public. By inventing new names for each and by creating fictitious accounts of what is happening there, the places are reimagined into private utopias within a totalitarian state. Soft mountains in the heart of the city were found, niches to rest in absolute silence or hidden-away rooms where men and women can invert their roles.
Finally a five-meter tall neon signpost, now permanently installed at the Damascus University Art Gallery. Nine arrows pointing in nine different directions, spelling out the names of places that do not yet exist.
https://vimeo.com/25528387
New Post has been published on http://supernicecity.com/?p=1871
Hello Lamp Post
Hello Lamp Post! by design and research studio PAN, is the recipient of Bristol’s first ever Playable City Award.
Hello Lamp Post! invites you to tune in to the secret conversations of the city and communicate through lamp posts, bus stops, post boxes and other street furniture. Part game, part story, anyone will be able to play by texting in a unique code found on the city’s familiar street objects.
Lamp posts, bus stops and post boxes are the goosebumps of the city and so ubiquitous that they have become invisible. Hello Lamp Post! will make them playable, using existing city infrastructure to make an open, hospitable and playful experience which encourages you to notice and interact with what is around you.
Every post box in Bristol has a six figure code, every bollard has two, some of the benches have seven and the storm drains have 14. This summer you will be able to text the word ‘Hello + the name of the object + its code’ to the special phone number and the item of street furniture will immediately text you back with a question. Will it be pleased to see you? Irritated at having been left in the rain? Or will it tell you a secret? The more you play, the more the hidden life of the city will be revealed.
more at: http://www.watershed.co.uk/playablecity/about/the-winner/
New Post has been published on http://supernicecity.com/?p=1864
21 Balançoires
When in motion, each of the 21 swings in the series triggers different notes and, when used all together, the swings compose a musical piece in which certain melodies emerge only through cooperation.
Together with Luc-Alain Giraldeau, an animal behavior professor from the Université du Québec à Montréal’s Science Faculty, we explored the concept of cooperation:
Cooperation emerges when the behavior of each individual depends on the decisions of the rest of the group: it’s a game where, from the start, you need to adjust to the actions of others.
http://vimeo.com/40980676
The result is a giant collective instrument that stimulates ownership of the new space, bringing together people of all ages and backgrounds, and creating a place for playing and hanging out in the middle of the city center.
Softwalks Transforms Streetside Scaffolding
Slowing down, much less stopping, will likely get you trampled on the ever-bustling streets of New York, but Bland Hoke and Howard Chambers envision a metropolis punctuated with impromptu social spaces surrounding some of the city’s biggest eyesores. The pair met as students in the Transdisciplinary Design MFA program at Parsons and, taking cues from the prominent pedestrian plazas popping up all over Manhattan, created Softwalks—a kit of parts that includes chair, planter, counter, light, and screen that can be easily attached to the scaffolding, or “sidewalk sheds,” that obscure the front of so many urban structures.
“We were inspired by the concept of ‘the city as lab’ as well as the work of Jane Jacobs and Jan Gehl, who recognized the positive aspects of social interaction within urban spaces,” Hoke tells Co.Design. Extensive testing was done to ensure the set-ups didn’t cause unwanted congestion—in fact, groups milling about were actually a boon for some businesses, as “people attract people,” Hoke says.
If the thought of loitering beneath an active construction site seems slightly unsafe, the duo discovered there is actually a glut of “passive” scaffolding that languishes curbside, doing a whole lot of nothing. “New York City’s Local Law 11 stipulates that every five years a building must undergo a facade inspection,” Hoke explains. “Unfortunately, some fail, and in the worst case the cost of keeping a sidewalk shed installed is more economical than doing the repairs. In our research we discovered an instance of one remaining in place for 12 years!” The Softwalks team is currently working with Business Improvement Districts to initiate a pilot project with the kit of parts, which will also be on display at the Dumbo Arts Festival and the Art in Odd Places festival.
http://vimeo.com/43440347
via: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670533/softwalks-transforms-streetside-scaffolding-into-urban-parklets#3
Paper Metropolis by Kiel Johnson
“ Artist Kiel Johnson looks at paper in a very specific way. He doesn’t see it as something you can simply write on or recycle to make more paper: he says paper as the building block of creativity. His current body of work has been to construct these tiny, intricate, detailed little cities from chipboard and various other paper pieces. These cities are fully realized with stadiums and police chases, power lines and Times Square like culture zones. They have thousands of little stories contained in one piece and are just incredibly fascinating. “ - via thefoxisblack.com
Read an Interview of Kiel Johnson at laimyours.com
http://vimeo.com/38292386
Watch Theo Jemison’s video of artist Kiel Johnson’s installation “Everyone’s an Architect” at TEDActive 2012. See how the project grows throughout the week, with dozens of collaborators stopping by or spending long hours to help build Johnson’s charming cardboard city — lit up with LEDs powered by human foot traffic and a hand-cranked generator
Performative Architecture
Didier Fiuza Faustino, Opus Incertum, 2008, shown at the 11th Venice Biennial.
“The prevalence of diagram or program in recent design approaches to all things architectural, like once of the principle of autonomy or the spirit of place, now gives place to every possible aspect of the performative in architecture.
Beyond the activation of program’s abstractions, and behind such a turn lies, as it would be expected, one relevant paradigm shift. And here we may speak of a return of the user – not to say simply the return of the repressed – to the troubled horizon of current architectural concerns.
After the delusions of grandeur of the recent architectural self, the ever-cyclic return to the needs of the end-user of architecture now takes place by integrating use narratives into conceptual strategies of design, but also by introducing expressions of these concerns into the very shaping of built forms.
Thus one discovers the very imprints of bodies blooming in recent projects – reconnecting architecture with traditions of performance art –, just as one recognizes the performatic aspects of participation and self-building as instrumental in reconnecting architecture’s profession of faith with local communities and broader urban audiences.”
Via: http://shrapnelcontemporary.wordpress.com/tag/european-capital-of-culture-2012/
The Metacity by Frog Design
ReMarshing: Wastelands to Wetlands
Belgium and the Netherlands have a long history of draining the wetlands on which they are founded. At the same time, a multitude of factories settled along the canals, leaking toxins and metals over the centuries, and making the water unusable for consumption or for watering edible gardens.
ReMarshing is a process of enabling the ecosystem to rebuild itself as a wetland while also cleaning the water of its toxins.
An autonomous system of a wind-powered water wheel keeps pulling water out of the canal and slowly, but continuously flooding the surrounding landscape. In this growing marsh, local remediation plants such as poplar, rap seed, willow, clover and grasses take up metals and toxins that reside in the water and riverbeds.
Via: http://neighbourhoodsatellites.com/
