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20 DEC 09
Divine wind [Inside Story] SAVE
PEOPLE
"At about 3 o’clock in the morning the eye of the cyclone passed over Darwin, bringing an eerie stillness. There was a strange light, a diffuse lightening, like St Elmo’s fire. In the quiet, people could hear injured neighbours screaming. Some houses, more protected than others, had survived the first wind. But everyone knew that this was only a brief lull. When the eye of a cyclone has passed over, the “second wind” comes. It is often more destructive than the first because it comes from the opposite direction, is often stronger, and arrives abruptly. This was the case with Tracy: the first wind had built up over a period of more than an hour, but the second wind arrived like an express train, all the more shocking after the relative silence of the eye. Gusts of well over 200 kilometres an hour filled the air with debris, and blasted already damaged houses apart – in some cases the walls, the collapsed ceilings, every piece of furniture were swept away." AstonishingTAGS
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HBO's The Wire is an urbanistic enquiry too [Y Magazine] SAVE
PEOPLE
"he Wire is one of the most accurate enquiries over an urban environment – if you think at them as a network of exchanges. But it’s more than that, The Wire gives us a map to orientate ourselves in a modern city. And not in a prototype or just a city of the future, but the cities as we already know it: an urban conglomerate of chinese boxes where the money, their movements, their transfers, their rehabilitation from dirty money to clean and disposable money makes everything happen – from the planning of the instruction system to the renovation of urban areas, from transportations to media topics. As a result of all these blind effects, The Wire shows his “omniscient” follower the daily reterritorialization of Baltimore’s “moral” geography."TAGS
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19 DEC 09
What Good is Design Research? [Adam Richardson] SAVE
PEOPLE
"Design research can be, and should be, much more than user research. It should include research into technologies, brands, macro trends, retail settings, competitors and comparatives, and a company’s own IP and capabilities. In my book I refer to this as multi-vector research - where we examine multiple vectors of data types simultaneously, and seek insights by finding the patterns across the vectors, not just within a single vector (e.g. user research). As every design researcher knows, users can be myopic in their expression of needs, and we do everything we can to get at the underlying needs. If we expand our vision to include these other vectors then they can give us a better view into needs and - importantly - opportunities, than going by user needs alone."TAGS
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"This Means Something!" [Fantastic Journal] SAVE
PEOPLE
"The resulting model is an utterly fabulous object, a grotesque assemblage of mud, vegetation, rubble, furniture and bits of string. It is both mimetically accurate (as we and Roy will later find out) and highly expressionistic, as if created by a bizarre hybrid of Robert Smithson, Jessica Stockholder and an acid-crazed model railway enthusiast." Fabulous post on "Close Encounters ..."TAGS
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17 DEC 09
MIT SENSEable City Lab team unveils Copenhagen Wheel [Australian Design Review] SAVE
PEOPLE
"MIT SENSEable City Lab researchers have today unveiled the Copenhagen Wheel at the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference. Researchers describe the wheel as a “new emblem for urban mobility, [transforming] ordinary bicycles into hybrid e-bikes that also function as mobile sensing units”. The hub stores information about the rider and their surroundings, providing real-time feedback via Bluetooth to your phone. The wheel stores information as you cycle, recording road conditions, carbon monoxide levels, noise, temperature and humidity levels, as well as information about your own effort levels. At the same time, it captures the energy produced through cycling and braking, storing it for an energy boost when you need it." Great to see this come to fruition.TAGS
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Bulimba Boathouse [Australian Design Review] SAVE
PEOPLE
"The generosity of this move expressed the sense of community the original garden suburbs aimed for and conjures the impression that the suburb is not as dense as it is. It may seem counter-intuitive, but a key to higher densities lies in understanding the value and function of open space, and the Boathouse offers a spirited precedent for rediscovering the possibilities of garden space in satisfying or diverting our spatial appetites." Interesting discussion. Owen & Vokes are quite brilliant.TAGS
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Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World [The Onion] SAVE
PEOPLE
"Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth."TAGS
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16 DEC 09
How the gates were closed on the jet-set era [Times Online] SAVE
"If strikes go ahead Terminal 5 will become the setting of recriminations and conflict, rather than an impressive monument to a future that was a long time coming and which may now have passed. Like all city gates, it is as much memorial as entrance. With the prospect of no one going anywhere, its confidence and ambition are mocking. Elsewhere, airport values are less troubled and equivocal. Seoul’s Incheon is spectacular evidence of uninhibited futurism. At Osaka in Japan, Renzo Piano has created the artificial island of Kansai. Foster’s Beijing boggles. Copenhagen’s Castrup shows how calm and beautiful an airport might be if it is understood as a transport facility, not an out-of-town retail park."TAGS
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Hermès : Window Installation [Fubiz] SAVE
PEOPLE
"Une magnifique installation du créatif et designer japonais Tokujin Yoshioka. Une opération d’illusion visuelle présentée sur la vitrine de la Maison Hermès au Japon, jusqu’au 19 janvier 2010. A découvrir en images et vidéo dans la suite de l’article." Magnifique indeed.TAGS