RCRCRT

I like to think (and               the sooner the better!)               of a cybernetic meadow               where mammels and computers               live together in mutually               programming harmony               like pure water               touching clear sky.               I like to think               (right now, please!)               of a cybernetic forest               filled with pines and electronics               where deer stroll peacefully               past computers               as if they were flowers               with spinning blossoms.               I like to think               (it has to be!)               of a cybernetic ecology               where we are free of our labors               and joined back to nature,               returned to our mammal               brothers and sisters,               and all watched over               by machines of loving grace. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace            Richard Brautigan 1967

An interesting aspect of new playground patronage systems are the playspaces designed by large corporations as part of the visitor experience. These can be virtually unlimited in both budget and design conception, as the “Mobiversum” of Volkswagon proves. It’s certainly not unusual for business to install playgrounds…but they’re usually rather boring holding pens. I’m now - Read the rest...

Slave City, 2006

‘Slave City is an urban project by Atelier van Lieshout (AVL) which has been designed to maximise rationality, efficiency and profit from a city.  AVL began the project in 2005, working with contemporary ethical and aesthetic values, ideas on nutrition, envirnomental protection, organization, management and markets, in order to recombine and reinterpret them.

The project presents a perfectly conceived creative city, with comprehensive infrastructure that includes services buildings, health centres, villages, brothels and museums, consuming a space of 60 square kilometres with a population of 200,000.  The city’s only source of energy is that which it produces itself covered by the use of biogas, solar and wind energy, working to build a ‘cradle to cradle’ situation in which everything works as a closed circuit recycling system where there is no waste.’

‘Slave City- cradle to cradle is presented as a perversion of a highly modern achievement-oriented society, bringing forward the discussion of the broken limits between good and evil.’

Mall of Babel, 2008

‘Situated in Slave City’s public area, there is a large, biomorphic baroque shopping centre that consists of 26 floors and is a consumer paradise operating 24/7.  The mall houses shops which have been irrationally chosen by AVL and range from brothels, recreational area, casinos, luxury goods stores and a spa.  Alternative floors have clothing stores, art galleries, design and furniture stores. Downstairs, there is an arena for entertainment, supermarkets and organic food suppliers.  There is also a health department with pharmacies and dental care, along with medical care, hair and beauty salon and a cosmetic surgery parlour.’

There are sleepy cities and cities that never sleep. There are cities famed for their raucous nightlife, and others whose adolescent residents dream of leaving. According to the German urban scientist Jakob F. Schmid, interviewed for DW.DE, "Nightlife often defines the character of entire streets or districts." Schmid runs the "City After Eight - Management of the Urban Night Economy" project with Thomas Krüger, which is funded by the German government.

Looking at a variety of German cities including Berlin, Hamburg, and Frankfurt, the researchers mapped nightlife "with online recommendation platforms as the basis for the data." The hazy blue results indicate that various forms a city's nightlife may take. In the famed-party city Berlin, for example, hotspots are diffused throughout the expansive metropolis. In a traditional German city, on the other hand, the nightlife tends to be concentrated "on the city center, usually on the streets directly surrounding the center proper."

In the interview, Schmid notes that such knowledge of the city's nocturnal existence is vital for urban planners and policy-makers. For certain cities or districts, nightlife tourism is a large source of revenue. In other places, loud clubs are a blight and source of noise-pollution. Regardless, knowledge is pivotal for the improvement of cities although, as Schmid notes, in the case of nightlife, sometimes inaction (on the part of planners) is the best action of all.

http://archinect.com/news/article/122818954/designing-for-the-night

Tom Price PP Tree Installation Industry Gallery, Washington DC 2011 Artist Designer Art Design Sculpture Installation

GK3D  LAB Pigeon city

Experimental work by Graham Kelman 

http://gk3dlab.wordpress.com/

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Garrett Eckbo, landscape architect; Gregory Ain with Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day, architects;Simon Eisner, planner.Community Homes. Site plan. Reseda, San Fernando Valley, 1946–49.  Ink on tracing paper.