D.I.R.T.
D.I.R.T. (Dump It Right There) Studio (
http://www.dirtstudio.com) is a landscape design firm that specializes in design on former industrial sites. Though their website is a bit lacking in good photos, I felt that it might be worth looking at for some of the folks in out studio who are using such sites for their microhouses. They try to make use of the crumbling infrastructure that remains when these industrial sites fall in to disuse.
From their site:
"We are surrounded with detritus left by two centuries of industry. Mines and factories relentlessly churn out raw materials and products making our country rich and powerful. It’s taken an environmental crisis for us to finally face all the nasty by-products -- dumped in the river, or in a landfill, or just out back.
D.I.R.T. studio recognizes the charge to transform this crisis into an opportunity, to sculpt this detritus into dialectical places. ‘Waste’ becomes the design fodder for the future. We feel obligated, and better yet, inspired to remake vast trashed sites into renewed landscapes of ecological and cultural production. We’re not talking about clean-up or make-up jobs. We mean truly regenerative sites -- buildings and landscapes -- producing all the stuff we need along with clean air, clean water, and clean dirt. With the technologies of an industrial ecology, we can make places that invite generations still hard at work to reinvest in the landscape around them."
I find their outlook the be a bit refreshing. They are simply realizing that the history of the industrial landscape can be just as valid as the history of any other site typology.
The Glass Panel's Tasks
In doing research for Professor Hecker, I've come across a few images of Frank O. Gehry's Conde Nast Cafeteria. Within the cafeteria are quite a few curved glass panels that were the output of a process of digital design and manufacturing. In concept, they are vaguely similar to the idea I have for the DAILY LUBRICANTS house.
But do these panels HYPERTASK? Not really. But they are probably not meant too. It's obvious that they exist to create a (somewhat) visible separation of space, they likely provide some sort of sound buffer, and they contribute to whatever type of corporate image Conde Nast is trying to project. Honestly, they could probably just as easily not be there at all. But what fun would that be?
Here are a few more images:
http://cic.vtt.fi/vera/Seminaarit/2001.03.27_Muuttuva_suunnitteluprosessi/conde_nast.htmThe panels in the DAILY LUBRICANTS house will have to do much more. At the least, they will have to provide for the separation of space (both visually and acoustically), act as a rain/windscreen, provide surface area for actual programmatic functions, and provide for mass-customization.
I can't remember if Professor Hecker may have mentioned this or not, but here is a book that seeks to identify... well... the perfect $100,000 house.
The book apparently chronicles architecture critic (are any of these "critics" actually architects) Karrie Jacobs road trip to find good housing design for $100,000. Jacobs travels from coast to coast interviewing architects and builders “who are revolutionizing the way Americans think about homes, about construction techniques, and about community” to find the answer.
What will your micro-house cost? Will smart and intelligent materials continually drive the cost of well-designed homes beyond the reach of the masses?
Can you get more micro than this?
Probably, but the 480 sf BARK ATC (All-Terrain Cabin) is still pretty darn small, especially for a structure containing a fully functioning kitchen and bathroom.
From the BARK design website:
"...we designed a small home, a cabin, using the standard ISO shipping container as the basis for the structure and outfitting it totally with Canadian Design and Technology. The result is as smart as it is efficient, suitable for a family of four and a pet to live off the grid in comfort and contemporary style. It travels by train, truck, ship, airplane or helicopter, folded up and indistinguishable from any ordinary shipping container. Once it arrives, it unfolds rapidly to 480sf of self-contained, sophisticated living space with all the comforts of home."
The ATC is currently on tour to promote the design industry in Canada. One wonders if the design could truly be site-specific in other parts of the world, too. For example, how could its climate control systems deal with the hot, humid, and altogether oppressive summers in the southeastern US? Would it still be able to operate off the grid?
You can read more about it here:
http://www.barkbark.ca/projects_atc.html
In direct response to the 2005 EU Clean Air Strategy, a London- and Berlin-based design firm called Elegant Embellishments (
http://www.elegantembellishments.net/) has developed "a decorative, three-dimensional architectural tile" that can reduce vehicular air pollution, including nitrous oxide and ground-level ozone. The tiles – algorithmically designed and modular in assembly – can thus "rapidly improve urban environments in terms of air quality and visual appeal."
According to the company's own recent press release:
"The tiles are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), a pollution-fighting technology that is activated by ambient daylight. TiO2 is a photo-catalyst already known for its self-cleaning and germicidal qualities; it requires only small amounts of naturally occurring UV light and humidity to effectively reduce air pollutants into harmless amounts of carbon dioxide and water. When positioned near pollution sources, the tiles neutralise NOx and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) directly where they are generated. They transform previously inert urban surfaces into active surfaces, re-appropriate polluted spaces for safer pedestrian use, and invert problem spaces – dark, polluted, uninhabitable – to benevolent spaces that benefit communities."
The physical design of the tiles is itself meant as a visual provocation--the resulting grid resembles a kind of "crystalline ivy, sculpturally attached to the otherwise bare walls of urban downtowns," where it assumes "endless varieties of physical structures." So the more pollution a city has, the more of this material you have placed about the city to fight that pollution.
This of course begs the obvious question - which virus do you choose? Pollution or this ever-growing matrix of white plastic? It seems to me that the better choice may be to fight the causes of the pollution rather than trying to mop it up with this stuff.
One for the category of "Why Didn't Someone Think of This Sooner?"
Need I explain why?
Taking home the Silver in the student design category of the Idea Awards, "Plug-In" by designer Julia Burke fits in a standard opening for electrical outlets. Its uplifted angle obviously makes it easier to plug cords into it. Additionally, one can plug two large AC adapters into it with room to spare.
This product could definitely qualify as a Daily Lubricant.
Mr. Vaio R.I.P. 2002-2006
I have been a few days behind in my blogging, in no small part to the death of my faithful old laptop. Nothing brightens the grad student's day more than a loud beep, a slow whir, and a smell reminiscent of burnt hair emenating from one's daily companion of four years. And so I was off on my quest to replace this indispensable tool. I'll apologize to Tim and Matt in advance - I know they are probably tired of hearing my moaning on this subject, but I found the process of selcting a new laptop tied closely to our discussions in studio.
Why?
Because, I found out, that I, to some small extent, am a "Master of the YOUniverse." Hopefully this doen't mean that I am one of those people Professor Hecker mentioned should be lined up and shot. But it does mean that I found myself in a market for a product for which good design an a good process for purchasing is essential. In perusing the local retail outlets greater Anderson had to offer, I was sorely dissapointed, not just by the design of so many of the computers, but by how few options were available. Among the four stores I visited, I essentially found the same products at each store. The problem wasn't a lack of variety of brands or models, it was just that all off those models essentially offered the same thing - HUGE hard drives, flimsy construction, and exstensive gimmicks with woefully-underpowed graphics cards. Anything else was incredibly overpriced. Sure, they are great for folks who only use their computers to download vast amounts of illegal music or store millions of photos to post on Facebook or Myspace or whatever, but a possible liability for anyone who will be using their computer for any sort of graphics-intensive programs. It appears that the brick-and-mortar retail stores were geared almost completely to impulse buyers. Most of the computers were flashy,
excessively flimsy (I'm looking at you, Compaq), and overpriced for what they were. To me, a sturdy chassis means as mush or more than actual processing power - after all, I tote one of these things around every single day. Some were considerably better constructed (and no more expensive), and they served to guide me in investigating what the online world had to offer.
And so I became, for a few nights anyway, a "Master of the YOUniverse." I did a lot of research and became very familiar with the ups and downs of the buyer interfaces of three manufacturers offering customizable computers - Dell, Toshiba, and Sony. I would suggest that folks in the studio might want to look at the sites as we are thinking about what it means for a product to be mass-customizable.
The Dell site (
www.dell.com) offered a very flashy selection interface with a bevy of options - to the point where it definitely became information overload. Of course, most of the options were ridiculous and obvious price-inflators- does anyone really need a 5-year warranty for a product that will probably be obsolete in less than 1? Why do I need to wade through a selection of over-priced backbacks? Didn't I come here for a computer? Do I need every page to tell me how I can "listen to my favorite songs" while I have to pick through the entire website just to figure out if the damn thing will fit in my existing laptop bag? There's no doubt though, that the Dell site is a Master of the YOUniverse's dream - the customization options are almost endless.
Sony's (
www.sonystyle.com) and Toshiba's (
www.toshibadirect) websites offer far fewer customization options, but offer a wider selection of basic laptop models to build upon. The sites are both less flashy than Dell's (with Toshiba's being downright utilitarian - think of the internet circa 1997), but require the consumer to wade through a good many different pages to see all the models available. However, upon selecting a model to build upon, customization is very easy - a single page let's one see an select every available option.
This all brings us to the question of the buyer's interface with the product selection - something all of us will have to think about as we develop and consider the properties of our micro-houses. Do we want a few models for which customization is almost endless, or should the products be more specialized with fewer available options? What is the best way to present this to the customer in a way that balances the need for communicating a lot of information, while trying to present this information in as direct a way as possible?
Oh - and if you want to know which product I selected, it was the Sony. It cost the least for what I wanted. So maybe everything I just talked about got tossed right out the door.
