Tuesday, January 15, 2008
For course material, I needed to come up with an instance of "unintended uses of architecture". The great example I came up with involved the Stata Center, which houses the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It's a horrible structure designed by the famous Frank Gehry (I should know since I used to work there).
Anyway, from the Vassar/Main Street entrance, one proceeds up a ceremonial grand staircase, crosses a catwalk, and encounters the following sight:
Frankie boy intended this to be one of the "grand entrances" to the lab... instead, the doors have been frosted over, with a hand-written sign taped on it:
And here's what's behind the door:
Gehry: "I'll frame an entrance into the lab, creating a dramatic transition from the public to private space."
MIT: "What a waste of space. Let's put more cubes there."
Images thanks to David Huynh.
Friday, January 11, 2008
I read with interest that Apple's new Mac Pro installs up to four graphics graphs, supporting up to eight 30" Apple Cinema Displays. Shown below are only six:
Of course, this pales in comparison to HIPerWall, UC Irvine's mammoth display wall supporting 50 30" Apple Cinema Displays (a 10x5 arrangement, thus giving it an insane resolution of 25,600x8,000 pixels). See also Apple's own plug about the project. Nevertheless, what you can commercially acquire is still quite amazing.
Multiple displays are, of course, quite common today. Check out this guy's setup:
Hey, even Al Gore has three:
... which he obviously needs while editing his Keynote presentations about global warming. Hmm... I wonder what the carbon footprint of powering those three displays is?
Update: Digging around a bit, I found out. According to Apple specs the 30" display consumes 150W while operating. Let's take Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) as a typical utility company; according to them CO2 emission rate is 0.524 lbs CO2 per kWh. Assuming an eight-hour work day, this means that 3 30" Apple Cinema Displays would be responsible for 490 lb CO2 a year. Actual figures will vary since Al Gore has homes in Virginia and Tennessee, not in the service area of PG&E.
Back to main page
