I think it is fatal to specialize. And all kinds of things show us that and that the more diverse we are in what we can do the better. But I don’t think that you can dispose of the constructive and inventive things that America is doing—and say oh we aren’t doing anything anymore and we are living off of what the poor Chinese do. It is more complicated than that.
Heavyset
Ephective Ephemera
Public (Water) Squares
via Pruned, a Dutch endeavor called Waterpleinen – a now-commissioned set of public spaces that serve both as locales for community gathering/play and stormwater repositories. From the Waterpleinen site:
Most of the year the Watersquare will be dry. It is only during heavy rainfall that the square will be filled with water. Streams, brooklets and ponds [...]
Pondering Smarter Parking
GOOD has a blurb today on a pilot program in San Francisco that is utilizing wireless parking meters equipped with sensors that can identify vacant and occupied spaces. Here’s the demo:
I wonder what Donald Shoup would have to say about this. Could these sensors drive the kind of elastic-pricing parking policy that Dr. Shoup espouses? [...]
Point and Shoot Translation
via CScout, another great utility designed to enable, among other things, urban exploration.
PicTranslator is a point & shoot app for the iPhone that promises to translate signage and other text content from 20+ foreign languages into English. Check out the demo below:
While I can imagine all manner of applications for the app, the ability to [...]
Queuing Theory and Checkout Design
Via Jeff Howard over at Design for Service, a post from Katherine Alsop that explores queuing theory in the context of service efficiency as applied to a supermarket checkout.
It’s a fantastic, well-authored post with implications across a broad range of user experiences, and I’d be loathe to try to explain it in any detail – [...]
Nunnmps
Planned for the good people of Chicago, Illinois, this outstanding research facility, called Nunnmps, designed by Hong Kong-based architects Cheungvogl will be built on stilts to ensure privacy for the projects carried out.
Lay Guide to WikiCity
The WikiCity project is concerned with the real-time mapping of city dynamics. This mapping however is not limited to representing the city but instead becomes instantly an instrument for city inhabitants to base their actions and decisions upon in a better informed manner. In this way the real-time map changes the city context as well as that altered context changes the real-time map accordingly. This with the ultimate aim of leading to an overall increased efficiency and sustainability in making use of the city environment.
via GEO Informatic
Ambience as Ambiance
Over the weekend, Russell Davies had a great, albeit short, post on the notion of ambient speech, including this gem of an explanation:
I used to think that what you wanted from Ambient Speech was the rhythm of conversation but that you didn’t need the meaning, like Charlie Brown’s teacher. But I was awake in a hotel [...]
Detroit, Australian Libraries, Processing and A Place Where Things are Happening
Much-maligned here (and elsewhere), it seems that amidst the reports of $100 homes, Detroit is poised for renaissance. Via PSFK:
Detroit has been in economic decline for some time now, and the current recession has made things even worse – or into an opportunity, depending how you look at it. At this point in Detriot, you [...]
Quiet Interruptions
The image below shows one of a series of sculptures placed around London to promote Rimmel’s Quick Dry Nail Polish (click image to view full-size), and illustrates the power of simple spectacle quite well, I think. (found via Ad Goodness)
It’s a not quite the long wow, but very much a curiosity that requires little explanation.
My [...]