Hasta La Ideas

This is freaking amazing. While NASA’s been working on thin-film aerogels, three researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas have been forming “free-standing carbon nanotube aerogel sheets for photothermal deflection.” What does all that g(r)eek mean? It means invisibility, son.

I won’t pretend I understood most of the jargon-filled ten-page research paper presented by Ali E. Aliev, Yuri N. Gartstein and Ray H. Baughman, but from what I gather, they use electricity to vibrate the aerogel material, which doesn’t just turn invisible itself—it actually cloaks what it’s surrounding. Have a look at this “Application of a nanotube sheet as a mirage-based concealment cloak [that] is demonstrated in water:”

The researchers made their breakthrough last year, though we have yet to see it pop up in daily life, of course. I suspect the research going is slow because every time they turn the machine on and go to lunch, they come back and can’t find it.

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Kumi Yamashita est une artiste japonaise basée à New-York reconnu pour sa capacité à manier différentes surfaces et parvenant ainsi à jouer avec leurs ombres. Voici ses derniers travaux, toujours aussi réussis, montrant différents profils, dont notamment celui de la chancelière allemande Angela Merkel.

All images courtesy of Barreau & Carbonnet; ‘gif’ it a second to load

We’re always curious to see new developments in urban gardening trend as it grows parallel to broader interest in sustainable foodways, from reclaimed spaces to apartment-friendly planters to conceptual experiments. French designers Nicolas Barreau and Jules Charbonnet, based in Paris and Nantes respectively, recently created an innovative urban gardening apparatus that lies at the intersection of all three. Earlier this summer, their eponymous design studio presented “Volet Végétal” at the Jardin des Tuileries as a finalist in the Jardins Jardin design contest.

The window-mounted chassis, which holds three planters, is operated via pulley, as a sort of drawbridge outfitted with houseplants and herbs:

“Volet Végétal”‘ is a project that we thought for a Parisian design contest “Jardin Jardin” as an industrial product for people who are living in apartment deprived of gardens and balcony. Users have just to plug the structure on the outside of their windows. Horizontal position to enlarge a green view on the city land by trying to go further from the facade of the building and get more ornamental stand for plant. Vertical to create a shutter of light, a filter for green air and also for an easy garden upkeeping.

If it weren’t for NYC’s oppressive humidity (this month in particular), the elegant system might make an immeasurable aesthetic improvement from the unsightly air conditioners that are an acne-like blight on many façades here—is this also the case in Paris?

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Facebook’s stock might not be doing so hot, but that hasn’t stopped founder Mark Zuckerberg from picking a big-name architect to design their headquarters expansion. Facebook West, as it’s to be called, will be designed by Frank Gehry.

The space promises to be unusual: The plan calls for a ten-acre building—housing just one, massive, room. That’s 420,000 square feet, spread over a single story. According the Bloomberg Businesweek, who got the scoop:

Gehry said skylights and clerestories in the 26-foot-high ceilings would shower the vast space with daylight.

…You would pass no private office or cubicle, but you could circle a glass-partitioned space at the very center of the floor where you might find Zuckerberg. Outdoor-terraced cafes will serve sushi and barbecue. A twisting wooden stair within a tall cube of glass will lead to a lush rooftop garden—a place to escape.

“Mark said he wanted to be in the same room with all his engineers,” Gehry said. “I told him we could put the building up on stilts, park cars underneath and create a room as large as he wanted.”

Sounds like a sideways skyscraper, doesn’t it? But it makes sense that a horizontally-structured company would want a horizontal office.

Gehry’s last quote in the article, by the way, isn’t good news for blogs and magazines: “My goal is a kind of ephemeral connectivity that you can’t take a picture of.”

Ribbon-cutting is slated for Spring 2015.

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