AndrewBlum.net

Bird Bath (Wired)

Sure, a Jet's Wings Need Scrubbing, But Its Guts Need a Flush, Too (link)

Philip Joshua eases his chrome-rimmed Ford crew cab into mid-morning traffic on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport, keeping pace with a taxiing passenger jet. It doesn't take much. We're moving 5 miles per hour, if that, slowing even more for bumps on account of the 40 gallons of hot water in the trailer behind us. Also in tow is a 24-kilowatt generator and a mysterious black cart that could pass for a stadium speaker. Evidently, this setup is Pratt & Whitney's EcoPower Engine Wash rig, and we're on our way to bathe the business ends of a 767.

The Ultrabuilder: Bill Baker (Wired)

Seventy feet beneath the Las Vegas strip, in a construction pit that will become the Cosmopolitan Resort and Casino, Bill Baker is looking for local talent. Baker is the head structural engineer at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the famed building design firm responsible for the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Time Warner Center in New York, and scores of other colossal glass boxes across the globe. This morning he's wearing a hard hat and an orange safety vest as he watches a Nevada construction crew at work. He'll likely draft some of them for his next big project, the multibillion-dollar Crown Las Vegas Resort and Casino. At 1,888 (lucky) feet, it will feature what could be the world's highest gaming room, 142 stories above the desert floor. Provided, that is, the Federal Aviation Administration will let it scrape the skies so close to the airport.

Baker inspects welds with his fingertips and, not one to suffer waste (even in Vegas), he looks appraisingly at the oversize columns. Then he rests a dusty dress shoe on a pile of rebar and turns to Brian Calley, an engineer at Schuff Steel, with the question that got him up early this morning, a question that's key to making the steel-framed Crown a reality: "So, what's the biggest thing you're working with?" The Crown will use around 72,000 tons of steel, and Baker needs to know that Schuff can handle that kind of metal. At Calley's answer (16 feet wide by 60 feet long), the bespectacled Baker enthusiastically sticks two thumbs up in the air. The fewer pieces you have to pick up and connect, the faster the building rises. And Baker knows that speed and efficiency will be just as important to getting the Crown off the sketch pad as the schematic itself. "Erection is everything," he explains. The problem with most ambitious architectural endeavors is that "people don't figure out the right way to build them when they design them." (Wired.com link)

New York Hotel Bar Uncorks an Interactive Wine List (Wired)

People who are about to drop $300 on a bottle of Chateau Margeaux want the experience to be awesome — bouquet, color, mouthfeel, yada yada. But what about the ordering? Avid wine snobs might think about a trip to Adour, the restaurant opening at New York's St. Regis Hotel in November. Pull up a stool at the goatskin-upholstered wine bote, tap the glowing word wines projected in front of you, and the list scrolls into view. Choose a type and a bottle — hand and finger movements reveal its details (grape, origin, tasting notes, cost). The info unfolds with an animated flourish out of a flower icon; think Minority Report meets Sideways. Behind the alcohol-enabling magic is a lot of technology: Cameras and object-recognition software track your hand gestures — and ignore stuff like glassware — following the motion with a trail of projected white pixel dust. And all that vino data stays safe on a dedicated Web server. Need help? Luckily, there's a sommelier on duty, so don't worry about getting transferred to a call center in Bangalore. (link) (Rockwell) (Potion)

Swim Laps in Your Own Private Ocean — With an Ocean View (Wired)

Olympic-size is for plebs. Thanks to advanced hydrotechnology, swimmers can paddle in a private ocean — like this $3.5 million, 20-acre, half-mile-long, 66 million gallon leviathan recently certified by Guinness as the largest pool in the world. Located in Algarrobo, Chile, about 70 miles west of Santiago and just yards from the Pacific, the pool at the San Alfonso del Mar condo complex handles water treatment like a surgical strike. While most pools filter all the water several times a day, the San Alfonso's 150 in-wall sensors focus the cleanup only on the dirty bits. Fernando Fischmann, developer of this "pulse oxidation" system, is cagey about specifics, but he says it uses at least 10 times less chemicals per gallon than conventional setups, at a 50th of the cost. Also helping to keep the water clear are a nonstick plastic liner and the immense volume of the pool itself, which dilutes the concentration of any contaminants. Do Fischmann's claims hold water? According to Ralph Keller, an expert in industrial hygiene, the principles are sound — for the short term. "For the first few years," he says, "it may just be the size of the pool that's keeping it clean." In the meantime, Fischmann's company, Crystal Lagoons, has been tapped to install half a dozen more super pools for some big backyards in Argentina, Panama, and — of course — Dubai. (link)

Floor It! (Wired)

En Suite Garages Make for Dee-Luxe Apartments in the Sky (link)
In most Manhattan apartments, a closet counts as a bonus. But a new condo building at 200 Eleventh Avenue in Chelsea ( conveniently located just steps from a nudie bar and a taxicab body shop) takes New York real estate excess to dizzying heights. Behold the En-Suite Sky Garage — an 8,000-pound-capacity freight elevator that whisks your Bentley directly into your pad. Of course, vertical parking is an old idea: At the Starrett-Lehigh Building, two blocks away, massive lifts that could accommodate entire boxcars of cargo once connected a ground floor rail yard with upstairs loading docks. Today, Martha Stewart rides those same elevators in her car to get to her office. At 200 Eleventh, this extravagance will run you at least seven figures — though it looks like every unit will be spoken for when the building opens in 2008. The cheapest garage-equipped two-bedroom carries a $4.7 million price tag, and the 3,585-square-foot penthouse runs $16.8 million. But, really, bringing your car inside is a luxury only in Gotham. As coordinating architect Sara Lopergolo puts it, "It's like suburbia in the sky."

Olafur Eliasson is Playing With Your Mind (Wired News)

Weather Project Artist Eliasson Brings Techie Installations to U.S. (link)

For Take Your Time, a major new exhibition that opened September 8 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the internationally-celebrated artist Olafur Eliasson changed out the gallery lights, put mirrors on the ceilings, created a small fog bank, filled a room with a pool of water, and turned a skywalk into a trippy disco kaleidoscope, all in an effort to tinker with the way we experience space and light, and how we navigate the world. Open through February, the exhibition travels to New York's Museum of Modern Art and P.S. 1 in April, then to the Dallas Museum of Art in November 2008.

Eliason became famous as an artist in 2003, when 2 million people visited The Weather Project, a giant installation at London's Tate Modern that created an artificial sun from 200 yellow sodium lamps.

But, explains SFMOMA curator Madeleine Grynsztejn, Eliasson's work is never mere special effects. Like a DIY guru morphed into an international art star, Eliasson likes to show the mechanisms behind his artwork. "The revelation of his process is part and parcel of the work," says Grynsztejn. "It's equal parts 'wow' and 'a-ha.'"

Made in the Shade (Wired)

Jeanne Gang Angles for Energy Savings With Tilted-Window Design (link)

Look up at the sun. (Ouch!) Now look down at the ground. (Ahhh.) That pretty much sums up architect Jeanne Gang's breathtakingly simple approach to reducing energy use in Windermere West, a 26-story condominium destined for Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. She tilted two-thirds of the south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows away from the sun, letting the structure make its own shade — no duckbill protrusions required. It's mainly a summertime strategy: The hottest sun of the year is also the highest in the sky — and typically coincides with the most expensive electricity. The sawtooth design creates balconies that block direct midday sun, decreasing the need for power-hungry air-conditioning. In winter, when the sun is lower, rays pass through the windows to warm the interior. Gang worked with engineering powerhouse Arup to calibrate the facade. Using a computer model, they gradually angled the glass until they hit the sweet spot — skewed enough to keep living rooms from baking, but not so much that they feel like the inside of a boat. The magic number for Chicago's latitude? Exactly 71 degrees. Which should also be the temperature inside.

Let There Be Light (Wired)

The sun is always shining somewhere in Innsbruck. Unless, of course, somebody turns it off. That's because the Austrian city has the Bartenbach LichtLabor artificial sky. Equipped with 3,000 computer-controlled fluorescent, halogen, and LED bulbs, the 14-foot-tall dome can simulate daylight conditions - from a clear summer morning to a stormy winter afternoon - anywhere on Earth. The idea is to let architects see how natural light might filter through future building configurations. In recent years, computer modeling has largely displaced simulators like this one. But sometimes, silicon just won't suffice. For example, when the architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill wanted to prove the brilliance of their planned 919-window roof for a new terminal at Singapore's Changi International Airport, they invited officials to Austria for a sneak peek. "It was a hard sell," architect Ross Wimer says of the $1.7 billion plan, "until they stuck their heads inside the building." (link)

Photograph by Joerg Reichardt.

Conspicuous Consumption (Wired)

Pop quiz. How much energy are you using right now? Admit it, you have no idea. Building Dashboard could tell you. Developed by Lucid Design Group, it provides real-time, Web-based feedback on electric, gas, and water usage. “This once-a-month utility bill nonsense isn’t good enough to change behavior,” says Michael Murray of Lucid, which is working to outfit buildings with consumption sensors. The system sends the collected info via the Net to Lucid’s servers, where it’s packaged into a slick, widget-like interface. The hard part is making the data relevant to residents. For instance, students at Oberlin College see their per-person dorm room power consumption expressed not as kilowatt-hours but as the energy needed to produce a veggie burger. Of course, the more literal-minded can get the breakdown in old-fashioned pounds of carbon dioxide. (link)

One Trailer, Hold the Trash (Wired)

Priced out of the housing market? Obsessed with design? This glass-walled mobile is low-budget high living for the modern nomad. (link)

It may be a mobile home, but the Glassic Soho won’t be mistaken for any of the single-wides dotting trailer parks across the US. Developed by San Francisco architect and furniture designer Christopher Deam, it’s a sleek, modern alternative living space. At just north of $59,000 for the fully furnished house (wheels included), the Glassic costs at least $10,000 more than a typical trailer. But its target market — think Eames-loving design sophisticates — seems shocked by how cheap the 400-square-foot abode is. “We’re attracting a customer who says, ‘We wouldn’t buy anything else you sell, but we love this,’” explains Denise Walsh, a sales rep at Breckenridge, which manufactures the Glassic.