Posts filed under 'Inflatable'
More inflatable wonders to behold. Pneumatic Parliament by Peter Sloterdijk and Gesa Mueller von der Hagen , still at conceptual stage, a political piece of inflatable architecture where a lightweight transportable dome could be quickly installed to provide a place of government for up to 160 inhabitants. This mocking proposal brings a 'sarcastic thrust to the pretended western democracies' supremacy, and to their claim of exporting their own model to other states' of the world. Check out the Storyboard .
via wmmna via neural
February 17th, 2006
In the course of my research into making lighter-than-air interactive architecture I keep finding remarkable new applications for Dirigible technology. See the Space Lift and the Flying Radio Towers so while it may not be specifically interactive architecture, I thought I’d share these fascinating new approaches to sustainable power generation.
Wind turbines are constantly getting taller because everyone knows the higher you get off the ground, the better the wind speeds. But building big towers is expensive, especially if you want one 15,000 feet tall. So why not ditch the tower and make the windmill fly?
“Sky Windpower”
Several people are trying to do that. They’ve been written about before by others, but we’ve yet to tackle them, so here’s a little round-up of the three most notable projects: Sky Windpower, Laddermill, and Magenn. Each is a bit sketchy, but deserves to be given a shot. It seems obvious that once someone creates a workable system, it will become a huge winner, because of the sheer amount of power available up high: 1% of the jetstream’s wind power could supply all US electrical demand. Also, one of the main complaints about wind power is its intermittency–the wind doesn’t blow all the time, and so (according to Sky Windpower), most wind farms are only operating at their peak capacity 19-35% of the time. The wind is much steadier at altitude, so you get even more advantage over ground-based wind power. A final advantage is ad-hoc generation: devices with a reasonably simple tether-system do not have to be permanently installed in one place, they could be trucked out to any location that needed them.
Sky Windpower is the furthest along, with functional prototypes tested in the field. According to their figures, one flying windmill rated at 240kW with rotor diameters of 35 feet could generate power for less than two cents per kilowatt hour–that would make them the cheapest power source in the world. The flying windmills would initially get in position under their own power, using their motors to drive the propeller blades and helicopter upwards until they reached altitude. Then the motors would turn off and become generators as wind pushes the propeller blades, and the whirligig would float instead of fall because when tethered, the lift generated by the wind would overcome the craft’s weight as it also generates power.
Magenn
Magenn is a more modest design, which makes it more feasible. The inventor is Fred Ferguson, a Canadian engineer specializing in airships. He envisions a range of devices from the household scale. Magenn’s design is radically different from other windmills on the market–it would not use propeller blades. Instead, it would be a helium blimp, with Savonius-style scoops causing it to rotate around motors at the attachment-points to its tether. The blimp-like design has several advantages: its Savonius scoop design lets it operate in winds as low as 2 mph; it is safer in a crash, because it would fall slowly and be mostly made of flexible material; it is safer for airplanes, because it sits below legally usable airspace; it is safer for birds, because the moving parts are visible and travel with the wind. The critic’s valid point is that the devices are currently vaporware, with not even a working prototype built yet. Despite this, Magenn has a distribution partner lined up, once they do get into production. It looks like the power-blimps would be mechanically simple and easy to build, so I would give them good odds of pulling it off by the end of the year, as promised. But it will no doubt take a few years before their invention is optimized and debugged.
Magenn Details
Laddermill was a research project at TU Delft in the Netherlands. They imagined a series of kites strung together by cables into a loop hundreds of meters–possibly even a few kilometers–high. The kites would be computer-controlled to change their attitude and generate more lift from the wind on one side of the loop than the other. This would cause the entire loop to rotate, and its rotation would push a generator down on the ground to create electricity.
It sounds ludicrous, but the folks at TU Delft are smart, and we need to seriously investigate more out-of-the-box approaches. In some ways, this design is simpler than Magenn or Sky Windpower because it does not have to have the power-generation equipment aloft, and does not require a power-carrying tether, just a mechanical one. The elimination of power-generation hardware from the flying parts of the device also means that it should be safer, because the bits that can crash are small and light. I havent been able to find any information however on its development in the last 2 years so I’m unsure if its still being investigated.
Concept Videos & Images of Laddermill
via world changing
February 9th, 2006
As you may have seen there’s a tutorials page attached to the blog which I’ve had online as long as the blog has been running. I’ve been meaning to build up a tutorials section of links to other websites and books about physical computing, hacking appropriated technology etc but just haven’t got around to doing so. Its mainly aimed at students interested in interactive installations and devices of any kind for the time being. I get quite a few emails from architecture, design and art students asking about learning how to use basic electronics and programming etc so I’ve added a few essential links in the last couple of days but would really like to make it a more comprehensive resource. Have you got any suggestions? I will of course credit those who pass on their suggestions so please leave your name and website if you’ve got one.
Thanks so much and hopefully I may see some of you at transmediale in Berlin which is where I’m off on a holiday for a week starting tomorrow. Hurrah!
image from the excellent ‘low-tech sensors and actuators project’ by Usman Haque and Adam Somlai-Fischer
February 2nd, 2006
Video one of Theo’s Creatures Walking
Theo Jansen spoke at the Bartlett School of Architecture last week leaving his audience of students and professors all gasping for air with excitement, full of new ideas about the potential of even the simplest of objects when passionately investigated. I had my tongue hanging out of my mouth dreaming up new projects for my interactive architecture research.
Theo is a rare breed of passionate technologist who understands not just the potential of digital technology but the potential of even the seemingly mundane materials we all take for granted. I’m also excited to hear that he will be building one of these incredible creatures in Trafalgar Square, London with its very own sand pit.
For well over a decade Theo Jansen has rigorously experimented ‘with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature.’ He talked about how protein acts as the key element in the structure and functioning of all living cells and that he wanted to use his own protein (plastic tubes) to act as the building block for his very own creations.
Starting out initially on his Atari STe, he programmed evolving species that tested how to build walking legs from 7 varying lengths and through natural selection was able to find quite accurate measurements of the perfect ratio of configuration.
The next stage in the evolution of these creature’s mechanics was to build prototypes using just the plastic tubes and test them in real world environments. Many years later he has created fantastic walking creatures that have evolved in complexity but still using this simple building block.
Video of Animaris Geneticus
Video of Animaris Currens Ventosa waving
Further developments have used wind energy to transfer energy into the creatures giving them the ability to walk up and down the beach he tests them out on. He then began giving them the ability to pick up sand and water so that they could tell if they were about to walk off into the sea or get stuck in the dryer sand higher up the beach. His creations are now able to make decisions on their environment and avoid hazardous environments much like evolving species learn to do.
natural selection hasn’t favored this species
He has started using more advanced air systems which he hopes the creatures will be able to use to collect air themselves and compress it to power pressurized pneumatic devices. What’s most exciting is that he has devised a system of valves that act as yes/no logic gates for the pressurized air which could eventually be built up to process simple logic and develop a primitive form of intelligence. In all seriousness he suggested that eventually he wants these creatures to be able to think for themselves and reproduce.
Some might assume that these ideas are verging on the side of crazy but what I love is his passion for dreaming the impossible and seemingly managing to progress towards it with every new mutation in his species development.
A Render of one of his future visions
I will bring the dates of his creatures appearing in Trafalgar Square to you as soon as I find out.
Theo’s Website
January 24th, 2006
Firstly HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I’ve mentioned Festo a couple of times over the past few months because they are producing great new dynamic materials and components which can be applied to interactive architecture like the work the Hyperbody Research Group are doing at Delft. I’ve also been doing a considerable amount of research into inflatable interactive architecture for a piece I’ll be revealing soon so when I saw this lovely piece of trickery I knew I had to post it.
Built by manufacturing company Cameron Balloons the upside-down balloon appears at first glance to be standing on its head. In actual fact, there is a concealed cabin on the underside and a further dummy cabin on the top. Festo’s two hot-air balloons are often seen together. The reason is simple: As the upside-down balloon rises into the sky, it requires guidance. Its unusual design, with its integrated cabin beneath its skirt (or lower envelope), obscures the pilot’s vision, meaning that he is required to fly the balloon blind. He therefore needs directions from the accompanying balloon, particularly during the tricky landing phase.
Article by Wired on Festo
The two balloons side by side also of course help to exaggerate the spectacle. Using ‘invisible technology’ Interactive Architecture can often employ these ideas of Illusion or Magic to make the mundane seem extraordinary, I speak briefly in a recent interview with the HMC MediaLab on this idea of Magic “when it’s impossible to work out exactly how something is happening, that’s where the magic comes in, that’s when the a project really ignites an exciting response.” Read the Full Interview here.
January 1st, 2006
Chill out zones are enjoying something of a revival at the moment, along with all architectural things one vaguely associates with the 1960′s. so it comes as no surprise to find “luminarium” by the outfit collectively know as Architects of Air which have most recently been showing their piece “Levity 2″ in Geneva.
Here’s their sixth “luminarium” project. Exhibited a few years ago heart of the Edinburgh Festival. 128ft long by 107ft wide, rising to 26ft at its highest point, its glowing interior colours generated by nothing more complicated than daylight – is called Arcazzar, and the name is apt. The structures designed and made by the Nottingham and Geneva based artist Alan Parkinson, is not a single inflatable building, but a linked series of fantastically shaped domes and towers. It is a kasbah that takes Morrish architecture as its starting point and then, as Gaudi did in Barcelona a century or more ago, turns into something highly organic and distinctly ambivalent. Not that Gaudi would have recognised it.
There is no mystery to the technology of such luminaria – they share that with the ubiquitous bouncy castle and a number of inflatable sports halls around the country. All you need to keep them going are electric fans, and not very big ones, either. But what Parkinson has done, ever since he started experimenting with these forms in the 1980s and went on the road with them a decade ago, is treat the inflated object as an immersive art experience, in which light, sound and architectural form combine.
I’m interested in the idea of inflatable interactive architecture at the moment and LTR (Lighter than Air) engineering like helium balloons. Expect my own interactive inflatables here soon.
December 4th, 2005
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