Hi Everyone,

There’s been a long hiatus  from activity on the blog, but much has taken place over the last month. This posts serves as an update to the future of [insert].

A. [insert]DRG is now a ‘soft’ design research office co-directed by Michael Caton and Brad Rothenberg.

B. www.insertdrg.com is currently under way, and can be expected in due time.

C.[insert]DRG will be participating in it’s second international photography exhibition this June.

D. [insert]DRG co-director Michael Caton will be an assistant professor at the School of Architecture + Design of The American University in Sharjah this coming term.

E.[insert]DRG may possibly be featured in an upcoming issue of Architect Magazine focusing on Young Architects getting creative with their career paths. Even the fact that we’re in consideration is exciting.

Unfortunately this blog will slowly be phased out as insertdrg.com takes over, but I’ll continue to post here as new developments are made until that time.

[insert]DRG

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First explorations in rhinoscript. This is a really basic bridge structure, shamelessly doing homework assignments from MIT’s algorithmic design classes, based on a morbell curve. The second is really me just trying to figure out coding vectors, which was fairly successful I guess, minus the weird flipping at the last interval. Either way, these experiments are pretty rudimentary, but still offer me some lessons in a larger scope. Coding vectors on a surface make me think about the relationship between absolute and relative properties, and how they influence, control, and or manipulate micro + macro behaviors in larger systems. My head is far ahead of my current coding abilities, but I’m still happy to stick a pin in this with the label “the beginning”. Every journey starts with one step.

Rhinoscripts: (right-click: Save As to download)

morbellCurveBridge

subDwithVectorCones

This is a mix I made sometime back in January. I’m planning to make one new mix weekly, released on Thursdays; hopefully getting my friends and colleagues excited for the weekend to come. I’ll just throw this one up for grabs, but I’ll be posting a fresh mix this and, cough cough tentatively, every Thursday. Enjoy.

Also, if you’ve noticed I’ve changed the blog theme. Hemmingway is quite popular, which made me shy away from it at first, but I think it supports deeper exploration through a blogs content + COMMENTING. Looking forward to future dialogues. Enjoy the music again, and if you like it….PLEASE LINK IT…SOMEWHERE…ANYWHERE. Thx. Ciao

right-click: save link as to download     WhatHappenedInStuttgart.mp3

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I’ll try to make one new mix weekly, somewhere in between ALL of the other things I’m doing. I love to share music, and it’ll keep me on my toes…or at least get me on them. Enjoy the music. Comments + criticism is always welcome. Ciao.

Save Link As to download track :

ephemeral.mp3

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Currently I’m working on a photographic series I’m calling “Paradise Lost”. The work is centered around the construction communities of post building boom Dubai. The labor community of Dubai during the building boom operated at a furring pace; with rotating shifts operating 24hrs a day. This invoked the spirit of the Deux Ex Machina in the seemingly endless landscape of structures in construction. Today, with virtually every crane frozen in place, what remains of the labor community race to complete infrastructure projects. While the construction of towers has halted, the construction of the pavement has not. While it is easy to neglect/forget how the streets beneath all of us came about, the efficacy of this event as a daily experience is quite powerful;and is an essence that I hope to capture through my photographs. I’m working throughout various construction and residential zones, which are telling of a different class, and strikingly different lifestyle here. Dubai is a living construction site, which grants one a unique perspective into the world of construction normally blockaded by 4×8 plywood boards. Just last night I managed to sneak into an abandoned building(project put on hold) through an open curtain wall panel. I’d appreciate thoughts and dialogue on the subject.

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First test @ linking my dj sets in WordPress….
I made this short mix on the flight back to Dubai from India. Enjoy the tunes.

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Our existence, both as we now know it, as it was before, and as is shall be in the future revolves around cycles. The evolution of our thoughts, societies, and being flow through fluctuating loops of progression and regression, much like a snail crossing a highway; we inch along adapting to the challenges we face to continue a positive progression. Progression; towards what? Why? It’s interesting to question the reasons why we put one foot in front of the other.

I think of infants and their first steps, which are generally aimed at reaching some target, whether it be the impossibly distant coffee table, mother, or father. Ravaged by failed attempts the child slowly but surely achieves their goal, through minuscule achievement and abrupt shortcomings; much like our snail crossing the road. There is a solemnity in this, which is clearly indicative of our natural, more so normative progression through life.

While this is relatively interesting within its’ own right, what I wish to talk about are our moments of change, adaptation, transition, in defiance of our inherent solemnity. In pondering what wills us forward, I realize that the recognition of our own shortcomings is a huge proponent. At various points throughout our life cycles, individuals and groups take strong note to of our complacence with solemnity, and challenge us to become more than we are. The critical junctures that will us into these phase changes require lush, robust conditions, which touch masses at a fundamental level, screaming for difference. From the Renaissance and Enlightenment, to our present, the political, social, and economic conditions conspire to provide these junctures.

While as a young architect and designer the next ten years are incredibly daunting, given the economic climate which will linger, it is equally as exciting because a critical juncture is fast approaching if not already arrived. The fall 2009 collection by British fashion design Alexander McQueen brings about a moment where the creative class must significantly examine who we are. Has the prosperity of the last 15 years brought us back to a place of exuberant solemnity? This collection draws from me an emotional response, which signifies for me the rumblings of that critical juncture, of that robust base for critical injections, and transfiguration. This is a moment were design roared in defiance of the commonplace, and to deny it is an irrefutably crime against the evolution of mankind.

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http://three.sentenc.es/

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Nicholas Wade of the New York Times wrote an interesting article on the research of biologist, Douglas J. Emlen; whose work is focused on sexual selection in nature, and the outlandish armament and ornament it leads to in beetle species. One of the core arguments the article posits is that the presence of any resource that could be monopolized for reproductive advantage caused the beetle species to develop/evolve weapons to fight off other males. Conditions as specific as food harvesting methods caused different mutations in beetle structure. For example,

“Dr. Emlen noticed that only the tunneling species of dung beetles had evolved horns, which the males use to protect their tunnels from other males. The beetles that push balls of dung away also fight all the time with other males, but are hornless.”

It’s interesting to think about the bone structure of an organism morphing to develop armature for aggressive behavior. Emlen notes the tendency for weapons to start out small, like mere bumps of bone, evolving into more ornate formations. This as an evolutionary process, both materially and conceptually is extremely fascinating.

An amazing collection of photographs from the NYTimes of beetle ornament and armament follow.(photographers noted)

Photographers: A. Kinsner, Douglas Emlen and J. M. Rowland, Olga Helmy, B. Ewen-Campen

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I figured since I’m sharing articles, projects, etc. I’d might as well share interesting books that I’ve either read or am currently reading. “The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman, a birthday gift from my good friend Elliott Maltby over @ ThreadCollective(check the links), has finally jumped off my shelf and I’m loving it. While I’m still early in this book, it is such an imaginative piece of non fiction. I highly recommend this book. Excerpt below:

In the first few years with no heat, pipes burst all over town, the freeze-thaw cycle moves indoors, and things start to seriously deteriorate. Buildings groan as their innards expand and contract; joints between walls and rooflines separate. Where they do, rain leaks in, bolts rust, and facing pops off, exposing insulation. If the city hasn’t burned yet, it will now. Collectively, New York architecture isn’t as combustible as, say, San Fransisco’s incendiary rows of cardboard Victorians. But with no firemen to answer the call, a dry lightning strike that ignites a decade of dead branches and leaves piling up in Central Park will spread flames through the streets. Within two decades, lightning rods have begun to rust and snap, and roof fires leap among buildings, entering paneled offices filled with paper fuel. Gas lines ignite with a rush of flames that blows out windows. Rain and snow blow in, and soon even poured concrete floors are freezing, thawing, and starting to buckle. Burnt insulation and charred wood add nutrients to Manhattan’s growing soil cap. Native Virginia creeper and poison ivy claw at walls covered with lichens,which thrive in the absence of air pollution. Red-tailed hawks and peregrine falcons nest in increasingly skeletal high-rise structures.

“The World Without Us”, Alan Weisman

[insert].recommendations

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