An open source penis

Open source is a great ideal. However, thus far it has hardly been implemented for objects that are actually needed. Take prosthetics, for instance. They are currently mainly commercial and insanely expensive. Open Prosthetics is aiming to make prostetics more readily available by means of open source.

The question is how amateur culture (which, to some extent, open source always is) will manifest itself in the design of bodily parts. Will actual need be the key focus, or prosthetics designed for extremely personal uses, for comfort, obsession, crime, sleaze, curiosity and pleasure?

This was the starting question for Sputniko!, urging her to design an open source prosthetics to satisfy her own personal curiosity. She asked herself the question
“What does it feel like to have an extra body part (in this case – penis) which reacts to my emotions?”
This turned out to be a design project called Penis Cybernetique. Simply put, it's an open source penis. The penis moved up and down, according to changes in heart rate.

This might just be the final outcome of the ideas behind open prosthetics. Open source body parts can go beyond mere need into the realm of play, culture and curiosity - one can test themselves with extra additions. For me, personally, I'd like to see what it feels like with an extra eye in my neck, for instance. The test is the goal, the means is the end. Is that what this project means, or does it indicate the extremities of open source?

If you want to build on the penis cybernetique yourself: in true open source-style, the entire project code for the open source penis is published online.

Arbores Laetae

For the Liverpool Biennale, the architects of Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed a spectacular installation called "Arbores Laetae", or "Joyful Trees". It's made up of a grid of trees, of which some are fitted on an electrical plate, and rotate slowly around spectators. There's something quite disturbing (and quite thrilling, too) about the trees that move. It's like a cross-over from a thriller-movie (it could be Hitchcockian?), that's also addressing the commonplace division between artificial and natural.

Crawling all over Liverpool

Try to mentally picture those amazing drawings by Lebbeus Woods, which show those parasitic, mechanic creatures that appear to be crawling up along the side of a "normal" building. Those drawings look bizarrely futuristic. And even though years have passed between the first time he draw one of those parasitic robo-creatures (if I may call them that, for lacking a more becoming name), they still had a look like they were something out of the future...

...Until just now, I must say. Actually, since somewhere in September 2008, but I didn't know until today. The vision that seemed to redeem in the drawings of Lebbeus Woods became alive: The French company La Machine made a gigantic mechanical spider for the celebration for Liverpool as the European Capital of Culture. The mechanical spider, weighing in at 37 tons, could have been seen crawling up a side of a pretty non-descript tower building with the speed of two miles per hour.

I found this via outnext.com.

A giant game of Jenga

Looking at images of the model for the "Final Wooden House" by Sou Fujimoto, it looks as though the designers were having a great laugh by playing a XXL version of the game "Jenga": a stacking of equal sized wooden blocks, of which some are removed, for whatever reason. It's not funny like "haha", but it's looks as though it's main motive has been conceptual fun.

That is: until one sees the interior of the actually built building. It's not just wood as a building material, or wood as a finish, but it's actually wood reduced to it's essence of being wood. It defies the traditional concept of what a material is (or could be): the structure IS the material.
Other than that, the building defies all traditional ideas of floors, ceilings and walls. Everything is everything. Material is distributed three-dimensionally, space is distributed three-dimensionally, and thus usage and people are scattered around the volume. What appears to be a joke is actually a spot-on composition of complex simplicity.

Falken Baden - Burkhard Meyer

If you'd like to have a crystalline, edgy smooth-shaped building, be sure to contact a Swiss architect. The practice of creating tightly lined buildings with a subtle twist has been traditionally Swiss. And the firm Burkhard Meyer has proved to be among the best at this game, with their Falken Baden building. This building consists of offices and appartments, in a sleek, elegantly morphed box. There are several things that make this building spectacular, besides the shape of things. For starters: the huge overhangs of the building. The sharp, fully glazed corners of the building cantilever up to eight metres, with a cantilever in a different direction above that. This makes the already elegant building extra sexy in its shape.

Also, organisationally it's quite interesting how Burkhard Meyer put the different parts together. On top of a block of offices, arranged around an atrium, there are houses around a central patio. So the roof becomes a roof-terrace, inverted, turning away from the cityscape around it.
The question might be: is there nothing wrong with this building whatsoever? Well, to be honest, the atrium in the office block seems to be a bit gloomy (and almost depressing, in a way). But other than that, this building has so much going on for it. It's sheer elegance, in organisation, morpheology, materialisation and urban positioning.

Swoosh pavillion

Some time ago, I wrote a post about the [C]-space pavillion that some students of the Architectural Association in London designed and constructed on Bedford Square in London.

It seems as though a herd of pavillions is slowly taking over the square. A group of second and third year students - lead by Charles Walker and Martin Self - recently designed and constructed a pavillion, aptly dubbed the "Swoosh Pavillion". Even though this name seems to be a reference to the well-known logo by Nike (which is also called the swoosh), I am pretty much positive that the pavillion isn't sponsored by the sporting goods mogul. I believe that the name seems to relate to the dynamic nature of that logo.
Because, simply said: the Swoosh Pavillion is a sleek, dynamic form. It swirls itself around a lamppost on Bedford Square. In the centre, the pavillion is closed off by a dense structure of pieces of timber. In the outskirts, the spiral becomes looser, transforming the overhanging enclosure into benches.

The pavillion started out as a scripted 3D model, I assume. Therefore, it is quite an impressive feat that the pavillion was constructed by manual labor. It's always really good to see how an experiment in a computer program is transformed into something that can actually be built. The fact that it is done by a bunch of students makes it even more impressive...


The images come from dezeen.com.

An alien intervention

At a first glance, it looks as though a giant sculpture by Richard Serra accidentally landed on this square in Schaarbeek, near Brussels. Closer inspection learns that it is in fact a building. Even more so: it is building with rental appartments.
The architect Mario Garzaniti used this oddly wedge-shaped site (with a footprint of about 50 square metres) to redefine the corner between the Koninginnelaan and the Liedtsplein.
In contrast with all the dynamic morphological limits of the surrounding buildings, this social housing block looks rather monolithic. The cladding plays an important role in this aspect: the corten steel is used as facade, wall covering and roof, as well as part of replacable shutters for the windows.

The thing is: the building looks really great. But that's probably the architect in me talking. I appreciate the fact that Mario Garzaniti didn't make any compromises, I appreciate the detailling, I appreciate the look of the weathered corten-steel...
But I just cannot imagine that the building is really appreciated by the target audience for this social housing. Or am I condensending about this? I cannot make up my mind about this building - I'm in doubt between the beautiful architecture and the contextual response to its surroundings...

If you want to read or see more about this project, you might check out this article on A+ (in Dutch), or this thread at pushpullbar (in English).

Architecture and fashion

I think that nobody will deny that there is a connection between architecture and fashion. The Guardian came up with a nice way to illustrate that: Hadley Freeman discussed nine architects, with a focus on the relation between the clothes they wear and the kind of buildings they design. As far as style goes: I really dig the casual, but decidous professor look that he's sporting. And he actually always looks like this...

Booster Station - Group A

The process involved in this building, the so-called booster station in the southern part of Amsterdam (the Netherland) is really down to earth. Basically, it's an utter technical utility building for draining sewage - consisting of a set of pipes and pumps. Most of the times, such buildings are not considered as a source for creative design. It seems illogical to make a brave statement of aesthetic principles out of such a structure. But why? such an object is highly visible in the city-landscape - that should be reason enough to invest a bit more into such a project... On the other hand: who wants to invest a bunch of euros to make the sewer system look sexy?

Luckily, in the city of Amsterdam, Waternet decided to spice up the look of this one specific booster station at the Spaklerweg. And they hired the architects of Group A to design this building. Or better yet: this object in public space. It looks very high-tech, like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, making a attractive and intriguing object.

the photo is from flickr, by the way.

Sleeveface

Sleevefacing is, according to the website sleeveface.com: "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion." Well, that basically says it all: pictures of people with record sleeves in front of their faces and such. Oddly enough, it is quite fascinating to see the interplay of two photographed realities - even though it tends to come close to the kitsch holiday snapshots of people holding the Eiffel tower on their hands and such...


Other than the aforementioned website, flickr.com is a great source for sleevefaced images, too...

Your Meat is Mine

There are many ways a tattoo can look. Personally, I am really intrigued by the style of tattoos that Yann David from Paris does. It's very graphic, but with a little bit of child-like naivity to it. He's not the kind of tattoo artist you'd go to to get the portrait of an indian hammered into your skin - I suppose he needs quite a bit of artistic freedom to invent something on your skin. Expressionistic art? Graphic design? Playful? Abstract? Naive? Neo-romantic? It's all that, and a bit more. It's definitely something different than most types of tattoos, that's for sure.

On his website www.yourmeatismine.com, you can see a ton of examples of his work.