Scientists of MIT’s Bits and Atoms Lab are helping people in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to turn pieces of board, wire, a plastic tub and some cans into reflectors for a wireless network named Fab Fi. The team has put up 25 nodes in the city, with locals now having access to a stable internet connection. With a little training, they even figured out to how to expand the network by copying reflectors and making new links.

“You can’t always get nice plywood and wire mesh and acrylic and Shop Bot time when you want to make a link. Maybe it’s the middle of the night and the lab is closed. Maybe you spent all your money on a router and all you have left for a reflector is the junk in your back yard. That, dear world, is when you improvise.”

MIT is also shipping routers to Jalalabad to enable the city to further improve its network.

The Fab Fi project is very interesting, especially since it proves the relevance to rethink foreign aid in terms of injecting knowledge and expertise to accelerate local progress instead of an injection of externally-managed aid money.

“An 18-month World Bank funded infrastructure project to bring internet connectivity to Afghanistan began more than seven years ago and only made its first international link this June. That project, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, is still far from being complete while FabLabbers are building useful infrastructure for pennies on the dollar out of their garbage.”

Sketches for future cities and utopian buildings are often circular-shaped. Apparently a huge group of futurists, architects and urbanists prefers society to be rounded-up and dome-like. It’s hard to find out why, but one of the main reasons might be that the future city in essence has to stay away from current urban forms. A utopian sketch containing family houses in a row would be pretty boring and not really interesting as a futuristic vision. Here’s a way to create your own circular utopian future city in 3D. The ForCG website hosts a great tutorial explaining step by step how to make a utopian dream into a pretty render while using Autodesk’s 3DS Max. Here’s part 1 and part 2 of the tutorial.

Last week’s item on Foodprint NYC made me think of an article I stumbled upon some time ago. It deals with the topic of so-called agro-imperialism. Issues such as rising global food prices, growing populations and scarcity of water make financially wealthy but recource-poor nations in the Middle East and Asia feel uncomfortable about their food security. In order to attempt to ensure food security, a number of these countries decided to “outsource their food production to places where fields are cheap and abundant” by buying large pieces of arable land in Africa, mostly in regions that are “least touched by development”.

“Foreign investors (some governments, some private interests) are promising to construct infrastructure, bring new technologies, create jobs and boost the productivity of underused land so that it not only feeds overseas markets but also more Africans. It remains to be seen, however, whether local farmers and African citizens will reap any of the benefit of this agro-imperialism.”

Africa still contains a substantial amount of underused land. In many cases the land-buy process involves states such as China, India and the UAE, and is carried out completely off the radar. Looking at this impressive ‘IFPRI Landgrabbing’ map, one can conclude that some Western European countries are following in their wake, including Germany and the United Kingdom.

In his article in the New York Times, which the InfraNet Lab post refers to, Andrew Rice explains that Ethopia is one of the breeding places of resource imperialism. In its desire to attract foreign investors, the local government speaks of ‘virgin land’. At the same time of this influx of capital into African agriculture, in a period where a global food crisis becomes more and more manifest, four million of Ethopia’s inhabitants still depend on emergency food aid.

Via Yarbus, the new web project of former Volume/Archis web editor Edwin Gardner, we found this amazing presentation tool for architects and designers. Zebra Imaging 3D prints recently came up with a method to show virtual 3D models to a group of stakeholders. Zebra’s holographic images enables architects and designers to show their 3D model without taking it. All sorts of architectural data can be transformed into a mind-blowing holographic animation. According to its makers, this method is much more rapid, much more accurate and less expensive than a real model. Interesting is the fact that the panel is a flat piece of plastic which is easy to transport, in contrary to regular 3D models. The times that we see an architect struggling in public transport while carrying unhandy models packed in wrapped garbage bag foil, are over soon.

As the video explains we are not able to experience the whole effect as we are watching it on a 2D monitor. Nevertheless, this looks already amazing. All different perspectives can be shown — from street level to a bird’s eye perspective. The models are available in different sizes and are full color. Next to architecture, this application finds a use in showing 3D maps for military operations.

“The city lets us know what they are up to by creating billboards that announce their projects. The Studio for Unsolicited Architecture and DUS Architects have pasted over five of these signs in Rotterdam with their own suggestions of how to make these projects more sustainable, more social and more exciting.”

After buying a ghost town in the middle of nowhere, the new owner has to come up with a plan. The idea of privatizing property on this scale is a relatively new spatial phenomenon, which is exciting. Redeveloping a city that used to give home to 5,000 people with private money, is quite a job. According to the auction committee the new buyer can do whatever he or she wants with the area, as long as he will stick to the local environmental and building rules.

Taking a close watch at the history of housing and the principles of human settlement, it will be immensely difficult to attract people to live here. There are no services and no other people, and there is no particular promise or story. Therefore I think housing will not work here. Pure recreation will not work either since there is no special attractor in the close environment, apart from a river and a small lake.

A Comparable Situation

On the island of Rügen in the German East Sea, people currently try to redevelop the ruins of the ‘Kolos von Prora’ into recreational apartments. The 4.5 kilometers long ruin was once meant to facilitate the need for recreation and family holidays in Hitler’s ‘Drittes Reich’, but never made it to complete utilization. The massive series of buildings by architect Clemens Klotz finally ended up being used as a military centre during the DDR regime. For years plans have been made to transform these ruins into apartments, but all ideas dramatically failed. The non-official and above all personal notification about the reason of this failure is the extreme boringness of the island Rügen itself. There is no single reason to go there unless you are a +65 ‘Ossie’.

Speculating further about the future opportunities of Skrunda-1, I believe an entertainment program combined with permanent recreational housing and temporary holiday rental will be the most profitable function (and that’s what we’re looking for here). Therefore a big attractor is needed. Marketing guru Seth Godin once suggested in a TED lecture that building the biggest lava lamp would already be enough to attract people to visit. “It has to be remarkable”, Godin states when he explains his ‘Purple Cow Theory’. Some remarkable assets are already present in Skrunda-1. Especially its historical relics are fascinating and appealing to many — radar systems, Soviet army and mysterious Cold War secrets. Knowing this story and looking at the pictures of the inspiring abandoned spaces on Flickr, this area reminds me of a level in the online first person shooter Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. This analogy could be very interesting when redeveloping this area. Think of a Cold War theme park, facilitating real life Cold War experiences such as the biggest paintball playground combined with Emscher Landschaftspark-like landscapes.

Yesterday we paid attention to Skrunda’s auction and the new situation the east Latvian town has to deal with. A load of pictures of desolate cities and abandoned buildings inspired us to find out a little more about its history. A couple of professional news reports and home-made cinematic efforts, show a rather emotional situation. The Guardian reports about the rather mysterious history of Skundra-1:

“Built in the 1980s, Skrunda-1 was a secret settlement not marked on Soviet maps because of the two enormous radar installations that listened to objects in space and monitored the skies for a U.S. nuclear missile attack. Like all clandestine towns in the Soviet Union, it was kept off maps and given a code-name — which usually consisted of a number and the name of a nearby city.”

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new independent Latvia was eager to scuttle all Soviet military bases and expel Russian troops. Nevertheless, the Russians wanted to keep the possibility of using Skrunda’s radar systems for early warning purposes. As a result, the radar base was used as a important negotiation tool between the White House and the Kremlin in the mid nineties. Skrunda-1 became a symbol of the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ as Latvia and Russia signed an agreement on dismantling two radar bases. The first one was demolished in 1995 and the other (the largest in the Baltic) ceased operations in 1998.

Pechora, the radar building on the picture, was 60 meters high. In May 1995 it was ceremoniously blown up by a U.S. demolition firm using over a ton of dynamite. Which, of course, led to a spectacular operation combining military power and human sentiments.

For three point one million dollar, in London, New York City or Moscow one buys a 300 square meters apartment in the city center, but on the grey Baltic country side one buys a complete city for this amount of money. A Russian investor bought the ghost town Skrunda-1 in Latvia at an auction in Riga, two weeks ago. The final price of 3.1 million dollars was far beyond expectation as the starting price was ten times less than that (310,000 dollars). Skundra-1 is an old military city that gave shelter to approximately 5,000 people during the Cold War. More than a decade ago the place was left as a consequence of the military and political collapse of the Soviet imperium.

It’s not clear yet which plans the buyer, Aleksejevskoje-Serviss, has for the property, which counts 45 hectares and is located in western Latvia, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) from Riga. The town consists of about 70 abandoned buildings including apartment blocks, a school, barracks, eateries, gyms and two night clubs.

The Latvian government made plans for the ruining ghost town Skundra-1 before. Plans to transform it a recreational area went nowhere and two years ago the authorities finally decided to privatize the town and organized an auction for the entire settlement. Whether this is a good plan or not should be concluded after a couple of years. Some of the people living nearby hate the culture of privatization and the complete sell-out of Latvian collective property to rich Russians. Others understand that something has to happen to save Skrunda-1 from complete demolition. At least someone has spent 3.1 million dollars and might want to get the money back. Aleksejevskoje-Serviss has to do something and this might lead to interesting ideas to make the area attractable. Especially I hope to see this two night clubs re-opening.

—Photos: Kappas (Flickr)

What would Dubai have looked like, when it would have been built 150 years ago? That’s what Martin Becka shows in an amazing series of photos taken in 2008. The images were captured using Gustave Le Gray’s waxed paper negative process on an 1857 camera. Under the name of ‘Transmutations: Capturing Dubai Using the 19th Century Techniques in Photographs’, photos were exhibited in October and November 2009 at Dubai’s Empty Quarter Gallery. The exposition was completely dedicated to Becka’s work.

“By staging a collision between the historical and the present time, Becka creates a deliberate anachronism and therewith takes us far from the usual expectations we harbor towards Dubai. The architecture and the town planning of this emblematic city of the 21st century seem to span time, as if looking at them from a future we will not live to see. The result is strangely archaeological. The city, with its avenues, monuments, squares, bridges and roads takes on, to some extent, the appearance of ancient monuments. These photographs cloak the present in the permanence of an historic record and give the fleeting moment of the here and a semblance of eternity. In Becka’s earthly warm and exquisitely detailed salted paper prints a monument has been erected for the future generations of Dubai.”

In Time Out Dubai, Becka tells about his imagination:

“In my photographs, the cities are transformed into an imaginary, almost archeological state. I remove all permanent agitations – the fury of noise pollution. I instil calm into the scenes and leave more room for poetry – the poetry of avenues, as it were. The construction takes on the appearance and beauty of the monuments of antiquity. For me it is very far removed from the nightmarish, apocalyptic world depicted in Metropolis.”

On ‘How to be a Retronaut’, Sheilak reacts on the comparison with the silent movie ‘Metropolis’ that Fritz Lang made in 1927 to stress his fear for the mechanical city produced by modernists at that moment. It’s interesting to see how Lang’s dystopia is still being used as an aesthetic and moral framework for modern architecture, 83 years after its production. Only the imaginary comparison with the early days of modern architecture caused by the camera techniques used by Becka, makes Dubai look a historical city, comparable with New York during the days that the Empire State Building was being constructed.

On Wednesday 12:06 am EST, the astronauts on space shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station. The STS-130 team will be delivering parts including the third connecting module known as ‘the Tranquility node’ to the station, as well as installing a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will also feature three spacewalks. Under the name of Mission Control, online radio station SomaFM broadcasts live mission audio all this week, mixed with atmospherical ambient music.

Photo: NASA TV

Mission Control Radio is an artistic interpretation of a space mission that expands the listener’s imagination. SomaFM music director and DJ Rusty Hodge made a selection of the finest ambient tunes to musically reflect on the space mission. All live audio that comes right from the space station merges with music broadcasted from earth.

“The best time to tune in is around 2 pm pacific time (06:00 GMT), when the astronauts are just getting up and starting their checklists for the day. Astronaut sleep periods are approximately from 6 am pacific to 2 pm pacific. There will be minimal mission audio at that time, but the rest of the time all sorts of stuff is going on.”

Click here for a full schedule of astronaut events during STS-130, and click here to tune in to Mission Control Radio.