My good friends and hyper-talented guys behind studio[mode] – Gil Akos and Ronnie Parsons – have just launched mode[lab], the lab component of their studio. In their own words: mode[lab] “is conceived of as a laboratory and serves as a knowledge base for design research and experimentation. The laboratory is distributed in nature and operates across multiple time-scales and locations ranging from intensive workshops to design studios throughout North America and Europe.

Our primary objective is to discover novel and inventive design solutions through the identification of key concepts relevant to contemporary architectural discourse and the development of related maps of action.”

Smart Cities vehicle prototype.

We just got back from Boston after being invited by MIT to give a lunchtime lecture. My good friend Daniel Cardoso, a PhD candidate there was kind enough to show us around the media lab, where a few -very generous- people showed us some of their work. We had a chance to see the fabrication labs and some of the robotic work being currently done there, and it was absolutely mesmerizing. Dimitris Papanikolaou gave us a full presentation on his Mobility on Demand (MOD) project for the Smart Cities group, not only was that incredibly generous, but an amazingly interesting solution to urban mobility. What I think was among the most interesting thing -not only of his project but of the lab in general- is the reality of it all. A lot of the research being conducted there is for real applications / products / solutions, which is very refreshing to see after having been involved in architecture school for some time now, where a very small percentage of what is produced has real-world implications. We had as well the opportunity to meet up with our friends Carlos Rocha (ex-Media Lab and current Honda scientist) and Skylar Tibbits.

View a few more images after the jump below.

Dimitris Papanikolaou and a MOD vehicle prototype.

Daniel Cardoso showing us some of the work done at the S.A workshops.

Carlos Rocha, Daniel Cardoso and Mike Szivos post lecture.

The Millennium Falcon
ps. Daniel sent me this brief history or the MF.

Take a look at the primitive huts here in the NYT slideshow.

Just as a refresher, the other two entries were in ’07 (Prehistoric Future) and ’04 (Plug-in Drop-out)

Our entry for the LE:60 festival. Will be shown on Oct 4th.

SOFTlab’s 1 minute film “Shizuku” will be shown at the 1st annual Le:60 film festival in Boston.

Today was the opening for Cooper Union’s end of year show. I got to walk around the architecture and art shows and saw a lot of beautiful models, some great drawings, and a few fun/smart pieces of art.
The one above was one of my favorites: a hand crank break dancer + MC Hammer zoetrope. Can’t beat it.

See images of some interesting projects on view after the jump.

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I just came across this project created at the Bezalel academy for arts and crafts, for the course “Food for Thought” in the jewelry department. This coffee grinder operates according to the users heart-beat rate and is intended as a critique to consumerism (isn’t consumerism linked directly to the fetishization of objects?). In their own words: “To use this object, you must caress it and hug it, much like as a baby is held, the user inevitably bonds with it, emotionally.”
Although the object is currently a one off, it could potentially become a mass produced product. Ultimately, it is a poetic approach to an everyday object/task, and makes us [re]think about the way we relate with objects. Whether I would want to bond with my coffee grinder or not, well, that’s a different story.

Visit Nastypixel to read more about the project. Check out some of their other projects while you’re there, pretty interesting stuff.

Time froze in Grand Central Station last Saturday. Over 200 Improv Everywhere’s agents froze on the run in what has to be one of the most uncanny and interesting moments in the station’s history. Absolutely fantastic.

via [core77>Improv Everywhere]

We got back last night from the Van Alen Institute after the opening of The Living City, The Living’s installation. It was pretty interesting seeing the ‘full’ prototype of their wall system up and running. The system is controlled by sensors placed in an office off site which measures air quality and then transmits data through the web to their prototype at the Van Alen. The data is then parsed there and it affects activates their system, which adjusts the opening of its ‘gills’ in real-time to the oscillations in air quality.

More pics after the jump below.

The night before…

David Benjamin

It is alive!

Soo-In Yang and Natalie Jeremijenko

Soo-In Yang and Natalie Jeremijenko

The opening for our good friends David and Soo-In Yang -aka The Living – at the Van Alen Institute is tonight. Their project ‘Living City’ will be on display from December 11th to January 18th.

Living City is about the future…when building’s systems react in real-time to dynamic stimuli and the buildings communicate with each other, creating a large network of ‘living’ organisms.

Living City is a full-scale prototype building skin designed to open and close its gills in response to air quality.

SOFTlab collaborated with The Living on the creation of two videos featured in the installation.

More info on the project here and at the Van Alen site here.

We’ll be there at the opening tonight so I’ll post some images later on.

I just came across Mariusz Waras’s work m-city and totally digged it.
His stencils of cities bring to mind the idea of an analog “sim-city”, as they seem to self-organize, decay over time and have their own life.

Check the site here