Category: design

Not bad, I just received a blog award, the 2010 Top invention blog award!



The list is -> here <-

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

With their boundless curiosity, fertile imagination, and natural mastery of the art of self-directed learning, children have much to teach adults about creativity and innovation. That’s perhaps even more true with today’s “digital natives,” says developmental psychologist Edith Ackermann, whose work explores—and exploits—the intersections of play, learning, design, and technology. An educator and researcher, Ackermann has consulted for LEGO and the LEGO Learning Institute for more than 20 years and worked under the direction of Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist renowned for his studies on children at play, at the Centre International d’Epistémologie Génétique. She has taught at Harvard, MIT, and other universities.

Video

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

I was thinking of Etienne and amazing collections of possibilities with the Editions Volumiques. An inspiring master piece in the arena of interactive art board game, Paradice, designed by artist John O’Neill, strives to teach players to explore the impact of their decision-making.

It is made from dyed sustainable wood and contains a variety of game pieces from trees to forest spirits to human beings. Players must help maintain the balance of the Forest while attempting to gain opportunities for Human Beings, experiencing the delicate struggle of give and take.

Paradice is a world like Earth where human beings live in and depend on the vitality of their forest environment. At different moments in their lives, human beings are driven by different needs. At one time, a human may need to consume and acquire goods. At other times a human may be driven by a need for social connection or the desire to replenish the environment. The circumstances that influence those needs and the resources available in a human’s life are determined by a mix of predictable patterns and random opportunity.

The game is for two players, a “Giver” and a “Taker”. At various times in the game, the players need to switch roles. Pieces consist of 4 types of trees (7 of each), 4 forest spirits, and 4 humans. The main play board is a 6×6 grid. There is a track which runs around the edge so that the whole board is 8×8.

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

I will join the Opera of the Future team the 24, 25, and 26th of September in Monaco!

A bit more on the robot opera…

Death and the Powers, a groundbreaking new opera created by Tod Machover with his Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab, is to receive its world premiere September 24, 2010 at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo.

Tickets can be purchased ->here<-

Prologue (in French):
Obscurité. Les robots roulent, oscillent, and glissent sur la scène en groupe puis se dispersent en différentes unités. Quatre robots émergent et commencent à parler. Dans leur dialogue, les robots essaient de comprendre le sens du mot « mort , » un concept étrange auquel ils sont confrontés dans un drame qui leur reste de leurs créateurs humains. A la fin du prologue, toujours perplexes devant la notion de la mort, les robots entreprennent d’interpréter le drame rituel selon l’ordre des créateurs humains. Le robot leader annonce : « Il est maintenant temps que nous commencions. »

Photo credit: M.I.T. Media Laboratory.

When I die, what remains? What will I leave behind? What can I control? What can I perpetuate?

These are the eternal human questions facing Simon Powers, the protagonist of visionary composer Tod Machover’s new opera Death and the Powers, a full-evening work which premieres September 24, 2010 at l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo. In the opera, Powers, a rich, powerful businessman and inventor, wishes to perpetuate his existence beyond the decay of his physical being.

Reaching the end of his life, Powers uses his vast resources to devise a way to ‘download’ himself into his environment. This transformation turns every object in his surroundings—his books, furniture and walls—into a collective, living version of himself, called The System. His family, friends and business associates are left not only to figure out if The System is, in fact, a true embodiment of Powers, but how to sustain a relationship with him in his new form, and whether to abandon their own organic existence and join him in his world of light, free of death and suffering.

In this cutting-edge work, Machover—called “America’s most wired composer” by the Los Angeles Times—elegantly blends his artistic and technological expertise to create an inventive score filled with arching melodic lines, wry humor, richly nuanced textures and propulsive rhythms. Death and the Powers additionally introduces specially-designed technology – including animated walls, a chorus of robots and a musical chandelier – assuredly launching a new era in opera production and expression.

Death and the Powers’ creative fusion of music and technology could reposition opera as an art form that embraces innovation, says Marc Scorca, president and CEO of Opera America, a nonprofit that serves U.S. opera companies. “I’m always cheering when I see opera once again reasserting itself as the richest tapestry for innovative, live art,” says Scorca.

Death and the Powers sets itself apart from other operas with its groundbreaking performance technologies, developed by Machover’s Opera of the Future Group at the MIT Media Lab. A new technique called Disembodied Performance employs innovative sensors and analysis software to translate baritone James Maddalena’s conscious and unconscious sounds and gestures, enabling the set to ‘come alive’ with Simon’s thoughts, feelings, memories and desires even after his physical body is no longer on stage. In addition, a chorus of “Operabots” narrates and reacts to the story; robotic furniture morphs and moves about on stage; and a musical Chandelier engages in a sensuous duet with Simons’ beloved wife Evvy.

Machover collaborated with a creative team that reads like a who’s who of movers and shakers of American culture. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky wrote the libretto. Director Diane Paulus received a Tony nomination for her recent revival of HAIR on Broadway, and is joined by celebrated choreographer Karole Armitage and production designer Alex McDowell, who is best known as the creative director behind such films as Minority Report and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Death and the Powers’ cast features baritone James Maddalena as Simon Powers; mezzosoprano Patricia Risley as Simon’s third wife, Evvy; soprano Joélle Harvey as Simon’s daughter, Miranda; tenor Hal Cazalet as Simon’s research assistant and adopted son, Nicholas; countertenor Frank Kelley as ‘The United Way’; baritone David Kravitz as ‘The United Nations’; and bass Tom McNichols as ‘The Administration.’

Following its Monaco premiere on September 24-26, 2010, Death and the Powers receives its United States premiere March 18, 2011 with Harvard’s American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) and Opera Boston; and its Midwest premiere April 2, 2011 at Chicago Opera Theater.

Generous support for Death and the Powers has been provided by the Monaco-based Futurum Association.

More info:

Video

Synopsis of Powers (in English)

Synopsis of Powers (in French)

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

PC nostalgia anyone?!

Microsoft has created a new line of closing all soft and cozy, SoftWear. A perfect gift for the holidays! Or you can download the .pdf of your best logos/artwork and DIY!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

New year 2011 resolution: watch TRON, again and again!

I’ve watched TRON: Legacy at an IMAX, and this is the best movie I have seen in years. The French duo Daft Punk made a soundtrack so perfect that it makes you cry as you watch light, motions, decors, crazy ideas combine with the nostalgia of the old computer dream.

Back in time…

… And now … the new trailer. Well I don’t think the new trailer is any good. And also it is a spoiler. So just go see the movie, in a IMAX preferably.

And go see it again and again in 2011!

Happy new year!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

Photo by Recetas Urbanas.

A proposal made to the city of Seville for legislation to assist in the temporary transformation of public and private solares – vacant lots walled off for security – into public spaces for at least six months. Wall rubble is incorporated into the design, and elements of car and pedestrian barriers are used to construct benches, see-saws, swings, and bike racks with readily available plastic materials like concrete. Instruction sheets were produced to allow residents to construct their own furniture.

The project is designed to minimize material movement, cost, and other barriers to change.

Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.



More info

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

Today was my first day at Microsoft. I am officially a researcher in the Applied Sciences Group!

The coolest research group in industry: “The interdisciplinary group focuses on the synergy between optics, electronics and software to create novel human computer interfaces. The ASG mainly supports projects for next generation computing and interface hardware for Mobile, Xbox, and Microsoft Surface. It also works closely with Microsoft Research.”

I had visited Microsoft Research back in February, met fantastic researchers including Paul Dietz (the man behind DiamondTouch, the multi-user touch screen table) and Steven Bathiche (the man behind Mothmobile, a hybrid robot that uses an insect as its control system via a neural electrical interface).

I fell in love with their work, their vibe, their philosophy. I am so fortunate to join this team, and will be updating with cool techy projects very soon!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

Now we are talking!