Why do humans have to adapt to buildings? Why can’t architecture adapt to humans? This is the question posed by architect Doris Kim Sung. Before there was air conditioning, buildings had thick, insulated walls that kept the interiors cool in the summertime and warm in the wintertime. But in the 1930s floor-to-ceiling windows became the … Continued
Design as Art: are they interchangeable or are they essentially different? If design is function followed by form can the same thing be said for art, or is art just a form of expression? There is a lively discussion going in the thread of today’s TED Talk, “Treat Design As Art” by Paola Antonelli. As … Continued
In our latest installment of TED Talk Tuesday, architect Liz Diller shares her firm DS+R’s more unusual work, including the Blur Building, whose walls are made of fog, and the revamped Alice Tully Hall, which is wrapped in glowing wooden skin. Aside from keeping the rain out and producing some usable space, architecture is nothing but … Continued
When TED Fellow Xavier Vilalta was commissioned to create a multistory shopping mall in Addis Ababa, he panicked. Other centers represented everything he hated about contemporary architecture: wasteful, glass towers requiring tons of energy whose design had absolutely nothing to do with Africa. In this charming talk, Vilalta shows how he champions an alternative approach: … Continued
With his team at SENSEable City Lab, MIT’s Carlo Ratti makes cool things by sensing the data we create. He pulls from passive data sets — like the calls we make, the garbage we throw away — to create surprising visualizations of city life. And he and his team create dazzling interactive environments from moving … Continued
