Crave

The Guggenheim

(Credit: Lego)

As the flawed human beings we all are, from time to time, each of us needs a break from swine flu fears and waterboarding debates. As a 35-year-old man-child, my distraction of choice is video games. For others, it's Lego.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation on Thursday announced that "The Lego Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) Collection Lego Architecture sets." Good for them, since it would have been pretty embarrassing if someone else won the Lego license. And earlier Friday, we mentioned the set in a brief, but here's some more info.

The new FLW Lego series is part of the Lego Architecture line that debuted last year. The line currently consists of six buildings: The Sears Tower, John Hancock Center, The Space Needle, The Empire State Building and now FLW's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and "Fallingwater."

Fallingwater

(Credit: Lego)

Both Frank Lloyd Wright Lego Architecture sets contain booklets that feature traditional building instructions along with archival historical material and photographs of each building.

Lego appropriately released the first set, the Guggenheim, at the opening of the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit: "From Within Outward" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on May 15.

If I was the kind of guy who'd choose Lego as my distraction of choice and was a FLW fan, I'd be a little disappointed in the pics released of these sets so far. Is it just me or do these look a little too simple and not detailed or complex enough? I guess that's why they're Lego and not scale models.

Netbooks using ARM's next-generation processor architecture will be announced soon, according to a senior executive at the company.

Rob Coombs, director of mobile solutions at the U.K. processor design company, told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that Cortex-A8- and Cortex-A9-based application processors would find their way not only into smartphones--as with most ARM architecture--but also into small, low-cost subnotebooks.

"In the future, we're going to be in Netbooks," Coombs said. "Expect announcements in the next few months."

Native ferns mark the first step toward greening the exterior walls.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

A San Francisco nightclub installed on Monday what it's promoting as the city's first vertical garden. Several plant-filled boxes turned on their sides and bolted outside near the entrance are the first step in the Zen Compound's plans to cover the facade of the building in greenery.

"The hope is to have a living building," said Mike Zuckerman, director of sustainability at the 40,000 square foot complex. He spotted a butterfly hovering near native licorice ferns on Tuesday.

Green rooftops are in vogue in cities around the country. Hanging, wall-mounted gardens, on the other hand, are few and far between--except, naturally, where ivy climbs.

Zuckerman envisions eventually shaping plants into the form of the club logo, or sculpting Styrofoam embedded with sprouts to make the facade green all over. And spray-on seeds could cover the building with plant graffiti, making it the architectural equivalent of a Chia Pet.

The existing plants, a test run, may not be ecologically perfect. They're inside of nonrecycled plastic boxes, for instance, but those last at least five times longer than bioplastic. And they will be hooked up to plumbing from the roof to be watered, though the long-term goal is to harvest rainwater.

Don't dis the plants, a sign suggests.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Zuckerman aims to turn the compound's nightclub and restaurant, which attracts 1,000 people on a decent night, into a showcase of sustainability.

Planned for next year is a dance floor coated in piezoelectric crystals that turn the pressure from dancing feet into electrical power. He already knows someone who can handle the job for only $10,000.

"We have a mystical physicist in residence here," Zuckerman said.

Eco-chic event planning is expanding as more people seek to celebrate without expanding their carbon footprint.

A club in Rotterdam has already harnessed piezoelectrics (more at Inhabitat) to power its lights and sound system. Several other nightclubs are pushing green efforts, including the Butterfly Social Club in Chicago and even some sex clubs in Tokyo.

For now, the Zen Compound serves organic spirits with corn-based cups and straws that get composted rather than trashed. Club marketing is moving away from using paper fliers, even if recycled, to online-only promotions with Flash animation.

Zuckerman is updating the lighting with efficient fluorescent and LED bulbs, which will reap a refund from Pacific Gas & Electric. Future plans include adding an energy monitor to display the building's vital signs, such as water collected from the roof and power generated from planned solar panels. Wind power is on the wish list.

Full disclosure: CNET's holiday staff party is being held here tonight. Sorry, you won't get past our bouncers.

Plans are in the works to cover the club in a living, green skin that can be seen from the freeway nearby.

(Credit: Zen Compound )

Some of Millennium Park's interesting architecture; the glowing structures are actually video-equipped displays that spray water at people frolicking in the nearby reflecting pool. No joke.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET Networks)

CHICAGO, Ill.--This might just be the perfect city for a Second Life convention. At least this out-of-towner thinks so.

When you think about it, a good number of Chicago's urban planning quirks have quite a bit in common with the aesthetics of some of Second Life's more popular "sims." It's because parts of the city are so planned--as though they were created with a few well-thought-out mouse clicks that could easily be tweaked and improved. The business and shopping districts are peppered with bright displays of greenery and flowers, the streets and gardens in the Michigan Avenue vicinity are impeccably manicured, and skyscrapers extend literally to the banks of the local bodies of water. (Anyone who's seen New York's still-industrial waterfront will understand why this is a novelty to me.)

Plus, the city of Frank Lloyd Wright has all those eye-catching feats of modern and post-modern design--just walk into Millennium Park--that could make any jaded New Yorker say, "Holy (expletive), they actually built that? It got off the drawing board? Red tape and bureaucratic cronyism didn't halt it at stage one?"

The Second Life Community Convention kicked off Friday night with a number of art- and music-focused panels, but a good number of the attendees won't be in town until tomorrow morning--the recent spat of inconvenient weather phenomena in the Midwest crippled more than a few travel plans. Nevertheless, a small crowd of metaverse enthusiasts turned out at the Chicago Hilton on Friday evening to listen to live performances from musicians whom they'd previously known only as avatars, as well as to hear about the phenomenon of Second Life machinima--films created using the virtual world as a platform. (For those who are unfamiliar, machinima has made its way squarely into pop culture: there was a South Park episode that was about 60 percent World of Warcraft machinima, and Coca-Cola's heavily YouTubed Super Bowl ad was essentially Grand Theft Auto machinima.)

I'd never been to any kind of in-the-flesh Second Life gathering before, so taking note of the attendees was interesting. People had come from as far as New York (like me), Boston, San Francisco, Australia, Japan--there were plenty of foreign languages and accents. The crowd was largely a mix of geeks and art-school types, but the geeks were much more on the mainstream end of dorkdom than I'd have expected. There were a few unnatural hair colors, a wacky hat or two, and about a half dozen people who'd chosen to wear sunglasses indoors, but otherwise it was quite an average (albeit loquacious) bunch. A few were even flat-out business casual in dress pants and button-down shirts.

The average age was somewhere in the early- to mid-thirties, but interestingly skewed a bit older for females (i.e. the twentysomethings were primarily male). And Macs appeared to be the computer of choice, both at the SLCC events and at an offshoot art-and-music reception at Columbia College down the street (where machinima called "Zombie Horde" and music from the Avatar Orchestra Metaverse were showcased).

It was difficult to tell whether attendees, whose name tags displayed likenesses of their avatars, were introducing themselves by "meatspace" names or Second Life names. The latter seemed to prevail.

Judging by chitchat, nonprofit uses for Second Life are going to be a hot topic. One person at the machinima screening told me that he wouldn't be surprised if we saw discussion of the dissonance between residents who see Second Life marketing efforts as a cool and creative turn for corporate America and those who think it's just tacky advertising and product placement.

At one machinima screening, the host gave a rundown of the genre's definition for newbies, explaining that machinima is a form of filmmaking in which a video game is used as an artistic platform. "But Second Life isn't a game," he added quickly.

"It's a thingie!" several audience members shouted out.

Artist's conception of living house

(Credit: terreform.org)

Many traditional societies have partaken tree house living. And some of us had tree houses when we were kids. Now a New York-based nonprofit is promising a tree house for future high-tech, low-impact living.

The group is terreform.org. In their own words, "Terreform is a nonprofit organization and philanthropic design collaborative that integrates ecological principles in the urban environment."

Terreform says it is close to making its first sale. Zoning regulations and building codes may present a problem. Walls that grow and change shape?

Like any self-respecting tree, the Fab Tree Hab would collect rainwater. The walls would be clay and straw. Windows would be a soy-based plastic, capable of expanding as the structure grows. Now, if they can only insure that closets would grow faster than the rest of the house.

Want the house of your dreams? Soon, it may be possible to design it on your computer and have it delivered to you in customized, Lego-like pieces.

Your dream home (some assembly required).

(Credit: 0lll.com)

That's the idea behind a collaboration between Bell Travers Willson Architects and Facit. The concept was showcased at the 1:1 Making the Digital House exhibition at The Architecture Foundation in London.

Using 3D modeling programs, an entire home or building can be designed on a computer. All the dimensions and screw-hole placements for the building materials are then relayed to a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine that cuts out the customized components needed.

Essentially, you print out your dream home--in lumber--and have all the parts sent to you.

More information and photos about the exhibition are available at Core77 Design Blog, TreeHugger, and Inhabitat.

Related links:

• Glowy tablecloths heat up mealtime
• A blender that brings sexy back
• Cocoons for introverts, bong not included
• Morphing mood lighting? Sure, I'm game

(Credit: Simon Dale)

When I first saw the pictures of this house on Make Magazine's blog, I thought they were straight off the sets of one of the Lord of the Rings movies. Seriously, doesn't it look like the kind of place where you could open the door and expect to see see Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan inside sporting prosthetic foot fur? But, no, it's actually a "low-impact woodland home" in Wales that was built at a total cost of 3,000 pounds (a little under $6,000) and 1,000-1,500 man-hours over a period of four months. The end result is not just environmentally friendly, but also lovely to look at.

(Credit: Simon Dale)

The creator of the house, who built it with his father-in-law and the help of visiting friends, was dug into a hillside and is heated by wood burning. Natural light comes in through a skylight, and additional power comes from solar panels; water is brought in from a nearby spring. More specs on this creative housing solution are available on the builder's Web site. He now lives there with his wife and two small children.

Looks like a nice and cozy place for enjoying all six meals of the day.

Scale model of the iPad

(Credit: Newlaunches)

So maybe you think living in a building inspired by a certain ubiquitous digital audio player--or, let's be real, ANY sort of gadget--sounds silly. We don't blame you.

But check out the new pics of the iPad anyway--they're actually kind of fantastic.

The budget for the 23-story Dubai apartment/office building, announced last week, is $800 million (or 3 billion Dirhams), and developers plan to open the iPad's doors in 2009.

And, yes, that is a "docking station" the building will be resting on at an alarmingly accurate 6-degree angle.