The Internet of Things (IoT) has witnessed a big break-through in 2011. With our wonderful Volume #28: Internet of Things, we have done our part of the job to understand the impact of this new technological frontier for urban life. Therefore it is interesting to start this year with a retrospective to the projects that shaped the development of the Internet of Things in 2011. IoT website Postscapes presents the Internet of Things Awards 2011, let’s say the Oscars for geeks. Over 100 projects have been sent in and over 16,000 people have voted for their favorite projects in different categories such as ‘consumer products’, ‘design fiction’, ‘DIY projects’, and ‘environmental implementation’.

The list is absolutely worth scrolling down, as the projects give a good glimpse of what the IoT could mean to our future lives. From earthquake alarm systems to a talking tree. And from wireless winegard monitoring systems to Rymble, an object that brings your social network to the real world, and won the award of best consumer product.

What’s your knowledge about famous architecture? In the Covers/Versiones project by artist Luis Urculo, famous architectural sculptures are rebuilt by daily familiar objects like, books, cups, knives and matchboxes. Although the project is pretty much of an artwork, it works like a guessing game. Can you recognize the building before that name is displayed? It is certainly not a cinch, but therefore more fun if you guess the right one. To warm you up a little here is a present to clarify the idea.

Number 10: WoZoCo by MVRDV in Amsterdam

Click here to buy!

The term ‘senior moment’ typically refers to an age-related lapse in memory, logical thinking, or sense of orientation. But appearing at a loss is merely a common trick to conceal actions that are part of a highly coordinated effort. Driven by deep-seated memories and using long-term spatial planning, the elderly have been conspiring to realize a surprising plan.

Volume #29 uncovers this historical phase, or ‘Senior Moment’ of elderly triumph.

The issue presents ‘the plan’, identifies the ‘locations’, ‘members’, and ‘assets’, and uncovers strategies involved. With Leon Krier, Michael Graves, Yoko Ono, Paola Antonelli, Aubrey the Grey, John Beard, Francesco Bonami, Deane Simpson, Felipe Correa, Junya Ishigami, Jeffrey Rosenfeld, Linda Fried, Anne-Sophie Parent,  Rebecca Chiu, Naho Kubota, Andrew Carle, Alan Simpson, Ted Fishman, Ramo Gheerawo and Sean Donahue, Benedict Clouette and Marlisa Wise, Gesine Marquardt, and Lebbeus Woods.

VOLUME 29 also features the insert: Trust Design 3: Faith Is Trust.

For more information regarding this issue, please contact Valérie Blom at pr@archis.org.

Volume #29: (Fall 2011)
184 pages
ISBN: 978 90 77966 297
Release: November 1, 2011

Volume #29: The Urban Conspiracy will be previewed Sunday 23 October 2011 at the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.

The occasion is the launch of the third edition of the TRUST Design series, a collaborative project by Premsela and Archis. All editions are inserted in Volume Magazine and presented at special Trust Design breakfast events at several venues all over the world. This time we focus on TRUST Design and Faith. Faith and trust are the underpinnings of almost all our sociological and personal constructs, yet both are allusive and largely intangible qualities. What role does faith have in our relationship with design? Can the mechanisms of faith be used to enable trust through design? Apple has created an almost quasi-religion around its products through design, while contemporary faith-based organisations are turning to design as a way to increase and strengthen their role in society. In addition to discussing Trust Design’s central exploration of the relationship between trust and design, we extend the conversation to debate the role of faith – spiritual or otherwise – within trust and design.

Starring: Scott Burnham (researcher and writer), Mathieu Frossard (designer), Corien Pompe (Chief Designer Colour & Material from Volvo), Matthijs van Dijk (Professor of Industrial Design and author of Vision in Design) and Tim Vermeulen (program manager at Premsela).

Premsela Design Breakfast Trust Design, Faith
Date: Sunday 23 October 2011
Time: 10.00 – 12.00
Location: Designhuis
Tickets: 5 euro (including entrance Designhuis)

Last weekend Archis and VURB have organized the first IOT workshop. A group of ten coders and ten architects came together to share thoughts about their merging disciplines. It has been a very interesting day, which has resulted in a lot of interesting perspectives and ideas for the next issue of Volume. Volume #28 will be entirely about the Internet of Things and about the question how the architect should respond on the innovations and challenges that arrive from an entirely new field of knowledge and possibilities. After the success of this first Internet of Things workshop, Archis will organize a second one, with the main objective to collaboratively set up a project on the interface of both disciplines. To be announced!

Finally it’s for sale: Mokum: A Guide to Amsterdam. Yesterday evening the alternative travel guide to the hometown of Archis/Volume was presented in nightclub Paradiso. Amsterdam’s Alderman for culture, Carolien Gehrels, has officially received a first copy of the guide that was shortly introduced by Sijbolt Noorda, chairman of the Amsterdam Liberation Comite. Pictures taken by Jurgen Koopmanschap.

May 7, Saturday, 10 architects and 10 coders will converge with the explicit goal to bridge the presumed gap between the Architect and the Coder. This workshop will be hosted by Archis/Volume in collaboration with VURB. The Internet of Things (IoT) workshop is to function as a preliminary exploration of how, why, where and to what end architects and coders could converse and collaboratively mold this new landscape. To put it bluntly, architects are not knowledgeable on the developments and the potential the IoT holds, IoT specialists lack specific spatial expertise, and the IoT has spatial and programmatic consequences. We believe the confrontation, exchange and merging of these two earlier mentioned fields of operation will result in a new ‘discipline’: environment design. The workshop will test these assumptions through discussing what is needed for this new discipline to emerge. The grand ambition is to propose and develop one or more ‘products’ to illustrate this new discipline’s potential.

The Program:

10.00 — 11.00: Introduction to the Workshop: Goal of the workshop, the coming issue V28: The Internet of Things and introducing the participants

11.00 — 12.00: Initial brainstorming session: An expression of how these two fields might merge, and benefit from each other’s expertise. Divide into groups

12.00 — 12.30: a quick break

12.45 — 13.00: Commence work

The pre-prescribed goal of this workshop is to create a platform for the crosspollination of two seemingly divided groups with a variance of expertise. In addition, this workshop will be manifested within the pages of the V28 as an article. Architects and coders that would like to get involved please send an e-mail to us to see if there is still space available.

Date: May 7th 2011, 10.00 – 16.30

Location: Archis, Tolhuisweg 1, 1031 CL Amsterdam

The best places to announce an alternative travel guide are spooky tunnels and creepy alleys. Last night a tremendous effort is done to let the city of Amsterdam know about the launch of a new, fresh, alternative and definitely inspiring travel guide to Amsterdam, called ‘Mokum: A Guide to Amsterdam‘. ‘Mokum’ offers its readers many different unexpected perspectives on the city. The title, ‘Mokum’, refers to the Jewish name for the city of Amsterdam which is still being used while talking in slang about the Dutch capital. Thursday May 5th, 20.00 ‘Mokum’ will be presented in Paradiso in Amsterdam. Here you will find more details about the launch and about the guide.

After Richard Branson’s Virgin, the Dutch airline KLM has announced to offer space trips for ‘normal people’. Starting in 2014 the airline will offer this unique ‘life changing experience’ for a price of 70,000 euros, with a discount for regular KLM customers. The trips of only 40 minutes are made from the Space Experience Curaçao base (SXC).

A supersonic Lynx with space for two persons will rise to hundred kilometers altitude, where the occupants will experience weightlessness for about ten minutes before returning to Curaçao. At one hundred kilometers altitude the passenger is also not yet officially in space. The exosphere, where the earth’s atmosphere turns into the vacuum of space, starts at five hundred to one thousand kilometers and ends at about ten thousand kilometers.

The Shift Boston Moon Capital Competition has announced a winner. The competition called on all architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and anyone to submit their most provocative wild visions about a capital for the moon in 2069. According to the organization some of the ideas are “way impossible”, says CNN. But that’s what the non-profit group Shift Boston aims to collect: ideas that change our perception on society and building. The competition is a typical architectural ‘what if’ competition — not meant to propose useful solutions but to broaden scope.

“When considering the future of design let’s start looking out into space. What if we could occupy the Moon only 100 years after our first visit there in July of 1969? Might the Moon become an independent, self-sustaining, and sovereign state? If so why not start designing for that new world now?”

There are some amazing concepts among the entries, such as a complete inflatable membrane city, a modular city enabling an organical growth of the new moon capital, and a proposal to for a moon cemetry. The winning idea by Bryna Andersen imagines a moon base surrounding a massive satellite dish that would collect solar energy and beam it back to Earth. Another finalist is envisioning the process of gradual colonization of the moon’s surface and represents this process with growing cluster settlements at different density and configurations. Other entries, designs and jury comments can be found at the competitions website.