Accessibility, Redefined

Posted on November 29th, 2011 by tberesford

Posted under: Things We Like

How do you reach a hard-to-reach place?  Ropes, nets, buckets or trusses.

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In the Spirit of Networked Minds

Posted on November 22nd, 2011 by klee

Posted under: Things We Like

“Whatever you’re doing, someone somewhere has probably done it and done it better.”

A quote that a naive undergraduate architecture student would probably hear once in his/her career in school, what is potent about this thought is NOT that one should just stop trying to design, or reinvent the wheel, or that a student’s work in design is futile. On the contrary, if digested from an objective position, this quote illustrates a thought which suggests that a part of a job of a designer is to observe the world intently–built and natural world alike.  It suggests, that the world which we inhabit, built by people of different thoughts, backgrounds and ideologies has the ability to inform and influence our own thoughts, backgrounds and ideologies, despite the superficial differences.  If taken beyond the literal meaning–can liberate a callow and amorphous mind of a young designer burdened with the desire  to reinvent and stake out his/her creative individuality.

More importantly, this quote suggests that  such intellectual and observational voracity can fuel true creativity…and ultimately, as designers, isn’t that what we are constantly in search for?

In the spirit of a highly networked mind, here’s an interesting RSA Animate video titled “Where Good Ideas Come From.”

http://bit.ly/aiyr9d

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“More like the World War II generation than their parents or older siblings”

Posted on November 21st, 2011 by jpalazzolo

Posted under: Things We Like

Here are two articles that feel differently about the millenials and their fondness for “nice” :

“How Millenials  Perceive a New Generation Gap” by Nancy Gibbs

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1971433-1,00.html

 

“Whats the Matter with Kids These Days? Not a Thing” by David Brooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/05/books/what-s-the-matter-with-kids-today-not-a-thing.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

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Diving for McQueen

Posted on November 14th, 2011 by Lisa LaCharité

Posted under: Things We Like

A really beautiful short clip displaying some of McQueen’s marine-inspired Spring/Summer 2012 collection.

 

 

 

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NADAAA hipsters

Posted on November 14th, 2011 by Lisa LaCharité

Posted under: Things We Like

Here is an article in the New York Times called Generation Sell by William Deresiewicz that attempts to describe the people that make up about 75% of our firm.

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Edifice for Learning

Posted on November 13th, 2011 by Katie Faulkner

Posted under: Things We Like

Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo – FAUUSP, Brasil from Pedro Kok on Vimeo.

Thanks to our friend and design partner Stefan Mee, of JWA in Melbourne, we have been passing around this video of the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo de São Paulo.Built in 1969 by João Batista Vilanova Artigas, the architecture school is a famous example of Brutalism, yet strangely contemporary in this version.  Maybe it is the rich landscape or the ghosted inhabitants; there is something touching about this film.  Pedro Kok shows us an edifice for learning that stubbornly outlasts human mortality.   Watching the invisible girl searching among the library stacks, one can see both the dreams of a student and the responsibility of the architect to design for unknown generations.  Enjoy.

 

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Quotes from Smart City Expo World Congress 2011

Posted on November 11th, 2011 by Lisa LaCharité

Posted under: Lectures, Press

Nader Tehrani will be a speaker On November 30, 2011 for Integrated Vision: Urban Planning . He will talk about the challenges involved in designing and transforming the city. Read more about the program here.

The economic alibis for the “Smart City” have been well-argued and even become a reality in certain global arenas. The question remains what the role of smart design is in a new context where the radical advent of specialization, globalization and media explosion has made it such that the disciplines that once maintained strict boundaries within architecture, urban design, industrial design and their allied fields can no longer claim such clear delineation; if this is perceived as a liability, architects have also potentially gained an even more strategic position in collaborative platforms that need to synthesize a complex array of information, disciplines and techniques. The future of smart cities relies on the ability to invest in formal, spatial and material speculations that have the potential to innovate. It relies in smart design.

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IE SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND MIT REDEFINE CONTEMPORARY CITIES IN MADRID AND SEGOVIA

Posted on November 7th, 2011 by Lisa LaCharité

Posted under: Lectures, Press

On November 8 and 9 the symposium MIT+IE “Considering Cities II” will take place at IE. Three Professors from MIT, Nader Tehrani, Yung Ho Chang and Alexander D’Hooghe will present their view of the present and future of the contemporary city in a series of short presentations which will be followed by an open discussion between the speakers, the IE Professors Martha Thorne, Javier Quintana, Jose María Churtichaga and Ricard Frigola, as well as the rest of the audience.

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