Reblog > The Home Data Center: Man Cave for the Internet Age

By Monday, September 8, 2014 Resources, Sciences & Technology, X-Posts Tags: 0014, A, Cabinets, Datacenter, Domestic, Furnitures, Housing, Infrastructure, Makers Permalink 1

Via Data Center Knowledge

—–

By Rich Miller

 

In the ultimate manifestation of the “server hugger” who wants to be close to their equipment, a number of hobbyists and IT professionals have set up data centers in their home, creating server rooms in garages, basements and home offices.

The home data center is a novel extension of the central role that data centers now play in modern life. These enthusiasts are driven by a passion for IT, and use their gear for test-driving new equipment, lightweight web hosting or just as the ultimate technology ManCave.

Whatever the motivation, this level of connected house requires some adaptations, including upgrading power and network connections and running cable throughout a residential home.

Continue Reading…

Note about “Cookbooks”

By Monday, September 8, 2014 Cookbooks, Design, Sciences & Technology, X-Posts Tags: 0011, ABCD, Books, Craft, Customization, Tools Permalink 0

“Cookbooks” will mostly consist of (technical) tips and advises in the form of “recipes” dedicated to designers, student-researchers and/or makers.

The main purpose of these guidelines will be to help the design community gain access to open cloud technologies and grasp the tools, so to develop their own projects. We’ll select a few of these technologies during our project and try to share what we’ll learn.

“Recipes” will also consist in descriptions about the ways to use libraries, APIs and/or other artifacts that will be developed or used in the context of this research project.

 

dome_cookbook_stevebaer_1968-69

Any desire to build your own dome in the manner of Buckminster Fuller and start your commune? A “Dome Cookbook” in DIY mode by Steve Baer, directly coming out from the Drop City experience, Trinidad USA, 1969.

 

So to say, we simply envision the I&IC “Cookbooks” as an “Access to tools“ and as an obvious tribute to these historical references, so as the ones who followed.

It could lead to some kind of manual of best “open procedures” at the end of the research, or to some kind of kit.

I&IC – Preliminary and then edited Bibliography, Webography

By Friday, September 5, 2014 Resources, Thinking, X-Posts Tags: 0010, ABCD, Architects, Books, Curators, Designers, Designers (interaction), Methodology, Scientists, Thinkers Permalink 0

Note: this is the bibliography that helped us set up the research project, taken out from the I&IC -Preliminary Intentions document. We’ll certainly complete it along the way so as possibly document in more details some of the most important resources later (i.e. Clog, 2012). This means that this list might change along the way for our own cross posts references.

-

Bibliography, Webography

Augé, M. (1992). Non-lieux, introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, Le Seuil.

Bar, F. Pisani, F., & Weber, M. (2007). Mobile technology appropriation in a distant mirror: baroque infiltration, creolization and cannibalism. Prepared for discussion at Seminario sobre Desarrollo Económico, Desarrollo Social y Comunicaciones Móviles en América Latina. Convened by Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, April 20–21, 2007.

Banham, R. (1984). The architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, The University of Chicago Press.

Bathia, N. & al. (2013). Bracket [goes soft], Actar.

Blum, A. (2012). Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet.

Bourriaud, N. (2009). Radicant, pour une esthétique de la globalisation, Denoël.

Branzi, A (2006). No-Stop City: Archizoom Associati, HYX.

Bratton, H.B. (2016). The Stack, On Software and Sovereignty, MIT Press.

CLOG, (2012). Data Space, Clog online.

Divers (2002). Living in Motion, Design und Architektur für flexibles Wohnen, Vitra Design Museum.

Donaghy, R. (2011). Co-opting the Cloud: An Architectural Hack of Data Infrastructure. Graduate thesis work.

Glissant, E. (1990). Poétique de la relation. (Poétique III), Paris: Gallimard.

Himmelsbach, S. & Mareis, C. (2015). Poetics and Politics of Data. The Ambivalence of Life in a Data-Driven Society. Christoph Merian Verlag.

Hu, T.-H. (2015). A Prehistory of The Cloud, MIT Press.

Léchot-Hirt, L. (2010). Recherche-création en design. Modèles pour une pratique expérimentale. Genève: Métis Presses.

Mejias, U. A. (2013), Off the Network, Disrupting the Digital World. University of Minnesota Press.

Open Compute Project/Facebook. (2012). Deploying OCP Hardware in a Collocated Facility.

Rifkin, J. (2012). La troisième révolution industrielle. Comment le pouvoir latéral va transformer l’énergie, l’économie et le monde, Les liens qui libèrent.

Serres, M. (2011). Habiter, Le Pommier.

Shepard, M. (2011), Sentient City: Ubiquitous Computing, Architecture, and the Future of Urban Space, MIT Press.

Ulrberger, A. (2013). Habiter les aéroports, Paradoxe d’une nouvelle urbanité. Métis Presses.

Varnelis, K. (2009). The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles. Actar.

Varnelis, K. (2007). ETHER : One Wilshire, In Sumrell, R. & Varnelis, K., Blue Monday: Stories of Absurd Realities and Natural Philosophies, Actar, pp.48-89.

Weiser, M. (1991). The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, vol. 265, no. 3, pp. 66–75.

I&IC – Preliminary intentions

By Friday, September 5, 2014 Architecture, Design, Ethnography, Interaction Design, Projects, Sciences & Technology, Thinking, X-Posts Tags: 0009, A, B, C, D, Ideas, Intentions, Methodology, Sketches Permalink 0
Andrea Branzi, 1969, Research for "No-Stop City". Andrea Branzi, 1969, Research for "No-Stop City". Andrea Branzi, 1969, Research for "No-Stop City".

 

The following text was written as a description of our goals later in 2013, prior to the start of the project. The structure of the text follows the given guidelines. So to say, to get financing.

It is nonetheless a blueprint of what we intend to do and is published on the I&IC blog as a matter of documentation.

—

 

Inhabiting and Interfacing the Cloud(s)

An intredisciplinary design research project under the co-direction of Prof. Patrick Keller (ECAL) and Nicolas Nova (HEAD). With the support of HES-SO and the collaboration of ECAL, HEAD, EPFL (Prof. Dieter Dietz) and EPFL+ECAL Lab (Dir. Nicolas Henchoz).

 

This design research project explores the creation of counter-proposals to the current expression of “Cloud Computing”, particularly in its forms intended for private individuals and end users (“Personal Cloud”). It is to offer a critical appraisal of this “iconic” infrastructure of our modernity and its user interfaces, because to date their implementation has followed a logic chiefly of technical development, governed by the commercial interests of large corporations, and continues to be seen partly as a purely functional, centralized setup. However, the Personal Cloud holds a potential that is largely untapped in terms of design, novel uses and territorial strategies. Through its cross-disciplinary approach, our project aims at producing alternative models resulting from a more contemporary approach, notably factoring in the idea of creolization (Glissant, 1990). From a practical standpoint, the project is intended to produce speculative versions of the “Personal Cloud” in the form of prototypes (whether functional or otherwise) of new interfaces, data processing, reactive environments and communicating objects. To do this, the project will be built around three dimensions forming the relevant pillars of a cross-disciplinary approach: interaction design, the architectural and territorial dimension, and the ethnographic dimension.

Continue Reading…

ECAL / M&ID

By Monday, September 1, 2014 People, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0008, Architects, Designers, Designers (interaction), ECAL, Teaching Permalink 0

 

ECAL / Media & Interaction Design

—

Prof. Patrick Keller

Co-Head of the I&IC design research.

Patrick Keller is Professor at the University of Art & Design, Lausanne (ECAL) where he teaches design in the Media & Interaction Design unit. He was in charge of this unit between 2001 and 2004. In 2007, he led the design research Variable_Environment that united designers from ECAL and scientists from EPFL (design & sciences research).

Patrick is a founding member of fabric | ch, a studio for architecture, interaction and research. As part of his activity as creative director for the studio, he formulates new space proposals that combines digital, physical and environmental dimensions. Oscillating between devices, installations, experiments and productions, the work of the collective has been exhibited and published internationally, so has presented in numerous talks.

Patrick Keller studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne (EPFL) where he graduated in 1993 (M.Sc) and in Berlin. He then continued his education in the research labs of the EPFL with a postgraduate in Computer Graphics (Mas). Patrick worked at the EPFL as a research assistant where he contributed as a designer on several research projects between 1996 and 2000, before formally founding fabric | ch in 2001.

-

Contact: patrick[dot]keller[at]ecal[dot]ch

Continue Reading…

HEAD / MD

By Monday, September 1, 2014 People, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0007, Behavior, Designers (interaction), Ethnographers, HEAD, Teaching, Users Permalink 0

 

HEAD / Media Design

—

Prof. Nicolas Nova

Co-Head of the I&IC design research.

Nicolas Nova is Professor at the Geneva University of Arts and Design (HEAD – Geneva) and founder of the Near Future Laboratory, a design studio based in Europe and California. His work is about identifying weak signals as well as exploring people’s needs, motivations and contexts to map new design opportunities and chart potential futures.

Nicolas has given talks and exhibited his work on the intersections of design, technology and the near-future possibilities for new social-technical interaction rituals in venues such SXSW, AAS, O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference and the design week in Milano, the Institute for the Future, the MIT Medialab.

He holds a Phd in Human-Computer Interaction from the Swiss Institute of Technology (EPFL, Switzerland) and was previously a visiting researcher at the Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, CA). He is also curatot for Lift Conference, a series of international events about digital culture and innovation.

-

Contact: nicolas[dot]nova[at]hesge[dot]ch

Continue Reading…

EPFL / Alice

By Monday, September 1, 2014 People, Schools, X-Posts Tags: 0006, Architects, EPFL, Landscape, Teaching, Territory, Urbanism Permalink 0

 

EPFL / ALICE – Atelier de la conception de l’espace

 

Prof. Dieter Dietz

Educated at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (Arch. Degree 1991), Dieter Dietz also studied at the Cooper Union in New York with Diller/Scofidio. Since 2006, he is Associate Professor for Architectural Design at EPFL, director of the ALICE laboratory in the ENAC faculty. He collaborates with the ALICE team on research projects at diverse scales with labs inside and outside EPFL.

-

Contact: dieter[dot]dietz[at]epfl[dot]ch

Continue Reading…