Category Archive for "Architecture" | IICloud(s) – Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)

A) 19″ Living Rack

By Patrick Keller Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Architecture, Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0157, A, Cabinets, Computing, Domestic, ECAL, Furnitures, Housing, Infrastructure, Storage Permalink 0

Project developed by Léa Pereyre

19” Living Rack is an open source variation around the standardized 19” computer server rack (or cabinet). Dedicated to be distributed in domestic environments for personal or for small size community uses, the modular base of the standard rack is getting combined with additional functions, to address this renewed small office/home office context.

In making clear reference to the famous Ch. Eames toy, the modular House of Cards project, the 19” Living Rack comes in one technical “Base” that can then be combined and customized into three different types: “Office”, “Home”, and “Garden”, to set up personal and somehow undersized data centers.

For each configuration, air flows have been taken into consideration and act as design and functional factors: the air in the front part of the rack remains temperate before entering the rack and cooling the servers, while the back and top air flows are getting warmed up and dried due to the computers heating process. “Office” functions comes therefore mainly in the front part of the rack, “Home” on the back where elements can be tempered or dried, while “Garden” comes on the top, equipped with moistened plants to clean, re-humidify, perfume and cool down the air.

A) 19″ Living Rack, cookbook only: recipes and other elements

By Patrick Keller Tuesday, June 13, 2017 Architecture, Cookbooks, Design, Resources, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0156, Cabinets, Computing, Domestic, ECAL, Furnitures, Housing, Infrastructure, Makers, Storage, Tools Permalink 0

Please find below the necessary recipes, blueprints and information for the 19″ Living Rack project.

Download manual of assembly, and recipes for the 19″ Living Rack technical “Base”, “Office”, “Home” and “Garden” extensions (PDF).

Download “all-in-one” 19” Living Rack full pack (ZIP). It contains all blueprints (DXF) to be separately cut out (at the CNC), manual of assembly and recipes for the “Base”, so as “Office”, “Home”, and “Garden” extensions (PDF).

A “Home Cloud Kit” (evolution)

By Patrick Keller Wednesday, February 8, 2017 Architecture, Design, Interaction Design, Projects, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0145, ABCD, Cabinets, Cloud, Code, Data, Datacenter, Domestic, ECAL, Experience, fabric | ch, Interface, Open source, Things, Tools Permalink 0

Note: the purpose of a “Home Cloud Kit” (working title) has been described in a previous post. It will be composed by four artifacts which will become the main outcomes of the design research Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s), along with one book about the ethnographic field study and another one about the design research process.

Below are four links leading to four posts describing and analyzing the current state of evolution for each part of this kit. We expect the research and the “kit” to be finished by the end of March 17.

The “kit” will be distributed freely at the end of the project.

The final phase of our research consists in the prototyping of artifacts which relevance have been identified along the process. Tools, infrastructures and services are therefore addressed and will constitute a “Home Cloud Kit”.

This final phase is organized into the four following lines of work:

A) A Personal Data Center (evolution, models)

B) I&IC’s OwnCloud Core Processing Library (evolution)

C) A Personal Cloud (evolution)

D) My Data Controllers (evolution, models)

A Personal Data Center (evolution, models)

By Lea Pereyre Friday, February 3, 2017 Architecture, Design, Interaction Design, Projects, X-Posts Tags: 0144, A, Cabinets, Data, Datacenter, Domestic, ECAL, Furnitures, Infrastructure, Open source, Personal, Tools Permalink 0

Note: “A Personal Data Center” (working title) is part of a home cloud kit, which was described in a previous post and that will be composed by four various artifacts, both physical and digital.

The kit will be distributed freely at the end of the project.

After a few design iterations through sketches and a bit of 3D modelling, we recently produced a set of first prototypes of what our domestic 19″ server rack could look like and how it could handle domestic functions as well. As a matter of facts, we can consider this work an alternative approach to what was set up and analyzed at the beginning of our research, when we assembled our own “(small size) personal cloud infrastructure“.

Our approach was fueled by several references, the first one being House of Cards, by Ray and Charles Eames :

The modular, simple and intuitive assembly process guided us for its adequacy within a Do-It-Yourself user context.

I&IC design research at “Bot Like Me” conference, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris

By Patrick Keller Thursday, December 8, 2016 Architecture, Design, Ethnography, Publications, Society, Thinking Tags: 0140, Algorithmic, Clouds, Code, Conferences, Data, Datacenter, Networks Permalink 0

Note: At the invitation of Sophie Lamparter (Swissnex San Francisco) and Luc Meier (EPFL ArtLab), we had the pleasure to present the current process and outcomes of our joint design research project in Paris, at Centre Culturel Suisse (CCS). This helped us collect meaningful impressions and comments about the ongoing work.

The conference was given last Friday and Saturday (02-03.12) in the company and attendance of an excellent line up (!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Nicolas Nova, Yves Citton, Tobias Revell & Nathalie Kane, Rybn, Joël Vacheron, Gwenola Wagon, Hannes Grasseger, I&IC’s research assistants Lucien Langton & Léa Pereyre, so as many others!)

Together with Nicolas Nova, we presented the almost final state of our joint research project Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s), at a time when we are entering the prototyping of the final artifacts (deliverables).

Via Centre Culturel Suisse (in French)

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Du vendredi 2 au samedi 3 décembre 2016

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Bot Like Me
interventions en anglais

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A l’occasion de l’exposition de !MedienGruppe Bitnik, et avec la complicité du duo d’artistes zurichois, Sophie Lamparter (directrice associée de swissnex San Francisco) et Luc Meier (directeur des contenus de l’EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne) ont concocté pour le CCS un événement de deux jours composé de conférences, tables rondes et concerts, réunissant scientifiques, artistes, écrivains, journalistes et musiciens pour examiner les dynamiques tourmentées des liens homme-machine. Conçues comme une plateforme d’échange à configuration souple, ces soirées interrogeront nos rapports complexes, à la fois familiers et malaisés, avec les bots qui se multiplient dans nos environnements ultra-connectés.

I&IC design research wrap-up of sketches, towards artifacts

By Patrick Keller Monday, June 20, 2016 Architecture, Design, Interaction Design, Projects, X-Posts Tags: 0134, ABCD, Art direction, Cabinets, Clouds, Data, Datacenter, Devices, Domestic, ECAL, Infrastructure, Object, Open source, Personal, Tools, Wrap-up Permalink 0

Following Nicolas Nova’s wrap-up regarding the ethnographic research about Cloud Computing which came to an end last April (publication to come) in the frame of Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) (I&IC) and learning from it, it is also time for me to write a midterm status report about the design aspects of this ongoing work. It is the occasion to resume what we’ve been through along the process and highlight the most important elements.

“No-Stop City” (A. Branzi, 1969) used as an illustration in the founding document of the I&IC design research.
Image retrieved from the post “I&IC Preliminary Intentions” (05.09.2014).

We are therefore trying to put in evidence in this article what we’ve learned so far during the process and where this might lead us as design strategies during the last year of this design study. This while knowing that our plans are to produce design artifacts and functional prototypes as results of this research process — among other ones (books, tools, etc.)

Inhabiting & Interfacing the Cloud(s): all research workshops results at once (recap about usages, interaction, territory)

By Patrick Keller Monday, June 13, 2016 Architecture, Ethnography, Interaction Design, Schools, Workshops, X-Posts Tags: 0132, ABCD, Clouds, Data, Datacenter, ECAL, EPFL_ECAL_Lab, Experience, HEAD, Installation, Interface, Methodology, Users Permalink 0

Note: the 6 research workshops we organized in the frame of Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s) took place during the “preliminary sketches” phase. A known and common phase that takes place in the course of each design process, during which we could naturally involve peers partners and students so to increase our “trials and errors”.

The outcomes of these experimental workshops were further analyzed in two posts by N. Nova and P. Keller (ethnographic “Lessons” and design “Learnings“), to further develop design proposals as the main results of this research, along with two publications to come.

Introduction to I&IC & field study (10.2014) – no sound :