Researchers at Aalto University have developed an AI model that can predict the best way to prevent wildfires.

Named FireCNN after its use of a convolutional neural network (CNN), the model is based on data about climate and historic fires in the peatlands of Indonesia‘s Central Kalimantan province on Borneo.

The team behind the four-year project claim that it could be used to help prevent up to 76 per cent of wildfires. Machine learning enables FireCNN to make complex predictions about how effective different interventions could be at preventing or mitigating future wildfires.

Local policymakers can therefore use the model to form better strategies for reducing the impact of fires, which are growing in frequency and ferocity around the world as a result of climate change.

“We are able to change some of the parameters for forest-management practices in the input and then run the scenario, and we got a really good match between the observed and simulated occurrence of wildfires,” Aalto University associate professor Matti Kummu told Dezeen.

“So we were able to show that, okay, these and these strategies would have considerable impact to reduce the wildfires,” he added.

“Over the last two or three years there have been really massive fires, so there is a lot of interest in really understanding how we could in future adapt to and mitigate these disasters.”

Using FireCNN to assess the effect of different strategies for reducing fire risk in Central Kalimantan, the research team identified interventions that would cut the number of fires by 50 to 76 per cent.

Central Kalimantan has the highest density of peatland fires in Southest Asia, made worse by draining of the land to support agriculture and housebuilding.

Model could be applied to different regions

Until now, it has not been possible to identify interventions that would be most effective at reducing the risks. Tests run by FireCNN on the effect of different land-management strategies found that converting shrubland and scrubland into swamp forests would have the biggest effect.

Blocking off drainage canals would also be effective, the simulations found, but would come with a cost to the local economy. Increasing the number of plantations would also reduce the number of fires, but have a significant environmental impact.

The model helps to identify the factors that best explain where wildfires occur, though Kummu said it is not yet good enough at forecasting when and where they will next strike to be used as an early warning system.

Ninety-five per cent of the fires it predicted in a season did occur, but it also missed many others. Instead, the researchers say it can help reduce the number and size of wildfires in highly susceptible areas.

Kummu’s hope is that FireCNN can next be tested in a different type of fire region such as the Mediterranean, which has experienced severe blazes this summer.

“It would be interesting to see how well we can train the model in different areas,” he said.

“We found the key parameters that explain the higher occurrence of fires in Borneo, but that maybe totally different in the Mediterranean.”

Only artificial intelligence (AI) is good enough at making predictions to be used for something as complex as predicting wildfires, Kummu explained.

Based on its learning from data recorded between 2002 and 2019, FireCNN analyses 31 variables on factors such as land cover, vegetation and drought.

“Some of the things that we are modelling are so complex that we couldn’t build a normal mathematical model to try to understand all the linkages and how this affects the equation,” Kummu said.

“So in that sense AI and machine-learning algorithms are perfect for what we are doing, because there are so many issues impacting on the things and no-one really knows all the mechanisms.”

Dezeen’s AItopia series has also featured stories about projects to develop new sustainable materials and furniture designs using AI.

AItopia

This article is part of Dezeen’s AItopia series, which explores the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on design, architecture and humanity, both now and in the future.

The post AI model by Aalto University team can predict how to prevent wildfires appeared first on Dezeen.

As the icon makes an outro during Monterey Car Week we talk to its exterior designer, Frank Lamberty

What do a vintage Porsche race car, a late ’90s Ducati sport bike, an eagle and a tennis ball have in common? They all served as inspiration for the exterior design of the original Audi R8.

We were fortunate enough to be guided through the story of Audi’s first super sports car by none other than the man who penned the exterior, Frank Lamberty. As he explains it, “there had never been a concept like this in the brand’s history; there were no role models.” With that mind it’s a little easier to imagine how the aforementioned influences came into play, it was truly a clean sheet design opportunity. 

When staring at the front end of the LeMans quattro concept car that preceded the production ready R8, it quickly becomes apparent where the eagle factors in. As for the Porsche 904 and Ducati 996, one only needs to briefly view the R8 in profile to see where those had an impact. But what about the tennis ball? Lamberty told us that “when designing a car there are only two forms to begin with—one with edges, one with no edges. A rectangle and a circle. The rectangle can be refined, shaving away from it creates the shape. However the circle is manipulated, squished and pulled until a shape is found, this is a more fluid shape.” Taking that into consideration it’s then easy to see how the highly technical R8 owes some part of its existence to the simple tennis ball. 

From Lamberty’s original 1999 design competition sketch to the 2003 LeMans quattro concept and ultimately the first generation R8, the design is perfectly balanced. Especially in a sports car, “proportions count,” says Lamberty. “A mid-engine sports car is something very special, again because the technical layout, the position of the engine results in a completely different design language.” Driving home that point was quite important to Lamberty and after much back and forth, one of the most iconic automotive design elements of the modern era, perhaps in automotive history, made it through to production, the sideblades. In Lamberty’s own words, “A very important element in the design of the R8 are the sideblades. In front of them is the cockpit, and after that comes the technology. The sideblade, as the air control element that feeds air to the engine, connects these sections of the vehicle. All of the R8’s lines follow this one incredible logic, because for this model, it was important to find its own design key.” And find its own design key it did. 

The LeMans quattro concept arrived at IIA in Frankfurt in 2003 and was an immediate sensation. With Audi being three years into what would end up being a dominant run at LeMans, taking five titles in six years with Tom Kristensen behind the wheel of the R8 LMP race car, the timing for a super sports car concept couldn’t have been better. Three years later a production ready car bearing the R8 name debuted at the Paris Motor Show and was again an immediate sensation. The 2007 R8 quickly sold out in Germany and demand for the hand-built super car around the world would only intensify in the years to follow thanks in part to watershed moments like the classic Super Bowl “godfather” commercial and integration into the first Iron Man film. 

Concluding its 15 year production run after two generations and countless special variants, not to mention the stunning Spyder models, the importance of the R8, both to Audi and to automotive enthusiasts cannot be overstated. Whether in motorsport competition, where the R8 GT3 has won every major endurance race, including the Daytona 24hrs twice and Nurburgring 24hrs six times, or in the enthusiast community, where the first-generation R8, with its gated six-speed manual transmission and optional V10, is one of the few true “poster cars” to come along since the turn of the millennium, the R8 has captured hearts and minds the world over. With Audi sharing that they’re committed to introducing more than 20 new models globally by 2026, and adding only fully electric models from there onward as they head toward a fully electric product portfolio by 2033, it’s come time to bid farewell to the naturally aspirated 5.2L V10 and the R8 as we know it. 

While it’s no doubt a bittersweet moment, we’re glad to have had the chance to join the kickoff of the goodbye tour in grand style, behind the wheel of a 2023 R8 V10 performance Coupe RWD on the famed Laguna Seca Raceway. The sense of occasion was further heightened by a unique exterior wrap inspired by the R8’s “born on the track and built for the road” ethos and designed by none other than Lamberty himself. After two pulse quickening, “straight-out-of-a-dream” laps following Kristensen around Laguna Seca, saying farewell to the naturally aspirated R8 and the soul stirring sound that goes with it felt even more bittersweet than before. However, one quote that was shared with us from Audi’s Head of Design, Marc Lichte, left us feeling optimistic as we walked away from the experience. “I promise you, both EVs and ICE will be impressive. Especially the last-generation ICE RS models. They will be… mind-blowing.”

Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza has designed a series of timber figures alongside a garden by Studio Albori for the Vatican City’s pavilion at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.

Named O Encontro, which translates as the encounter, the figures occupy a series of galleries at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore adjacent to the Andrea Palladio-designed San Giorgio Maggiore church in Venice.

Commissioned by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, the figures are one of two distinct elements created as the Holy See pavilion at the architecture biennale.

Pritzker Architecture Prize-winner Siza arranged the figures in a series of poses in Benedictine monastery’s gallery spaces that lead to an enclosed garden.

“They leave for Venice, and I imagine their performance,” said Álvaro Siza. “They move anxiously, wave, raise their arms – schematic, almost rough figures, in contrast with the delicacy of the spaces.”

“They invade the garden, going to meet the like that will arrive,” he continued.

The figures, which are all made from timber, aim to invite people into the garden that has been redesigned by Milan-based Studio Albori.

According to curator Roberto Cremascoli, the garden and statues are both designed to encourage visitors “to take care of the planet as we care for ourselves and celebrate the culture of encounter”.

Studio Albori replanted the garden with local plants and added several bamboo and timber structures to provide shelter.

The garden is located near an area of parkland that contains 10 small chapel designed by leading architects including Norman Foster, Eduardo Souta de Moura, Sean Godsell and Terunobu Fujimoro, which were created in 2018 as the Vatican City’s first Venice Architecture Biennale pavilion.

Elsewhere at the festival, Ukraine’s pavilion aims to share the country’s “new perception of safety” and the German pavilion offers a material bank for repair projects.

The post Álvaro Siza creates wooden figures for Holy See pavilion at Venice Architecture Biennale appeared first on Dezeen.

Design studio Little Troop has developed a limited-edition board game that explores the contradictory expectations and demands placed on women in a patriarchal society.

Designed for American beauty brand Billie, No Worries If Not mixes elements of popular board games like The Game of Life and Snakes and Ladders with a hyper-vivid colour scheme to reflect the satirical tone of the game.

Although presented as fun and optimistic, Little Troop devised the game to be rigged against the player, who is faced with impossible double standards and pointless solutions such as over-apologising, people-pleasing and overthinking.

The mechanics of No Worries If Not are based on interviews with groups of women about the pressures and challenges they face in their lives.

“We found a lot of shared experiences, but some of the most salient consistencies were around the contradictions and extraordinary expectations women specifically are held to,” Billie co-founder Georgina Gooley told Dezeen.

“We considered a number of ways we might shed light on this but kept coming back to the idea that existing as a woman in today’s world can ultimately feel a bit like you’re playing a rigged game that you can’t win. So we decided to turn it into one.”

Gooley says that the first step in developing the game was to work out its mechanics, as it needed to be both “creatively compelling but also strategically sound in order for it to be functional”.

“We test-played quite a few games to see what we liked and took inspiration from a few different places,” she explained.

“Then we partnered with a set of game strategists to put the pieces together,” she added. “Collectively we mapped out the general framework including gameplay, components and goal.”

The game works similarly to a traditional board game in that each player starts with a token, which they can move across the board after rolling the dice.

Along the way, they encounter a number of “pitfalls” such as The Wage Gap, Smile More Street, Self Doubt Spiral and Fertility Forest. Throughout the game, players also pick up cards, which arbitrarily set them back or move them around the board.

The aim is to reach the final destination called No One’s Man Land without getting knocked off the main path, although Gooley says the game itself is designed to be pretty much “unwinnable”.

“We hope that by pointing out the absurd and contradictory cycles of judgment women face in everyday life, this board game helps women feel a bit more empowered to tune out external measures of their worth,” she said.

Other game designs that combine play with social critique include LifeCredit, which envisions a dystopian future ruled by a social credit system, and the Minecraft library built by Reporters Without Borders, which provides gamers with “a safe haven for press freedom”.

The post “Unwinnable” board game No Worries If Not explores sexist double standards appeared first on Dezeen.

Belgian designer Ramy Fischler has collaborated with Moët Hennessy and cocktail creator Franck Audoux to create the Cravan cocktail bar in the heart of Paris‘ Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Named Cravan, the bar for luxury drinks group Moët Hennessy was a collaboration between architect Fischler and restaurateur, author, historian and cocktail aficionado Audoux.

“The objective of the design was to amplify a story by Franck Audoux originating from his small bar in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and transforming it into a cocktail house over five levels in the centre of the capital – to imagine the creation of a new house of the Moët Hennessy group,” Fischler told Dezeen.

“This is not a one-shot but the beginning of a long adventure. It was therefore necessary to define a harmony, a coherence, between all the ingredients of the project, whether it is the decoration, the service, the music or the lighting.”

The space takes its name from the avant-garde poet-boxer and sometime art critic, Arthur Cravan, a free-spirited figure greatly admired by Audoux, with whom Fischler worked closely on this project.

“We share a common vision, based essentially on cultural references from literature and cinema, and above all a taste for scenic impact, framing a context, point of view, or narrative,” said Fischler.

“We started with the desire to freely assemble codes, eras, and styles to craft a new repertoire which made sense to us and expressed the essence of Cravan.”

Set in a 17th-century building in the heart of this historic and literary district, the space was arranged over five floors, with a small invitation-only space on the roof.

The building has separate bars, each with its own distinct character on the ground, first and third floors, while the second floor hosts the Rizzoli bookstore-cum-library, where guests can come with their drinks to leaf through and buy books. On the fourth floor, there’s another invitation-only atelier-style space.

According to Fischler, the whole project took its cues from the concept of the cocktail.

“I would never have imagined this project in its current state if it were not a question of drinking cocktails” he said.

“There are a number of ingredients that we blend together to create a unique whole, that seems offbeat but is actually very controlled,” he continued.

“I thought of the spaces as cinematic scenes, hence the individual atmospheres on each floor which form different sets. You can sit in front of the stage, on the stage, or behind the stage, depending on the experience and viewing angle you prefer.”

To create these different scenes, the project makes use of a wide range of materials, often reclaimed salvaged pieces including parquet floors, stone floors and wood wall coverings, painstakingly installed by a large team of craftspeople.

In Ramy Fischler’s projects, the textiles always play an important role and the practice features its own in-house textile designer.

“For Cravan, we tried to use as much re-used material as possible, and in particular textiles from Nona Source, a start-up that makes available leftover, unused fabrics from the fashion houses of the LVMH group.”

The practice strived to create a contrast between the warm and natural colours of the historic fittings, and the colder and metallic colours of the contemporary furniture and fittings, “which cohabit one alongside the other”.

“Depending on the level, the colour palette is totally different, and since no room is alike, and each colour has been chosen according to the universe we have sought to compose,” said Fischler.

All of Cravan’s furniture was custom designed and Fischler’s holistic approach extends to the cocktail glasses, which the practice designed for Cravan and which are displayed in the library.

“Rather than creating new shapes, we preferred to select, from the history of glassware over the past 300 years, the models that we liked and that we wanted customers to rediscover,” explained Fischler.

Other recent bars featured on Dezeen include an eclectic cocktail in Los Angeles designed by Kelly Wearstler to feel “like it has been there for ages” and the Ca’ Select bar and distillery in Venice.

The photography is by Vincent Leroux and Alice Fenwick

The post Ramy Fischler blends contemporary and historic for Moët Hennessy’s first cocktail bar appeared first on Dezeen.