Posted on September 3rd, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: Technology, education, corporative.
ARCHITECT: Bjarke Ingels Group LIGHTING DESIGN: Martin PICS: Leif Orkelbog-Andresen
Following the Expo’s central theme, ‘Better City, Better Life’, architects Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) wanted the Danish Pavilion to provide visitors with a truly authentic urban experience.
When we visited the World Exhibition in Zaragoza, we were stunned by the artificial content; state propaganda in paper maché,” says BIG’s founder, Bjarke Ingels.
“The Danish Expo pavilion 2010 is the real deal, and not just endless talking.”
BIG’s solution was to take some of Copenhagen’s best elements and condense them into a single coiled knot of activity. Visitors can take a ride on a free city bike, take a dip in the ‘harbour baths’, picnic on the roof gardens and even visit the iconic Little Mermaid statue, transplanted from its rock in the Danish capital for the duration of the Expo.
The pavilion is designed as a traffic loop created by the motion of city bikes and pedestrians curving around the central ‘harbour’ pool. The loops are connected in two points so, emerging onto the roof, visitors can pick up a bike and re-visit the exhibition on two wheels; the outdoor cycle path slips into the interior and runs along the entire exhibition before exiting onto the Expo grounds.
The pavilion’s external façade is made of perforated steel, designed as a literal representation of the structural stresses in play. In the evening, this becomes a sequence of interactive light, illuminating passers-by. To create an appropriate lighting scheme for the pavilion, BIG worked in close cooperation with Danish manufacturer Martin Professional and the Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction (CAVI) at Aarhus University, Denmark.
More than 3,500 full-colour LED lamps were installed in the holes in the pavilion’s perforated external walls. Daylight and temperature sensors installed around the site feed data into specially developed software, which in turn controls the light LED lamps to produce a dynamic interaction between the pavilion and the surround space.
Martin’s architectural segment market manager, Leif Orkelbog-Andresen, lived and breathed the project for over a year. “By incorporating dynamic lighting as an integrated part of our surroundings we can vitalise the spaces around us and expand their possibilities so that in addition to being sites for profitable business they are communicative and interactive; in other words, living façades, which fascinate, inspire and inform,” he says.
“The collaboration with Martin Professional has been unique from the very start,” comments Finn Nørkjær, a partner at BIG. “The Danish Pavilion is not a building in the normal sense of the word. It has been necessary to think in completely new directions, especially in regards to the testing of light because common precepts about light could not be used here.
“One of the fundamental ideas of light is that it is the individual parts of a building that are illuminated. It is not a building that you subsequently put lights in. This means there is a very special interweaving of light and architecture. Light is integrated into all areas of our buildings – in the facade, in the ceiling, on the bench, walls and terrain. Therefore, light cannot be stripped out of the building without physically taking part of the building with it.”
BJARKE INGELS BIKES THROUGH DANISH PAVILION
In addition to the façade, there are another 25 areas, all illuminated and controlled individually with lighting supplied by Martin Professional, including FlexDOT S1s, Inground 200s, Exterior 200s, MaxModule Cerebrums, and Ether2DMX8s.
Virtually every area of the pavilion incorporates energy-efficient LED light sources and the entire system is run from a single touchscreen lighting controller (more than 20000 DMX channels on 41 DMX universes). The pavilion runs in automatic mode so that light settings change from daylight through to evening. Actual lighting conditions influence the system in real-time via the light sensors installed around the pavilion. A blue sky, for example, produces a different setting than a cloudy day, so no matter what the weather the lighting is always perfectly adjusted to the surroundings.
Key personnel are able to control individual settings for events outside normal operating hours, test runs, fixture cleaning and other proactive maintenance. The lighting system is even employed outside opening hours as the pavilion’s cleaning personnel use it when they go about their work. For monitoring and immediate on-line support, the lighting system can be accessed from Martin’s headquarter office in Denmark through a secure network.
The use of LED technology – with its energy efficient credentials – was part of BIGs mission to prove that sustainable, environmentally conscience living need not be a hardship.
“Sustainability is often misunderstood as the neo-protestant notion that ‘it has to hurt in order to do good’,” says BIG founder, Bjarke Ingels. “‘You’re not supposed to take long warm showers - because wasting all that water is not good for the environment’ or ‘you’re not supposed to fly on holidays - because air traffic is bad for the environment’.
Gradually we all get the feeling that sustainable life simply is less fun than normal life. If sustainable designs are to become competitive it cannot be for purely moral or political reasons - they have to be more attractive and desirable than the non-sustainable alternative. With the Danish Pavilion we have attempted to consolidate a handful of real experiences of how a sustainable city - such as Copenhagen - can in fact increase the quality of life.”
Posted on July 19th, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: new, Products, Technology, dlp, l c d, useful technology, Screens, 3 d, plasma flat panel, corporative, media.
GE’s WattStation™ is an easy-to-use electric vehicle (EV) charger designed to help accelerate the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) by significantly decreasing time needed for vehicle charging. Its smart grid-enabled technology could also help utility companies manage the impact of EVs on the local and regional grids.
On average the WattStation™ decreases EV charging time from 12-18 hours to as little as 4-8 hours compared to standard charging, assuming a 24 kWh battery and a full-cycle charge. In addition, the design will enable integration into the electrical distribution system, offering an end-to-end integrated EV infrastructure solution of electrical distribution products.
Designer: GE Ecoimagination and Yves Behar for Fuseproject
Posted on July 5th, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: new, Products, Technology, useful technology, Screens, 3 d, plasma flat panel, rear projection, media, Blogroll, Home Theatre, Hometech Overview.
The EYE-PxP alignment tool features a comprehensive toolset to enable image correction for single- or multi-channel display systems. Developed for devices requiring colour and brightness correction, the toolset also provides colour shading, alpha masks and pixel-accurate blending, among other features.
Based around an easy-to-use GUI that provides straightforward configuration for one or multiple channels, the EYE-PxP can be used with visual display solutions from a wide range of manufacturers, including eyevis itself. Users can upload an individual LUT (LookUpTable) for each colour, while a shading map with independent transparency information for red, green and blue for each pixel can also be incorporated into operations. The ‘resolutionpassthrough’ technology allows easy integration into any system environment without the need to configure the desired resolution, with a DDC-EDID emulation feature among the other key aspects of the EYE-PxP.
Any setting and parameter can be permanently stored on the device, while the input and output is a single link DVI-D for resolutions up to WUXGA (1920×1200 @ 60Hz) or 2k (2048×1080 @ 60Hz).
Hans-Günther Nusseck from eyevis’s R&D department told IE: “The simple control and handling of the device allow for simple integration into existing or new systems. The device enables corrections of colour and brightness of displays or projectors without major interference in the existing infrastructure. The open interface architecture provides the possibility to integrate almost any calibration methods or alignment systems. For the growing range of products on the display market, the eyevis EYE-PxP provides a device-independent solution for colour and brightness corrections.”
The Reutlingen-based manufacturer has also announced details of the EYE-EDID-SIM-DVI emulators, which emulate the selected/programmed EDID for the attached PC to enable continuous video output - even if the attached display is disconnected or powered down. Allowing the user to set up operation for any DVI output resolution - whether or not the device supports this resolution or not -the EDID emulators work passively and do not use presets in conjunction with a switch. For uploading or changing the emulated EDID, users will require the EYE-DDC programmer.
Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: new, Products, versus is vs, useful technology, more, not 24 hours, education.
Honda developed the Bodyweight Support Assist device to help support bodyweight to reduce the load on the user’s legs while walking, going up and down stairs and in a semi-crouching position, such as these associates demonstrate in Honda’s Saitama Factory in Japan.
Some of you may recall our piece on Honda’s Body Support Assist prototype last year. As a quick update to that story, those of you in the New York area will get a chance to see it in person as a part of the “Why Design Now?” exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution.
Honda’s unique device lightens the load on the user’s legs and helps maintain a center of gravity via special mechanisms developed by the company. Walking, crouching, climbing stairs - all become easier with help from Body Support Assist. Needless to say, there are plenty of use cases for such a product, not the least of which would be helping people afflicted with mobility issues or leg problems. Honda has a promo video (included below) demonstrating how the device is worn and operated.
The exhibition will feature a variety of innovations and designs intended to have a positive impact on our world, spanning the fields of engineering, energy, and conservation to name a few. If you can’t make it to New York in person, stay tuned to Cooper Hewitt’s YouTube channel for updated videos clips featuring smart design.
‘Why Design Now?’ Event Details:
The show will run from May 14, 2010 to January 9, 2011 at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum on 2 East 91st Street, Manhattan. More information is available via their website, cooperhewitt.org.
Source: Honda
REMEMBER :Honda’s prototype walking assist devices to go on show in the US
With increasing numbers of post-war baby boomers beginning to face old age, devices assisting people remain mobile as they grow older will become big business. Honda, which started out making motorcycles, has anticipated the needs of an aging population and invested heavily in mobility robotics research. The company is planning to demonstrate its prototype walking assist devices as part of a technical exhibition at the 2009 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress, at Detroit’s Cobo Center, from April 20 to 23. Prior to the Detroit event, Honda plans to put the devices through their paces for media in New York.
Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Marcela.
Categories: new, Technology, useful technology, not 24 hours, events.
Green Air Show in Paris to take a look at some of the eco-friendly aircraft currently available, as well those which may be just on the horizon.
Although representatives from the airship contingent were out in force at the event, electrically-powered planes and paragliders also put in a strong showing, along with some rather interesting ideas for tomorrow’s oil-free aircraft.
Although the almost regal presence of a couple of interconnected Concorde passenger jets dominated the exhibition hall which played host to this year’s Green Air Show at Le Bourget’s Musée de l’Air et l’Espace in Paris, they were not the main attraction. Spread around and underneath these mighty supersonic aircraft were the display booths of altogether gentler, kinder and much quieter technologies that are already in use today or hold the promise of providing our air transport needs for tomorrow.
Amongst the exhibitors preparing for the post-oil era were representatives from aircraft manufacturers and development concerns, sport and leisure interests, aerospace researchers, new material developers, independent inventors and visionary designers. Outside the main hall, organizers hosted the world’s first zero emission air show which saw a small number of electrically-powered aircraft brave the winds and cloud cover and triumphantly take to the skies.
A full list of attendees at the second Salon de l’Aviation Verte is available online and Gizmag will be detailing some of the exhibits in subsequent posts. But for now, here’s a sample of some of the technology on offer:
The e-FunFlyer from Adventure is an 85kg fully electric paraglide trike with a 15kW electric motor powered by a 60v battery which should give the pilot a good hour or so of mid-air fun. And if the short demonstration on the airfield was anything to by, fun is definitely the operative word!
A pedal-powered silver teardrop blimp, the Zeppy 3 from Stéphane Rousson is currently being prepared for a Toulon to Calvi crossing using a “Chien de mer” and the power of the wind.
On the subject of airships, the students from Projet Sol’r also attended the event and are now busy preparing for a crossing of the English Channel.
Although the news of an upcoming solar-powered two-seater from Eric Raymond was the focus for much discussion at the show, the huge wingspan of the solar-powered Sunseeker II still held sway over the exhibit and put in an inspiring performance up in the skies too.
If an eco-friendly version of the film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines were ever to be made, then the successful blend of old and new that is the electric Demoichelle from APEV would surely have a starring role. The aircraft was on display in the main hall and made a brief appearance in the skies above Le Bourget during the zero emission air show.
Also on the airfield but doing little more than sit very still for photo opportunities, the undoubted star of the show was the four motor electric Green Cri from EADS Innovation Works and Aero Composites.
Visions of possible green futures were provided courtesy of Projet Dirisoft and Octuri.
Of course, the Musée also showcases green air transport of old too - such as this model of Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier’s balloon and various winged craft, including mock ups of famous visions from Leonardo da Vinci.
More Information:
www.aviationmuseum.eu/World/Europe/France/Paris-Le_Bourget/Musee_de_l_air.htm
