Of course, they are there – the fancy hotels in the mountains. But today we want to show you a really different hotel: “Whitepod Resort” in the Swiss Alps, above Monthey, in the canton of Wallis. The hotel is built according to a bungalow concept: there are numerous little igloos strewn around the landscape. The luxurious and self-sufficient suites give the impression of a camp site above the idyllic mountain village of Les Giettes. The 15 Whitepods are grouped around a traditional cabin, which houses the reception. There is another cabin containing the restaurant, a conference room, spa and lounge area and around 80 bunks. There is a skiing area very close to the complex, and all that snow means that the camp can only be reached if you are wearing ski shoes or by skidoo. Each of the “pods” has 40 square meters of floor space. The shell is made of a special polyester fabric, which was originally developed for space travel and is incredibly insulating. Combined with the stove and kerosene lamps, the atmosphere in the igloos is pleasant, cozy and warm.
www.whitepod.com
PRE-FAB: 200 Chinese Workers Erect a 30 Storey Prefabricated Hotel in Just 15 Days (VIDEO)
If we hadn’t seen a video of the T30 Hotel going up in China, we might not have believed that anyone, anywhere could erect a prefabricated 30 storey tower in just over 2 weeks. But it’s true – Broad Sustainable Building, a subsidiary of the BroadGroup construction company, has broken their previous record of constructing a 15 storey building in one week with their latest project in Hunan Province. Not only did BSB get the T30 Hotel up in 15 days or 360 hours (with the help of 200 super speedy construction workers), but the company claims that their 17,000 square meter tower is 5 times more energy efficient than the competition and generates a fraction of the waste. It is also said to have the capacity to withstand an earthquake that measures up to 9 on the Richter Magnitude Scale! Take a look at the incredible time-lapse video of the hotel’s construction after the jump.
We typically advocate prefabricated building construction because it greatly reduces energy and material waste, and BSB claims that the China Academy of Building Research certified their new T30 Hotel to be perfectly safe, but we have to wonder what China will look like in 20 years if contractors throw up a new 17,000 square foot tower every 2 weeks.
While an impressive engineering feat that boasts enormous eco-credentials such as external solar shading, superb energy efficiency, a heat recovery system, and a state of the art air purification system makes the air quality inside the hotel 20 times better than it is outside, we aren’t 100% convinced that this kind of scaled prefabricated construction is the most appropriate answer to the challenges posed by climate change, pollution, or population growth.
BroadGroup’s Zhang Zue disagrees. He told WAN that China needs to “speed up [their] environmental thinking.” He added that “We need buildings like this all over China.” We’d love to hear from our readers. Do you think that the T30 Hotel is setting a good precedent in China?
Read more: 200 Chinese Workers Erect a 30 Storey Prefabricated Hotel in Just 15 Days (VIDEO) | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
(Source: mat-fab.org)
(C)ODE-(C)OLLECTIVE: FAB: 3-D–Print Yourself With Kinect →
“Fabricate Yourself” is like a 3-D photo booth. Using a Microsoft Kinect, anyone can hit a button and have a 3-D model of themselves printed right then. The project, headed by Karl Willis, removes the arcane intricacies of CAD software and replaces them with something anybody can pick up and play with.
Presented at the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction Conference, the setup turns a Kinect into 3-D scanner. The Kinect is hooked up to a Mac, and users can pose in front of it and see a real-time wire-frame representation onscreen. When they see what they like, they hit a button and they are captured in an STL (stereolithography) file. This file is sent to the 3-D printer, where a small, low-resolution model is finally spat out.
At the conference, the models were limited to 3 x 3 cm to keep the machine running fast. This used just a quarter of the Kinect’s resolution, but the results have a rather cute, jaggedy 8-bit look to them. The cuteness was also upped by printing the models onto snap-together jigsaw tiles so they could be combined into one big mural (or even joined together to spell out words).
Taking high tech and making it easy and fun to use is clearly awesome. I am slightly disappointed with the conference-goers’ lack of nerd imagination, though. I have studied the resulting models closely and nowhere do I see the most obvious pose, and the first thing I would do if I could play with this machine: hands held up like Han Solo as he was frozen in carbonite.
Fabricate Yourself [Interactive Fabrication via i.Materialise. Thanks, Joris!]
Photos: Interactive Fabrication
Source: Wired Magazine
See Also:
I.D.: target bookshelf by mebrure oral
‘target books’ shelf by mebrure oral
the ‘target books’ shelf by turkish designer mebrure oral is designed to keep books organized by separating them into sections of ‘already read’ and ‘yet to read’. each segment is demarcated by its own bookend, a line of text that is built into the shelf that states either ‘has been read’ or ‘will be read’.
each ‘target books’ shelf is produced in three pieces via injection molding of recyclable ABS plastic.
front view of the bookshelf
I.D: Herman Miller Presents An Inside Look into Eames: The Architect and the Painter
In conjunction with the release of the documentary, Eames: The Architect and the Painter, Herman Miller launched a companion website that invites the audience to get an inside look at the connection between the Eames’ legacy and Herman Miller’s design heritage. Eames enthusiasts can explore images, videos and quotes exclusively collected from the Herman Miller archives, with additional support from the Eames Office.
Designed by Hello Design, the site features a visual timeline that brings to life the major milestones throughout the Eames’ body of work while working with Herman Miller. Users can scroll through the timeline or jump to specific time periods by clicking on the Eames signature icons that are representative of when they were released. It also includes a mix of photography, video and product photos are woven in with quotes and historical anecdotes about Charles and Ray, their work, and their life together.
Read more: http://www.dexigner.com/news/24355#ixzz1hRvDHBxZ
3D Printing: Three Cubes Colliding
Three Cubes Colliding from Jimandtonic on Vimeo.
Here is the latest experimental kite designed by Sash Reading with Ivan Morison, fabricated and engineered by Queen and Crawford. The kite features 1700 3d printed connectors, carbon fibre rods and cubenfibre aerospace fabric. This video shows the whole team at the kite’s test flight in Jersey. To see Sash’s other work, including Meteor Kite Mark 1, visit www.asarch.co.uk
TENTS: Whitepod - a nomad camp in the Swiss Alps
“Whitepod resort” Les Cerniers, in the Swiss Alps |
All photos © Vincent Hofer | Jean-Marc Palisse
Source: Stylepark
3D TOOLING: Drzach&Suchy use rapid-prototyping
Look at Conversation, a new installation by Swiss artists Drzach&Suchy, and you’ll see a huge pixely portrait of Albert Einstein. But look again a few seconds later, and you’ll see—as plain as the mole on her face—a portrait of Marilyn Monroe.
Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. Conversation is a 3-D printed “shadow casting panel” that uses subtle shifts of light to uncover images embedded in the surface. Cast light one way, and shadows align across the panel to produce a portrait of Einstein. Cast light a different way, and the shadows reveal Marilyn’s lovely little pout.
Conversation is one of three installations that Drzach&Suchy developed at the Swiss Science Center Technorama to explore light and shadow play. Each exploits the conveniences of rapid-prototyping to turn a 3-D computer model (rendered in Google SketchUp) into a mind-blowing optical illusion.
Time is a 3-D printed orb with seemingly random grid-like panels that are actually custom-designed to cast three separate shadows—a clock, an hour glass, and a sundial—as it rotates around an axis. Tik-Tak is a nearly 6-foot-wide, water-jet cut Forex disc that says “tik” then “tak” as it swings back and forth between different lighting conditions, mimicking the motion of a pendulum clock. It might seem like magic. But the artists insist otherwise. “It is really simple,” they tell Co.Design in an email. “No high-tech electronic displays or components. Just geometry, directed light, and shadows.”
[Images courtesy of Drzach&Suchy]
Source: FastDesign
MATERIAL: Berkeley Researchers Develop Cheap, Flexible Electronic Skin for Next-Gen Gadgets
by Timon Singh, 12/16/11
We’ve seen lots of amazing concepts for flexible gadgets in recent years – from Samsung’s bendy smartphone to e-newspapers that you can roll up. However researchers at Berkeley Lab are taking the technology to the next level by imprinting electronic circuitry on backplanes that are both flexible and stretchable – essentially creating a new type of electronic skin.
Flexible computers could revolutionize a number of industries and make current “smart devices”seem chunky and antique. The Lawrence Berkeley Lab team’s research could lead to a world populated with electronic pads that could be folded away like paper, coatings that would be able to monitor surfaces for cracks, and ‘smart’ medical bandages that could treat infections.
The team developed a thin-film transistor with superb electrical properties by using a new, inexpensive technique for fabricating large-scale flexible and stretchable backplanes using semiconductor-enriched carbon nanotube solutions. The device is capable of carrying a charge much higher than its organic counterparts, and the team has already demonstrated an artificial electronic skin (e-skin) that is able to detect and respond to touch.
“With our solution-based processing technology, we have produced mechanically flexible and stretchable active-matrix backplanes, based on fully passivated and highly uniform arrays of thin film transistors made from single walled carbon nanotubes that evenly cover areas of approximately 56 square centimeters,” says Ali Javey, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at tBerkeley. “This technology, in combination with inkjet printing of metal contacts, should provide lithography-free fabrication of low-cost flexible and stretchable electronics in the future.”
The development could lead to a whole new category of flexible gadgets – we can’t wait to see iPads that can be wrapped around our arms. For now, team’s research can be read in the journal NanoLettersin an article titled “Carbon Nanotube Active-Matrix Backplanes for Conformal Electronics and Sensors.”
Via NanoLetters and Engadget
Read more: Berkeley Researchers Develop Cheap, Flexible Electronic Skin for Next-Gen Gadgets | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
INSTALLATION: amid.cero9 - the golden dome
‘the golden dome’ by amid.cero9
image © designboom
the ‘architectural environments for tomorrow - new spatial practices in architecture and art’, an exhibition at the MOT museum of contemporary art tokyo, explores the modern interconnectivity between technology, urbanism and the way designers respond and influence our changing global culture. the show is a collaboration
between yuko hasegawa, the MOT tokyo chief director and SANAA architects (kazuyo sejima and ryue nishizawa).
diagram of patterns, welding points, seams, anchoring points and holes
image © amid.cero9
photo by designboom
inflated golden balloon hanging from ceiling
image © designboom
amongst with 28 artists and architects is amid.cero9, a collaboration between cristina díaz moreno and efrén garcía grinda. a response to topographic patterns, an inflated form floats overhead to create ‘the golden dome’. the flexible structure creates a sense of partial concealment as it creates an interior environment within the larger surroundings. the balloon is a prototype for a large scale outdoor version. patterns based on welding points, seams, anchoring points and holes have been created for different possible locations. filled with helium, the organic shapes have to be held down either by heavier objects, whether it be architectural monuments, trees, or specifically placed articles of furniture. inexpensive materials and the use of the surrounding environment give this project the potential to be explored for practical housing purposes.
read designboom’s previous article on haruka kojin’s ‘contact lens’, one of the art pieces dealing with visual manipulation
also featured in the exhibition.
also featured in the exhibition.
the installation and models are prototypes for a large scale version
image © designboom
‘natural disasters, such as the 3.11 earthquake, or political and social unease always exists in some form or another throughout the world.
against this backdrop, what kind of existence can architecture provide for the people? in this exhibition, we will present the ‘discoveries’
that are made when universal architectural expression, inspired by the diverse experiences and ideas of people, nature and society,
both in Japan and around the world, is fused with local wisdom and technology.’ - the museum of contemporary art tokyo 
detail of material
image © designboom
view from underneath
image © designboom
small scale models
image © designboom
different colors and heights change the experience of being underneath the inflated object
image © designboom
3D MEDIA: scribbled line digital portraits
‘cinema-flash showdown’ scribbled line digital portraits by ayaka ito and randall church
blending programming, design, and photography the ‘cinema-flash showdown’ is a series of digital photographic works created by american designers ayaka ito and randall church while students at the college of imaging arts and sciences at rochester institute of technology (RIT).
to create each piece, the artists photographed each location both with and without the model using HDRI sphere lighting, thereby obtaining enough information to be able to isolate the subject from the background. church then used a 3D flash drawing app he created to generate splines over the shape of the model. these were imported into the cinema 4D modeling application.
the final 3D render utilizes an alpha channel that masks the model back into the background, seemingly broken up by the lines of the splines. the designers note that the look of wire sculptures and a desire for organic-like lines guided their artistic process.
left: full view of the forest portrait
right: 3D model of the subject
the 12x18” photographic prints
via thecreatorsproject
