While experiments with iDevice and Android app development are ubiquitous, design publisher dpr-barcelona’s recent efforts with their Architecture in your Hand initiative are undoubtedly worth highlighting. A scheme hatched to rethink the speed and engagement associated with traditional publishing, Architecture in your Hand proposes a line of ‘mobile books’ that is both post-monograph and post-blog. RSS feeds track the activities of embedded writers, sites of interest are geolocated and annotated – these streams of content help expand the paramaters of a ‘static’ design publication and provide contrast and counterpoint to more standard content such as critical essays and photo-documentation of completed projects. dpr-barcelona editors César Reyes Nájera and Ethel Baraona Pohl describe the project as follows: “Considering that the main goal of a book is to store and transmit information added to the potential of networked learning, we have imagined that this concept can be expanded and spread. As being transmitted through a new basis, this information should be structured following a different mobile logic: enhancing immediacy, brevity, and simplicity. When atomizing the contents, we are sharing capsules of knowledge for the user to learn, share and interact with the city.”

Continue reading.... Architecture in your Hand [iPhone, Android]

Jonathan by Sam Kronick is an interactive ‘non-game‘ that explores the culture and urban form of a typical American suburban landscape by creating a never-ending generative sprawl of lawns, cul-de-sacs and single-family homes.

It takes its name and inspiration from the real-life neighborhood of Jonathan, Minnesota, where in the late 1960′s an ambitious “new town” was planned for an eventual population of 50,000. Jonathan asks not how we can build a community, but how, once built, will we maintain it? The player in Jonathan takes on the role of a typical suburban maintenance worker–a lawn mower–as he or she navigates a never-ending software-generated sprawl of lawns, cul-de-sacs, and excessively gabled single-family homes. More of a tool to explore this familiar-but-strange territory than a full-blown “video game,” Jonathan generates a nonlinear storyline as the player encounters video vignettes of the banality, the innocence, the boredom, and the restrained aggression of life in the suburbs as documented by its residents and posted on YouTube.

Sam is a B.S. in architecture and visual arts graduate from MIT, class of 2010, currently pursuing Master of Fine Arts in the Department of Visual Arts at University of California San Diego.

More interesting work by Sam @ newuntitledpage.com

Projektil, a Zurich based collective, created augmented reality installation which includes an architectural model in scale 1:200 with 5 projectors mapping various information affecting the proposal.

On the model can be shown various simulations (nightlife, sun and shadow, etc.), and also information (use zones, green areas, transport etc.) . Not only this installation is controlled interactivly by an ipad, but the whole space, which includes 44 dimmable dali lamps, 6 DMX lamps, 9 beamers, a touchscreen and the audio system.”

MaxMSP/Jitter was used for video together with iPad app which controls the max app over OSC. MeshWarpServer was used for realtime-meshwarping and all of the modeling, animation and rendering was made with Blender.

Elements of the installation include: architecture model scale 1 : 200, 1 ipad, 9 full HD beamers, 6 macminis, 5000 vertices to set, 40+ different animations and stills, 44 dimmable dali lamps, 6 DMX lamps and 1 touchscreen.

Project Page

FABRICATE is an International Peer Reviewed Conference with supporting publication and exhibition to be held at The Bartlett School of Architecture in London from 15-16 April 2011. Discussing the progressive integration of digital design with manufacturing processes, FABRICATE will bring together pioneers in design and making within architecture, construction, engineering, manufacturing, materials technology and computation.

Part of the exhibition is the work of ScanLAB, a research group run by Matthew Shaw and William Trossell at the Bartlett School of Architecture that explores the potential role of 3D scanning in Architecture, Design and Making. In 2010, 48 hours of scanning produced 64 scans of the Slade school’s entire exhibition space. These have been compiled to form a complete 3D replica of the temporary show which has been distilled into a navigable animation and a series of ‘standard’ architectural drawings.

The work becomes a confused collage of hours of delicately created lines and forms set within a feature prefect representation of the exhibition space. Sometimes a model or image stands out as identifiable, more often a sketch merges into a model and an exhibition stand creating a blurred hybrid of designs and authors. These drawings represent the closest record to an as built drawing set for the entire exhibition and an ‘as was’ representation of the Bartlett’s year.

The 3D model was produced using a Faro Photon 120 laser scanner ($40k). Software that enables navigation is Pointools, generic point cloud model software that allows for some of the largest point cloud models – multi-billion point datasets.

scanlabprojects.co.uk

For more information on FABRICATE, see http://www.fabricate2011.org

Exhibition Private View
6pm – 14th April 2011
Bartlett School of Architecture Gallery
Wates House, 22 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0QB

For tickets, see fabricate2011.org/registration/

(Thanks Ruairi)

See also Fragments of time and space recorded with Kinect+SLR on NYC Subway … and CITY OF HOLES on bldgblog

Dominik Strzelec writes:

this pretentious title indicates the general direction of further research on shape as record of field conditions.
it’s a tendency to move away from industrial-design precision towards seemingly archaic, still mediated digitally ways of production and articulation of space. saturation or detail in this case results from specific tool/machine resolution- here simulated by pushing voxel space towards it’s capacity limits resulting in glitches and repetitive patterns.

More on Flickr + his blog.

Created for this years Architecture Biennale in Venice, iBiennale is an application for iPad allowing you to discover more about the 12th International Architecture Exhibition by accessing the official catalogue along with loads of extra content.

iBiennale takes you into the installations using virtual view and new videos and lets you explore texts and images of works and artists in a multidimensional mode, finding analogies and showing you the most interesting details. It also lets you personalise your visit by selecting your tour and saving your favourite works and your notes.

iBiennale is a vast catalog giving you access to the texts, images and videos of the 12th International Architecture Exhibition as well as letting you interact with all its contents. An exciting user-friendly experience: descriptions and images are connected by means of multi-dimensional links that allow you to navigate through the contents using various filters, such as thematic analogy and indexes of places or names. You can choose how to move from one work to the next using a simple proximity menu that guides you in discovering details and increases links between works and artists.

In addition, extra material includes content like special videos and 360° image rotations. Each work is presented by means of a large gallery of photos, videos and interactive contents that can be accessed with a touch. iBiennale also lets you plan your visit in advance and choose your own personalised tour of the works based on your preferences and notes.

The 12th Intl. Architecture Exhibition, directed by Kazuyo Sejima is titled People meet in architecture and will run 29th August to 21st November 2010 in Venice, Italy.

For more information about the event, see labiennale.org

The iPad application was created by log607.

Platform: iPad
Version: 1.0
Cost: Free
Developer: log607

Richard Hardy, a recent graduate from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, created this amazing video, exploring questions whether the conception of artificial intelligence has been a necessity in human evolution and if we therefore should embrace emergent technologies to engage with problems of sustainability and the city — for Nic Clear’s Unit 15.

Richard writes:
The Transcendent City is an autonomous artificial machine that extends across the earth adapting to the natural eco-systems it encounters while deriving its energy from the renewable resources available at each particular site. The systems desire is to maintain homeostasis within itself whilst maintaining homeostasis within the greater system, Gaia. Its processes are engineered on the molecular scale by nano technologies controlled by molecular computers that monitor and analyse the environment.

More on Flickr + Vimeo

(via bldgblog)

Developed using Processing with Arduino, Improvisation on a Digital Space is a project by Enrique Ramos exploring visualization using physical interface.

Enrike writes:
Code-generated space makes possible to define architectures whose configuration can be controlled by all sort of parameters such as pressure, sound and lighting levels. In this video, a performer interacts with the space through light sensors and resistors making it evolve with the music in real time.

Enrike is a London based architect. You can find him on eukirne.com , and the blog he contributes to.

It’s a pleasure to announce to CAN readers that this amazing project I have been working on for the past year is now live and ready for your perusal. The Archigram Archival Project [AAP] makes the work of the seminal architectural group Archigram is now available free online for public viewing. The project was run by EXP, an architectural research group at the University of Westminster, where I teach, and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This was also all made possible by the sheer generosity of members of Archigram and their heirs who allowed us to browse through the immense collection of work stored in the attics and basements and collected a total of around 10,000 images.

On Monday night was the official site launch and if you were following us on Twitter you would have seen a number of updates regarding the project. I am happy to say even with some major hick-ups just before the announcement (server power failure at the university), with about 150 attendees including collaborators, historians, journalists and fans, the launch was an absolute success. Mike and Dennis were not able to join us but they were there thanks to Skype with Dennis taking us through the different parts of the site. This was followed by Peter‘s talk on Archigram proteges with David also at the event, always in the mood to kick off an inspiring conversation.

We are incredibly pleased that now, finally after all these years, we can all enjoy the work of one of the ‘most seminal, iconoclastic and influential architectural groups of the modern age‘.

The extraordinary influence of the mainly unbuilt 1961-1974 architectural group Archigram is internationally acknowledged. Exhibitions of their work have been touring major institutions worldwide since 1992, they were awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 2002, and they are recognised influences on many of the world’s greatest contemporary architects and buildings. Yet the bulk of their visionary work has to date remained difficult to access, largely stored in domestic conditions or temporary storage. In collaboration with the remaining members of Archigram or their heirs, and funded by a £304,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, a team from the University of Westminster has formed an online, searchable database of all the available works of Archigram for study by architectural specialists and the general public.

I have collected few projects below, just to highlight how forward thinking Archigram were, foreseeing many things we enjoy and desire today. For full list of projects, make sure you visit archigram.westminster.ac.uk. Geoff Manaugh of BLDGBLOG has also written a wonderful post on his blog about the project which is a must read. For now, I leave you with 7 fantastic but much less known projects somewhat related to CAN.

Holographic Scene Setter

Speculative proposal for holographic projection of environments, or virtual reality environment. Part of the Instant City project.

I had a holographic scene setter – a light space – switch on/walk around/3D/walk thro’/Hollywood Boulevard in my TV room/Death Valley on my patio/Tahiti in my pad/Laurel and Hardy in the morning/The ‘Who’ at night … change film – new environment/switch on/off/there – not there … what’s real/it’s observable/it’s real when it’s there/is it a dream? – a ghost? – a turn-on? … Holographic ceiling – cloud – rainbow – cloud – people – John (pee on your shoes) – scenery – event – television … great … switch on the people/turn on the crowd/bring in the whole scene … turn off the ceiling. more

Media Experiments 1-2, 1968

Light/Sound Workshops: television display system set up as an experiment in multi-channel and multi-media display with streams of images flickering across grouped screens.

A far more flexible medium is T.V. which, at the moment, is still normally thought of the single channel box, but which whilst utiliising other media such as film as content allows us far more opportunity for selection. If we then consider T.V. used in display systems monitoring a number of channels concurrently from a variety of sources, both from national and international news and entertainment networks and also from personal close-circuit and video-tape and even generated by computer, we can see what colossal potential there is in the medium. So in the not so distant future we can expect to have to deal with the multi-channel multi-media situation both professionally and as an involved audience in our own homes, and one suspects at times the distinction between producer, and audience may become blurred. more

Soft Scene Monitor: MK1, 1968

Exhibit designed for Aftenpostle newspaper and Oslo Architectfornung and exhibited at Kunstneres Hus, Oslo for a prototype home access unit to communications, audio-visual entertainments and information technology.

As the Instant City study developed, certain items emerged in particular. First, the idea of a ‘soft-scene monitor’ – a combination of teaching-machine, audio-visual juke box, environmental simulator, and from a theoretical point of view, a realization of the ‘Hardware/Software’ debate. more

Info Gonks, 1968

Speculative design maquette for educational television glasses and headgear.

Use of the 1½-inch television as a built-up pair of spectacles with stereo glasses all wired to headgear receiver: everyman his own on-the-eye and in-the-ear environment. more

Cushicle & Suitaloon, 1966

Speculative design for a personal, individual and portable dwelling unit which may be ‘worn’ for transport and unpacked for occupation.

The illustrations show the two main parts of the Cushicle unit as they expand out from their unpacked state to the domestic condition. One constituent part is the “armature“ or “spinal“ system. This forms the chassis and support for the appliances and other apparatus. The other major element is the enclosure part which is basically an inflated envelope with extra skins as viewing screens. Both systems open out consecutively or can be used independently. The Cushicle carries food, water supply, radio, miniature projection television and heating apparatus. The radio, TV, etc., are contained in the helmet and the food and water supply are carried in pod attachments.

With the establishment of service nodes and additional optional apparatus, the autonomous Cushicle unit could develop to become part of a more widespread urban system of personalized enclosures. more

Enviro-Pill, 1969

Speculative proposal for a pill for inducing architecture or virtual and imaginary environments in the mind. more.

Electronic Tomato, 1969

Speculative proposal for mobile sensory stimulation device.

MANZAK is our latest proposal for a radio-controlled, battery-powered electric automaton. It has on-board logic, optical range-finder, TV camera, and magic eye bump detectors. All the sensory equipment you need for environmental information retrieval, and for performing tasks. Optional extras include response equipment for specific applications and subtasks to your own specification. Direct your business operations, do the shopping, hunt or fish, or just enjoy electronic instamatic voyeurism, from the comfort of your own home. For the great outdoors, get instant vegetable therapy from the new ELECTRONIC TOMATO – a groove gizmo that connects to every nerve end to give you the wildest buzz.

I have just come across Nils Seifert’s work, a student of architecture at the technical university in Munich. Watch the movies below as they are quite beautiful. Particles, surfaces, solids, structure, are all included.

Website is on it’s way but in the meantime you can find more on his vimeo account.

Made using Processing.