Jane's Walk Vienna

On Sunday May 4th I will be guiding a Jane's Walk in Vienna. This post contains some preparatory images I took. Please have a look into the walk's details on the website of Jane's Walks. 

As I just moved to Vienna's 9th district (Alsergrund) I decided to explore the area of the "University Center Althanstraße" encompassing the now vacant Business University buildings, the Institute of Ecology (where I studied, amongst others), as well as the Geology and Pharmacy Institutes.

I am happy about this initiative and am curious to see how we are going to walk, converse and vision about what this whole building complex can turn into in future. 

Meeting point: Sunday, 4th May, 5PM in front of Franz-Josephs Bahnhof.

Click images to enlarge! 

Urban Stories Beijing

I am looking forward to giving a talk in Zürich at ETH DARCH's Chair of Architecture and Urban Design run by Urban-Think Tank, alias Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner. The talk will be part of the Urban Stories lecture series which puts an emphasis on deciphering the underlying "urban plans, instruments, visions, political decisions, economic reasonings, cultural inputs and social organizations" which have produced a certain urban morphology. With this knowledge 'urban operational tools' shall be defined which collectively will form an operational urban toolbox as an "improvised manual to navigate theories".

It is a great opportunity to merge the research were doing in Beijing with Smarter Than Car with new insights into Beijing's urban development and contemporary urban morphology. 

Giant, Previously Unseen Structure In Our Galaxy

"The structure spans more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and it may be millions of years old."

images by NASA

Buy Plastified Body Parts to be Fashionable

Did you ever think about owning a plasticized human being? Or wearing 'horse penis slice earrings'? You can fulfill your wishes now!

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Products such as these are now offered by 'Plastinarium Guben', a company founded by mister 'Body Worlds', Gunther von Hagens. I read an interview today in an Austrian newspaper in which he stated the potential of these products to be supporting female beauty for example.
I always found sections - through plant or animal tissue - very beautiful and can't help but finding these earrings and other products on the website on one hand extremely intriguing but as well far reaching. Is that what makes an artistic product? The products of Plastinarium are surely something to distinct yourself from others. Im curious where I will run into the first person using a 'bull penis walking stick' (for about 2500 €).

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Regarding the issue of wheater or not to use animal and human bodies for these purposes: According to von Hagens human bodies are only sold to referenced buyers who use them for educational purposes. At least you know what is in these products and you can see animal/biological beauty and showcase it on your own body. There are numerous items produced with animal ingredients of which you have no idea about so a well referenced, transparent and controversial item is by far better. Moreover, using plastified bull penisses as walking sticks may allow us to start a dialogue about body, beauty, decay, life etc. which may be much deeper than a dialogue arising from wearing a Svarovski crystal on your ear. ;)

 

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EPOXI

One of the first amazing images of NASA's EPOXI mission flying by comet Hartley 2 at minimum distance of about 700 km (435 miles). The encounter took place at about 11 millions miles distance to earth. 

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Detail of the comet showing jets of gas heated by the sun.

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Watch the happy people at the mission's control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Closest contact in this video happens at about 01:35:00. Congratulations to mission control!

The Connectome

Connectomics, the emerging field of mapping the human brain and its inspirational potential for non-neuroscientists.

"A connectome is a synapse-resolution mapping of connections between all neurons in a model organism's brain. In other words, a synapse-resolution circuit diagram of the brain. Current approaches to mapping the connectomes of model organisms employ serial block face scanning electron microscopy (SBF-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The only connectome that has been mapped out to date has been from the nematode (roundworm), C. elegans, which has only around 300 neurons. Candidate future connectomes include the fly, with around 10,000 neurons, and the mouse brain, with 100 million neurons."
Kasthuri N, Lichtman JW. The Rise of the Projectome. Nat Methods. 2007 Apr;4(4):307-8.
from: connectomes.org

One of the leading labs in connectome research is the Seung lab at MIT. Read about their work in the MIT Press article and watch Sebastian Seung's brilliant TED talk (I am my connectome) about the quest of mapping the human connectome.

As with other cutting edge scientific concepts, it is intriguing to think this concept through in other fields such as seeing public spaces as areas where connectomes of another sort are arising. So connectomes may be conceptualized for specific landscapes as well. As planners and landscape architects we can then aid  connectomes to establish and to diversify. The mapping images and technologies may be at least inspirational.

Anyway. Thank you neuroscientists for this amazing material! And good luck for further work!

Pictures on this page are taken from Hagmann et. al. (2008) 'Mapping the Structural Core of Human Cerebral Cortex' PLoS Biol 6(7)

Talk: 'Creating Bioenergy Landscapes: An Ecological Perspective' at HKU

I will give a guest lecture on next Tuesday, 9th of February at the Division of Landscape Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Hong Kong. The talk will elaborate on bioenergy as design strategy within landscape architecture practice.

Synopsis
Society increasingly seeks to address climate change, energy security and peak oil by using biomass as ‘biofuels’ for energy production. This has created ambivalent reactions from both scientists and environmentalists. Landscape architects are still underrepresented in this discourse, but may create bioenergy landscapes as multiple-use green spaces, infrastructure areas or on temporarily unused land. Bioenergy promises like green house gas savings, ‘clean’ energy or environmental sustainability will have to be considered by landscape architects with an informed and critical mind, to be able to truly assess bioenergy potentials of any given site.
This talk will therefore present benchmarks for bioenergy landscapes in terms of ecological functioning, energy
efficiency and possible green house gas savings. A review of landscape projects addressing bioenergy shall stimulate the discussion about landscape architecture practice in the context of bioenergy production. Finally, perspectives will be presented for bioenergy landscapes to become a vital element of landscape architecture projects.

Permafrost and Soil in Siberia

ecosystem carbon balance

:)