News: the United States Mint has produced its first cupped coins to commemorate 75 years of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Gold five dollar coin – heads side
The United States Mint has issued $5 gold coins, $1 silver coins and half-dollar clad coins coated in an alloy, which have concave “heads” sides and convex “tails” sides.
Gold five dollar coin – tails side
All three designs feature baseball motifs to celebrate the USA’s National Baseball Hall of Fame, which turns 75 this year.
Silver one dollar coin – heads side
The front face is decorated with a baseball mitt and inscribed with the text “Liberty – In God We Trust”, which has appeared on all US coins in 1864, along with the year produced.
Silver one dollar coin – tails side
Stitches used on baseballs pattern the raised sides of the coins, where the amount each one is worth is written out.
Clad half-dollar coin – heads side
The limited-edition coins will go on sale from 27 March.
It was the great design scholar Ferris Bueller who once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” New York’s School of Visual Arts is heeding the need for speed and the importance of looking around with a one-year MA in design research, writing, and criticism. The new graduate program, which launches this fall, is an evolution of D-Crit (the two-year MA program in design criticism that has been sharpening design minds since 2008) streamlined into two semesters and eight months of studying images, objects, and environments, and learning ways to construct multi-format narratives that bring them to life from a faculty that includes Steven Heller, MoMA’s Paola Antonelli, and Murray Moss. “The program’s curriculum charts the cutting edge of design practice and is responsive to exciting developments in the media landscape,” says Alice Twemlow, the program’s founding chair. Learn more at next Sunday’s open house and info session.
News: internet-connected cars will soon be harvesting data on the weather, road conditions and traffic flow and selling it to the grid, according to panelists at the Internet of Cars session at the SXSW festival.
The data could then be used by meteorologists and highways agencies to help them improve their services, with drivers receiving a small payment.
Other innovations in the near future will include heads-up displays on windshields that allow you drive through thick fog, and music systems that automatically pick tracks to match your driving.
“The cars we drive nowadays are giant sensors on wheels, generating tons of data,” said Scott Lange, executive creative director at Team Detroit, an agency that works closely with Ford. “Each car generates 25Mb of data per hour.”
By aggregating data from sensors in cars’ suspension systems, for example, highways agencies would know which stretches of road needed repairing, Lange said. “You could create really accurate data of where all the potholes are.”
Information on when drivers had switched their windscreen wipers on and off could be used to track the weather, he added. “That data suddenly becomes very important to meteorologists.”
Automotive makers are working to develop an industry-standard software platform that could be made public so that developers can explore ways of utilising the data, much like they develop apps for mobile phones.
“It’s not about creating a proprietary Ford-owned system,” said Sefi Grossman, vice president of technology enablement at Team Detroit. “It’s about opening it up. We’re trying to create a unified API.”
This would also allow manufacturers to push software updates to cars via the internet, rather than waiting for the car to book in for a service.
The panel, convened to discuss the implications of having cars connected to the internet, took place in Austin, Texas last week as part of the SXSW Interactive festival.
Lange described cars as “the biggest and greatest wearable [device] that you have. It’s an exoskeleton that gives you superhuman powers.”
Dave Knox, CEO of digital strategy company Rockfish, said that cars could link drivers to their homes and interface with wireless control systems such as Nest. “The car would remind you that you left your front door open at home,” he said.
Lange added: “You could get an icon on your phone saying you need to leave work early to buy gas, and suggesting where you could buy it.”
Heidi Browning, senior vice president of strategic solutions at internet radio technology company Pandora Media, added that in-car music streaming services would soon be able to match tracks to your driving style. “You could control your music by your speed,” she said. “Hard Rock when you’re speeding, Country when you’re slowing down.”
The panel predicted that car use would move to a subscription model, with car companies providing drivers with different vehicles for different purposes, based on a unique digital profile of their driving habits captured by sensors in cars. “You will get different data sets for different drivers in the same car,” said Lange.
The panel agreed that the issue of who owned the data was a sensitive one, with Grossman saying the information was “valuable and there may be some payback for drivers [who give up their data]”.
He added: “Hypothetically, users could give up certain data streams and in return get different vehicles for different times of the week.”
News: Chilean architect Smiljan Radic has been named as the designer of this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion and is proposing a translucent domed structure of white fibreglass.
The shell-like pavilion will rest on a bed of huge rocks, based on the Castle of the Selfish Giant imagined by nineteenth-century author Oscar Wilde.
“Externally, the visitor will see a fragile shell suspended on large quarry stones,” said Radic. “This shell – white, translucent and made of fibreglass – will house an interior organised around an empty patio, from where the natural setting will appear lower, giving the sensation that the entire volume is floating.”
The translucent fibreglass will allow the structure to glow after dark. “At night, thanks to the semi-transparency of the shell, the amber tinted light will attract the attention of passers-by, like lamps attracting moths,” said the architect.
Smiljan Radic – a 48-year-old architect who before now has built little outside of his native Chile – will be one of the youngest and least-known architects selected by the Serpentine Gallery in the 14-year history of the programme.
“We have been intrigued by his work ever since our first encounter with him at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2011,” said Serpentine Gallery directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
“Radic is a key protagonist of an amazing architectural explosion in Chile. While enigmatically archaic, in the tradition of romantic follies, Radic’s designs for the Pavilion also look excitingly futuristic, appearing like an alien space pod that has come to rest on a Neolithic site. We cannot wait to see his Pavilion installed on the Serpentine Gallery’s lawn this summer.”
The pavilion will open to the public on 26 June and will remain in Kensington Gardens until 19 October.
Here’s the full press release from the Serpentine Gallery:
Chilean architect Smiljan Radic to design Serpentine Galleries Pavilion 2014
The Serpentine has commissioned Chilean architect Smiljan Radic to design the Serpentine Galleries Pavilion 2014. Radic is the fourteenth architect to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion outside the entrance to the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. The commission is one of the most anticipated events in the cultural calendar, and has become one of London’s leading summer attractions since launching in 2000.
Smiljan Radic’s design follows Sou Fujimoto’s cloud-like structure, which was visited by almost 200,000 people in 2013 and was one of the most visited Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, 2012; Peter Zumthor, 2011; Jean Nouvel, 2010; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, 2009; Frank Gehry, 2008; Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, 2007; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup, 2005; MVRDV with Arup, 2004 (un-realised); Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Toyo Ito and Cecil Balmond – with Arup, 2002; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Zaha Hadid, who designed the inaugural Pavillion in 2000.
Occupying a footprint of some 350 square metres on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery, plans depict a semi-translucent, cylindrical structure, designed to resemble a shell, resting on large quarry stones. Radic’s Pavilion has its roots in his earlier work, particularly The Castle of the Selfish Giant, inspired by the Oscar Wilde story, and the Restaurant Mestizo, part of which is supported by large boulders. Design as a flexible, multi-purpose social space with a café sited inside, the Pavilion will entice visitors to enter and interact with it in different ways throughout its four-month tenure in the Park. On selected Friday nights, between July and September, the Pavilion will become the stage for the Serpentine’s Park Nights series, sponsored by COS: eight site-specific events bring together art, poetry, music, film, literature and theory and include three new commissions by emerging artists Lina Lapelyte, Hannah Perry and Heather Phillipson. Serpentine Galleries Pavilion 2014 launces during the London Festival of Architecture 2014,  Smiljan Radic has completed the majority of his structures in Chile. His commissions range from public buildings, such as the Civic Neighbourhoods, Concepción, Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino, Santiago, Restaurant Mestizo, Santiago, and the Vik Winery, Millahue, and domestic buildings, such as Copper House 2, Talca, Pite House, Papudo, and the House for the Poem of the Right Angle, Vilches, to small and seemingly fragile buildings, such as the Extension to Charcoal Burner’s House, Santa Rosa, The Wardrobe and the Mattress, Tokyo, Japan, and The Bus Stop Commission, Kumbranch, Austria. Considerate of social conditions, environments and materials, Smiljan Radic moves freely across boundaries with his work, avoiding any specific categorisation within one field of architecture. This versatility enables him to respond to the demands of each setting, whether spatial constraints of an urban site or extreme challenges presented by a remote rural setting, mountainous terrain or the rocky coastline of his native Chile.
AECOM will again provide engineering and technical design services, as it did for the first time in 2013. In addition, AECOM will also be acting as cost and project manager for the 2014 Pavilion. While this is the second Serpentine Pavilion for AECOM, its global chief executive for building engineering, David Glover, has worked on the designs for a majority of the Pavilions to date. The Serpentine is delighted that J.P. Morgan Private Bank is the co-headline sponsor of this year’s Pavilion.
News: residents of a Brutalist housing development in London have persuaded Channel 4 to screen a home-made version of the broadcaster’s ident after a lengthy campaign against its “inaccurate” portrayal of life on the estate.
The offending ident is used by Channel 4 as programs are introduced and depicts a desolate concrete urban environment strewn with rubbish, washing lines and satellite dishes.
“The ident includes embellishments such as bin bags, discarded shopping trolleys and graffiti — all added in post production,” explained community worker Charlotte Benstead. “The Aylesbury has had a long and undeserved reputation. Channel 4 is just emphasising the negatives.”
“It’s a bad thing,” Benstead added. “It points a finger at anyone living on a 1970’s estate and makes a statement about how people there live.”
Still from the original Channel 4 ident
Attention has focused on the ten-year-old ident following a recent campaign by tenants to force it off the air. As part of the battle, Aylesbury’s residents teamed up with filmmaker Nick Street to create a new version of Channel 4’s original.
“Residents are fed up with seeing their homes on Channel 4 shown to be dirty and messy,” said Benstead. “We wanted to remake it showing how the estate really is.”
Following continued pressure from the community and widespread media coverage, Channel 4 has offered to showcase the community’s version “based on liking the creative, not on a belief that the original is wrong and needs to be replaced.”
Still from the original Channel 4 ident
Channel 4 refutes all claims that they have created negative perceptions of the community and vows to continue broadcasting the ident.
In an email to campaign organisers, Channel 4’s Charlie Palmer stated that the ident is “a conceptual creative which doesn’t claim to represent a specific place and is never identified as the Aylesbury estate.”
Channel 4 will broadcast the ident created by Nick Street on Friday 14 March at 9pm after it’s introduced by an announcer. Residents have been promised a preview of the script but are yet to see it.
The Aylesbury estate was designed in 1963 to house 10,000 people in response to the chronic housing shortage of the day by Austrian architect Hans Peter Trenton. The project was the largest, most ambitious postwar public housing scheme in Europe at the time.
In 1971 the first tenants moved in and the estate’s architecture quickly came under attack. As architect and city planner Oscar Newman toured the estate for BBC’s Horizon program in 1974, his conclusion was that modern architecture actually encouraged people to commit crime.
Victim of cost-cutting and poor construction, the Aylesbury became emblematic of the shortcomings of postwar public housing and a byword for crime and poverty. Incoming prime minister Tony Blair used the Aylesbury estate in 1997 to deliver a message that there would be “no more forgotten people” in Britain. Despite the setbacks, in 2001 the majority of residents voted against its demolition.
News: a conductive rug that can detect movement and call for help if someone has fallen over has been developed by German firm Future-Shape.
Called the SensFloor, the two-millimetre-thick textile underlay can be installed beneath flexible floor coverings like tiles and parquet.
The system measures capacitance – changes to the local electric field caused by a person or any other conductive object coming near the sensors. The process is the same as that you would find on your touchscreen phone, said a spokesperson from Future-Shape.
Based on the area of disturbance to the electric field, the sensors can tell if a person is standing on the floor or lying on it. It can even tell the difference between a liquid spill and a person.
The developers of SensFloor believe it can offer a discreet way of monitoring people living alone or the elderly, and alert support staff if a fall is detected.
The system was recently installed in a nursing home in Alsace, France. It monitors 70 rooms and turns a light on when a resident first puts their feet on the floor. It calls the nurses’ station when it detects a fall.
“In the first four months, we had 28 falls discovered by our system and none were false alarms,” said SensFloor research and development director Alex Steinhage. “One nurse told us that she wouldn’t have seen one of the falls because the person fell on the far side of the bed where she wouldn’t have been discovered.”
Each square metre of the fabric features four radio modules and proximity sensors that can track the speed and direction of a person’s movement. It can track the movement of several people at once, including those in wheelchairs. The information is then passed to a separate control unit where it can be analysed in real time.
Because the technology doesn’t rely on physical contact, it can be laid under other flooring such as carpets, tile or wood.
News: a British firm has unveiled the world’s longest aircraft – a hybrid of airship, plane and helicopter that can stay airborne for up to three weeks.
The 91-metre airship developed by British company Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) is filled with inert helium. The developers believe the hybrid vehicle could help air travel become more efficient, as the craft uses less fuel, and less intrusive because it’s quieter.
The aircraft can stay airborne for up to three weeks and could be used to deliver tons of freight across difficult terrain, helping deliver humanitarian aid to places that are inaccessible by road or rail.
Another possible application is for communication networks and monitoring of sports events, or observation for military use. Instead of helicopters, which generate noise and can only remain airborne for a limited period of time, the hybrid aircraft could be used to monitor areas without the need to be refuelled.
The company claims the aircraft could also be converted into a luxury transporter with features like an infinity pool, and used for activities like whale watching and safaris because it can quietly hover overhead without disturbing the animals.
“Maybe one day it will be the case that people get the Orient Express one way and a hybrid aircraft on the way back,” said Chris Daniels, head of partnerships and communications at HAV.
The craft costs £30 million to manufacture, and is currently scheduled to be used for communications. It’s on display in hangar in Bedfordshire and is due to fly in the UK later this year.
HAV plans to make between 600 and 1000 of the airships in future, and is currently exploring larger versions, including a 119-metre long, 60-metre wide, and 35-metre high version that could have two hovercraft type vehicles attached allowing the airship to land on water. This would be able to carry up to 50 tonnes of freight and passengers while only burning a quarter of the fuel of a plane.
The news comes in the same week Facebook announced it’s in discussions to acquire Titan Aerospace, a manufacturer of solar-powered drones that can fly for up to five years without needing to land. The acquisition is believed to be part of Facebook’s plans to help connect the five billion people who currently do not have access to the internet by using the airborne drones to create a network in remote areas.
Google has also entered the aerospace industry with its own enterprise called Project Loon. The initiative has similar aims to Facebook’s, but uses high-altitude weather balloons to bring internet access to remote areas.
News: work is nearing completion on an upgraded first floor for the Eiffel Tower that will offer visitors the opportunity to walk over a glass floor or host events and conferences 57 metres above the ground.
The first floor is currently the most spacious but least visited storey of the iconic Parisian structure, but this reconstruction by French studio Moatti-Rivière Architects – the first in 30 years – is set to transform it into an attractive destination filled with restaurants, shops and event spaces.
The architects conceived the 5000-square-metre floor as “a real urban space with its streets, its buildings and its central space, 57 metres above ground”, and are replacing existing pavilions with a series of new self-contained structures boasting modern facilities and impressive views.
An educational pathway will reveal the history of the building, while a glass floor will wrap the outside of the towers’s central opening to offer visitors a vertiginous experience.
The reconstruction will enable disabled access, which before now has been severely restricted. It also introduces sustainable technologies, such as solar power, rainwater harvesting and wind power and low-energy LED lighting.
Here’s a project description from Moatti-Rivière Architects:
The Eiffel Tower’s 1st floor is going to have a face-lift
New buildings and entirely redeveloped public spaces to make the Tower’s 1st floor once again one of Paris’ most spectacular and attractive locations, 57 meters above the city
Since the last transformation of the 1st floor 30 years ago, the Tower has welcomed more visitors than during its first century of existence! The pavilions and public spaces of the 1980s are obsolete and not adapted to the number of visitors, the visitors’ expectations and technical standards.
The floor reorganisation project includes: rebuilding the reception and conference rooms to turn it into one of Paris’ most attractive event spaces; rebuilding the pavilion dedicated to visitor services, particularly restaurants and shops; creating an entertaining and educational museographic path; and finally, creating two spectacular attractions: discovering space on the monument and its esplanade thanks to glass flooring and balustrades and an “immersion” film promising strong emotions.
Important goals linked to the sustainable development policy implemented at the Eiffel Tower: accessibility and reducing its carbon footprint.
Today, disabled people are unable to access most of the 1st floor of the Tower. With this reorganisation all visitors, regardless of their disability, will be able to enjoy the whole space and all its services and contents.
New building standards, solar energy for heating, wind energy, hydraulic energy, rainwater recovery, LED lighting: various techniques will be implemented to help improve the Tower’s energy performance.
An “influenced” architecture, designed entirely in diagonals and transparency by the architects Moatti-Rivière, providing an improved experience of the Tower and Paris and respect for the monument and its history.
The new pavilions are influenced by the pillars designed by Gustave Eiffel. They hug the Tower’s slant. The volumes are incorporated in the depths and curves of the pillars. Service areas are placed next to the gables to preserve the central transparency.
The floor is designed as a real urban space with its streets, its buildings and its central space, 57 meters above ground. It gives a close view of the city and of the Tower itself. It is a knowledge space where the inside of the “Tower object” can be explored.
The project offers an improved experience of the Tower and Paris, an entertaining sensory experience, a journey of the senses and knowledge.
The redevelopment has been designed and carried out by the architects Moatti-Rivière architects, in consortium with Bateg for the construction. The latter won the design-construction contract in October 2010.
News: American supermarket giant Walmart has unveiled a prototype for a fuel-efficient truck with a streamlined cab and the first trailer made entirely of carbon fibre.
The radical design features a tapered nose and cabin to improve aerodynamics by 20 per cent over lorries currently used by Walmart.
The cabin is accessed by a sliding door featuring two windows to increase the driver’s visibility. Inside, there’s only one seat and the driving position is in the centre, allowing the cabin to be narrower and more streamlined.
The dashboard comprises two screens, positioned either side of the steering wheel. “The dash is electronic, and therefore customisable to the gauges and performance data that particular driver wants to monitor,” said a spokesperson from Walmart.
Behind the driver is a full-sized sleeper cabin allowing them to take breaks and nap during long-haul journeys.
The trailer section is the first to be built completely of carbon fibre. Walmart claims the two side panels, at 16-metres long, are the largest single pieces of carbon fibre ever made.
Using this material makes the trailer 1814 kilograms lighter than conventional ones.
Walmart says the vehicle’s engine combines a microturbine-hybrid powertrain with an electric motor and battery storage system, meaning it could run on diesel, natural gas, biodiesel “and probably other fuels still to be developed.”
At present, the Wave remains a concept. “It may never make it to the road, but it will allow us to test new technologies and new approaches,” said Walmart president and CEO Doug McMillon.
News: American 3D printing firm 3D Systems has created a robotic suit that combines printed parts with motorised components to help paralysed patients stand and walk.
3D Systems claimed that its Ekso-Suit, which fits onto the user’s legs and back to support the natural walking motion, is the “first ever 3D printed hybrid Exoskeleton robotic suit”.
The suit was custom-designed for a specific “test pilot” called Amanda Boxtel, who was paralysed from the waist-down after a skiing accident in 1992.
Boxtel’s thighs, shins and spine were 3D-scanned to create a three-dimensional digital model on which the shapes of the flexible printed parts of the exoskeleton are based.
This process enabled the designers to create a support structure that is a perfect fit for Boxtel’s body and provides a framework for the mechanical actuators and controls that power the suit, which were developed by California-based exoskeleton specialist, Ekso Bionics.
Shifts in the user’s weight activate sensors connected to battery-powered motors that drive the legs, resulting in a natural and weight-bearing gait despite the lack of muscular function.
Boxtel tested the suit by walking around the Hungarian capital, Budapest, at an event hosted by Californian higher education institution Singularity University.
“After years of dreaming about it, I am deeply grateful and thrilled to be making history by walking tall in the first ever 3D printed Ekso-Suit, made specifically for me,” said Boxtel.
“This project represents the triumph of human creativity and technology that converged to restore my authentic functionality in a stunningly beautiful, fashionable and organic design,” she added.
3D Systems president and CEO Avi Reichental said: “I believe that the most beautiful and functional designs have already been patented by nature, and inspired by Amanda’s incredible spirit, we were able to harness nature’s beauty with 3D printed functionality and freedom of creation to allow her body and spirit to soar.”
The South Carolina firm is engaged in other projects that use 3D scanning and printing technologies to create customised devices for medical applications including preoperative surgery, surgical drill and saw guides, dentistry and orthodontics.
“3D Systems has long been a pioneer in patient-specific devices, integrating our cutting-edge 3D capabilities with robotics to better serve humanity opens new and unimaginable frontiers,” added Reichental.
The robotic components of the suit are based on technologies that Ekso Bionics has been developing since 2005. The company’s products help to augment the user’s strength and its HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) suit has been tested by the American military as a way of enhancing the capabilities of soldiers in the field.
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