If you honestly believe that there are some things on this planet that just weren’t intended to incorporate a sense of design, here is a great example of design penetrating the realm of the truly mundane world of barcodes.
The name of the design firm is Bar Code Revolution (www.barcoderevolution.com/home/). Here’s an interesting article about the company on Fast Company’s website.
The above talk from TED features Larry Burns, the Vice President for Research & Development for General Motors. The future of the car – according to Burns – is based on replacing the internal combustion engine to the hydrogen powered engine. His belief is the automobile industry can keep making small energy improvements in the current cars it makes — or it can take a big leap forward to build a whole new kind of car.
Cars are really great at two things – they get us from point A to point B, and they consume fluids including gasoline, oil, coolants, and lubricants. There are some cars that get better gas mileage than other cars, some cars can haul more adolescent soccer players better than other cars, and some look cooler doing doughnuts in the Dairy Queen parking lot. Despite their specific utility functions and their inherent fashion, cars really just consume energy for transportation.
Larry Burns wants cars to act not only as an energy user but also as an energy producer. He states that if 4% of the current amount of cars in the U.S. were powered by hydrogen, the power produced by these cars could fill the entire power grid of the United States. The idea is that while your hydrogen car sat idle in the garage it could actually produce electricity and send that power back into the grid. (And since the only emission from the hydrogen-fueled engine is water vapor anyone trying to end their life while running the engine inside a closed garage will only be bothered by high humidity.)
Buildings are also good for two things – keep people protected from the elements, and provide a place to keep their stuff. Buildings, like cars, are more geared towards energy usage and not energy creation. Architects and everyone else involved with the design and construction of buildings must also heed Burns’ strategy of completely reinventing and redefining the status quo.
Buildings in the future will not only keep the rain out, or allow you to keep your stuff out of the rain. Nor will it be used as a medium for architects to muse about the theoretical constraints on the human condition. (Sorry for the archi-babble, but truthfully that’s how some architects view the purpose of designing buildings.) Buildings in the future will not only provide the basis of inspirational form and utilitarian function for living, but they will additionally function as a source for creating power and filtering the water we drink and the air we breath. They will become a magic box where the waste leaving the box will be as clean if not cleaner than the resources coming into the box.
The commitment for making the “big leap” requires a faith in knowing that you’ll achieve your goal as well as the rejection of the old ways of doing things. We have the technology and knowledge for creating a sustainable architecture, and the current method for constructing buildings is obviously not the solution for creating a more ecologically balanced environment. We as a society are more than ready for the “big leap.”
In case the above video is not displayed you can view the Larry Burns talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/reinventing_the_car.html
I was reading an article about a high-speed rail network in China, and I began to think of the arguments made in America for the potential implementation of high-speed rail in this country. Some of the statements I’ve read compare established high-speed rail systems in European countries and Japan, and essentially argue that the smaller size of those countries allow high-speed rail to flourish better than in a country the size of the U.S. (Just to give you an idea of size Japan is slightly smaller than California, Spain is more than twice the size of Oregon, France is just less than twice the size of Colorado, and the United Kingdom is a little smaller than Oregon.) Of course these smaller countries can have a more successful high-speed rail network because their major cities are closer together.
But even in a country like China, despite being only slightly smaller than the United States, most of their major metropolitan areas are located along the west coast. The United States appears to be the exception when it comes to a larger country that has major metropolitan areas equally spread throughout the country. Despite having major cities located throughout the country there are a handful of mega-metropolises such as the Northeast Corridor (from Boston to Washington, D.C.), Florida (Miami-Tampa/St. Pete-Orlando), Texas Triangle (Dallas/Ft. Worth-San Antonio-Houston), Southern California (Los Angeles-San Diego), and the Bay Area (San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose), and it’s this idea of a regional high-speed rail system that makes so much more sense than trying to create a single national system.
The idea of taking a train from LA to New York doesn’t make a lot of sense when we already have the option of flying between these cities. Of course it doesn’t make a lot of sense to take a 45-minute flight from one city to another, especially when you consider it’s typically recommended that you arrive at the airport 60 to 90 minutes before your flight. So in my mind I don’t see high-speed rail as a substitute for all air travel, but there are instances where short regional trips by air would be greatly improved by high-speed rail. (Think of these regions as European countries.) There are some other issues that plague the air travel industry which would benefit from the option of high-speed rail such as flight congestion, traveling in bad weather, the ability for a passenger to use his/her phone and computer during travel, and connecting to medium-sized cities whose airports have limited travel destinations (and may not be profitable).
But the aspect of high-speed rail that the airlines can’t do is provide a meaningful asset to spur community growth. Airports typically are not located anywhere near the central business district of a city. They prefer a lot of open terrain with very sparse development and low buildings. Industries related to air travel (hotels, rental cars, shipping companies) will set up shop in close proximity to the airport, but for the most part commercial and residential development can’t thrive in that environment. For this reason airports have a difficult time becoming a major hub for local transportation.
Train stations are able to thrive in an urban environment, and thus have the ability to become a major hub for regional and local transportation. It’s a building type that can complement adjacent commercial and residential districts within a major city, but it also provides a physical connection between the central business district (CBD) of a major city to residents from medium-sized cities beyond the metropolitan region. An example of this is if there was a high-speed rail between Chicago (IL) and St. Louis (MO), and there were stops in between in Peoria (IL) and Springfield (IL). (This next sentence might give some people flashbacks to algebra, so for that I apologize in advance.) A person living in Springfield, which is approximately 100 miles from downtown St. Louis, could take a high-speed train traveling 160 mph/260 kph (which seemed to be a nice medium for high-speed trains throughout the world) and reach his destination in just over thirty minutes. So in this scenario not only does the CBD of the major city (destination) benefit but so does the CBD of the medium-sized city (origination).
This type of travel will most likely redefine how people see suburbia. Many people live in suburbia for the openness (whether it’s real or perceived) of the natural environment (i.e. some people like to have a big yard). So what makes more sense – living in a nearby suburb and driving 60 minutes to work every morning or living a hundred miles away and taking a train ride for 35 minutes?
High-speed rail is not the answer for all of our transportation woes, just like how air travel has proven not to be the answer either. A comprehensive system that includes the advantages of all transportation methods, from a national network of airlines and a regional network of high-speed rails to a local transportation network including light rail, buses, cars, bicycles, and even pedestrian traffic. If you want a sustainable built environment the key is to strengthen the connections between all types of transportation and being able to maximize the attributes of each mode of transportation.
When I was in architecture school the only way to convey a three-dimensional representation of your project was to build a model. You pulled out the bass wood, wood glue, some Exacto blades, and a few days later you had a small scaled model of your project that you prayed no one would step on before you had to present it. Because of the smallness of the scale it usually wasn’t absolutely accurate, but it proved to do the trick. (The thickness of the wood and your skills for gluing also played a part in the model’s accuracy.)
There were those times when I watched a sci-fi movie where I wished I could somehow implement their fictional yet very cool technology into the presentation my projects. Once instance was me watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, where the generals for the Rebel Alliance were sitting around a huge hologram of the Death Star, plotting their strategy. The large red hologram just floated in the air as it spun around so that everyone (except maybe the person sitting behind Chewie) could see how the attack would proceed.
It might not float in the air and spin around, but there is a new hologram technology for designers that allows a three-dimensional representation without the wood glue. The technology offers a great method for understanding the massing and aesthetics for any type of project. And there is the ability to convey different information about the design based on how the hologram is turned (as seen in the video). It’s much more than merely two-dimensional printouts of a three-dimensional computer model because all sides of the model are revealed by the hologram.
For just the video check out this link.
Architects are typically very knowledgeable about many facets of a construction project beyond just the design. We understand the proper way for detailing how materials come together, and which materials are most appropriate for certain circumstances. Because of ever-changing costs in materials and labor, architects typically have to consult a general contractor for a rough cost estimate for projects.
But for the layperson there’s always a hesitation in contacting a contractor (or even an architect) in estimating what a remodel job may cost or what’s involved with making a remodel job a reality. If you’re looking for a rough estimate to at least give you an idea of what a kitchen remodel may cost you or an addition to your house, may I introduce to you the Consumer Estimator.
The costs you will find by using this service are definitely ballpark numbers. Every project is different, including yours.
For more information check out www.myremodelingproject.com
Just when you thought the suffix -burbia couldn’t be made into something else, we now have agriburbia.
In today’s Denver Post there’s an article about combining suburban development with agricultural uses. The integration of these two developing strategies seems to fall somewhere within the realm of a Broadacre City by Frank Lloyd Wright and Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian nation.
There’s also the idea of promoting a more sustainable environment by producing goods locally (minimal transportation of goods translates into less fuel used for shipping), and maximizing the impact of water usage for something that can be consumed rather than make your lawn look more green.
Proof that sustainability can be achieved with a green thumb.
The term “Living Streets” is just one of a plethora of words being used to describe a design and implementation strategy of humanizing our transportation corridors. In more simpler terms it means having streets focused more on people and not solely having them promote vehicular flow.
At some point during the modernization of America (after World War II) more people became enamored with living away from the typical city neighborhoods. There were many factors that made suburban development a reality including changes with financing a home, job growth for returning soldiers, the US having one of the only economies not severely hampered by the WWII, new highway construction making it easier to live outside of the city boundaries, and probably to a certain degree people making a quick buck on land speculation. (I don’t mean to sound cynical, but if you ever wonder why a capitalistic society follows a certain path there’s a good chance that someone is telling us that we absolutely need what they’re selling.)
I live in a neighborhood that was first built in the early 1960’s. Besides noticing the obvious suburban development patterns such as single-zoned uses (no integration between the residential and the few commercial developments on “the block”) and the winding streets that make it difficult to navigate through the neighborhood (most likely an attempt to reduce the amount of non-resident traffic through the neighborhood), I was amazed at how wide certain neighborhood streets were. I swear there’s one street that if lanes were painted on it you could have street parking on each side of the street and still have room for four more lanes.
So why are neighborhood streets that rarely ever provide a short cut to people who don’t live in the neighborhood so wide? The one reason I can think of is that in most jurisdictions the local fire department requires a certain width for streets to allow them easy access to homes. So as the fire trucks have become larger the streets became larger to accommodate them. Of course the byproduct of this is that streets create an environment more accommodating to cars than people, which if you ever watch the few cars traveling on the “multi-lane” neighborhood street you’ll notice these streets allow cars to travel much faster.
But then there are suburban traffic corridors (i.e. the primary streets for getting around suburbia). These streets, with their many lanes, multiple access points onto side streets and parking lots, and fast speed limits are incredibly unfriendly for pedestrians. Here in Colorado there is an organization called Denver Living Streets that is trying to provide solutions for turning major urban corridors into a more pedestrianized environment.
Of course there is concern that turning some of the larger traffic arteries into a more pedestrian friendly environment will create more traffic on these streets. One of the streets aimed at for creating a “Living Street” is Colorado Boulevard. I’m sure you know of a street like it where it’s 3-lanes in each direction with a continuous middle left turn lane in the middle. It lacks right turn lanes at certain major intersections, and it’s most usually a pain in the butt to turn left onto any street or parking lot where there’s no traffic light. And because of the suburban development where the major traffic arteries are spaced apart from each other by at least a mile, Colorado Boulevard is usually the only street you can take when you want to go from one certain place to another.
So if Colorado Boulevard isn’t designed for pedestrians, does that automatically imply that it’s designed for automobiles? After years of driving on Colorado Boulevard, and being dumb enough to try to make a left turn where there wasn’t a traffic light, I would answer with a resounding no. As far as providing access to automobiles Colorado Boulevard’s purpose is to be a thoroughfare for people traveling from one part of town to another, and to provide people who are driving access the businesses, residences, and offices along the street. When you combine these two purposes together (at the same time) this seems to create the traffic jams that are prevalent with most streets like Colorado Boulevard.
When I read the “Living Street” initiative (especially in reference to Colorado Boulevard) I imagined something like this, where the lanes dedicated for the thoroughfare traffic was separated from the lane dedicated for access to the buildings along the street. The byproduct of this is a more pedestrian environment where buildings can be closer to the street edge because of the slower traffic in the “access” driving lane, and people crossing the street no longer have to cross the equivalent of eight or nine traffic lanes at once.
We will always need streets that provide vehicular access where one can travel from one part of town to another in a timely manner. For me “Living Streets” promotes this idea by separating this vehicular access from a part of the street that is a more pedestrian oriented environment. I believe this strategy will work (and has worked), because the currently streets like Colorado Boulevard are really good for nothing.
If you’re looking for another opportunity to get those creative juices flowing and to expand your SketchUp prowess then check out dwell magazine’s Parkitecture Design Competition. The objective of the competition is to design a free-standing structure that will shelter no more than three vehicles. The design should illustrate the technological possibilities and sustainable potential of the garage of the future. In other words, get weird with it and have fun.
There’s a great quote by James P. Cramer that reads “Those who do not like change will like irrelevance even less.” Change is a necessity in life. If you don’t adapt you perish. Maybe perish is too harsh a word. If you don’t adapt you just don’t change, and if you’re in any type of competitive environment such as sports or business then not changing typically means not growing and not becoming better.
Change is usually initiated in one of two manners – it’s either forced upon us or we possess the initiative to better ourselves. For all of the negativity surrounding our current economic situation there is one positive attribute affecting the architectural profession – architects must change.
One aspect for architects instituting change is with the computer programs we use to design and create drawings for buildings, known specifically as Building Information Modeling (BIM). Before BIM architects would draw simple lines unto a two-dimensional surface. At first this two-dimensional surface was a piece of paper, and as computers began being utilized by the profession it became a digital plane on a computer model. Even with the computer the design of buildings still involved simple lines. The computer did not designate any architectural meaning to any of the lines that were drawn. For the architect each line represented a unique definition of materiality such as the edge of a wall or a pattern demonstrating a type of material like plywood, but the computer understood the line as merely a line, nothing more.
BIM removes the anonymousness of the line and provides an architectural definition that is aligned with the architect’s meaning. So a wall is no longer disparate lines that run parallel, but rather the computer now reads those lines as a part of a singular entity. So now that the wall is no longer two simple lines the computer requires more parameters in defining the wall such as the materials used to construct the wall, the sizes and thicknesses of those materials, the length and height of the wall, any anything else that an architect would need to convey to construct the wall (i.e. insulation within the wall, it’s fire-rating, it’s orientation if one side of the wall has one layer of gypsum board and the other side has two layers).
There are a handful of BIM computer applications aimed towards the architectural profession. My weapon of choice is Vectorworks Architect, which has proven itself perfect for me and my practice. Other popular choices for BIM include products made by Autodesk Revit, Graphisoft ArchiCAD, Bentley Microstation, and Gehry Technologies (which used to be a part of Frank Gehry’s firm).
There are many definitions of what BIM truly is, and the aforementioned BIM choices will tell you that their programs are more BIM than their competitors. If the program requires you to input specific information about most every single construction material and product (such as windows and doors), then you are most likely working with a BIM program. But all of this information is not inputted just for the pure pleasure of tapping on the keyboard. A BIM program will also be able to compile the building information and provide you and the builder with the amount of materials required to construct the building.
A few years ago a friend of mine asked me to accompany him to the local electronics store to look at some home improvement CAD programs. He ended up going with a $40 program endorsed by a popular home magazine. After he installed the program onto his computer I played around with it to show him some of the basic commands (if you’ve worked on one CAD program you’ve pretty much worked on them all), I was amazed how this program had many BIM attributes.
So will a BIM program make you a better architect? No, just like how a high-tech hammer won’t give you the ability to understand construction methods any better. But it should allow you to have a better understanding of the building in three-dimensions, and even in four-dimensions (as in the passage of time, like understanding any potential conflicts with the construction of the building in regards to the sequence of construction). BIM should provide a more accurate depiction of the building and in the right hands it should provide much fewer surprises during the construction process, which always translates into a building that meets its allotted budget.
Here’s looking forward to a more relevant practice of architecture.
I finally have my entry for the 2009 Design It: Shelter Competition posted within my past projects. It was a fun project for designing such a small structure for the purpose of just hanging out. For other shelter designs you can check out the competition website.
