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2016 Olympic Games: Rio Solar City Tower



 
Designed by the Swiss firm RAFAA for the International Architecture Competition for the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, the proposed structure is both beautiful and green. Named the Solar City Tower, the building is adorned with solar panels that can be used to help make Rio's Olympics the first ever zero-carbon games.

Excess energy gathered by the solar panels will be used to pump seawater high into the tower to power turbines, producing energy during the night. For some occasions, the tower can transform into an urban waterfall the designer calls "a symbol for the forces of nature."

 
The aim of this project is to ask how the classic concept of a landmark can be reconsidered. It is less about an expressive, iconic architectural form; rather, it is a return to content and actual, real challenges for the imminent post-oil-era. This project represents a message of a society facing the future; thus, it is the representation of an inner attitude. Our project, standing in the tradition of "a building/city as a machine", shall provide energy both to the city of Rio de Janeiro and its citizens while using natural resources.

 
In addition the being a machine that produces clean energy, the structure will boast an amphitheater, auditorium, cafeteria and shops in the ground level. Several observation decks will offer visitors yet another view of a city known for its breathtaking vantage points. The proposal even includes a deck for bungee-jumping.

 
Just as the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio will surely help reinforce Brazil's position as a nation on the rise, both in terms of economic power and as a spearhead of the global green movement--the Solar City Tower may help redefine sustainable urban design.

Via Tree Hugger

ProDigits: World's First Bionic Hand

The ProDigits bionic hand, is made by Touch Bionics in Livingston, Scotland. The device can replace any or all fingers on a hand; each replacement digit has a tiny motor and gear box mounted at the base. Movement is controlled by a computer chip in the prosthesis.

 

 
ProDigits was released commercially last December, said Stuart Mead, the chief executive of Touch Bionics. About 60 patients have been fitted worldwide, he said, and some have been wearing it for three or four years. The cost is $60,000 to $75,000, including fitting and occupational therapy.

Via LikeCool

Mitsubishi Electric Elevators Carry 80, Possibly the World's Largest

 
If you've ever been annoyed by the impatiently waiting for an office building elevator, this might just be the perfect building for you. Each of the new elevators installed by Mitsubishi Electric in Umeda Hankyu Building’s new office area in Osaka, Japan measures 11.2 x 9.2 feet in area by 8.5 feet high (3.4m wide, 2.8m long and 2.6m high). This allows for a whopping 80 person capacity, or over 11,500 pounds (specifically a 5,250kg load according to the company). Do some quick math, and that means that these five elevators alone can move up to 400 people at once.

 
And if you think that being crammed into an elevator with 79 other people sounds a little uncomfortable, take solace in the fact that the car does have glass windows, allowing you to enjoy the view as you're going up. The elevator connects the lower department store portion of the building, on floors B2 through 13, and the upper offices, from floors 15 through 41.

When I asked a Mitsubishi representative if this was indeed the world's largest elevator, he could only confirm that "these are the largest capacity passenger elevators to date in Japan". In my own personal research, I have yet to find a bigger one worldwide.

 

Via Gizmag

New Twitter.com Announced with Embedded Images and Video

Twitter unveiled a new home page design today with an enhanced sidebar that displays images, video, and user profile information without leaving your news stream. The change is notable because Twitter.com is still the most popular way for people to use Twitter: fully 78 percent of all users access the service through the site. 

At launch, media content partners include YouTube, Vimeo, Ustream, TwitPic, Flickr and 11 other firms, but Twitter is actively looking to expand its media partners. This content will appear in a sidebar beside a relatively traditional newsfeed.

The new design certainly has more components, but Twitter co-founder Evan Williams says he isn't worried about making the service overly complicated. "Embedding the media doesn't make Twitter more complicated," according to Williams. "It makes it simpler because you don't have to open up another link."

Williams says part of the reason for the design is to make it a better tool for consuming information. "You don't need to tweet to use Twitter, it can be a great way to just get information," Williams said. There are more than 90 million tweets a day on Twitter and about 25 percent of those tweets have links, he said.

William said they have tried to remove friction through the Twitter experience. "You can  scroll endlessly down your feed, there is no more "More" button," William offers as an example.

The hastily-called press conference we held at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco in front of a crowd of more than a hundred tech journalists. The new site design will launch today, but will roll out to users in stages.

Twitter currently has more than 145 million registered users and experiencing phenomenal growth. At the beginning of the year, the company had 75 million users. That is still dwarfed by Facebook's more than 500 million users, but it is a significant user base.

A big part of what is driving Twitter's growth is the mobile space. "Twitter started on mobile. The whole reason for 140 characters was to fit on SMS, but we realized not enough people were getting the full Twitter experience on mobile."

Williams said that is why the company started building its own applications, first for the iPhone, then for the iPad. And it is driving user-adoption. Since the beginning of the year, Twitter users on mobile are up 250 percent, according to Williams.

Although by all accounts a banner news day for Twitter, the service did lose one of its most avid users. Despite amassing 3.7 million followers, pop music star John Mayer closed and deleted his Twitter account. He will be moving on to Tumblr, a much smaller micro-blogging service.

Tumblr, incidentally, also lets you embed pictures and videos directly into your news feed.

Via PC Magazine

Nakheel Tower Designed to be World's Tallest Skyscraper at Height of 1.4km



 
Designed for Dubai by Woods Bagot, the Nakheel Tower is planned to be the world’s tallest skyscraper. The towering spire would stand over a kilometer tall, measuring in at 1,400 meters (4,593 ft) and putting the Burj Khalifa to shame. The tower is part of a much larger marina development in Dubai and also designed to LEED standards – that is if it ever gets built.

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The project is part of a large 270-hectare mixed-use development called Nakheel Harbour. The tower was designed to serve as Dubai’s new capital building and it is adorned with Islamic design elements. Shopping districts, residences, offices, and public parks will make the area a thriving cultural hub.

To achieve a height of over 1,400 meters, the tower features an Islamic building typology that divides the Tower into four cores, with slots in the middle up near the top. These slots allow wind to pass through the building, reducing the wind load and allowing for uniformly-sized floor plates to be used the whole way up. The vertical city will be a LEED certified eco-tower and include black water treatment, storm water harvesting, reuse of fire test water, solar panels, wind turbines, and high-voltage power distribution.

Construction is currently on hold and there is no word on when it may start. The entire development is estimated to take 10 years to build.

 

Via Inhabitat and eVolo