Does anyone else remember the Muppet Show skit called “PIGS IN SPACE“?  Actually, it was called “PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGSSSS IIIIINNNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAAAAAACE,” mainly because in outer space distances are vast and despite the fact that sound doesn’t travel through a vacuum, all announcements about astronaut pigs really should be made with excessive reverb.  I don’t really have any more time to go on about the pigs but I bring them up because they are hilarious and because they were the first thing I thought of when I heard about Cellulose Aerogel, which is the material I’m about to describe in excruciating detail over the course …

Generally speaking, architecture is kind of a big deal.  What I mean is that architecture is large in size; it accomodates enormous objects like people, cars, eighteen-wheelers, and the occasional overfed cat.  The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, for example, is 2,717 feet tall; that’s just over half a mile by my calculations.  (I’ve seen entire hills shorter than the Burj Khalifa).  But the thing about BIG things is that they tend to result from organized aggregation of small things.  And so today I’d like to take a moment to explore the implications of the recent development of some really really ridiculously tiny …

 
A long time ago before we were born, probably after he’d had a few and was waxing philosophical, Chicago architect Louis Sullivan wrote:
“It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic,
of all things physical and metaphysical,
of all things human and all things super-human,
of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”
Sullivan designed intricate ornamental elements inspired by natural forms, which were meant to look completely complex and awesome as well as to express …

Those of us who are clumsy already know that given enough time and enough force everything breaks: glass shatters, paper tears, vases get knocked off tables, ribs snap in half.  What has been surprisingly tough to figure out is exactly how things will break when they haven’t been broken yet – to determine the forces that will describe the path of a crack and how it occurs.  It’s possible that you haven’t given much thought about how useful it would be to predict precisely how something is going to break, crack, shatter, or otherwise fail spectacularly, …

Ever since I saw the movie Office Space, I can’t hear the word “flare” or any of its homophones without thinking of Jennifer Anniston’s waitress uniform and the “pieces of flair” they wanted her to attach to her suspenders.  Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this, but it seems to me that the idea behind wearing the flair (various buttons and patches with funny messages on them – if you haven’t seen this movie please stop reading immediately and rent it) was that it was a chance for people to express some individuality …

This morning when you got up and went to perform routine maintenance on your mohawk, did you reach for hair mousse?  Did you later play in the surf at the shore, feeling tiny bubbles of sea foam bursting around your ankles?  Have you ever encountered a rabid dog frothing at the mouth?  Have you used a synthetic sponge or eaten bread?  I’m asking all these questions because if you answered yes to any of them then you’re already pretty familiar with the general concept foam and it won’t be as taxing for me …

Standard issue chain link fence is in many ways like the late Bea Arthur’s character Dorothy Zbornak on Golden Girls:  brutally honest, tall, and often topped with barbed wire.  Efficient and not terribly expensive, chain link isn’t the kind of fence that the poet Keats would have written home about.  But then again, would the poet Keats have been interested in any fence that wasn’t constructed entirely out of Grecian urns and coated with fluttering nightingales?  It’s hard to say. 

Photo by Joost van Brug
Dutch design firm Demakersvan has produced a line of chain link fence that incorporates the …

Recently I saw the ad for TEX-FAB on Archinect whilst trolling for competitions* and even though (or more accurately because) I thought that it was a Texas-set remake of the BBC show Absolutely Fabulous, I clicked on the link.  To my surprise, I discovered that TEX-FAB is a conference for Texas designers using digital fabrication techniques, and as a corollary Patsy will neither be shooting JR nor drinking vodka-champagne out of a boot-shaped glass.
TEX-FAB bills itself as a “new resource for designers, academics, fabricators, and students seeking out the innovative application of digital technology to the physical environment.”  The …

Until today I never in my wildest dreams imagined that bees could produce any kind of silk.  I thought worms were in charge of silk production and that was the end of it.  It pains me to admit this (you have no idea how it pains me) but I was wrong.  Not only are silk worms falling down on the job, as it turns out spiders aren’t any better!  Apparently it’s down to good old Apis mellifera (also known as the western honey bee) to make the silk that takes care of business.  …