The self-sustaining tower for the 2016 Olympic Games is designed to create renewable energy for use in the Olympic Village as well as the city of Rio. A large solar power plant generates energy during the day. Any excess power not used during the day is utilized to pump seawater into a storage tank within the tower. At night, the water is released to power turbines, which will provide nighttime power for the city. On special occasions water is pumped out to create a waterfall over the edges of the building, which RAFAA says will be, “a symbol for the forces of nature.” Info on the size of the solar and pumped water storage system is not available yet.

Access to the eco tower is gained through an urban plaza and amphitheater 60 meters above sea level, which can be used for social gatherings. On the ocean side of the 105 meter tower (behind the waterfall) is a cafeteria and shop. An elevator takes visitors up to the top floor where an observation deck offers 360 views of the ocean and city. At level 90.5, a bungee platform is available for adventurous visitors.

The Portland Firefighters Memorial will be located on the east bank of the Willamette River adjacent to Fire Station no. 21 and directly across from downtown Portland. Whelton Architecture’s design establishes two discernable experiential zones: at the ground level, low horizontal stone benches and walls are rooted into the earth; and in the sky, tall vertical lanterns gently sway overhead. These elements are organized across the memorial field in a series of parallel lines whose overall figure is greater than any one individual mark.

The figural reading of the memorial changes depending on the distance from which it is experienced. Within the field each individual lantern is clearly identifiable and the space between them is varied to accommodate both individual visitors and larger groups. Seen from greater distances the lanterns merge into a unified line of light in the sky. This constellation-like pattern will expand the presence of the memorial into a symbol which is visible and recognizable across Portland.

The memorial intends to renew its presence within the city by establishing a changing illumination cycle that will connect the profound loss of Portland’s brave firefighters to the daily patterns of life. Each month a varying selection of memorial lanterns equal to the number of historical line-of-duty deaths during that month will be more brightly illuminated. Altering the pattern of light-levels will subtly change the constellation composed by the lanterns over the course of the year and within the memorial will provide a diversity of experiences and opportunities for inhabitation.

A preliminary cost estimate for construction is $2.4 million raised through private donations with the goal being to complete the project in time for a dedication ceremony on June 26th, 2011, the date of the annual service held in memory of Portland firefighters and the 100th anniversary of Portland Fire Chief David Campbell’s death. http://www.portlandfirefightersmemorial.org has additional information about the design competition and how donations can be made to the new memorial project.

The night of the 3rd November was awesome, it wasn´t at all cold and nobody walked about in the park then, just after midnight. We were able to enjoy 3 hours of absolute calm, sitting among the fallen leaves, composing our work.

For the installation An Almost ephimeral Autumn we lit 200 dry leaves and lifted them from the ground until it seemed as if a truly soft breeze of light had made the Autumn fallen leaves raise into the air.

The beautiful photos were taken by Gustavo Sanabria. Kaspar,

The Symbiotic Green Wall is an urban ecosystem designed to help buffer, protect and revitalize construction areas. The wall collects rainwater and wastewater from the construction site, filters and stores it, and then distributes it around the site. The external wall, which the public sees, has plant pods, sitting areas, shade, bird nests and lighting to provide a pleasant public outdoor place to enjoy. The wall itself acts as a water storage tank and planter, while the interior wall on the construction side has a sprinkler system to help maintain dust.

A series of environmental sensors monitor noise, air quality, dust, vibrations and odors in order to provide a more pleasant environment. Visible indicators will also alert passersby and the construction site to the current environmental conditions. With the upgraded look of this wall, people may actually beg to have construction sites go up in their neighborhoods!

Here’s a project description from Balmori Associates:

The garden climbs the stairs, running in undulating lines of different textures and colors. Envisioned as a dynamic urban space; it moves in time and with the seasons. Its lush planting cascades down as though the garden was flowing or melting, bleeding the colors into each other. In one gesture, it narrates a story of landscape taking over and expanding over the Public Space and Architecture, therefore transforming the way that the stairs and the space is perceived and read by the user.

It is a garden of contrasts: the contrast between native and exotic plants, between the red flowers and the green grass, between the green grass and the grey paving. In form, the garden engages the horizontal plaza with the rising vertical plane of the steps and the upright gesture of Eduardo Chillida’s sculpture. Like the famous Spanish Steps in Rome, the garden is not only designed for visitors to ascend and descend, but for them to linger, and just be

After all, here we are in the 21st century, a millennium ahead of us for testing and witnessing just how far the lines between science fact and science fiction will blur.

At the ground level in little ole Aotearoa we all have reason to despair at a lack of focus on our urban futures and the design of those urban futures. We don’t do “urban” as well as we need to.

A suggestion for Auckland’s Queens Wharf

Abstract from Urban Logic’s Article in the Idealog Magazine

Delaying the doing is a fine art. The tools are many and varied. Take time for a lavish display of consultation; commission a report or, even better, commission a scoping study for a possible report. Form a working party, a subcomitteee, perhaps a Commission (that’ll be productive). Wait while facts are found, legislation is passed, funds are freed or an election is held. If that doesn’t work, urban planners everywhere have another option: hold a design competition. Invite the world to enter. Now you have years before anything needs to be done.

Read the full article here at Idealog.co.nz

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IME)’s report evaluated hundreds of geo-engineering projects and suggested three that could help mitigate global climate change (and that were actually feasible using current or soon-to-be-ready technology). Depending on how you look at it (and how creative a thinker you are), the suggestions could be lauded as really interesting, or just really insane.

In addition to artificial trees, the IME report suggests growing algae in tubes on the sides of buildings. The algae, which traps carbon during photosynthesis, could be collected and transformed into charcoal, which could then be buried underground. The report also points out the benefits of painting roofs white, which reflects sunlight and helps mitigate heat island effect in urban areas.

While the ideas sound good in theory, researchers have yet to see how the tech would actually work, as no one has quite mastered carbon capture and storage. And even the engineers themselves warn that these geo-engineering projects won’t provide a solution to global warming–they’re meant to be used in conjunction with larger, more long-term efforts to reduce global carbon emissions.

The report also includes a 100-year plan to de-carbonize the global economy, and will be presented at party conferences this fall. Who knows–with the right investments and innovations, the next 10 to 20 years could bring a world filled with fake forests and floating space mirrors.

For this year, the pavilion was commissioned to Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA.

An undulating aluminum structure sits on top of a delicate column system, providing a series of connected spaces while keeping a continuous view through the park. The aluminum reflects the trees, the ground and the sky, for a dramatic blending effect as you can see of the photos.

You can see Iwan’s photo sets for previous versions of the pavilion: Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond with ARUP (2006), Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen (2007) and Frank Ghery (2008).

This impulse translated into a scheme that would take the concave concrete seal on the excavated site and use it as the frame for what Kahn likens to “a trampoline for the wind, a soft and compliant surface.”

Hooks along the perimeter of the cap would support a taut net of thin steel cables; that delicate grid in turn would brace a field of grainy metal discs that move independent of one another, the shimmer from a passing breeze likely to ripple across the rectangular lot.

The concept is distilled yet alive, one that if constructed would offer an ethereal counterpoint to the financial district swirl. And not just for pedestrians: “It’d be very entertaining for all the people in the buildings that look down” on the site, Kahn said. “There are a lot of eyes up there.”

Check out the video here Link

In our last venture to San Onofre State Park, a surfing camp spot, the location of the designated campgrounds was less nature and more urban, but certainly not less “wild”. As we constructed temporary nomadic tent city I considered the view, to the west, native coastal plant life and beyond, the pacific. Directly behind to the east, not ten feet away were the parking spots and our cars, just behind the access road the amtrak tracks, and beyond that the 8-lane 405.

A less idyllic vision of the camping experience but I began to envision the future experiences of campers. As pockets of true wilderness that remain become few and far between, overcrowded and restricted access for their protection, the reason to visit these parks becomes muted. They become a place that no longer tests your manhood against the elements but acts as more as a museum for our ancestral frontiersman.

But a new wilderness is developing. Cities are rapidly growing, becoming more complex, and rather then locking ourselves up in our protective boxes, what if we found a new way to to test ourselves in the throws of the urban wilderness? Rather then becoming intimately involved with nature, listening and understanding the landscape, we rediscover urbanity in a completely new way. Smells, sounds, people, paths, roads, parks, architecture all become things of exploration rather then simply parts of the sum.

Perhaps a traveler from Sydney to New York could more quickly become familiar with the genus loci by submitting to its extreme exposure.

Import Export Architecten designed a new type of ‘small scale’ urban camping. The mobile UC can be implanted in any city centre that likes to experiment with this new type of camping. UC is a place where adventurous city wanderers can stay overnight, meet other campers and find a safe shelter with basic designed practical facilities.

Imagine some of the architectural visions of future Utopian cities, vast, and completely intertwined with giant swaths of green spaces. Forests, urban farms, and food providing plant life. Travelers could continuously explore the new urban wilderness, traveling from camping station to station, living off the land as they go.

I also wonder, could this create a new breed of a nomadic culture, the homeless no longer homeless but joining a tribe of wanderlust vagabonds freed from the constraints of societal routine?