Making the world a better place

I really enjoyed reading Jesse Scanlon’s article “Open Source Goes Hammer and Nail”. I thought it was extremely interesting to read about Cameron Sinclair and his Open Architecture Network (OAM). I found interesting because today’s internet offers so many different community websites such as Facebook, Myspace, aSmallworld, and many others. So it feels only right that a community website targeting architecture and architects was founded. More importantly, OAM is not a common community website, it is a cause related community website. It is well known that a very large amount of people live in poverty and I find very touching and amazing at the same time that Cameron Sinclair is so concerned about this problem.
Through his community website, he tries to gather as many architects or people interested in architecture as possible and informs them of the problem. What he tries to do is to get the members of the website to share different kinds of information in order to find different ways of solving housing problems that occur in different areas of the world. It was very interesting to read how he thought that giving away tents was a very way of solving shelter in third world countries. Instead, he did an experiment in Kosovo where he built housing at very low cost and got the villagers to work with them. This was a great solution as it was not that expensive and at the same time it educated the villagers on how to build, so they did not only get houses but they also learned how to rebuild their village.
The OAM is seen as a great thing as its goal is to create a better world, but many architects still remain skeptical about joining the network. The reason for that is that they are scared of sharing their own designs or intellectual property. They do not want anybody to steal their hard work. Also, architects are held liable for their designs. So if their building is build somewhere but the building was not made for that area and it collapses, then the architect can be held liable. Thankfully, Sinclair has been working with lawyers on arranging legal matters. Other problems that occur with the network are the different construction and building laws that other countries have.
To conclude I would say that the OAM is a great tool not only to make the world a better a place but also for architects to communicate in order to find new solutions.

Digital Models

The New York Times article “For New Buildings, Digital Models Offer an Advance Walk-Through” was a very interesting article that reminded me of the rendering article that was assigned two weeks ago. The article talks about AEI Digital, which is a company that develops digital models for buildings. Much more advanced than renderings, the digital models actually allow viewers to walk-through the building in a very realistic way. What the company did was actually to use gaming softwares and methods to create the most accurate and realistic models. As they explain it in the article, the digital model is a great tool for investors to see exactly how a building will look or how a material or fabric will look, basically “it’s really just a communications tool”.
Although it is a great communication tool, Mr. Schuldt also emphasizes on the fact that architecture as a whole has been very slow to adapt new technologies because sometimes those new technologies are not very practical and people working on construction sites tend to prefer to write on paper than walking around with laptops. Some architects are very conservative and do not work a lot with the new technologies but then others do, take Frank Gehry as an example. Gehry would never be able to work without new technologies as his buildings are so complex and could not be constructed without computers calculating even the smallest thing.
I believe that this new software is a great tool as it allows viewers to see the building in a more realistic way than renderings. Renderings are great too but if you can have digital models such as the AEI ones then why not. They are much more advanced and will allow viewers not only see one part or façade of the building, they will show everything in a 3 dimensional form rather than in 2 dimensional form.