TedGlobe: Elegant Visualization of how the web is used in scale, interaction & user behavior. #TED2012
Feb 29, 2012 thinking design
This morning at TED Steve Bratt of the World Wide Web Foundation gave a great talk about building an index to measure how humanity uses the web. Not just to measure scale but interaction and user behavior. While he’s working on that, metaLayer decided to tackle something slightly less ambitious, an index measuring how people react to TED2012.
As part of our Spectrum Project, we unveiled tedglobe.com, a fun project that uses WebGL to visualize the aggregate global reaction to the conference. Over the last few hours I’ve literally watched the world light up as Session 1 “The Observatory”, Session 2 “The Parlor” and Session 3 “The Dinner Party” were underway.
To put this in context, here’s what our globe looked like Monday afternoon, just as the first guests were arriving…
Very sparse, with minimal activity. Still, this early buzz is interesting because it indicates the regions that will remain influencers throughout our project.
Here is a view this afternoon shortly after Session 1 began…
It’s no surprise that the largest line is in Long Beach (where TED is held each year). The lines are placed approximately where the data is being collected from and how active the users are. The 2,000+ attendees of the conference are quite active and influential, so it would logically be among the most active of cities.
New York has the second most active region. It’s where TED’s headquarters is and where a number of simulcast sessions are taking place…
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, it was evening and so we begin to see early activity throughout Europe and Asia. There’s a little bit of activity in Africa, but the limited use of social media there makes it more difficult to capture sample data…
If you’re a data geek, we invite you to make use of metaLayer’s community app to discover your own insights! We’ll be updating this post as the conference goes on so come back often! You can view this interactive globe at http://tedglobe.com
Does Frank Gehry’s 1978 house, winner of the 2012 AIA 25 Year Award, look like it’s in foreclosure? Or is it a “Rubicon of contemporary architecture”?
Feb 27, 2012 thinking design
Architects are always giving each other prizes for good design. Unfortunately, the prizes often go to buildings that are liked by nobody but other architects. The American Institute of Architects (AIA), gave one of its most coveted awards this year to Frank Gehry’s 1978 house (which he still live in and has continually updated).
This was the AIA Twenty-five Year Award, which is given annually to only one American building that’s at least a quarter of a century old. (Last year’s award went to the John Hancock Tower, designed by Henry Cobb of I.M. Pei and Partners.) The idea is to recognize architecture that has proved its merit over time. According to the AIA website, “Recognizing architectural design of enduring significance, the Twenty-five Year Award is conferred on a building that has stood the test of time for 25 to 35 years as an embodiment of architectural excellence. Projects must demonstrate excellence in function, in the distinguished execution of its original program, and in the creative aspects of its statement by today’s standards.” More at this AIA Link on the overview.
Gehry bought a conventional salmon-pink clapboard bungalow in a quiet residential neighborhood. He gutted the interior to expose the wood framing. Then he wrapped much of the original house with an outer layer of new spaces, built with materials you might find in a highway junkyard: raw plywood, chain-link fencing, asphalt, and corrugated metal.
You can get different explanations of what he was up to. Gehry just said he took a close look at Los Angeles and realized much of it was built of junk, so why not do something creative with that reality? In any case, the house made Gehry famous. It came years before such major works of his as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, or the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT.
The AIA is suitably rapturous. The house, it says on its website, is “a Rubicon in the history of contemporary architecture, tearing down inherited stylistic standbys to declare a new design language for the modern suburban architectural condition.’’
Jeremiah Eck, a Boston architect and author states that the Gehry house is “shabby, vapid and entirely without any true meaning of home…If you showed this to most lay people, my guess is that they would call it ugly. It looks like a house in foreclosure. Does that inspire anyone to hire an architect?’’
In contrast, a 1979 review by New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger, Hon. AIA, recognized the house as an extremely successful provocation—if not much more. Goldberg called the Gehry Residence the most significant new house in Southern California in years, admiring its central conceptual conceit: an old house wrapped in jagged panels of corrugated metal, creating a new band of patio-like indoor/outdoor space on three sides.
Full article at this link: 2012 Twenty-five Year Award – 2012 AIA Awards
Is “Drawing’ Dead? well…it depends upon how you define ‘drawing’…Yale Symposium Explores Drawing in the Digital Age.
Feb 22, 2012 thinking design
Yale Symposium Article by Joann Gonchar, AIA
Judging by the number of attendees at a recent Yale School of Architecture symposium Is Drawing Dead?, many architects fear that the computer, and the increasing sophistication of tools for modeling, parametric design, and construction documentation, have made hand drawing obsolete.
The roster of speakers was diverse and included Archigram founder Peter Cook, neuroscientist Marvin Chun, and Andrew Witt, director of research at Gehry Technologies. The presenters didn’t answer definitively the question posed by the symposium’s provocative title. However, several passionately defended the role of hand drawing in the creative process. Michael Graves, who focused on the drawings he made in the early 1960s of Rome’s historic monuments, advocated sketching from life as a form of note taking. “We never remember unless we draw it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the drawing is good, bad, or whatever.” Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa made the case for hand drawing as tactile tool for discovery. While drawing, an architect isn’t focused on the individual lines he or she is creating, said Pallasmaa, but is instead “occupying that space, as if touching all its surfaces.” Such a connection is “difficult, if not impossible to simulate with computers,” he said.
Full article on Architectural Record site at above link.
Think your Apple iPhone address book and calendar is private? Your friends and schedule are ‘mine’: Many iPhone apps take your data | VentureBeat
Feb 16, 2012 thinking design
via venturebeat.com
Concerning. A simple solution is to have a permission-based option on our address book and calendar to allow apps like Facebook, Twitter and Yelp to upload to their servers. Apple, are you listening?
Excellent article at above link.
Kodak Cameras 1889-2012. RIP
Feb 10, 2012 thinking design
Kodak invented the hand held camera. My first camera was a Kodak. Spent tons over the years on Kodak film documenting design projects. When we moved our office in 2006 I could not find anyone to take away (free) over 100 Kodak slide carousels. A majority of my earlier design work is still in Kodak slides (‘someday’ to be turned into digital files).
What is next?