travel insurance

Travel insurance comes in 3 flavors; trip cancellation, trip interruption, and medical assistance. Trip cancellation covers any number of reasons why you would need to cancel your trip...in your case this sounds like just a int'l flight. Trip interruption covers things like travel delay, lost luggage, and general assistance related to getting to your destination when things go wrong. Last, medical assistance covers for accidents, injuries, or even deaths that occur while traveling. It must be said that most types of travel insurance only cover you until you get back home. So if you need medical assistance, the insurance policy will get you back to your home, where you will need to cover all costs on your own. That would be a disaster for you as uninsured medical costs in the US are 10x higher then they are in Germany. When buying medical assistance insurance, look for policies the cover healthcare costs vs. policies that just cover costs related to medical evacuation. For a trip to Germany your top priority is to get some basic healthcare insurance, not necessarily medical evacuation insurance. The costs for travel insurance differ greatly. Medical assistance with only medical evacuation is the cheapest, costing about $15 per week. Medical assistance with healthcare coverage pricing depends on your age and regions of travel but is also on the cheap side. Trip interposition and trip cancellation are where things get more costly. Expect to pay between 8% and 9% of your trip cost to get cancellation insurance. Trip cancellation insurance is the most expensive but it also covers the most, including evacuation, healthcare, and trip interruption. There are 2 companies that do travel insurance well. Travel Guard is the biggest by far but I prefer the policies offered by TravelEx. Both offer competitive policies that are easy to compare. There are a few good websites for suggesting a policy that is right for you, but I have this list at work...I'll update my post with this info. The website is InsureMyTrip.com. It supports lots of insurance companies and covers US and non-US residents.

I should probably know about Geotextiles

Geotextiles are permeable fabrics which, when used in association with soil, have the ability to separate, filter, reinforce, protect, or drain. Geotextiles and related products have many applications and currently support many civil engineering applications including roads, airfields, railroads, embankments, retaining structures, reservoirs, canals, dams, bank protection, coastal engineering and construction site silt fences. Usually geotextiles are placed at the tension surface to strengthen the soil. Geotextiles are also used for sand dune armoring to protect upland coastal property from storm surge, wave action and flooding. A large sand-filled container (SFC) within the dune system prevents storm erosion from proceeding beyond the SFC. Using a sloped unit rather than a single tube eliminates damaging scour. Erosion control manuals comment on the effectiveness of sloped, stepped shapes in mitigating shoreline erosion damage from storms. Geotextile sand-filled units provide a "soft" armoring solution for upland property protection. Geotextiles are used as matting to stabilize flow in stream channels and swales. Geotextiles can improve soil strength at a lower cost than conventional soil nailing. In addition, geotextiles allow planting on steep slopes, further securing the slope. Geotextiles have been used to protect the fossil hominid footprints of Laetoli in Tanzania from erosion, rain, and tree roots. Coir (coconut fiber) geotextiles are popular for erosion control, slope stabilization and bioengineering, due to the fabric's substantial mechanical strength. :App. I.E Coir geotextiles last approximately 3 to 5 years depending on the fabric weight. The product degrades into humus, enriching the soil. [edit]

Things to keep in mind

When I think of the last two and a half years, the career opportunity costs and the tuition - take it like Peter, who has not given up on architecture because of Architecture School. As he says, "I'm ready to work. I want to work somewhere I can learn because I feel like I didn't learn anything in school." Also, I don't feel so bad for being so disappointed with this education if one of the best students feels the same way.

Material: Glass Reinforced Gypsum (GRG)

Glass-reinforced gypsum technology produces thin, lightweight, high-strength pieces for architectural applications. There are plaster compounds to meet the demands of a wide range of hand lay-up and spray applications. from Georgia-Pacific's site.

This seems super cool and versatile but I couldn't find many examples of it put to use in an amazing way. Except maybe this, but it's coolness stems from it being an old form created with a different material. I'd want to see some LOTR shit combined with alien stuff, whatever that looks like.

Hamamatsu Bridal Chapel, Hamamatsu, Japan

Links

digital tools: http://www.btlb.blogspot.com/

Smart Curtain

I love this: Niklas Roy uses Processing to make smart curtains:

My workshop is located in an old storefront with a big window facing towards the street. In an attempt to create more privacy inside, I’ve decided to install a small but smart curtain in that window. The curtain is smaller than the window, but an additional surveillance camera and an old laptop provide it with intelligence: The computer sees the pedestrians and locates them. With a motor attached, it positions the curtain exactly where the pedestrians are.

The whole setup works really well. But in the end, it doesn’t protect my privacy at all. It seems that the existence of my little curtain is leading itself ad absurdum, simply by doing its job very well. My moving curtain attracts the looks of people which usually would never care about my window. It is even the star of the street, now! My curtain is just engaged. And because of that, it fails.

from Processing exhibitions

Reading

A pretty good interview of Simon Kim.

Reference: The Culture of Description

Read. by Manuel Sola-Morales.
as recommended by Iwamoto.

Reference: Links

Global 3TIER Resource Maps
Free:
wind speed map
solar irradiance map
wind speed variance
solar variance

Daylight pattern guide
New Buildings Institute in partnership with the University of Idaho and University of Washington has developed a freely available interactive tool for the design of proven daylighting strategies in a variety of building types.

Basic Illumination information

Light levels of different art institutions and museums

Rope Chair. John Truex.

from http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/3259/john-truex.html

Chandelier. Willowlamp

http://willowlamp.com/collection.php?page=4&subcategory_id=22&gallery_id=217

Afterparty, P.S.1 2009 Installation. Long Island City, NY. MOS Architects

from http://www.archdaily.com/30329/afterparty-ps1-2009-installation-mos-architects/
catenary research by MOS http://applets.mos-office.net/MOScat/

Windstalk. Competition Entry. Masdar. U.A.E. Atelier DNA. 2010

Our project consists of 1203 stalks, 55 meters high, anchored on the ground with concrete bases that range between 10 to 20 meters in diameter. The stalks are made of carbon fiber reinforced resin poles, 30 cm in diameter at the base and 5 cm at the top. The top 50 cm of the poles are lit up by an LED lamp that glows and dims depending on how much the poles are swaying in the wind. When there is no wind–when the poles are still–the lights go dark.
Within each hollow pole is a stack of piezoelectric ceramic discs. Between the ceramic disks are electrodes. Every other electrode is connected to each other by a cable that reaches from top to bottom of each pole. One cable connects the even electrodes, and another cable connects the odd ones. When the wind sways the poles, the stack of piezoelectric disks is forced into compression, thus generating a current through the electrodes.

http://atelierdna.com/?p=144

Anthropodino. Park Ave. Armory Installation. Ernesto Neto. 2009.

Park Avenue Armory launched its first commissioned art installation with anthropodino, a large-scale, interactive sculpture by world-renowned artist, Ernesto Neto. Using hundreds of yards of translucent material, Neto suspends a gigantic canopy from the drill hall’s latticework truss, spanning 120 feet wide and 180 feet long. Magnificent, aromatic “fabric stalactites” descend 60 feet to embrace a vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms.

http://www.armoryonpark.org/index.php/programs_events/detail/ernesto_neto_in_the_wade_thompson_drill_hall/

Bamboo Structure Project

seventy bamboos were used in the construction of the structure with two bamboos completing a curve from one side to the other side of the project. the bamboo was cut two days prior to use to ensure that it was soft and flexible during construction - it would subsequently become rigid once built. it is possible to keep the bamboo alive after construction so that the structure remains green and supple.

from http://reallifeiselsewhere.blogspot.com/2010/12/bamboo-structure-project.html

Bamboo Structure Project

Mobile Chaplet. North Dakota. Moorhead & Moorhead

Constructed on a trailer bed, the vaulted canopy is composed of over 200 thirty-foot long thermoplastic composite rods. A bench floats above the trailer bed supported by the rods which also act as a backrest for the bench.

Project: Mobile Chaplet
Location: Fargo, North Dakota
Architect: Moorhead & Moorhead with Richard Moorhead

from: http://plusmood.com/2009/06/mobile-chaplet-moorhead-moorhead/

Tomas Saraceno

Argentine artist based in Frankfurt. Who is amazing.


Cloud Cities

Flying Garden 2006

Cloudy House Liverpool

Installation14 Billions 2010

http://www.tomassaraceno.com/
http://www.megastructure-reloaded.org/tomas-saraceno/
http://blog.anualadearhitectura.ro/blog/

Links

http://thegeometryofbending.blogspot.com/
http://vimeo.com/album/199263Prof. YM's photostream

Jeffersonian Serpentine Wall. University of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson.

These walls are called "serpentine" because they run a sinusoidal course, one that lends strength to the wall and allows for the wall to be only one brick thick, one of many innovations by which Jefferson attempted to combine aesthetics with utility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Virginia
http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2006/03/jeffersons-wall-take-two.html