In the pic above, Richard Branson is beaming like a maniac for good reason: Behind him is SpaceShipTwo, the first commercial passenger spaceship ever, which was revealed today after two years in construction. Tonight, Governor Bill Richardson ofNew Mexico (the site of the coming Norman Foster-designed Spaceport) and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (where most of the construction took place) will appear at a blow-out party thrown by Branson's company, Virgin Galactic, to christen the new vessel. Her name will be--what else?--the Enterprise.
This follows news from last year, unveiling WhiteKnightTwo, which will ferry SpaceShipTwo up to an altitude of 50,000 feet; at that point SpaceShipTwo detaches from WK2's underbelly and engages its own rockets, powering the craft to an altitude of 68 miles, or just beyond the commonly-defined edge of space. It'll have two pilots aboard, and six passengers, each of them rich enough to afford the $200,000 ticket price.
The next-step for SS2 will be test flights, which will be used to tweak and refine the design and engineering; it'll also be fitted with a new hybrid motor, currently being developed.
And then, to the stars: Virgin Galatic's first commercial flights are slated to begin sometime in 2011.
American subways suck--no surprise there. But you'd probably be surprised at just how remarkable subways can be in other countries.
DesignBoom has collected nine outstanding examples. Above: Shanghai's Bund Sightseeing tunnel, a 2,100-foot stretch of tunnel that connects The Bund--the city's famous waterfront--with Pudong, it's high-tech business district, which has sprung up from swampland in a mere 15 years.
Here: One of the stations in Stockholm's subway system, designed by Per Olof Ultvedt in 1975. There are literally hundreds of art installations, strewn throughout the city' 100 stations. As DesignBoom points out, many take advantage of the natural rock faces found through the tunnels, which give the entire thing a primordial feel unparalleled in the world.
Here, the ultra-futuristic, recently-completed Drassanes Station in Barcelona, by ON-A architects:
For pics of these phenomenal projects--and six more, from Tokyo to Moscow--go to DesignBoom.
Hard to believe, but on Friday, Digg celebrated its fifth anniversary. To mark that occasion, they've unveiled Digg365, a fantastic visualization of the most popular stories of the year.
This also happens to be the fifth major data-viz intiative from Digg Labs--the company's experimental research arm. The others include Arc, Big Spy, Stack, and Swarm--each of them are phenomenal in their own right, but Digg365 might be the most useful and easy to use of them all.
The new graphic, which was created by The Barbarian Group, displays the top 10 stories on every day, month, and year--a capability that Digg has never had before. The graphic is organized in concentric rings--the centermost shows the top 10 stories in the year; beyond that, you can click on a month to view the top stories for that span; and numbers arranged on the outside let you find the most popular stories on a given day. You can also view the top 10 breakdown by category--from technology to lifestyle. Amazing stuff.
Social bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon or Delicio.us are great for finding interesting, quirky content. But the hunt is on for something better. One example: The just-launched PearlTrees, which allows you to lump and organize your links into network graphs. The best bit is that when you create a node in your network (a "pearl"), you can see who else has bookmarked that same link--and see what they've tagged as related content. A short video explains:
You might have noticed that startups like these are reaching a fever pitch--In recent weeks we've seen this Twitter visualization tool and Nebul.us, which does much of the same work as PearlTrees, with a more robust (albeit complex) visualization system.
The logic seems hard to fight: Think about how easy it is to get lost in all the content flying around on Digg or Stumble Upon. People naturally want to organize that information--and you can use that instinct to create a semantic network. And that network should make it easier for anyone to find the stuff they'd love but simply don't know enough about to search for. That's sure to be one of data visualization's killer apps--finding likeminded souls whose tastes might inspire your own.
The question is: Who can build their network the fastest? PearlTrees is a fascinating first step--but they've got a ways to go in creating an interface so fast that it's a joy to use. And that's what interfaces are all about (insert obligatory iPhone reference here).
It's 2030. Copenhagen has failed. Manhattan is a wading pool; Kansas has a beach. Our food supplies have crashed. And yet design snobs still exist. (Including, hopefully, yours truly.) What are they supposed to do, eat rats with their bare hands? Of course not. They catch rats, using the most stylish rat traps you've ever seen (above).
The pieces were conceived by 5.5 designers, as part of a "guide to free farming" that was just presented at the ICSID world design congress in Singapore. The whole idea is that we're surrounded by food sources. Sure, they're disgusting, but hey--it's 2030, and a guy's gotta eat. (That poncho printed with bricks? It's a camo suit for catching pigeons.)
The book is accompanied by some useful recipes, such street flower with grilled rat, and helpful tips on plucking a pigeon. (Which are good eats, BTW.)
For pics of these tools at work, check out DesignBoom.
Today is Jay-Z's birthday--he's 40! It's also marks the last weekday in the Worst Week Ever for Tiger Woods. Jay-Z has complained about his 99 Problems; Tiger's got at least as many. How do their problems compare?
Big ups to the person who designs the next chart comparing the country's current economic and unemployment woes to Jay's "Money, Cash, Hoes."
Next week, the 15th U.N. Climate Change Congress convenes in Copenhagen--and the world leaders and functionaries passing through the airport might be met with a bracing message: A new series of ads, created by Arc Communications for Greenpeace, which depicts aged world leaders ruing what might have been, if they'd acted more decisively.
The ads all feature a doctored image of a current world leader - so
that they look about ten years older - apologising from the future
(2020 to be precise) saying, "I'm sorry. We could have stopped
catastrophic climate change... We didn't."
"It's an apology from the future aimed at putting pressure on- and
just maybe making these world leaders think twice about the
consequences of their action or inaction now," explains the writer of
the ads Toby Cotton of new agency Arc Communications.
"The brief from Greenpeace International was simple," he continues,
"to put pressure on world leaders to create a fair and binding
agreement at Copenhagen."
Now, Copenhagen has often been hailed as a last-ditch effort, coming at a pivotal point when we can still act to radically curb our carbon emissions.
But not everyone thinks that the ideas being mooted are effective. The most powerful criticism has been that the various cap-and-trade proposals being tabled are all so complex and prone to loopholes that it would be better to scrap them in favor of a straight-up carbon tax. Which might be the best solution--while also being about as likely as breeding solar-powered unicorns who'll fly us to work.
Harry Pierce, a graphic designer and partner at Pentagram, is an avid collector of a type of puzzle the British call conundrums, graphic representations of common phrases. They can be devilishly hard, and when you find out the answer, you usually slap your head.
Now Pearce has produced his own book of 171 of these puzzles, Conundrums, which goes on sale this week.
Wallpaper* has just posted an entire slideshow's worth. To whet your appetite, here's a few. Scroll down for the answers we came up with...
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1. Left: Neither here nor there Right: Overlaid
2. A Quiet Life
3. Left: Anyone care to guess, in the comments below? Right: Just Between You and Me.
Bilbao arguably launched the vogue for contemporary starchitecture, with the titanium-clad Guggenheim Bilbao, designed by Frank Gehry. That vogue has wound down--witness Dubai. Urban planners are now gaining prominence, as we realize the connection between livable cities and low-carbon emissions.
So it makes impeccable sense that Bilbao's showiest new public work isn't another flashy building. It's a beautiful, faceted park.
Designed by ACXT,
the park serves as a promenade linking two neighborhoods, which had been separated by a odd, badly placed slip of land.
As Inhabitat writes, this is part of a larger movement in Bilbao:
Situated between the districts of Txurdínaga and Otxarcoaga, Pau Casals Square is part of a series of projects that Bilbao
has undertaken to improve urban spaces in the city's outlying areas,
creating connections between different neighborhoods and increasing the
quality of life for residents. These neighborhoods grew during the
post-war era, when they suffered from poor urban infrastructure and
disorderly planning, which created rocky unused spaces like this site
along Jesus Galindez Avenue.
All those seemingly willy-nilly concete facets you see serve a purpose: The site is steep and rocky, and prone to landslides. Rather than razing it, ACXT preserved as much as they could and shored up the trickiest sections with concrete.
Everyone knows the comic-book inspired work of Roy Lichtenstein. But for some, a measly painting just isn't enough. They'd prefer to actually live inside of one.
