Jason K Johnson and Andy Payne are excited to announce the public release of the latest version of the Firefly toolset (Build 1.002) for Grasshopper. Firefly is a set of comprehensive software tools dedicated to bridging the gap between Grasshopper (a free plug-in for Rhino), the Arduino micro-controller, the internet and beyond. It allows near real-time data flow between the digital and physical worlds, and will read/write data to/from internet feeds, remote sensors and more. It also includes a Pachube reader. The download file includes:
We will be posting more videos, photos, and information about this exciting release. Come download the latest build and learn more about how we can connect our worlds!
AA Global Visiting Workshop hosted by CCA
10 Day Intensive Workshop _ 12 July to 21 July, 2010
BIODYNAMIC STRUCTURES
AA Visiting School @ CCA California College of the Art
Monday 12 to Wednesday 21 July, 2010
Biodynamics is the study of the force and energy of dynamic processes on living organisms. Through simple mechanisms embedded within the material logic of natural systems, specific stimuli can activate a particular response. This response occurs in carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly-trap, which uses turgor pressure to trap small insects in order to feed, and worms, which by contracting differently oriented muscles, achieve movement. This ten-day intensive workshop, co-taught by the faculty of the Emergent Technologies and Design Programme at the AA and the faculty of Architecture and MEDIAlab at California College of the Arts, will explore active systems in nature, investigating biomimetic principles in order to analyze, design and fabricate prototypes that respond to electronic and environmental stimuli. Students will work in teams to research specific biological systems, extracting logics of organization, geometry, structure and mathematics. Advanced analysis, simulation, modeling and fabrication tools will be introduced in order to apply this information to the design of both passive and active responsive architectural systems. Investigation and application of robotics, sensors and actuators will be employed for the activation of the material system investigation through the construction of working responsive prototypes.
Michael Weinstock (Academic Head, Director of Emergent Technologies Programme, AA London UK)
Christina Doumpioti, Evan Greenberg, Konstantinos Karatzas (Tutors, AA EmTech Programme, London UK)
Jason Kelly Johnson [Future Cities Lab], Andrew Kudless [Matsys] (CCA MediaLab Coordinators, SF CA)
ASSOCIATED FACULTY
George Jeronimidis (Director of Center for Biomimetics, University of Reading UK); Andrew Payne (LIFT Architects, Grasshopper Primer); Daniel Segraves (ASGG Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture); Ronnie Parsons + Gil Akos (Studio Mode, NY); Daniel Piker (Kangaroo Project Live Physics)
This is a growing list of labs, projects and resources related to: urban and building scale energy databases, energy dashboard applications, monitoring systems, etc. Many of these can be incorporated into Arduino/Processing/Flash applications, Grasshopper/Firefly, Energy Analysis applications, GIS based applications, and more. Please send us additional links and we will publish them here:
Portable Devices/Intefaces - iPhone, etc. TouchOSC (custom iphone OSC graphic interface) Various iPhone Apps (iphone app to control building automation) Sentilla (Buildiing and Urban Energy Manager. redwood City, CA )
Visualization and Simulation Software Flare(ActionScript library for creating complex dynamic data driven visualizations) Visual Complexity (Collection of Data Visualizations) Fluent CFD (Flow Modeling and Engineering Simulation [Civil Case Studies])
Software Links Grasshopper Plug-in For Rhino (Graphical Parametric Programmer) Processing (Open Source Electronic Sketchbook Environment) Arduino (Open Source Software and Hardware Micro-controllers) vvvv (free multi purpose tookit for processing media in real-time) pd~ Pure Data (Real-time graphical dataflow programming environment) max/msp + jitter (interactive programmer with visual toolkit) open Frameworks (open C++ coding for creative projects)
Future Cities Lab’sXeromax Envelop{e}s installation will be exhibited in New York’s Pratt Gallery from March 5-May 5, 2010. This interactive installation consists of an intricate geometric surface that plays host to clusters of tiny energy-seeking robotic parasites. The suspended surface was fabricated from thousands of interlocking luminescent parts that pulsate in response to the shifting proximity of gallery visitors.
Pratt Manhattan Gallery 144 West 14th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY 10011
March 5-May 5, 2010
Tuesday-Saturday 11am-6pm
Project Credits:
Design: Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattgeno (Future Cities Lab). Primary Project Assistants: Andrei Hakhovich, Jon Acosta. Project Assistants: Diana Acosta, Wendy Ju, John Hobart Smith, Mark Campos, Michael Ageno, Anthony Diaz, Bo Wonkalasin, Rip De Leon, Paul Fromm, Kezia OFiesh, Taylor Burgess. Photographer: Zechariah Vincent
Curator: Christopher Hight.
“Envelopes” will explore new and sustainable potentials of the architectural surface in terms of the skin of a building and also as a sensorial space that envelops the body. “Envelopes” will feature full-scale, interactive models accompanied by architectural renderings in the form of drawings and computer animations, and documentation of the process of investigation into these models from eight international firms and designers.
Participating Architects: HouMinn Practice (Satterfield/Swackhamer); OCEAN Design Research (Michael Hensel); Future Cities Lab (Nataly Gattegno and Jason Kelly Johnson); Philippe Rahm; Servo (Marcelyn Gow, Ulrika Karlsson, and Chris Perry); Weathers (Sean Lally) and more.
Exhibition text by Christopher Hight:
Future Cities Lab is an experimental design and research office based in San Francisco and led by principals Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno. Their work hotwires large scale urban organizations with intensive and responsive interfaces, examining how contemporary technology and social ordering no longer follows the divisions of scale and divisions of public and private that governed the industrial metropolis and out of which the modern typologies of spatial division and specialization of architecture precipitated. Today, the movement from the intimate sensorial envelopes of touch to the extensive envelope of vision no longer traces the gradient of private to public in the way it once did. Indeed, in an age of biotechnology, remote sensing, Facebook and recent Supreme Court rulings, what was once thought private is increasingly in the public domain even as public space has been utterly enfolded into the private extended body of corporate territory. Future Cities Lab’s contribution to this exhibit, XEROMAX is a quarter-scale experimental beta test for a responsive desert envelope that is calibrated, tuned, and responsive to its arid environment. Part robotic structure, part experimental interface, and part analytical drawing instrument, it registers energy cycles and interactions over time while harvesting light, wind and water to produce a habitual space without traditional walls and roofs. The model weaves ultra thin custom actuators , arrays of light and proximity sensors, with a customized interactive graphic display. During the course of the exhibit, its behaviors will change as it registers and catalogues the events and changing conditions around it. The configuration of the wall therefore becomes a register of the environmental history as well as the present conditions, feeding this information back into the realm of public imagination and discourse.
LITTLE BITS OF EVERYTHING Adafruit [Based in NYC - Arduinos, Sensors, Wireless, DIY Central, great range of things ...] Jameco [outside SF in Belmont, CA - Huge selection of Electronics] RobotShop [Huge selection of robot-based electronics, SMAs, Motors, Sensors] Al Lashers Electronics [Located in Berkeley, CA -1734 University Ave (510)843-5915] Electronics Plus [San Rafael, CA - (415) 457-0466] Fry’s [1077 East Arques Ave. Sunnyvale, CA, 408.617.1300 - also in Palo Alto, San Jose and more]
ARDUINO + ELECTRONICS SUPPLIERS Arduino [mothership: great links to everything Arduino] Sparkfun [sensors, hardware, kits ...] MakerShed [sensors, hardware, kits ...] LiquidWare [lots of everything]
GENERAL ELECTRONICS Marlin P. Jones [Huge Supplier including Power Supplies, LED, Connectors, etc]
SENSORS Acroname [Sharp IR Sensor Source - we use the GP2Y0A02YK] Making Things [Great range of Sensors - highly recommend] Sparkfun Sensors [many flavours] LadyAda [Bits and Pieces]
SERVOS Servocity [Great Selection of Servos and Supplies]
Process Images from early-August 2009 [above] - many more images below
The Aurora Project
Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno
The Van Alen Institute 2008-09 New York Prize Fellows
Opening Party: Wednesday, Sept 16 at 6:30pm (through Saturday, Oct 17, 2009) VAI Gallery: 30 W 22nd St # 6, New York, NY 10010
The Aurora Project is an index of shifting territorial resources in the Arctic and a speculative vision for a massive new energy infrastructure and settlement pattern. Aurora suggests an alternative approach to the exploration, exploitation and eventual colonization of the region. It is simultaneously a projection of an imminent environmental condition, and the materialization of how contemporary political, social and ecological trends might be channeled towards a more productive future.
The Aurora installation on view in the Van Alen Institute gallery superimposes the ephemeral qualities of the Arctic ice field with the dynamic behavior of visitors, translating the shifting dimensions of the ice into an immersive system of flickering auroras and responsive luminescent skins. Presented alongside Aurora is a map room (“Terra Incognita”) consisting of original drawings, diagrams and other materials that provide a view into how the Arctic region has been represented, claimed, and mythologized in the past and present. A smaller interactive instrument (“The Glaciarium”) engages visitors’ senses through the sight and sound of a melting ice core.
Project Credits [as of 1/1/10] Future Cities Lab: Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno with Carrie Norman, Thomas Kelley. Project Collaborators + Assistants: Troy Rogers (Sound and Interaction), Noah Keating from mathbeat industries (Interactive + Programming Consultant) Kezia Ofiesh, Paul Fromm, Sarah Fugate, Hank Byron, Taylor Burgess, Ed Yung, Ben Fey. Poster/Pamphlet Design: Dayoung Shin. Also helping out were: Kyle Kugler, Jim Staddon, Gin Harr, Yuki Staddon, Matt Young, Brad DeVries, Kyle Sturgeon (UMich setup).
Institutions: The Van Alen Institute (NY Prize Fellowship in Systems and Ecology); The University of Michigan TCAUP (Research Through Making Grant) - Dean Monica Ponce de Leon, The University of Michigan Map Library; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Grant, Columbia University Avery CNC Fabrication Lab (David Kwon, Christo Logan, Nicole Seekely, Philip Anzalone - Assistant Director of Avery Fabrication); NYC College of Technology - CityTech @ CUNY (Carmen Trudell, Joseph Lim, Felix Baez).
The Aurora Project - Coming Summer 2009
New York Prize Fellowship - Van Alen Institute NYC
During their fellowship term, Gattegno and Johnson will design and fabricate a large-scale interactive installation entitled Aurora. The installation will superimpose the ephemeral qualities of the Arctic ice field with the dynamic behavior of visitors in the Institute’s Manhattan gallery. Connected to real time data parsed from Arctic sensor buoys, the shifting dimensions of the ice shelf will be translated into immersive LED auroras and responsive skins. Feedback loops between remote and locally sensed data will intensify the interplay between these connected, yet physically separated conditions. Aurora will function both as index of an emerging global condition, and as indicator of our impact on conditions beyond our limited field of perception. It will suggest a new approach to design that is simultaneously globally informed and locally responsive.
Prototypes from the Robotic Ecologies Lab at UVa (2007-08) with Troy Rogers and Matthew Burtner (’08) visit the blog: [LINK TO THE BLOG]
Metropolis Magazine: “Shape Shifters” [link]
ZDNet + Slashdot: [link]
Hook: “Intelligent Design: Will Robots Take Over Architecture?” [link]
[pictobrowser 29922369@N05 72157607118985465]
Ideas: This is not just about architectural machines that move. It is about groups of architectural machines that move with intelligence. We have named these new organizations “Robotic Ecologies”: promiscuous new environments brought forth by the rapid release of advanced computation into the physical realm. The ideas presented in this portfolio are an attempt to understand, to work with and against, these new technological (and some say spiritual) paradigms. The work and essays were produced by a small collaborative of architects, urbanists, amateur roboticists, and artists. The projects are as much about exposing the ills of our twenty-first century technological imperative as they are about celebrating their latent potential. We are clearly both terrified and thrilled by the rich and diverse territories emerging in the arts and sciences. The crossing of architecture and robotics represents one of the most promising and perhaps exigent technological intersections in recent times. Robots are sensing, thinking and moving entities. They are different from most machines in that they are capable of intelligent behavior – the capacity to learn, adapt and act on their senses and intuitions. Groups of robots, or robotic ecologies, are unique in their capacity to work as an organized system: rather than merely acting on their individual desires, robotic ecologies can work collectively in swarms or packs. Without much fanfare, an extraordinary new phylum of intelligent machines is coming to life in laboratories, studios and machine shops across the planet. Designers are building and programming kinematic self-replicating machines, modular self-assembling robots, fields of sun-tracking robotic sunflowers, and the like. As Marshall McLuhan famously said, “First we build the tools, and then they build us.” The projects presented in this portfolio are about experimenting, exposing and exalting these new tools, processes and technologies. It is about exploring what happens when endless arrays of intelligent machines come together to form and define the world around us.
The vivisys installation is an experimental double-curved acrylic lattice vault that plays host to an extraordinary cluster of rapidly prototyped metallic barnacles. A robotic soundscape and networked auroras of electron emitting cold cathode tubes respond to interactions from their environment. vivisys synthesizes patterns of the organic and the manufactured into a new creative paradigm for energy, form and matter.
The exhibition includes drawings and models of three recent design proposals by Future Cities Lab: Super Galaxy II (NYC, NY), Urban Archipelagos (Hong Kong), and the Seoul Energy Farm (Korea).
vivisys was commisioned, designed, fabricated, assembled in Charlottesville and installed in Chicago in 28 days. This would not have been possible without the support of several people and institutions: Tektonics Design Group in Richmond, Virginia sponsored all of the CNC work. Damon, Christopher and Hinmaton patiently collaborated with us throughout the project to prototype some stunning components. Troy Rogers (a composer/sound artist/instrument designer) worked tirelessly on his soundscape and on the planning and implementation of the electronics, Karey Helms spent several long nights weaving vivisys together, the University of Virginia School of Architecture, Kirk Martini, Dave Williams, William Williams, Thomas Kelley, and last but not least - Paula Palombo and Eric Schall from the Extension Gallery in Chicago for their support.
Dates: 11.29.07 - 01.13.08 EXTENSION GALLERY FOR ARCHITECTURE
1835 South Halsted Street - Chicago Arts District www.extensiongallery.com tel: 773.742.0983
