Using all our created spaces

Oobject compiled 12 stunning roof gardens and I concur. The roof isn't just the top of a building - it is an implied space - thus it should be maximized for not only the function of the building but for the occupant/user's experience of the building. Such gardens offer reduced heating/cooling bills for the building as well as boosting the aesthetic and postive environmental impact of such a structure.

Urban Video Soundscape

This is how cities sound like when you're cruising through them and are somewhere around copecetic.

The Slow Home

The Slow Home is a online residential design forum of sorts founded by Canadian architect John Brown. Based on the evolution of the idea of "slow food" as an alternative to "fast food" so too is "slow home" a response to the more generic sprawl of "fast" suburban housing. This is a bit of a design school for those looking to improve their homes with weekly exercises/discussions like "what's wrong with this house?" and "in detail." I've put a recent post of Mr. Browns below, but I think you'd agree, that this may be a good resource for those folks who are interested in improving their space in a thorough and educated manner. If you are a designer who has curious/eager clients, but you are unable to provide them with the time to explain the nuances of process - this may be something that you could pass on for their investigations.

Time Perspective

From the research of Zimbardo et al. their latest publication is on The Time Paradox - how our perspective on time influences our decisions more than any other factor. These are my results from the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory - it seems i'm not big on the past or the future and hardly "ideal" - numerically narrow but based on their graph a fairly broad spectrum of time.

Time Perspective

Past-negative	3.20
Past-positive	2.44
Present-hedonistic	3.20
Present-fatalistic	2.33
Future	2.92

Furniture no more

The furniture making with Ponoko is through. This blog will return to its original intension of an art/design & commentary zone. As such here is a video by the artist Hugo Arcier - mixture of live and digital creation - quite seductive (may not be SFW).

enjoy!

Les 5 siamoises from Hugo Arcier on Vimeo.

Directed by Hugo Arcier. January 2006
With : Anastasia Tarassova
Music Wax Tailor

Synopsis :
Mental trip in the mind of a hypnotized woman.
Listening to music, we follow the development of a phantasmagorical image.
Will this image take its final form before the end?
Accept this trip and you will know the answer, but be careful not to be yourself hypnotized.

EPS file now available for sale on Ponoko

Inspired by Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash"
The furniture piece uses the language of binary to create a place that holds the self as represented in the metaverse. The engravings on the piece include circuit board on the base units (one side) and rectangular forms on the top in dimensions roughly equivalent to many common electronic devices.

The table is roughly 31.5"x15.5"x14", it is easy to assemble and allows for numerous configurations of the base units.

With these EPS files the Ponoko costs are:
Making $514.37
Materials $133.23

Furniture Show

The show of the completed works was this evening - it was a success, many faces, and some good discussions.  Below the overview of the show and a few shots of my piece.

Additional photos from the event are viewable here