Presented in the spectacular 18,000 sf Skylight Studios Gallery, Soho, NYC, Mobile Living will exhibit the unparalleled advancements in our society that have manifested our modern nomadic lifestyle. . . Mixing design and technology this will be a groundbreaking, curated presentation, running concurrently with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), and DesignDowntown in New York City, May 2006. Mobile Homes, Mobile Phones, Mobile computing, Automobiles, Motor homes, indoor and outdoor furniture will all be topics in the show.

Length: 73 m (239 ft 6 in)
Wingspan: 79.8 m (261 ft 10 in)
Height: 24.1 m (79 ft 1 in)
Wing area: 845 m² (9,100 ft²)
more at A380 Wiki [video (google)]

via Screenhead

Deborah D. L. Chung’s mixture of carbon fibers and conventional concrete, is an electrically conductive “smart concrete” (developed at the Composite Materials Research Laboratory) that can be continuously monitored for changes in electrical resistance as the material goes under stress. Levees and other critical structures can benefit from “smart concrete” and other early warning systems that sense subtle changes which occur prior to its failure.

via Physorg

The winning entry to the Cradle to Cradle C2C Home Competition is an incredible single family dwelling by Matthew Coates and Tim Meldrum that goes right to the core fundamentals of the Cradle to Cradle principles. Not only does the building run a photosynthetic and phototropic skin made with spinach protein, but it also produces more energy than a single family’s needs, allowing the excess to be distributed to neighbors. This radical shift, from centralized energy systems today, fosters community interdependence as neighbors benefit from the resources of others.

Ruairi Glynn’s Reciprocal Space is composed latex surfaces controlled by a matrix of pistons that react to the occupant’s position. [building process] [video]

via wmmna

Michael Van Valkenburgh’s Teardrop Park North in Battery Park City (NYC), when completed, will employ computerized heliostats (8 feet in diameter) to reflect sunlight into what would have been a park in the shadows of its surrounding high-rises.

via Tribeca Trib

Hob Lipson and his colleagues at Cornell University have created modular cube robots or ‘molecubes‘ capable of self-replication. Each 10cm cube holds a microprocessor with a set of simple instructions and electromagnets. The scalable robots demonstrate self-replication (wma video 1, 2) by creating an identical copy of a formation of molecubes. Although the demonstration is crude in comparison to reproduction in nature, it shows that mechanical self-replication, given the proper elements, is possible. By reducing the size of the cubes and producing large quantities, the resolution of possible forms may reach that of gray goo.

via NS | PhysOrg

Lucio Blandini calls it “a soap bubble just floating over the ground�. The frameless glass structure, designed at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute of Lightweight Structures, consists of laminated glass panels elevated off the ground with titanium supports, which expand at the same rate as glass.

via The Architect’s Newspaper

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The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, aiming to launch self-contained space arks by 2020 as an ‘insurance policy’ against accelerating advance technologies such as grey goo and biological weaponry.

The SmartGeometry group (sponsored by Bentley Systems), comprised of Lars Hesselgren (KPF), Hugh Whitehead (Foster and Partners), J Parrish (Arup Sport) and Robert Aish (Bentley), is working on Generative Components technology, a 3-D parametric CAD system similar to CATIA. Parametric systems are essentially real-time self-coordinating systems of information in every view of the model. Parametric systems automatically update entire drawing sets based on changes in the model as small as the placement of a screw or as large as the geometry of the building’s footprint. Generative Components’ uniqueness lies in it’s general geometric scripting core which allows designers to easily create their own tools based on relationships (think spreadsheet for 3-D modeling).

The computational CAD environment which is split into rendered viewports and a diagram of geometric relationships, forces the designer to understand the underlying geometries that generate and modify each surface. By doing so, the constructional logic of complex models is carried through the design and clearly understood in the manufacturing process.

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