#the former lecture is on computer architecture

[dekhocampus11]

Vellore Institute of Technology - VIT University, Vellore

Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, is one of India’s premier private universities, renowned for its academic excellence, innovation-driven curriculum, global collaborations, and exceptional infrastructure. Established in 1984 by Dr. G. Viswanathan, a former parliamentarian and educationist, VIT has grown into a world-class institution that attracts students from across India and over 50 countries. Located in Vellore, Tamil Nadu, the university offers a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs in engineering, technology, sciences, management, law, and social sciences.

Campus and Infrastructure

The VIT Vellore campus spans over 250 acres of lush greenery and modern architecture. The campus is meticulously designed to support learning, research, and holistic development. With smart classrooms, advanced laboratories, libraries, and high-speed internet connectivity, VIT provides a highly digitized and comfortable learning environment.

One of the highlights of the campus is the Technology Tower, which symbolizes innovation and houses cutting-edge research facilities. The Central Library, known as the Knowledge Resource Centre, is one of the largest in India, offering both print and digital resources.

Hostel facilities are world-class, with separate residential complexes for men and women. Rooms are available in various configurations, and the hostels are equipped with cafeterias, gyms, reading areas, and recreational spaces. The campus is also known for its cleanliness, eco-friendliness, and sustainability initiatives, such as rainwater harvesting and solar power.

Academic Programs

VIT offers over 60 undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs across multiple disciplines. The most popular courses are in engineering and technology, but the university has expanded into emerging areas like bioengineering, fashion technology, business, and law.

Popular Undergraduate Programs:

B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE)

B.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE)

B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering (ME)

B.Tech in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science

B.Des (Industrial Design)

BBA and B.Com

B.Sc. in Multimedia and Animation

BA LLB (Hons), BBA LLB (Hons)

Postgraduate Programs:

M.Tech in various specializations

MBA (VIT Business School)

M.Sc. in Data Science, Physics, Chemistry, and Biotechnology

MCA and MA (English)

The university follows a Fully Flexible Credit System (FFCS), which allows students to design their own course schedules and choose subjects and faculty based on their interests. This student-centric approach encourages self-learning and academic freedom.

Faculty and Pedagogy

VIT boasts a highly qualified and experienced faculty base, with many members holding PhDs and international exposure. The teaching methodology emphasizes project-based learning, practical exposure, and industry-relevant assignments. Classes are supplemented with guest lectures, workshops, online learning tools, and seminars.

The university also promotes interdisciplinary learning. Students can take minors in other departments to widen their knowledge base—for instance, a computer science student can minor in business or psychology.

Research and Innovation

VIT has a strong focus on research and innovation. The Office of Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy (OSR) supports faculty and student-led research. VIT ranks among the top institutions in India in terms of the number of publications, patents filed, and research funding.

VIT’s research centers work in cutting-edge areas such as:

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Renewable Energy

Nanotechnology

Biotechnology and Bioinformatics

Cybersecurity

The TBI (Technology Business Incubator) supports startups and student entrepreneurs by providing mentorship, infrastructure, seed funding, and networking opportunities. Several student-led startups have emerged from VIT over the years.

Global Collaborations

VIT has established partnerships with over 300 universities worldwide, including Purdue University, RMIT (Australia), University of Michigan, and Queensland University of Technology. Through these collaborations, students have access to international exchange programs, dual degree opportunities, internships, and collaborative research.

The Semester Abroad Program (SAP) allows eligible students to complete a semester at a foreign university. Many students have benefited from exposure to different academic and cultural environments, which enhances their global competence.

Placements and Career Support

VIT Vellore is known for its excellent placement record. The Career Development Centre (CDC) works round the year to bring top recruiters to the campus. The university holds a Limca Book of Records recognition for the highest number of recruitments in a single placement season from a single institution.

Top recruiters include:

Microsoft

Amazon

TCS

Infosys

Deloitte

Wipro

Cognizant

Intel

Schneider Electric

EY

Students receive job offers in software development, consulting, data analytics, core engineering, and business roles. The university also supports students aiming for higher studies through guidance for GRE, TOEFL, GATE, and CAT.

Student Life and Extracurriculars

VIT encourages a vibrant campus life beyond academics. There are over 100 student clubs and organizations spanning music, dance, drama, sports, photography, robotics, coding, and entrepreneurship. These clubs organize events, competitions, and workshops throughout the year.

The annual cultural fest Riviera is one of the largest in South India, attracting students from across the country. Technical fests like GraVITas offer platforms for innovation, coding challenges, and hackathons.

Sports facilities are extensive, including indoor and outdoor stadiums, a swimming pool, tennis and basketball courts, and gymnasiums.

Social Responsibility and Inclusiveness

VIT actively engages in social responsibility initiatives through VIT Community Radio, NSS units, and various outreach programs. Students participate in rural development, environmental awareness, health camps, and education drives.

The university maintains a strong commitment to inclusivity, with scholarships and financial aid programs for meritorious and underprivileged students.

Conclusion

Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore, is more than just an engineering college—it is a multidisciplinary institution that fosters academic excellence, research, innovation, and global engagement. With its world-class infrastructure, student-centric policies, and dynamic ecosystem, VIT continues to shape the future leaders, innovators, and changemakers of India and the world.

Whether a student aspires to become a tech entrepreneur, a researcher, a corporate leader, or a global professional, VIT provides the platform, mentorship, and opportunities to turn those aspirations into reality.

[architectuul]

Autobus Park №7: Kyiv’s Abandoned Transport Circus

Kyiv might be Europe’s single greatest city for late-twentieth century Modernist architecture. It boasts many wild, eclectic, and vividly imaginative examples of the style, built during the height of Soviet monument-mania. Though amongst its steel and concrete marvels of Soviet-era architecture, one of Kyiv’s most striking modern buildings has, in recent years, also become one of the city’s most problematic ruins. Autobus Park №7  – once the pride of the Ukrainian transport industry – exists today as a decaying morgue for almost a thousand abandoned buses.

Autobus Park №7 today. | Photo © Darmon Richter

The design challenge of the Autobus Park №7 was to create an efficient depot capable of housing and maintaining a fleet of some 500 buses, in an urban environment where building space was limited. Had the building been constructed like a warehouse, or a factory, using a square plan and a regular pillar-based solution for supporting the roof, it was estimated that the total size of the building would have needed to be at least 4,000 square metres. However, an ingenious solution was proposed instead.

Under construction (1972), promotional photographs (1970s) and technical sketches (1979). | Photo via Khabarovsk Polytechnic Institute.

The chief engineers on the project, V. A. Kozlov and S. I. Smorgon, were responsible for the idea of using a cable-suspended roof. They took their inspiration from circus buildings – the cylindrical concrete-and-steel constructions which were by this time a ubiquitous feature in cities throughout the Soviet Union. By designing the building on a circular plan, and suspending concrete roof panels on cables strung between a central support pillar and the outer walls, it was found that both space and construction costs could be significantly reduced. Moreover, this design, with its organic, circular shape, lent itself more to what was then considered a modern and humanistic work environment for employees – while its form, reminiscent of circuses and Palaces of Culture, presented the bus depot not as a bland, functional box, but rather a community venue.

Kyiv’s Autobus Park №7 during its heyday with the tall building on the left accommodating administrative offices and staff canteens. | Photo via Exutopia

Left: Workers outside Kyiv Autobus Park №7 in 1977;  right: A new fleet of buses ready for service, 1975. | Photo via Exutopia

Kozlov and Smorgon built a 1:10 scale model to test their idea. The central support pillar would be 18 metres high, a tower of reinforced concrete with a diameter of 8 metres, consisting of 0.3-metre thick concrete walls around an inner support of solid steel with a cross-section of 0.32 x 0.22 metres. Attached to the top of this pillar, were 84 radial cables – steel ropes with a diameter of 65 millimetres. Each of these cables was able to support a weight of up to 350 tons, and the roof would be constructed on top of them: a suspended tent dome, created from concrete plates, and with a total diameter of 160 metres.

On its completion in 1973, the building was considered an engineering marvel – its hanging roof was one of the largest ever constructed, and this system of support reduced the building’s necessary size from 40,000 square metres (the estimate for a pillar-supported roof) to a footprint of just 23,000 square metres. 

Details of the relief on the front of building showing staff, passengers, vehicles, and the logos of various automotive brands. | Photo © Darmon Richter

As much as possible, the design aimed to take advantage of natural light. The concrete plates of the roof were fitted with portholes, most of which were concentrated close around the main support tower. In the outer wall, upright glass cylinders were installed between concrete panels, serving as sturdy support pillars that both insulated the building against the cold outside, and allowed refracted light to shine into the wings of the building. This solution proved particularly robust, and most of these glass pillars have survived intact since the early 1970s until this day. Between them, these design choices resulted in an interior space and working area that enjoyed bright sunlight during the day, thus minimising the additional cost of electrical lighting.

Attached to the 18m central support pillar, a metal staircase leads up to an observation platform. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Once operational, Autobus Park №7 was the largest vehicle depot in the Soviet Union – and it was rumoured, potentially the largest anywhere in the world. It served as more than just a garage, though. It was the base of operations for the entire fleet of buses serving the capital, including city buses, intercity buses, and also those working international routes, to Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia. The building was fully air-conditioned, it featured a four-gate vehicle wash, and a mechanised repair bay fitted with conveyor belt systems. The building had a staff of 1,500 workers, and featured workers’ canteens, as well as a computing centre too – where teams calculated staff salaries and work shifts, as well as designing and optimising bus routes.

Sadly, the glory days of Autobus Park №7 would be short-lived. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, many of the fleet’s international routes were discontinued. Services were gradually reduced through the 1990s, into the 2000s, while meanwhile, the building was increasingly used to store wrecked vehicles awaiting repair or decommissioning. The reduction of domestic bus routes in 2005 was a further blow, and eventually, in 2015, the autopark closed its doors for good – the building slipping into disrepair, as the once-proud circus was steadily transformed into a scrapyard.

Since it was officially closed in 2015, almost 1,000 buses have been stored inside the abandoned building. | Photo © Darmon Richter

Today, Autobus Park №7 in Kyiv seems to be locked in a downward spiral of decay. The building itself is nothing short of an engineering marvel, an extraordinary work of architecture that supporters have suggested could be adapted now into a museum, or even a film studio. In April 2018 a petition was registered on the website of Kyiv City Council, calling for the building’s preservation – but it only received 321 votes, a long way short of its target of 10,000 signatures. Even had it been successful though, good intentions don’t count for much without action and intent on the part of Kyiv City Council; where currently, any talks of potential preservation are being blocked at a bureaucratic level.

For 25 years the building has been owned by the company Kyivpastrans (‘Kyiv Passenger Transportation), whose deputy general director, Sergey Litvinov, has said that Autobus Park №7 poses an imminent risk of collapse, and, given the cost and scale of such a project, would be almost impossible to save. Meanwhile, other former transport depots around the city have already been bulldozed to make room for new residential blocks and shopping centres. Many property developers would jump at the chance of getting their hands on this 23,000-square metre plot – and from the perspective of the current owners, it is probably a more attractive financial proposition. The building is neither listed nor protected, so were it empty, there would be nothing to stop the owners from knocking it down overnight.

This rooftop capsule offered a panoramic view of the 180-metre diameter suspended roof of Autobus Park №7. | Photo © Darmon Richter

However, for the time being all parties are locked into a kind of stalemate over the building’s contents. The estimated 903 rusting vehicles stored inside (including LAZ, Volvo, Ikarus, and various other brands of urban and long-distance buses) pose a major administrative problem. These buses cannot easily be removed, or scrapped, as technically they are yet to be decommissioned from service. A new regulation that was introduced into Ukrainian law in 2013 complicated the bureaucratic procedure and created a backlog; so that all of the vehicles inside Autobus Park №7 today are – officially, on paper – still in service and awaiting audit. As such they cannot legally be taken apart for scrap, and right now, there’s nowhere else to store them in the city but here.

The vehicles have still not been officially decommissioned under Ukrainian law – which means they cannot be scrapped until the necessary paperwork is processed. | Photo © Darmon Richter

So for now, it’s a waiting game. If Kyivpastrans and Kyiv City Council are able to solve the bureaucratic headache of their vehicle decommissioning procedure, remove the abandoned buses, and then find the will, not to mention the funding, to undertake the colossal project of preserving Autobus Park №7 (while turning down more lucrative offers from property developers in the process), then perhaps the building might yet be saved. But in the meanwhile, the circus roof is sagging, and young trees are already sprouting from cracks in the concrete.

It may just be that this building, an engineering marvel of the Soviet period, having failed to find its place in a post-Soviet world, is doomed to go the same way as the regime that built it.

--

by Darmon Richter 

[adapted with permission from an article at Ex Utopia]

Sources: Smena Magazine (1974) Issue No.19 Khabarovsk Polytechnic Institute (1979) Reinforced Concrete Space Structures (lecture notes, p.24-26), M. P. Danilovsky Hmarochos (2018) Why are Storage Facilities for Faulty Kyivpastrans Buses Being Set Up in Kyiv? Kiev Vlast (2019) Kyiv City Council Decided to Solve the Riddle of Bus Depot №7

[designmorphine]

We are so happy to announce that, Marcela Spadaro, an Architect, Architectural photographer, co-founder of @studio_naaro, and former lead architect at Zaha Hadid Architects, will be delivering a lecture at the Computational Design: NEXT 10 conference. - Sign up here or link in bio: https://parametric-architecture.com/computational-design-next-10/ - Event details: Date: July 16-17, 2022 (Saturday & Sunday) Time: 12:30 - 20:30 UTC Where: ZOOM Online - Marcela and Naaro, a London-based studio, specializes in documenting the narrative of innovative design in pictures and film and offers compelling visual storytelling of creative architecture from across the world. Marcela teaches architectural photography at London College of Communications in addition to her work with Naaro, an academic practice she claims is inextricably linked to her professional practice. - Project above: V&A Dundee & Odunpazari Modern Museum, by Kengo Kuma & Associates - @cdnext @parametric.architecture @designmorphine @ekimroyrp @pa.next @hamithz @thepaacademy #marcelaspadaro #houdini #houdinifx #workshop #webinar #photography #architecturalphotography #fashion #fashiondesign #artist #parametric #parametricdesign #parametricarchitecture #computationaldesign #computational #computation #grasshopper3d #rhino3d #rhinoceros3d #algorithm #design #art #architecture #conference #superarchitects #nextarch #rhino #architecturestudent #cdnext #conference (at 𝓣𝓱𝒆 𝓤𝒏𝒊𝓿𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfI6XjsOeFJ/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[architectnews]

Barbara Hepworth Building Huddersfield

Barbara Hepworth Building University of Huddersfield, New Yorkshire Architecture, English Project News

Barbara Hepworth Building

Art, Design & Architecture Development in West Yorkshire, North England design by AHR Architects, UK

20 Oct 2020

Barbara Hepworth Building News

Design: AHR, Architects

Location: Queensgate, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, northern England, UK

Barbara Hepworth Building wins major national award

20th of October 2020 – The University of Huddersfield’s Barbara Hepworth Building has been named as the Project of the Year at the prestigious Education Estates awards.

The eye-catching home of the School of Art, Design and Architecture won Project of the Year (Colleges and Universities) from the awards that are partnered with the Department for Education.

And the University also performed excellently elsewhere at the awards, with Sovereign Design House winning a Highly Commended in the Refurbishment of the Year category.

The Barbara Hepworth Building was completed in 2019, and features a dramatic flying cantilever design that has seen it quickly become a local landmark. Built on a sloping, canal side location that required a great deal of work prior to the building’s construction began, it has already won several awards including Constructing Excellence’s Building Project of the Year in 2019.

The University’s Acting Director of Estates and Facilities, Tim Hosker, commented, “We are proud of what we have created, embodying the town and looking aspiringly to the future, establishing Huddersfield as a premier design destination, made possible through the intuitive design of this exemplary facility.”

Sovereign Design House is a former bath house for foundry workers that was built in the 1950s on land adjacent to the Barbara Hepworth Building. It re-opened as a café, exhibition space and gallery earlier in 2020 following a restoration project that, like its neighbour, also involved partners in construction firm Morgan Sindall and architects AHR.

“The Sovereign Design House is fantastic addition to the University’s facilities and exhibition spaces,” said Nic Clear, Dean of the School of Art, Design and Architecture. “This beautifully developed project has preserved a unique building from Huddersfield’s industrial past by keeping exterior intact and retaining features from its original function as a factory bath house.

“It provides a vibrant public café and a gallery space that will help the School of Art, Design and Architecture showcase student and staff work, as well as providing an exciting opportunity to exhibit work from nationally and internationally recognised artists and designers.”

Previously on e-architect:

22 July 2019

Barbara Hepworth Building, University of Huddersfield

Design: AHR Architects

Location: Queensgate, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK

University of Huddersfield’s new £30 million Barbara Hepworth Building reaches completion

The new AHR-designed Barbara Hepworth Building is complete and has been celebrated with a royal visit from HRH The Duke of York, KG. The £30 million building, built by Morgan Sindall Construction, will house the School of Art, Design and Architecture, enabling these disciplines to be united under one roof for the first time in an exciting hub of creative studios and technology facilities.

The new building brings digital and physical innovation together in one space, epitomising the School’s philosophy and acknowledging millennia of creative practice whilst looking ahead to the future. The design sets the scene for spontaneous interactions, ideas and innovations within, sparking new ways of working that will push the boundaries of creativity and find collaborative solutions to complex challenges.

Anthony Langan, Director and Education Lead at AHR, said, “The School’s aspiration and our shared vision with the University was to bring together students and staff across different creative courses and generations. We achieved this by approaching the design of the building as one open and flexible learning hub that will catalyse creativity through interconnected working and learning spaces. This also includes more relaxed areas, such as the café and outdoor terraces, which allow important chance encounters and casual discussions to take place.

“As architects, it is a great honour to design an exemplary and inspirational building in which the architects, designers and creatives of the future will develop their craft. We are very proud of what we have created and look forward to the possibilities that will be realised through its use.”

Paul Limb, Project Director at Morgan Sindall Construction, said: “This project has been incredibly rewarding for our team to work on. We’ve developed a strong relationship with the University over recent years, and it’s been a privilege to welcome students on to the site to learn more about the complex construction process involved in creating incredible buildings like this. Through the use of cutting-edge technology we’ve been able to deliver AHR’s ambitious vision for the University and create a building befitting of Barbara Hepworth’s legacy, and one that is the perfect environment for the School’s students to nurture their crafts.”

The design team was inspired by the ancient art of origami, developing an innovative and iconic cantilever structure that addresses the site’s 5 metre level change, while celebrating its canal-side location by offering stunning views.

The façade boasts a unique laser-cut veil, each panel individually designed by AHR, inspired by textiles and the history of the neighbouring mills, but with a contemporary and abstract twist. The panels minimise glare and overheating, while the building’s transparency gives passers-by an intriguing glimpse of the creative processes and advanced technologies at work within.

A vast and airy entrance atrium provides a central navigation point and a powerful welcome. The Phidias Lab allows students from across the School to enjoy and showcase work in virtual design disciplines, with high performance visualisation and motion capture resources. Other bespoke facilities include the Materials Library, textile design studios, print and dye areas, workshop areas, postgraduate research space, lecture space, and studios for photography, graphic design, product design and fashion, with CAD computer laboratories.

Sustainability was a key driver in the design process, with the building designed to achieve BREEAM Excellent with an EPC rating of A.

In order to bring AHR’s vision to life, Morgan Sindall Construction deployed cutting-edge digital construction and mixed-reality technology to enable its team to better examine the project as it developed, with 3D laser scanning proving crucial during the construction of the building’s audacious cantilevered structure. The use of Microsoft Hololens also enabled the project team to inspect and complete walk-throughs within a projection of the building in order to undertake surveys and risk assessments of the project as it developed, which proved crucial to the safety and smooth running of the scheme.

The building’s completion marks another successful project by AHR for the University of Huddersfield. The practice has completed a broad range of work across the Queensgate Campus, including the design and delivery of the £27 million Oastler Building – also built by Morgan Sindall Construction -, the extensive remodelling and refurbishment of the Joseph Priestley Building, and the conversion of the historic Sir John Ramsden Court from flats into University office accommodation.

AHR was shortlisted for Higher Education Architect of the Year in the 2019 BD Architect of the Year Awards and has won two RIBA Regional Awards this year.

28 Nov 2018

Barbara Hepworth Building in Huddersfield

Barbara Hepworth Building at the University of Huddersfield

Architects AHR attend topping out ceremony for University’s new £30m building

28th of November 2018 – As the five-storey, 7,500 square metre Barbara Hepworth Building takes shape, the University was pleased to welcome AHR’s Gurminder Sanghera and Andrew France and Dr Sophie Bowness, granddaughter of Wakefield sculptor Barbara Hepworth, to the ‘topping out’ ceremony.

Construction of the University of Huddersfield’s new £30 million centre for the study of art, design and architecture is months ahead of schedule, and it has witnessed an unusual “topping out” ceremony conducted by the granddaughter of Dame Barbara Hepworth, the famous artist who has given the building its name.

Dr Sophie Bowness – who is an art historian and a trustee of the world-famous Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield – was invited to turn a bolt on one of the 146 aluminium panels that will be fixed to the glazed walls of the new building. Their function will be to reduce solar glare, but architects AHR have ensured that they are also an artistic adornment.

One of the great sculptors of the 20th century, Barbara Hepworth, who lived from 1903 to 1975, was born and educated in Wakefield. She was the first choice to be commemorated by the new University of Huddersfield building and at the topping out ceremony Vice-Chancellor Professor Bob Cryan thanked Dr Bowness for giving permission to use her grandmother’s name.

The ceremony was attended by AHR’s Regional Director Gurminder Sanghera and Director Andrew France. AHR were the architects behind the University’s £28 million Oastler Building, opened in 2017, which was announced as the Best Education Building at the West Yorkshire Local Authority Building Control Awards.

AHR Director and Education Sector Lead, Anthony Langan, said: “The University is investing heavily in its estate, creating world-class facilities for students and staff. We are proud to once again be working with the University on another iconic building.

“This will be a dynamic building which reflects the artistic and innovative work of the departments based within it. Facilities will include cutting-edge design and construction studios, fine art studios, CAD computer laboratories, lecture rooms, research space, a library and café.”

Barbara Hepworth Building at the University of Huddersfield images / information from University of Huddersfield

AHR Architects

Another University of Huddersfield building on e-architect:

Oastler Building at the University of Huddersfield Design: AHR Architects image courtesy of architects Oastler Building at the University of Huddersfield

Address: Queensgate, University of Huddersfield, Yorkshire, northern England, HD1 3DH, UK Phone: +44 1484 422288

Yorkshire Architecture

New Yorkshire Architecture

Yorkshire Architecture:

RIBA Yorkshire Awards

York Theatre Royal Building Redevelopment Design: De Matos Ryan Artists’ Impression : De Matos Ryan York Theatre Royal Building

Hepworth Gallery, Wakefield David Chipperfield Architects photograph © Iwan Baan The Hepworth Building for sculptures by late Barbara Hepworth + Wakefield public art collection

Yorkshire Buildings in Major Cities

Leeds Buildings

Sheffield Buildings

Bradford Buildings

FUTURE PARK Design: Bond Bryan / Fallon image courtesy of architecture practice FUTURE PARK Yorkshire Building

Yorkshire Higher Education Buildings

York St. John University Creative Centre Building Design: Tate Harmer, Architects image courtesy of architects Creative Centre at York St. John University Building

Bradford Academy Bond Bryan Architects Bradford Academy building

Castleford Bridge McDowell+Bendetti with Alan Baxter Associates and Arup Castleford Bridge

Castleford Project Bridge DSDHA Tickle Cock Bridge

Sheffield Hallam University Furnival Building Bond Bryan Architects Yorkshire building

Sheffield Hallam University Faculty Building Bond Bryan Architects Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield University Building RMJM Yorkshire University Building

University of Sheffield – Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre Bond Bryan Architects Yorkshire building

University of Sheffield Environmental Research Centre Bond Bryan Architects Yorkshire building

English Architect

County Architecture adjacent to Yorkshire

County Durham buildings

Humberside Buildings

Lincolnshire Buildings

Website: Oastler Building at the University of Huddersfield

Yorkshire Building Designs

Comments / photos for the Barbara Hepworth Building, University of Huddersfield Architecture page welcome

Website: University of Huddersfield

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[biointernet]

BioGeometry

BioGeometry

BioGeometry

BioGeometry is an environmental science that uses the energy principles of shape to introduce equilibrium into the fundamental energy harmonics of biological systems, within the overall framework of environmental energy interactions. The BioGeometry effect is a relationship between the BioGeometry energy-quality balanced environment and the biological systems within it, and one of our main missions has been to research and highlight this effect among a variety of biological systems (humans, plants, and animals) through independent scientific research. The science of BioGeometry has become the de facto benchmark in the harmonization of environmental electromagnetic and geopathic stress. This is showcased in our work over the past few years with the Swiss government and Swiss telecom provider SwissCom in the BioGeometry environmental harmonization of the Swiss rural towns of Hemberg and Hirschberg, for which we received official recognition from the Swiss government, as well as extensive international media coverage, including a documentary on our work in Hirschberg that aired on Swiss national television channel SF1. Dr. Ibrahim Karim, an architect by profession, established BioGeometry Consulting Ltd in 1997. against the backdrop of his own architecture consulting firm Al-Emara, which was founded in 1939 by his father, renowned architect Dr. Sayed Karim. Al- Emara was recognized as the first architecture “house of expertise” (Reg. No. 001) in the Arab world. This was based on the pioneering modern architecture work of Dr. S. Karim, and an extensive portfolio of regional and international city planning that included Jeddah, Riyadh, Kuwait City, Abu Dhabi, Nablus, Santiago, and Brussels. Dr. I. Karim’s began his research that would eventually lead to the development of the science of BioGeometry early in his architecture career. Today BioGeometry is compromised of three companies worldwide, including BioGeometry Energy Systems Ltd. (Canada), BioGeometry Consulting Ltd. (Egypt), and BioGeometry Europe (Switzerland), which are working together to further research, education, and application of the science of BioGeometry. Dr. Karim “officially” founded the science of BioGeometry in 1993, after more than thirty years of research, with the issuance of the first worldwide patent by the Egyptian Ministry of Scientific Research. This patent was based on two years of official research by the Egyptian National Research Center, where Dr. Karim was the head of a committee on the research of the effect of his proprietary BioGeometry shapes on the biological functions of microorganisms. This first patent embodied the results of the research and officially recognized the first BioGeometry shape, describing that it “achieves a resulting field around the shape that can produce certain effects on the energy fields of biological systems, with measurable results. First experiments in raising the level of immunity were successful according to the results of clinical and laboratory analysis.” BioGeometry energy-quality balancing solutions are being applied for the environmental electromagnetic and geopathic stress harmonization of residential and commercial spaces, as well as for larger geographical areas. BioGeometry energy-balancing architectural and industrial design consulting solutions are offered. Applied solutions for telecom and Wi-Fi networks, as well as aircraft and ships are available to transmute the effects of environmental energy disturbances from sources such as electromagnetic radiation, structural design, and cosmic and earth-energy radiation. A line of BioGeometry products for individual and home use is also available to offer basic BioGeometry energy-quality balancing as a long-term support system for our well-being, and our personal development education curriculum is offered in Egypt, as well as through an international network of licensed instructors. GDVPLANET YouTube BioGeometry channel BioGeometry ABOUT | Dr. Ibrahim Karim Biography by Rawya Karim On Dr. Ibrahim Karim’s desk is an abstract figure with the inscription “Only those who see the invisible, can do the impossible”. Chosen by his youngest daughter Doreya, it is the best description of him. What started off as an occasional gathering of friends grew over twenty years into a weekly pivot in the lives of many people of different ages, religions, professions, social background and nationalities. Unstructured lectures and dialogues about almost any subject, where Dr. Karim believed that he has learned as much as he has taught his holistic approach which he calls the BioGeometrical Way; a new and expanded world view; equally scientific and spiritual in essence. In his own words “to be truly holistic it must incorporate anything and everything”. BioGeometrical shapes interact with Earth’s energy to produce a balancing effect on all energy levels of biological systems. Research into shapes of body organs led to the discovery of the relationship between of organ function, energy pattern, and shape. These patterns called “BioSignatures” produce, through resonance, a balance of energy and immunity that support orthodox and alternative medicine. An Architect by profession; graduate of the renowned F.I.T. Zurich, Switzerland; with BA/MA,and D.Sc. in Tourist Planning. He occasionally teaches as visiting professor of Architecture at several universities. Dr. Karim owns: Alemara Consultants Architecture firm founded by his father Dr. Sayed Karim in the1930’s, who is the main pioneer of modern architecture in the Middle East and author of several books on the Culture behind the greatness of Ancient Egypt. While still a postgraduate student in Switzerland, a chance meeting with Dr. Mahmoud Mahfouz led to an intellectual, philosophical conversation on hospital design and other topics. Dr. Mahfouz, later Minister of Health, appointed Dr. Ibrahim Karim as the youngest Consultant in the Egyptian Government, in order to bring innovative thinking to his Ministry. Dr. Karim worked in integrated health planning and developed new design concepts of flexibility and expansion for health projects in addition to working in the USAID project of Urban Health Development. In 1976 he was a consultant to Dubai’s ministry of health and is, since over twenty years, a member of the British Royal Society Of Health, and founding member of the Imhotep society in Egypt for scientific research in the alternative sciences. In 1982 Dr. Karim was a consultant to the Minister of Culture, the late Mohammed Radwan and e put the initial concept for the new Museum of Civilization for which the international appeal for funding was launched by UNESCO. Later on, as a consultant to the Minister of Tourism in 1985, he did the first tourist planning for the Red Sea and Western Sinai coastal areas. As a consultant to the Minister of Scientific Research in 1990e was the principle investigator of the environmental pilot project on the Mahmoudiya Canal in Alexandria and headed a committee at the National Research Center to research the effect of geometrical shapes on biological functions. He patented the first BioGeometrical shapes in 1993, others followed. He received an award at the international congress for inventors in 1998. His work as an architect includes several hospitals, residential and scientific projects, as well as tourist resorts on the Red Sea. While renovating the museum of Ancient Egyptian medicine in 1972, Dr. Fawzi Soleiman Sowiha, the director of the museum,introduced him to the science of Radiesthesia and with him he met Dr. Khalil Messiha, who introduced him to the French system of Physical Radiesthesia and its Ancient Egyptian origins. In France, at the Maison de Radiesthesie he acquired original books and instruments, those of the pioneers of this science. Fluent in many languages, Dr. Karim was able to combine modern concepts of physics, Harmonics, Perception, as well asPythagorean theories to develop a new “Physics of Quality” and based on it, a science of “qualitative” measurement: Egyptian Radiesthesia. It became the main research tool in his subtle energy research, supported by biofeedback and Bio-Imaging devices. Taking this research into Architecture, Geobiology and Building Biology, he found the basis on which he developed his new science of BioGeometry. Sportsman? In essence and practice,; yes!. From Light Athletics to tournament table tennis;, he switched to tennis with his children, because he believed in parenting by example. They became top tournament tennis players in Egypt and received Athletic scholarships at Rice, Tulane and Loyola universities in USA, and AUC in Egypt. “Competitive sports gave us a positive family interaction and an opportunity to give the children freedom to grow, travel and experience life in a healthy, controlled environment.” Connoisseur? Definitely; Former Chancellor of the international Gourmet Society “Chaine Des Rotisseurs”, enthusiast and collector of classic sports cars, watches, manuscripts, cameras, electronics, computers andmultimedia among other things. Dr. Karim gives seminars and workshops, in Europe, America, and the Middle East. He is regularly on radio and television (e.g. Reuters, CNN). He had his own daily television program: “God grant me knowledge”, during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, at the turn of the Millennium, on Egyptian Satellite Channel. Since March 2002 he has a weekly one-hour program on the Egyptian ‘El Mehwer’ satellite channel. He did research in BioGeometrical organic planting with Prof. Peter Mols of the University of Wageningen in Holland and conducted a workshop to find solutions to harmful Earth radiation at the Design Academy of Eindhoven. In Egypt, he joined the “National Hepatitis C Research Project” lead by the late Dr.Taha Khalifa, Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy of at Al-Azhar University, where he achieved significant results. These significant research results of the research were made public on air by Dr. Khalifa in a historic, often repeated, television program that included the former minister of Health, as well as prominent medical doctors, in the “Mesaha Horra” series, presented by Isaad Younis on the Orbit Satellite television channel in 1999. He is also discussing, with the governor of Alexandria, the ambitious futuristic project of the energy balance of the city. He is constantly traveling in the USA, Europe, and the Middle East, on consulting work in energy balancing of buildings. Resume Born in Cairo, Egypt on Feb.1st, 1942 Nationality: Egyptian Education - 1958: Oxford & Cambridge matriculation, Victoria College, Cairo – 1967: M.A. Architecture, Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich – 1975: D.Sc. Architecture & Town Planning, Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich Government Consulting Positions - 1969-1980: Consultant to the Minister of Health - 1969-1980: Consultant to the Minster of Culture - 1985-1988: Consultant to the Minister of Tourism - 1990-Present: Consultant to the Minister of Scientific Research Leadership - Founder of the science of BioGeometry - Holder of BioGeometry patents pursuant to scientific clinical research at the Egyptian National Research Center. - Founder, President & CEO of BioGeometry Energy Systems Ltd, BioGeometry Consulting. - Owner/Managing Director of Alemara Architectural Consultants (Dr. Sayed Karim & Dr. Ibrahim Karim). - Chairman of the Committee on the Influence of Geometrical Shapes on Life Functions, Egyptian National Research Center (1993-1995). - Co-founder of Imhotep Scientific Society in Egypt (1985). - Prize in International Conference for Inventors: 20th Century Gate, Cairo, Dec. 1998 Teaching Experience - 1972, 1978: Visiting professor of architecture, Helwan University, Cairo – Ongoing supervision of Masters and Doctorate architecture degrees in BioGeometry Architecture Design Principles (Cairo & Alexandria Universities). – International BioGeometry educational curriculum courses, supported by a network of certified instructors and institutions. Architectural Consulting Projects with U.S. Aid & Egyptian Government - Environmental project in Mahmoudeya Canal, Alexandria in collaboration with Ministry of Scientific Research. - Urban Health Development Projects; upgrading of 14 health centers in Cairo in collaboration with Ministry of Health. - Population Project: 20 health centers in Giza and Quena in collaboration with World Bank and Ministry of Health. - Participant in USAID-USIS visitors program for the study of tourism and environmental planning in different areas of the United States (June 1992). - Eleven public hospitals for the Ministry of Health (1969-1980). - Several governmental seismic centers (1980′s). - Regional planning of Red Sea area (1980′s). Biogeometry Architecture Projects - Old Vic Resort, Hurghada, Red Sea (includes 22BioGeometry architecture units). - Portrait Resort, Ain Sokhna, Red Sea (includes 120BioGeometry architecture units). - Menaville Hotel Safaga (Thermal Karlovy Vary Center). Examples of BioGeometry Research Projects - Preliminary laboratory studies at the Egyptian National Research Center, where Dr. Ibrahim Karim headed the research unit on the Influence of Geometrical Shapes on Life Functions, showed that BioGeometry shapes have a “positive effect on biological functions.” This led to the first Egyptian patent in BioGeometry at the Ministry of Scientific Research. - Egyptian National Virus C Comparative Study: The Dean of the Pharmacology Department at Al-Azhar University, Egypt, announced on Egyptian Satellite TV that the preliminary phase of the comparative National Virus C Project carried out by his College showed that BioGeometry energy-balancing obtained the best results among all other pharmaceutical and alternative remedies. - A three-year research project at the University of Wageningen, Holland, by Professor Peter Mols on the use of BioGeometry in apple agriculture, concluded that BioGeometry was effective in eliminating certain parasites and significantly increasing agricultural yield. - A preliminary research project carried out by the Dutch agricultural firm Team EcoSys to study the role of BioGeometry in potato farming concluded that BioGeometry energy balancing significantly increased the immunity and quality of the potatoes. - As part of an MA thesis supervised by Dr. Ahmed Hussein of Suez Canal University and the Ministry of Agriculture, BioGeometry energy-balancing solutions were implemented in poultry farming as a research study. The published results showed that BioGeometry was effective in significantly increasing the growth and quality of the chicken while also lowering the mortality rate. - This project was successfully repeated in 2014 with Nutrinor, Quebec, in Canada in order to grow chickens without the use of antibiotics or growth factors, while lowering the mortality rate, achieving a better food/weight conversion ratio and increased healthy weight development. This has lead to collaboration with Nutrinor in applying BioGeometry to their animal farming department. - A two-month experiment by the late Eng. Adel Ammar to test the possibility of using BioGeometry to allow freshwater plants (sweet potato) to grow in salt water from the Red Sea showed astonishing results: sweet potato plants grown with BG3 salt water developed healthier sweet potatoes than the two control units. -Double-blind experimentation showed that BioGeometry successfully reduced driver’s physiological stress markers as seen using biofeedback measurements. - Preliminary experiments in introducing BioGeometry into the classroom design indicated that BioGeometry energy balancing had a positive impact on children with learning disabilities. - A Design Approach Using BioGeometry in Interior Architectural Spaces with Reference to Heal Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,” by Dina Ra’afat Abdul Rahman Howeidy, a PHD thesis completed at the Cairo University, Faculty of engineering shows a vast improvement in ADHD criteria tested, including: child focus & attention, communication, dynamic behavior, behavior, teamwork, independence, hyperactivity, social stages and academic skills. - In another PhD thesis by Lobna Shaker at Cairo University, BioGeometry was used in medical centers for treatment of depression, besides demonstrating the benefits of applying BioGeometry as design and interior architecture solutions, testing on mice showed that Bio Signatures (branch of BioGeometry) were as effective as commonly used drugs in the Egyptian market to restore the normal serotonin levels in the brain. - In 2003, a pilot research project under the patronage of the Swiss Mediation Authority for Mobile Communication and Environment, and in collaboration with leading governmental telecom provider Swisscom, implemented BioGeometry energy-balancing solutions to remedy ailments of electro-sensitivity in the rural town of Hemberg. BioGeometry was successful in eliminating the ailments of electro-sensitivity, among a number of other health conditions that it remedied, as well as positively impacting the overall ecology of the area. This was dubbed "The Miracle of Hemberg" by the Swiss media. - In 2007, following the success of the first Swiss BioGeometry project in Hemberg, Dr. Karim/BioGeometry Energy Systems Ltd. was commissioned by the local government of the Swiss town of Hirschberg to implement a similar solution there. The project was documented by Swiss TV Channel 1 (SF1), and the documentary aired on prime time TV in Switzerland showing that BioGeometry was successful in eliminating the ailments of electro-sensitivity, among a number of other health conditions that it remedied, as well as positively impacting the overall ecology of the area. Most impressive was the overwhelming positive impact on the livestock in the area, which are an important economic factor to this rural town. The documentary was titled “The Miracle Healer.” -BioGeometry energy-quality balancing yielded beautiful perfectly structured and balanced water crystals, in collaboration with Dr. Masuro Emoto -National Research Center, Egypt, show BioGeometry effectively protects against the low levels of radioactivity found in tested Egyptian building materials. * Using full-scale BioGeometry solutions implemented by BioGeometry Energy Systems LTD. Television Series - “Rabi Zidny Elman (God Grant Me Knowledge),” dailyBioGeometry TV series, Egyptian Satellite TV, Dec./Jan. 200&2001) - “Al Taqa Wa Al Hayat (Energy & Life),” twice/weeklyBioGeometry TV Series, Al Mehwar Satellite TV, 2002. - “With Dr. Ibrahim Karim,” twice/weeklyBioGeometry TV Series, Al Mehwar Satellite TV, 2002. - Numerous guest appearance on major TV programs in the Middle East. - Wide international media coverage of the science of BioGeometry. THE SCIENCE OF BIOGEOMETRY BioGeometry Energy Systems BioGeometry® is the patented science of using the energy principles of shape to qualitatively balance biological energy systems and harmonize their interactions with the environment. Balancing the activities of daily life, achieving harmony with our inner and outer environments, humanizing modern technology, and integrating science and spirituality is the work of the science of BioGeometry. Just two decades ago everybody was afraid that the end of life on earth would come as a result of a Third world War. We thought that the global extinction of life on earth would come from nuclear warfare and our carelessness towards our environment, endangering plant and animal life; the ozone hole and global warming causing natural disasters everywhere. However, the real potential danger is one that we are barely aware lurking just around the corner. The age of information carries with it the potential to the global extinction of our civilization. We are continuously increasing the amount of carrier waves needed for the wireless technology of modern communication in the earth’s atmosphere every day. These electromagnetic waves are thousands of times stronger than the level used in the communication in our body cells. The problem is not the saturation of the earth’s atmosphere through quantity, but also a detrimental quality. Even people who avoid using high technology are not immune. No one is immune even if one lives at the far end of the world or on top of the Himalayas because these are carrier waves with penetrating properties. It is like trying to move a breeze through a storm, our immune systems are continuously trying to correct the distortion in the transfer of inner information in our body; very soon the threshold will be reached when a total collapse of our body defenses will take place. BioGeometry is a science that deals with the Energy of Shape; it uses shapes, colours, motion, orientation, and sound to produce a vibrational quality that balances energy fields. BioGeometrical shapes are two or three-dimensional shapes specially designed to interact with the earth’s energy fields to produce balancing effects on multiple levels on biological systems. They were developed and patented by Dr. Ibrahim F. Karim, D.Sc. in Cairo, Egypt, during research since 1968. To understand the effects of BioGeometrical shapes on the human energy system, we have to recognize that the human body has an energy field around it, which has its own north-south axis. As we move around, the angle formed between our individual axis and that of the earth is constantly changing, and this in turn either strengthens or weakens our energy field. The positive range is very small, vulnerable most of the time, and is a major factor affecting our health and well being. BioGeometrically balanced energy, however, considerably strengthens our energy fields to such an extent that we are not detrimentally affected by changes of orientation. In fact, it appears to cancel obvious energy interactions predicted by currently accepted physical laws. Research in BioGeometry was and still is mainly dedicated to the development of a new form of architecture that would enhance the human biological system and give a new meaning to the concept of “Home”. To upgrade the energy quality of existing homes and cancel the potentially harmful effects of unchecked energy fields due to the architectural design, furniture layout, electrical wiring, and modern appliances, specially designed decorative elements are strategically placed to neutralize negative energy and add a positive quality to it. BioGeometry shapes designed or engraved on jewelry have shown positive effects on the body’s energy field, and a considerable reduction of the potential health hazards caused by cellular phones, computers, and all other modern appliances. The impact of geometrical shapes on human energy systems has always been universally recognized. This awareness gradually disappeared, and our “modern” approach is to consider these ancient forms either as symbolic art without function or attribute them to magical practices. Although the modern development and practices are not directly derived from Ancient Egypt, a very advanced know-how in this field is evident when we analyze and use the shapes that they have developed thousands of years ago. They must have been able to interact with nature in a more advanced way than we do today, based on the study of the vibrational properties of the geometrical shapes they used in their monuments, art, statues, amulets, and many other aspects of life. The effects of energy went beyond the Pyramid shape; the Ancient Egyptians used it in a very practical way in all aspects of their life. Unlike our modern energy forms that are highly amplified states of energies occurring in nature, this science dealt with forces on a natural level as they occur in nature. That means that this Ancient Egyptian science was more like a language that they used to establish two-way communication with nature. This two-way information flow process was used to establish total harmony in all actions between man and nature, to acquire a deeper knowledge about anything by accessing information about it’s working principles on the energy level, and most important of all to influence any action in nature by manipulating its energy patterns to achieve the intended results. Pythagoras was the first to introduce to the western world the ancient Egyptian way of correlating musical qualities with quantifiable, numerical values. The golden ratio of 1.618 expressed as the ultimate proportion of harmony, beauty and spirituality was used in the design of sacred buildings in Ancient Architecture to produce spiritual energy that facilitated connectivity with spiritual realms through resonant prayer. Popular among spiritually significant shapes are pyramids and hemispheres (e.g. the domes, that are the basis of religious buildings, be it a mosque, a church or a synagogue). These particular shapes are energy emitters; they are shapes that produce a type of penetrating carrier wave which Chaumery and De Belizal named, negative green, (which acts as a carrier like radio waves that carry sound information). The vibrational quality of negative green gives it very strong communication properties, which facilitate resonance with higher realms in prayer. Negative green turned out to have other properties, however, which make it very harmful under continuous exposure. Considerable research into this type of energy has been done by Dr. Karim, and the different components have been identified. A revival of the Ancient Design Criteria or Canons in modern architecture was attempted by the Swiss pioneer of the modern architecture, Le Corbusier, with his “modular” system, which comprised two scales of dimensions based on the golden ratio. Dr. Ibrahim F. Karim has done extensive research and found that BioGeometry shapes have three primary vibrational qualities: 1) Negative green. 2) A higher harmonic of ultra-violet. 3) A higher harmonic of gold. Only shapes, which produce energy fields with all three components, termed the BioGeometry3 (BG3) are BioGeometry shapes. The effect of BioGeometrical energy on health is not specific and not precisely predictable. It appears to amplify and balance the energy fields of the body on all levels, and thereby give the body greater power to heal itself. The healing process resulting from a strengthening and balancing of the immune system manifests differently from one person to the other; certain results, however, have been repeatedly observed. BioGeometry shapes balance the body energies on different levels; positive effects are usually felt on the emotional, mental, spiritual as well as the physical level. They have been found to be effective over a very broad range, including the protection against harmful radiation emanating from the earth (believed to be a major cause of cancer) and different types of man-made pollution. For specific healing purposes, research is being conducted in collaboration with medical doctors in the science of BioGeometry Signatures (BioSignatures), which deals with energy of shape in relation to specific functions of the body organs. BioGeometry Worldview BioGeometry, the design language of shapes, is the proprietary science of using the energy principles of BioGeometry to amplify an energy quality manifest in nature that is found in the centers of all energy patterns of shape. This subtle energy quality is at the core of the forming process in nature and is responsible for maintaining the harmony within energy structures of all systems (animate and inanimate), and providing balance among the different manifest energy qualities of the components of the overall patterns of that system (Fig. 6). In BioGeometry, we have developed proprietary shapes and design principles that we use to replicate and amplify this highly beneficial natural subtle energy quality. The shapes interact with the body’s own surrounding energy fields, according to the natural laws of harmonics and resonance to introduce the energy quality balancing effect to the body’s subtle energy system, and the harmonization of energy interactions with the environment. In order to understand how the application of the science of BioGeometry can harmonize the energy qualities of the environment, we have to shift into the BioGeometry Qualitative Worldview. The BioGeometry worldview is a synthesis of the energy qualities of a space, it encompasses what we can and cannot perceive; it is a holistic view that does not differentiate between what is visible and what is not. This outlook is based primarily on practical measurements of the energy quality of interactions according to an abstract Physics of Quality and applied according to a sophisticated system of BioGeometry Harmonics, which integrates the metaphysical with the physical, the material with the spiritual, and the sensory with the extra-sensory, in a harmonious unity. BioGeometry is a science of quality. When we speak about a science of quality, we are referring to a science which studies how different things affect each other on an unperceivable, subtle energy level. Qualities have traditionally been seen as subjective as in the fields of Humanities and Arts. In the science of BioGeometry, we show an inner level to qualities that can be used in an objective, scientific manner. GDVPLANET YouTube BioGeometry channel Read the full article

[ordinarydaymag]

In a time of transformations

Hey there :) We are still here just dealing with the dynamic changes which are happening in our lives and all over the wold lately. But no, we won't talk about viruses, we won't make any analyses or throw advice in your face ... We are here to share with you one more interesting interview from our last Ordinary Day issue. Maybe it will help you escape for a while from your own routine and give you some inspiration and ideas for experimentation and exploration in your free time.

Let’s meet Marie and her paper creations :)

Marie is a designer, a PhD student and a lecturer, and in her story, we learn how she listens to paper before transforming it into a 3D object. Our conversation starts with a simple set of questions but it quickly takes on a different shape, discussing the purpose and ethics of design as well as the key moments that can make designers appreciate their own work, finding your path, letting go and allowing oneself the feeling of achievement.

Marie, you have a wide scope of engagements – how does your ordinary day look like, and how do you stay organised? What makes an ordinary day extraordinary?

I divide my time between teaching, studying and architectural work. I have a timesheet which I use for keeping track of how many hours I spend working on something — just to know, but I don’t do much time-blocking. I am trying to keep a schedule of one or two evenings a week for my studies. But to go back to your question what makes my day extraordinary: I would say those are the moments when I can rest, I can have tea, do nothing for a little while. When I have time to do something that I really like, like folding or trying something in my sketchbook, those are the moments that make me feel good during any day.

What do you study?

I am studying design – a PhD at FUD UJEP in Ústí nad Labem. I am interested in user research and how services can be co-created with their users. User experience analysis has been used mostly in UX, but what I am trying right now is to find out how it could also be used in product design because that is what I teach.

So you are teaching product design now? 

Well, at Prague College I teach Graphic Design, but in the Design Principles class, there is more space for experimentation. At the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University, I am teaching product design. I am trying to start a new class on user centered design. Next year, FA ČVUT is opening an English language Master’s program focused on Design.

What are your associations with the word transformation?

For me, it is going from something in the past to something new and not knowing what is next, what is coming. That can be scary because it happens that you cannot even control it. So accepting what is coming, feeling okay and saying: “let’s see what is ahead of me.” I guess just taking the risk a little bit. At the same time going with the flow and letting things happen. I realised I changed a lot since childhood. It is changing and not changing at the same time. Trying to be more open to people like during this interview! Getting to know oneself everyday – it is not automatic. I have long been on auto-pilot, let’s say – doing my thing, ordinary day to day routine, getting things done. Having a very long to do list, which I still have. But back then, a time came when I asked myself: “is this the thing I want to do and is it the way I want to keep doing it?”

Tell us more about that moment of realisation the moment that made you reassess your path. 

That was probably when I started teaching but also with the birth of my son. Seven years ago, I was working for an architect and I realised I was clicking at a computer from 9 to 5 drawing someone else’s ideas and that it is not my thing. I learned a lot, it was a great experience but I needed something else. I’ve been thinking for a long time about the ethics of design, the ethics of work. At school, I didn’t do many practical objects. And even before my career started, I knew I want to do things that are really cool, that are perhaps more poetic, that look nice. I was lucky at the beginning, I was working for Dominique Perrault, an architect in Paris who was more of a conceptual architect.

It was a very big office, 70 people from around the world and we each got the chance to work on interesting projects. I was part of the interior team and we got to cooperate on a large variety of projects. You could see the different approaches to design. There was computer work too, but also meeting the clients, working with the materials. But I realised if a concept stays a concept, it is not enough. People either don’t get it or only people that read your 100 page book where you explain what it is about, but when you see something physical like either a house they can visit or an object they can use they will get it more and then they can choose what they like. Selling just a concept is not easy.

And this is how the paper installations come to the world?

I started a long time ago because I worked with paper in my Master’s degree. I experimented with paper even before that; at home with my mother and grandmother, we made origami objects.

Two years ago, my former colleagues from Eva Jiřičná’s office (esté architekti) asked me to do some installations for their project. They were renovating restaurants and I created installations for several of them.

You work with space…

Yes, I work with the space. We discuss what is needed, what is possible. My colleagues are also creatives so they have strong ideas, very minimalistic, white. I like colour, but I agree with them on this. I then go on to prepare lots of models and they choose a couple of them. I work small first and then full scale, to see how they work in the space.

And the process? Do you have an idea in your head and shape the material to match your idea or are you more inspired by the material itself?

 It mostly comes from the material, seeing what comes and just playing to create some shapes I have in my mind or something I want to try. I try in small and then try to make it bigger. Just as I like to work at my paper workshops — playing a bit first and then “listening” to the paper or the material and see what is coming out.

Transforming a sheet of paper and seeing what you can do from it, something that comes naturally during childplay…

That’s what I like about folding paper and other materials, you have the sheet material, the flat “thing” in a standard format and you can cut it and then it becomes 3-dimensional and something that becomes sweet. What I am trying right now is to add movement to it. I can show you here — it is a rectangle that is cut and there is going to be a crystal ball attached to it to add flare...

It reminds me of a dune.

I was thinking of a bird’s wing. The architect showed me pictures of clouds for inspiration so I took it from there.

I imagine paper has its transformational limits, is that correct?

Well it is hard to break paper, but it does crease. What is great about paper is that is an inexpensive and easily available material, you can work with it at home, you don’t need special tools. All that gives you liberty in the creation process. But I started to need more space. [Marie laughs] I love paper but I am also trying other materials — how the objects would look like in metal, for instance.

.........

That takes me back to what you said earlier about transformation — that it is about not having too much control.

When you talk about control, for me since I have a child it is about stopping, refusing to control.

I cannot influence this person. I can try to be a model, do things the best I can but I cannot say you need to be doing the things that way. Accepting that is difficult. So doing more art, taking it easy and going with the flow. I don’t know what is coming next and I accept it.

More about Marie and her work you can find at: www.mariedoucet.com & @design_poetics

The full interview you can find in print from our stockists.

interview: Jana Krchová

photos:  Iva Borisova 

work: Marie Doucet

[tripsterguru]

Belgrade sights - 11 most interesting places

New Post has been published on https://tripsterguru.com/belgrade-sights-11-most-interesting-places/

Belgrade sights - 11 most interesting places

Serbia is a multinational country with a rich and complicated history. The territory of the current state includes lands previously owned by Hungarians, Turks and other peoples. Its culture was affected by the influence of East and West. The capital city of Belgrade, unlike many European capitals, is quiet and calm. The houses of the cobbled streets of the old quarters are like doll houses. The new areas, with their dilapidated walls, remind of Yugoslavia and military aggression by NATO. The nature of plains and plateaus is rich in greenery and full-flowing rivers.

Belgrade fortress

Belgrade Fortress is located in a picturesque place where the Sava River flows into the Danube. Strategically important location determined the fate of the citadel. Like the confluence of two water streams, the economic, political and cultural paths of the East and West converged here. Fierce battles were fought hundreds of times for fortification; tens of times its walls were partially or completely destroyed. Nowadays it is peaceful and calm, because now it is one of the most significant historical monuments for Belgrade. The Belgrade fortress was built 2 millennia ago from white stone, where the name of the city came from. High fortified walls are adjacent to the large cozy park Kalemegdan. The word is translated from Turkish as “battlefield”.

The Turks called the stone fortification a “hill of thoughts”, which corresponds to the atmosphere of peace reigning here. The name of the garden Kalemegdan was assigned to the citadel. Within the walls of the Belgrade fortress are 12 gates, the main of which are Istanbul. Walking along the pedestrian street of Prince Mikhail with its bright shop windows, you will find yourself in Kalemegdan. You can also get there by public transport.

Entrance to the territory is free. Of interest to tourists is not only the fortress, but also several museums, existing churches, towers, statues and the Roman well. For 10-15 euros you can join the tour and learn more about the centuries-old history of this place, its myths and legends. Capital residents have chosen Kalemegdan for relaxation.

A fascinating view of the city opens from the observation deck. On holidays, concerts and festivities are organized on the territory of the park, and on weekdays you can sit in a cafe or just eat ice cream.

Belgrade Zoo

The walls of the Belgrade fortress are conveniently located a spacious zoo with the saying “Park of good hope.” In its history, it was bombarded three times: twice during the Second World War and in 1999 during the armed conflict between NATO and Yugoslavia. In memory of those days, the zoo got its bright name, and its leadership seeks to keep pets in the most comfortable conditions. The zoo is home to more than 2 thousand individuals of 270 species of animals and birds. At the same time, they are looked after properly: the freedom of pets is almost unlimited, and their cleanliness pleasantly surprises. Feathered walk along the paths of the zoo. In a special pavilion you can play with lambs, kids and others.

The zoo of Belgrade distinguishes several of its attractions from the rest. Since 1986, special attention has been paid to albinos. Animals with a white color are collected around the world as a symbol of the “white city”. In the year of the last shelling, a baby elephant was born in the zoological garden. He was given the nickname Rambouillet by the name of the city in France, in which peace talks were held regarding the situation in Kosovo. Veteran of the zoo can be considered the world’s oldest alligator Muya, who appeared here in 1937. The menagerie meets its visitors from 8.00 to 19.30 in the summer, and until 17.00 – in the winter. Ticket sales end a little earlier. The cost of visiting: 400 Serbian dinars (about 4 euros) from 15 years, 300 dinars (3 euros) – from 3 to 15 years. To avoid confusion, carry cash in the national currency and do not give food to animals. After the death of a giraffe through the fault of visitors, the size of the fine for feeding animals was greatly increased.

Princess Lyubitsa Palace

How do you imagine the palace for the princess? In fairy tales it is described as a high castle surrounded by two-meter walls. But in life, everything is a little different. One of the most beautiful buildings of the old city is the palace of the princess (she is also called the princess) of Lyubitsa. The low-rise house, traditional for Belgrade, in white, was erected in 1830 by decree of Prince Milos Obrenovic in the place of their old dwelling. In the new building made 3 floors, one of them is a basement. On the second floor next to the princess’ chambers, a hammam was arranged. Over a two-century history, the palace has changed several destinations.

At different times, it housed a lyceum, a court, a boarding school for the deaf, various museums. At the end of the 20th century, the building was declared a cultural monument and restored. Now the former residence of the wife of Prince Milos is part of the Museum of the capital of Serbia. The palace is valuable in that its architecture, layout and interior decoration are an excellent example of the combination of eastern and European culture of the 19th century.

The museum’s collection consists of furniture and art, personal items of the princess. Here are excursions with the saying “Coffee with Princess Lubitz.” The museum keepers will not only tell the history of the palace and the life features of the ruling family, but also treat them with strong Turkish coffee with Turkish delight. In the basement periodically informative lectures of cultural and historical subjects and creative evenings are held. The cultural monument is located in the old part of the city near the Kalemegdan fortress. Ticket price will be 200 Serbian dinars. There are discounts for students. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Day off: Monday. The exhibition is allowed to photograph without the use of flash.

St. Sava Cathedral

In Belgrade, white is an unofficial symbol of the city. On the hill Vračar in the center of the Serbian capital rises the majestic church of St. Sava of Serbia, built of white marble. According to Christian canons, the sanctuary is not a cathedral, but thanks to its impressive size, this name was entrenched in the people. It is one of the largest Orthodox buildings in the world. Its height is 82 meters, 18 crosses crown the bathing, 49 bells fit in the bell tower. Indoors, at the same time, 10 thousand believers can be present, the choir is designed for 800 singers.

The landmark has no centuries-old history, but a monument was erected on the site of the burning of the relics of St. Sava according to the prototype of St. Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople. Planning for construction began in 1894, and the “first brick” was laid only 40 years later. Since 2004, the temple is considered open to parishioners; it still has not completed the interior decoration. It is worth a glimpse for the sake of the huge and amazing mosaic of Jesus Christ, located under the central dome. Finding the Cathedral of St. Sava is not difficult. It is located in the center of Belgrade on a hill and majestically rises above the city. Around the temple is a cozy park, nearby is the National Library of Serbia.

Museum of Nikola Tesla

Each nation has its own heroes. The Serbs are proud of their great compatriot scientist, whose work has had a tremendous significance on the development of science. The only official museum of Nikola Tesla is located in a small mansion in Belgrade. Even if you have no idea who this man was and why he is considered a great physicist, be sure to visit the museum. Here, an excursion takes place every hour, the first part of which consists of a short video and a short guide story, the second part is much more interested in demonstrating the experiments once conducted by the inventor.

During the experiments, everyone can feel like a Jedi and an illusionist. The glowing “sword” and lightning from touching the Tesla coil are real phenomena that were subsequently shown in films and computer games. In addition to the exposition of various equipment for experiments, the exhibition has a collection of personal items and original documents owned by Nicola Tesla. Among other exhibits is a urn with the ashes of a scientist. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Tuesday to Sunday. For those who understand the Serbian language, the tour will cost 250 Serbian dinars. For English-speaking tourists, the cost will be 500 Serbian dinars, and for groups of 10 people – 300. For children under 7 years, admission is free. The mansion is located in the central part of Belgrade at the address: ul. Krunska 51.

House of flowers

The flower house in Belgrade has an indirect relation to floristry, in fact it is a mausoleum in which the bodies of former Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and his last wife rest. The memorial complex was originally a greenhouse in the residence of the Marshal. In his free time, Tito liked to plant flowers and take care of the garden. Now silence and tranquility reign in the pavilions, trees grow, bizarre statues stand. You will not find an open coffin with an embalmed body, only a memorial plate. In the tomb is a small museum of Josip Tito. His collection includes some personal items and numerous gifts received by the former president from officials. The mausoleum is often not crowded. On the birthday of the father of the people on May 25 and on the day of his death on May 4, the memorial complex is visited by the family, friends and comrades of Josip Broz Tito. The flower house is located on the outskirts of the city. Nearby is the Museum of the History of Yugoslavia. You can get to them by trolleybuses that run along routes No. 40 and 41. Mausoleum opening hours: from 10.00 to 18.00. Day off: Monday.

Ticket price: 300 dinars (approximately 3 euros).

Quarter Skadarliya

Being in museums, having seen enough of various sights of the capital of Serbia, it is pleasant to walk along a quiet street, to sit in a cozy restaurant. In Belgrade, its old part, there is a small region of Skardalia, which is considered to be Bohemian, and travelers compare it with Parisian Montmartre, Odessa Deribasovskaya, and Moscow Old Arbat. On a street with a stone pavement, it is deserted during the day. Toward evening, street artists and musicians appear here, selling souvenirs and trinkets from the stalls. There are antique shops in Scardalia, where you can plunge deeper into the culture of the Serbs. The oldest restaurants in the city are also located here. To live music in a cozy atmosphere you will get acquainted with the national cuisine, hearty and varied.

Initially, the area was inhabited by people with creative professions, they were attracted to inexpensive apartments and delicious food in neighboring cafes. Writers, poets, actors and dancers created an atmosphere of constant celebration in the quarter. This light mood is still in the air. The brick walls of low houses are painted like canvases and decorated with fresh flowers. The Skardalia quarter is easy to find in the Stari Grad community nearby the Republic Square. Tourists are advised to carry Serbian dinars in case you should decide to buy some souvenirs or have dinner. Girls should not shoe high-heeled shoes and thin stilettos.

Gardosh Hill and Millennium Tower

In order to look at Belgrade from above, you don’t need to parachute or fly by helicopter, just climb to the observation deck of the Millennium Tower (also called the Yanko Tower), towering on Gardosh Hill in the ancient Zemun district. The building, 36 meters high, was built in the 19th century, when this land was part of Austria-Hungary. The government erected a monument as a symbol of the millennium of the settlement of Hungarians on the banks of the Danube. Hence the name of the tower. It makes sense to climb Gardosh Hill not only for the panorama of the city. Walking to the hill on Zemun will be a pleasant pastime both in the morning and in the evening. The tower is open around the clock and admission is free. For 15-20 euros, you can join the tour with a Russian-speaking guide.

The old quarters can be reached by buses coming from the city center. Routes Nos. 704, 706 and 707 lead here. The closest Zemun Pochta stop is to the tower, but you can get off earlier and take a walk along the narrow, winding bridge past the toy houses to the stairs on Stara Visoka Street. You will be taken to the Millennium Tower. On the way to the hill you will find several small churches that add color to the bedroom area, which has preserved the best traditions of Europe. A road leads to the hill from the picturesque wide riverbed of the Danube, along which the city promenade stretches with an alley, benches and stunning views. Not far from it there are several small restaurants and cafes in which they cook deliciously at home. On the menu, pay attention to dishes of fresh fish caught in local rivers.

Avalan TV Tower

The Millennium Tower in the old quarter of Gardosh is an authentic monument of Slavic culture. A more modern high-rise building in Belgrade, which majestically rushes into the sky of the capital, is the Aval TV Tower. The attraction is of interest to tourists for several reasons. Firstly, there are no buildings above it on the Balkan Peninsula. Secondly, all over the world there are only a few buildings for which the basis is an equilateral triangle. Thirdly, the tower was completely destroyed during the military conflict with NATO in 1999. It was completely restored and in 2010 is open to the public.

Aval TV Tower is located outside the city on Mount Avala. Near it, 3 monuments of different times were erected. You can get to the place from the capital by regular buses No. 401, 403 and 405. In the summer, on the weekend, an additional route No. 400 is launched. The cost of visiting the observation deck is 200 dinars. For 400 dinars, you can buy a ticket that includes a drink in the restaurant located above. The height of the TV tower reaches 205 meters, and the exit to the site is at a distance of 119 meters from the ground. Here the wind blows and is cool enough, so sitting at the cafe with a cup of coffee or hot chocolate will be more pleasant to watch the panorama that opens. Aval TV Tower greets its visitors daily from 9.00 to 20.00.

Skyscraper Genex

The second tallest building in the Serbian capital is the Genex skyscraper, also known as the “West Gate of Belgrade”. Its highest point is 140 meters. The bizarre, futuristic structure was designed and erected in 1977, when Art Nouveau and brutalism dominated the architecture. The skyscraper consists of 2 buildings of 35 floors, connected from above by a two-story bridge with a rotating turret.

Inside this design is a restaurant. Be sure to dine in it if you are not afraid of heights. From the windows of the institution offers a bewitching view of the western part of Belgrade. Due to its originality, the complex is perhaps the most memorable in all of Eastern Europe. Some publications include him in dozens of the most unusual skyscrapers in the world. The house received its unofficial name because of the Genex company, which occupies one half of the skyscraper. To get to the sights, use buses number 65, 74.

Fortress Vrsac

One of the oldest military fortifications in Serbia is considered a fortress with the unusual name of Vrsac. It is located at the foot of the Carpathians to the west of the border with Romania. The citadel was built in the 15th century during the Turkish wars from granite and mica, therefore, after reconstruction on sunny days, its walls seem to glow. The fortress rises high above the city that grew next to it. The heroic history of the Serbian army is reflected in the coat of arms of Vrsac. The distance from Belgrade to the fortress is about 90 km. Going here just for the sake of the fortress is not worth it, only the castle and several fortress walls remained intact. Set aside a day to explore the ancient city of Vrsac and its attractions.

The historical part of the city is attracted by such architectural monuments as St. Nicholas Cathedral, “Vladichansky Dvor”, St. Gerhard Cathedral and the City Hall. In the vicinity of Vrsac there is the Monastery of Mesic and the town of Bela Crkva. A tour of the historical sites can be diluted with a visit to the winery and a tasting of local wines. Public transport runs from the capital of Serbia to the city of Vrsac. In order to have time in one day to see all the important historical monuments of this part of the country and visit the vineyards, it is better to use the services of guides. The price of the tour depends on the duration of the trip, the route and the number of people in the group.

[al32richards]

5 Chicago Buildings to be Thankful for This Thanksgiving

A lot of people aren’t going to work this week, so chances are you’re not reading this.  If you’ve buried your nose in your phone rather than listen to Uncle Earl lecture your mom — again — about how if it doesn’t say “USA” on the package, the turkey came from China, then read on to understand why there are so many architectural reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

John Hancock Center at Christmas, 2008 (file)

1. The John Hancock Center – 875 North Michigan Avenue

It’s huge.  It’s strong.  But it’s somehow cuddly.  Whether you fly or drive in, returning to Chicago and seeing the John Hancock Center waiting reliably for you on the shore of Lake Michigan is like coming back from college and getting a welcoming hug from dear old dad.  Your dad wears suspenders; the Hancock Center wears cross-braces. Your dad has crazy Andy Rooney eyebrows; The Hancock has a pair of 400-foot-tall antennae.  Your dad is sometimes dark and stern; Hancock has dark and stern to spare.  And like your dad, the Hancock Center also a formal name: 875 North Michigan.  But to you, he’ll always be “Dad.” 

Lakeside Technology Center (file)

2. The Lakeside Technology Center – 350 East Cermak Road

After you’ve polished off the tater tot hot dish Aunt Ida brought down from Minnesota, clip the kids’ mittens to their coat sleeves and go on a scavenger hunt at the Lakeside Technology Center in the South Loop.  Walk around the outside of this Howard Van Doren Shaw building that was once the world’s largest data center.  Take in the shields, sailing ships, and mythical creatures that decorate this former phone book factory.  Earn bonus points for explaining to your children that the reliefs of sirens that adorn this computer hotel were there for almost 50 years before Starbucks started using the aquatic creature to brand its cups of coffee.  Points will be deducted if you don’t let your kids see the sirens because their boobs are out.  Ever wear a bra underwater?  Chafe city.

3. The Home Insurance Building – Adams and LaSalle

The northwest corner of Adams and LaSalle is notable not for what is there, but what isn’t: The world’s first skyscraper.  The Home Insurance Building was the world’s first skyscraper when it was erected in 1885 to a William Le Baron Jenney design. 

In recent years as the world becomes awash in revisionist history, buildings from Britain to Greece to China are trying to pretend they were the first.  They weren’t.  Even the formerly reliable Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has gone all wishy-washy on the topic as its reliability became questionable in recent years. (1 World Trade Center antenna: height-o-riffic. Willis Tower antenna: *crickets*.)

As pre-1970’s Chicagoans were wont to do, the Home Insurance Building was knocked down before anyone realized what a treasure it was.  In its place now is the Bank of America Financial Center, known as the Field Building when it went up in 1934.  This Graham, Anderson, Probst & White building, too, is full of lessons in history (last skyscraper to be erected in Chicago before a 20-year pause because of World War II), civics (it looks the way it does because of then-new city requirements about public light and air), geography (the pilasters at the entrance are made of marble from the Yule Creek Valley of Colorado), and economics (banks used to build huge, strong, historic-looking buildings to give people confidence that they were stable and would be around for a long time).

Marc Chegal’s Four Seasons in the Chase Tower plaza. (file)

4. Chase Tower – 10 South Dearborn Street

While the sloping design of the 60-story Chase Tower is worthy of a fawning essay in The Paris Review, we’re only here for the art.  That art exists in a pavilion on the Dearborn Street side of the sunken south plaza.  There, under a protective canopy, is a freaking I-shit-you-not Chegal.

It’s 168 feet long, wrapping around a 70×14 rectangle.  It’s made of hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of tile.  It’s called Four Seasons and depicts senes of Chicago as seen by Marc Chegal, one of the greatest artists of the modern era.

This is world-class art, right here, in the middle of downtown Chicago, thanks to former Boston mayor and slaughterhouse magnate Frederick Prince, whose charity gave it to the people of Chicago in 1974.

Remember in the 90’s when Microsoft said the human eye could only see 256 colors?  This artwork has 250 of them.  

Remember that month you skipped buying lunch so that you could take the kids to the Art Institute to get some culture?  This thing is right there, out in the open, for anyone to see and enjoy for exactly zero dollars.  

Remember that clown Marty from Cleveland you met at the convention who said that Chicago was an ugly town?  Yeah, well when one of the biggest names in the history of art spends a few years crafting scenes of the Mistake By The Lake, then we’ll talk, buck-o.

The Drake Hotel at Christmas, 2008 (file)

5. The historic Chicago hotel of your choice

Hotels are wonderful things.  No, not the free-breakfast-and-garbage-wifi temporary business traveler mini-storage warehouses.  And not the Japanese capsule hotels where the night clerk’s face washes over with horror when a six-and-a-half-foot tall Chicago architecture writer enters the lobby pulling a rolling suitcase stuffed with Meiji chocolate and random gashapons.  

I’m taking about the full-service, umbrella-loaning, taxi-hailing, impossible-ticket-getting, blackout curtain-equipped, shoulder-brushing, feather pillow-having institutions with cloth napkin restaurants, potted palms, and shiny-buttoned bellhops at the ready.

These are places with epic lobbies suitable for browsing a newspaper in a language you can’t read, spying people kissing in a language you can’t speak, or just simply watching the world go by as you wait for a local insurrection to pass like a political thunderstorm.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from modern newspapers, old books, and 1940’s movies, it’s that while governments come and go, hotels remain.

Chicago has such places.  They are treasures savored by others, but overlooked and underutilized by the locals.  They exist as the cornerstones of a city that doesn’t understand how much it needs them.  They are the places where historic music was made (The Ambassador East), where broadcasting was born (The Drake Hotel), and where the most powerful people in the world have laid their heads (The Palmer House).  

And at this time of the year, those landmark hotels know how to make everyone from politicians to pipsqueaks feel special. The Peninsula, the Sofitel, and a half-dozen more bring out their best for the Christmas season.  If you don’t have the dosh for afternoon tea (think eighty bucks a head), you are free to take a tour around the public areas and soak in the atmosphere, the music, the decorations, and the occasional miniature train set.  You may even find an available overstuffed chair that will caress your keister with the same generous warmth its given to kings and gentlemen before you.  Sit.  Stay.  For 20 minutes be the person you always wished you could be.

The next time the Chicago teachers go on strike; the next time world trade protestors march down Michigan avenue; the next time civilized people decide that acting in an uncivilized manner is the only way to achieve their goals, head to one of the city’s venerable hotels.  Sit in the lobby.  Listen to the whistles and drums and sirens outside.  Then fluff your newspaper like Hemingway would in Cuba, like Bogie might in North Africa, like Count Rostov did in Moscow, and ask someone passing by what kind of tea they recommend on an afternoon such as this.

from Chicago Architecture https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/2019/11/23/5-chicago-buildings-to-be-thankful-for-this-thanksgiving/

[designmorphine]

We are happy to announce that, @arian_hakimi, the founder and principal of Arian Hakimi Architects, and former lead designer at Zaha Hadid Architects, will deliver a lecture at Computational Design: NEXT 10 conference. - Sign up here or link in bio: https://parametric-architecture.com/computational-design-next-10/ - Event details: Date: July 16-17, 2022 (Saturday & Sunday) Time: 12:30 - 20:30 UTC Where: ZOOM Online - Arian has given lectures on the subject of parametricism and systematic design methods, as well as tutored several workshops throughout the world encouraging bottom-up design approach to open up new design areas. Including in the ZHA intern summer program which resulted in an exhibition of the extraordinary process,” the late Zaha Hadid’s final show at Maison Mais Non-London. Arian joined ZHA in 2013 and has been involved in more than 26 projects, ranging from residential, mixed-used buildings to transportation infrastructure and masterplan development including 2 projects under construction. Unicorn Island in Chengdu and KAFD, an-award winning Metro Station in King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh. He has contributed to implementing advanced parametric design strategies and automation in architectural workflow on these projects. - The project above: KAFD metro station, by Zaha Hadid Architects @cdnext @parametric.architecture @designmorphine @ekimroyrp @pa.next @hamithz @thepaacademy #houdini #houdinifx #workshop #webinar #fashion #fashiondesigner #fashiondesign #artist #parametric #parametricdesign #parametricarchitecture #computationaldesign #computational #computation #grasshopper3d #rhino3d #rhinoceros3d #generative #algorithm #design #art #architecture #conference #superarchitects #nextarch #rhino #architecturestudent #cdnext #conference #arianhakimiarchitects (at 𝓣𝓱𝒆 𝓤𝒏𝒊𝓿𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆) https://www.instagram.com/p/CfD3nNRuIJt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[nicoleignn]

MINI-LECTURES

ADHOCISM 

Adhocism as a term itself means the practice of reaching to what happens or is needed at a particular time, rather than planning in advance, tendency to respond only to the urgent, focus on ‘fire fighting’. A purpose immediately fulfilled is the idea of adhocism; it cuts through the usual delays caused by specialisation, bureaucracy and hierarchical organisation. It is a rebirth of a democratic mode and style, where everyone can create their own, personal environment out not impersonal subsystems, whether they are new or old, modern or antique. 

Artists who are known for adhicism: 

 Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics. Tinguely's art satirised the mindless overproduction of material goods in advanced industrial society. I believe that his works of art were extremely relevant back then, during the industrialisation process was almost completed and people thought they have seen everything. His artworks relate to everyday life, making something usual become unusual, finding another way of using and seeing things. 

Martino Gamper is a contemporary artist who brings ad hoc to life in our days. He became internationally regarded through his project ‘100 chairs in 100 days’. This group of works was exhibited in 2007 in London, the Milan Triennale in 2009 and at YBCA in San Francisco in 2010.’I didn’t make one hundred chairs just for myself or even in an effort to rescue a few hundred unwanted chairs from the streets. The motivation was the methodology: the process of making, of producing and absolutely not striving for the perfect one. This kind of making was very much about restrictions rather than freedom. The restrictions were key: the material, the style or the design of the found chairs and the time available — just a 100 days. Each new chair had to be unique, that’s what kept me working toward the elusive one-hundredth chair.’

 Hans Stofer is a trickster. He appears to be casually wrapping random objects together without any consideration of their effect, but these assemblages of books, shoes, cups, and other everyday objects are puzzles that cause us to think. The things we live with have a time frame and a meaning beyond their use, and Hans gives us an opportunity to contemplate them in relationship to each other and their meanings singularly, outside of their usual functional role. His works of art allow everyone to find their own meaning and see what bothers them the most by putting simple, everyday objects together and relating the finished projects to current society issues, which is a great manifestation of adocism. 

How it related to my artworks: 

The whole activist brief was an example of adhocism. Instead of taking one issue and planning the work ahead, I covered the most important society issues that are spreading right now and put them through the ‘pigeonal’ perspective, making it look simple and childish at a first sight. however, every poster had a deep or either a hidden meaning behind it and, in most cases, sarcastic illustrations or heading. Using adocism was the right decision for this project, because I feel that I've managed to reach the goal I've set for it and make the outcome reflect the most triggering modern social problems. 

FEMINISM 

This mini-lecture must be seen by everyone who still thinks that feminism is all about humiliating men and making them feel worthless, because feminism has nothing to do with that (except for the radical for of it, which is, obviously, not right). 

FIRST WAVE FEMINISM (1800-1960’s) : overturning legal inequalities.

A.I.R. Gallery (Artists in Residence, Inc.) was established in 1972 as the first not-for-profit, artist-directed and maintained gallery for women artists in the United States.

In 1972, artists Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, who were co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts' Feminist Art Program, organized the project Womanhouse, which encompassed an entire property in Los Angeles at which various female artists contributed on-site installations.

SECOND WAVE (1960’s-1980’s) - overturning cultural inequalities and gender norms.

Linda Nochlin - Art Critic 1971: "Why have there been no great women artists?" The question tolls reproachfully in the background of most discussions of the so-called woman problem. But like so many other so-called questions involved in the

feminist "controversy," it falsifies the nature of the issue at the same time that it insidiously supplies its

own answer: "There are no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness.” ......Another attempt to

Linda Nochlin - Art Critic 1971

answer the question involves shifting the ground slightly and

asserting, as some

contemporary feminists do, that there is a different kind of "greatness" for women's art than for men's,

thereby postulating the existence of a distinctive and recognizable feminine style, different both in its formal and its expressive qualities and based on the special character of women's situation and experience.

"Why have there been no great women artists?" The question

tolls reproachfully in the background of most

discussions of the so-called woman problem. But like so many

other so-called questions involved in the

feminist "controversy," it falsifies the nature of the issue at the

same time that it insidiously supplies its

own answer: "There are no great women artists because

- (RE)CLAIMING FEMINE MATERIALS,

 women are incapable of greatness.” . Another attempt to Linda Nochlin - Art Critic 1971

EXPANDING THE DEFINITION OF FINE ART

answer the question involves shifting the ground slightly and asserting, as some

contemporary feminists do, that there is a different kind of "greatness" for women's art than for men's,

thereby postulating the existence of a distinctive and recognizable feminine style, different both in its formal and its expressive qualities and based on the special character of women's situation and experience.

THIRD WAVE (1990’s-now) - Diverse Strains: a continuation and a response to the perceived failures of second wave feminism. 

Nowadays, it is so easy to dismiss the need for feminism because the ‘big issues’ have been dealt with, but there is still so much discrimination against women out there. ‘Out there’ does not mean all the way over there, where it can’t get you and you don’t need to worry about it. It means right outside that home, office or tube window. That is why feminism must be spread and respected, TRUE FEMINISM, not a radical form of it. That activism isn’t about spreading anger.  It is about sharing experiences in order to instil a shared understanding and precipitate change.

ANTHROPOCENE 

The Anthropocene defines Earth's most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans.  

If we are now living in a new geological age, it is a stark reminder of our impact on earth. The WGA group believes our activity has set the Earth system on a different trajectory. "In the last century we have had such a huge impact that we’re actually taking the planet away from that natural [climate] oscillation and changing the trend for global temperatures from what should have been a cooling trend to a warming trend,” explained Dr Waters to The Independent.

The ways we are altering the earth :

Factory farming meat

Destroying rainforests 

Air travel

Factories burning fossil fuels

Dumping waste into oceans 

Non-recyclable plastics 

Mining fossil fuels 

Artists who contributed to anthropocene: 

 Robert Smithson: Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, located at Rozel Point on the northeastern shore of Great Salt Lake in Utah, is one of the most remarkable examples of Land art. In 1970, assisted by a crew operating dump trucks, a tractor, and a front loader, Smithson displaced some 6,000 tons of black basalt rock and earth from the adjacent shore to form a coil 1,500 feet long and approximately 15 feet wide, winding counterclockwise into the lake. Created at a time when water levels were particularly low, Spiral Jetty was submerged in 1972. Droughts caused the lake to recede in 2002, and the sculpture has remained visible ever since.

 Pierre Huyghe: For Münster’s Skulptur Projekte 2017, Huyghe has developed a time-based bio-technical system in a former ice rink that closed in 2016. This involved bio- and media-technological interventions and required extensive architectural de- and reconstruction. All the processes taking place within the very large hall are mutually interdependent: some of them are determined by the HeLa cell line, in a constant process of division in an incubator. Among its various effects, the cells’ growth triggers the emergence of augmented reality shapes. Variations in a Conus textile pattern change the spatial configuration: for example, the opening and shutting of a pyramid-shaped window in the ceiling of the hall.

 By digging into the earth, Huyghe transforms the ground into a low-level hilly landscape. In some spots, concrete and earth, layers of clay, styrofoam, gravel debris, and Ice Age sand are found as far as a few metres underground, interspersed with leftover surfaces. This space is inhabited, for instance, by algae, bacteria, beehives, and chimera peacocks.

Biological life, real and symbolic architecture and landscapes, visible and invisible processes, and static and dynamic states are all fused into a precarious symbiosis.

John Gerrard: The flag of John Gerrard‘s digital simulation work Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) marks the site of the Lucas Gusher, the world’s first major oil find in 1901, in Spindletop, in the middle of the Texan desert. Gerrard’s flag i made of perpetually-renewing pressurised black smoke. The computer generated Spindletop runs in exact parallel with the real site in Texas throughout the year: the sun rising at the appropriate times and the days getting longer and shorter according to the seasons. The simulation is run live by software that is calculating each frame of the animation in real time as it is needed.

Western Flag symbolises our reliance on oil. It’s everywhere, it is one of the forces behind climate change and yet it remains invisible. In an interview with the Irish Times, Gerrard describes oil as a “dynamic that allowed for a very particular change in society, allowed for hyper-mobility, changes in food and agriculture. Much of what we think of as ‘real’ is a petroleum reality. Heat, comfort, mobility, it all comes from petroleum.”

This year a new challenge has taken instagram by storm - a ‘ten years challenge’, where people are posting pictures of themselves now and ten years ago. This is a ten years challenge that my friend has put on his instagram story, which I think is the only ten years challenge worth attention: 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Exclusive: Snowden intelligence docs reveal UK spooks' malware checklist #1yrago

Boing Boing is proud to publish two original documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, in connection with "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Extraordinary Rendition," a short story written for Laura Poitras's Astro Noise exhibition, which runs at NYC's Whitney Museum of American Art from Feb 5 to May 1, 2016.

“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.” This is what I shout at the TV (or the Youtube window) whenever I see a surveillance boss explain why none of his methods, or his mission, can be subjected to scrutiny. I write about surveillance, counter surveillance, and civil liberties, and have spent a fair bit of time in company with both the grunts and the generals of the surveillance industry, and I can always tell when one of these moments is coming up, the flinty-eyed look of someone about to play Jason Bourne.

The stories we tell ourselves are the secret pivots on which our lives turn. So when Laura Poitras approached me to write a piece for the Astro Noise book -- to accompany her show at the Whitney -- and offered me access to the Snowden archive for the purpose, I jumped at the opportunity.

Fortuitously, the Astro Noise offer coincided perfectly with another offer, from Laurie King and Leslie Klinger. Laurie is a bestselling Holmes writer; Les is the lawyer who won the lawsuit that put Sherlock Holmes in the public domain, firmly and unequivocally. Since their legal victory, they've been putting together unauthorized Sherlock anthologies, and did I want to write one for "Echoes of Holmes," the next one in line?

The two projects coincided perfectly. Holmes, after all, is the master of HUMINT, (human intelligence), the business of following people around, getting information from snitches, dressing up in putty noses and fake beards... Meanwhile, his smarter brother Mycroft is a corpulent, sedentary presence in the stories, the master of SIGINT (signals intelligence), a node through which all the intelligence of the nation flows, waiting to be pieced together by Mycroft and his enormous intellect. The Mycroft-Sherlock dynamic perfectly embodies the fraternal rivalry between SIGINT and HUMINT: Sherlock chases all around town dressed like an old beggar woman or similar ruse, catches his man and hands him over to Scotland Yard, and then reports in to Mycroft, who interrupts him before he can get a word out, arching an eyebrow and saying, "I expect you found that it was the Bohemian stable-hand all along, working for those American Freemasons who were after the Sultan's pearls, was it not?"

In 2014, I watched Jennifer Gibson from the eminent prisoners’ rights group Reprieve talking about her group's project to conduct a census of those killed by US drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. The CIA conducts these strikes, using SIGINT to identify mobile phones belonging to likely targets and dispatch killer drones to annihilate anything in their vicinity. As former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden once confessed: "We kill people based on metadata."

But the CIA does not specialize in SIGINT (that's the NSA's job). For most of its existence, the CIA was known as a HUMINT agency, the masters of disguise and infiltration..

That was the old CIA. The new CIA is just another SIGINT agency. Signals Intelligence isn’t just an intelligence methodology, it’s a great business. SIGINT means huge procurements -- servers, administrators, electricity, data-centers, cooling -- while HUMINT involves sending a lot of your friends into harm's way, potentially never to return.

We are indeed in the “golden age of SIGINT”. Despite security services' claims that terrorists are "going dark" with unbreakable encryption, the spooks have done much to wiretap the whole Internet.

The UK spy agency GCHQ really tipped their hand when they called their flagship surveillance program "Mastering the Internet." Not "Mastering Cybercrime," not "Mastering Our Enemies." Mastering the *Internet* -- the very same Internet that everyone uses, from the UK's allies in the Five Eyes nations to the UK Parliament to Britons themselves. Similarly, a cursory glance at the logo for the NSA’s Special Source Operations -- the fiber-tapping specialists at the NSA -- tells the whole story.

These mass surveillance programs would likely not have withstood public scrutiny. If the NSA’s decision to launch SSO had been attended by a nightly news broadcast featuring that logo, it would have been laughed out of the room. The program depended on the NSA telling its story to itself, and not to the rest of us. The dotcom boom would have been a very different affair if the major legislative debate of the day had been over whether to allow the surveillance agencies of Western governments to monitor all the fiber cables, and harvest every click and keystroke they can legally lay claim to, parcel it into arbitrary categories like “metadata” and “content” to decide what to retain indefinitely, and to run unaccountable algorithms on that data to ascribe secret guilt.

As a result, the entire surveillance project has been undertaken in secrecy, within the bubble of people who already think that surveillance is the answer to virtually any question. The surveillance industry is a mushroom, grown in dark places, and it has sent out spores into every corner of the Internet, which have sprouted their own surveillance regimes. While this was happening, something important was happening to the Internet: as William Gibson wrote in 2007's "Spook Country, "cyberspace is everting" -- turning inside out. Computers aren’t just the things in our bags in the trunks of our cars. Today, our cars are computers. This is why Volkswagen was able to design a car that sensed when it was undergoing regulatory inspection and changed its behavior to sneak through tests. Our implanted defibrillators are computers, which is why Dick Cheney had the wireless interface turned off on his defibrillator prior to its implantation. Everything is a networked computer.

Those networked devices are an attack surface that is available to the NSA and GCHQ's adversaries -- primarily other governments, as well as non-government actors with political ambitions -- and to garden variety criminals. Blackmailers, voyeurs, identity thieves and antisocial trolls routinely seize control over innocents' computers and attack them in every conceivable way. Like the CIA and its drones, they often don't know who their victims are: they find an exploit, write a script to find as many potential victims as possible, and harvest them.

For those who are high-value targets, this lurking insecurity is even more of a risk -- witness the recent takeover of the personal email accounts of US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper by a group of self-described teenagers who previously took over CIA Director John Brennan's email account.

This is the moment when the security services could shine. We need cyber defense and we need it badly. But for the security services to shine, they'd have to spend all their time patching up the leaky boat of networked security, while their major project for a decade and more has been to discover weaknesses in the network and its end-points and expand them, adding vulnerabilities that they can weaponize against their adversaries -- leaving these vulnerabilities wide open for their adversaries to use in attacking us.

The NSA and GCHQ have weaponized flaws in router operating systems, rather than telling the vendors about these flaws, leaving the world’s electronic infrastructure vulnerable to attack by the NSA and GCHQ’s adversaries. Our spies hack core routers and their adversaries' infrastructure, but they have made themselves reliant upon the continuing fragility and insecurity of the architectures common to enemy and ally alike, when they could have been making us all more secure by figuring out how to harden them.

The mission of making it as hard as possible for the enemy to attack us is in irreconcilable tension with the mission of making it as easy as possible for our security services to attack their adversaries.

There isn't a Bad Guy Internet and a Good Guy Internet. There's no Bad Guy Operating System and Good Guy Operating System. When GCHQ discovers something breakable in a computer system that Iranians depend upon, they've also discovered something amiss that Britons rely upon. GCHQ can't keep that gap in Iran's armor intact without leaving an equally large gap open in our own armor.

For my Sherlock story, I wanted to explore what it means to have a security methodology that was all attack, and precious little defense, particularly one that proceeded in secret, without any accountability or even argument from people who thought you were doing it all wrong.

The Documents

Though I reviewed dozens of unpublished documents from the Snowden archive in writing my story, I relied upon three documents, two of which we are releasing today.

First, there's the crux of my Sherlock story, drawn from a March 2010 GCHQ document titled "What's the worst that could happen?" marked "TOP SECRET STRAP 1." This is a kind of checklist for spies who are seeking permission to infect their adversaries' computers or networks with malicious software.

It's a surprising document in many regards. The first thing that caught my eye about it is the quality of the prose. Most of the GCHQ documents I've reviewed read like they were written by management consultants, dry and anodyne in a way that makes even the famously tortured prose of the military seem juicy by comparison. The story the authors of those documents are telling themselves is called something like, “Serious grownups, doing serious work, seriously.”

"What's the worst..." reads like the transcript of a lecture by a fascinating and seasoned mentor, someone who's seen all the pitfalls and wants to help you, their protege, navigate this tricky piece of the intel business without shooting yourself in the foot.

It even tells a kind of story: we have partners who help us with our malware implantation. Are they going to help us with that business in the future if their names get splashed all over the papers? Remember, there are clever people like you working for foreign governments -- they're going to try and catch us out! Imagine what might happen if one of our good friends got blamed for what we did -- or blamed us for it! Let's not forget the exploits themselves: our brilliant researchers quietly beaver away, finding the defects that the best and the brightest programmers at, say, Apple and Microsoft have left behind in their code: if you get caught, the companies will patch the vulnerabilities and we will lose the use of them forever.

On it goes in this vein, for three pages, until the very last point:

“Who will have direct access to the data resulting from the operation and do we have any control over this? Could anyone take action on it without our agreement, eg could we be enabling the US to conduct a detention op which we would not consider permissible?”

That's where the whole thing comes to something of a screeching halt. We're not talking about Tom Clancy net-wars fantasies anymore -- now we're into the realm of something that must haunt every man and woman of good will and integrity who works in the spy agencies: the possibility that a colleague or ally, operating without oversight or consequence, might descend into barbarism based on something you did.

Reading this, I thought of the Canadian officials who incorrectly told US authorities that Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin, who was suspected of being connected to Al Qaeda.

Arar was detained by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during a stopover in New York on his way home from a family vacation in Tunis. The Americans, acting on incomplete intelligence from the Canadian Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), deported Arar to Syria, a country he had not visited since his move to Canada, and which does permit the renunciation of citizenship.

Arar claims he was tortured during his imprisonment which lasted almost a year, and bombarded with questions from his torturers that seemed to originate with the US security services. Finally, the Syrian government decided that Arar was innocent of any terrorist connections and let him go home to Canada. The US authorities refused to participate in the hearings on the Arar affair and the DHS has kept his family on the no-fly list.

Why did Syrian officials let him go? "Why shouldn't we leave him to go? We thought that would be a gesture of good will towards Canada, which is a friendly nation. For Syria, second, we could not substantiate any of the allegations against him." He added that the Syrian government now considers Arar completely innocent.

Is this what the unnamed author of this good-natured GCHQ document meant by "a detention op which we would not consider permissible?" The Canadian intelligence services apparently told their US counterparts early on that they'd been mistaken about Arar, but when a service operates with impunity, in secret, it gets to steamroller on, without letting facts get in the way, refusing to acknowledge its errors.

The security services are a system with a powerful accelerator and inadequate brakes. They’ve rebranded “terrorism” as an existential risk to civilization (rather than a lurid type of crime). The War on Terror is a lock that opens all doors. As innumerable DEA agents have discovered, the hint that the drug-runner you’re chasing may be funding terror is a talisman that clears away red-tape, checks and balances, and oversight.

The story of terrorism is that it must be stopped at all costs, that there are no limits when it comes to the capture and punishment of terrorists. The story of people under suspicion of terrorism, therefore, is the story of people to whom no mercy is due, and of whom all cunning must be assumed.

Within the security apparatus, identification as a potential terrorist is a life sentence, a “FAIR GAME” sign taped to the back of your shirt, until you successfully negotiate a kafka-esque thicket of secretive procedures and kangaroo courts. What story must the author of this document have been telling themself when they wrote that final clause, thinking of someone telling himself the DIE HARD story, using GCHQ’s data to assign someone fair game status for the rest of their life?

Holmes stories are perfectly suited to this kind of problem. From "A Scandal in Bohemia" to "A Study in Scarlet," to "The Man With the Twisted Lip," Holmes's clients often present at his doorstep wracked with guilt or anxiety about the consequences of their actions. Often as not, Holmes's solution to their problems involves not just unraveling the mystery, but presenting a clever way for the moral question to be resolved as well.

The next document is the "HIMR Data Mining Research Problem Book," a fascinating scholarly paper on the methods by which the massive data-streams from the deep fiber taps can be parsed out into identifiable, individual parcels, combining data from home computers, phones, and work computers.

It was written by researchers from the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research in Bristol, a ”partnership between the UK Government Communications Headquarters and the University of Bristol.” Staff spend half their time working on public research, the other half is given over to secret projects for the government.

The Problem Book is a foundational document in the Snowden archive, written in clear prose that makes few assumptions about the reader’s existing knowledge. It likewise makes few ethical assertions about its work, striking a kind of academic posture in which something is ”good” if it does some task efficiently, regardless of the task. It spells out the boundaries on what is and is not ”metadata” without critical scrutiny, and dryly observes that ”cyber” is a talisman -- reminiscent of ”terrorist” -- that can be used to conjure up operating capital, even when all the other government agencies are having their budgets cut.

The UK government has recognized the critical importance of cyber to our strategic position: in the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010, it allocated a significant amount of new money to cyber, at a time when almost everything else was cut. Much of this investment will be entrusted to GCHQ, and in return it is imperative for us to use that money for the UK’s advantage.


Some of the problems in this book look at ways of leveraging GCHQ’s passive SIGINT capabilities to give us a cyber edge, but researchers should always be on the look-out for opportunities to advance the cyber agenda.


The story the Problem Book tells is of scholars who’ve been tasked with a chewy problem: sieving usable intelligence out of the firehoses that GCHQ has arogated to itself with its fiber optic taps.

Somewhere in that data, they are told, must be signatures that uniquely identify terrorists. It’s a Big Data problem, and the Problem Book, dating to 2010, is very much a creature of the first rush of Big Data hype.

For the researchers, the problem is that their adversaries are no longer identifiable by their national affiliation. The UK government can’t keep on top of its enemies by identifying the bad countries and then spying on their officials, spies and military. Now the bad guys could be anyone. The nation-state problem was figuring out how to spy on your enemies. The new problem is figuring out which people to spy on.

"It is important to bear in mind that other states (..) are not bound by the same legal framework and ideas of necessity and proportionality that we impose on ourselves. Moreover, there are many other malicious actors in cyberspace, including criminals and hackers (sometimes motivated by ideology, sometimes just doing it for fun, and sometimes tied more or less closely to a nation state). We certainly cannot ignore these non-state actors".

The problem with this is that once you accept this framing, and note the happy coincidence that your paymasters just happen to have found a way to spy on everyone, the conclusion is obvious: just mine all of the data, from everyone to everyone, and use an algorithm to figure out who’s guilty.

The bad guys have a Modus Operandi, as anyone who’s watched a cop show knows. Find the MO, turn it into a data fingerprint, and you can just sort the firehose’s output into ”terrorist-ish” and ”unterrorist-ish.”

Once you accept this premise, then it’s equally obvious that the whole methodology has to be kept from scrutiny. If you’re depending on three ”tells” as indicators of terrorist planning, the terrorists will figure out how to plan their attacks without doing those three things.

This even has a name: Goodhart's law. "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Google started out by gauging a web page’s importance by counting the number of links they could find to it. This worked well before they told people what they were doing. Once getting a page ranked by Google became important, unscrupulous people set up dummy sites (“link-farms”) with lots of links pointing at their pages.

The San Bernardino shootings re-opened the discussion on this problem. When small groups of people independently plan atrocities that don’t require complicated or unusual steps to plan and set up, what kind of data massaging will surface them before it’s too late?

Much of the paper deals with supervised machine learning, a significant area of research and dispute today. Machine learning is used in "predictive policing" systems to send cops to neighborhoods where crime is predicted to be ripening, allegedly without bias. In reality, of course, the training data for these systems comes from the human-directed activity of the police before the system was set up. If the police stop-and-frisk all the brown people they find in poor neighborhoods, then that's where they'll find most of the crime. Feed those arrest records to a supervised machine algorithm and ask it where the crime will be and it will send your officers back to the places where they're already focusing their efforts: in other words, "predictive policing" is great at predicting what the police will do, but has dubious utility in predicting crime itself.

The part of the document I was most interested in was the section on reading and making sense of network graphs. They are the kind of thing you’d use in a PowerPoint slide when you want to represent an abstraction like "the Internet". Network graphs tell you a lot about the structures of organizations, about the relative power relationships between them. If the boss usually communicates to their top lieutenants after being contacted by a trusted advisor, then getting to that advisor is a great way to move the whole organization, whether you're a spy or a sales rep.

The ability of data-miners to walk the social and network graphs of their targets, to trace the "information cascades" (that is, to watch who takes orders from whom) and to spot anomalies in the network and zero in on them, is an important piece of the debate on "going dark." If spies can look at who talks to whom, and when, and deduce organizational structure and upcoming actions, then the ability to read the content of messages -- which may be masked by cryptography -- is hardly the make-or-break for fighting their adversaries.

This is crucial to the debate on surveillance. In the 1990s, there was a seminal debate over whether to prohibit civilian access to working cryptography, a debate that was won decisively for the side of unfettered access to privacy tools. Today, that debate has been renewed. David Cameron was re-elected to the UK Prime Minister's office after promising to ban strong crypto, and the UK government has just introduced a proposed cryptographic standard designed to be broken by spies.

The rubric for these measures is that spies have lost the ability to listen in on their targets, and with it, their ability to thwart attacks. But as the casebook demonstrates, a spy's-eye view on the Internet affords enormous insight into the activities of whole populations -- including high-value terrorism suspects.

The Problem Book sets up the Mycroftian counterpoint to Sherlock's human intelligence -- human and humane, focused on the particulars of each person in his stories.

Sherlock describes Mycroft as an all-knowing savant:

The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience.

While Sherlock is energized by his intellectual curiosity, his final actions are governed by moral consequences and empathy. Mycroft functions with the moral vacuum of a software: tell him to identify anomalies and he'll do it, regardless of why he's been asked or what happens next. Mycroft is a Big Data algorithm in human form.

The final document I relied upon in the story is one we won't be publishing today: an intercepted transcript of a jihadi chat room This document isn't being released because there were many people in that chat room, having what they thought was an off-the-record conversation with their friends. Though some of them were espousing extreme ideology, mostly they were doing exactly what my friends and I did when I was a teenager: mouthing off, talking about our love lives, telling dirty jokes, talking big.

These kids were funny, rude, silly, and sweet -- they were lovelorn and fighting with their parents. I went to school with kids like these. I was one of them. If you were to judge me and my friends based on our conversations like these, it would be difficult to tell us apart from these children. We all talked a big game, we all fretted about military adventurism, we all cursed the generals who decided that civilian losses are acceptable in the pursuit of their personal goals. I still curse those generals, for whatever it's worth. I read reams of these chat transcripts and I am mystified at their value to national security. These children hold some foolish beliefs, but they're not engaged in anything more sinister than big talk and trash talk.

Most people -- including most people like these kids -- are not terrorists. You can tell, because we're not all dead. An indiscriminate surveillance dragnet will harvest far more big talkers than bad guys. Mass surveillance is a recipe for creating an endless stream of Arars, and each Arar serves as inspiration for more junior jihadis.

In my fiction, I've always tried to link together real world subjects of social and technological interest with storytelling that tries to get into the way that the coming changes will make us feel. Many readers have accused me of predicting the future because I've written stories about mass surveillance and whistleblowers.

But the truth is that before Snowden, there was Wikileaks and Chelsea Manning, and Bill Binney and Thomas Drake before them, and Mark Klein before them. Mass surveillance has been an open secret since the first GW Bush administration, and informed speculation about where it was going was more a matter of paying attention to the newspaper than peering into a crystal ball.

Writing a Sherlock Holmes story from unpublished leaks was a novel experience, though, one that tied together my activist, journalist and fiction writing practices in a way that was both challenging and invigorating. In some ways, it represented a constraint, because once I had the nitty-gritty details of surveillance to hand, I couldn't make up new ones to suit the story. But it was also tremendous freedom, because the mass surveillance regimes of the NSA and GCHQ are so obviously ill-considered and prone to disastrous error that the story practically writes itself.

I worry about "cybersecurity," I really do. I know that kids can do crazy things. But in the absence of accountability and independent scrutiny, the security services have turned cyberspace into a battleground where they lob weapons at one another over our heads, and we don't get a say in the matter. Long after this round of the war on terror is behind us, we'll still be contending with increasingly small computers woven into our lives in increasingly intimate, life-or-death ways. The parochial needs of spies and the corporations that supply them mustn't trump the need for a resilient electronic nervous system for the twenty first century.

Astro Noise: A Survival Guide for Living Under Total Surveillance, edited by Laura Poitras, features my story "Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Extraordinary Rendition," as well as contributions from Dave Eggers, Ai Weiwei, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Lakhdar Boumediene, Kate Crawford, and Edward Snowden.

The Astro Noise exhibition is on at New York City's Whitney Museum from February 5 to May 1, 2016.

Henrik Moltke contributed research to this story.

https://boingboing.net/2016/02/02/doxxing-sherlock-3.html

[jukeboxgraduate]

Barcelona, Travel Post

Everyone was so generous to me with their Barcelona intel that I wanted to write down all of mine so that I could return the favor.

Airport transport: being someone from New York, my first thought when arriving in a new city is "Can I get into the city center via public transportation?" The answer is yes, but a QUALIFIED yes. You have to take a shuttle bus to the domestic terminal, which is 10 minutes away, and then it is a long, long walk to the station. It did drop me two blocks from my hotel and cost me less than 1 euro but the airport bus was 6 euro, stopped right outside the terminal, and was three blocks from my hotel. 

I did not take the train back, but the morning airport bus was a soul-crushing, sardine-packed-anti-tourist experience that I would not recommend to anybody.

IMPORTANT NOTE: There is no ATM in the airport. Do yourself a favor and go to AmEx or an international bank so you have like 25 Euro when you arrive.

Lodging: I didn't do an Airbnb because I was traveling solo and Airbnb is great if everything goes well but if it doesn't you are FUCKED. For example: When I went to Scandinavia and missed my connection so my bags didn’t arrive until the next day, I could t just have them dropped at the hotel whenever, I had to waste a whole day waiting for them. When the plane was late I had to rely on the host to be flexible. There were too many things that could have gone wrong.

I chose a location with proximity to the metro going to the festival and the location of the shuttle bus. I have burned out with locations that are "a short walk" because short walks become lengthy on a day-in, day-out basis. It was worth it to me to pay a premium to be central so I could go back to the hotel whenever I wanted.

Honestly, I would have really liked a nice apartment in Eixample where I could have foisted my bad Spanish on the local cafe daily. Next time.

Sights: 99% of what I like to do in a city is walk around and Barcelona is absolutely a city made to walk around and every block is gorgeous. I would walk and get lost and then pull out my phone and figure out where to go next. 

[I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR about using my phone. I fucking backpacked through Southeast Asia before there was an internet. I have earned the right to use a goddamn smartphone in Europe. The phone meant I could LOOK at the amazing architecture and not have to be looking at a map all the time, and it makes you less of a target for thieves. (More on this later.)]

El Born/Barrio Gotic: Seriously the best thing you could possibly do here is pick a random street and walk. The most famous streets are clogged with people and I moved away from them as quickly as I could. I stopped by the Cathedral but didn’t get in because it was tourist hell. On the other hand, I stumbled into Stella Maris on Sunday afternoon during Mass and I said I wanted to light a candle for Santa Barbara (which I actually did, I do this for my mom) and it was lovely. But mostly I just walked around and got lost.

My favorite thing in El Born was the Mercat del Born Cultural Center. This is the former location of the old neighborhood market that was going to be torn down and turned into a FNAC and then was going to be a library when they discovered hella ancient ruins underneath. Now you can walk around these ancient ruins. I went back a second time, it was so amazing. There is also a restaurant featuring local foods and a shop with locally made goods and public bathrooms.

By Sunday I had promised myself that I would “go sit in a park or something” and although it had poured rain in the morning/early afternoon (when I was writing in a cafe) I took my computer back to the hotel and started walking through El Born to get away from tourists. I ended up at the Arc de Triomf and the park leftover from the 1888 World’s Fair. And although there was a dude under the Arc singing “Easy Like Sunday Morning” it was mostly locals walking around and it was totally chill until a drum circle popped up (to be fair, it was not a bunch of Burning Man leftovers drumming, but, like, actual immigrants/residents from the African Continent). It is a great park. I recommend it.

Sagrada Familia: You have to go. I went in 2000 when I was there and as my tour guide said, “You haven’t been.” It was not even close to the same building. As a coworker said, “How often do you get to visit a 100-year construction project in progress?” I highly recommend plumping for the guided tour and not just the headsets. My guide was awesome and I learned a lot and you can stay and hang out as long as you want to. I did not pay to go up to the Towers because I AM A GIANT CHICKEN ABOUT HEIGHTS, but that was actually fine because they were closed that day. I think I was there for 3 and a half hours. 

Casa Batllo: This is worse from a tourist hell perspective than Sagrada Familia because it’s small. I did the 8:45am “sunrise tour” (hahaha Barcelona you are so cute) and I would advise the 8:30 instead so you have the place to yourself for half an hour before people start walking through with iPads. My advice with Casa Batllo is to spend as much time as you can in the front room, because the rest of it is not nearly as inspiring, and then head to the roof. Ignore advice telling you to go to the roof first and then wind your way down. Keep in mind that you cannot see the entire building because people still live there. So you can’t spend 3 hours like I thought I was going to.

La Pedrera/Casa Mila: I bought a ticket thinking I’d go in the morning and then I didn’t, so I had to go to the nighttime tour and beg to be allowed to pay the difference. The nighttime tour isn’t a tour. It’s a lecture in the courtyard, a climb SEVEN FLOORS UP to the attic with another lecture, and then an audiovisual show on the roof. *bzzt* I was Gaudi-drunk at the time I bought the ticket and honestly I should have just given it a pass. I got more out of doing a Lonely Planet guidebook walking tour than I did out of this experience.

Fundacion Joan Miro: This is lovely and comprehensive, and well-curated. I hate his depiction of women, however, and by the end was done. The gift shop has many cute items as well as jewelry from local Barcelona merchants. The Fundacion is up on Montjuic, which you can get to by bus, cablecar (teleferic) or funicular. The funicular is part of the Metro system so you can transfer to it without paying extra. (Given the GIANT CHICKEN ABOUT HEIGHTS note above you know I did not take the cablecar.) I did not walk around Montjuic because that is also the location of the Palau San Jordi, and I spent a whole lot of fucking time there in 2000 when I came to see Pearl Jam. It is a lovely green space though and I would advocate trading it for the other park noted above, if you find yourself looking for a green space.)

I did this instead of the Picasso Museum because his most important works are not in the museum and I’ve been to (and LOVE) the Musee Picasso in Paris twice, and I have to get to Madrid so I can see Guernica in person anyway. 

Things I deliberately did not do: La Boqueria (cutting through it was nightmare enough), any lengthy walk down Las Ramblas, extended beach time

I also saw the traveling version of the V&A Bowie exhibit, which just happened to be in town, and also let’s remember three nights of Primavera Sound that I had to file from, which kept me up late and sleeping in at the end of it.

FOOD IN BARCELONA:

At this point it will be a separate post.

IMPORTANT PROTIPS:

METRO: The Metro is awesome, convenient, clean. I bought the T-10 card, which gives you 10 trips for 9.95 Euro. That includes the RENFE train from the airport BUT NOT THE Metro (I don’t get it either). The T-10 is good on Metro, buses, trams and the funicular to Montjuic.

OVERSEAS SIM CARDS: It’s getting easier to buy a SIM when you arrive somewhere but I opted for an option called KnowRoaming, which is a sticker you put on your US SIM, and it switches over automatically. WhatsApp is free, calls are cheap, you get an alternate number so you can text, and they have unlimited data plans, which in BCN was $6.99 a day. I bought data for the first day to see how much I used. I bought a 7-day data plan. It was FANTASTIC to be able to use my phone the way I normally use my phone, especially when needing to find friends or discover that Arcade Fire is playing a pop-up show. Also? The map was freedom. I could go ANYWHERE. Maybe when you’re a dude you don’t worry about finding your way out. 

PICKPOCKETING/THEFT/CRIME IS A REAL THING. I read the stories and I was almost sure they were fake, except 1) a Spanish friend who lives in Barcelona met me for lunch and told me how she was clutching her purse in the Metro and when crossing Las Ramblas and 2) a smart woman who was on my food tour had her purse snatched when in La Boqueria. She grabbed it back and kicked the kid in the face, and then bought another purse to replace the leather purse WITH A VERY STURDY STRAP that got yanked off her arm.

EVERYTHING IS CLOSED ON MONDAY except the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I went to partly because I was over there collecting my festival credentials next door, partly so I could get in some air conditioning and use a bathroom but also because this stuff is my jam, and there were some great exhibits. THEY ARE OPEN ON MONDAY. Go watch the skateboarders on the plaza outside if nothing else.

ALL THE RESTAURANTS ARE CLOSED SUNDAY NIGHT so plan in advance. I was literally [] this close to going to McDonald’s because every.thing.was.closed. Ask your hotel. Plan it in advance. Book at the place I ended up (which was fantastic).

Advance tickets: I booked tickets to Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo one week in advance. I felt kinda touristy until I turned up at the queue for Sagrada Familia, and the women behind me who had no tickets were told “No, we are totally sold out for the day” at 11:45am. All of the sights will scan your barcode on your phone and most hotels will let you print so I would suggest booking the things you can be sure about and then doing the rest on a case by case basis. THAT SAID, I booked a ticket to La Pedrera that I ended up not getting to use/having to pay up just to get in because I was too ambitious. So, book but be smart.

[ftnbooks-blog]

For many of us Jo Niemeyer is not the most common name in constructivist art. However Niemeyer has a loyal following of admirers in Germany and Finland. ( the 1984 Helsinki book is available at http://www.ftn-books.com).

Working with the primary colors that Piet Mondriaan used too in his STIJL period the compositions look at first glance not that original, but study them closely and you will notice a much more complex composition  with mouvement on the works by Niemeyer. making these stand out on their own. Here is the text i found on Wikipedia on the artist.

Jo Niemeyer was born in 1946 in the German village Alf. He comes from a long-time artist family. His mother was a textile designer and worked in Saabrücken at the former State School for Art and Crafts, where she was in charge of a handloom weaving factory. His father began to paint at a relatively young age, in abstract and concrete art. Unfortunately, his paintings were considered to be degenerate and most of his works were destroyed or lost during WWII.

After three years of studying photography and graphic art, Niemeyer executed his first geometrical painting in 1966. He travelled in several countries, including the United States and Canada, and in Scandinavia where he was particularly fascinated by nature. In 1967, he pursued his training in industrial design at the Finnish Institute for Art “Atheneum”. He decided in 1970 to quit his job as professional photographer to become a full-time independent artist.

In Finland, he met artist colleagues Lars-Gunnar Nordstrom and Matti Kujasalo, the former director of the Finnish Academy of Art in Helsinki. In the 80s, Kujasalo asked Niemeyer to lecture about different print techniques in the graphic art department. During this time, Niemeyer built up his knowledge of Finnish architecture. It was also in Helsinki in the late 60s that Niemeyer met his wife, Tuula Partanen. in 1972 she founded Edition Partanen which specialised in silkscreen prints and publication of graphic and art portfolios. The studio was established in South Germany with a showroom in Zurich, Switzerland. Edition Partanen collaborated with artists such as Rupprecht Geiger, Matti Kujasalo, Ilya Bolotowsky and Niemeyer himself.

Niemeyer began to elaborate his big scale project “20 steps around the world” which would be installed in 1997 in the City of Ropinsalmi in Finland. In this project, he explained, the earth replaced the canvas. According to him, earth is the carrier of his artistic work being integrated into the creative process only by minimal changes. In the context of this work an arbitrarily defined route around the earth is divided systematically and exactly into 20 segments which develop to a dynamic, logarithmic progression according to the ‘Golden Section’. The 20 steps are visualized by using an installation of 20 stainless-steel elements around the globe, precisely located on continents. The location of the points is achieved by using a computer and satellite navigation.

Over the years, Niemeyer has held successful one-man and group shows in Scandinavia, Italy, Switzerland, Israel, USA, England, Japan, Argentina, and Finland. His murals in public buildings can be found in countries all around the world including Switzerland and Germany, and in Scandinavia. Featured in numerous international publications and films, his works are in public and private collections and museums including in Japan, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany and Austria. Today, Jo Niemeyer works and lives in Germany, France and Finland.

Jo Niemeyer (1946) For many of us Jo Niemeyer is not the most common name in constructivist art. However Niemeyer has a loyal following of admirers in Germany and Finland.

[makingscipub]

The history of biology and the joys of blogging

For the first time in my life and after the end of my official academic career, I’ll be co-presenting a paper at the International Society for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology conference, which is taking place this year in Oslo, from July 7-12. I’ll only be co-presenting and I won’t be there in person for health reasons. So, I’ll only be a ghost, ghost-written into a paper mainly drafted by Andrew Reynolds. But… I am still excited about this. And…, of course, disappointed, as there are many people I would have loved to meet in the flesh, rather than haunting them as a ghost.

ISHPSSB

The ISHPSSB was formed in 1989 in order to hold a biennial meeting, bringing together researchers interested in biology as a discipline, and specifically in its history, philosophy and sociology.

You can see how interdisciplinary things are by reading about the 2019 conference. The meeting in Oslo is a joint effort of The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology (NTM) and the University of Oslo Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), the Institute of Health and Society (HELSAM), the TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, and the Museum of
 Cultural History – Department of Ethnography, Numismatics, Classical Archaeology and University History (MUV).

The programme looks fascinating. The first keynote lecture is by Fern Wickson, whom I know from the old ‘nano’ days and it sounds intriguing: “Lessons learned from waterfleas, whales and bees: A journey into environmental controversies in the search for sustainable food”.

The second keynote is by Gísli Pálsson, whose work I know through my current interest in epigenetics, and his talk entitled “Epistemic landscapes for the century of life”. He will use Conrad Waddington’s notion of ‘landscape’ metaphorically, I think, to map meanings of life that are seemingly being reshaped by the advent of epigenetics.

Epigenetics is a topic also tackled in other talks sprinkled throughout the conference, one by my former colleague and Marie Curie Fellow, Maurizio Meloni, who’ll present a paper on the history and politics of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Through his writing over the last years, Maurizio has shaped the landscape of the history, philosophy and sociology of epigenetics and the biosocial, a history in which Lamarck features in various scientific and political ways.

Landscapes

So…. Landscapes. They seem to be everywhere, you cry. Indeed. They have become a staple trope in the science, history and philosophy of epigenetics and the biosciences/biochemistry in general.

This was something Andrew Reynolds began to notice over the last year or so. During that time, I began to notice Andrew Reynolds, especially after getting hold of his book The Third Lens: Metaphor and the Creation of Modern Cell Biology. There was a fellow thinker, I thought, somebody as fascinated by metaphor as I was, but somebody who understood the science behind the metaphors much better than I do. Andrew in turn noticed my blog Making Science Public, where I sometimes post about science and metaphor and where I’d also mentioned The Third Lens.

Then, in January this year, Andrew approached me and asked me whether I wanted to join him in some capacity in writing a paper for this conference. I said yes. We exchanged some emails; Andrew did the bulk of the work; and here is the abstract.

Abstract

Chromatin landscape, nuclear architecture, and genetic circuits: Integrating multiple perspectives of cell organization and behaviour

Andrew S. Reynolds, Cape Breton University, Canada and Brigitte Nerlich, University of Nottingham, UK

Early discussion of a genetic code inscribed in DNA suggested a close resemblance between the sequence of nucleotide triplets (“codons”) arranged along the length of the DNA molecule and codes written in computer or natural languages. Human codes are typically arranged as two-dimensional scripts (read either horizon- tally from left to right as in English, horizontally right to left as in Arabic, and from top of page to bottom, or vertically top to bottom as in traditional Chinese and Japanese). But because the nucleotides making up the “genetic code” of DNA are normally packaged in densely coiled chromatin structures wound around histone proteins, the cell machinery responsible for “reading” (copying, transcribing, and translating) the genetic “information” does not always have direct access to the relevant nucleotide segments. Accessibility to coding segments and tagging of nucleotide sequences with epigenetic markers (e.g. methylation) have significant effects on which genes are active and when. Determining therefore how chromatin is organized, located, and modified within the environment of the cell nucleus has become a vital research topic. Since the 1980s researchers have increasingly spoken of chromatin landscape and nuclear architecture to highlight these three-dimensional topographical features of the nuclear genome. This talk will:

provide a preliminary history of the employment of these phrases in the literature from the 1980s to the present, detailing how an apparently implicit consensus formed around them, and

discuss the significance of these metaphors for scientific understanding of chromatin biology and genetics, and

consider how these quite distinct perspectives (the linear genetic code and the topological chromatin landscape-nuclear architecture frameworks) are integrated into a coherent account of cell structure and function.

I wish I could be there when Andrew presents the paper!

And the moral is?

Writing blog posts connects people in unexpected ways – even if they can’t meet in person!

  Image: Christiana, Norway, 1814 (became Oslo in 1925) – great landscape!

The post The history of biology and the joys of blogging appeared first on Making Science Public.

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[dorcasrempel]

Fortifying the future of cryptography

As a boy growing up in a small South Indian village, Vinod Vaikuntanathan taught himself calculus by reading books his grandfather left lying around the house. Years later in college, he toiled away in the library studying number theory, which deals with the properties and relationships of numbers, primarily positive integers.

This field of study naturally steered Vaikuntanathan toward what he calls “the most important application of number theory in the modern world”: cryptography.

Today, Vaikuntanathan, a recently tenured associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, is using number theory and other mathematical concepts to fortify encryption so it can be used for new applications and stand up to even the toughest adversaries.

One major focus is developing more efficient encryption techniques that can be scaled to do complex computations on large datasets. That means multiple parties can share data while ensuring the data remains private. For example, if researchers could analyze genomic data and patient data together, they may be able to identify key genome sequences associated with diseases. But the information for genomes and patients is kept private by separate entities, so collaboration is difficult. That’s a gap Vaikuntanathan wants to close.

“Data is available everywhere for these purposes, but it lives in silos. Better encryption is a way to ensure privacy yet allow the person holding the encrypted object to get something useful out of it,” Vaikuntanathan says. “Encrypting data and using data for a valuable purpose don’t have to be opposing constraints. You can achieve the best of both worlds sometimes.”

Part of his work also means “future-proofing” cryptography in a world that may soon see the rise of ultrafast quantum computers. Still in their infancy, quantum computers could one day provide breakthroughs in materials science, drug discovery, and artificial intelligence, to name just a few fields. But, because of their incredible speeds, they could also be used to break through most, if not all, today’s toughest cryptography schemes.

“All the existing encryption systems you use over the internet are insecure if you can build quantum computers,” Vaikuntanathan says. “This is something that everyone knows at this point. We need to develop other ways of doing cryptography to secure the internet so it stands strong, even in the face of quantum computers.”

Step by step

Vaikuntanathan’s journey to cryptography, and to MIT, was a step-by-step process of following his academic interests to increasingly larger cities and institutes — and teaching himself along the way.

It started in Neyyattinkara, India, a place so small “you’d find it hard to locate on map,” Vaikuntanathan says. Today, he and his wife still disagree over whether to call it a town or village. But he’s adamant on the latter: “It doesn’t even have a shopping mall — that’s my criteria for calling it a village.”

By age 12, using his grandfather’s old texts, Vaikuntanathan had taught himself an admittedly incomplete understanding of calculus. “It was buggy and error-prone, but as you go along you get better teachers. The best thing one can do is teach oneself these notions, struggle at it — you’ll get it wrong — and then later be enlightened,” he says.

After attending his area’s only high school, Vaikuntanathan, at 15, joined a pre-university program at a technical institute in a nearby bigger city, Trivandrum, about 20 miles away, where he met like-minded classmates. “There weren’t many people who cared about math and science,” he says, “but a few of us banded together and learned advanced math by ourselves.” Of course, there were some disadvantages: “Twenty miles takes an hour in India traffic, on public bus, packed like sardines. Commuting there was not the most pleasant thing in the world.”

Two years later, Vaikuntanathan enrolled in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, in Chennai, a top engineering school in one of the country’s largest cities. “That’s where things started,” Vaikuntanathan says. As he had at his previous institute, Vaikuntanathan formed a “band of brothers” — a trio of students, including himself, who began studying cryptography.

Then, in his junior year, his professor gave him a copy of “Lecture Notes on Cryptography,” about 300 pages of printed-out, compiled notes from a course on cryptography taught at MIT by Shafi Goldwasser and Mihir Bellare. “Our professor gave it to us and said, ‘Go read it and don’t bother me for a year,’” Vaikuntanathan says.

Working with “giants in the field”

Vaikuntanathan sought to carry his interest in cryptography to graduate school. Accepted into MIT and the University of California at Berkeley, Vaikuntanathan recalls asking his father for advice on which to attend: “I showed him pictures from Google of Cambridge, and they’re the dead of winter, with the frozen Charles River; and then Berkeley, which was sunny and full of life. My father said, ‘Go to Berkeley,’ and I said, ‘No, I’m going to MIT.’ It was the obvious choice, because it’s where the giants in the field were.”

One of those giants was Goldwasser, who became a graduate studies advisor: “I learned from her books to begin with, so that was quite fantastic.”

Some of his major MIT work revolved around reinforcing cryptography against the coming age of quantum computing. This involved using lattices, an architecture that uses number theory and hides data inside very complex math problems that even quantum computers can’t crack. His PhD studies culminated in co-inventing lattice-based cryptography schemes; he also developed a toolkit to teach others how to build and modify those schemes, along with former classmate and mentor Chris Peikert and Stanford University’s Craig Gentry.

After earning his PhD, Vaikuntanathan worked briefly as a researcher at IBM and Microsoft. During that time, Gentry invented fully homomorphic encryption, “which changed the world for all of us” working in cryptography, Vaikuntanathan says. But the original model was too computationally expensive to be practical. “For a while, fully homomorphic encryption was nice for cryptography kids to play with, but was useless otherwise,” he says.

In the late 2000s Vaikuntanathan, together with Gentry and Zvika Brakerski of the Weizmann Institute of Science, integrated lattices into fully homomorphic encryption techniques, creating a model that achieved far better security and efficiency. Other researchers have since built on top of the model, which is freely available on Github as BGV (Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan). “People have refined that system again and again,” Vaikuntanathan says. “It’s interesting to see how far it’s come in nearly 10 years.”

Vaikuntanathan then taught for a couple years at the University of Toronto. During a summer as a visiting researcher at MIT, however, knew he had to return. “I knew this place had people with boundless energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and optimism,” he says. “It drew me back.”

Vaikuntanathan started teaching at MIT in 2013. Two years ago, he co-founded a startup, Duality Technologies, with Goldwasser and others to develop cryptography technologies that enable users to carry out complex computations and analytics on encrypted data. To Vaikuntanathan, the startup represents how the mathematical concepts he delved into all those years ago have come to fruition.

“It’s exciting to see the transition from abstract number theory into these very concrete applications,” he says.

Fortifying the future of cryptography syndicated from https://osmowaterfilters.blogspot.com/