garethace
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I agree, that a lot of Architects are very good speakers, but not everyone has that same neck to stand up and talk about complex issues as Architects have. But that simply doesn’t mean that everything word uttered from the mouths of beautifully spoken architects in meaningful and relevant to the time or the place – Or that every thing said by the sometimes awkward speakers in this country is stupid.
I have rarely felt the urge to speak up in company about very main issues, but I think Archiseek for instance, having made an attempt to forward ones thinking on many different issues, there is great personal reward to be had after an extended period of time. Would you agree? Now, the option of ‘distance learning’ as I describe ‘web-work’ or ‘knowledge-work’ isn’t simply open to everyone in terms of time and other restrictions. Not very many young men my age, from my part of the country even type as well as I can these days.
Simply put, it is far too easy for Architects to throw stones at everyone else for not being well spoken enough.
These tall buildings could become a very nice haven for WiFi tech geeks though;
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0105/p13s02-wmgn.html
Bit technical, but anteresting article from an architectural perspective too.
Sorry, the first page is linked, this is the second page, with more Q&A
Really good stuff.
Well this topic of 32-storey anything, leads to all kinds of references, left brain discussion,. . . call it ‘distance learning’ with a twist.
I am surprised no one has started a Mars photos thread, and discussed how that will affect us here in Ireland. 🙂
I am just wondering, does this thread stir up any thoughts about commercial building and geography, landscape, favourite places to live etc, etc, etc.
http://www.cyburbia.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10089
Cardinal made some interesting observations about America geographically.
OT,
Another young generation will have something to aspire to Good web site about space travel etc – what a way to start 2004.
On Commerce,
Here is an article about problems facing California with large consumer boxes dotting the place all over USA. 230,000 square feet is around 16,000 sq metres roughly I think. Anyone got a conversion? In America, the problem isn’t so much to do with exploiting old historical areas, as Greg mentions, but in trying to make some order out of the low rise sprawl. One thing you can say about the Neon Chinesse city images, was how dense they actually are.
I have never even been to New York, but this thread I did find interesting;
Different kinds of cathedrals of commerce?
BTW, if you are on a 56k like me, it might take a bit for the images to load in.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-caruso1jan01,1,1235954.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Outdoor shopping, with apartments overhead.
Green skyscrapers in America.
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0104/gen/index.html
As a jounalist who covers the middle east and lives in Beirut said, I wake up every morning and say to myself, which way is the wind going to blow today. Read about the place here:
I have taught a little bit about this subject since, and here are some of my most recent thoughts about it:
There is something in the gaming world called Real Time Strategy genre, which is basically what happened in games like Age of Empires. These games aren’t that far away from reality either, when you consider for instance, the Irish condition where 50% of the country’s labour resources might have went into providing food and agricultural produce years ago – we had built a society around it.
What kind of society could there be in Space? I think that is a good kind of question to ask – what would mean something in peoples’ live, since they would not have traditional goals like semi-detached bungalows, or apartments to buy. Or would they? What would be considered useful as currency, would money work in space, like it does on planet Earth? Would it be any use in space, would inflation be a problem etc.
I would suggest there might be civil wars, and economic collapses in space, just like there was on Earth all throughout history – vast new projects that seemed to spell the future but were desolate years later. I think that Architects are adept in thinking about spatial strategy – but there are some interesting thoughts on the subject here:
Where at certain times, little insignificant pieces of land in the middle of oceans become somehow more important than is usual. I would also venture to add – that all Physicists discover more and more about our planet and how things operate – they are indeed learning to suspend disbelief a lot. Like the Matrix, where Neo learns to look at the world in a different way.
I have just included this link here, for some humour in the discussion, but also to point out one very significant fact. That is we do want to use machines to help us build this new world in outer space, then we must also realise what sometimes surprising conclusions machines can come up with. Yeah, I know the HAL 9000 analogy etc, but really this systems of AI and machinery are really only ‘doing the math’ as it were, and arriving at answers, which seem plausible enough to them.
Gaming AI gone seriously wrong.
I am thinking in terms of AI used to control economies and space travel/colonisation myself. I think that machines could come up with some odd logic, despite having powerful cpus and sophisticated software, I guess Jurassic Park is the ultimate example of things going badly wrong. ‘Life finding a way’. Left to b1942, it sure would! 🙂
Brian O’ Hanlon.
If you want a good belly laugh about gaming AI have a quick squint at my post here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105061341
Apparently, combining different systems of AI – once they become established into various different genres is very risky business indeed. Same with stock market prediction software I would imagine.
the post right after by Gen x87 is a classic too! 🙂
Yeah, there are many things in this discussion alright – but I would like to have a good Property Economist present at least, before I started to really delve in there – they tend to bring an interesting slant on it all.
There are indeed a number of parallels you can draw with the cost>quality>economics debate in architecture. I have noticed lecturing staff in college frequently use the analogy of aircraft design, when talking about detailing in Architecture.
Here are some of my own ramblings on the subject. I am very familiar with the notion of economics, features, quality etc as it pertains to smaller consumer objects like computers. But analogy can also be drawn with much bigger pieces of technology like Concorde for instance.
Then you have got people like Linus Torvalds – the creator of the Linux operating system – one which appears to be much more versatile than anything MicroSoft have offered – you can find Linux on Palm Pilots or on supercomputers. Microsoft seems to be restricted to Personal Computers.
Software is a huge industry in itself. So when I look at Architecture from the point of view of value for money – you really have to study carefully the techniques employed by other professionals to cost benchmark, and ‘to sell’ quality in other products.
I mean, I know you aren’t talking about longeivity so much in a computer – but it does have some elements like stability, redundancy etc – so that when you are getting into the nitty gritty 1:5 details of a facade skin, you are actually using similar language – stability, redundancy, cost/performance ratio, cost of maintainence, ease of maintainence, standards etc.
BTW, I think that one of the main reasons why Architecture will not be able to produce better quality in the future, boils down to two basic things in this country:
1) Man Power stabililty, or people always leaving.
2) Tools and people who can use them. See my post here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=105061317
I mean, think of the screen shots of Shogun Total War game above – that is the kind of order and sophistication, with which a computer should be able to manipulate a real designed object like a building.
Don’t know if I linked this before, but it is well worth the read too:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/linus.html
Linus Torvalds, a guy you may here more about.
I am still very impressed with this AI stuff though, I love the way the soldiers are organised by the AI in the attached image. Bear in mind, this is all calculated by an artificial machine.
Even the AI on Pocket Held systems, is just good enough now to play ‘Pocket War’, or pocket economics, which ever you like.
Well just like my cathedrals of Commerce thread, you just cannot understand people who live in cities, who travel around the world in jets, the way in which buildings and new schemes are being built without some clue of how the global economy works too. We learnt precious little to do with that in Architecture unfortunately – noone even liked our lectures in economics – I used to find them awe inspiring! Dunno why, exactly.
Here is an unusual post I have read elsewhere about Google:
For currency conversion, I generally just use Yahoo’s:
For unit conversion, Google is quite handy; just type in the conversion you want in the search field, and hit search. E.g., if you type:
23 kilometers in miles
it will respond with:
23 kilometers = 14.2915374 miles
You can even include expressions in the query, e.g.:
12 miles * 10 miles in meters^2
will give you the number of square meters in a 12 mile by 10 mile rectangle.
It’s actually got a pretty intelligent parser built in to it… e.g. you can even enter a query like:
speed of light in cubits per fortnight
and it will give you the answer! 😀
I have a few favourites bookmarks for things like currency converters on the web now – great information on your fingertips really – the way that local radio even announces death notices down here, changed the way people used radio – web will be something similar.
1 USD = 0.805153 EUR
1 EUR = 1.24200 USD
Now there is a topic for conversation, in context of capturing Saddam, airport security etc, etc, etc.
Would I be very wrong in thinking, that during our first date with the destiny of globalisation – i.e. fabulous looking commercial palaces that could be anywhere in the world – that we did not find it so easy to swallow. Basically modern Architecture got a very bad rep.
But now we seem to have embraced this global architecture type of commercial style, rather like some old man clutching onto a blanket. I.e. The more cathedrals of commerce we can build, the less likely our prosperity is going to escape? I seems to be like a total U-turn to the 1960s reaction. Have we in fact changed that much in so short a space of time?
I mean, Archiseek board is one of the places that loves to just slate the ‘Irish-ness’ and sense of one’s own identity, which people held so dear in the 1960s. But have we lost a large portion of our identity, and need to joke about it now, just to make ourselves feel better about it? Obviously Spain cannot go back to the days of Columbus, but in its architecture, spaces and cities nowadays, you still do get some sense of history, or of place.
Has anyone else any opinions about the Digital Hub project? Was there an Archiseek thread about that? I never knew anything about it, I must say – heard the name alright some time last year.
I hear Smith’s toy store advertising 10% of all video games today – 10% off of €50.00 isn’t all that much is it! :-0
I just came across this article on my travels through and about cyberspace.
