Arup Hackday Intro

Introduction to the Arup Hackday for participants around the world. Runs through what it is, why we did it and first steps during the event.

Cast: Duncan Wilson

Drivers of Change

A short movie introducing the drivers of change cards and some of the key issues they raise.

Cast: marcus morrell

Matthew Ritchie and Daniel Bosia: The Last Scattering, Arup Phase 2, London

In this film, New York-based artist Matthew Ritchie and Daniel Bosia, leader of Arup’s Advanced Geometry Unit, discuss their new work: The Last Scattering, on display at Phase 2, Arup, 8 Fitzroy St, London, UK until mid-July 2009. It is part of an ongoing collaboration, which explores the relationship between space and matter. This installation refers to the birth of the universe and the cosmic background radiation (visible as static on your TV screen), which comes from a moment called ‘the last scattering’ - the collection of points in space and time when light separated from matter, less than 400,000 years after the Big Bang.
The exhibition will tour to New York in October.

Cast: Jennifer Greitschus

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The story of energy, stuff and the economy

You’ve seen the movie; trawled the web sites; shopped around for that green lifestyle. Like me, do you wonder if we can build enough of this green technology to keep up with economic growth and reduce our voracious appetite for fossil fuels? Alternatively, how can our society can get off the growth tread mill without wholesale collapse of our economy?
Through simple drawings, I explain how its possible to "count up" all our stuff (physical assets) using embodied energy. This is the first step to building a physically based model of an economy. I go onto apply such a model to a scenario for the UK to 2025. Finally I test my scenario against objectives for jobs, national energy security, balance of payments, consumer welfare and CO2 reductions. The scenario scores well! Have you got a scenario you would like tested in this way?

Cast: Simon Roberts

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atabrahams impromptu collaboration

(left to right) Steve Lodder, John Etheridge and Philip Sheppard come together and improvise a piece of music - collaboration at its best. The video below is a bit shakey - i had to improvise ;-) but watch how the three are continually watching each other - how much communication amongst collaborators is non verbal? One of the themes of the atabrahams event at Arup where this impromptu piece was recorded.
arup.com/
atabrahams.com/

Cast: Duncan Wilson

[from cityofsound] 'What's Twitter?' asks China following Obama revelation [The Guardian]

" "If you look at the sites blocked now and those blocked five years ago, it's gone from web 1.0 to web 2.0 – it's social media," says Kaiser Kuo, a Beijing-based expert on internet use in China. "The authorities are not worried about people having access to what the rest of the world is saying, but about the ability of these tools to spread rumours very, very quickly.""

[from cityofsound] Digital economy bill: A punishing future [The Guardian]

"While Finland enshrines web access as a human right, this bill legislates plans to deprive users of access. It will force internet service providers to become copyright police, obliging them to provide lists of violations to copyright owners. After warnings, violators will have their service crippled, or even cut off. All this will drive up the costs of web access, by piling duties on providers. Add the more defensible surcharges to pay for next generation services, and Digital Britain risks becoming a land beset by an even deeper digital divide. Instead of building on a positive vision of Digital Britain, the government has capitulated to the fears of music and movie moguls struggling to defend their multimillion-pound businesses."

[from cityofsound] Documentaries of bliss [The Guardian]

"Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi (a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance"), made in 1982, is the classic of its kind: a compilation of ravishing footage of cities and natural wonders, seen at night and in the blaze of day, all drifting by in slow-mo or scooting past in hyper-time-lapse. Revered as a stoner classic – or ridiculed as an art-house companion to Dude, Where's My Car? – Koyaanisqatsi also enjoyed considerable commercial success"

[from cityofsound] Span house comes out of woodwork [Building Design]

"Using a modular typology of timber and glass, Friend & Company has reinvented an Eric Lyons Span house in south-east London. What is remarkable about the 21st Century Span House, designed by Adrian Friend of Friend & Company, is the inventive use of timber and structural glass to re-fabricate and transform a 1950s Span house into a home for this century." Now if only they Span houses could be mass-manufactured all over the UK and RoW now.

[from cityofsound] Picture Show: Breach [GOOD]

"In the Spring of 2009, the photographer Richard Mosse traveled to Iraq, where he captured arresting images of U.S. soldiers working and living in what used to be palaces of Saddam Hussein. These visions of western soldiers at rest in imperial palaces are both intensely jarring and oddly playful, and they underscore the seemingly ineffable experience of downtime during a military occupation. The transformation of an imperial palace into a site of temporary housing also speaks to the notion that our histories are constantly being rewritten—architecturally, sociologically, globally, and locally. What follows is a selection from Richard Mosse’s “Breach"

[from cityofsound] Lexington: Farmers v greens [The Economist]

"The debate about climate change prods all sorts of cultural sore spots: liberal versus conservative, urban versus rural, the coasts against the heartland. To an urban locavore, pricey fuel does not sound so terrible. In his book “$20 per gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better”, Christopher Steiner, a journalist, rejoices that Americans will eventually give up driving and move to densely-packed cities where they can walk to the shops. To people like Mr Wright, that sounds like Hell. “It’d be like living in Beijing,” he gasps, gazing across an open plain to the mountains in the distance." Sigh.

[from cityofsound] Video: the HALOsonic electric car sound system [guardian.co.uk]

"Electric cars have a potentially deadly silence about them, but a new device hopes to combat all that – spaceship sound effects optional." Well, I wrote a bit about this issue a while back. This, sadly, isn't good enough.

[from cityofsound] Music industry: How to sink pirates [The Economist]

"All of this offers a lesson for other types of media, such as films and video games. Piracy thrives because it satisfies an unmet demand. The best way to discourage it is to offer a diverse range of attractive, legal alternatives. The music industry has taken a decade to work this out, but it has now done so. Other industries should benefit from its experience—and follow its example." Obvious, but no less true because of that. Add TV to that list of media.

[from cityofsound] £3m Australian gum tree memorial completed [Building Design]

"Queensland practices m3architecture and Brian Hooper Architect have completed a £3 million memorial for a gum tree that played an important part in Australia’s history." Rather lovely.

[from cityofsound] Links in Print: Story of a Beautiful Failure [iA]

"In January 2009 we were invited to take part in a paid pitch for the print redesign for the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger. All in all five agencies took part in the pitch. We were the only UX oriented agency. The story of a beautiful failure. We put all eggs in one basket and worked for one month like mad men. We developed a pretty tight concept around the idea of usability, readability and cross media connection. Here is what we came up with" Worth reading Mario Garcia's reflections elsewhere too.