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(As if choreographed by Busby Berkeley, snow machines sculpt an Alpine wonderland. Photo by Jules Spinatsch, from his series Snow Management. Source. Thanks, Geoff!)

We're clearing our bookmarks again, and here are some links that were worth saving: Project New Orleans  ///  Fake Soil  ///  Designing Greener Dirt  ///  Chicago's Green Alley Initiative  ///  GROW:DC  ///  Cooking at the South Pole  ///  Pechet and Robb Studio Limited  ///  International Rivers  ///  Earth House  ///  USA evacuation routes  ///  Wanted: Space Experiment Volunteers  ///  Who owns the moon?  ///  Public Participation GIS  ///  Your Sewer on Drugs  ///  High Tech Crosswalks  ///  Baghdad's Red Lake  ///  Grave Matters: A Journey Through the Modern Funeral Industry to a Natural Way of Burial  ///  Alan Berger  ///  National Helium Reserve  ///  The CERES Water Trail  ///  Mars Soil Resembles Veggie-Garden Dirt  ///  The Sliding Rocks of Racetrack Playa  ///  The Waters of the City of Rome: hydraulic infrastructure, aqueducts, fountains and sewers.

(A new mineral ocean in the works in the laboratories of HypoSurface, Inc. Source: ORF / Prix Ars Electronica 2003.)

No doubt you've seen the HypoSurface everywhere at technology fairs, architecture biennales, gadget blogs and advertising industry trade conventions. It's the “world's first display system where the screen surface physically moves,” according to its developers.

Here, however, let's imagine it as a temporary art installation at a Chicago downtown plaza, specifically this plaza fronting a Miesian-inspired black box by Jacques Brownson, the one with the famous Picasso public sculpture. Rather than a wall, it's the ground itself, gyrating in the shadow of perfect geometries. It's also embedded below so that its occupiable surface is not floating above the plaza but actually a continuous ground plane.

But what sort of digital data will it be linked to? Earthquakes? Past tsunamis? The rise and fall of the price of oil and food? The fluctuating collective volume from all the silly debates, brought on by the premier The Dark Knight, which was filmed near the offices of Pruned HQ, about whether Chicago or New York is the real Gotham City?

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Related:
Cross-Bedding, Bedforms, and Paleocurrents, or: A Proposal for a New Civic Plaza in Chicago

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On water

Below are some screen captures taken from animations of cross-bedding formation that you can download from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The sinuous patterns that you see on the sides of these modeled landscape correspond to actual stratigraphic markings in the real world — earth's own hieroglyphs that can be read and interpreted, allowing one to piece together a biography.

Similar images appeared here quite awhile back, then in monochrome. Having recently been reacquainted with them, we thought it would be fun to post another series, now in sepia.


(Bedforms and Cross-Bedding in Animation by David M. Rubin and Carissa L. Carter / USGS.)

And we also thought it would be fun to imagine a new urban public space inspired by these animations.

It's Chicago's Federal Plaza — that “space in between” three black boxes by Mies van der Rohe in the Loop — turned into a giant version of Janis Pönisch's Dynamic Terrain. Into an undulating patch of the urban grid.


(Janis Pönisch's Dynamic Terrain. Photo by Roel Backaert.)

Uploaded into this terrestrial machine would be all the data accumulated by the USGS on cross-bedding. Flip the switch and ancient worlds get resurrected, forming and deforming once more for all to see. During the morning hours, extinct sand dunes come alive, and in the afternoon, Jurassic riverbeds get their chance to distort and convulse in a forest of Miesian lines.

And all the while, office workers enjoy their lunchtime break undisturbed; tourists listen in to a lecture on Chicago architecture in a valley temporarily sheltered from the surrounding tectonic upheavals; and the homeless get comforted by the mesmerizing rhythms of this amorphous surface.


(Janis Pönisch's Dynamic Terrain. Photo by Roel Backaert.)

Until, of course, some unfamiliar wave patterns begin to rattle the whole place. The USGS has detected a 9.0 earthquake somewhere in the world, and since its servers are networked to the plaza, this potentially catastrophic event gets replicated in Chicago in real-time. Everyone who was there — who was tempest tossed by telepresent seismic waves, bruised but not battered — gets interviewed by CNN.

Or maybe it's been hacked, because someone has a grievance with the government. The plaza has always been the site of political protest; after its renovation, however, organizing large crowds has been difficult. But as proven by these hackers, it can still process acts of civil disobedience.

Not Related:
Hortus Conclusus

The race against the clock is on for Land Rover to adapt itself to a world where CO2 emissions count. Currently Land Rover’s range of heavy, powerful sport utility vehicles puts it in a potentially dangerous spot for the future where the European Union’s impending legislations threaten to wipe out the great off-roader altogether. As such, Land Rover and Jaguar have announced a £700m ($1.4 bn US/CAD) investment into making their vehicles leaner and greener.

The first move was unveiled last week at the Frankfurt auto show, an LR2 with a stop and start system to prevent idling. The system will first debut on the TD4 turbodiesel model with manual transmission, due to its ease of integration. Land Rover says that this change, applicable around the globe to all of its TD4-powered LR2s would save 10 million tons of CO2 per year, based on the annual production of 28,000 units traveling 24,000 km (15,000 mi) apiece. However, you can bet that as a part of the investment, Land Rover will be adding it to its other vehicles, especially those with bigger V8s that drink more fuel.

MINI has been in the news lately with regards to the forthcoming Clubman model, the much awaited MINI Cooper wagon. Much like the internationally-inspired wagon concepts, the new Clubman will feature a rear-hinged access (suicide) door plus an extended wheelbase for much-needed extra interior room. Undisguised interior and exterior spy shots have already made their way onto the internet and it’s common knowledge that the car will be debuting this September in Frankfurt. But what’s also got MINI in the news is word regarding a forthcoming compact sport utility vehicle, filling in the niche that smart didn’t when the formore compact SUV was canned.
According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, Canadian automotive consortium Magna is in talks with BMW to produce this vehicle, which is rumoured to be called the Colorado (although GM, with its Colorado pickup truck, may have something to say about this… how about Mini Moke instead). The Colorado would utilize the stretched platform of the Clubman, but would feature additional ground clearance plus a new all-wheel drive system. The little SUV is expected to account for 65,000 units per year. Surprisingly, along with this info came news of a scheduled production figure of 20,000 units for a Volkswagen roadster.

The London Motor Show is the first car showcase where SEAT is publicly displaying the new Ibiza SportCoupe, the vehicle that completes the Spanish brand’s range of this successful model after the launch last May of the five-door version, and whose new exterior design and compact coupé styling greatly increase its sporty appeal.

The Ibiza unit chosen by SEAT is characterised by the addition of customisation elements on the Sport version that heighten the new model’s already good looks, and reflects the strategy introduced at the international trade press presentation of gradually increasing the possibilities of customising the Ibiza SC.

At first sight, the suggestive exterior in Lumina Orange is immediately visible; a colour that perfectly matches the car’s sporty looks. The Ibiza SportCoupe's exclusive colour palette is completed with Galia Blue Limette Green and Furia Grey. The car also features a spectacular black roof, which draws even more attention.

On the inside, the car’s looks are even more personalised with the addition of body colour detailing on elements such as the steering wheel, gearknob, door panels, ventilation nozzles, the area of the softpad, and the area surrounding the air vent located between the steering wheel and the door. Furthermore, the Ibiza SC features attractive, efficient seats upholstered in a combination of leather and black Alcántara with double orange stitching.

STUTTGART/BERLIN - July 23, 2008: Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin Spring/Summer 2009 was concluded in glamorous style with a splash of eccentricity, with Vivienne Westwood’s show adding the crowning touch. Taking part in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin for the first time, the ‘grand dame of punk’ turned to Ancient Greece for inspiration for her latest ‘Anglomania’ line of casual wear. Scores of celebrities including Kim Cattrall, Eva Padberg and Karoline Herfurth were on hand to admire the English fashion queen’s column-like draped jersey robe creations, vine and vase printed t-shirts, as well as dresses that combined antique tailoring with 50s accents.

The audience was equally impressed by the new collection of Kai Kühne, who once again surprised with an astonishing mix of classic lines and avant-garde vision. Shortly before the show, actress Karoline Herfurth and Mercedes-Benz fashion ambassador Eva Padberg had a chance to chat with Kühne backstage about the latest fashion trends and ‘must-haves’ for women next summer. The New York-based German designer revealed to them that architecture is his current source of inspiration, and that he intends to stay in Berlin for two more days. Perhaps Kühne will be inspired by Berlin’s architecture as he designs his next fall/winter collection.

The fashion designers, event organizer IMG and title sponsor are all extremely pleased with how successfully the third Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Berlin unfolded.
read full report at [ theautochannel.com ]