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The radical history of space exploration from the Russian Cosmists to Elon Musk Many societies have imagined going to live in space. What they want to do once they get up there - whether conquering the unknown, establishing space "colonies," privatising the moon's resources - reveals more than expected. In this fascinating radical history of space exploration, Fred Scharmen shows that often science and fiction have combined in the imagined dreams of life in outer space, but these visions have real implications for life back on earth. For the Russian Cosmists of the 1890s space was a place to pursue human perfection away from the Earth. For others, such as Wernher Von Braun, it was an enginee...
In the summer of 1975, NASA brought together a team of physicists, engineers, and space scientists--along with architects, urban planners, and artists--to design large-scale space habitats for millions of people. Space Settlements examines these plans for life in space as serious architectural and spatial proposals.proposals.
[Winter 2016] Guest edited by architect Greg Lynn, Log 36: ROBOLOG explores the challenges and potentials posed to architecture by the rapidly accelerating field of robotics. Tossing aside the usual fabrication-focused discourse around robots, the 23 contributors to ROBOLOG investigate topics ranging from hyperrealistic robotic drag queens to machine vision to buildings that move. In addition to a collection of thought-provoking essays, this issue includes conversations with Elizabeth Diller, Nicholas de Monchaux and Ken Goldberg, and Chuck Hoberman. Rather than providing easy answers or touting cutting-edge technologies, ROBOLOG offers provocations to both architects and theorists. Robotic sensors, actuators, and networks have fundamentally transformed the world around us. What will architecture choose to do with them?
Nicknamed both “Mobtown” and “Charm City” and located on the border of the North and South, Baltimore is a city of contradictions. From media depictions in The Wire to the real-life trial of police officers for the murder of Freddie Gray, Baltimore has become a quintessential example of a struggling American city. Yet the truth about Baltimore is far more complicated—and more fascinating. To help untangle these apparent paradoxes, the editors of Baltimore Revisited have assembled a collection of over thirty experts from inside and outside academia. Together, they reveal that Baltimore has been ground zero for a slew of neoliberal policies, a place where inequality has increased as ...
What do outer space capsules, submarines, and office buildings have in common? Each is conceived as a closed system: a self-sustaining physical environment demarcated from its surroundings by a boundary that does not allow for the transfer of matter or energy. Contemporary discussions about global warming, recycling, and sustainability have emerged as direct conceptual constructs related to the study and analysis of closed systems. From the space program to countercultural architectural groups experimenting with autonomous living, this publication documents a disciplinary transformation and the rise of a new environmental consensus in the form of a synthetic naturalism. It presents an archive of 39 historical living prototypes from 1928 to the present that put forth an unexplored genealogy of closed resource regeneration systems. Prototypes are presented through unique discursive narratives with historical images, and each includes new analysis in the form of a feedback drawing that problematizes the language of environmental representation by illustrating loss, derailment, and the production of new substances and atmospheres.
Nominated for the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing 2023 Dylan was six when The End came, back in 2018; when the electricity went off for good, and the 'normal' 21st-century world he knew disappeared. Now he's 14 and he and his mam have survived in their isolated hilltop house above the village of Nebo in north-west Wales, learning new skills, and returning to old ways of living. Despite their close understanding, the relationship between mother and son changes subtly as Dylan must take on adult responsibilities. And they each have their own secrets, which emerge as, in turn, they jot down their thoughts and memories win a found notebook - the Blue Book of Nebo.
An essential exploration of how Russian ideas about the United States shaped architecture and urban design from the czarist era to the fall of the U.S.S.R. Idealized representations of America, as both an aspiration and a menace, played an important role in shaping Russian architecture and urban design from the American Revolution until the fall of the Soviet Union. Jean-Louis Cohen traces the powerful concept of “Amerikanizm” and its impact on Russia’s built environment from early czarist interest in Revolutionary America, through the spectacular World’s Fairs of the 19th century, to department stores, skyscrapers, and factories built in Russia using American methods during the 20th century. Visions of America also captivated the Russian avant-garde, from El Lissitzky to Moisei Ginzburg, and Cohen explores the ongoing artistic dialogue maintained between the two countries at the mid-century and in the late Soviet era, following a period of strategic competition. This first major study of Amerikanizm in the architecture of Russia makes a timely contribution to our understanding of modern architecture and its broader geopolitics.
In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil, and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation of thinkers, designers and engineers who hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities, and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present-day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the '60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert, and protesters on the streets of Paris. In this mind-bending account of the last avant garde, we see not just the source of our current problems but also some powerful alternative futures.
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Arrive. Survive. Thrive. Getting humans to Mars has become one of the great challenges of our time. Mars holds the potential of human settlement, and the promise of life after Earth. Some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, architects and engineers are dedicated to conquering this next frontier. Moving to Mars: Design for the Red Planet is one of the first books to focus on the crucial role that design will play in this collective endeavour. From the capsules that will need to keep passengers in harmony during their nine-month journey, to the habitats that they will live in, to the terraforming of the landscape to make it life-sustaining, every detail needs to be designed. This task is falling to the traditional space agencies such as NASA, and to private entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson, and to architects such as Norman Foster. As well as technical and practical solutions, this book will examine how design and design thinkers are approaching our move to Mars in unexpected ways. With striking, rarely-seen imagery and a unique design-led focus, this book will appeal to 'space junkies' and design enthusiasts alike.