This week we will be visting, Air Division & Modliving, 2 well-known designer furniture showrooms in Singapore. Do take note of the materials used in each piece of furniture! Collect catalogues where possible.
Author ArchiveTransmaterial Unlike the artist, who interacts directly with his or her palette, the architect is one-step removed from the physical substance that makes architecture. This synapse often breeds ignorance about what materials are available or what properties they possess, which is reinforced by the fact that most buildings are still comprised by relatively conventional products and systems despite the wide variety available. Indeed, when one assesses the diverse and fantastic range of materials available today, one realizes the extent to which humanity has been hell-bent for innovation. One sees not a fixed catalog of products, but rather a constantly shifting array of materials which offer continual improvements upon known standards or which render those standards obsolete. Within this ever-changing inventory, several broad classifications arise which elucidate the material transformations that are occurring. By analyzing the most innovative products and processes according to these expansive trends, it is my hope that we can gain a greater comprehension of these developments in order to imbue our physical environment with the same unrelenting expectations for innovation. Source: Introduction to transmaterial by Blaine Brownell We will be looking at various categories of transmaterial for the following weeks: ULTRAPERFORMING MULTIDIMENSIONAL REPURPOSED RECOMBINANT INTELLIGENT TRANSFORMATIONAL INTERFACIAL UCLA’s student blog on Transmaterial http://www.digital-doa.com/jsipprell/archives/materials/index.html Architectural Record’s article on Transmaterial http://www.archrecord.com/resources/conteduc/archives/0311edit-1.asp Architectural Record’s article on New Concrete http://www.archrecord.com/resources/conteduc/archives/0501edit-1.asp Online Exhibition: The changing world as predicted by ‘The City of Bits’ The Interactive art of ART+COM Transmaterials of the week ULTRAPERFORMING (Lightweight but ultrastrong) Throughout human history, material innovation has been defined by the persistent testing of limits. Ultra-performing materials are those which are stronger, lighter, more durable, and more flexible than their conventional counterparts.These materials are important because they shatter known boundaries and necessitate new thinking about the shaping of our physical environment. Interestingly enough, one of the most significant trends in material innovation is actually dematerialization. The ongoing pursuit of thinner, more porous, and less opaque products indicates a notable movement towards greater exposure and ephemerality. The recent fabrication of translucent concrete, for example, is significant because what has been understood to be a thick, heavy, and opaque material can now transmit light. We can now see through walls. It should come as no surprise that ultra-performing materials are generally expensive and difficult to obtain, although many of the following products are being developed for a broad market. High-performance concrete http://imagineductal.com/imagineductal/intro.asp http://www.ductal-lafarge.com/cgi-bin/lafcom/jsp/homeDuctal.do?lang=en Light-transmitting concrete Foamed aluminium http://www.alusion.com/home.html Woven metal mesh http://www.gkd.de/englisch/index.html Lumicor http://www.lumicor.com/_lumicor/index.php Laminated Thermoplastic panels http://www.blizzard-composite.com/en/ Tensioned Fabric structures http://www.transformitdesign.com/ _____________________________________________________________________ MULTIDIMENSIONAL(Materials with 3-dimensional qualities) Obviously, materials are physically defined by three dimensions. But many products and buildings have long been conceived as a collection of flat planes which define space and function (consider a computer motherboard or Le Corbusier’s domino frame, for example). A new trend highlights the exploitation of the z-axis in the manufacture of a wide variety of materials, ranging from fabrics to wall and ceiling treatments. One reason for this development is the fact that taking advantage of greater depth allows thin materials to become more structurally stable. Another reason is that materials with enhanced texture and richness are more visually interesting. Augmented dimensionality will likely be a growing movement, especially considering the technological trends toward miniaturization, systems integration, and pre-fabrication. Lift surface materials http://www.forms-surfaces.com/products/index/architectural_surfaces.htm Tracking system for curved timber partitions Gigantic corrugated boards http://www.well.de/en/use_wellboard.html Liquid plywood 3D glass http://www.jbermanglass.com/glass/glass_textures.html 3D gypsum panels http://www.modulararts.com/index2.html 3D tiles http://www.totemdesign.com/products/search/designer.html 3D fabric http://www.jhanebarnestextiles.com/1/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=4 3D wallpaper http://www.mioculture.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=2&idproduct=8 3D ceiling 3D acoustic tiles http://www.offecct.se/Templates/products.aspx?tabindex=1&subtab=6&productId=111 ______________________________________________________________________________ Compulsory browsing list for Assignment 1 Wordpress workshop
This is a 3-hr workshop intended for MA students to use the internet as a platform for submitting of their illustrated assignment 1 & 2 for the Innovation & Technology module. Important concepts of ’skins’, ‘hyperlinking’, ‘interface-automation’ and ‘online collaborative roles’ will be introduced during the handson workshop. Students will be able to host their own wordpress webpage at the end of the session. See Assignment webpage for I & T module for NAFA MA students Register a free wordpress webpage or account here
Can technological progress be brought to a halt? Despairing technological determinists like philosopher Jacques Ellul feared that technology had escaped the bonds of human control and was now, in some sense, an autonomous force. In The Technological Society (1964), Ellul declared, “Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.” So in his view technological progress is, alas, inevitable. But is that so? Northwestern University economist Joel Mokyr has written a remarkably interesting history of Western technological progress over the past two centuries, called The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy (2002). Gifts masterfully analyzes how the growth of scientific and technological knowledge has underpinned 200 years of amazing economic growth in the West. But why the West? “[T]he true key to the timing of the Industrial Revolution has to be sought in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment movement of the eighteenth century. The key to the Industrial Revolution was technology, technology is knowledge,” writes Mokyr. “The rate of technological development has been deeply affected by the fact that people who studied nature and those who were active in economic production have been, through most of history, by and large disjoint social groups.” The 18th century saw the rise of institutions in Europe that established firm linkages between scientific and economic actors. These included scientific societies like the British Royal Society and the convention that scientific knowledge be made public rather than kept secret. Eighteenth century Europe also fractured into many independent sovereignties at the conclusion of the religious wars that had wracked continent for the previous two centuries. This political diversity promoted greater freedom of thought among merchants, scientists, and other thinkers, who would often simply pick and up leave if the government of one place displeased them. Useful knowledge, according to Mokyr, comes in two varieties. The first is propositional knowledge about natural phenomena and their regularities, e.g., the law of gravity and the germ theory of disease. Propositional knowledge can then be used to create instructional or prescriptive knowledge; that is, to develop such techniques as disinfectants to control germs. The new propositional knowledge was widely disseminated through a growing network of scientific and engineering journals and encyclopedias. These publications gave inventors cheap access to information, enabling them to develop new technologies such as steam engines, locomotives, canning, anesthesia, electric motors and lighting, and the production of nitrogen fertilizer. History, according to Mokyr, shows that “technological progress in a society is by and large a temporary and vulnerable process, with many powerful enemies with a vested interest in the status quo or an aversion to change continuously threatening it. The net result is that changes in technology, the mainspring of economic progress, have been rare relative to what we now know human creativity is capable of, and that stasis or change at very slow rates has been the rule rather than the exception. It is our own age, and especially the rapid technological change in the Western world, that is the historical aberration.” Rapid technological and economic growth is indeed an aberration. It took nearly 1,800 years for per capita incomes in Western Europe to triple, from about $450 in 0 A.D. to $1,269 in 1820 A.D., according to economic historian Angus Maddison. But then the scientific and technological revolution hit, boosting West European incomes with unprecedented rapidity, up 13-fold to $17,456 in less than 200 years. That adds up to a mere 39-fold increase over the average income in the Roman Empire, almost all of it in the last two centuries. But given all the benefits that modern scientific and technological enterprise has bestowed upon humanity, why would anyone want to vote “no”? “Technological progress inevitably involves losers, and these losers…tend to be concentrated and usually find it easy to organize,” notes Mokyr. “Sooner or later in any society the progress of technology will grind to a halt because the forces that used to support innovation become vested interests. In a purely dialectical fashion, technological progress creates the very forces that eventually destroy it.” Candle makers, after all, cannot be expected to hail the invention of the electric light bulb, nor hostlers the advent of automobiles, nor canal-boat owners the building of railways, nor TV broadcasters the laying down of cable systems. Mokyr notes that, historically, “technological progress has a better chance in the long run in free self-organizing market societies than in command economies.” However, this is exactly what dismays technology critics like Ellul. If technological decisions are left to people freely acting in markets, those who favor a new technology can vote “yes” by buying it or switching to it. Those who oppose it can refuse to buy or use a new technology; but, as Mokyr notes, they “have no control over what others do even if they feel it might affect them. In markets it is difficult to express a no vote.” Thus it is no surprise that opponents of technological progress often want decisions about new technologies to be made in political arenas. Opponents of a given new technology believe that they will have more luck by lobbying their local congressperson or member of parliament to vote to prohibit its development. The European Union’s effort to slow the introduction of genetically enhanced crops is a contemporary example of this process at work. The defining political conflict of the 21st century is shaping up to be the battle over the future of technology. Fortunately, technological progress doesn’t just have opponents; it also has boosters. The rise of neo-Luddism is calling forth self-conscious defenders of technological progress. Growing numbers of extropians, transhumanists, futurists and others are entering the intellectual fray to do battle against the neo-Luddite activists who oppose biotechnology, nanotechnology, and new intelligence technologies. One such pro-technology group, the Institute for Accelerating Change in Los Angeles, would give Jacques Ellul nightmares. The IAC doesn’t just favor technological progress; it promotes accelerating technological progress exponentially. “Activists, bureaucrats, and lawyers are hampering promising research and making it more costly,” writes Mokyr. “But the achievements made possible by new useful knowledge in terms of economic well-being and human capabilities have been unlike anything experienced before by the human race. The question remains, can this advance be sustained?” That is indeed THE question for the 21st century.
Source: http://www.reason.com/rb/rb081303.shtml Studio Activities 1. Discussion of forum topic 2 and Ronald Bailey’s article above. 2. Overview of Assignment 1 requirements. Technology and human needs Environmental problems caused by Industrialisation Video introduction to the Environmental crisis presented by Leonard Dicaprio Read Poverty, the greatest threat to the environment Sustainable and healthy environment issues for designers Australian Ecospecifier for products U.S. Eco-friendly product list Australian resources on sustainability Environmentally friendly houses Measuring Technological Progress Many sociologists and anthropologists have created social theories dealing with social and cultural evolution. Some, like Lewis H. Morgan, Leslie White, and Gerhard Lenski, declare technological progress to be the primary factor driving the development of human civilisation. Morgan’s concept of three major stages of social evoluton (savagery, barbarism, and civilization) can be divided by technological milestones, like fire, the bow, and pottery in the savage era, domestication of animals, agriculture, and metalworking in the barbarian era and the alphabet and writing in the civilisation era. Instead of specific inventions, White decided that the measure by which to judge the evolution of culture was energy. For White “the primary function of culture” is to “harness and control energy.” White differentiates between five stages of human development: In the first, people use energy of their own muscles. In the second, they use energy of domesticated animals. In the third, they use the energy of plants (agricultural revolution). In the fourth, they learn to use the energy of natural resources: coal, oil, gas. In the fifth, they harness nuclear energy. White introduced a forumula P=E*T, where E is a measure of energy consumed, and T is the measure of efficiency of technical factors utilising the energy. In his own words, “culture evolves as the amount of energy harnessed per capita per year is increased, or as the efficiency of the instrumental means of putting the energy to work is increased”. Russian astronomer, Nikolai Kardashev, extrapolated his theory creating the Kardashev scale, which categorizes the energy use of advanced civilisations. Lenski takes a more modern approach and focuses on information. The more information and knowledge (especially allowing the shaping of natural environment) a given society has, the more advanced it is. He identifies four stages of human development, based on advances in the history of communication. In the first stage, information is passed by genes. In the second, when humans gain sentience, they can learn and pass information through by experience. In the third, the humans start using signs and develop logic. In the fourth, they can create symbols, develop language and writing. Advancements in the technology of communication translates into advancements in the economic system and political system, distribution of goods, social inequality and other spheres of social life. He also differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication and economy: 1) hunters and gatherers, 2) simple agricultural, 3) advanced agricultural, 4) industrial 5) special (like fishing societies). Finally, from the late 1970s sociologists and anthropologists like Alvin Toffler (author of Future Shock), Daniel Bell and John Naisbitt have approached the theories of post-industrial societies, arguing that the current era of industrial society is coming to an end, and services and information are becoming more important than industry and goods. Some of the more extreme visions of the post-industrial society, especially in fiction, are strikingly similar to the visions of near and post-Singularity societies. Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_technology Technology and the Past A Virtual tour of the Pantheon Notes: Concrete and the Roman Civilization Technology and the Present A Virtual Tour of Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall Notes: Frank Gehry and Bent Steel Technology and the Future A Virtual tour of Non Standard Architectures at the Pompidou Centre Liquid stone: New Architecture in Concrete at te National Building Museum, Washington DC Notes: Cultural Concerns in Computational Architecture Technological Singularity The prediction of a cyborg era Reading List for Week 3 Ira - http://www.erco.com/
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