Hasta La Ideas

Royal College of Art graduate Chang-Yeob Lee has developed a concept to transform the BT Tower in London into a pollution-harvesting high rise (+ movie).

Entitled Synth[e]tech[e]cology, the project predicts the eventual redundancy of the 189-metre tower – currently used for telecommunications – and suggests repurposing it as an eco-skyscraper that collects airborne dirt particles and helps to reduce the level of respiratory illness in London.

The process would involve extracting the carbon from petrol fumes and using it to produce sustainable bio-fuel.

“The project is about a new infrastructure gathering resources from pollutants in the city atmosphere, which could be another valuable commodity in the age of depleting resources,” says Chang-Yeob Lee.

Lee describes his proposal as “a hybrid between a vertical oil field and laboratory for future resources”. The exterior of the tower would form a giant eco-catalytic converter, while the interior would house a research facility investigating methods of increasing air movement and maximising the efficiency of the structure.

Similar structures could also be fitted to other unused high rises to create a network of pollution-reducing architecture.

Referencing a quote from architect Buckminster Fuller, Lee says: “Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” He adds: “Pollution could be another economy”.

Synth[e]tech[e]cology is Lee’s diploma project from the architecture programme at the Royal College of Art in London and he was one of two winners of the Student Prize for Architecture at the Royal Academy of Arts‘ Summer Exhibition.

Other projects from this year’s RCA graduates include bristly headdresses made from colourful plastic spikes and bicycle helmets made from old newspapers. See more projects by 2013 graduates.

Other conceptual skyscrapers we’ve featured include a building that would produce energy and clean water from algae, a tower constructed from rubbish and a hairy skyscraper that functions as a wind farm. See more conceptual architecture.

Here are a few words from Chang-Yeob Lee:

Synth[e]tech[e]cology _ Greenhouse Gas to Economic Asset

“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

Harnessing advancements of various particle-capturing technologies, this project envisions that air pollution as a valuable commodity in an age of depleting resources. The scheme utilises the Post Office Tower adjacent to Marylebone Road, one of London’s most polluted areas, as a hybrid between a vertical oil field and laboratory for future resources scrubbed from the atmosphere.

The project aims to show how hybrizided new infrastructure can gather pollutants, store, digest, and harvest them to dilute minerals and biofules, celebrating clean air process on the ground level. The ultimate ambition of the project is to be deployed as a retro-fitting strategy to tall unused or derelicy buildings in London, showing that alternative routes to ‘economic profit’ meaningfully engaged into pollution can be a provocative strategy for ‘sustainable ecology’.

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by Chang-Yeob Lee appeared first on Dezeen.

This kit by Royal College of Art graduate Neil Merry allows musicians to control sound and lighting effects at their gigs by slinging the microphone around or waggling their instruments about (+ movie).

Presented at the Royal College of Art graduate show in London this week, the portable Plug + Play kit includes sensors that clip onto instruments or microphone stands, controlling sound and lighting according to the performer’s movements and gestures.

One senses the proximity of the performer to the microphone, for example, while another is activated by twisting the microphone stand.

“It’s about having control over things you wouldn’t normally have control of as a performer,” says Merry, who thinks the kit could bring more engaging performances to electronic music in particular: “With electronic music you can be stuck behind a laptop so you lose that interaction, whereas this lets you control the electronic sounds in a more physical way.”

He explains that while shows at a big venue might come with a sound desk and a lighting display, “this is a kit for intimate gigs on a small stage – it’s something one person can take with them.”

All the components clip together on the back of the lamp for easy transportation. Right now the sensors feed into a control box that relays changes to the speakers and a light, but Merry hopes to make the system wireless so it would be easier to set up.

Neil Merry is graduating from Platform 17 of the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art, where the show opens to the public from 20–30 June.

Other work on display includes a mask that lets you tune your senses like a TV and wooden shoes based on furniture structures.

Other musical projects on Dezeen include a record-playing bicycle, an amplifier that only works when people link hands or touch noses and a combined glassblowing pipe and trumpet.

See all stories about the Royal College of Art »
See all our stories about design for music »

Here’s some more information from Neil Merry:

PLUG + PLAY

Plug + Play is a portable toolkit for the performance of electronic or computer-based music. Traditionally, electronic music requires the performer to hunch behind a laptop or synthesiser pushing buttons and twiddling knobs, as a consequence this can the lack live visual performance and on-stage energy of a more traditional band. Using a collection of sensors and lights, Plug + Play provides a means for a more dynamic performance of electronic music by translating gestures and actions into sound and lighting effects.

Each sensor works according to a different method of interaction (Movement, Intimacy, Twist & Slam) and can be worn on the body or attached to an existing instrument. As such, a microphone stand can become a 3D music controller, a maraca a heavy bass line or a raised hand a pulsating synth wave.

My design fits within the existing architecture of a live performance and interfaces with the huge range of sounds provided through modern music software (a sort of advanced, digital equivalent of the guitar pedal). With the increased accessibility of music creation programs on laptops and tablet devices, it has never been easier to produce your own music, however there are currently very few options when it comes to performing this music live. Plug + Play can integrate electronic sounds into a live band, orchestral performance, or simply give electronic artists new ways to create sounds and music. The whole kit can be packed up and easily carried and would be particularly suitable for performance in small music venues, as well as easily integrating into a larger stage set-up, suiting both bedroom producers and more established musicians.

As vocals are a common element in many electronic tracks, I used the microphone stand as my main point of focus for this project. Already featuring as a tool for expression by many performers, each Plug and Play sensor enables this expression and physical interaction to become a central part of the music creation. The result is to turn the simple microphone stand into an instrument in its own right and offer a more tactile and emotive interaction with electronic and digital sounds.

Neil Merry is a recent graduate of Design Products course at the RCA, studying on Platform 17 which focuses on the broad world of consumer electronics and is tutored by Martin Postler and Ian Ferguson. Within my work I look to find meaningful applications of technology that bridge gaps between the physical and digital and provide new spaces for interaction and expression.

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This conceptual technology by architecture graduate Chris Kelly would allow individuals to project digital imagery over their perception of reality and then manipulate it like the layers of a Rubik’s Cube (+ movie).

Chris Kelly developed the concept for his graduation project at the University of Greenwich, exploring how flaws in human perception can cause contradictions with reality and how virtual environments can be used to reveal more about a person’s surroundings.

“Our understanding of space is not always a direct function of the sensory input but a perceptual undertaking in the brain where we are constantly making subconscious judgements that accept or reject possibilities supplied to us from our sensory receptors,” he says. “This process can lead to illusions or manipulations of space that the brain perceives to be reality.”

The idea is based around the science that the senses gather various streams of data every second, which are then selected or rejected by the human brain. Kelly proposes a digital device that could compile all of these pieces of information and relay them back to the individual within the limits of their physical space.

“The redirection techniques and the use of overlapping architecture allow the same physical space to hold a much larger virtual space,” he told Dezeen.

Referencing existing virtual reality technologies such as bionic contact lenses and the voice-controlled Google Glass headset, Kelly explains that the technology could be used in endless scenarios.

“One of the more obvious uses is in the gaming industry. Another possible use is in the architectural design process, where rather than creating fly throughs or models that can be viewed on a screen it would be possible to actually move through a virtual mock up of a design or even work from inside a virtual model whilst editing it in real time,” he says.

Chris Kelly completed the project for Unit 15 of the architecture diploma course at the University of Greenwich, now led by the Bartlett School of Architecture‘s former Vice Dean Neil Spiller. The unit is a reincarnation of the Bartlett’s successful film and animation module, which boasts Kibwe Tavares’ award-winning Robots of Brixton project as one of its products.

See more of this year’s graduation projects, including a series of towering seaside structures and a shape-shifting ballet school.

Here’s a short description from Chris Kelly:

Rubix

The project was conceived as a complementary exercise to the written architectural thesis Time and Relative Dimensions in Space: The Possibilities of Utilising Virtual[ly Impossible] Environments in Architecture that explores the way in which virtual environments could be deployed within the physical world to expand or compress space. The thesis investigated existing research in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, which was added to with empirical primary tests, to identify gaps in our perception that lead to a contradiction between our perception and reality. It was found that when moving with natural locomotion, such as walking in a physical space our perception of distance and orientation is incredibly malleable and can be manipulated by replacing the visual sense with a virtual stimulus that differs from what we would experience in reality. This manipulation can take the form of redirection techniques, such as rotation and translation gains and overlapping architecture which result in a stretching or compressing of distances in the virtual environment we see whilst moving through a physical space. This effect creates a TARDIS space which allows vast expanses of virtual worlds to be explored within a small physical space without ever reaching the limits of that space.

The aim of the rubix project was to develop an animation that described a conceptual tool for deploying these malleable virtual environments that could be used by their creators to shift space around us. The rubix concept stemmed from the need for an algorithmic formula for controlling the use of redirection techniques; it allows for many different spatial combinations whilst a level of control is constantly maintained. In the animation the initial Escher-esque space is a representation of our perceptual system where huge amounts of information arrive in the brain from multiple streams. The process of perception involves the brain selecting and rejecting contradicting pieces of information leading to a perception of reality that only gives us glimpses into the world we are in.

The animation represents a journey through the chosen site that was explored during an earlier project which was a stretch of the Docklands Light Railway between Beckton and East India stations. The virtual journey is compressed into 5 minutes using transitional spaces that enclose the explorer whilst the environment shifts around them. The redirection techniques deployed in the film have been exaggerated in some parts to make them more identifiable but as explored in the thesis it is also possible to deploy them subtly so the shifts in the environment would not be perceived. The development of products such as Google Glass and bionic contact lenses at the University of Washington mean it is becoming increasingly possible to overlay virtual information on the physical world. In the future this information could be overlaid so subtly and convincingly that it is possible that distance and space will become increasingly malleable and cavernous virtual spaces could exist within a small physical space, with Doctor Who’s TARDIS becoming a perceived reality.

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Chris Kelly appeared first on Dezeen.

Plump pastel silicone garments moulded from knitwear feature in this collection by Royal College of Art graduate Xiao Li.

The marshmallow-coloured range features silhouettes exaggerated with puffed-up skirts and sleeves that billow from midway down the upper arm.

“Traditional knitwear is more soft and shapeless,” Li told Dezeen. “I wanted to find out a new way to present knitwear and was influenced by Modern architecture and 60s Balenciaga.”

The voluminous pieces are made from spacer fabric, which combines two layers of textiles connected by filaments and holds its shape while still appearing lightweight.

Li used her own knitting samples to create moulds to produced patterned silicone material used entirely for a jacket and skirt, and as hems or accessories for genuine knitted items. “I wanted to make sure my collection is innovative but still wearable,” she said.

She swapped the fluorescent colours of her earlier work for more muted shades, affiliating lilac, peach, mint green and pale yellow.

“All the materials came in white and I dyed them by myself to match the colour,” said Li.

Her collection was shown at the Royal College of Art fashion show last week, where Maiko Takeda presented headdresses covered in hundreds of colourful bristles.

At the Westminster graduate fashion show Philli Wood revealed giant cable knit patterns printed onto oversized outerwear.

See more projects by students from the Royal College of Art »
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by Xiao Li appeared first on Dezeen.

The illusion of giant cable knits was created by prints on sportswear fabric in Westminster student Philli Wood’s BA fashion collection.

Wood chose to print black knitwear patterns onto pink and orange performance nylons instead of knitting the pieces. “I liked the idea of something looking like knit from afar but in fact being something completely different,” he told Dezeen.

Three dimensional cables on a round jacket and a separate chunky scarf appeared to be inflated. The wool patterns were also printed onto silk dresses and tights in the same colours.

Parkas of various lengths with wide-brimmed hoods were lined with orange nylon to reference the traditional anoraks.

Drawstrings used to manipulate the outline of the garments were made from thick rubber and had oversized metal toggles. “For the silhouettes I began looking at traditional parkas and then exaggerated the traditional shape into something more modern and exciting,” said Wood.

Wood’s collection featured in the University of Westminster BA Fashion 2013 show, which took place last week.

Oversized knitwear also featured in Sibling’s Autumn Winter 2013 The Natural Blond womenswear and Please Kill Me menswear collections. Other graduate work from this year includes a shape-shifting ballet school and towering seaside structures for wild birds.

See more fashion collections »

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