The life of clothing

Artist Zoe Leonard

Within the city a number of environmental, economical, cultural flows move in and out and around. From water to the water shed, to immigration and GDP. Artist/photographer Zoe Leonard documented the life chain of clothing. The simple item, created for the material culture of America...doesn't begin here or end here. Her work almost could act as a photographic mapping of clothing.

"The project then expanded in scope as Leonard concentrated on tracing the circulation of everyday commodities, particularly secondhand clothing, as they were sold and resold in far-flung destinations. The final compilation includes images captured in Mexico City, Mexico; Kampala, Uganda; and Warsaw, Poland."
Dia Art

"...While exploring the neighborhood, she became intrigued with clothing resellers who purchased garments from thrift stores, sorted them by type and quality, and then packed them in large bales for export to Asia and Africa. In 2004, she traveled to Uganda to see how these items were distributed to their end users. Leonard also visited markets in Poland and Cuba, constructing a meandering travelogue that links images of mom-and-pop shops in New York with shots of jackets, pants and Nike T-shirts in African market stalls. A visual diary illustrating the flows of international commerce, the images also explore how objects are reassessed and reused in different contexts, raising questions of relative worth and the affluence and poverty that influence it..."
Time Out New York

Anamorphosis Mapping: Maps in Time

Map of Europe based on rail travel distance in time.
Spiekermann, K. and M. Wegener. 1996.

















Tube Map based on time

other maps:
World Mapper

The HD Social Media Wedding

Nothing is better than hearing from an old friend getting married, than learning they plan on doing a Social Media Wedding. I wouldn't expect anything less for Hillary and Dan (the HD). Hillary is an incredible designer, mother of two, cancer survivor, and is rethinking "wedding" for the 21st century.

The Process:

"I posted a Craig's List Quandry asking people with apartments, condos, or business buildings downtown if we could rent their rooftop for a wedding. I emailed friends and family. I IMed my friends. I posted the link on Facebook. I started getting responses! After a few leads that didn’t pan out, I got a link to an article in the Kansas City Star from a friend on Twitter about a community park being built on the roof of the parking garage next to the new Cosentino’s Market downtown."

"I called the journalist who wrote the article and the Marketing Director for Cordish who manages the park. And then I realized what I was doing. I was using my mad social networking skills to plan my wedding my way with help from some very nice people on the Interwebs. So this blog is all about how Dan and I are bucking the system to make this occasion our very own, using help from our friends, family, and online community...."

Communication plays a much bigger role. The process becomes transparent with participants (wedding guests) supporting the newly weds with more than new blenders and coffee pots. The process is open, allowing for evolution, flexibility and great ideas.

The site:

No better place for a Social Media Wedding than on a rooftop in downtown Kansas City. A newly developed city park is about to be completed on top of a downtown parking garage.

“...We could have had parking on the roof,” Stephens said. “We saw this not just as a public area but an environmental piece to the development. When you have all this dense development that draws millions of people, you need some private, quiet space, too...”

"...The park features a half-acre of turf. Another half-acre is made up of environmentally friendly sedum plants. There are benches and trees along two sides, and additional landscaping is in the works..."

The event:

Hillary explains in the blog: "I want to have an upload station for people to upload their pics/video on the spot..." and asks her social network on ways to make it all happen.

"...Also, I want a photobooth-type situation, with a really cool vintage couch and props for people to experiment with in taking their pictures..." ask and you shall receive - create your own reality (thru virtual interface) ?

I will be shadowing and helping in anyway I can in this event and post updates on the process here.

1. What is the greater impact of utilizing social media in the creation of an event? The extent of information is more vast and more accessible. The network of people, ideas and resources is also greatly expanded offering a greater adapability to success.

2. Multi-programmatic actions can become less bounded. Site offers new opportunities: guest view and entertainment is provided by Kansas City and the annual fireworks display scheduled for that night. Parking is a no brainer, and ADA accessibilty via elevator and ramps is in place.

3. How can the event itself take on the elements of the site? Food: what opportunities are within reach? community gardens, local produce/chefs? What other opportunites can the site lend? access to live music? bands...music.

4. Decorations: can the wedding party bring and plant flowers for the occasion...at once adding value to the event, while investing in the space when they are gone the next day?

Twittering Celebrities Take Fans Backstage in Their Lives

EXYZT Presents Situation Room

Storefront for Art and Architecture
EXYZT presents Situation Room
Feb 20 2009 - Mar 31 2009

" The architecture .../... will be a means of modifying present conceptions of time and space... It will be a means of knowledge and a means of actions."
Gilles Ivain alias Ivan Chtcheglov, 1958

We will act to defend architecture that is plural, used, complex, diverse, real and alive; architecture that is about action and interaction, formation and deformation, transormation and appropriation.

Situation Room as playground for [re] creation, collective action, active occupation, open demonstration, and social games will be intuitive, interactive and collective performance, showing an everyday life tools and knowledge Directory. For architecture of process, of fabrication, reaction and interaction, members of Exyzt will inhabit the gallery space, making use of the furnishings as though it were a domestic space.

More than showing past projects, we choose to set up a platform for creation and solidarity inviting people to transform the classic use of the gallery, to experiment diversity of programs and activities with basic cheap materials as moving boxes activated with the Storefront staff.

We propose a platform for action, defending an architecture that is alive. EXYZT shakes up the idea of architecture as an independent field. Working on experimental projects, EXYZT invites architecture, video, graphic-design, botany and any other concept to become devices of expression and creation.

Like a series of disparate notes, ready-to-assemble elements will be put together in situ to create this modular, domestic place, rapidly assembled viral constructions that can be implemented to create and augment a social space. Little by little, each limb of this strange apartment will grow new functions, allowing its users to do more and more things, to occupy and work in its ever-changing space. After the basic living space has been assembled an essential urban infrastructure will be added: water, electricity, radio, TV, Internet, etc... Once complete, a vast variety of individual modules will occupy the gallery space to be used for a moment, a day, or a whole night. Lightness, speed and flexibility will be essential ingredients of the Set-up.

The collective carries out temporary setups. Each project is in line with precise and determined time and special frame. The units can be shaped and rearranged to become a living and sitting space, a workspace equipped with a desk, computers and tools, or a dining room, among other forms. From week to week the space will evolve, taking on different ephemeral forms and functions with the public. The situation becomes the physical medium through which a creative and collective game is expressed. The series of projects questions the relationship between public and private and encourages the audience to move from being a spectator to be an actor too.

Exyzt invites the audience to reconsider occupied areas in a well-defined time-frame. The collective conceive and organize each project as a ludic playground where cultural behaviours and shared stories relate, mix and mingle.

Created in 2003 on the initiative of five architects, they produced and organized a first self-construction and self-documented project on a abandoned plot of land in Parc de la Villette, in Paris. By opening up to various fields, the collective group attempts to render architecture into a different perspective.

Our team is now a community of people who have chosen to act under the same principle of sharing knowledge and abilities, imagining the environment as the terrain of a participatory game, a site for play and appropriation, creating 'transient micro ambiances' as Guy Debord described the constucted situation.

Construction will constitute the first movement. Act!

Text by Philippe Rizzotti & Dimitri Messu

Chicago's New Loops of Security

Chicago Links Street Cameras to Its 911 Network
By Karen Ann Cullotta

“We can now immediately take a look at the crime scene if the 911 caller is in a location within 150 feet of one of our surveillance cameras, even before the first responders arrive,” Mr. Orozco said...

“...In America, we protest the use of cameras for things like enforcing laws that reduce crime or traffic accidents, but we probably ought to do more,” Mr. Alschuler said.

He added: “My more serious concern would be if they start using new audio technologies, which can be calibrated to alert police to loud noises, like a scream or a car crash. What worries me is if police can use technology to listen to anyone who happens to be talking in a public location, which would raise serious privacy concerns...”

Cellphones...Navigating Our Lives

Article and Image

“The map underlies man’s ability to perceive,” said Richard Saul Wurman, a graphic designer who was a pioneer in the use of maps as a generalized way to search for information of all kinds before the emergence of the online world.

As this metaphor takes over, it will change the way we behave, the way we think and the way we find our way around new neighborhoods. As researchers and businesses learn how to use all the information about a user’s location that phones can provide, new privacy issues will emerge. You may use your phone to find friends and restaurants, but somebody else may be using your phone to find you and find out about you..."

"...Indeed, a new generation of smartphones like the G1, with Android software developed by Google, and a range of Japanese phones now “augment” reality by painting a map over a phone-screen image of the user’s surroundings produced by the phone’s camera.

With this sort of map it is possible to see a three-dimensional view of one’s surroundings, including the annotated distance to objects that may be obscured by buildings in the foreground. For starters, map-based cellphones simply translate paper maps into a digital medium, but future systems will probably begin to blur the boundaries between the display and the real world..."

Electric Cars = Electric Resiliency

Seeking greater electric and transportation resiliency.

"And in a true smart grid, electric cars will not only be able to draw on electricity to run their motors, they will also be able to do the reverse: send electricity stored in their batteries back into the grid when it is needed. In effect, cars would be acting like tiny power stations.

“Most days, most cars are going to have lots of extra battery capacity,” said Mr. Kempton, noting that on average, American automobiles get driven for just one hour each day. Electrifying the entire vehicle fleet would provide more than three times the U.S.’s power generation, he said."

NYTimes Article
Electric Cars and a Smarter Grid

Gated Internet Communities?

photo and related NYTimes article

“If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships streaming toward us on the horizon,” Rick Wesson, the chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer consulting firm, said recently."

The internet is under attack. The existing structure of the internet has security gaps, allowing hackers to infiltrate corporate and military data...causing much fear. So the debate ranges now in creating a new internet, one with stricter identification measures and security blocks.

"What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a “gated community” where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there."

"The idea is to build a new Internet with improved security and the capabilities to support a new generation of not-yet-invented Internet applications, as well as to do some things the current Internet does poorly — such as supporting mobile users."

Or does the strategy look not at recreating the web, but instead rethinking the structure and gradually creating new interventions...

"That has not discouraged the Stanford engineers who say they are on a mission to “reinvent the Internet.” They argue that their new strategy is intended to allow new ideas to emerge in an evolutionary fashion, making it possible to move data traffic seamlessly to a new networking world. Like the existing Internet, the new network will almost certainly have no one central point of control and no one organization will run it. It is most likely to emerge as new hardware and software are built in to the router computers that run today’s network and are adopted as Internet standards."

How does the structure of our information relate to the physical built environments. Are the gated communities of suburbia, the super surveillant cities of post 9/11 the future of our communication networks?

"A more secure network is one that would almost certainly offer less anonymity and privacy. That is likely to be the great tradeoff for the designers of the next Internet. One idea, for example, would be to require the equivalent of drivers’ licenses to permit someone to connect to a public computer network. But that runs against the deeply held libertarian ethos of the Internet."

“As soon as you start dealing with the public Internet, the whole notion of trust becomes a quagmire,” said Stefan Savage, an expert on computer security at the University of California, San Diego."

Dubai Slow Down

With the global economy slowing things down, what will come of Dubai? Will it be merely a 21st century urban glitch? Will it evolve to accept the slower economy? What sort of resiliency does a place like Dubai have?

"With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield."

"Last month, local newspapers reported that Dubai was canceling 1,500 work visas every day, citing unnamed government officials. Asked about the number, Humaid bin Dimas, a spokesman for Dubai’s Labor Ministry, said he would not confirm or deny it and refused to comment further. Some say the true figure is much higher."

full article

United Arab Emirates Aid Debt-Ridden Member, Dubai

The Green Zone

The New Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq.

from The Guardian:

"The US military released the first tentative artists' impression yesterday. An army source said the barbed wire, concrete blast barriers and checkpoints that currently disfigure the 5 sq mile area would be replaced by shopping malls, hotels, elegant apartment blocks and leisure parks."

"American officials stress that final decisions about reconstruction and development rest with the Iraqi government. Karnowski added that as well as the benefits of renovating and demilitarising an important area of Baghdad, the blueprint would help to create a "zone of influence" around the massive new US Embassy compound being built on the eastern tip of the Green Zone. The $1bn project to move the embassy from Saddam's old presidential palace is planned for completion later this year."

Sandbag housing

MMA Architects and new housing strategies using sand filled bags, stacked...
related articles:
Treehugger
Dezeen

bigger citys, bigger forests

New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Rain Forests
New York Times Article by Elisabeth Rosenthal

With over half of the world's population now living in cities, will the jungles be saved?
This interesting article discusses the issue of how farmers are leaving their deforested agricultural plots and heading to the cities, allowing the jungles to return.

Rosenthal states: "By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster."

Google's Power Meter

Kicking the smart grid into motion perhaps is the doing of Google, which introduced new software service online that helps homeowners track their energy use. This requires additional hardware that would plug into your main circuit breaker and would "talk" with your computer, downloading your energy patterns. The Google platform would then map it, graphically showing your energy use...thus prompting many to limit and adjust their use...saving money and surges on our energy grid. Google foresees implementing this into a social network interface...your daily energy use on facebook anyone?


related articles:
New York Times
Bits

McDonalds CycleCenter

Privately owned public resource: McDonalds Cycle Center located in Chicago's Millennium Park. its a heated and air conditioned indoor bicycle parking facility built by the city of Chicago and now sponsored by McDonalds. In addition, the station provides space for a Chicago Police Department Bike Patrol Group.

McDonald's Cycle Center offers the following services:

• Secure Bicycle Parking: The Cycle Center offers 300 secure bicycle parking spaces.
• Lockers, Showers and Towel Service: To make your bicycle commute comfortable we provide lockers and showers (for Members only) so you may refresh before you go to work.
• Bicycle Rental: Bikes are available for rent by the hour, day, or week.
• Bicycle Repair Shop: Professional bicycle mechanics are available full time at the bicycle station during the summer from 10am to 6pm and part time during the winter.
• Guided Bicycle Tours: Memorial Day to Labor Day, guided bicycle tours are offered daily at 10am and 1pm.
• IGO Car Sharing : IGO cars are available for rent from Millennium Park. IGO is a not-for-profit car sharing program developed by the Center.
  

from website

from a treehugger blog post:

"I have a membership at the bike station and find it very convenient - it's clean and only 4 blocks from my office, which is closer than any gym. It's not fancy, but it doesn't need to be - and it's used almost exclusively by commuters, not tourists. I don't mind the McDonald's name if it saves taxpayer money - besides, anyone who's traveled much knows that the bathrooms at McDonald's are always the cleanest."

Also see:
Millennium Park
Wikipedia

Mapping Prop 8

Through the internet our actions are becoming increasingly exposed and now our attitudes toward social issues can be to. This new Prop 8 Map takes publicly available data of people who financially supported California's Prop 8 measure and maps them into a google map mesh up.

Donor information is accessible by clicking on the red markers. Results have included hate mail, calls and boycotting.













related article: New York Times

Virtual Deputies

Virtual Deputies is a new private/public program through the The Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition and BlueServo. In the past several months a network of surveillance cameras have been set up along the Texas/Mexico border. Now in the comfort of your own home, people can log in to the site and partake in the act of spotting illegal aliens with real surveillance video. Operating 24/7, the greater public can now survey and report directly to the Coalition any suspecious activies.

Groups can also form to turn the cameras on their own communities with the local Virtual Neighborhood Watches...

Sustainable Cities

also see eco-countries

Perhaps during a recession, as things slow down a bit, is the best time to reflect on the Eco-Cities and Resorts (whats the difference these days?). Below are the latest ones I have found:
















Monterrey Bay Shores, California
from Inhabitat: (http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/02/04/monterey-bay-shores-eco-resort/)

The site for the Monterey Bay Shores eco-resort is situated on a defunct sand mine, which had been operating for over 60 years. The sand mine considerably damaged the natural ecosystem, stripping away important topsoil layers and allowing invasive species to infiltrate the area. As part of the resort development, MBS will also restore 85% of the 29 acre site to native flora and fauna. Over 6.7 acres will be dedicated as an endangered species habitat and restored coastline. Additionally, 5 acres will be built as a living roof, leaving only 4% of the site as impervious surface, which is great. All parking is below ground, and even the fire lanes will be constructed from a grass paver, rather than asphalt.















Masdar: Abu Dhabi
from website:
"Welcome to Masdar City - the world's first carbon-neutral, zero-waste city. Currently under construction in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Masdar City will feature all of the modern conveniences, services and benefits of living in one of the great cities of the world, but in a carbon-neutral environment.

Masdar City, soon to become home to 40,000 residents and 50,000 daily commuters, is being built around pedestrians, where open public squares intersect with narrow shaded walkways and connect to homes, schools, restaurants, theatres and shops. The architecture of the city is inspired by the traditional medinas, souks and wind towers of the Arab world

The City is a free zone clean-tech cluster. Academics, researchers, students, entrepreneurs and financers and more than 1,500 visionary companies will have offices, research centers and operations within city walls, benefiting from 100% foreign ownership, zero taxes, zero import tariffs, zero restrictions on capital movement and among the strongest intellectual property protection in the region.

Masdar City is more than a concept - it is happening. Phase One of Masdar City has now begun - The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology is underway and Masdar City will be home to 100 students and faculty by fall 2009.

Dongtan, China
from website: Dongtan will produce its own energy from wind, solar, bio-fuel and recycled city waste. Clean technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells will power public transport. A network of cycle and footpaths will help the city achieve close to zero vehicle emissions. Farmland within the Dongtan site will use organic farming methods to grow food.

Dongtan will be a vibrant city with green ‘corridors’ of public space ensuring a high quality of life for residents. The city is designed to attract employment across all social and economic demographics in the hope that people will choose to live and work there.

Dongtan demonstrates to the world China’s ability to work closely with the environment and has provided a methodology for sustainable communities across China and beyond.

Logrono Montecorvo Eco City, Rioja, Spain
from website: The long, snaking line of interconnected buildings will feature volumes of different heights, skins and window arrangements. But each unit will have an identical or virtually identical layout.

To take housing blocks as an example, a ten-storey northern unit will include three storeys of underground parking, a ground floor for the public and six storeys of apartments. To the south of that, another building will provide one storey of underground parking and three storeys of housing. Bridges will connect the northern and southern buildings. The same layout applies when the buildings serve other functions.

Each unit will have a view to the south, enabling residents to see Logroño and other parts of La Rioja. Given the steepness of the hill, the southern buildings will not block views from the northern buildings.

At its highest point, a funicular will terminate at a museum and viewing point hidden in a research and promotion centre for renewable and energy-efficient technology. This centre will be hidden in the top of one hill. It is unclear how far down the hill the funicular will go, or how many funiculars will serve the city.

Carbon Neutral Zira Island, Azerbaijan
from website: "Zira Island is a 1,000,000 sq meter island In the Caspian Sea that will soon be developed into an incredible eco-community and sustainably built resort. Master-planned by Denmark-based Big Architects, the carbon-neutral eco-island is based on the seven peaks of Azerbaijan and its mountainous ecosystems. Located in the bay of the capital city Baku, Zira Island is a ferry ride away from a growing metropolis and will stand as an example to a region so dependent on oil, that it is possible to live off the wind and sun."
















Green City/Green Mountain, Libya
from article:

The declaration basically says everything the world would want to hear: sustainable development; archaeological conservation; eco-tourism; renewable energy; environmentally responsible town planning; micro-banking; education; biofuels; even production of "the finest quality organic food and drink". In essence, it was a declaration that Libya are now more interested in saving the planet than bankrolling terrorists, and that one day soon the Green Mountain region would be a very nice place to come on holiday - a sort of cross between St Tropez, the garden of Eden, and Waitrose.

To achieve these daunting ambitions, Saif al-Islam has created the Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority, a curious coalition of international experts in green technology, conservation, agriculture, architecture and whatever else, with responsibility for a 5,500 sq km area littered with Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins and with 220km of largely unspoilt coast. And leading the whole plan is Britain's ubiquitous architectural troubleshooter, Norman Foster.