Wheeels

Interview with Wheeels creaters, David Mahfouda and Alex Pasternack.

"Transit, and the hard infrastructure that undergirds it, is a system that could obviously benefit from greater efficiency and less waste. But it was the less tangible infrastructure of the Internet that led to her eureka moment, ten years ago: “This is what the Internet was made for, sharing a scare resource among many people.”...

Toy... - Land

http://www.toyotawhynot.com/#/home

(Built) Environment and Landscape used as representation of values, image and business strategy.

I love how they say it all begins with you.

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

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

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...

our concrete grid

Image and Article taken from Inhabitat - http://www.inhabitat.com

Anyone who’s taken a barefooted tryst across a paved parking lot knows that blacktop can reach sweltering temperatures when exposed to the summer sun. Now researchers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute have found a way to use to employ the heat-soaking properties of asphalt as an energy source by inserting heat exchangers a few centimeters below its surface. The development may pave the way for an inexpensive source for electricity and hot water that re-imagines our existing auto infrastructure as a massive conduit for solar-thermal energy.

URL to article: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/18/unlocking-thermal-energy-stored-in-asphalt/

Go Loco

"...turn your social networks into travel networks." (www.goloco.org)
The more transparent we make our everyday lives the more we are able to actually come together. Since our urban scale prevents us to "gather" and "relate" with neighbors, we have the internet, with the "social networks" that have "virtually" brought people together. Now comes GoLoco, that operates much like a social network, communicating to friends, offices, churches, or the greater public, opportunities to meet up and share expenses.

This becomes even more transparent with new personal devices with GPS, such as the iphone, where one can see at a glance where others are.

It seems while our physical network of community degrades, the virtual one strengthens.
What impact will this have on our cities?

...or are we already seeing it...

they are becoming theme parks, movie sets and un-real spaces....or simply abandoned.