EDGELAND

[edgeland-blog]

SHIFT SHOP

Starting a  new business is hard - and part of that difficulty is maintaining a physical location (despite the powers of the internet world). "Wisselwinkel", or the "Shift Shop", was started by MOS Collective and serves to help with this core problem. Every six months the store becomes something else, thus incubating the start-up business until it can leave the nest, if you will. Read some more. 

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DETOUR DESIGN RENEGADE

Hong Kong's "Ambassadors of Design" created a three-week long interactive and experimental urban art display. 

If you don't know about Rebar, check out more of their amazing projects.

[edgeland-blog]

Congress may just be listening. The BUILD Act could allow for tremendous regeneration of brownfields across the States, bringing into account the usage of both public and non-profit organizations.

[edgeland-blog]

GOOGLE MAPS INSPIRED BIRDHOUSES

How could you not love these? Completed by industrial designer Shu-Chun Hsiao, they reflected the moving trends towards helping the animals in our cities rather than constructing their worst nightmare of a habitable environment. An intervention project, they also reflect the merger between the physical and the virtual world. Read more. 

[edgeland-blog]

THE NOMADIC POP UP CREATIVE AGENCY 

Following the concept that the "new office" is "no office", these students from Hyper Island travel around the world, stoping in various cities four 48 hours to have some powwow creative fun. It seems the "new creatives" have launched a new form of global nomadism. 

Read some more. 

[edgeland-blog]

"IS COUNTERCULTURE GETTING MAINSTREAM?" 

Janelle Zara of Artinfo sheds some insight upon an important question: has counterculture, guerrilla civic engagement reached that oh-so-unknown level of popularity that it has fallen into the "mainstream"?

Zara focuses upon Rebar's Park(ing) Day - a globally successful project of guerrilla, grassroots civic engagement. This protest tool, if you will, arose in response to the privilege of parking for those who can park and perhaps in response to the damage upon our common environment and social capital caused by driving. 

Important to note is the use of social media (the shared commons of the internet) to allow for the spread and success of the project. Arising well before the Occupy movements, it served as a prime example of a more subtle emergence of populism and solidarity in protest. 

The answer as to whether counterculture has started to become mainstream (although of course, the label of counterculture may no longer prove applicable to something accepted by culture as a whole). In this example, counterculture refers to an actual act whereby protest has been allowed to flourish. In this case, such protest rests upon increasing public space and thus enhancing social capital. Therefore increased popularity (or a mainstream appeal) of such actions may prove only a positive. Yet of course, one must always retain that with popularity comes a potential diminishment of impact. 

Read more in detail here. 

[edgeland-blog]

Check this out - an interactive, online site where you can plan out your street cutaway, thanks to the geniuses at code for america. Woaah

[edgeland-blog]

MOONTOWER

So back in the day, before street lights, cities were lit up via the use of giant light towers meant to act as moon light.

[edgeland-blog]

Work by Jeroen Beekmans and Joop de Boer and Coen Rens of Golfstromen.

[estimfalos]

LED Clouds in Amsterdam, Sophie Valla Architects

[new-topia]

Ever wonder what an engineer thinks urban buildings will look like in 40 years? The engineering and design firm Arup has come up with this mock-up of the building of the future. It has its own energy systems (“micro-wind,” “solar PV paint,” and “algae facade” for producing biofuels) among other things. Check out their site for more on how this building functions.

[dezeen]

Autumn Winter 2013 collection by Craig Green

[new-topia]

Love these shots.

[subtilitas]

MGM Arquitectos - University of Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla 2011 (interior spaces here). Via, photos (C) Jesús Granada.

[edgeland-blog]

FLYFIRE

So, imagine thousands of little flying balls of light all controlled by us and capable of forming millions of different designs, and always in flux. Look at more project details. 

[edgeland-blog]

ISOCHRONIC FRANCE

Using a few different visual applications, The Senseable City Lab has provided new perspectives on how France moves on rail, shown over the visualization of one week. Look here for more. 

[edgeland-blog]

TRASH|TRACK

MIT's tagging trash to show just where it all ends up.

[edgeland-blog]

INSIDE THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING'S CRYSTAL TOP

Urban exploration at it's finest.