Today’s Cribcandy has a list of some of the most recent innovations in LED lighting from being directly embedded into fabrics, bathroom tiles and translucent glass.

LED’s are currently only in widespread use for applications with high maintenance costs such as traffic lights, but as their performance increases over the next 5 to 10 years, they will eventually replace standard home and office lighting and transform the way that interiors can be designed.

Aside from the tiny size of LED’s (or the even newer LECs (Light Emitting Capacitors), LED’s are approaching the lifespan of standard building materials, making it cost effective to embed them directly in structural components and architectural finishes.

The biggest change, however, is that because the currents involved are tiny, LED lighting can be directly controlled, digitally, meaning that there are almost unlimited effects that can be produced cheaply and controlled wirelessly.

Given that transparent wiring can be embedded in glass complete with transparent solar cells it should be possible to create windows with self-powered, embedded lighting to be any color or shade, display any image or be completely translucent.

Cribcandy - a thumbnail bookmark blog with the best stuff for your home

Josh Rubin points to the preliminary designs for Manhattan’s highline, which were unveiled at Monday’s opening at MOMA.

Manhattan’s highline project aims to take a 1.5 mile strip of disused overhead railway and turn it into a linear park.

It’s a terrible idea.

Linear parks were all the rage when I was an architect, because they could use spaces that were generally wastelands, like old railway lines and, more importantly, because the long sweeping shallow curves made it easy to do presentations that looked great and truly modern.
The problem is that linear parks don

Excellent resource listing the various projects underway to create 3d models of Manhattan: VTerrain: New York City

“Tornadoes cause ‘hundreds’ of dollars of damage to mobile homes every year and some trailer dwellers take measures against them. Others just let nature help them with their decorating.”

Great Mobile Homes of Mississippi - The Trailer Park

McDonald’s Wi-Fi:

“none of the 20-odd patrons scattered about the restaurant’s two dining areas appears to have a laptop computer or wireless PDA on hand”

A McDonalds rep says:

“Why would these customers use this service when they can go back to their offices to use their computers?”

Is this the real reason, or is it the fact that McDonalds architecture is designed to have people pass through quickly, with harsh lighting and hard seating? McDonalds is the artithesis of an environment where you would want to hang out.

“Digital dawn, functions as a traditional window blind with a reactive surface that is in constant flux, growing in luminosity in response to its surroundings.”

Calatrava’s Vision for a Trade Center Transit Hub via Anil

Architecture is like computer programming in that the details suck you in, and its sometimes difficult to see the big picture, the overall design. In fact ability to see the wood from the trees is the principal skill that architects have to offer when they use their skills in other disciplines.

Detailing has become a fetish in architecture as projects follow where the money is. Corporate buildings are designed like Porsches, but there are still architects like Rem Koolhaas that don’t get drawn into details at the expense of the space they are trying to create. Even Corbusier’s detailing wasn’t that great.

Calatrava is undoubtedly a master builder, but sometimes the overall form is dictated by impressive structures rather than the space they create, and as such shows the difference between great engineering and great architecture.

Great Independent interview with maverick, Robert Hughes, the worlds most renowned art critic who has just written a book about Goya.

“I think he [Goya] is genuinely anti-war, anti- the degradation caused by war, which is a function of human desire for cruelty, which is at least as deep-rooted as mankind’s desire for sex”.

Hughes is a superb writer and a no-bullshit critic, with a distaste for the fashion driven whims of the art world, so I can’t wait for Hughes’ next book which is about my old boss, Norman Foster.

BBC Radio 3 looks at a variety of architectural subjects for the remainder of the year. Check out the archive links for interviews with Rem Koolhaas, Renzo Piano and Daniel Libeskind.

BBC - Radio 3 - Architecture on 3 homepage

Nick Aster points out that the ‘World Council on Tall Buildings’ (straight out of the X-men) decided that the Petronas Towers in KL are the tallest building in the world despite the fact that the Sears tower in Chicago is blatantly taller.

“Measured to the top of the radio masts, Sears’ height is 1,518ft, which easily eclipses Petronas’ 1,483ft. Trouble is, the masts on top of the Sears Tower don’t count, but the mast on top of Petronas’ does. Hmm, confused? The masts on the Sears tower are not considered to be a part of the actual building, so the official measurement stops at 1,450ft. So Petronas gets the crown.”