News: the UK’s Royal Mint has unveiled a revised £1 coin with 12 sides, which it hopes will make the currency harder to forge.
The Royal Mint says it based the dodecahedral design on the threepenny piece used before the UK switched to the decimal system.
The coin features a bimetallic design similar to the current £2 coin and the mint claims it “will be the most secure circulating coin in the world to date”.
The new design will aim to reduce the amount of counterfeit versions produced of the current pound, which has been in circulation for over 30 years.
“The current £1 coin design is now more than thirty years old and it has become increasingly vulnerable to counterfeiting over time,” said Adam Lawrence, chief executive of The Royal Mint. “It is our aim to identify and produce a pioneering new coin which helps to reduce the opportunities for counterfeiting.”
A public design competition will be held at a later date to choose the design for the tails side before the coin is introduced in 2017.
News:Apple‘s reclusive head designer Jonathan Ive says the technological age in still in its infancy in his first in-depth interview in almost 20 years.
“We are at the beginning of a remarkable time, when a remarkable number of products will be developed,” said Ive in an interview with John Arlidge of The Sunday Times.
“When you think about technology and what it has enabled us to do so far, and what it will enable us to do in future, we’re not even close to any kind of limit,” he said. “It’s still so, so new.”
During the interview, Ive revealed more details about the design process at the core of the Apple operation.
A team of 15 to 20 designers work on new projects in an all-white open-plan studio behind opaque glass. A large wooden bench hosts new products and one end is taken up with CNC machines used to create prototypes.
“Objects and their manufacture are inseparable,” he said. “You understand a product if you understand how it’s made.”
“I want to know what things are for, how they work, what they can or should be made of, before I even begin to think what they should look like. More and more people do. There is a resurgence of the idea of craft.”
Apple devices provoke such a strong response because they represent something rare, according to Ive who describes them as not just products but “a demonstration against thoughtlessness and carelessness”.
And he described the widespread referencing and copying of Apple designs as straight “theft”.
“What’s copied isn’t just a design, it’s thousands and thousands of hours of struggle,” he told the paper. “It’s only when you’ve achieved what you set out to do that you can say, ‘This was worth pursuing.’ It takes years of investment, years of pain.”
Ive also spoke publicly about his relationship with Apple’s visionary leader Steve Jobs for the first time since his death.
“So much has been written about Steve, and I don’t recognise my friend in much of it,” said Ive.
“Yes, he had a surgically precise opinion. Yes, it could sting. Yes, he constantly questioned. ‘Is this good enough? Is this right?’ but he was so clever. His ideas were bold and magnificent. They could suck the air from the room. And when the ideas didn’t come, he decided to believe we would eventually make something great. And, oh, the joy of getting there!”
News:Google has unveiled an operating system designed specifically for wearable devices called Android Wear, plus details of the first smartwatches to incorporate the technology.
Example of a watch using the Google Android interface
In a series of Youtube movies released today, Google previewed the Android Wear operating system that will extend apps currently available on Android devices to present contextual information designed to be viewed at-a-glance on wearable devices.
“With a wearable device you can be going about the rest of your day, just glance down at your wrist and the information you need is there right away without even having to ask for it,” said Android’s director of engineering David Singleton.
The Android system uses Google’s existing Google Now service
Using the existing Google Now service, the new user interface will prioritise information specific to the user’s context to allow a more passive experience, without the need to retrieve the information from multiple applications.
For example, in the morning it could show local weather reports, the time of the wearer’s first meeting and travel time to get there based on current traffic conditions.
“Watches are good at telling time, but imagine having useful actionable information there precisely when you need it, automatically,” said Singleton.
The launch movie also shows a user receiving an alert for jellyfish when about to go surfing, and immediately swiping to a screen showing other beaches in the area to head towards.
“Think about the times you need information most urgently,” said Android designer Alex Faaborg. “The stuff you care about moves with you from place to place so you never miss out on the important stuff.”
Android Wear incorporates voice control and, like Google Glass, will be activated by saying “Okay Google”.
“We put a lot of thought into how simple this has to be,” he continued. “It has to be incredibly fast, incredibly glanceable. There’re really only two components: the information that’s most relevant to you and the ability to be able to speak to it and give it a command.”
The system will also facilitate receiving and responding to text messages and calls, and listening to music. It could also incorporate health or activity-monitoring functions to rival devices like Nike FuelBand and Fitbit.
LG G Watch
The first device announced to use the system, the LG G Watch, will be launched by South Korean firm LG later this year. The two devices shown in the Android Wear launch movies with either a round or square case are reported to variations of the forthcoming Moto 360 from Motorola.
“To bring this vision to life, we’re working with consumer electronics manufacturers, chip makers and fashion brands who are committed to fostering an ecosystem of watches in a variety of styles, shapes and sizes,” said Singleton.
Google today made a preview software development kit available, so that developers can begin to extend Android applications to work with the new system.
News: researchers in America have developed a friction-based miniature generator that could enable mobile devices to be charged by typing or stroking the screen.
TENG generator producing energy through sliding motion
The generator created by nanotechnology expert Zhong Lin Wang and his team at the Georgia Institute of Technology produces electricity when two sheets of a specially adapted polymer are rubbed or pushed together.
Actions such as tapping, swiping, stroking or even the movement of a device incorporating the material in the user’s pocket could generate electricity, making external power sources redundant.
Impact between two surfaces generating power
The technology is based on a principle called triboelectricity, which produces a charge similar to static electricity when two materials touch or rub together.
By adding microscopic patterns that increase the level of friction, the researchers have developed a triboelectric nanogenerator, or TENG, which is capable of producing a power output density of 300 Watts per square metre – enough to illuminate 1000 LED bulbs with the stamp of one foot.
Stamping on the TENG sheet can illuminate 1000 LED bulbs
“The amount of charge transferred depends on surface properties,” said Wang. “Making patterns of nanomaterials on the polymer films’ surfaces increases the contact area between the sheets and can make a 1000-fold difference in the power generated.”
The TENG technology can be applied to other materials, from paper to metal, plastics and cloth, and has already been incorporated into shoe insoles, whistles, floor mats, backpacks and ocean buoys to harness the power created by movement.
Wind power could be used to generate electricity
The team presented the project earlier this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Dallas and is currently working on commercial applications including chargers for mobile devices.
Wang believes the technology will be able to contribute significantly to global energy production within five years by using tiny generators to harness energy from ocean waves, rain drops or wind power.
News: miracle material graphene has been used to develop infrared sensors, which could be inserted into contact lenses and allow the wearer to see in the dark.
Engineers at the University of Michigan have used graphene – a material formed from a single layer of carbon atoms – to create sensors that can detect the full spectrum of light, including infrared.
The sensors detect light by measuring the behaviour of electrons and changes in current between two layers of the material, separated by an insulator.
Usually infrared sensors such as those found in night-vision goggles require bulky cooling to prevent the devices overheating, increasing their size.
However, the graphene sensors do not require cooling so can be produced as small as a fingernail and developed to be tinier still.
Once small enough, the sensors could be embedded into contact lenses or mobile phones camera lenses and used to create imagery in completely dark environments.
News: construction is now underway on a 222-metre skyscraper by New York studios HWKN and Handel Architects that is set to become the tallest building in the state of New Jersey.
Named Journal Squared, the residential development will be located in the Journal Square district of Jersey City, adjacent to the Port Authority Trans-Hudson (PATH) rail station that links the city with Manhattan.
Designed as a collaboration between HWKN and Handel Architects, the development will accommodate 1840 apartments within a cluster of three pointed towers, each clad externally with metal panels.
The 222-metre structure will rise up at the front of the site and will be accompanied by towers of 193 and 175 metres, making it visible from the New Jersey Turnpike and from New York across the water.
The base of the towers are designed to break down into smaller volumes to relate to the scale of surrounding buildings, offering a series of ground-floor restaurants and shops.
“Our goal was to design an urban space that knits together the existing urban fabric of Journal Square, while also creating an iconic presence in the skyline that can be seen from Manhattan,” said Matthias Hollwich, partner-in-charge at HWKN.
“We designed a building that works equally well at the scale of the Turnpike, where hundreds of thousands of people will see it every day, and at the scale of the human who walks and lives in the city,” added HWKN partner Marc Kushner.
Integral to the proposal are public realm improvements that will overhaul the rear entrance to the station, replacing loading bays and parking areas with a tree-filled public plaza expected to play host to farmer’s markets and outdoor film screenings.
“Journal Square offers a new urban community, not just for the people who will live here, but for the region. It will be a place that people will be passionate about,” commented Handel Architects principal Gary Handel.
The project is funded by property developer KRE Group. The first phase of development will be the smallest of the three towers and is scheduled for completion in 2016.
Here’s some extra information from HWKN:
Tallest building in New Jersey breaks ground, designed by Hollwich Kushner (HWKN) and Handel Architects
Journal Squared is an important milestone as Jersey City’s development boom moves inland. The project sits adjacent to the Journal Square PATH stop and promises to bring great density to the site while working to connect to the existing fabric of the neighbourhood.
Journal Squared is that long sought after transformational project. Unanimously approved by the Jersey City Planning Board, it will be the linchpin in the City’s Journal Square redevelopment efforts. The development hopes to create a prototype for future transit-oriented developments around the world.
Pivotal to the project’s design is the transformation of the current back entrance to the Journal Square PATH stop into an inviting place and a public amenity. Acres of land previously dedicated to asphalt, station loading, and parking will be reclaimed in a sweeping, tree-filled plaza that is activated by community events such as farmer’s markets, bicycle parking, evening film projections and events along its low stairs that slope down to the PATH station.
The 2.3 million square foot project touches the ground lightly as its mass morphs into smaller units to relate to the lower density neighbourhood around it. This base hosts active program like retail, restaurants, lobbies and parking. Three residential point towers rise above the base and include 1,840 units. The tallest tower, at 70 storeys, is expected to be the highest residential building in New Jersey. The first of three phases, topping out at 54 stories, broke ground in January 2014, and is expected to be complete in mid-2016.
The graceful proportion and subtle lustre of the metal panel clad towers will be an elegant centrepiece for the community and a bold counterpoint to the brutalist concrete PATH Station. In addition, Bruce Mau Design has developed the visual identity for Journal Squared, including wayfinding, signage, and environmental graphics. BMD created a look and feel that reflects Journal Squared’s core values as a bold, modern brand that is sophisticated and energetic, while staying true to the history of the neighbourhood.
News: architects including Tadao Ando, Rem Koolhaas, Kengo Kuma, Thom Mayne and Elizabeth Diller have launched an urgent appeal to Russian president Vladimir Putin to halt demolition of Moscow’s iconic Shukhov Radio Tower.
The group is among a host of names from the fields of art, architecture and engineering to have signed an open letter to Putin calling for the preservation of the 160-metre conical steel structure, which was completed by Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov in 1922 and has been dubbed as the Russian equivalent of the Eiffel Tower.
Written by historian Jean-Louis Cohen and photographer Richard Pare, both experts in Soviet architecture, the letter claims the tower represents “a unique contribution of Russian engineering genius” and “an essential part of Moscow’s heritage”.
It reads: “The Shabolovka Radio Tower, the largest such structure ever built, remains as Vladimir Shukhov’s masterpiece and his monument. It is one of the emblems of Moscow, and one of the superlative engineering feats of the twentieth century, still influencing and enriching technical and architectural ideas globally.”
Moscow’s Shukhov Tower – image courtesy of Shutterstock
The text also notes that the tower’s replacement could take advantage of a planning loophole, allowing it to bypass the city’s usual nine-storey height restriction and extend up to 50 storeys, presenting “a golden opportunity for a cynical modern Erostratus”.
Other prominent figures to have signed the petition include Tate director Nicholas Serota, Columbia University’s Robin Middleton, Canadian Centre for Architecture founder Phyllis Lambert and Royal Academy of Arts curator Kate Goodwin.
The campaign to save the tower was launched following an announcement on 25 February that the Russian State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting had agreed to dismantling the steel diagrid, having left it to deteriorate for years.
In 2009 Putin had expressed support for restoring the tower and transforming it into a tourist attraction. The following year Norman Foster put his backing towards a campaign to save the “structure of dazzling brilliance and great historical importance”, thought to have inspired the Gherkin skyscraper.
An open letter to President Vladimir Putin concerning the fate of the Shukhov Radio Tower on Shabolovka St. Moscow. March 13 2014
Respected President Vladimir Putin,
On February 25, 2014, the Russian State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting agreed to the dismantling of the celebrated Shabolovka Radio Tower in Moscow, designed by the engineer Vladimir Shukhov and completed in 1922. No conclusive evidence of danger has been demonstrated, although deferred maintenance has had negative effects on the surface of the structure. This superlative work of modern engineering and architecture has withstood the test of time both in its structural innovation and as a symbol of the city of Moscow thanks to the genius of its designer and builder, Vladimir Shukhov, who is generally considered the Russian equivalent of Gustave Eiffel.
Built in order to broadcast wireless programmes of the early Soviet era, the transmitting tower was developed from the research into hyperboloids undertaken in the late 19th century by Shukhov. Using variants on the basic form, hundreds of water tanks, electrical pylons and lighthouses were erected throughout Russia. So brilliant was the concept that the design was even incorporated into US Navy dreadnoughts where the structural type was used for constructing observation and communications masts. The Shabolovka Radio Tower, the largest such structure ever built, remains as Vladimir Shukhov’s masterpiece and his monument. It is one of the emblems of Moscow, and one of the superlative engineering feats of the twentieth century, still influencing and enriching technical and architectural ideas globally. Yet this masterpiece, featured in all the histories of engineering and architecture, is now threatened with being torn down in order to be replaced by new construction. The opportunity presents itself for a speculative developer to take advantage of the fact that, under present planning regulations, it is permitted to build to the same height as an existing structure on any particular lot, without the requirement for any further planning permission. Most of central Moscow, in which the Radio Tower site is included, is restricted to nine stories, approximately 25m. The Radio Tower at 150m, should it be replaced, would permit a structure of about 50 stories, a golden opportunity for a cynical modern Erostratus.
Dismantling the tower and storing its components in order to rebuild it later, even if it were possible to do so, would be extremely hazardous, as there is no guarantee that reconstruction will even be possible. Most importantly, the link of the tower to the Shabolovka neighbourhood, a distinguished housing scheme of the heroic early Soviet period would be lost, also lost would be its function as a key component in the Moscow panorama and cityscape. The hypothetical structure, if it were to be recreated elsewhere, would lose much of its historical significance and all of its urban context.
Respected President Putin, we are urging you to take immediate steps to assure the preservation of this essential part of Moscow’s heritage, a unique contribution of Russian engineering genius to world culture. Instead of being dismantled, there is an urgent need for its careful conservation along international standards and to nominate this masterpiece into the UNESCO World Heritage List. This necessity has been discussed by national and international experts for decades. Please assure that this great structure be permitted to remain as a beacon and symbol of progressive, forward looking civilisation.
News: director of Zaha Hadid Architects Patrik Schumacher has taken to Facebook to launch an attack on political correctness in architecture and a perceived trend for prioritising art over form-making.
In a post this morning, Schumacher accused the judges of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale of being motivated by a “misguided political correctness” and said that architects need to “stop confusing architecture and art”.
“Architects are in charge of the form of the built environment, not its content,” said Schumacher.
“We need to grasp this and run with this despite all the (ultimately conservative) moralizing political correctness that is trying to paralyse us with bad conscience and arrest our explorations if we cannot instantly demonstrate a manifest tangible benefit for the poor – as if the delivery of social justice is the architect’s competency.”
An installation documenting the Torre David vertical slum in Caracas won the Golden Lion award for the best project at the last biennale, which was curated by David Chipperfield. Best pavilion was awarded to the Toyo Ito-curated Japanese pavilion, which focused on alternative housing concepts for the homes that were destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Two weeks ago, Zaha Hadid responded to questions about migrant worker deaths in Qatar, where her stadium is currently under construction, by saying that architects have nothing to do with the workers. “It’s not my duty as an architect to look at it,” said Hadid.
“STOP political correctness in architecture. But also: STOP confusing architecture and art.
“Architects are in charge of the FORM of the built environment, not its content. We need to grasp this and run with this despite all the (ultimately conservative) moralizing political correctness that is trying to paralyse us with bad conscience and arrest our explorations if we cannot instantly demonstrate a manifest tangible benefit for the poor – as if the delivery of social justice is the architect’s competency.
“Unfortunately all the prizes given by the last architecture biennale where motivated by this misguided political correctness. STOP political correctness in architecture! And yet, architecture is not a l’art pour l’art discipline. Architecture is NOT ART although FORM is our specific contribution to the evolution of world society.
“We need to understand how new forms can make a difference for the progress of world civilisation. I believe today this implies the intensification of communicative interaction with a heightened sense of being connected within a complex, variegated spatial order where all spaces resonate and communicate with each other via associative logics.”
News: architecture firm OMA is working on designs for a 167-metre skyscraper on Folsom Street in San Francisco.
OMA has teamed up with property developer Related California and non-profit organisation Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation to plan the tower as part of a residential development offering a mix of homes for sale and rent, of which 27 percent will be affordable.
Led by OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu, the design also features a pair of podium buildings and a row of townhouses.
The development will be constructed on a city-owned plot between First Street and Fremont Street – one of 11 sites being sold off to pay for the $4.2 billion Transbay Transit Centre housing development nearby.
The OMA team is understood to have offered San Francisco’s Office of Community Investment and Infrastructure $72 million for the plot, coming in ahead of bids from developers Millennium Partners and Golub & Co.
News: a research team at Stanford University has developed a pocket-sized microscope that can be assembled from a sheet of paper and costs less than a pound to manufacture, intended to help in the fight against malaria.
The Foldscope can be assembled in minutes, includes no mechanical moving parts, packs in a flat configuration, weighs less than ten grams, is extremely rugged and can be safely incinerated after use to dispose of infectious biological samples.
The Foldscope comes on a piece of paper no bigger than a sheet of A4
“I wanted to make the best possible disease-detection instrument that we could almost distribute for free,” said Manu Prakash, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford and head of the team developing the Foldscope. “What came out of this project is what we call use-and-throw microscopy.”
The Foldscope comes as a single piece of card, with all the necessary parts including optics, an LED and mirror built-in. A user tears each part from the template and then matches the pieces based on colour. The whole thing costs between 30 and 40 pence to manufacture.
The Foldscope partially assembled
To use the device, a sample is mounted on a standard microscope slide and wedged between the paper layers of the microscope. The user then holds the sample up to their eye and uses their thumb and forefinger to adjust focus by flexing and sliding the paper platform accordingly.
“These are literally built out of paper, tape and glue, and they are as good as research microscopes that you can buy,” said Prakash.
The Foldscope can be dropped from a three-storey building, stood on and dropped into water and remain functional
One of the key design features on the Foldscope is the use of inexpensive spherical lenses. Traditional microscopes use precision-ground curved glass as their lenses, but the Foldscope uses poppy seed-sized lenses originally produced as a type of abrasive grit to remove rough edges from metal.
Thanks to these cheap lenses – which cost less than 20p to make – the Foldscope can provide more than 2000 times the magnification of the naked eye.
Schematic diagram of the Foldscope
They’re also extremely tough. In trials, the Foldscope was dropped from a three-storey building, stood on and dropped into water, but still worked.
At present a billion people worldwide are affected by malaria, but due to a limited supply of microscopes and trained professionals, many aren’t diagnosed. Prakash believes the Foldscope has the scaleability to tackle the problem.
Sketch of the Foldscope
The team is currently enlisting the help of 10,000 individuals for beta trials and hopes to develop a crowd-sourced biology microscopy manual based on the findings.
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