Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands is a collection of provocative projects from a young generation of digitally enabled designers. This publication oscillates between the analog and the digital, from concept to realisation, mapping processes as it explores the diverse digital paths that lead innovative spaces, poetic narratives and social interactions.
sixteen* (makers), 55/02 Shelter, Kielder Forest, UK
The book covers a spectrum of London’s leading graduates and young practices, featuring projects from the Architectural Association, Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), University of Westminster and Royal College of Art, and case studies and interviews with architects including Amanda Levete Architects, Plasma Studio, JDS Architects, sixteen* (makers), Horhizon, marcosandmarjan, Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Philip Beesley, David Greene, Samantha Hardingham, Usman Haque and Neil Spiller.
Tarek Shamma, “Circus Lumens”
I’m pleased to announce that “Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands” is now available. Co-Authored by myself (Ruairi Glynn) and Sara Shafiei it has been a real pleasure to put together a book that is intended to expand the envelope of what we might conside “Digital” Architecture to be.
Christian Kerrigan, “The 200 Year Continuum”
I would like to thank all of the architects and artists who have contributed their inspiring work and thank our exceptional graphic designer Emily Chicken bringing it all together with such elegance.
David Greene of Archigram and Samantha Hardingham’s recent L.A.W.U.N.* Project
I am also pleased to announce that one of the young graduates featuring in the book Nick Szczepaniak, has just been awarded the RIBA Silver Medal (The highest award in the UK for student design work) and we are thrilled to be the first publication to be presenting his work. More posts will follow presenting some of the other work featuring in the book and a preview of its contents can be seen here.
Living Light by David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang (aka “The Living“) is a permanent outdoor pavilion in the heart of Seoul with a dynamic skin that glows and blinks in response to both data about air quality and public interest in the environment. The skin of the pavilion is a giant map of Seoul with the 27 neighborhood (gu) boundaries redrawn based on existing air quality sensors of the Korean Ministry of Environment—each shape in this new map encloses the air closest to one of the sensors. Then the map illuminates to become an interactive, environmental building facade. Citizens can enter the pavilion or view it from nearby streets and buildings, and they can text message the building and it will text them back.
This structure in a public park not only provides a canopy and a tactile enclosure, it also suggests that a building facade itself can become a new kind of public space. It can offer important real-time information about our shared resources and our collective concerns. The Living are also showing their work at the current Toward the Sentient City exhibition in New York. See previous post for more details.
An exhibition critically exploring the evolving relationship between ubiquitous computing, architecture, and urban space. Curated by Mark Shepard and organized by the Architectural League of New York
As computing leaves the desktop and spills out onto the sidewalks, streets, and public spaces of the world around us, we increasingly find information processing capacity embedded within and distributed throughout the material fabric of everday urban space. Artifacts and systems we interact with on a daily basis collect, store, and process information about us, or are activated by our movements and transactions. Ubiquitous computing evangelists herald a coming age of urban infrastructure capable of sensing and responding to the events and activities transpiring around them. Imbued with the capacity to remember, correlate and anticipate, this near-future “sentient” city is envisioned as being capable of reflexively monitoring its environment and our behavior within it, becoming an active agent in the organization of everyday life in urban public space.
Toward the Sentient City explores alternate trajectories for the design and inhabitation of this near-future urban environment. Organized around five newly commissioned projects distributed throughout the city, the exhibition features: Natural Fuse by Usman Haque, creative director, Nitipak ‘Dot’ Samsen, designer, Ai Hasegawa, designer, Cesar Harada, designer. Barbara Jasinowicz, producer
Too Smart City by JooYoun Paek, David Jimison | Engineers: Daniel Bauen, Aaron Gilbert, Bill Washabaugh Amphibious Architecture by The Living Architecture Lab at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Directors David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang) and xdesign Environmental Health Clinic at New York University (Director Natalie Jeremijenko) Trash Track by SENSEable City Laboratory, MIT | Carlo Ratti: Director, Assaf Biderman: Associate Director, Rex Britter: Advisor, Stephen Miles: Advisor, Kristian Kloeckl Project Leader, Musstanser Tinauli, E Roon Kang, Alan Anderson, Avid Boustani, Natalia Duque Ciceri, Lorenzo Davolli, Samantha Earl, Lewis Girod, Sarabjit Kaur, Armin Linke, Eugenio Morello, Sarah Neilson, Giovanni de Niederhausern, Jill Passano, Renato Rinaldi, Francisca Rojas, Louis Sirota, Malima Wolf Breakout! by Anthony Townsend (Institute for the Future), Georgia Borden, Amanda Kross, Jung Hoon Kim, Antonina Simeti (DEGW), Dana Spiegel (NYCwireless), Laura Forlano (Parsons The New School for Design), Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Sean Savage (PariSoMa), Elysse Preposi (Sarah Lawrence College)
Also see the “Open Archive“, a collection of video documentation of existing projects related to the themes of the exhibition. The Archive is designed to grow over the course of the exhibition based on suggestions and contributions received through an open submission process.
By far one of the most interesting urban screens project I’ve seen to date, Chris O’Shea‘s describes his public art “Hand From Above” as encouraging “us to question our normal routine when we often find ourselves rushing from one destination to another.”
“Inspired by Land of the Giants and Goliath, we are reminded of mythical stories by mischievously unleashing a giant hand from the BBC Big Screen. Passers by will be playfully transformed. What if humans weren’t on top of the food chain? Unsuspecting pedestrians will be tickled, stretched, flicked or removed entirely in real-time by a giant deity.” Hands from Above was built using openFrameworks & openCV.
