Clones

Brilliantly inventive work by artist Peter Funch. At first it's difficult to work out what he has done, but fairly quickly we can tell that there is some clever image manipulation. It offers a perceptive critique of city life by aggregating common themes, through which a typology of urban activity emerges.

Layering

Manhattan Transformations provides a visualisation of urban development on Manhattan Island. The highlight is the layered map, with the original settlements and farm patterns. It is limited in scale and scope, which is a shame as there is some interesting research within.

Games

Think of street games, and images of hopscotch and kerb-ball spring to mind. Using large-scale light projections and interactive techniques, KMA are bringing a new type of street game to cities across Europe.

My reservation is that it seems simply to project onto a plain surface. More innovative would be to use augmented reality techniques. In this version, real elements of the streetscape would be activated by interacting with sensors and projectors. In so doing, it would supplement the function of, say, a parkbench so that it became part of a winning move in a game, or a handrail as a defence.

Link here to UK events, but see earlier post on building projections.

Whitworth

I recently went to the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester, and caught the 'Subversive Spaces' exhibition. It draws together disparate fields of artistic enquiry, including situationism, feminist art and psycho-geography to create stimulating reflections. All fall into the category of art from the margins. Artists such as Sarah Lucas, Dali, Lucy Gunning and Guy De Bord are featured.

Polemic

It seems like a very long time since I've seen an architectural project with any degree of political content or a committed polemical position. Via BldgBlog comes information about a project by Viktor Ramos of Rice University consisting of a provocative architectural solution to the Palestinian-Israel impasse - a bypass.

His scheme proposes a series of spaces which weave under- and overground to form what he terms 'The Continuous Enclave'. The scheme reminds me of Lebbeus Woods' work from the 80's, but with a technocratic machine aesthetic in place of the steampunk feel of Woods. Great to see architecture used in this way again.

More hi-res images are available on Ramos' flickerset.

Optimism

From an abandoned property in Wood Street, Liverpool, a strangely satisfying graph, complete with X- and Y-axis subdivisions.

The person who was given the job of boarding up the windows it seems couldn't be bothered to cut the timbers to the right length, especially as they were so close to being right. The job they are doing is simple - to make bill-posting too awkward to be worthwhile. Graffiti is erased in white to the extent of the highest batten.

Anyhow, the good news is that the graph appears to be based on an optimistic dataset, despite economic, empirical and visual evidence to the contrary. I guess that's Liverpool.

Fun

The usual misgivings about whether kitsch is an acceptable way for a seaside town to ply its trade on a trip to Southport today. In half-term week, it was bustling and lively, despite a February chill. The Ocean Terminal development seems to be a sad case of regeneration opportunism - a retail park flown in from somewhere, with wavy canopies applied to make the dull portal sheds appear 'contextual'.

However the fine Victorian iron canopies and the boulevard of Lord Street provide a memorable backbone for the town, and the recent public realm works show a commendable commitment to quality. With geography also in its favour when compared to Morecambe or Fleetwood, it is one of those seaside towns which with a fair wind (and on a clear day) we should see making a full recovery. I'll be back.

Lane

Lateral thinking in connection with city infrastructure will always be worth considering. Building roads, underpasses, bridges, and barriers is often expensive, awkward and time-consuming. On top of this, there is the aesthetic price we pay for the uninvited eye-level clutter which attaches itself to our highways, as the authorities try to protect us from ourselves. This innovation from a US company called Altitude inc. is a bike lane you take with you on the dark journey home. Cyclists can now carry their version of the white line/logo combo. (via Good)

Nolli

The Nolli Plan of Rome was produced in 1748, and its author revolutionised the way cities were represented by showing buildings in plan form (rather than bird's eye view), and with unprecedented surveying accuracy. Indeed public buildings had their interiors recorded too, helpfully emphasising the continuity of the city into its most prominent structures. The University of Oregon has digitally mastered the map, and added interpretative overlays, including satellite images, which can be viewed via a map engine.