Open_Sailing is addressing the Oil Spill

usually we'd post here burning hot news but since Open_Sailing is not undertaking research activities on the Gulf, we're pushing content right here:

https://sites.google.com/a/opensailing.net/www/labs/oil-spill/news

So far we have :

- Oil Spill trajectory with drifters

- Scientists: Oil spill may affect South Florida

- Google Oil Spill crisis response

- Tracking and predicting the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

- Microbial degradation of petroleum hydrocarbons in a polluted tropical stream

- Pollution collector biogradable robot

- Gulf Sea Grant

- NOAA Response website

- How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?

- Oil busting robots

and much more articles coming on this thread, so watch out : 

https://sites.google.com/a/opensailing.net/www/labs/oil-spill/news

We also have a great photo galery of the spill : https://sites.google.com/a/opensailing.net/www/labs/oil-spill/nature/galery-1

Please add comments, send us links to great pictures etc...

Army of smartphone chips could emulate the human brain

Original post : http://www.newscientist.com/

04 May 2010 by Paul Mark

Magazine issue 2758. Subscribe and save

For similar stories, visit the The Human Brain Topic Guide

IF YOU have a smartphone, you probably have a slice of Steve Furber's brain in your pocket. By the time you read this, his 1-billion-neuron silicon brain will be in production at a microchip plant in Taiwan.

Computer engineers have long wanted to copy the compact power of biological brains. But the best mimics so far have been impractical, being simulations running on supercomputers.

Furber, a computer scientist at the University of Manchester, UK, says that if we want to use computers with even a fraction of a brain's flexibility, we need to start with affordable, practical, low-power components.

"We're using bog-standard, off-the-shelf processors of fairly modest performance," he says.

Furber won't come close to copying every property of real neurons, saysHenry Markram, head of Blue Brain. This is IBM's attempt to simulate a brain with unsurpassed accuracy on a Blue Gene supercomputer at the Swiss Institute for Technology, Lausanne. "It's a worthy aim, but brain-inspired chips can only produce brain-like functions," he says.

That's good enough for Furber, who wants to start teaching his brain-like computer about the world as soon as possible. His first goal is to teach it how to control a robotic arm, before working towards a design to control a humanoid. A robot controller with even a dash of brain-like properties should be much better at tasks like image recognition, navigation and decision-making, says Furber.

"Robots offer a natural, sensory environment for testing brain-like computers," says Furber. "You can instantly tell if it is being useful."

Called Spinnaker - for Spiking Neural Network Architecture - the brain is based on a processor created in 1987 by Furber and colleagues at Acorn Computers in Cambridge, UK, makers of the seminal BBC Microcomputer.

Although the chip was made for a follow-up computer that flopped, the ARM design at its heart lived on, becoming the most common "embedded" processor in devices like e-book readers and smartphones.

But coaxing any computer into behaving like a brain is tough. Both real neurons and computer circuits communicate using electrical signals, but in biology the "wires" carrying them do not have fixed roles as in electronics. The importance of a particular neural connection, or synapse, varies as the network learns by balancing the influence of the different signals being received. This synaptic "weighting" must be dynamic in a silicon brain, too.

To coordinate its 'neurons' the chip mimics the way real neurons communicate using 'spikes' in voltage

The chips under construction in Taiwan contain 20 ARM processor cores, each modelling 1000 neurons. With 20,000 neurons per chip, 50,000 chips will be needed to reach the target of 1 billion neurons.

A memory chip next to each processor stores the changing synaptic weights as simple numbers that represent the importance of a given connection at any moment. Initially, those will be loaded from a PC, but as the system gets bigger and smarter, says Furber, "the only computer able to compute them will be the machine itself".

Another brain-like behaviour his chips need to master is to communicate coordinated "spikes" of voltage. A computer has no trouble matching the speed at which individual neurons spike - about 10 times per second - but neurons work in very much larger, parallel groups than silicon logic gates.

In a brain there is no top-down control to coordinate their actions because the basic nature of individual neurons means that they work together in an emergent, bottom-up way.

Spinnaker cannot mimic that property, so it relies on a miniature controller to direct spike traffic, similar to one of the routers in the internet's backbone. "We can route to more than 4 billion neurons," says Furber, "many more than we need."

While the Manchester team await the arrival of their chips, they have built a cut-down version with just 50 neurons and have put the prototype through its paces in the lab. They have created a virtual environment in which the silicon brain controls a Pac-Man-like program that learns to hunt for a virtual doughnut.

"It shows that our four years designing the system haven't been wasted," says Furber. He hopes to have a 10,000-processor version working later this year.

As they attempt to coax brain-like behaviour from phone chips, others are working with hardware which may have greater potential.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm, is funding a project called Synapse. Wei Lu of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, is working on a way of providing synaptic weights with memristors, first made in 2008 (New Scientist, 3 May 2008, p 26).

Handily, their most basic nature is brain-like: at any one moment a memristor's resistance depends on the last voltage placed across it. This rudimentary "memory" means that simple networks of memristors form weighted connections like those of neurons. This memory remains without drawing power, unlike the memory chips needed in Spinnaker. "Memristors are pretty neat," says Lu.

Their downside is that they are untested, though. "Synapse is an extremely ambitious project," says Furber. "But ambition is what drives this field. No one knows the right way to go."

SOS acid oceans

http://humanvoicesnow.blogspot.com/2009/09/homer-alaska-photos-september-6th-2009.html

Swarm of Underwater Drones To Help Explore Ocean

http://singularityhub.com/2009/11/16/swarm-of-underwater-drones-to-help-explore-ocean/

November 16th, 2009 by Aaron Saenz

Release the drones! Jules Jaffe from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institute just received $1 million in funding from the National Science Foundation to build a fleet of drones to explore the ocean. The Autonomous Underwater Explorers (AUE) could help track everything from tsunamis to squid spawn. Looking like miniature Death Stars, the soccer ball sized AUEs will be able to control their buoyancy as they are carried by currents to help researchers map the ocean’s behavior at different levels. Once deployed, the AUE program could help determine the efficacy of protected marine habitats, retrieve the black box from a crashed plane, or track an oil spill.

The underwater drone swarm will eventually help researchers at UC San Diego explore the ocean (left). Right now, there are only five or six of the prototypes (right).

While the AUEs aren’t exactly articulated machines, they have many of the features and benefits ofswarm robotics. As with many swarm robots, their strength is in numbers, and communication between individual bots. A solitary drone could only tell researchers about the conditions in its immediate vicinity. A fleet of drones will be able to describe their relative movement and the variations in ocean activity. It’s a cool concept that has great scalability. Right now Jaffe is planning on hundreds of drones, but imagine what we could learn with thousands or millions. The ocean is the last great frontier on Earth and these unmanned devices may be our best way of exploring it.

Jaffe is already building several prototypes for the AUE, including five or six of the soccer-ball sized ‘motherships’ and about 20 of a smaller version (the mini-AUE). The smaller and larger drones will be able to communicate via acoustic signals. A single mothership AUE could be moored while talking to free floating AUEs and mini-AUEs. The larger drones may have GPS trackers, while the smaller would not. This sort of network would allow Jaffe to measure ocean drift.

Other researchers have built buoyant drones before, some even more sophisticated. Yet none have taken measurements over the distance or period of time that Jaffe’s will. By dispersing a swarm of AUEs and mini-AUEs, Jaffe’s team could get a unique spatial and temporal understanding of the ocean.

Here's a better look at what's going on inside the AUE.

The following video is a presentation Jaffe gave explaining his AUE project. It’s a bit long and may not appeal to those unaccustomed to listening to scientific lectures. You can skip to 26:30 to hear Jaffe introduce the AUE device. He describes the mini-AUE (and shows a prototype) around 31:15. If you stick around to 38:25 and 47:30 he’ll tell you about the use of AUEs to locate plane crashes, and how building a mini-AUE might become a great project for middle school and high school students.

As Jaffe briefly described in the video, the AUEs could be modified with different kinds of instrumentation. They may measure salinity, dissolved oxygen, pH, chlorophyll levels, or turbidity of water. Each of these variables has a significant effect on ocean life. Taken collectively they could give a detailed account of marine habitats, helping governments decide if protected areas of the ocean are thriving.

But there’s really no limit to what these drones could learn. Biological info on marine habitats, meteorological on currents, seismological measurements on underwater earthquakes…the list goes on. Which is probably why the NSF has given Jaffe and his colleagues another $1.5 million to help with the control mechanisms for the movement of the AUEs. Each little drone is just a ball bobbing along under the water’s surface. As a collective they could be a vast net to catch all the secrets of the ocean. Maybe they’ll finally be able to tell me where the monster from Cloverfield came from.

[photo credit: Jaffe Lab, UCSD]
[video credit: UCTV]

Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 2, Refuge

from http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com

Previously: Open City: Designing Coexistence - Part 1, Community


Exterior view of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) during the biennale. Photo © Michelle Wilderom
Open City: Designing Coexistence, the main exhibition of the 4th International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam, has been sub-divided into seven areas of investigation. I reported on Community a couple of days ago. Now comes the turn of Refuge - Architectural Propositions for Unbound Spaces, curated by Phillip Misselwitz and Can Altay.

Refuge - Architectural Propositions for Unbound Spaces explores the causes and spatial impact of migration through voluntary or involuntary "refugees" who are transforming cities around the globe. Individuals or groups are elegantly or forcefully encapsulated from within the context of the city and society. Refuge produces an ever more atomized urban tissue where the "camp" has become both spatial paradigm and everyday reality, be it in the form of a gated community, slum, or humanitarian refugee camp.

View of the exhibition about Refuge. Photography by Michelle Wilderom
Refuge is subdivided into 4 categories, each illustrated by 3 examples found in various locations around the world. I picked up only one for each section of the exhibition.
Artist Thomas Kilpper opened the section Providing Refuge with a poetic and burning appeal to build A Lighthouse for Lampedusa! Providing Refuge explores how architects respond to the need of temporary spaces of refuge that offer protection to fragile or threatened constitutencies, or that legitimate expressions of a human desire for withdrawal, safety, seclusion and loneliness.


(detail of Thomas Kilpper's drawing)
Every year, some 20 000 refugees, mostly from Africa, try to reach Europe via Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island between Sicily and Tunisia. Aid organisations estimate that one in ten die during the dangerous crossing. Once they've set foot on 'the promised land', immigrants are directed to a 'Welcome Centre' which inadequacy is creating a worrying humanitarian situation.

The illegal immigrant detention centre on the island of Lampedusa in Italy. Photo: Paul Grover
Thomas Kilpper, along with a team of architects, engineers and local people, hope to build a lighthouse with a powerful beam that would provide orientation at sea and help reduce the danger to life. Furthermore, the ground floor of the lighthouse would host an arts center. The discussions, exhibitions, concerts and other cultural events organized there would attract both new visitors to the island and local people, giving them an opportunity and space to learn from and listen to each other.
This project underlines the need for a solution to the refugee problem: it's not possible to solve it via restrictions and declaring a 'state of emergency'. We call for a humanitarian and just immigration and integration policy in Europe. None of the refugees is illegal. We oppose any idea to establish a 'Fortress Europe'. The lighthouse will be a self-confident signal: 'here we are, we do not hide'.
Preventing Refuge are proactive projects that aim to prevent entire groups of city dwellers from becoming refugees.

2 million square meters of development projected on the city
After the 2003 Rose Revolution, Georgia embraced a wild capitalism. Spatial planning became suspect, public assets were quickly privatized, and the city faced rampant land and property speculation, leaving the city authority without strategic plan. Some 2,000,000 m2 of newly developed areas threaten to destroy Tbilisi and led to large-scale urban displacement. A city already filled with thousands of war refugees has transformed citizens into refugees in their own city.
FAST, One architecture and local artists outlined a The New Map of Tbilisi to expose all spatial and infrastructural projects being imagined or built in the city, highlighting its lack of strategic coherence. It also shows how refugees from earlier civil wars and current residents are displaced. And, it tracks how public buildings, spaces, and parks were privatized, left to stand empty due to the crisis, then to be reclaimed by internally displaced persons.



By exposing corrupt land deals and making the effect of failed statehood transparent, the "New Map of Tbilisi" aims to empower citizens to take positive action, providing a platform for grass root initiative, civil society institutions and municipal authorities alike to re-engage in a strategic discussion on the urban future of Tbilisi.
Laboratories of Returns, one of the projects i discovered in the Dismantling Refuge section, examines return from exile. When return becomes possible, the site of origins is already irrevocably transformed. Return is never a simple turning back of time, a return is always a return to the already built.

(image)
The notion of "return" has defined the diasporic and extraterritorial nature of Palestinian politics and cultural life since al Nakba in 1947-48. The work of Alessandro Petti, Sandi Hilal and Eyal Weizman urges architects to engage in a discussion about the revisiting, re-occupation, and appropriation of the already built. Their research and proposals on the appropriation of settlements and military bases to be evacuated -the "future archaeology" of Israel's occupation -- has been recently expanded to include other instances of displacement such as the afterlife of Italian colonial architecture in Libya.

Improving Refuge focuses on the estimated 1.4 million Palestinians living in camps spread across Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and Syria. These makeshift areas are among the most densely populated in the world. Living conditions, as we all know (but pretend to ignore), are abominable. Camps are a place of temporary-emergency refuge but they also need to be habitable. They hover between stillness and action. The Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Program launched by the UN attempts to introduce strong community-driven urban planning that would enable people living in the camp to go beyond the victim mentality.

I found the practice of Participatory Community Mapping particularly fascinating. ARC, the Arab Resource Collective, invited Palestinians living in several refugee camps in Lebanon to collectively draw maps of their respective camps from memory. The resulting maps chart live experiences rather than the usual landmarks. Political fault lines, social affiliations, and the loci of power manifest themselves from the bottom-up. No only do these maps undermine derogatory assumptions about unruly spatial configurations, they also expose the glaring injustices of the Lebanese government's policy regarding Palestinian refugees. The maps betray the absence of workplaces, except for grocery stores, mini-markets and pharmacies. In the writ of Lebanese regulations, Palestinian refugees are barred from performing dozens professions, including the practice of law, medicine, engineering, etc.

Map of Nahr el-Bared
Open City: Designing Coexistence of the 4th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam is on view until 10 January in the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI).
Photo on the homepage via EU Australia online.
Related: Bas Princen, Mokattam Ridge (Garbage city).

Vital function map, world threat maps

This is the concept map of the project : read from the bottom to the top, from the 2012 fears volcano, giving birth to the open sailing station. Download pdf (11.6mb) / see .jpg (2.6mb) / see flickr page


This is the geographical map of both 2012hopes.com and opensailing.net : 2012hopes.com suggests the ideal location, Open Sailing figures out how we will live and thrive in this new geographical context. download pdf (7.6mb) / see .jpg (1.4mb) / flickr page



The maps have all been programmed on maps.google.com, you can save individual map and ad them as your own (if you have a gmail account which is free and amazing) : all maps directory by 2012hopes@googlemail.com. You can also view these maps confortably using google earth.


We have printed 300 of these maps to A1 size, if you want one email us, we'll arrange, we'll appreciate donations since they are expensive to print.


We might send the map as it is supposed to be : folded, to fit in your pocket, an authentic survival pratical map.

Open_Sailing_Data

Hiromi Ozaki >

For the Danube River journey after Ars Electronica we're designing a 'box' which sends information of the vessel (GPS, pressure, temperature, humidity) to Pachube so people could observe our conditions online.  Data logging is also very beneficial for our research in Nomadic_Ecosystem and Energy_Animal!

The source code of hi-ve is now made public and open on source forge.
the address is here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/hi-ve/
its development svn can be accessed with the following commands.
svn co https://hi-ve.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/hi-ve hi-ve

We will put up the hi-ve executables for download very shortly.


Here are some notes of the current design direction of the 'data log box'
Please comment if you have any good insights on any of these mentioned below.

Sensing
-Arduino
-USB Weather Board $124.95 (barometric pressure, ambient light sensor, humidity sensor, temperature)
-GPS (position, speed, altitude, date, time) already have
-Memsic 2125 Accelerometer $29.99
Interfacing the above - Estimate 3 days

Communication
-Xbee $32 (for communication with vessels in vicinity 1.6km if Xbee Pro, 90m with standard Xbee)
- GM862 Cellular Quad Band Module £78.70
-Information sent to Pachube using Serial2Mobile library
-Motorola C168i $10
(HELP NEEDED : Has anyone managed to work with sending SMS messages from Arduino in Europe/UK? Especially with Motorolla C168i, which is mentioned in the example above?)
-Mobile phone Interface - Estimate 7 days
-Xbee Interface - Estimate 3 days

Powering
Solar Powered, Self Sufficient Arduino + charge the mobile? 65.00EUR
http://www.libelium.com/tienda/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=67
-Build - Estimate 2 days

Interesting References
- GM862 Cellular Quad Band Module
- http://note19.com/2008/12/20/how-to-control-gm862-from-arduino/
- http://tinkerlog.com/2009/05/15/interfacing-arduino-with-a-telit-gm862/

http://note19.com/2009/01/14/power-sparkfun-usb-evaluation-board-gm862-from-arduino/
Wireless + Arduino
http://www.littlebirdelectronics.com/products/wishield-1-0 $89.35
http://www.geocities.jp/arduino_diecimila/wifi/index_en.html
AT Commands
http://www.traud.de/gsm/index.html
http://www.developershome.com/sms/smsIntro.asp
Memory
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/UsbMemory 20.00EUR
SD Card Shield
http://www.libelium.com/tienda/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=66

Hiromi Ozaki >

<Matthieu Sales>

Goals
to create a relationship between Open sailing and the float ecosystem
to make the open sailing autonomic
to Reduce ecologic impact of open sailing project



Our system is based on plankton primary production. In fact plankton (like all photosynthetic organisms) does convert solar energy to chemical energy which we can at first use for food. But there are some other ways to use this energy, like compost warming or bio-fuel.

The cycle of element is composed by several stages :

Plankton Laboratory : For stocking and for growing plankton stumps (plankton library) for inseminate Biomass production module (BPM) and bio-reactor. This library have to be as large as possible, and to represent several biomes and ecosystems. and in this way we could initiate a large scale of different ecosystems (hot or cold, ocean or river, etc..).
Culturs of plankton need two weeks to be mature.

This library could be extend with captures in environment.

Biomass Production Module (BPM) : well, all about it was already very good explained by benjamin in a other post.

Bioreactor :

it may be probably difficult to realize this stage for the Danube prototype, but in fact with a bio reactor which is based on intensive plankton growing system, we should be able to produce O2 and oil. The oil can be used as a Bio fuel.

Compost :


it is a very critic and important stage in all ecosystem. It is the mineralization of wastes, giving CO2, nitrates, phosphate, in order to these elements could be assimilated by plants, It is very important to fertilized primary production (plants, alga, plankton, etc...). This mineralization is realized by a lot of organisms. because that compost is the longest stages,  the turn over of elements depend of decomposition duration.

This cycle of element is very important too to reduce the ecologic impact of opensailing. If this system is efficient, we will create biomass by capture of CO2, and open sailing will become a carbon well (or be a exemple), and participate to reduce global warming.

Matthieu Sales>

WP, a fiction with Open_Sailing in the background

Gerard Rallo, a MA student of the Design Interactions, Royal College of Arts, London just made this fictional film using Open_Sailing as a background theme. If I got it right, the character receives everyday a bulletin of how many people remains, at some point, he decides to get away, and departs joining the Open_Sailing swarm agglomeration.

Related to the project (really far from being released), "who remains".
A social network application that helps people to design their own post apocalyptic micro community and draw a plan for the day of the human rebirth.

Open Sailing 4 minutes concept video

Download the original quicktime .mov video here (44 mb).

Also visible on vimeo / youtube / dailymotion / sevenload : Script of the video in .txt (3 kb).

This 3 minutes video explains the Open_Sailing main concepts. Buzz it, spread the world.

Previous expeditions in the name of research

In the interests of research, whilst at university, some friends and I ran an annual cruise down the River Taff in cheap inflatable boats. It just so happened to be a brilliant day out, complete with beer, relaxing, and – unusually for Wales – sunburn. All in, it cost around £5 each for a day on the river, including a couple of beers. If you are a student, you live in town with a slow river, and it's sunny, I'd recommend organising something similar.



We naturally found that we grouped the vessels whilst just sailing along. We sailed mostly on drift (like Open Sailing) with occasional separation for paddling. We rode down wiers, over stones and down the rapids, over broken bottles, into abandoned trolleys, and lost just one boat per year. The grouped structure worked best for handling the weirs, both in terms of not capsizing and adding a bit of a challenge.

It's remarkable how well a series of boats costing less than £10 survive a day of intensive sailing, particularly given that they were laden with two or three fully-grown adults, yet supposedly designed for kids.

All in the name of research...

Ollie Palmer

Nice images of the Open Sailing Model

Under the photographic direction of Cereinyn, we had a very enjoyable photoshoot of the Open Sailing on a white backdrop, quite different aesthetic than the one, we had at the opening - more of a workshop! See flickr set.



Each of the module illustrate a function we were thinking about, I will now modify our all post (drawings of these systems) to link to the actual model. Prototype scale 1/1 coming soon!

Tribal Search Engine

Hiromi Ozaki and  Cesar Harada invented the "Tribal Search Engine":

We have the technology to make this world a better place, but as of yet we haven’t quite managed it - because we don't seem to know each other very well, and we don't collaborate efficiently enough. The Tribal Engine is a social search engine which can bring people with similar interests together to solve problems together.

A traditional search engine simply offers you a list of results from a search query. During a search, you would normally think alone, and solve problems alone. Using the Tribal Search Engine, you enter your likes, dislikes, fears and interests related to a physical space. The Tribal Search Engine suggests you a location, you go there in the physical space, and you meet people with the same questions, interests or fears. Together than, you resolve the "problem".

For example, you could set the parameters to indicate that you like good food and dislike loud music venues in order to decide where to go on a Friday night. You can then view other people who have gathered near your results in real time – they are likely to be the people who share similar interests. From there you can meet in physical space or online to collectively decide where to go, or even solve problems related to your interests and fears. By talking to and sharing knowledge with people doing the same search together you can dramatically speed up your problem solving!


Users in different locations entering constraints to find optimal locations


Tribal Engine suggesting areas - you can adjust how much you like or dislike certain things with the sliders.


Users with similar constraints meeting in physical space


Tribal Search Engine works on every scale, from a urban block to the world map, here it is suggesting safe areas to avoid global threats.

From the datas 2012hopes threats collected, Tribal Search Engine determined the location and the dynamic shape of the fluid structure of the Open Sailing. That's our concept.

Timeline Comparison of Google and Tribal Engine. Google lacks physical existence, Tribal Search engine brings real people in real space to solve the real problems of this world.

Concept and world map

download pdf (7.6mb) / see .jpg (1.4mb)

This is our official 9 folds A1 format, 2012hopes.com + international-ocean-station.org threat nd concept map, beta 01.
It is creative commons It combines :
- high human density
- responsivness to pandemics
- recent violent conflicts
- maritime piracy
- hypothetical nuclear fallouts (from civilian power plants, based on the footprint of Chernobyl)
- high sea pollution
- sea level rise endangered land
- pole shift hypothesis location
- tsunami risk exposure
- earthquakes
- cold sea
- cold land
- intense sea wind
- low biomass, low chlorophyll
- a grayscale composite of all these maps



download pdf (11.6mb) / see .jpg (2.6mb)

You can download both maps in both .pdf and .jpg in a .zip file (21mb).

This concept map explains how we researched originally about 2012 and how the project transformed into a sea steading project.

These 2 maps will answer :
- where on earth are we less exposed to threats.
- what we are interested in, and where our research is going.

Following is the text on the map :
Open Sailing
The best way to predict our future is to invent it.

Open Sailing aims to design and invent future lifestyles to overcome any possible natural and manmade disasters stimulating people's ingenuity and sense of solidarity. Might it be global warming or energy conflicts, we are living in a time where we are sniffing the 'Apocalypse', finally realising our human part of responsibility as the earth is crumbling. 2012 is a year when a collection of apocalyptic events are rumored to happen. We are taking 2012 as an ideal dystopic symbol we design for. 2012 is tomorrow, we must design quickly using these constraints and invent bootstrapping DIY technologies.

Open Sailing method is to convert apocalyptic threats into design constraints. From our compiled set of threat maps, we found that oceans are the safest locations. Ocean survival architecture became our new starting point, but we need to go further than surviving : how can we live together in this new fluid configuration and remain a hyper-connected intelligent social being? We are trying to make a truly "open architecture" : pre-broken, under-defined, reconfigurable, moveable, pluggable, organic, fluid. Can we reach a harmonious dynamic state of interdependence with each other and the earth? Is this the next step of civilization progress? Will we dissociate our concept of progress with infrastructure and metropolis?

NEXT STEPS IN 2009
Finding motivated knowledgeable collaborators and funders (february).
Prototyping technology equipment for ocean living, UK (march ~ april).
Testing the Open Sailing in the Atlantic ocean, Morocco (may).
Public presentation of Open Sailing researches (june)

These maps were made by Martin Gautron, Cesar Harada and Hiromi Ozaki.



The map folded, coming out of my pocket,




the map on the world map side (on the other side, it is the concept map).
If you want to have a map just send us an email, we’ll arrange.

Swarm architecture, An exhibition by Labdora, Peter Macapia

Just found this aesthetically pleasing Swam architecture (sculpture!) called swarm by Peter Macapia.

Nice Flickr user page ...Cool !

Could be just as good as...

They dont even realize, but they are swarming! How innocent!



$139.95