This year Milan Design Week will honor the Miami based Italian designer Vito Di Bari by hosting his newest creation, MyEquilibria, in a solo exhibit at the historical botanical garden, the Orto Botanico di Brera, in Milan. There will be a press conference on Monday, April 11th at 2:30pm and formal unveiling ceremony the day after in the Orto Botanico to mark this historic occasion, and officially launch the annual event.
Following the ceremony, MyEquilibria will be available to visitors free of charge courtesy of Fuorisalone in collaboration with the city of Milan.

According to Di Bari, Milan Design Week was the only choice of venue for the public unveiling of MyEquilibria. Since 1961 Milan Design week or “Salone de mobile” has been an annual event where the world leaders in design unveil the latest trends in design from furniture and clothing to art and architecture. The term “Fuorisalone” is used to describe the tremendous influx of more than 1200 creative exhibitions that sprawl throughout the city of Milan for the month of April. Each year the internationally acclaimed extravaganza draws tens of thousands of artists, tourists, and design elite to share and celebrate the latest breakthroughs and brilliance in design. According to acclaimed architect and designer Gaetano Pesce, “The Milan Fuorisalone has been a benchmark for the Venice Biennale of Art, for the various fashion weeks in New York, London, Paris, for Documenta, Frieze, Pad, Basel and Miami Basel, the Armory Show and so on”.

MyEquilibria was born of Vito Di Bari’s ongoing crusade to promote the “cross pollination of arts and technology for a better quality of life”. The interactive art installation is a vision of beauty that skillfully balances form and function. MyEquilibria is completely comprised of next generation materials and technologies that make it the very first art installation of its kind in existence. MyEquilibria in Milan will pioneer a worldwide fitness community connected through the digital technology woven into the very structure of MyEquilibria’s wellness trees.

At first glance, MyEquilibria appears to be an elegant representation of some unknown organic life form, but the aesthetic appeal is only a fragment of the installation’s genius. The 23’ tall wellness trees are designed to provide an array of over 500 different forms of exercise. Replacing antiquated instruction boards found with other open-air exercise equipment, MyEquilibria has an app for smart phones and tablets that provides instructional videos specifically crafted for each MyEquilibria installation. Thanks to MyEquilibria’s geo-localization and augmented reality features, the app instantly identifies which MyEquilibria installation an individual is using, and offers videos of personal trainers using that very same art installation.

Visitors to MyEquilibria can build their own unique workout routines customized to meet their individual fitness goals through the app’s virtual trainer program. App users can mold their fitness regimens according to their individual body types, health and fitness goals with the aide of the fitness experts that contribute to MyEquilibria. The app also interacts with other smart devices such as wearables and smart phones to provide helpful data for users to monitor their heart rates, time, distance, speed, calorie burning, and progress. MyEquilibria provides a real-time forum for app users to ask advice from fitness experts and get relevant suggestions for improving their exercise experience.

The revolutionary concept of connecting people around the world – united in promoting physical and psychological health and well being, is made possible through MyEquilibria’s social network capabilities. People separated by thousands of miles and across oceans can work out together, compete, help, and encourage each other in real time thanks to MyEquilibria’s online connectivity. The app is also social media friendly for sharing the fun on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

About the Designer of MyEquilibria

Vito Di Bari is the CEO of DiBari & Associates and an innovation designer who develops creative solutions based on next generation technologies and materials. Vito’s Miami based studio, DiBari & Associates is a team of star artists, architects and designers known in the USA as the “Dream Team”, as they are the very best in their respective fields worldwide. Vito has been deemed one of the top three most important futurists in the world, and The Financial Times has defined him as “the Design and Innovation Guru”; Nobel Economics Prize winner, Kenneth Arrow, said, “Vito Di Bari engineers dreams. Concrete dreams, based on concrete facts”. Read the rest of this entry »

The AA Visiting School Hawaii is the Architectural Association School of Architecture’s workshop dedicated to the investigation of flying machines.

Design, fabrication, geometry as well as performance and choreography will be the subject of our studies.

From their earliest use as measurement tools for the city, the 2000 year old history of flying machines is deeply rooted in architectural investigations. Gliding between its leisurely vocation and its scientific relevance, we will immerse into this legacy starting from the world’s oldest form of air-craft: the kite.

The participants will be organized in groups each responsible for the design and creation of one kite, intended as an abstract architectural machine, a modern scientific toolbox or a folly worth of a tropical Grand Tour.

In parallel to that we will be building a drone as a tool to record and document our efforts as well as to interact with our other air-crafts.

We will be testing and flying our air-crafts on the mountains and the beaches of Oahu Island as wells as the roofs of Honolulu, gearing up for our final take off, when all we’ll have built will collapse into one great play.

Website: hawaii.aaschool.ac.uk
AAVS Hawaii Dates: June 6 to 17, 2016
Registration Deadline: May 13, 2016
Director: Costantino Sambuy
Contact: Costantino.Sambuy@aaschool.ac.uk

Australians are by definition sports crazy, so naturally sports architecture should play a significant role in the nation’s psyche. Sport clubs dot the suburbs like fire stations, but none has the kinetic punch and environmental acumen as Templestowe Reserve Sporting Pavilion. The new sport center packs a lot of solar technology on the roof to support the many hot showers taken inside. It also uses the thermal mass from the deconstruction of the previous building buried below, which acts as a heat sink for incoming fresh air to help cool down exerted bodies. The charged design is the real story because it acts as an active participant in the games. Read the rest of this entry »

The Féval city-block is a significant part of the renovation program performed around the Rennes rail-station. The urban project is developed by FGP and Territores. The project suggests to develop a new territory to connect the two sides of the city involving changes in landscape and topography. The railway road passes through urban structures like a river would pass through giant tectonic monuments in a form of large crystals.

The project consists of three buildings made ​​by 3 different architects, the whole project is structured around a landscape rift. The “crystals” are carved in a way to make the inner territory be reachable by sunlight.

We defined a section of the office by calibrating floors to 3.40m slab to slab. Savings in the height of each floor added up to one additional floor for the 28m building. Thus this solution created a large area which gives us the flexibility to “cut” large volumes to produce fancy crystal-like shapes making all composition more spectacular. This ability to resize volumes allows us to create a valley where the three buildings meet on the Féval Street and allow daylight to enter into the center of the block.

Success of the Féval city-block depends heavily on the quality of the infrastructure on the ground floors of the three buildings. We paid particular attention to increasing accessibility to the inner spaces from the outside.

Design: Périphériques Architectes, a/LTA architectes, Hamonic&Masson Read the rest of this entry »

Water is the essential element for life by excellence and abundance since the dawn of time, but it has become a luxury for all but the poorest people. Hydropolis offers an alternative to the use of fresh water, but also a new way of life completely different based on the sea water. Using it in purely artificial and independent oasis helping countries this way that are located in “water-stressed” areas.

The aim of this project is to propose a scheme that is based in developing the biggest necessary activities for the human race around salt water: the production of energy, housing, agriculture and ecological restoration. Aquaculture will be possible thanks to the contribution of seawater. This scheme will meanwhile be reproduced to infinity in space but also in time as long as the intake of sea water is possible.

How is that possible? By creating channels that will bring ocean water directly into holding tanks. These tanks will take an image of a sewage treatment plant as a solar furnace which will collect the condensed water (pure water) and will be divided continuing the life circle proliferating life around. Read the rest of this entry »

The OBU47, designed by Daniel Caven, takes on new ideas of integration of robotics within building skins and using software to record and react to climate conditions. The idea is derived from a low resultant “night purge” that many towers, in hot climates, use to help cool towers during night time temperatures. The OBU47’s operable bay units at night move outward to vacuum suction in cool air and then force the captured cool air into the stationary living areas. Situated in Phoenix, AZ, the tower is in a prime location,due to the desert temperature highs, to incorporate this facade to a new skyscraper.

Taking roots in the Chicago style of architecture, the bay window has been used as a way of extending viewpoints as well creating air passages to the floor plates. (Creating a cross wind mainly through the bay window) The OBU47 bay operates on solar powered electric motors that push a highly sustainable lightweight bay outward cantilevering from the floor plate-thus bringing outside air inward by natural vacuum suction. That air is then compressed and flushed back to the floor plate. This essentially lowers cooling costs as well as promotes and introduces new air into the quarters. The bay also significantly extends views to the surroundings and gives the user a balcony when desired. The bays are capable of filling the living quarters with with more than half the volume of stationary volume- decreasing cooling loads for the overall building. This passive strategy is simply exaggeration from a typical night purge to give the tower not only a new parametric aesthetic but to show how sustainability and parametricism are creating new bonds in architecture. Read the rest of this entry »

Fassadendurst is a B.Arch thesis project by Ralf Bliem, done at the Vienna University of Technology, Studio and Critic under Manfred Berthold. The project is a futuristic concept for dystopian architecture in an urban context, influenced by the behavior of insects berthing on a host.

The basic idea was to think about urban and industrial parasites and the transmission into architecture. The construction is able to move on the facade – trying to find the best spot to stay – always ready to move on. The main structure is provided by steel beams, which carry the large hydraulic system and are needed to connect the parasite among the existing building.

A parasite is located in all devisable areas, so the main structure and the hydraulic system are able to absorb seismic impacts to provide stability on different sites. The machinery houses a type of bio-mechanical heart, able to inject a chemical substance to rebuild the supporting structure of a existing building. Once the parasite places itself on a industrial or urban wreckage, it constantly tries to repair its host and keep the condition of it. Read the rest of this entry »

The proposal for the Meadows Salford Bridge Competition of Alex Daxböck and Chris Precht of penda reinterprets a traditional bridge typology by mixing it with a strong, visual landmark. Looking at the bridge from the side, the strucutre appears as a common suspended bridge, but getting closer to its starting points, the bridge opens up its eliptical shape and surrounds the pedestrians walking over to the Meadows.

The `O´ – A multifaceted object
The aim of the proposal is to create a landmark for the Salford Meadows by turning its structure of the bridge into a formal element, which will define a strong signature for the site. The design is meant to stand as a monument by balancing the tradition of Salford with the green spaces on the Meadow in an elegant, harmonious and inviting way.

Landmark
A landmark not defined how people are interacting with the building, but how the building is interacting with the people. Therefore we created an icon for the Meadows which changes its appearance to people throughout the city. People in the South and North of Salford see the bridge as a disc-like object, where else for people in the eastern and western parts the bridge has a very slim and elegant appearance. Approaching from the Crescent / Chapel Street, the bridge looks like a common swing bridge suspended from a pylon. Getting closer, the bridge is opening up and the ellipses turns into a full circle inviting the visitors to the Meadow. People are interacting with the bridge without even the need of crossing it and therefore the O creates a unique experience for people living and visiting Salford and a lasting formal impression of the Meadows.

The Walkway
A continuously truss system is carrying a wooden finishing for a walk path and glazed, semi transparent handrails. With it‘s DDA compliant gradient of 1/20, both endings are generously widened to invite pedestrians. The walkway merges into a a terraced landscape, which can be used for sunbathing during the day and as an open air theatre at dawn. Hence its slope, the landing point of the bridge provides a great view over the Meadows.

The O – cafe was integrated into the sliced landscape with direct view to the Irwell River and the O.

The Steel Ring
A profiled welded steel tube, resting on 2 concrete bearings is the main structural element of the bridge. It supports and carries the structure at the same time. Carrying the loads of the bridge to the bearings, the ellipse enables the bridge to span over the Irwell River without having supporting columns within the water. To avoid forcing to many loads to the existing bridge (Chapel Street), one bearing should move to the landscape underneath the street.

The Steel Ropes
During the day, the suspension cables are reflecting the sunlight and the sun’s energy get stored in energy saving LED’s. Therefore the bridge will be glowing during the night transforming the O into a landmark for Salford 24/7. Read the rest of this entry »

A residence this small is no longer a house but too large to be considered furniture. The intention is fully practical by condensing function to elements. It is small enough to be carried to a location—urban, industrial, natural—and support one person’s need as a full-service shelter. At 27 cubic meters, 3 meters to a side, the design relies on portative elements. Read the rest of this entry »

RED is fashion, RED is flamboyance….Faceted in solid aluminum, the facade of the project is a mammoth  ruby set on a black pedestal. Palliated with a veil of green – The bold union of extravaganza and class. The project required to be glamorous and exhibit an attitude. It is designed in compliance to the end users which are jewelers, brand stores and corporate houses. It needed to portray a sense of attraction with systematic architectural understanding to create strong visual connectivity with exploration of different materials, solid colors and state- of- the art finishes. The structure evolves itself as a sculpture enhancing its face value and scale.

RED facade is the spectacular facial expression of the conceived thought process…constructed from customized factory made aluminum modules.

REEN facade comprises of thin retractive metal wire frame work on which creepers form a thick screening. The green veil bays from the terrace leading down to the parking along the sides of the building brackets the office spaces in a refreshing green.

Design: Onus Design Read the rest of this entry »