Starting on August 10, visitors to Apple stores around the world can participate in three different free experiences that all feature augmented reality (AR) art installations. Part of the tech giant's Today At Apple series, the programs—an interactive city walk, an in-store installation, and an AR learning session—were curated in collaboration with the New Museum in New York, which selected contemporary artists Nick Cave, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Cao Fei, John Giorno, Carsten Höller, and Pipilotti Rist to participate. "Augmented reality is a medium ripe for dynamic and visual storytelling that can extend an artist’s practice beyond the studio or the gallery and into the urban fabric,” said New Museum director Lisa Phillips in a press release. The AR walks will be available in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. [Apple]
Less than three years after its installation, the solar roadway pilot program launched in Normandy, France, has been deemed a failure. Since being deployed in 2016, the panels have deteriorated due to unforeseen stress from tractors and thunderstorms, are covered in leaf mold, and created too much noise for neighbors. The future of the French government's plan to install the energy-capturing panels along more than 60 miles over five years is now in question. [Le Monde]
Boston-, Houston-, and Phoenix-based architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch has awarded Rice University assistant professor of architecture Jesús Vassallo the Shepley Bulfinch Award, which grants funding to faculty whose research investigates materials or sustainability. Vassallo was awarded for his work on tall timber. “Anticipating the disruptive potential of mass timber construction systems for collective housing, and capitalizing on what architects do best, which is to innovate in the application of a new technology as opposed to its basic science, this research project will focus on producing a catalog of new applications of mass timber construction systems for mid-rise housing projects,” Vassallo said in a Boston Real Estate Times ariticle. “In order to attain this goal, the project will work by rehearsing different degrees of prefabrication and by focusing on the range of scales between the construction detail and the repetitive structural system.” [Boston Real Estate Times]
Using modeling systems to analyze power infrastructure in California and Texas, researchers from the University of Michigan have found that investing in energy storage for solar and wind power can be economically viable with public policy support and could lead to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. “The cost of energy storage is very important,” said study co-author Maryam Arbabzadeh in a press release. “But there are some incentives we could use to make it attractive economically, one being an emissions tax.” [University of Michigan]
2019 R+D Awards: For the 2018 Uber design competition for a mega-skyport, New Haven, Conn.–based architects Pickard Chilton and global engineering firm Arup proposed Sky Tower, a system of stackable helipad modules, each built around moving platforms. The team's elegant solution caught the eye of the ride-sharing giant, which named it one of eight winners out of several dozen entries, and the project received a citation in ARCHITECT's 2019 R+D Awards. [ARCHITECT]
