From Japan, another weird product.1,480 (JPY)..(Read…)

The creators of activity tracking app Human have visualised the routes taken by its users to create moving maps that show the world’s cities throughout the day (+ movie).

Using data collected from the Human smartphone app, major urban centres such as London, New York and Amsterdam have been drawn with pixels created by the movement of inhabitants that use the app.

“We visualised 7.5 million miles of activity in major cities all across the globe to get an insight into Human activity,” said the team. “Walking, running, cycling, and motorised transportation data tell us different stories.”

The maps show time-specific patterns of activity like early-morning running routes and rush-hour traffic.

These can be seen in both videos and a series of gifs created by Human – all published on the app’s website.

Visualisations have also been overlaid to form artistic street maps of the cities, which can be ordered as prints.

In the series of maps, patterns of movement are marked using white lines on a black background, creating trails that build up and fade over time.

“[The imagery shows] how a ‘simple’ consumer app can lead to insights on a tremendous scale, providing general health data and insights that could lead to better urban planning,” Human CEO Renato Valdés Olmos told Dezeen.

The iPhone app was originally designed to encourage users to undertake at least 30 minutes of exercise each day. Using the phone’s location services and movement sensors while sat in a pocket or bag, it records the wearer’s type of movement and tots up the amount of activity completed.

The app automatically categorises walking, running and cycling, while other types of movement are simply counted as “active”.

The collected data is securely processes on the phone and on Human’s servers.

As well as the city maps, the information was also used to rank the cities in percentage order of their residents’ most common means of transport.

Amsterdam topped the list for cycling, Washington for walking, Berlin for running and Los Angeles for motorised transport.

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maps of urban movement appeared first on Dezeen.

Design collective Penda has developed a concept for a flexible, portable hotel made from rods of bamboo, designed to bring guests closer to nature (+ movie).

One With the Birds was developed by Penda – a design collective based in Vienna and Beijing – for the AIM Legend of the Tent competition in China, which challenged architects to develop low-impact tent-themed hotels offering a closer connection with the outdoors.

Penda, whose other projects include a Beijing gallery with swooping curved arches and a doughnut-shaped house, came up with a concept for a flexible bamboo structure that can be easily expanded horizontally and vertically.

“The structure could grow as tall as the trees,” Chris Precht from Penda told Dezeen. “Connected to the verticality of the trees, we can experience a forest from the perspective of a child climbing a tree, in between the treetops, with the birds – fully connected with nature in 3D and HD.”

Penda took inspiration from Native American tipis for the structure, which would be built with X-shaped bamboo joints that hold horizontal bamboo rods in place. The horizontal rods support the flooring, and the joints could be multiplied horizontally and vertically to increase the width and height of the structure.

“The span of each structural grid is 4.7 metres, so quite narrow, and eight sticks of structural beams are combined at each joint, so the system will be able to hold a lot of weight,” Precht said.

“The great thing about a flexible grid is that you can add structural beams when necessary, so if there is going to be more load on one part of the structure, more bamboo can be added.”

The more joints in the framework, the more stable it also becomes, according to Precht. “It’s like people carrying a load – tough for one, but easier in a team.”

The structure would be raised slightly off the ground, so changes in levels could be easily accommodated. Joints would be tied together with rope, rather than fixed with nails, keeping the bamboo intact so it could be disassembled and reused in other projects.

“The focus was to create a connection which leaves no impact on the site, nor any harm on the bamboo itself, so after the temporary hotel is deconstructed, the materials can be re-used as scaffolding on a construction site or reused as another temporary hotel on a different location,” said Precht.

Penda chose bamboo for its availability and flexibility in China.

“It is used all over China as scaffolding on construction sites for low- and high-rise buildings, and it can be transported easily and set up again on a different site,” said Precht. “This flexibility was our starting point for One With the Birds.”

“Furthermore, our intention is not just to link the structure to a natural surrounding, but also connect nature to the structure,” said Precht. “Ivy and other plants can grow on the grid, and over time they can take over the whole bamboo structure and transform its appearance.”

Penda is now developing the concept into a mock-up, with the eventual aim of finding partners to work on larger-scale structures such as temporary hotels. Precht says the system could also be used for emergency shelter in disasters.

“The system can be used wherever there is a need for a temporary, flexible structure,” he said. “As designers, we like to give people a framework which they can use however they want. We don’t need to tell them what to do, because they know best. That’s the beauty of a flexible grid.”

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expanded horizontally and vertically appeared first on Dezeen.

“Colour is life energy and one of the most powerful pure forces. It is the air that I breathe. How and why I choose certain colours is deeply personal for me, and I do it with a lot of purpose. I associate people with colours, I see experiences and moments through colours and I always dream of colours. This is why I need to create, make and design. Colour acts as the road map through my life and sets me apart, making who I am and how I see the world special.”

Read all about Tiffany Pratt in the current issue and follow her colourful Instagram here.

Glazed voids run up the sides and over the roof of this concrete house by South Korean studio AND, giving each room its own enclosed patio and increasing the flow of light inside (+ slideshow).

In designing Voidwall, AND (Architecture of Novel Differentiation) cut slices out of the concrete structure on all four sides to explore the idea of a house built around terraces – described as balconies – rather than terraces built around a house.

“This project takes a balcony not as a bonus space but as an essential element that constructs a house,” said the architects. “As a void wall, it divides the interior space and makes connections between the rooms.”

The indoor patios draw light into the centre of the single-storey house, which is located in the coastal city of Sokcho. They offer views between the different rooms in order to make the interior feel bigger than its 136-square-metre footprint.

“Each room has its own balcony, and the house is defined by the characters of the balconies. In this house, the minimal element makes the whole,” said the architects.

All the patios are enclosed so they can be used year-round, but feature glazed doors that open up to the garden and terrace around the perimeter.

The architects designed the spaces to suit a range of functions – some act as sunrooms or spaces to grow plants or dry clothes, while others offer more space to accommodate tables and chairs.

“Balconies are an in-between space that connect the interior and exterior, and although they play an important role in experiencing the interior space, balconies have never received full attention in the discourse of architecture,” said the architects.

“In most cases, a balcony either disappears as the interior space expands, or becomes a meaningless universal space that serves miscellaneous functions,” they added.

A roof terrace offers the occupants an additional outdoor space, and gentle slopes at the edge of the roof guide rainwater down to the garden below.

Rooms are arranged on one floor, with the exception of a double-height volume at the entrance. This houses a bedroom on the upper level and provides access to the roof terrace.

The more private spaces – two bedrooms and bathrooms, a study and a lounge – are arranged around the edge of the building, while the more communal space of the kitchen-diner is located in the centre, acting like a nexus between all the rooms.

White glossy surfaces in the kitchen help reflect light, contrasting with the dark tiles used for flooring throughout the rest of the space.

The balconies also feature materials that contrast with the interior, lined with either timber or irregular-patterned tiles, to help differentiate them as separate spaces.

Photography is by Kyungsub Shin.

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is punctured by glazed incisions appeared first on Dezeen.