Talking Poles

August 25, 2011 in Citizen Mapping

The Talking Poles project comes to a close. In March 2008, we submitted a proposal to build two interactive Talking Poles – public artworks that would play back residents’ words, music and laughter. Our proposal was accepted, and we began the process of fabricating the Poles and planning design strategies for engaging local residents. The Poles are steel structures decorated with a vinyl mural displaying the thematic imagery. The electronic components are powered by a solar panel located in the top cone of each pole. Audio recordings of local residents’ voices range in length from 30-90 seconds and play back from an MP3 player housed inside a metal cone above each Pole, read more >

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Can Aircraft Carriers become Emergency Housing?

August 25, 2011 in Uncategorized

Nearly all decommissioned aircraft carriers are (sooner or later) re-cycled (scrapped). Rare exceptions are the USS Saratoga which was sunk as a nuclear target at Bikini Island in 1946; and the USS Oriskany which was sunk as an artificial reef in the 21st century. The light carrier USS Independence was also sunk off of California in the 1940′s, however, her fate was also the result the of the atomic bomb…she was highly contaminated…and sunk years after the A-Bomb explosion. The USS America may also have been scuttled. And the Midway is currently used as a museum, introducing people to the nautical odyssey of living aboard.

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Fab Lab Research

July 28, 2011 in 2012 Proposals

The Vancouver Fab Lab, is a prototyping space used as a hands-on initiative for understanding the ways in which communities re-use, rebuild or redesign electronic devices. In the fall of 2010, we started to conduct research on the existing Fab Lab network. Initially, Fab Labs were conceptualized as a outreach project by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in inner-city Boston in 2005, read more >

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