You may remember the excellent FabLabs Future Salon with Professor Neil Gershenfeld [video] Neil says that in regards to building almost everything we are at the same stage as we were in the 70s with computers: You needed $30,000 and a roomful of equipment to do it.
Let's give it a couple of rounds of miniaturization and everyone will be able to create almost everything on his/her desk. I am cautiously optimistic for such a scenario in the future.
If you want to know what you will be able to do in a couple of years, you should check out what the top Architects with the big budgets are doing right now using the latest digital tools for 3-D modeling and CNC machines. Not only what they are doing, but also find out what their guiding principles are and why. Technology and money is less and less a limiting factor, other decision elements like the context of a building come into focus.
This thought process is one reason why I am looking forward to tomorrow's Future Salon with Architect Professor George Yu AIA:
Using the latest digital tools for 3-D modeling, prototyping, and fabrication we are redefining the "module" in architecture. At a spatial and material level, we are no longer limited by technology or economics to repeat a single unvarying unit to compose the whole. This flexibility allows for much more responsiveness to context: site, environment, program, culture, and time. In this lecture, I will explain my research into these possibilities by showing examples in recent architectural projects.
Please RSVP (http://tinyurl.com/yhjbze) if you have not done so.
Biography
Established in 1992, George Yu Architects
is an innovative, award-winning practice with experience in a wide
range of building types. Specializing in the integration of urban
design, architecture, and technology issues, we have developed a unique
approach that has made us very successful in creating innovative
solutions for problems that are normally considered beyond the purview
of architecture. For example, in the IBM e-Business Centers in the
United States, the Honda Advanced Design Center in Pasadena, and the
Sony Design Centers in Los Angeles and Shanghai, our leadership made
architectural design a significant part of larger organizational and
technological transformations occurring within these companies.
George Yu was born in Hong Kong in 1964 and grew up in Hope, Vancouver, and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Geography in 1985 from the University of British Columbia and Master of Architecture degree from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1988. From 1988 to 1992, he was a member of Morphosis Architects in Santa Monica. In 1992, Yu started his firm, George Yu Architects, in Los Angeles.
Yu has completed over 65 projects ranging in scale from 1000 square foot retail interiors to 1.5 million square foot shopping centers. Key projects include: the headquarters for Nettwerk Records in Vancouver; creative workspaces for IBM e-Business in Chicago, New York, and Atlanta; the Daido Jusco Shopping Center in Nagoya; the prototypes and roll-out of over 70 fashion boutiques for Max Studio worldwide; the design studios for the Sony Electronics Design Center in Santa Monica; and the Honda Advanced Design Center in Pasadena.
Yu was an Adjunct Professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Architecture from 1995 to 1998. Since 1998, he has been on the design faculty at Southern California Institute of Architecture. He has also held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, Austin, and Florida International University. Yu’s work has been featured in a number of exhibitions: Blue Diamond 68, at Artists Space in New York; Blow-up at Sci-Arc in Los Angeles; Pentimenti at the Ottawa Art Gallery; and Transforming Type at the U.S. Pavilion in the 2004 Venice Biennale and Yale University. Yu has received two I.D. Magazine Design Awards, honors from the Architectural Foundation of Los Angeles, was selected by the New York Architectural League as a member of the Emerging Generation, and was awarded the Canada Council's most prestigious award in architecture, the Prix de Rome.
A Future Salon has the following structure: 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+ pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Southern Cross or Cafeteria depending on your RSVP (http://tinyurl.com/yhjbze), 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [map] As always free and open to the public, spread the news.
If you can't join in person we will Webcast the event: Point your Quicktime viewer to the following address: rtsp://207.105.30.90/salon.sdp
IRC chat as always use the server: irc.freenode.net and the Channel: #futuresalon
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