War and conflict often bring about the destruction of architecture, however these forces can also result in new constructions that define a cultural identity and place.Stressed by China’s growing population, the Hakkapeople have been confronted with armed warfare for local resources since the 17th century. To remedy their situation the Hakka began building massive structures that could not only stave off intruders, but would also form amazing self-sustaining micro-communities complete with food storage, space for livestock, living quarters, temples, armories and more.
…Scripts are made out of series of written commands which can be programmed to solve complex geometric problems. Scripts can also be used to generate new, unexpected outcomes as they have the ability to evaluate, process and build on the given commands…
Generate seminar on the 30th of October 2009 in Oulu, Finland.
Rooftop solar panels are unlikely to elicit complaints from neighbors–they’re silent and relatively unobtrusive. But loud rooftop wind turbines? That’s where the virtually NIMBY-proof Ridgeblade turbine comes in. The turbine, designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer at UK-based The Power Collective, boasts a sleek profile that is both powerful and visually pleasing.
For a long time car owners have had yearly gatherings for special brands. Now bike owners are catching up. The first bike gathering for Helkama Jopo-bikes was arranged in Helsinki. Photographer Roni Rekomaa took a cool photo of the bikers on their Jopos. Talk about ultra-cool! /aitoa
Two cities, Helsinki inFinland and Eindhoven in The Netherlands are competing about the prestigeous title of Design Capital 2012. The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design will choose the winner in November. The judges will visit the two cities in August.
If Helsinki is chosen there will be big opening and closing events and several festivals and happenings organised around Design and Architecture in the city during the two-year capitalship.
Will the establishment of Iittala, Marimekko, Fiskars, Aalto, Artek, Helsinki art nouveau- and modern architecture, and designers like Ilka Suppanen, Harri Koskinen, Valvomo bring the price home, or do the judges look for new design ideas of non-commercialism, ecology, ethics and mysticism like Hel Looks, Globe Hope, Hollmen-Reuter-Sandman Architects,Marcus Copper, or -since the almost total death of free graffiti culture in the city-, the risign culture of guerilla gardening in Helsinki?
Kjellgren Kaminsky Architects New Heden project transforms a vacant city block is a self-contained sustainable city interspersed with cycling paths and walkways. Envisioned as a “green lung” for Gothenburg, Sweden, the development will introduce a beautiful expanse of fresh green space to an area currently consumed by parking lots and football fields.
Tuomo Siitonen Architects´ plan for apartments in downtown Helsinki
Cement accounts for 5% of the world’s CO2 emissions – more than aviation. Now British engineers have discovered a new form of cement that instead reduces CO2 emissions. Cement is the key ingredient in concrete. In Finland, concrete is the most common material for building bearing structures of high-rise apartment houses. Scientists predict, that worldwide, the demand for cement will grow by 50% in the years to come.
Cement, a vast source of planet-warming carbon dioxide, could be transformed into a means of stripping the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, thanks to an innovation from British engineers.
Making traditional cement results in greenhouse gas emissions from two sources: it requires intense heat, and so a lot of energy to heat up the ovens that cook the raw material, such as limestone. That then releases further CO2 as it burns. But, until now, noone has found a large-scale way to tackle this fundamental problem.
The new cement, based on magnesium silicates, not only requires much less heating, it also absorbs large amounts of CO2 as it hardens, making it carbon negative. Set up by chief scientist at Novacem, Nikolaos Vlasopoulos and his colleagues at Imperial College London, the innovation has already attracted the attention of major construction companies and investors.
Butterflies exhibit vibrant colors and stay clean using nano-scale structures on their wings. Designers and engineers have emulated this strategy to create self-cleaning coatings, fabrics and paints, and electronic display screens.
What is Biomimicry?
Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a design discipline that seeks sustainable solutions by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies, e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf. The core idea is that Nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with: energy, food production, climate control, non-toxic chemistry, transportation, packaging, and a whole lot more.
Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most importantly, what lasts here on Earth. Instead of harvesting organisms, or domesticating them to accomplish a function for us, biomimicry differs from other “bio-approaches” by consulting organisms and ecosystems and applying the underlying design principles to our innovations. This approach introduces an entirely new realm for entrepreneurship that can contribute not only innovative designs and solutions to our problems but also to awakening people to the importance of conserving the biodiversity on Earth that has so much yet to teach us.
Does architecture shape our surroundings and our behaviour
-or do we collectively shape our architecture?
The street was not wide, maybe four meters wide, and it was sloped up towards a small bell tower. The level change was realized as steps, so that street felt like an interior– a part of a public building or a church. And indeed at the fond of the street there was a the local church, to which outrage the local gay bar on the street set up a fiesta every Sunday at the same time as church sermon took place.
The space of the street was surroundedby four-five story buildings, that seemed to grow out of the same material as the street. Their architectural qualities were humble, one had an over proportioned balcony off center that was full of dry plants like a hairy mold on your face, another had bad cracks in the plaster of the façade resembling a very old woman´s skin. There were also new-builds in the street. One lot on the street had as an economical venture sold building right to wealthy Russians from Novosibirsk, and the Russians had built a luxurious, but slightly tasteless apartment building on the lot. Still something – undefined still by our modern architectural theories – kept the streetscape together like glue and made it hole.
What we noticed after a while after settling in at our rented apartment on third floor, was that the street was never quiet. Even by night you could hear apart from some traffic here and there, also sound of heels tapping the stone pavement, strange shouts you could not locate, and dogs barking.
By day the street was a stage for activity. There were small shops that poured out their products on the street for display, cramped by the small space they had inside. People stopped and talked to the shop owners while passing by. The butcher on the street had a peculiar way of greeting all elderly ladies with a bit too intimate hugs. White collar workers rushed pass the street on their way to work and home. The homeless loitered around. Young men played football on the street. There was a sense of liberties taken and given, an unpronounced allowing code of conduct.
The above writing is freely adapted from professor Panu Lehtovuori´s lecture “Calzada de sant´Ana”, but it could be a description of any street in Europe admired in travel brouschures for its genuinity. Why are we as trained architects unable to design a street like this today?
It’s a steet that encourages, not just allows people to be themselves. It forces to interaction with other people. Interaction is one of the main keys to happiness, if not one of the most crucial. All humans have a need to define themselves and their identitiy through others , through their reaction. Be the reaction admiration, schock, indifference, but we all crave that in some form. When the possibility to interact is taken away from you, you seek it trough the internet, through books, or through meditation or other. Human life is an exodus for recognicion, reaction or the lack of it. But it has to be tested. Every single human being seeks interaction. What architecture needs to do, is to give space for people to meet on the terms they define. Individuality wants liberty to have the freedom to choose who and how it interacts with, but individuality always needs to define itself trough others; if it only observes from the balcony above the street, if it stays in the shadow of the doorway, timid to step out into the limeligh, of if it takes center stage and becomes the hero or the antihero of the show called Calzada Sant´Ana.
Give and get in return.
The above is a story of a street in Lisbon Portugal – Europe. Thanks to professor Panu Lehtovuori and his “Calzada de sant´Ana”.
A simple mission: “to generate design opportunities that will improve living standards for all” by providing an open-source platform through which ANYone can view, post, share, and adapt sustainable, humanitarian-based, scalable solutions. The idea that designs and all associated documents can and should be shared within the decidedly proprietary architectural industry is truly innovative, and could very well aid in the reshaping of the entire architectural profession into a more socially-focused and responsible vocation. Architecture for humanity; Cameron Sinclair on TED talks//aito
