“Chishen Chiu is a young designer based in Miao Li, Taiwan. His design thinking has been heavily influenced by his urban surroundings, consisting primarily of small, family-owned factories that produce everything from paper tubes used for rolls of tape to metal parts that find their way into computers and electronic devices.”

“FlexibleLove™ experimental furniture incorporates an ‘accordion-like, honeycomb’ structure to create durable furniture pieces produced from widely-available, low-cost recycled materials. FlexibleLove™ furniture pieces, such as FlexibleLove 16™, are made wholly from recycled paper and wood products, and are produced using pre-existing manufacturing processes in order to reduce their overall impact on the environment.”

Also, an exciting news, the 17 of June 2008, Ci’Num will show the output of 3 years of work at Bilbao (Présentation des travaux de Ci’Num et débat “Les Civilisations numériques : maîtriser leurs défis !” au musée Guggenheim de Bilbao). I was an invited expert of Ci’Num 2005 and 2007. So was Edith in 2007! Thank you Daniel Kaplan for this… and of course the AEC team.

By the way… here is AEC’s latest letter of information #14 with a good overview of audio guides for e-tourism…

“The term that has come to be widely used to define and conceptualize this growing confusion and fusion of the realandimagined is hyperreality. There is an interesting relation between the prefixes of the terms hyperreality and postmodernity. Both post- and hyper-, as well as the related prefixes meta- and trans-, carry with them the notion of a movement beyond an existing state, although each takes on additional meanings with regard to this movement. Post- and Meta- connote “after” and also a significant change in location, position, condition or nature. Trans- is more stricktly “across” but can refer to a change in condition as well. Hyper- adds to this a sense of speeding up, often with the hint of excess. In the debates on the new modernity of the contemporary period, each one of this prefixes has been used (postmodernity, metamodernity, hypermodernity, transmodernity) to connote subtle variations on the same theme. Similarly, arguments can be made to use such terms as post-reality, metareality, and transreality instead of hyperreality. But like postmodernity, hyperreality has entered into popular and academic usage (and misusage) and remains the generally preferred term.”

Edward W. Soja, Postmetropolis. Critical Studies of Cities and Regions (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000); p. 325

Urban Typhoon Workshop in Koliwada, Mumbai: March 16-22, 2008
Participatory Urban Design & the Future of Alternative Communities

“The Urban Typhoon brought together artists, architects, activists and academics from all over the world with the residents of Koliwada, Dharavi to collectively generate ideas, visions and plans, and archive biographies and histories. The workshop’s philosophy is based on the idea that communities should be allowed to determine their future and that everyone, no matter the age, language or qualification should be allowed to participate in the process.

The Urban Typhoon workshop is a global experiment in participatory design. It is directly connected to the various communities of Dharavi and its grassroots community groups.
The workshop is multicultural, multidisciplinary and multimedia. Students, urban planners, architects, designers, artists, sociologists, media artists, political activists, utopists, and other nomads to come together for a week to imagine the future of Koliwada.

The objective is to produce creative alternatives for the future of a neighborhood threatened by a redevelopment plan of the government as well as a multimedia testimony to the unique spirit of Koliwada.”

Found this while hypertexting… looking at the organizers of UBIQUITOUS CITY:

Wii Fit

“Computer scientists have found new ways to use technology to make people’s lives easier. Setting up cameras in the kitchen to record each step made in cooking helps cooks pick up where they left off if distracted. An electronic picture can use symbols to convey a wealth of information — the more stripes on the barber pole, the more traffic on the way home. A camera worn around a person’s neck can interpret gestures, transmit them to electronic devices, replacing remote controls.”

“R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the great American visionaries of the 20th century. Best-known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, Fuller devoted much of his life to resolving the gap between the sciences and the humanities, which he believed was preventing society from taking a comprehensive view of the world. His theories and innovations traversed the worlds of architecture, visual art, literature, mathematics, molecular biology, and environmental science and have had a deep impact on all of those fields.”

“The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight compact dwelling for one or two people. Its compact dimensions of 2.6m cube adapt it to a variety of sites and circumstances, and its functioning spaces of sleeping, working / dining, cooking and hygiene make it suitable for everyday use.

Informed by aviation and automotive design and manufactured at the micro compact home production centre in Austria, the m-ch can be delivered throughout Europe with project individual graphics and interior finishes.

The product was first launched in Munich in November 2005 with the development of a case study village sponsored by O2 Germany, which is currently occupied by students of TU Munich.”

Check the micro-compact home website.