Experiments in Motion

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This weekend (April 27-28), New Habitat will be hosting a hackathon as part of the Ideas City Festival that will present architecture as an “API” to be hacked. The hackathon will mobilize a diverse group of architects, designers, artists, engineers, and technologists by providing the designs for a proposed building in New York City to be hacked away at, into and through to new ideas for domestic living.

The vicious cycle of innovation that opensource knowledge and infrastructure and a hacker ethos has ignited in other fields has yet to adequately disrupt architecture, buildings, the environments we inhabit on a daily basis. Cities have been hacked to death, but somehow the walls of architecture have stood firm. No longer.

New Habitat is a venture to do precisely what it claims, to rethink habitats. To participate, hackers of all stripe can register on Eventbrite at new-habitat.eventbrite.com. The hackathon will occur at the NewLab space at the Brooklyn Navy Yards on April 27-28, with a public presentation the following Friday, May 3 at the Ideas City Festival, hosted by the New Museum, The Architectural League of New York, Storefront for Art and Architecture and other amazing NY-based organizations.

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Experiments in Motion Featured in Surface Magazine’s American Influence Issue

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Beyond Traffic:

The mesmerizing traffic patterns in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

(via Rob Whitworth) 

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NYC MTA Catalogue of Used and Abandoned Spaces

The importance of the subway system in New York City cannot be underestimated. This study compares the amount of space in the entire subway system with spaces that are either inaccessible or abandoned - a complex system of spaces and possibilities. Timothy Bell exhibited this project along with architectural renderings along this September as part of the exhibition “Experiments in Motion”. Every project in the exhibition started with the question - what could these transportation space be used for in the future?

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Interactive Aluminum Flower Dome

Lotus Dome by Daan Roosegaarde and his studio is a living dome made out of hundreds of ultra-light aluminium flowers that fold open in response to human behavior. When approached, the big silver dome lights up and opens its flowers.

Its behavior moves from soft breathing to a more dynamic mood when more people interact. The light slowly follows people, creating an interactive play of light and shadow.

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Eco Drones   |   Christopher Geist

By capitalizing on the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, which created guidelines for the introduction of unmanned aircraft, drones could be introduced to Manhattan. Free of the traditional limitations of the street grid, the drones’ paths could evenly spread seeds throughout the city, thereby bridging the ecological gaps within the urban fabric. Better able to mitigate the urban context, the drones will do what natural processes could not: re-introduce plant life to the city and aid in sustainability.

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Street Life   |   Paul Tran and Shuning Zhao

If technology evolves to allow for interior personal vehicles, it will change the boundaries of transportation. Rather than remaining limited to today’s traditional networks, urban mobility can exist within the walls of the building itself. Neighborhoods could exist within one megablock, complete with its own interior system of transportation. The new vehicular system could move both horizontally and vertically, dissolving today’s “convenience” of the grid and creating neighborhoods within neighborhoods.

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Tourist Trap   |   Prathyusha Viddam

The most efficient path in a city as dense as Manhattan is not necessarily the shortest route. Tourist Trap suggests a system in which to both highlight that path and to encourage more seamless transfers between modes of transportation. Motion sensing LEDs are embedded within the ground at heavily trafficked subway stations, tracing the fast pace of local New Yorkers. The ghost path left behind remains long enough to guide passengers from the next train to the streets and buses aboveground, simultaneously leading them around meandering tourists.

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Block Party   |   Timothy Bell

In a city as dense as New York, unused space is rare. Block Party maximizes the potential of abandoned space in the city by exploring the hybridization of infrastructure and building. Vacant and unused portions of subway stations are reclaimed for bike storage, capitalizing on New York’s initiatives to encourage commuters’ bike and subway use. During rush hour, the storage units remain compacted under the street, but expand to double their size during off hours. By taking over the street, Block Party creates a new landscape that responds to both traffic patterns and infrastructure.

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What better way to celebrate over a year of Experiments in Motion than with a short film highlighting the design, research and innovation that went into partnership between Audi of America and Columbia University GSAPP .

Swoon NYC worked with us to create a video that captures the collaboration between Audi of America and Columbia University GSAPP, spanning from the initial launch to last month’s culminating NYC installation and everything in between. The GIFs above are just a taste of the footage from the full video, which you can check out here.

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Does Using Tumblr Make You a Tumblr Person?

Peter Vidani, Michael Rock, Mark Wigley and other designers take part in a round-table-turn-table at the Audi Forum in New York to discuss the implications of choreographing users and how invisible design should and can be. More Videos Here

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Experiments in Motion captured on film

The exhibition is open and waiting for you to check it out! The installation marks the end of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP through the Audi Urban Future Initiative. The exhibit, located at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City, is free and open to the public through September 24.

More info here.

All photos taken by Collin Erickson.

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The Experiments in Motion exhibition is opening tomorrow! The exhibition is the culmination of a yearlong partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP. These photographs by Michael Moran provide a sneak peek at what is to come.

The exhibition is open to the public at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City September 15-24. More info here.

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360 degrees of the Lowline

Today is the last day to catch the Imagining the Lowline and Experiments in Motion exhibitions. The installation marks the end of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP through the Audi Urban Future Initiative. The exhibit is located at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City

More info here.

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Experiments in Motion Exhibition

An exhibition marking the end of the first year of Experiments in Motion, a partnership between Audi of America and Columbia GSAPP through the Audi Urban Future Initiative. Open to the public at the Essex Street Warehouse in New York City September 15-24. More info here.

Experiments in Motion aims to imagine new forms of urban motion, new spaces for mobility and new visions for the future of New York City. Audi of America and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), have come together for a research think tank and a series of architectural design studios with the goal of challenging both partners to rethink motion, think differently about mobility, and work together to imagine future cities. As part of the Audi Urban Future Initiative, Experiments in Motion is a research component in a world wide network that seeks to bring together experts from within Audi with architects, planners, and visionaries with the purpose of generating innovative solutions for mobility in cities.

Partnering with the LowLine, Audi of America and Columbia are excited to connect their research on mobility to one of the most innovative proposals for a new kind of public space in New York City . As part of the partnership, students from the program have spent the summer researching all transportation systems in New York City, with special attention on exposing the potential of underground spaces. The research and designs generated by Experiments in Motion represent the future visions for how transportation spaces and infrastructures can be reimagined as sites for invention. The nine design proposals range from new architectural solutions for mobility today to provocative visions for the future.

The fifty foot floating model of Manhattan was researched with the help of the MTA, the DOT, and the Center for Urban Real Estate (CURE). The suspended aluminum street grid is a 1:1500 scale replica of Manhattan’s road infrastructure while the plexiglass below presents a never before seen view of the architectural volumes of every subway station on the island. Projected onto the floor below is an animated shadow that reveals the flows of motion through the city. Subways, buses, bike lanes, ferries, tunnels and bridges are described as flows of motion which come together to expose the city as a interconnected system for mobility - a city of motion.

Exhibition Design Team: George Dolidze, Mengyi Fan, Kelsey Lents

Exhibition Installation: Art Domantay Projections: Nuit Blanche Animation Consultant: Casey Rehm / Studio Kinch Fabrication: Flatcut_, FABberz Special Thanks: Jesse Keenan, Pedro Zevallos, DOT, MTA, Transit Museum, Lowline Rendering by Mengyi Fan courtesy of Therrien–Barley

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Experiment In Motion Launch Dinner 

The Modular Table was used to facilitate the Experiments In Motion launch dinner. The launch dinner was a think tank event meant to accommodate seating 60 people on the exterior with 12 people seated in the interior. 

DINNER IN MOTION | Experiments in Motion 

Designed through a collaboration between Fab Lab, C-Lab and Studio X of GSAPP Columbia University. 

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Architecture in Motion

A round table discussion on motion, while in motion, by leading professionals in the field who deal with motion. During the roundtable discussion, Mark Wigley, dean of Columbia University GSAPP asked the panel to respond to questions regarding the emergence of mobility within design.

Panel participants included Abe Burmeister of Outlier Tailored Performance Clothing, Glen Cummings of MTWTF, Rob Giampietro of Project Projects, Michael Rock of 2x4, interaction designer Chris Woebken and Peter Vidani of Tumblr.

This and other interviews can be seen on the Experiment In Motion Research Page