Hasta La Ideas

Photos via Getty, which may or may not be working with Google on a ‘special collection’ of robot images

The jury’s still out on the new remake of Robocop, which hit theaters yesterday, but it so happens that the stalwart police force of Kinshasa has had a couple of automata on duty for at least a few weeks now. The stationary ‘bots have been installed in a busy intersection in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital city as a pilot program to replace the all-too-fallible humans who take shifts directing traffic on the ostensibly chaotic streets of Africa’s third-largest city.

Designed by Isaie Therese of the Kinshasa Advanced Institute of Applied Techniques, the robots are essentially anthropomorphic semaphores (yeah, that term isn’t catching on any time soon) that look something like cousins of Chinese DIYer Wu Yulu’s homegrown mechas; in addition to the LED panels on each side of the solar-powered robots, they’re also equipped with traffic cameras and have reportedly been more issuing tickets to scofflaws. Although the upshot is twofold—increased compliance and revenue for the local DOT—others note that the tradeoff is that a mechanized approach to law enforcement may not account for exceptions, i.e. first responders in case of an accident.

Francophones can learn more in this this video; “le vert” and “passé facilement” are easy enough, but unfortunately my French is not nearly good enough to understand what they’re saying. Still, I was interested to hear the crossing-guard-o-tron’s matter-of-fact baritone at 2:48 and again at 4:20, though it’s not clear if they also pipe out muzak for pedestrians’ dubious enjoyment.

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“It nearly moved me to tears,” a Ford executive once said of a Michael Santoro car design. “It’s the best set of proportions I’ve ever seen on a sedan.” In the early ’90s Santoro was an upstart designer largely responsible for turning Chrysler’s fortunes around with his radical cab-forward concepts and dropped-headlight-fender trucks, and me and my ID classmates were lucky enough to visit his Detroit studio. There we saw some of the most mind-blowing ID sketching I’ve ever seen, all done in one color with a Berol Prismacolor. His line quality was unbelievable: While there were sketch marks all over the page, Santoro could unerringly hit the same curve or corner he wanted to emphasize 40, 50, 60 times, with his precisely built-up strokes creating more pop than a Pepsi factory.

I thought of this as I saw, of all things, these “Where People Run” maps released by Dr. Nathan Yau’s Flowing Data website.

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…They’ll build the coolest urban park you’ve ever seen. The city may have lost the bid for the Summer 2012 Olympic games, but that didn’t stop anyone from showing off just how cool the winter games could’ve been (or could be—who knows what the future holds) if the event had taken place on the densely-populated island. The New York Times took a stab at superimposing Olympic-level venues on the Big Apple, with courses spanning tourist destinations and lesser-known landmarks alike.

From alpine in Central Park to icing over Broadway, the Times has considered every detail, right down to the measurements, and it should go without saying that the bobsled/luge/skeleton track in Times Square is a major upgrade from the temporary toboggan run that was there just last month for Super Bowl Boulevard. Think of it as a glorified version of an elevated train track—maybe we could turn it into a park after the games, à la the High Line.

Here are the Times‘ proposals for Times Square, Bryant Park, Central Park and a 5K stretch of Broadway

Downhill, Central Park
“Alpine events would be challenging. But if you could fashion a facsimile of the 2.2-mile downhill course at Rosa Khutor Alpine Center, it would tower over Central Park. Starting above 59th Street at a height of two Empire State Buildings, the course (without many of its notorious turns) would end on the ballfields of the North Meadow.”

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In what is surely a sign that the world is getting smaller—or perhaps just an indication that urbanism is a hot topic these days—the last two months have seen Daan Roosegaarde bounce between stages on both sides of the globe. In August, the Dutch designer took a short trip to Copenhagen to accept the INDEX: Design to Improve Life Award for his much-lauded “Smart Highway” concept. A month later, he turned up at Beijing Design Week as a speaker at the intersection of the “Smart Cities” theme and the Guest City program, representing his native Amsterdam. But if his globetrotting lifestyle is partly predicated on his nationality, so too is his work informed by his experiences abroad: back in his homeland for Dutch Design Week, Roosegaarde has put forth yet another visionary proposal… inspired by Beijing’s infamous smog-o-sphere.

Developed in collaboration with a team at TU Delft, “SMOG” is designed to suck pollutants out of the sky by generating a massive electromagnetic field using copper coils embedded in the earth. “It’s a similar principle to if you have a statically charged balloon that attracts your hair,” Roosegaarde notes in an interview with Dezeen.

As the story goes, Roosegaarde drew on his firsthand experience during Beijing Design Week, when he happened to stay at a hotel with a clear view of Rem Koolhaas’s CCTV Headquarters. “I had a good day when I could see it and I had a bad day when I could not see it. On a bad day the smog is completely like a veil. You don’t see anything. I thought, that’s interesting, that’s a design problem.” If he gets the project off the ground, so to speak, it will ‘drain’ a column with a diameter of up to 50–60 meters of the particularly nasty particulate matter; he likens it to ‘drawing’ by erasing smog—I’m imagining something like an inverse skywriter.

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All-in-one gardening solution simplifies at-home growing

From luxury chicken coops to high-tech wind turbines, the more accessible tools of today’s self-sustainability movement mean you can do things like raise fresh meat and harness affordable energy without going to extremes—providing you have the cash. But gardening at home, like an express lines for farm-to-table eating, tends to pose the greatest challenge for those craving homegrown produce.

Anyone who has tried to raise tomatoes or put down a bed for basil knows that between the watering, weeding and general maintenance, it takes some serious dedication to get great veggies. Enter Ken Kuhne, a 36-year veteran of customized green-home design and construction. Addressing the common problems faced by home gardeners, he came up with Grow Y’own, a self-contained, secure system for “no-brainer gardening.”

Put simply, the Grow Y’own solution combines a traditional raised bed with a greenhouse. Constructed of renewable cedar planks, the base supports plastic hooping that provides the structure for either a UV-resistant cover for summer or a flexible glass winter shell—allowing for year-round growing anywhere from the hot dry desert to the rainy Pacific Northwest. Because the covers are always on the risk of insects or other pests is nearly eradicated. The beds can also be raised, making gardening for those with mobility issues possible.

Suitable for places ranging from urban rooftops to rural estates, sizes go from 2′ x 4′ all the way up 4′ x 8′. An optional gopher screen keeps critters out and each Grow Y’own unit can easily connect to watering systems.

The DIY attitude that gave birth to and drives this product forward encourages buyers to customize and innovate with their garden beds. Order a kit from Kuhne and it will arrive with simple instructions to get you started. The kits are flat-packed and very easy to assemble. All it takes is attaching a few brackets and a little time to have your garden up and running. Alternatively, if you are in the Sante Fe area, Grow Y’own staff will install on site, adding any and all features you could desire.

We caught up with Ken Kuhne to learn a little more about the Grow Y’own system:

What’s the utility of Grow Y’own?

The Grow Y’own Hooped Raised Beds enable people to grow their own organic food source outside their backdoors, with the secure knowledge of how the plants were watered and handled, picked and brought to the table. They dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of shipping food thousands of miles, and most effectively support the ‘green’ movement that is so essential to the health of our planet.

How user-friendly is Grow Y’own? Could my grandmother maintain one?

More than anything, it is ‘no-brainer gardening.’ All that clients then have to do is watch their gardens grow, and go out and pick fresh food. The need to weed or maintain the beds is almost non-existent. I have 90-year-old grandmothers using them, who never thought they would garden again because of all the work involved—prepping the soil, fighting the sun, winds and critters. I’ve worked with school children in kindergarten who have not only grown successfully, but learned where their foods came from, the meaning of sustainability and how light, temperature and climate affected the plants.

What kind of yield do you get from a well-maintained Grow Y’own?

A 4′ x 8′ grow bed will feed a family of four continuously and amply. Many people have more than one grow bed, because they want to grow more things. I have single women with as many as seven and they keep wanting to get more!

How do you think this product fits into the bigger movement of locally sourced food and sustainability?

We’ve shipped to 25 states and everyone is growing successfully, whether it’s in extreme cold temps in Montana, in the ultra-heat of Tucson or the continuous rains of Ohio. Everyone across America is getting on the bandwagon of food growing. Grow Y’own is committed to empowering individuals all over the country, helping farmers and growers extend their seasons year round, and teaching people that ‘no brainer gardening’ is alive and well! One day, someone will give their grow bed to a grandchild and tell them, “This was Grandma’s garden, and one day you will continue the chain and pass it on.”

You can purchase all Grow Y’own’s models from the online store. The kits start at $225 and include hoops and a summer or winter shade.