Archiculture

We donated $250 to this brilliant cause… but it also guarantees we can grab Cameron Sinclair for a few minutes if funded. We’ve been trying to nail him down for an interview for months now but he may be even be harder to catch up with than Obama. Here’s hoping he will do an interview for Archiculture while he is in New York in a couple weeks.

via: Discovery News - Janus Patrols Saturn’s Rings

via: Discovery News - A Traffic Cop For Satellites

Stumbling around today on the internets and found some beautiful imagery of our solar system. Thought I would share them on this Tuesday morning to help inspire everyone after the long holiday weekend.

We interviewed Earthship Biotecture founder, Mike Reynolds aka The Garbage Warrior for the film back in March and have watched as he along with his dedicated team continue their amazing post-disaster work around the globe. Here is a recent email I received from the fine folks over at Earthship Biotecture about their work in Haiti:

“Earthship Team produces earthquake-resistant structure made from tires and bottles in Port Au Prince, Haiti in 4 and a half days.

Earthship Biotecture of Taos, NM completed a Tsunami Relief project in the Andaman Islands in 2005.
Now we are working in Port au Prince, Haiti to teach the local people displaced by the earthquake how to build self-sufficient, earthquake-resistant structures made from recycled materials and from rubble created by the earthquake. (See photos above.) These homes collect their own water, treat their own sewage, maintain a comfortable temperature without air conditioning and produce their own electric power.”

Some visual stimulation for your Monday afternoon.

Thanks for the tip Orbi.

Click and zoom into each Borough for finer details:

Slowly but steadily this city is learning to return to its water. We have such a long way to go especially in contrast to my former home of San Francisco. Enjoy clicking around the waterfronts of NYC.

Thanks for the tip David.

via: good.is

This is for that 50% of architects who don’t completely believe Global Warming is a critical component to the future of the planet and the future of the profession. See stats below from an article in October 2009, Architect Magazine:

Over the summer, 960 readers of Architect participated in a survey about their green beliefs. In it, we asked participants to select from four statements the one that best characterizes their attitude toward sustainability. Fewer than half (46.4 percent) chose the statement, “It’s vital that we design and build sustainably, in order to conserve scarce resources and prevent further global warming.”

One group (12.8 percent) dismissed the issue outright: “Global warming is a myth perpetuated by the media, and green building is a fad—it’ll be forgotten in 20 years’ time.” Yikes. Others (6.7 percent) doubted that green-building efforts in America could offset the damage caused by industrialization in China and India.

The largest (and to me, most interesting) group of naysayers (34.1 percent) fell somewhere in the middle, subscribing to the following statement: “I’m not sure that global warming is caused by man, but energy conservation makes economic sense if we’ll be less dependent on other countries’ oil.”
- Ned Cramer, Architect Magazine

via: beta news (image from here)

When this baby dropped we were extremely excited about the amazing potential for a new way to work with our team members. But like their sites and countless other attempts by Google, the Wave has fallen flat on its face. I applaud Google’s ability to continue to push and evolve our means of communication and access to information. If only architecture and our built environment had a sliver of their vision then maybe we wouldn’t have such a monotonous day to day spatial experience.

Recently came upon Joachim’s work on Popsci which we posted last week under “This Is Already Possible, Sci-Fi Architecture.” Very intriguing thought process between the marriage of Biology and Architecture rather than the standard greening of what is already bad mentality currently the rage in the profession. Seems like he could offer a very interesting perspective compared to those of William McDonough and Michael Reynolds for our sustainability sub-plot in the film… maybe an interview is in line.

via: Discovery News

TanDEM-X is scheduled to meet up in orbit with its larger “twin” satellite TerraSAR-X and fly in a tight helix around it. As the two image the same section of Earth from slightly different angles, they will produce the first high-resolution 3-D pictures of the planet’s surface. The first such images are expected in January.

New maps generated this way will allow military jets to fly extremely low to the ground. Images will also be useful to disaster response, allowing workers to quickly determine which part of a region has been hit hardest by an earthquake or flood.

Of course this was developed first for military use. What happened to our investment in innovation that it only occurs for destruction?

Another ridiculously beautiful information graphic from the folks over at Good’s Transparency series. Click on the image for the interactive version.