I had previously posted on cars that fly, swim or shrink. I mainly referred to the retractable scooter that Bill Mitchell showed us at the Media Lab Open House'08. It is an impressive piece of gear that I cannot wait to get!
However the city car is pretty neat as well ...
The City Car is designed by the smart cities group at MIT Media lab directed by Prof. Mitchell. The project is created by Ryan Chin, Wayne Higgins, Mitchell Joachim, Will Lark, Raul-David "Retro" Poblano, Peter Schmitt, Andres Sevtsuk and Franco Vairani at MIT.
The City Car is the coolest idea: a stackable electric city vehicle for use in dense urban areas! Vehicle Stacks will be placed throughout the city to create an urban transportation network that takes advantage of existing infrastructure such as subway and bus lines. By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility. The stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility!
I looked at the process and strategy used by Will Lark, one of the researcher working on this project. He studies and constructs physical representations of architectural details of varying sizes and materials, then apply shape grammar rules for new geometry generation. His strategy is to use the software CATIA, a parametric modeling CAD program, used to design the complex geometry. The shapes are then fabricated through various media: 3D rapid prototyping, 2D rapid prototyping with 3D assembly, and full manual construction. Comparisons are then made between the automated and manual construction.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A stackable electric city vehicle
Monday, January 14, 2008
Rapid manufactured textiles
Macedonia Tray design by Janne Kyttanen, 2007.
Following up on this thread about rapid prototyping and mass customized objects, Jiri Evenhuis came up with the concept of Rapid Manufactured textiles in 1999 opening new frontier of possibilities for the production of textiles in the future. The first commercial products were launched by FOC in 2005.
City Hall, Amsterdam. Ramon Albers. 3D computer graphics enable designers and architects to envision very complex creations at ... the miniature scale
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
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Structural innovation
Re-designing acoustic musical instrument according to the abilities and characteristics of rapid prototype materials
After laser printing on bread, one can print instruments! My friend Amit Zoran designed this really neat concept of an acoustic guitar sound box that has been given a unique sound and behavior through a CAD/CAM process. His research goal at the MIT Media Laboratory in the Ambient Intelligence research group, is to find and analyze a space for structural innovation, especially for acoustic instruments.
His works enables players to customize their own sound by assembling different sound cells, e.g physical parts of the instruments designed in CAD/CAM, instead of considering the instrument as one big sound box. Each string can have its own bridge and each bridge can be linked to different cells. By changing a cell' size, material or structure, one can create customizable sounds.
His innovative take mainly consists of printing, using a 3D printer, cells drawn into a vectorial software. These cells, made of 30cm radius, have a variety of materials strong enough to carry the pressure of the strings and handle resonance.
People can download recommended sound cells from the internet in order to change or manipulate their guitar sounds.
In the near future, Amit is planning on testing the physical behavior of different combinations and to find optimal structures.
Don't forget to check the video!
Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Laser printing on bread
Might be a little expensive, but would not that be cool to have a giant CNC machine print your most awesome pictures on toast every morning? Found on ComputerWorld.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
cities: 10 lines. approaches to cities and open territory design
From Sept 2005 until now I have created the graphic design for the exhibition: cities: 10 lines. approaches to cities and open territoty design currated by joan busquets and felipe correa at harvard graduate school of design.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Open Studio by MIT Media Lab
So yesterday night, I have started to look at it, and made a few drawings with their system, it looks as if I was painting with my feet, but the constraint in design is what makes it very interesting to me.
La Petite Tuture Rose that I have sold in 2 minutes to Burak Arikan :D
Le feu s'etiole that has been bought by Brent Fitzgerald today!
And ... Les mots doux, sold to Francis in 5 minutes last night !!!
There are cool ideas on this Studio and such a great tool to experiment with. By trying it out, and exchanging art work, I have found that it raises questions about the value of virtual art, especially the recognition in a virtual community.
Finally, 'douceur' my last drawing with the system ...
