Callebaut, take me away!

Still healing, still taking waaaay too long to type shorts sentences, so please pardon my mess. In the meantime, here's some more eye candy that's been floating around (sorry) the interwebs for the last week or so.

Seems Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut isn't expecting any of us to change our ways any time soon, and is developing a prototypical auto-sufficient amphibious city to float our future away. While I have no architectural/design background, I find myself questioning the feasibility of these 50,000-person eco-dorms, but fully embrace the wonderful futurist concepts presented in the following images.

Vincent Callebaut's Lily Pads

This form of Aqua Urbanism --from underwater hotels to floating foundations to power stations to epdimic outbreak barges-- has really begun to take off.

But you need look no further than the floating marketplaces like Benjarmasin, Damnoen Saduak, or Cai Be to see that the burdens of over-crowding and limited space have, indeed, taken us to see on more than one occasion. That being said, I'll take a Lilly Pad over Cai Be anyday, but only if I can choose my other 49,999 floaters.

Here's a view of two different levels...

Green mountain walls, solar panel roofs, submersed sea beds, palm lagoon rainwater purification systems, and a Co2-processing tiatium dioxide skin all help to maintain and improve the surrounding conditions without introducing any further degredation to natural resources. And if you live to 2100, you just might see it...

According to the less alarming forecasts of the GIEC (intergovernmental group on the evolution of the climate), the ocean level should rise from 20 to 90 cm during the 21st century with a status quo by 50 cm (versus 10 cm in the 20th century). The international scientific scene assesses that a temperature elevation of 1°C will lead to a water rising of 1 meter. This increase of 1 m would bring ground losses emerged of approximately 0.05 percent in Uruguay, 1 percent in Egypt, 6 percent in the Netherlands, 17.5 percent in Bangladesh, and up to 80 percent approximately in the atoll Majuro in Oceania (Marshall and Kiribati islands [my former Peace Corps locale] and step by step the Maldives islands). - Vincent Callebaut

And it's kind of purty at night...

Skin your car...

Alas, my elbow is still broken and my arm is still casted, so the slacker posts shall continue. One of these days, I'll be able to type my standard 40 wph...yes, hour.

Actually, I wish I could write more because design-wise, BMW is currently on crack. Wonderful, tremendously addictive crack. Crack that makes you see illusory possibilities and make them concrete. Crack that turns design on its head.

If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top. . .that floats by makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings.

-Bucky Fuller

Have you ever ripped the side of your car? I didn't think so.

Behold, the BMW GINA Light Concept Car!

Instead of the standard aluminum, plastic or steel, BMW is experimenting with a textile fabric skin stretched around a metal and carbon fiber wire frame, thus allowing the car to be lighter in both performance and production footprint.

The concept is so flexible, in fact, that a design could conceptually change its shape. Imagine a Bugatti Veyron that pops up a spoiler to act as an airbrake. Now imagine something similar, only this time the airbrake is actually the shape of your car.

This innovative approach also affords other advantages for a clean design. Lighting can actually be placed subcutaneously, exposing itself through the transparent skin when needed.
The GINA Concept is based on the Z8 chassis -- a chassis where the frame carries the crash and structural load-- so the the addition of steel instead of textile skin would not improve, nor detract, from GINA's protection inside of the cockpit. The rider would be just as safe in a GINA as a Z8.

Watch as Chris Bangle, Director of Design BMW Group, explains the craziness behind the GINA concept...

The carrot or the stick?

My typing abilities aren't what they used to be since I've broken my elbow, but Ill try to get the occasional one-armed post to the Insource/Outsource front page.

Behold: The Carrot Mob!

Carrotmob will be a non-profit organization. Our goal is to improve the world by helping companies embrace socially responsible choices. Our primary focus is the environment. We recognize that corporations must keep profit as their top priority. Historically, this fact has meant that the environment has suffered, since companies have made more money by harming the planet. We are going to put rewards in place that will make environmental responsibility the more profitable choice. Companies will do what we want, not because of negative pressure, or morality, or a boycott, or a petition...there are enough sticks out there. We need a big juicy carrot. They will do what we say because they won't be able to resist the profits.

We will create a large network of consumers. We will form partnerships with other larger advocacy groups to use their research and infrastructure. Together we will identify opportunities for improving corporate behavior. For example, let's say there's an environmentally harmful chemical in common brands of soap. We would approach several competing soap companies. We will explain the problem, and see which of them is willing to eliminate the harmful chemical. They will bid for our support. Each company will raise the bar with how much good they are willing to do. Perhaps Company X pledges to remove the chemical. Then Company Y pledges to remove the chemical and reduce factory emissions 20%. And so on. The bigger our network, the further they will be willing to go. We accept the best offer. Company Y agrees to take the steps that we want, and then we make it worth their while with a carrot: Everyone in the network buys millions of dollars worth of their soap, and in the process Company Y gains a wealth of reputation capital as well. The most responsible business decision also gets the most profit. Delicious!

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Bury me a building with a tree on top...

Wow, what a nice reflection from the windows...

But wait, what's this view? From the inside, that's a...huh!?!?? Is that a window-curtained loading ramp leading to (shudder) yet another friggin' environmentally friendly parking garage?*

Or is it another crazy ski jump from Julien De Smedt, although I doubt that's the case given the unfortunate launch directly into the window. With De Smedt's concepts, however, you never know...

A walkable, livable, enjoyable green roof? Why, I think it is?!?!

I. Want.

OK, this building is old hat to most in the blogosphere, but I couldn't resist a repost.

About two months ago, the first shots of the School of Art, Design & Media, in Nanyang, Singapore came out and were, well, were grainy and pretty blah. Now, however, you can really soak it in...

Designed by CPG Consultants Pte Ltd, the award-winning design is five stories tall and is made entirely of raw, unpainted concrete, cement-sand screeded (screeded is right, yes?) floors, natural timber railings and raw glass.

It begs the question: is it a building with landscape or a landscape with a building?

Light goes in, heat waves stay out. Simple. The internal water feature in the sunken courtyard also provides additional cooling, and affords the possibility of grey water reclamation. It's funny though, all I can think of doing is giving a grandiose speech on one of the palmed islands in the middle while throngs of people lined the upper railings. It would make a CRAZY amphitheater!

Via HERE:

Located at the junction of Nanyang Ave and Nanyang Drive, the new iconic School of Art, Design and Media is situated in a wooded valley right in the heart of the campus.

The design was conceived as 3 intertwining blocks that are apparent natural extensions of the ground. These blocks interweave to enclose a picturesque plaza and landscape. Major spaces such as the Auditorium, Media Studios, library and art galleries surround this outdoor activity node.

Tucked indoors are complementary facilities such as Stop Motion Studio, 3-D Hi-End Computer Graphics Studio, Soundstage, Sound Recording Studios, Audio Visual Editing Suites, Hi-End Digital Post Studio etc.

The highlight of the building is the verdant turfed roof which blends with the ground contour. Apart from its visual impact, the turfed roofscape is a functional space which is easily accessible via sidesteps along the roof edge, thereby allowing the rooftop to be a scenic outdoor communal space. Environmentally, it helps to lower the roof temperature and surrounding areas.

The facade design is a glass curtain wall in neutral grey colour. The remaining parts of the building comprised off-form concrete walls which eschew painting or external rendering works.

The external finish is reserved in its primary condition to maintain its design integrity and naturalness. When night beckons, the building lights up like a beacon that announces its warm presence. The interior lighting streams through the glass curtain walls to render the building a dynamic stage against the backdrop of the external landscape.

*For those of you that don't know this yet, NO parking garage, regardless of LEED points, is environmentally friendly. Urbanize properly and through away the keys!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

Time, time, time
See what's become of me...

Walking on flowers, permanently...

Concrete...blah.

That's my usual reaction. Just plain blah.

Sure, industrial concrete finishes in businesses and designer lofts are all the rage, but let's face it; no amount of acid finish, stamping or staining can warm up the feel of concrete to that of, say, a reclaimed wood plank floor salvaged from a 100-year old barn. Concrete is cold, unwelcoming and often times just plain boring, regardless of whatever faux tile finish or slate texture application you can find. Blah.

And while the concrete industry has made some tremendous advancements --from CERATECH's carbon reducing sustainable concrete to cement based composites like Syndecrete (they've even developed a self-cleaning concrete from Essroc that uses photocatalysis to scrub itself)-- when it comes to unique aesthetics, not many concrete floors can hold their ground.

Try as they might, they're still just plain old, cold concrete floors. Scraped and scratched, dyed and bleached, blah concrete floors.

One solution?

Bring in the design team from Transparent House, a 3D visualization studio that specializes in creating photorealistic 3D renderings of architectural designs. They're taking concrete to a whole new (see: beautiful) level...

Transparent House Team presents its vision of the classic flooring material – concrete.

We’ve created a way to refine a popular element of contemporary interior design such as polished concrete flooring. The design concept allows for application of any pattern to the surface either when pouring or afterwards when the concrete has set. The fine floral ornament promotes the clean and simple character of the space while adding a touch of warm and live contrast and highlighting the cold austerity of the material.

Now THAT's the farthest thing from blah I've seen in a while.

Check out more of Transparent House concrete HERE.

How does your garden grow? In transit?

Grown in Transit is a tremendous concept from the LifeSigns network, a web based portal for the Future Laboratory's extensive network of professionals working in the creative and branding industries. If you haven't already registered to read the LifeSigns material, now would be a good time to do so.

Each day, the LifeSigns team uploads trend-based stories and reports from a wiiiiiiiide range of events/trade shows/design outlets/solar systems. The material is very on-edge, fresh, and full of original content.

Sign up now and when you're approved (yes, you must be approved to read their content), you'll have full access to some amazing stuff.

The LifeSigns network's Grown In Transit:

This week, LifeSigns is continuing its menu of food trends from the Future Laboratory's new Food Futures Report.

Supermarkets and modern food transportation systems have sacrificed freshness and seasonality in favour of warehousing depots, bulk transportation and blemish-free produce. But a new attitude is emerging, with the creation of innovative ways of growing food in transit rather than refrigerating products into suspended animation.

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Agata Jaworska's project Made in Transit, aims to eliminate the wasted time and trapped inventory in many supply chains by actually growing produce en route to the store. Jaworska's concept aims to move from best before, preservative packaging to ready by, cultivational packaging which consumers would open when the product was ready for consumption. Jaworska's first example would grow mushrooms on the way to the supermarket.

The instant a crop is removed from the ground or separated from its parent plant, a steady process of deterioration begins, says Jaworska. Methods to compensate for the loss of quality, taste and nutrients can only slow the process of deterioration down, but the result will never match what we have at the source of life. The grown-in-transit, concept enables growth along the way, to deliver absolute freshness and allow the consumer to harvest, their own food. The idea would also minimise the excess packaging, such as the plastic film and crates that protect delicate food items in transit. These are rarely re-used.

Award-winning chef Arthur Potts Dawson hopes to bring a community aspect to the trend with his veg barge, concept. He plans to create an aquatic allotment on one of the barges on Regent's Canal, adjacent to his Water House restaurant in Shoreditch, London.

The barge is an extension of the city-grown produce cultivated on the roof and in the front and back yards of Potts Dawson's Acorn House in the busy King's Cross area. It would service the restaurant by travelling up and down the canal as the herbs, fruits and vegetables grow. Potts Dawson is also keen to use the barge to serve the community, travelling into the Hackney borough to promote and sell locally-grown foods.

For more on this or other trends contact Hester Chan for copies of the Food Futures report or a ticket to the Food Futures Forum.

Holy Holmenkollen!!!

Every now and then a project comes along that makes you say, "How?" The design is breathtaking, the size is extreme and the appearance, near impossible. Well, the future of the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo, Norway is just that kind of project.

The grandiose project was won late last year in a open competition by Danish Architect, Julien De Smedt, and is now commissioned to be built for the 2011 World Ski Championships! What do you think? The new design is simply awe-inspiring.

The International Ski Federation had requested that an iconic structure be built for the competition and as you can see, De Smedt didn't disappoint. Given the rich history of skiing in Oslo --in addition to the 600,000+ tourists that visit the existing jump year after year-- it's easy to see that interest in the location and culture will only grow. The ISF should be quite happy with the future of Nordic sport in Norway.

The jump will be a cantilevered steel structure, eagerly capable of handling the massive weight and power of snow and wind. Near the grounding point of the cantilever, there will a union and restaurant for spectators, tourists and officials. Additionally, there will be a public viewing platform at the crest of the jump, allowing spectators to view the athletes as they launch from into the air. I can only imagine what that view will look like! And with the entire structure lit from within, surrounded in a glass-plate façade, I can imagine the the view from outside the jump will be just as, if not more, breathtaking. To top it off, the peak is cut horizontally to accommodate an additional viewing platform with a 360º panorama view over the Oslo city landscape.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2009.

JDS/Julien De Smedt Architects is a multidisciplinary office, located in Copenhagen, Brussels and Oslo, that focuses on architecture and design, from large scale urban planning to furniture and design.