On the outskirts of some of the world’s largest cities exists an informal way of life. It’s unlike any other. To most, these spaces are defined as slums, shantytowns, or favelas. The list of stigmatized words associated with these settlements is never ending. Regardless of their delineation, the sheer mention of their existence conjures up an endless sea of negative associations—rampant crime, dismal infrastructure, impoverished communities, filth, and a severe lack of education. Yet the reality is not as simple as all that. While our assumptions are not wholly dishonest, they are wildly deceptive.

Heliopolis, the largest favela in Sao Paulo, grew out of a need for proximity to the amenities that the city had to offer. When this informal settlement was first established in the 1940s, the demand for it was low, thus the population was much smaller and much more spread out than it is today. Over time, as Sao Paulo expanded so did the desire to be situated within its reach. But housing within the urban area was not affordable to a large number of low-income residents. So they settled down on un-owned and non-delineated land areas, like Heliopolis. Today, the densely lined streets of this three-quarter square-mile favela, is home to roughly 100,000 inhabitants.

When we first see Heliopolis, all of the stereotypes we could imagine about an informal settlement are at play—the tin roofs are rusting, the streets are sprawling and unorganized, brick buildings are crumbling, and crime is rampant. There is no denying that these characteristics are a reality. What surprises us, however, is that an average home within the perimeter of Heliopolis costs $100,000 USD. As a matter of fact, one of the most prestigious hospitals in Sao Paulo sits along the edge of Heliopolis. Read more…

As Neil Harbisson lifted a red sock up to the end of the narrow, black device extending from the back of his head, a note sounded. After a moment he set down the red sock and reached for a blue sock, this one playing a different note as he brought it to the sensor suspended over his forehead. Repeating the gesture several times, new notes sounded for each different sock - he was playing a “color concert”. Although Harbisson cannot see colors, the device attached to his head, known as an eyeborg, allows him to perceive them through the frequencies they emit, including many which are not perceptible to normal human eyes. The performance was a fitting end to the 2013 PSFK Conference, a day of talks, panels, and presentations centering on the latest in technology, design, and brand innovation.

Neil Harbisson performs a concert using his eyeborg and different colored socks.

Much of last week’s PSFK conference, which took place April 12^th at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan, centered on the connections between humans and technology, and how advances in technology are changing how we relate to the world. Other major topics of the day were strategies for successful branding, and several plans to reshape New York City for the better in the coming years.

Harbisson, who in addition to his concert was also the day’s first speaker, explored the possibility of augmenting human senses with technology, similar to how he has done. He believes that, in a way, we are all handicapped in that our natural five senses do not allow us to perceive the full range of inputs from around us. Through the use of technology, our range of perception can be expanded and our awareness increased. His group, the Cyborg Foundation, works to help people augment their senses through technology, as well as advocating on behalf of cyborgs like himself.

Douglas Rushkoff discusses the phenomenon of “present shock.”

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The international design competition, sponsored by HP and Microsoft, in partnership with the creative platform Talenthouse, was called the HP/Microsoft Smart Office Challenge. The challenge was nothing less than to design the ultimate office space of the future. No pressure. The only requirement was that the design had to feature existing HP technology.

Our team won both the judges’ and the people’s choice awards. We are MulvannyG2 Architecture and industrial design firm Zac & Co., formed as collaborators on a design called HP MIMIC, a movable workplace that can be customized by touching a screen. With this design, users will be able to transform their offices to match their individual work styles and requirements, in addition to incorporating their company’s culture. Made of rigid aluminum and fully wired, the “plug and play” design features a collapsible system of rotating electrochromatic glass modules, controlled via a HP tablet interface. Last month, a prototype, built by HP, was presented at the Alt Design Summit in Salt Lake City. This animated video, created by MulvannyG2, illustrates the concept.

Here Alan Feltoon and Zachary Feltoon – in real life they’re father and son – discuss their design process for the HP MIMIC, the rapidly expanding role of flexible technology in the workspace, and the importance of design competitions in pushing forward new ideas.

Alan Feltoon: Collaboration can be wonderfully messy, particularly when crossing disciplines, with the potential for creating big ideas and concepts. Our two firms had previously worked together on the Battery Park Conservancy Design Competition, “Draw Up a Chair.” Through that process we realized how well we work together and were eager to do it again. The HP/Microsoft Smart Office Challenge presented an ideal opportunity.

Zachary Feltoon: I found it fascinating how much the language surrounding various types of creative design can differ. At first, it was like having a multilingual charrette. We were using different terms, yet trying to get to the same place. But soon we progressed to conversations that would include all aspects of the user experience while also using other mediums to inform our own work. When you collaborate you open yourself up to new ideas, and in that regard you’re never working solely within your own medium.

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What is “Geodesign” exactly?

Geodesign is a term dubbed by Redlands, California-based Esri to describe the confluence of geography and design, applying technologies from geographic information systems and other complementary approaches to tackle big world problems such as sustainability, ecology, and building tomorrow’s cities.

Bran Ferren

Bran Ferren, co-founder of Applied Minds LLC and keynote speaker for the opening session at the Geodesign Summit held at Esri’s Redlands, California Campus, set the tone for the event this past January.

The Geodesign Summit, in existence since 2009, is one of those conferences that explores a concept that is still at the “shiny object curiosity stage,” not yet something very usable, according to Ferren. It is a way to try to begin to build the cities of the future, using technologies such as geographic information, planning, building information modeling and much more.

So in trying to retrofit and build tomorrow’s cities, considerations should be made to create “cities that feel good about themselves as they will perform better than cities that don’t feel good about themselves,” Ferren added.

Most of those charged with building and designing the 3D city or city of the future are not talking about how the city itself “feels” but rather, does it have all the physical components that will address the needs of the inhabitants? In another talk it was brought out that Geodesign professionals may think of themselves as “therapists”, as well as designers, as they consider how cities are modeled.

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In Las Vegas, on February 26, at the Digital Signage Expo (through February 28) everyone will be talking about “New Design Directions: Dynamic Digital Environments.” In a session called “Transforming Architecture & Interiors Into Media-rich Environments,” Jeff Kovel, AIA, principal at Skylab Architecture in Portland, Oregon, will discuss, in some detail, his firm’s experience in building Camp Victory for Nike. From the conversation that follows, it seems that the ways and means of sustainable design are similar to integrating digital media into architecture. Both types of projects are organized around research oriented, multi-skilled teams. In my previous interview with Paul R. Levy, president and CEO of Philadelphia’s Center City, we explored the use of digital media in the large-scale urban environment. Here we dig down into one, very particular building and its media-rich message.

Susan S. Szenasy: As architects working in the physical world of tangible materials and expressions, did you need to make a mind-shift when you took on the Nike Camp Victory project? That project, from where sit, has a sophisticated digital component, way beyond what you’re used in architectural software programs. To begin with, please describe what the assignment was, and what you had to learn immediately upon accepting the commission.

Jeff Kovel: Camp Victory began in research and collaboration; there was no predetermined outcome. This approach of creating a vision, prior to defining a project’s limitations, is a testament to Nike’s commitment to innovation. The project began by meeting Hush, our digital partner, for the first time. Jointly we were briefed on the history of Nike, Eugene (Oregon), and the US Olympic trials. A full day insight into Nike’s upcoming innovations, to be launched at the Olympics, followed. We were some of the first people outside of Nike to see the Olympic Speed Suit and track spike, the Knit footwear, and the efforts being developed around Nike+ (digital). The task at hand was to create a temporary interactive exhibition around these innovations, immersing the viewer in Nike innovation. The limitation was that we could not penetrate or damage the newly laid artificial turf field that was out site.

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Last week the American Institute of Architects gave SOM’s “Great Lakes Century – a 100-year Vision” its 2013 Institute Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design. Coincidentally, we named the project and the brilliant team behind it, lead by Phil Enquist, one of six Metropolis 2013 Game Changers, now in our January issue.

I first heard of the Enquist team’s ambitious plan in 2008, just as our world was receding into the financial turmoil that decimated the architecture profession and extinguished many a dream. Yet here was a small group of architects daring to dream, and enthusiastically telling me about their massive undertaking, as we gathered in the firm’s Chicago office, high in the city’s historic Santa Fe Building. Designed in 1904 by the legendary Daniel Burnham, whose spirit is palpable in the office’s sunlit atrium, but more importantly, it infuses the Great Lakes project. His words propelled the SOM team forward: “Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.”

20 percent of the world’s fresh water is found in the Great Lakes, Courtesy of Earthsat/ESRI

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This fall, the American Institute of Architects announced a 10 year commitment to develop design and technology solutions for cities addressing public health, sustainability, and resiliency challenges. It’s the kind of commitment that many AIA members have long sought: putting human and environmental health and wellness at the center of the architecture mission. That the announcement was made at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York, gave it cache; more than 1,000 global leaders gathered to address the theme of “Designing for Impact.”

AIA is seeking to demonstrate the link between building design and the health of people who live or work there, and, says AIA CEO Robert Ivy, “bring the force of design to bear in the public health arena and debate.” The effort, called “Decade of Design” will involve funding and in-kind contributions from the AIA, Ivy says, through three initiatives: university research; community planning collaborations; and something called “Show Us Your APPtitude Hackathon,” designed to promote creative apps and technologies as springboards.

The first three recipients of research grants were announced. Texas A&M University’s project, Evaluating Health Benefits of Liveable Communities is a toolkit for measuring health impacts, which will include an empirical study of a LEED for Neighborhood Development project in Austin. The University of Arkansas’s Fayetteville 2030: Creating Food City Scenario Plan will study pathways to creating a local food infrastructure amid rapid growth. The University of New Mexico has a pilot program, Establishing Interdisciplinary Health-Architecture Curriculum.

For those who have long made the case that attending to issues of sustainability are the over-arching umbrella of any design or planning pursuit, finding ways to strengthen and illuminate these connections seems almost painfully obvious. But anyone familiar with architecture education and practice—where barriers to interdisciplinary collaboration are stiff—the links are too often ignored, overlooked, or poorly quantified. I asked Robert Ivy to talk about the impetus for this program.

Kira Gould: Why do you and the AIA see a need for funding the health/design connection at this time?

Robert Ivy: While many of us believe that the connections between health and design are there, what we need is proof. We want to help build up the data that will help us quantify and demonstrate, with rigorous case studies, the value of design in the context of these issues and the inherent relationship between architecture and public health. I’m inspired by the notion that we can participate in this.

I think it’s true—if not proven—that architecture can affect a community’s health, particularly in the area of ailments such as diabetes and heart disease. Basic design principles already encourage architects to consider health every day: we take into consideration how buildings have access to sunlight, fresh air, clean water. Ultimately, we want to be able to show and prove that buildings are making an impact. This requires evidence. We know, anecdotally, that certain types of places make people more productive. Quantifying this is the aim of this initiative.

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How many times in the last week, or even in the last day, have you looked at your smart phone, iPad, car, television, some type of technology, and said, “I love you”?

We often treat machines as if they are living things, sometimes with tender loving care, and sometimes with a good swat. But why react so strongly towards inanimate objects?

We humans have an inherent desire, an urge to affiliate with other living forms, a bond called the biophilia hypothesis. This urge to bond with other living things might explain why we respond to our technologies with so much emotion as well as why we’re obsessed with creating life-like technology; the more alive it seems, the greater the potential for love.

Living things not only inspire love, they also inspire knowledge, and life can even do work for us. This year at Greenbuild, you can tour a machine that looks to life for inspiration, and to how living things can help human life. Called the Living Machine, it is a system for treating wastewater at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission building.

“The Living Machine system incorporates a series of wetland cells, or basins, filled with special gravel that promotes the development of micro-ecosystems. As water moves through the system, the cells are alternately flooded and drained to create multiple tidal cycles each day, much like we find in nature, resulting in high quality reusable water,” -Living Machine

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Since the 1990’s, the term ecosystem and/or ecology have been used to refer to the complexity of how people, businesses, and technologies interact.  I’ve always found this metaphor misplaced; it clouds the fact that systems of commerce and resources are not ecosystems at all.  They are something different all together.  According to biologists, an ecosystem is built from a community of plants, animals, and microbes that interact and assist each to survive and thrive. In contrast, business ecosystems are for the good of only one species. Biological definition points toward how many living organism strive within a natural ecology.  I think it’s time we stop calling the humanized supply chain of goods and services ecosystems – and call them what they are: techno-systems.

Techno-systems show that the goal of a large majority of human systems is spawning a web of humanity versus strengthening the web of life. The vast majority of businesses and technologies are webs interconnected for the sake of human society. They assemble, manufacture, and sell a collection of inorganic and non-living materials, techniques, and products like computers, economies or engineering purely for consumption. The end result is only more stuff being designed, produced, and consumed while doing little or nothing to induce biodiversity—in most cases, it actually causes biodiversity to decrease.

Consider the lifecycle of a building. To determine its energy, carbon or ecological footprint, you have to take into account all products that go into the building…concrete for the foundation, steel for the structure, wood for the doors, glass for the windows, paint for the walls, and asphalt for the parking lots. All of these products have gone through a long transformation from raw material to final product. Before reaching their final destination, these building products have traveled from facility to facility for harvesting, processing, manufacturing, assembling, and shipping.

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AIA Technology Symposium from KPFF Cinema on Vimeo.

While attending the recent AIA Portland Technology Symposium I was inspired to think about the importance of play relative to technology’s emerging impact on the design professions. I went into the conference knowing that successful companies often foster a culture of experimentation and exploration. They encourage employees to explore tangents, push boundaries, and chase down hunches knowing that it may have little to do with how a company’s goods and services are delivered. Employees are simply asked to play and see how far they can take an idea.  Play helps you keep your finger on the pulse of innovation and connects processes to adjacent possibilities.

Presenters at the Technology Symposium came from brands like Nike, Laika, Adidas, Pixel Pool, Ziba, Intel, Lucid Design Group, ADX, showing how they use technology to Think, Make, and/or Tell.  There were almost no architects in the lineup. It wasn’t until nearly the end of the event that J. Meejin Yoon spoke and we heard from inside our profession; but in reality she is more an artist/creative problem solver than an architect. In fact, creative problem solving was the common thread that ran through the symposium.

The speakers explored the current and emerging relationship between the “creative” and technology. While I had anticipated to hear how technology can think, tell, or do without the human brain, this was not the case. The fear of technology’s power, dating back to IBM’s unveiling of the first super computer, is prevalent even among those who champion its prowess. The idea of being replaced by technology is where we, designers, get scared. The major distinction between designers and their technology is vision, and the desire to control that vision. When technology is synonymous with tool, we don’t seem so conflicted – tools are trusted to hands, vision is followed. Craft still comes from the craftsman, creativity from the creative and architecture from the architect.

The power of technology as tool is its ability to streamline design parameters in a more directed, vetted, and fitted manner, be this through structural modeling, energy modeling, rapid prototyping, BIM environments, or exploring delivery methods.  Technology pushes design forward by allowing designers to make things more quickly, from prototyping objects to exploring manufacturing processes to exploring materials.  But it also increases our ability to access  the tools and the information to use those tools, thus increasing the speed of ideation, to prototype, to creation, to marketplace by simply making it easier to get over previous hurdles.

left to right:  The Jammy!  A funky-fresh boombox (top: Leaptronic.com, bottom: Nicolle Clemetson), PICA:TBA (top: Ellen Fortin, bottom: Mitch Snyder), manufacturing tools and inspiration (Adidas)

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