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Project Brief - In-betweenness....+....+..... Terminal 352

The site of your project this semester is the Hartsfield International Airport of Atlanta - a site of in –between, a place between places, a trajectory of passing, a place between land and sky, between worlds and time zones.

Minutes drive from downtown Atlanta, the airport is situated between Interstate 85 and Interstate 75 and I-285. It is also accessible via the MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Transit Authority), bus, rail service, limousine, charter services, and shuttle. Comprised of 3750 acres it is situated between two counties, Fulton and Clayton. Also accessible by airplanes, cities, countries the airport is a place of transfer between places. It is a place between states, between lands. It is “…part of a system that is not only national but international”. While the airport is defined by its geography, its physical location, it is also and more importantly defined by time. Atlanta therefore is as closely adjacent to Miami by car as to Barcelona by airplane.

With an internal coordination of baggage and passenger transfer and departure and arrival of massive numbers of people from numerous locations, the airport is a complex living organism comprised of fluctuating patterns of activity. Concourse E at Hartsfield is the largest in the United States and can handle 8,000 arriving passengers per hour. These travelers are distributed through the airport from gate to gate, plane to plane, through security, to baggage claim, to other transportation systems. While this flow of complex movement is carefully coordinated, the uniqueness of this place could be exploited for the creation of a more dramatic experience for the traveler.

This semester you will develop proposals which intervene in an operational manner within this site of in-between, within this urban space of transfer, within this national/international passage. You will slice, splice, cut, remove, insert, rearrange as needed. The procedure will vary from student to student. Through careful analysis you will each develop an operational strategy in order to improve, fix, repair, alter, transform … the space of human flow through this system and the quality of the experience(s). Presently eating and shopping programs populate these passages within the airport. What else could occur here in this space of transfer, delay, pause? You will be expected to define programs for inclusion.

Your strategies (surgeries) will vary as the deficiencies and potentials discovered will vary. Time will be an organizational system at work here. Speed, transition, delay, pause, rhythm, pattern, repetition will play important roles in the development of strategies…

Video, a medium which allows you to map space in time and movement will be exploited throughout the semester as an investigative tool to read the site, in the generative process to develop strategies, in the surgical process to design, and in the representation process to convey the experience provided by your proposal. At the same time you will be expected and encouraged to work in various modes and to fluctuate between 2-d. 3-d, 4-d in order to fully explore and develop specific ways of seeing, understanding and conveying your work.

Airport Seating - Site Visit

A few more Terminal 352 Field Trip photos

Class Field Trip

Without posting too many photos, I wanted to share some of my favorite photos of Terminal 352 Fieldtrip to Las Vegas. This needs to happen before the end of the semester.

ABSOLUT SKINNER

To lift "spirits" in hard times.

will

"The Forerunners of Film"

http://www.cite-sciences.fr/english/ala_cite/expo/explora/image/imag_22.htm

This background information on the development of film should be helpful to Whitlock or maybe even Jeff.

http://www.understandingduchamp.com/author/marey/index.html

"the experience"

the experience of the project

from board (No labels)

This is a diagram (no labels which will be present for Wednesday) showing the basics of how the cloud works in relationship to both the outside environment and the inside environment. Note the white fibres illuminating based on movement in the terminals.

Toucable maps for the blind.

Researchers in Greece have developed a new system that converts video into virtual, touchable maps for the blind. The three-dimensional maps use force fields to represent walls and roads so the visually impaired can better understand the layout of buildings and cities.
"Imagine I'm blind and I want to come to New York," says Konstantinos Moustakas, lead researcher on the virtual mapping project and a graduate student at Aristotle University of Thessaloníki in Greece. "I should have a map.

The article continues:
"Two common-touch interfaces simulate the force fields by applying pressure to the user's hand: the CyberGrasp glove, which pulls on individual fingers, and the Phantom Desktop, which applies a single force to the hand via a wand. Moustakas said the process is somewhat like trying to identify an object by running a finger or wand along its surface.

Virtual, touchable maps, also known as haptic maps, have been created before, but they were made using stereoscopic movies, which require special cameras. Moustakas' system works with a standard video camera.

Moustakas also developed a system that converts pictures of traditional paper maps into a three-dimensional street map. Users run a finger or wand down the grooved roads of the virtual map, while street names are automatically read aloud."

FULL STORY

Charette - Harvest-House

I wanted to share with you a small note and photos from the charette yesterday and to thank those who participated. It was fun, intense and productive! We generated two boards of a project we titled Harvest-House. These documents are being scanned at the moment for a small portfolio that is being put together by the school. Doug Hecker and I and the following group of students worked on this.

Katy Seaman
Mandi Young
Vincent Vumbaco
Trevor Jordan
Melissa Vandiver
Blane Hammerlund
Broderick Whitlock
William Smith
Chris Bradley
Toni Sena

Navigating through 3D interactive spaces with a Video Game Controller

Link to project website with movies

This is something I've been looking into. Last fall, Nintendo introduced a new game controller dubbed the "Wiimote" which uses a combination of 3D IR position sensors and accelerometers to determine inputs. This making it one of the first mass-produced three-dimensional and six-axis control devices available to the public (as opposed to a traditional mouse which only works in two dimensions.)

On Monday I had mentioned the possibility of interacting with surfaces in the airport using short-range wireless (such as Bluetooth or WiFi). The technology used in this demonstration is a simple combination of Bluetooth and Accelerometers, both of which are making inroads into consumer electronic devices.

The benefit to such an interaction is spatial- unlike a two dimensional surface, an individual is not "confined" to any particular area such as a kiosk or wall, or even a specific "zone" in the Airport.

target sound - great technology potential for airport sound

Barcelona student Robert Cooney shared this information with me. It is about sound which can be projected within a focused area... great potential for airport announcements to be targeted only for the passengers that need to hear them. the company is called American Technologies Corporation. The technology is called Hypersonic Sound. Their website is http://www.atcsd.com/site/

Cocktail Concoction

This is another multi-touch display, this time at a cocktail bar. I'd like to implement a similar technology in my wall. When people activate or "decorate" the wall, a ripple effect occurs that transitions into the ceiling apparatus and perhaps changes the colors of it as well.

Ziba

Here is an example of multi-touch display. It is by a company named Ziba, through the research of Professor Jeff Han. It uses a technology called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection. This is similar to what I'm planning.

Experience Video A: The Wall

I am finally able to get back on the blog now. I'll post a few things, but for now this is the video that I had for the March 28th review.

Work of a current Columbia University Grad Student

I was looking at student work of various schools and I came across this rendering. I am really captivated by the organic flow as the two towers move up from the earth. The way they play with each other is gentle but not too delicate. And the main reason I posted this was how the student uses light in suble ways to define a shape.

James Carpenter for Jeffrey Lowder Esquire

Inter-active Holographic Lexus Display in Times Square

EDIT: Warning, turn your volume off

UVA's Light Garden

Since a lot of people are now working with light, here is a video of UVA's light garden:

The Body - constructing space for its various uses

Blane and Toni must look at this book. Blane on Monday I want to see sections and plans of your project constructed out of the various positions of the body in your undulating resting structure. The body will also be drafted as part of the drawing as well as other objects like suitcases and any other portables. Working out the particularities of the security threshold is going to be really interesting - also according to the body as it moves through this space and as it de-clothes and re-clothes. Anyway, you should check this book out of the library and share it - The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design by Alvin Tilley and Henry Dreyfuss

A Still Life - a temporal document affected by activity

Frank, this is the project that reminds me of what you were talking about yesterday - the interaction and movements of people adjust the quality of the table, in this case creating a layered document of the activity occuring "sur la table" a kind of "still life" as Osman Khan puts it.

"A camera is placed above the table, capturing events occurring on/over the table, which are sent to a computer, where customized software processes the image, so that non-white objects visually appear to stream their color down. This processed image is then projected back onto the table. Thus, a historic timeline of events over the table is visualized as a continuous flow of images down the table."

This might be of interest also to Whitlock and maybe to Matt and Ben. Check it out at http://www.osmankhan.com/surlatable/index.html There is a video too.

Portable Light - wonderful!

While on this topic of light and material, you must look at the work of Sheila Kennedy

I mentioned her work developing luminous plywood. Most recently she is working on a delightful social project called “portable light” which brings light to communities without electrical power and which suggest many other applications in our future. The work uses traditional weaving techniques with new light materials. You can see this work at http://www.caup.umich.edu/portablelight/

I was amazed at the resemblance of the community power bag (if you change the scale) to Toni’s resting airport pods.

You must all look at other Kennedy & Violich Architecture projects at http://www.kvarch.net/

Luminous Fabric - material potential

So many of you are dealing with light (and fiber optics in particular). I thought this would be of interest. Plastic fiber optics are woven with synthetic fibers to create luminous cloth for various products including wearables. Could Toni's jelly fish airport spaces take advantage of this technology? More information at http://www.lumigram.com/

"Project Runway" Increased amenities at Airports

Other Layover options at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam

At Schiphol Airport I also visited one of the Rijks Museum - one of the city's museums. A little space of it is in the airport with some of their collections for viewing during layovers.

I also saw touring spots where one could arrange for a quick visits of the city depending on the lenght of your layover.

On the website I just discovered a mobile guide of the airport which is activated via your cell phone and also a transparent speaking wall - which allows you to see and speak to your friends and/or relatives on the other side of the airport.

Airport Snoozing Space

This are my two photos of recent nap at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. I also did a little observation and noted that within 5 minutes everyone would fall asleep. The areas are called airline lounges and are populated with a sparce grid of lounge soft chairs which face a large window towards the outside. Upon visiting the airport's website, I discovered something missed during my layover - lazy chairs. There are super soft red chair lounges to "sit into an relax". You can find them at their web site under airport facilities, Fun at Schiphol.

http://www.schiphol.nl/_entertainment/FunSchiphol.jsp?ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395729234&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302572275&GENERIC%3C%3Eclicked_folder_level_0=2534374302572262&GENERIC%3C%3Eclicked_folder_level_1=2534374302572275&VIRTUAL_TEMPLATE%3C%3Evt_id=10134198673766990&bmUID=1175361137623

What does it mean to travel through space?

These thoughts are not mine but from those blindfolded and asked about information. These recordings have become very popular, even becoming a part of the sub-pop culture.

"I picture like an illuminated manuscript, ya know... you'd have to have them hand done... each time" (stammering) like change depending on what mood your in... like the best...or depending on like when you listen from a different age... could mean somethin' different"

"I don't like it when they change "....it....frightens me"

"you want them to stay the same"

"It makes me feel like someones pushing me from below...tryin' to put me... turn me over and put me down" "that's what it makes me feel like when they change."

"it has to tell you how to live... it (stammering) has, is an instruction guide. Subtle. It doesn't push. It nudges. It entices..or suduces. It has to encompass the whole scenario. Everything that has been. That is. And will be."

"AND could take it into space. And that's why you build a space ship. Because ultimately that's what space travel is all about. Was sending up ships from earth into space. And not just in some space shuttle thats got all the foam comming off of it. You need your own, glowing, ya know multi-colored.... space ship. It would be inside the space ship and.. the space ship. You know what I'm saying?

Like an exoskeleton.

Information is an exoskeleton"

Thoughts from my not so spring "break!"

While on my "break" I jotted down somethings that could help from the review that we had to better clarify possibly some of the context in which my project envelops.

Material and Form in a Temporal Intervention

Recreation of Movement|Visions in Motion

The recreation of movement is interpreted in Herbert Matter’s photographs as “virtual volumes,” they create a space that is not logically identified until there is a interaction between the onlooker and the object. Also insisted upon as a mobile sculpture, also the “ material is utilized not in its mass but as a carrier of movement. To the three dimensions of volume the forth, the time element, movement is added.” This is a great addition to the study that I am doing it has so much relativity now just implementing it.
Cite:
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo. 1st ed. Chicago: Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, 1947. 237-235.

primary vs. secondary

particularly fascinating about colors is the effect two colors [a primary and secondary] have on eachother.


also related:
the meaning of color [link]

Making New Materials

In efforts to please the architecture gods and will, i thought what else can concrete become? can it become a material that is soft? can concrete be fun? does it have to be heavy and static? does it have to smell like concrete?

12 samples. some instantly dryed, some are drying, some might not dry, some smell weird, one looks like it is swelling and will hopefully explode. lol

Changing Luminence

Believe it or not, the other renders are still going 24+ hours later, but this one finished fairly quickly.

This past week I've been experimenting with the effects of layering materials to help create panels that change not only based on your position, but also change color based on the angle light hits them. (for example, see last post)


Full image (link)

i will be posting additional images as they complete- hopefully the ones with the atrium as the context. rendering these is difficult even for the new Macs. from here on i have been working on the actual connections to the floor- seating arrangements, and more. I plan on addressing the following problems:

-occupancy
-power
-and of course, information