I love how creative and expansive computer technology is. Never in my youth would I have ever have conceived of an apartment so fluid and effectual as the one presented in the Openarch article - exceptional!
What an exciting time we live in. I'm already thinking of all of my Martha Stewart learned art of homemaking designs I could create - all those YoVille stylized wallpapers I could fashion for every holiday; it just blows my mind. I could even host a dinner party that included invitees as fascinating as Oprah Winfrey or Mozart for that matter. The possibilities are endless and so fun, so real and so make-believe at the same time. A small space made large in an instant, just exactly as I wanted it for the moment ... Truly a www lifestyle.
On the other hand ... would it be a space in which I would get lost or confused and even all-consumed by the endless possibilities? Would my living space become my opium? Wait. Isn't that facebook?
Elaine Sangiolo
Book Marketing Manager: Cathedral of Dreams by Terry Persun, A Kingdom's Possession by Nicole Persun
Booktrope Publishing
www.booktropepublishing.com
www.booktrope.com
@inkdipped
Thinkbig Factory see the networking of houses as the infrastructure of future smart cities. The Spanish architecture and design consultancy is working on an automated house prototype that is set up as a living laboratory. Their project, Openarch, is a place to test ideas and products on the way to building a fully operational, gesture-based home of the future.
Openarch incorporates a digital layer, called D.OS for domestic operating system, that connects users to their home through the Internet.
Everything in the Openarch house is connected and can be used to communicate. Through the internet connection, any device such as a mobile phone or tablet can access, control, and monitor data, temperature, appliances, lighting, power usage, and social media. With an emphasis on flexibility, Kinect-based gestural interfaces and video mapped projections can also control the same elements as well as moveable walls and a customizable wallpaper projection.
Openarch’s software and hardware will be documented, registered, and available for download under creative commons licenses. Thinkbig Factory describe the project as “an inhabited playground where related technologies can be tested” and open the laboratory to other companies, artists, and organizations to evaluate their products and services.
At present, the physical design is fully implemented while the software is at about 20 percent. Thinkbig Factory’s Ion Cuervas-Mons tells FastCompany, “Only the gestural interface and the custom wallpaper application are working. There is still a lot of work to be done.”
Openarch || FILM from Openarch on Vimeo.
Via: Co.Design
Images: Thinkbig Factory
