# Symbiosis 'Hood by R&Sie(n)

Symbiosis 'Hood is the last R&Sie(n) published project and which is particular to me since I got the chance to work on it for quite a while between 2008 and 2009 when I was working there.

Program is a multi-purposes facility including a house on the top of it (the emergent part). It is built on the boundary of two properties who accepted to see both of their lands transgresively taking over on each other in what R&Sie(n) calls a Proudhonism request implying the anarchist statement that property is a theft.

Here is the little tale associated with the project:
It’s the story of territory which is at the boundaries between South and North Korea, the DMZ. Where the land in infected by land mines and totally abandoned since the end of the Korean War, more than half a century ago. Because of this military situation, of a non-domesticated nature, some new species of insect, of trees, of seeds re-appear on the surface of the planet, and by this way the nature re-define its own rights in monstrous uncontrolled entropy. In this movement of sprawling an anomaly, a singularity appear from the surface of the forest, as the trace of the disease of the location.


‘’symbiosis’hood’’
Seoul, Korea, 2009

Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris
Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, Toshikatsu Kiuchi
with Leopold Lambert

Key dimensions: 750 m2
Situation; Seoul, Heyri
TWO Clients; Julieta and J.J. Lee + Pablo Lee on two separated lands
Cost: 2m $

More pictures and information on official page

# Running on non-newtonian fluid in Next Nature

Next Nature presents an article about this Spanish show introducing a one meter deep pool filled by a "non-newtonian' fluid which owns the characteristics of becoming solid while being stressed out. It is apparently made by cornstarch and water.

# Drones for the future of urban security

On July 14th (French national day) 2006, a drone was sent over Paris northern suburbs by the French army in cooperation with France biggest cop at this time, our beloved president who was the Minister of Internal Affairs. This was the first (known) operation of this kind in France where material usually used against declared enemy was being tested to be used as a surveillance of what some people may called the enemy inside. This seems as a good representation of nowadays state of security which makes a lot of people in this world being elected.
As a complement of this article you might want to read this article of Transit-city analyzing (in French unfortunately) an Israeli new police vehicle, the X-hawk.

# Tron is back

Everybody probably remember Walt Disney's 1982 Tron which surfed on the cyberpunk wave with epic visual effects ! Apparently Tron 2 (called Tron Legacy) will be released in 2010. Here is the trailer; let's hope that those guys did not just do an update of the first one with new technologies...
found on erratica

# Pratt Institute's new website

The Pratt Institute just released its new website Pratt.edu where you would be able to see last students' work for undergraduate and graduate programs.

# Pratt Institute / Autobiography (!)

It may be a French thing but we do like to know what is the background of people's emission, so I felt it was important to tell you that from now on until january 2011, I will be attending Pratt Institute's post professional Master MS.ARCH. After graduating from ESA, working in Paris for R&Sie(n) then in Bombay for Serie, here I am, discovering New York City !

# Palestinian Art

Currently in Paris, it is possible to have a good glance on what Palestinian artists are working on. First is the Institut du Monde Arabe's exhibition called Palestine: La création dans tous ses états. This exhibition gathers around 30 artists, most of the time emitting from abroad, showing what Deleuze used to call the Devenir Palestinian (devenir means to become in French but it is turned here as a noun to conceptualize the act of becoming) confronted to the situation of their country.
The second is last Elia Suleiman's movie called The time that remains which apparently is not appreciated by everybody but I personnaly liked it a lot. Starting from a very narrative movie it slowly turns into something closer from what can be seen in the exhibition and that is what makes them so coherent together.

# Bouroullec brothers' walls

Those works are not so recent but it is a pleasure to rediscover Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec's aesthetic in the way of designing a wall. Starting from standard modules able to connect themselves to each others, their articulation allows to develop superb walls in adaptable different configurations.

# Outdoor Cinema in La Villette

This post is not really covering a current event as Paris La Villette's Cinéma en Plein Air (Outdoor Cinema) just finished, but it may be worth it to talk about it since it is a wonderful operation of democratization for cinema. Every year between july 15th and august 16th, every night is being released a movie (last one this year was Werner Herzog's Fitzcaralado) in front of thousand of people sitting in the grass.

# Crab Studio's website

London based Crab Studio (Peter Cook & Gavin Robotham assisted by our friend Jean-Baptiste Ruat) has eventually a website. It is still under construction but you can see those last four years' work including won competition in Verdania (Italy) and in Vienna.

# TwittARound

Augmented Reality is coming on Iphone with a beta version of TwittARound allowing an additional layer of information superimposed on reality via Twitter.

found on NextNature.net

# Reburbia Competition Finals

Dwell Magazine and Inhabitat.com's competition called Reburbia is coming to its finals with some more or less interesting twenty projects but anyway worth it to look at (and potentially to vote for). This competition was proposing to question the statute of American suburbs and it is quite interesting to notice that as a lot of competitions, every original and provocative propositions have not been selected in the top twenty but put in a classic "Notable Entries". See below Zellnerplus' Gordon Matta Clark glass houses, Nogo Voyages' Let them burn, Weber Architecture's Infill house and Choi-len Tan's Bricks habitats.

(picture above: Selected Miller|Hull Partnership's Bumper Crop)

# Escape from Chino

Most of you probably remember John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. (following fifteen years after the even more memorable Escape from New York) which dramatizes the city of L.A. transformed into a enormous prison where prisoners have to struggle to survive in an anarchist environment.
Last saturday riots in Californian Prison of Chino is likely to make us recall this scenario. California hosts 150 000 prisonners in only 30 prisons and detainees sometimes have to cope with the fact that there is no cell for them. Those have to live all together in gymnasiums which could be considered as micro-societies. This phenomena would have been interesting to be studied by Michel Foucault, following his essay Discipline and Punish (see former post here) as it may be a new form of emprisonment (similar to gladiators conditions during Roman Empire).

# Growing bridges

Here is are some pictures from amazing growing root bridges in India. A beautiful application of Gille Deleuze's mouvement en train de se faire describing Leibniz's philosophy.

Here is the little text on Living Root Bridges:

The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This tree produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves.
Cherrapunji is credited with being the wettest place on earth, and The War-Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, long ago noticed this tree and saw in its powerful roots an opportunity to easily cross the area's many rivers. Now, whenever and wherever the need arises, they simply grow their bridges.
n order to make a rubber tree's roots grow in the right direction - say, over a river - the Khasis use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems.
The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they're allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.
The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they're extraordinarily strong - strong enough that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time.
Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time - and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over five hundred years old.


Thanks Eduardo !

# Banksy vs Bristol Museum

You still have until august 31st to visit Banksy's appropriation of the Bristol Museum. Here is a little trailer to motivates you...

# Subtopia returns

For those who were desperate not to be able to read new articles on Subtopia, do know that Brian Finoki did find some time to write some and starting with Gaza re-organization since last Israeli siege.

# Mesarchitectures' website finally on

Paris based Bureau des Mesarchitectures lead by Didier Fiuza Faustino finally released their website with a dozen of projects on it plus three texts related to the "ethic" of the office.

# Fox News terrified by The Coming Insurrection

I just read an excellent book called The Coming Insurrection (L'insurrection qui vient in French) which is a very well written pamphlet just as there is not so many nowadays. This book written by The Invisible Comity is conceiding absolutely nothing to the system and propose to gather as communes to propose an alternative of society.
It will be released in English this month and is published thanks to the MIT Press (in France it is published by the excellent La Fabrique).
I happen to see an incredible review of it which has been done by Glenn Beck for Fox News. Conceiding in the end that he did not read the book, he nevertheless attacks for five minutes this book (taking advantage to some advertising for his own) quoting contextless sentences and calling the author the Enemy. Anyway, describing this video is not that much usefull, you'd rather watch it yourself considering a lot of people are litteraly driven by this mad guy.

# Crisis Modes by Jason Lee, Gil Akos, Ronnie Parsons and Michael Chen

Here is a design workshop held between August 17th and 21th in New York City. Michael Chen sent me the information and observed that there are still some space available.

The workshop will take place in a studio setting and will be devoted to exploring relational design strategies and digital design methodologies for speculative infrastructures. New York City, with its breadth of ecological and urban complexity and in particular its urbanizing industrialized waterways, will be the primary context explored.

The aim of the workshop will be to empower designers to negotiate the complex and data-rich environments that are available through professional mapping and information systems and to develop speculative design proposals through the use of computational techniques and methodologies. Participants will develop design interventions that address emerging ecological crises and opportunities found in New York ecologies of the present and near-future.

The format of the workshop will include daily intensive workshop sessions focusing primarily on Grasshopper, Rhino’s parametric design plug-in, and evening lectures and presentations from practitioners and experts in the fields of sustainability and computational design. The workshop will cover strategic workflows for data set analysis and mapping, complex rule-based geometries, as well as techniques for digital fabrication.

The instructors of the workshop are Michael Chen + Jason Lee & Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos. They have taught design studios, seminars, and workshops at institutions throughout North America, including California College of the Arts, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Cornell University, Pratt Institute, Princeton University, Stevens Institute, and University of Toronto.

The workshop will culminate in a public exhibition and opening event on the evening of Friday, August 21.

Details :
All interested students and professionals are encouraged to attend. All experience levels are welcome.
All participants are required to bring their own laptops. Trial software will be made available.
Registration Pricing (limited enrollment) : $750 Academic | $1000 Professional.
Workshop Location : Terminal Building | 11th Ave at W 26th St. | Chelsea, Manhattan.

# Axis Mundi's MOMA Tower

Transit-City recently released an article about new types of towers categorizing them into three categories lead by Zaha Hadid on one hand, Rem Koolhaas on another one and on a third one (!) some new ideas trying to conceive the vertical city not as the cult of an object but as an aggregate of urban blocks.
Axis Mundi's MOMA tower (virtually replacing Nouvel's tower) has been designed in this spirit and offers a new imaginary to some extent. You can see more about it here.