OFF!

It's safe to say that Keith Morris is a hardcore punk legend. In my eyes he was the best singer Black Flag ever had. The most pissed off aggression fitting to the music (just listen to Nervous Breakdown, the vocals just fit). And after that, he founded Circle Jerks, with whom he also made some great (or shall I say legendary) records, like "Group Sex" or "Wild in the Streets" for instance.

And now he's 55 and he's back with a new band, called OFF! It sounds modern simply because it sounds like a band from the early eighties. Wonder how many people can convincingly do a band like this at that age, actually...

Prinzessinnengarten

Urban agriculture can mean a lot for a city population. Not only can it provide local food, but it can also create a social landscape in a city.

And Prinzessinnengarten in Berlin does exactly that. Since 2009, a collective called "Nomadic Green" rents a 6000 sqm plot at the Moritzplatz in Kreuzberg. The site has been a wasteland for about 50 years, but with relatively small means it has been transformed in an idyllic urban garden. Not only do locals maintain the garden themselves - thus creating a stronger sense of community in a relatively socially weak area of the city - but it also produces local (healthy and organic) food. Even more so: at Prinzessinnengarten, they strive towards a larger biodiversity. They try to cultivate rare species of plants.



Since the site is only rented, it cannot be a permanent garden. So most of the vegetables are planted in old crates from bakeries, or in large bags. In case the rent is ended (for whatever reason), most of the Prinzessinnengarten could be easily transported to another site. Other than that, by doing so, one doesn't depend on the local soil, since it might not be in the best condition after being wasteland for such a long period of time.



But besides the plants, the food and the greens, the community aspect of the project is quite important. It gives the locals a place to work on food production together, it is a place to educate kids about food, a place to eat together, a place to hang out in a green spot amidst all the concrete and a place that ties extremely different people together. And the idea seems so simple (albeit difficult to actually do, I assume).

Prinzessinnengarten is launched as a pilot project by Nomadic Green, so let's hope that there are many more projects to follow. By them, but also by people that are inspired by their acts.

Solids

The question of flexible spaces has always been a difficult one. Mainly, flexibility was defined by constraints. An architect, developer, city planner of someone else defined either a function, the size or the partitioning.
There have been quite some developments around the theme of flexibility, but none of them have been as radical as the concept of solids in Amsterdam.

Solids are about complete freedom, and complete flexibility. Tennants are free to decide the amount of square meters they want to rent - with a minimum of 90 m2. So far, nothing radical. However, tennants can also freely decide what they want to do with those square metres. If they'd like to use it to live in, it's just as good an option to start an office in the building. Pretty much everything goes, as long it doesn't cause disturbance for the neighbors (be it noise, pollution or whatnot).

That's what makes the concept of Solids so interesting: the building gives way to a mixture of functions, even if it isn't completely planned in advance. The buildings live, change and are adaptable to whatever the users would like. This also means that the spaces are completely empty and free of any interior obstacles. There's a front door, a wall and a facade and electrics, gas and water. All the interior walls, bathrooms, and furnishing can be decided by the tennant, and changed at will.
This way, the chance that the building becomes obsolete within some years of construction is pretty small. If there's a bigger market for dwellings, more of the casco spaces will be used as appartments.

A lot can be said about the currently planned Solids - about their facades, about their location in the city and what that means for the possible programming, the connection with the urban tissue, etcetera: but that's not quite the most fascinating part of this concept. The thing is: the appearance of the facade is literally only skin-deep. What makes the concept fascinating is it's flexibility in all senses. Even the rental price is to be decided by the tennants (within some reasonable ranges, of course)!

The concept of Solids is developed by Stadsgenoot, by the way.

Open source software for designers

Even though open source software isn't a new thing anymore, it's still revolutionary. Not only because it allows anybody to see, use and alter the source code of the software as such, but also because it allows for free distribution and redistribution of the software.

And even though there are some rather famous pieces of software that are based on this principle - such as Linux (the operating system) and Open Office (the open source alternative to Microsoft Office) - most designers don't know too much about open source alternatives for all the expensive software they are using. There are all kinds of ideological arguments for going towards open-source software. And it's probably just as important an argument that the open source software is free for use - which is a big advantage over the rather expensive licenses for programs like photoshop, autocad, 3d studio and all that.

So what exactly are the open source alternatives for the most common software packages used by designers? I'm purely listing actual design software - all the software that is useful in running an office (backup software, FTP-software, financing software and all that) is left out, focussing solely on open source software that you'd actually use in your design and presentation process.


Archimedes is a open source clone (well, kind of...) of Autocad 2D.

AvoCADo is an open source 3D CAD program. I'm not too sure about the quality, though.

Blender is an open source 3D creation/animation suite. Consider this among the best alternatives to 3D Studio, Maya, or whatever 3D program you might be thinking about.

BRLCAD is a CAD-program which works with solids modeling - like a quick and easy way to put a preliminary sketch in a 3D model.

Cute PDF is, technically speaking, not open source, but it's free for use and a pretty good alternative to Adobe PDF creator or Adobe Acrobat.

Cademia is a basic 2D CAD drawing program.

Dia is loosely based on Microsoft Visio, and is a tool for the creation of all kinds of diagrams.

Gimp, short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a program for photo manipulation, image retouching and all that. It could be seen as an alternative for Adobe Photoshop.

Gimpshop If you are considering going towards an open source software setup, but you know your way in photoshop too much to feel comfortable moving towards Gimp, Gimpshop might be the program for you. It's a version of the original GIMP, created to make everything look as much like photoshop as possible.

Imgv is a image viewer with loads of features. An alternative for programs like ACDSee?

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor. Consider this as an alternative for Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw.

Jahshaka is a movie-editing tool. It pretty much has all the standard features that one can find in programs like Adobe After Effects.

Kerkythea is a standalone renderer, with high-quality materials and light settings.

Moonlight 3D is aiming to be a extensive, flexible modelling, animation and rendering tool. It could be a good alternative for the most commonly used 3D software packages.

Open Office is, as noted above, an open source alternative for the Microsoft Office suite. It pretty much does everything that programs Word, Excel, Powerpoint and such do.

Pixie is an open source render engine for creating photorealistic images.

Qcad is a simple, 2D CAD drawing tool. It's not totally refined, but it's (in my eyes) the best alternative for Autocad - but it's still lacking some key features.

Scribus is an open source program for page layouting. Consider this a great alternative for Adobe Indesign, Quark Xpress or those kinds of programs.

Skencil is another vector based drawing software program.

Sketchboard is a 3D CAD-tool for converting sketches into simple polygons. It recognizes simple drawings and converts them for further development.

Xara LX is an open source version of Xara Xtreme - which is a graphics software package. It's (for now?) only for Unix/Linux kinds of operating systems, and I believe they are working on a OS X version.

And if you are looking for an open source alternative for specific software, try the osalt.com website - which lists open source alternatives for almost every possible software.
Some more useful links could be: SourceForge - a website with tons of downloadable open source programs or entirelyopensource.com - listing all kinds of programs and open source news. Oh, and Wikipedia.org has a big list of open source software packages.

Stereo photography

Have you ever seen one of those 3D photographs? Well, anybody who's ever looked through a view-master, definitely has. It adds a certain something to a picture to have a bit of a three dimensional effect to it. I've always thought that it was a long, boring process to achieve those images, including a lot of specific machinery and a lot of hard work...

Well, it's actually a lot easier. All you need is:
- Two disposable cameras
- Duct tape
- Scissors (optional)

How it works? photojojo explains you how to do it, in a quick tutorial.