The pieces are finally starting to come together for our Glow installation, "Soft Underbelly". We've been working on this for 6 months now... only one more day left. We made a last minute decision to paint all of the hairs with UV glow in the dark paint and I think it was well worth the effort.
I've been hard at work lately working on our installation for Glow 2010 in Santa Monica this coming Saturday. It's been an intense past week weeks and I haven't had the time to update this blog with our progress. This morning Joshua Howell and Aaron Zeligs were quoted in an Los Angeles Times article about Glow. Here is the link: Glow 2010
Also please check out our new website for more project images, plus some other projects we've got in office. Popup Design
If you are in LA this weekend, come by and check out the event! I'm sure it will be a bit crazy, but there are some cool projects.
This video shows a special trike that is "rocket propelled" using nothing but Coke Zero and a few Mentos. Kind of the same idea as the baking soda and vinegar volcanoes that I would make as a kid, but of course significantly more awesome. They did a great job on the film too.
The PopUp website has been offline for several months, since closing down the food business aspect last year. PopUp was intended as a design based company since the beginning, but I just never found the time to get it up and running. Well, the wait is over... we have new partners, a new business plan and we hope to go public with everything very soon! In the meantime, I have put up a new PopUp website, which will feature our collective design work, a blog and some research projects.
UPPOPSPOPUP
From the official GLOW website:
Its no great secret that Detroit Michigan is arguably the worst city in the world. No jobs, high crime, inept and corrupt government and very slim chances of a successful future. But when the city tries to boost citizen morale and improve its image through a nicely designed $5 million pedestrian bridge, you would think it would be a source of neighborhood pride. I guess these happy citizens like to show their pride by destroying things. Check out this video of a woman vandalizing the new bridge on its opening. The amusing twist is that she isn't some hoodlum off the street, but a respected editor for the Detroit Free Press.
http://detnews.com/article/20100508/METRO01/5080331
This due from the bay area is making some really catchy covers and great youtube videos. I hope they make it down to LA soon.
I love having semi-free weekends. I finally got my little home recording studio up and running today. A while back I found an older Tascam USB mixer that I tried to get working with my new computer. Problem was, it wasn't designed to work with Windows 7, so it would never show up and caused my machine to crash. After a little Google searching, it turns out that under "preferences" you can specify for the device to run in Windows Vista SP2 mode (it defaults to XP) and this provided the work around for Windows 7. Eventually, I think I'll need to invest in a proper recording program like Cakewalk, but in the meantime I have Audacity (free!!!) and it seems pretty simple to use.
I did actually have chicken for dinner tonight, and it was delicious.
I received an email today from the City of Santa Monica informing me that my design was selected for part of GLOW 2010, being held on Santa Monica pier/beach. I co-designed the proposal along with my good friend Aaron who I knew from grad school and we're both quite honored and excited to be one of the selected teams. One of the exciting things about working in the public art realm is that it provides the opportunity to create experiential spaces without many of practical restrictions of architecture. If you are unfamiliar with GLOW, it is an all night festival held on the beach and consisting of dozens of interactive lighting based installations. Aaron and I were able to come up with a scheme that choreographed an experience for the visitor, without having to worry about long term durability, weatherproofing, seismic forces, etc. As an architect, I am interested in defining space, but the art arena seems to be an ideal testing ground for ideas. This installation will fall somewhere between an object (ie. sculpture) and an enclosure.
More musings to follow. Today is the first step in a long process. I will be sure to post updates along the way and show images/video of our process.
There is something very sacrilegious about this next project. A while back I picked up a 1967 Polaroid Land Camera on eBay with the intent to convert it to use 4x5 sheet film. The conversion looked fairly easy, but in order to develop the film, I would have had to carry around a portable developing tank. This seemed like a real hassle, so I decided to just put the camera on my shelf as a conversation piece.
After gathering dust for months, I struck upon the idea tonight to remove the lens from the camera and turn it into a lamp. A quick Google search for "Polaroid Camera Lamp" yielded no relevant results and I decided that I might have come up with a completely unheard of creation, or at least something that hadn't been tried since before the invention of the internet. My theory is, if you can't find it by page 3 of Google, than it doesn't exist.
The following images are a photo documentation of my little Frankenstein operation, courtesy of my camera phone (still haven't got around to replacing my stolen camera). I'm really digging the result, but something felt very wrong about destroying a 43 year old relic. I still need to remove the outer lens from the faceplate, which will also help keep the light bulb in place more snugly. It was looking like I would have to conduct a bit of surgery with my Dremel in order to get that lens out, so I am going to finish up tomorrow.
Probably my favorite artist at the moment. Video of a live session at KCRW in Santa Monica.
I saw this wonderfully eclectic loft in NY while browsing through one of my favorite design blogs, The Jailbreak. I love their collection of retro, borderline nerdy stuff juxtaposed against the very hip, wood and exposed brick space. The neon tube television sign is my favorite piece. Some of the comic books and kids toys get to be a bit too much for my taste, but in general I'm digging this D-I-Y project. The red tiles in the kitchen work well with the subtle light pink and green to create a sort of country home kitchen meets 1950's suburbia feel.
Modernism is so boring, I love seeing people showing some personality in their design!
Being young and self employed, it's really started to hit me lately how much work must be accomplished before I feel comfortable taking even a few days off. This isn't really a financial constraint, but more a factor of having no one to hand work off to, so responsibilities tend to hang around like those stray cats in my parking lot who poop on cars and sharpen their claws on convertible soft tops. One of the highlights of when I was in school and working summers, was stopping work two weeks before school started and having the time to do whatever I wanted. Time off wasn't about travelling to some exotic place, but it was the ability to appreciate your surroundings and let your mind explore and grow.
I'm actually about 95% done with this little loft interior build out that I have been creating for myself. Problem is, I left my camera on the bar at the Standard while I was paying my tab and it disappeared. I put the camera down and walked all the way to the elevator before remembering that I had forgot my camera. Was probably only gone 2 minutes at the most and it was gone. So... something else to add to my need-to-buy list.
In the meantime, I took a few photos of the progress with my camera phone. Using the loft bed design really opened up the floor plan. There are a few things that I still need to finish up. I need to hook up the pulley system to that I can raise and lower the bed. With the bed raised to the ceiling, I'll have about 7'-6 underneath so that will really make the whole apartment feel much more spacious. I also want to put some curtains up in front of the shelving under the bed. Shelves tend to get cluttered quite quickly and I always feel more at ease in a clean and well organized work area. More posts to follow.
I don't normally like to think of this blog as something political, but I came across an interesting article in the LA Times this morning and thought it is important to pass this along. The story is of an LA man who needed a liver transplant to save his life. Blue Cross agreed to pay for the transplant, but the waiting list at UCLA medical center was so long that the man feared he would die before he was able to get the transplant. He chose to go to Indiana instead and waited 6 weeks instead of over 2 years. Blue Cross refused to cover the out of state procedure and the man was left on the hook for $206,000.
This is a clear right vs. wrong situation. The purpose of a healthcare system is firstly to save lives, plain and simple. Blue Cross, being driven by greed and willing to do whatever is necessary to keep their pockets fat was willing to let a man die over $200 grand. Now the court has ruled that not only must they pay his medical fees, but also his legal fees which I am sure will be far greater.
This is a feel good story, but I can only imagine what would have happened if the average middle or lower class person was in this same situation. They would have either lost their life or lost everything they owned to pay for the procedure. This is a perfect example of why the only solution to the healthcare mess in this country is to create a not for profit public insurance program. There are problems with any system, whether it is a for profit company such Blue Cross, or a public government run system such as in Europe or Canada and most other civilized countries, but a not-for profit system will put the needs of its clients first. In the last several years, we have seen massive greed and aloof management bring down many banks and other large companies. The greed that controls the health insurers will only insure that things get worse for their customers.
One of the many projects I have been working on recently is the interior design for my own small studio apartment located in Downtown Los Angeles. The entire apartment is just under 450 square feet but the main room seems smaller than it should due to fairly large bathroom and eat-in kitchen. I am the process of moving into this apartment from a large shared house, which offered more than enough space to indulge in my habits of collecting musical instruments, books and assorted E-Bay bargains. Obviously the challenge of this project is to fit my ten pounds of junk into the five pound can I am about to move into.
The first step was to build as much shelving space as possible. However, this all needs to be accessible and while storage space is great, I also don't want to look like I am living in the middle of a walk-in closet. Secondly, I am unwilling to give up my large bed which offers an additional impediment to my rapidly shrinking floor area.
The solution had to be either a bed which folder up and out of site, ie. a Murphy bed, futon, or hide-away couch. The problem with all of those options is that they either take away from floor or wall space. The second option would be a loft bed. I took this a step further, what if the loft bed also could raise or lower so that you could still have enough room to stand under the bed when it is fully lifted. Therefore, option two it is! I am still able to have shelves on all walls, plus the bed can move out of the way when it is not needed.
I'll post some photos soon. In the meantime are some digital images of how the project is developing. 
The following images are some close ups from our competition boards.
Obviously my New Years resolution to write posts on a regular basis didn't last too long. To make up for this, I will do a quick recap of the last two months, followed by a flurry of posts which will add up to the correct amount of posts, had I been blogging diligently.
My office, Studioreverse, partnered up with United Lab in Los Angeles to participate in the Gadeokdo Gateway City competition in South Korea. We had been talking for months about doing a competition together and were waiting until the right opportunity came along. The project was located on an island just off the coast of Busan. The city is building a massive bridge which will connect the city center of Busan with Gadeokdo island and a string of islands surrounding the coast. The competition asked for us to make a new gateway city, with an emphasis on sustainability, and including a new airport as part of the plan.
Our proposal was to make this island a case study of intelligent and sustainable city planning. The plan centered around a "super hub" located in the north of the island. This hub had an underground network of roads and parking, keeping the surface streets from from cars entirely. A network of canals and some streets provided a mass transit network of water taxi and electric buses. We also made the decision to locate the ticketing, baggage check, waiting areas and support offices of the airport in the heart of the city. Once checked in, passengers could venture out from the airport and see the city - grab a bite to eat, watch a show, go to the park etc. When it was time for the flight, passengers would take a dedicated tram to the airport island, locate a few kilometers away.
Unfortunately our proposal was not selected as a finalist. We still are generally pleased with how the project turned out and will try to develop this further. I will publish close ups of the boards in a post to follow.
My business partner showed this video to me. It is quite amazing how they can create the illusion of a 3d model with just a simple glass plane
Holographic Architectural Imaging by Zebra from Core77 on Vimeo.
This is some of the code I am working on for the MFA project that I mentioned in the last post. Right now I simply have four photocells, each controlling an LED. Next week I plan to get one of these so that I can replace the lights with a triggered sound. This might require significant reworking of the code... we'll see.
First the video, then the code:
/*
Created 11 Dec 2009
By J Howell
modified 14 Dec 2009
*/
int ledPinA = 10; // LED connected to digital pin 10
int ledPinB = 11; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int ledPinC = 6; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int ledPinD = 5; // LED connected to digital pin 11
int val0; // define variable for photoresistor 0
int val1; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int val2; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int val3; // define variable for photoresistor 1
int ledBrightness; //
void setup()
{
Serial.begin(9600); // sets the serial port to 9600
}
void loop()
{
val0 = analogRead(0); // read analog input pin 0
val1 = analogRead(1); // read analog input pin 1
val2 = analogRead(2); // read analog input pin 2
val3 = analogRead(3); // read analog input pin 3
if( val0 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinA, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinA, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val1 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinB, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinB, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val2 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue1 = 0 ; fadeValue1 <= 255; fadeValue1 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinC, -(fadeValue1));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinC, LOW);
delay(10);
}
if( val3 < 400){
// fade in from min to max in increments of 1 points:
for(int fadeValue0 = 0 ; fadeValue0 <= 255; fadeValue0 +=1) {
// sets the value (range from 0 to 255):
analogWrite(ledPinD, -(fadeValue0));
}
}
else{
digitalWrite(ledPinD, LOW);
}
}
