Esc-studio has completed the design of the reception area and bespoke desk for Embody Wellness in London.  |
Esc-studio has completed the design of the reception area and bespoke desk for Embody Wellness in London. |
The word “interactive” is found everywhere these days. It may be worthconsidering what “interactive” means and whether things presented to us as”interactive” actually are so, before moving on to consider why we might want our designed objects and spaces to be “interactive”. Interaction concerns transactions of information between two systems (for example between two people, between two machines, or between a person and a machine). The key however is that these transactions should be in some sense circular otherwise it is merely “reaction” The second particles system reacts to the behaviour of the first one. Changing density and population. Producing a delayed coordination. |
Ciriaco Castro will give a lecture on Friday 11 th of February inside the Master program MIATD (” Architectural innovation : Technology and Design” )@ University of Seville . He will present a talk about Work systems in the production of architecture. An analysis of different tactics and some of the latest projects of ESC. The official website of the Master program can be consulted here:
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ESC’s project for a public square in Mula (Spain) has been published on the issue 316 of the Korean Magazine C3 . For more information on the project follow this link.
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These are the first tests of a project in development for the module “Digital Ecologies”, at the Bartlett’s AAC Msc. Still work in progress. The final piece will be posted soon. A Delta-Robot is controlled by a Kinect through Processing and Arduino. The movements of the performer control directly the position of the robot’s effector, and the rotation and opening of the gripper. Once the platform is properly calibrated (still a little rough round the edges!), several autonomous behaviours will be implemented.  Team: Enrique Ramos, Ciriaco Castro, Miriam dall'Igna |
Enrique Ramos and Ciriaco Castro will present The Promise of Touch on Thursday 23rd June at Centre Pompidou in Paris. It will be part of the Jeudis program, in collaboration with architects Miriam Dall'Igna, & Ruairi Glynn (MSc Adaptive Architecture & Computation at the Bartlett School of Architecture London), performers Jemima Yong and Sigridur Reynisdottir (Central School of Speech and Drama), movement director Nicholas Waters (CSSD) and curator Josef Kelly (Tate Liverpool). The Promise of Touch started as a project developed for the module “Digital Ecologies”, at the Bartlett’s AAC MSc. The Promise of Touch Centre Pompidou Thursday 23rd June. From 7.30pm to 9pm
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An interactive installation and performance, developed through a collaboration between interaction designers, architects and performance artists. Its principal performer, a 3 metre high responsive robot, interacts with its audience’s gestures while it waits for the arrival of its human co-performers. The film shown here presents the first choreographed site specific work to come from this colloquy. Titled ‘The Promise of Touch’, it was presented at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in June 2011. responding to two works within the Gallery - Francis Bacon’s Triptych ‘Three Figures in a Room’ (1964) & Pablo Picasso’s ‘Femmes devant la mer’ (1956). Motive Colloquies is both the work and the people who have formed it. Ciriaco Castro, Miriam Dall’Igna, Ruairi Glynn, Enrique Ramos, Sigridur Reynisdottir, Nicholas Waters, Jemima Yong  |
esc-studio was featured on the January 2012 issue of Wallpaper* magazine, on the article "Five architecture firms reveal how they got ahead".  |
Ciriaco Castro will form part of the workshop leaders during the week of 9th to 15th January of 2012. The main subject will be the investigation of interaction by imbedding kinetic behaviours into the 1:1 objects. Automatic, Reactive and Interactive; Protoyping, Modelling, Making using kinect, Arduino, Processing Grasshopper & Firefly . Workshop website: http://www.ruairiglynn.co.uk/wiki/index.php?title=PhysicalComputingWorkshop2012 |
The book Arduino and Kinect Projects, from Enrique Ramos and Ciriaco Castro with a contributed chapter of Przemek Jaworski, has just been published by Apress. This is the first book on the market to address the intersection of Arduino and Kinect.  If you've done some Arduino tinkering and wondered how you could incorporate the Kinect—or the other way around—then this book is for you. The authors of Arduino and Kinect Projects will show you how to create 10 amazing, creative projects, from simple to complex. You'll also find out how to incorporate Processing in your project design—a language very similar to the Arduino language. The ten projects are carefully designed to build on your skills at every step. Starting with the Arduino and Kinect equivalent of "Hello, World," the authors will take you through a diverse range of projects that showcase the huge range of possibilities that open up when Kinect and Arduino are combined.
What you’ll learn
Who this book is forIntermediate to experienced gadget hackers who want to learn how to combine Arduino with Kinect, or who want inspiration for innovation. |
Enrique Ramos will be giving a lecture on the work of esc-studio at the School of Architecture of Seville University on May 2 at 18:30. The lecture will be in the context of the program “El yo cyborg y la ciudad red“, led by Jose Pérez de Lama and Manuel Gutiérrez de Rueda. |
This work was produced by Enrique Ramos for the module “Digital Studio” at the Bartlett’s Adaptive Architecture and Computation Msc. An Android based phone sends OSC data to a Processing sketch, controlling a “manipulator” that interacts with a cloud of self-organising agents and modifies its configuration. The resulting structure is the combination of the actions of the performer, and the internal rules driving the agents. The final geometry is only suggested, not completely defined, by the designer, who acts as an architect of the behaviour of the system |
Enrique Ramos and Ciriaco Castro images are now on display in the North Cloisters, Wilkins Building, Gower Street (main UCL building) until the afternoon of Friday 14 January 2011. Self-organising mesh by Enrique Ramos:
"Implementation of a non-stable mesh relaxation algorithm. The nodes are repelled by other nodes standing closer than a minimum distance, generating a self-organising behaviour, with triangular and hexagonal shapes emerging out of the process". Nests by Ciriaco Castro:  "A thought about interconnectivity and reality. How world changes, evolves in a multi layered reality. Each nest it is defined for a point and a algorithm that defines it density, colour and distance with the predecessor”. |
ESC + Eduardo Mayoral won the 4th Prize in this International Competition in Cadiz (Spain)
The aim of the proposal is to generate a visible element from the sea and city interior , improve the quality of the existing public space and reveal key information about 1812 Constitution and Cadiz Cortes.
We substitute the existing pavement in Plaza de España with a recycled material with a lighting system , conforming texts, that shows information about Cadiz history.
This text is connected by illuminated lines according to their subject. In addition to this surface we propose a beam of light, as a new landmark, a new gate of the city, having a visual presence from the railway station, from the sea, and from the urban fabric. A number of facilities are also provided as a wi-fi connection point. Information and freedom, elements that commemorate the constitutional values of 1812 and project Cadiz to the future. For more information: http://www.cadiz.es/News/antorchas-de-libertad-de-antonio-angel-garcia-sera-el-monumento-del-bicentenario/3502303 |
Solo creyendo apasionadamente en algo que todavía no existe, lo creamos. Lo no existente es todo lo que no hemos deseado suficientemente.Franz Kafka Fragmentos de distintas realidades urbanas. 1.Aislamiento selectivo ( Davidson Rafailidis) Elemento diferenciador dentro de un gran recipiente. La ciudad dentro de la ciudad. La casa dentro de la casa. Mi espacio dentro del espacio. Una ventana basta como núcleo de conexión, como vínculo entre esta frontera difusa. 2.Elementos Pop up (Momiya Pascal Grasso) Fragmentos de ciudad que se ven reconvertidos, re usados desde una franja en la que el tiempo adquiere una vital importancia. Temporalidad, oportunidad, el no permanecer, hace que el efecto novedad venga contagiado. Ponga un pop up en su vida, restaurantes, tiendas, exposiciones permanecen como reciclaje de espacios que tal vez no fueron pensado para ellos, pero que por ese tiempo se “adaptan” a estas nuevas circunstancias inventadas. Ciudad, regeneración y anomalías. Espacios en cinta de actividad. 3. Acumulaciones/Convivencias/ interferencias (Atelier Fleu) La superposición de estratos dentro de una misma realidad. Fragmentos que pasan inadvertidos que ayudan a una revitalización. El cambio sin olvidar lo existente. Pasado presente formando parte de una misma realidad. 4. Sie(n)te diferencias. La ciudad animada.
Actuaciones puntuales como puntos de deriva dentro de un ente. Superposicion de tiempo, escalas, gente. El mercado urbano. ¿Qué tiene usted que ofrecerme hoy? Me vendo a la mejor oferta. C Castro Londres 2009 |
The scheme reintegrates the currently fenced “Glorieta Juan Carlos I” into the surrounding urban fabric, returning the space to the community by creating a public promenade that breaks the rigidity of the previous configuration and establishes a direct connection between the city and the heart of the square, while preserving the entirety of the existing vegetation. The main circulations are carved into the current levels of the square, revealing a dynamic pattern that runs through the space among the programmed activity islands that host children, elderly and performance spaces, and allowing a stepless access to the square from the adjacent streets. The space planning of the square has been generated with custom softwarethat implements a Voronoi algorithm to subdivide the space into circulations and activity areas. This interactive application will allow for a public consultation process that will give the users the opportunity to actively participate in the design process by proposing their own options. Each of the user’s proposals will be the reflection of the individual’s perception of the space and his personal approach to the new design.
The scheme is designed as a self-sufficient, carbon neutral space. A series of climate control units will be scattered through the square, equipped with PV cells, lighting and fog systems that will lower the temperature of the square in Summer, while producing all the energy required for the normal functioning of the space, being at the same time a physical reminder of a continuous compromise with the environment. For more info visit our website: www.esc-studio.com El esquema reintegra la Glorieta Juan Carlos I, actualmente vallada, en el tejido urbano existente, devolviendo el espacio a la comunidad, creando un paseo que rompe con la rigidez de la configuración anterior y estableciendo una conexión directa entre la ciudad y el corazón de la plaza, conservando la totalidad de la vegetación existente. La circulación es tallada en los niveles actuales de la plaza, revelando un patrón continuo que recorre el espacio dejando una serie de islas programadas, donde se desarrollan actuaciones, actividades para niños y mayores, permitiendo un acceso directo, sin escalones, con las calles adyacentes. La generación del espacio, y su distribución en la plaza, ha sido generado con unsoftware personalizado, que implementa un algoritmo de Voronoi, subdividiendo el espacio entre áreas de circulación y áreas de actividad. Esta aplicación interactiva permitirá hacer un proceso de consulta pública, dando la oportunidad a los ciudadanos de proponer sus propias opciones. La propuesta de cada usuario será el reflejo de la percepción individual del espacio y su aproximación personal al nuevo diseño. El esquema propuesto está concebido como autosuficiente desde el punto de vista energético, siendo un espacio CO2 neutral. En la plaza se disponen una serie de unidades de control climático, equipadas con células fotovoltaicas, iluminación y sistemas de micronización de agua, que permiten bajar la temperatura durante el verano a la vez que producen la energía requerida para el funcionamiento normal del espacio, siendo al mismo tiempo un recordatorio físico de un compromiso continuo con el medio ambiente. Para más información visite nuestro website: www.esc-studio.com
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Ya ha empezado en Mula el proceso de consulta pública para el diseño de la Glorieta Juan Carlos I. Entre los días 21 y 22 de Diciembre en el Ayuntamiento los ciudadanos podrán proponer su propio diseño de la plaza utilizando un programa informático basado en el algoritmo de Voronoi. Cada persona podrá modelar la plaza siguiendo su propia percepción del espacio, creando recorridos y nuevos espacios para actividades destinadas a la ciudadanía. La consulta pública quiere ser un instrumento de discusión e implicación en el diseño de la propia ciudad, siendo los Muleños los más expertos sobre las necesidades de los espacios públicos de su ciudad. Podéis dejar cualquier comentario sobre la consulta pública aquí abajo: |
I have been beset with a doubt during last month: when have architects turned into laughable characters? Everything started when I went to the Italian registry office to renew my passport. When they asked me what my job was, I answered full of proud “Architect”. The conversation was more or less this: Employee: “Oh, Architect? Wow, so do you really design houses?” Me: “No, not really, I mainly design stations and airports, you know, transport projects” Employee: “Ohhh” (showing clear disappointment) Me: “Well, you know, someone has to do the dirty work” He clearly didn’t get the sarcasm. Employee: “But would you be able to design a house?” Me: “I guess so, I am still an architect after all…” Employee: “Mariaaaa” – shouting to her colleague- “do you want a new house? We have an architect here” Maria: “I’ve got no money, would she do it for free?” Me (starting to have a twitch in my eye) : “Of course. Eh eh eh….very funny…Now, just please put a stamp on my passport because I need it to go back to UK”. This funny sketch made me think. Yes, they were lovely people, very entertaining, but a question suddenly came to my mind: would they do the same with a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer? I mean, all these jobs requiring a title? And the answer I gave to myself was sadly: No, they wouldn’t do the same. So when have we architects stopped to be decent professionals and turned into laughable characters? Was it when some Italian architects ended up being investigated for corruption? Well no, normally in Italy if you are a lawbreaker, you are considered a very respectable person, you can even become Prime Minister. I really don’t understand when it happened , there must be a moment in history when something cracked and the architectural tradition felt into a general conspiracy (Maybe the engineer lobby? It may be a theory). Anyways, in this post I have many questions and no answers. If you have any clue, give me a shout. Silvia |
