Smarter Than a Panel Lift: This Ceiling Board Hanger Invention | Colored Polycarbonate Sheet

Inside the shed, I tried on a watch, and its stainless-steel chain bracelet, guided by magnets, fell into place with the click of someone stacking nickels. That click, and one or two other immaculate couplings, had been the only sounds, apart from music, heard on a trailer-length “reveal” video that preceded the ten-minute film. The watch was months away from market—it will become available in April—and its display showed only a loop of dummy text and images.

I usually don’t purchase manufacturer cases due to their high prices, but this one is so different that it might just be worth picking it up. The texture is courtesy of a polyester and nylon knit, and the polycarbonate core underneath keeps things strong and lightweight. The inside is lined with microfiber, allowing for a more premium appearance and a smaller chance of scratches from dust and other particles trapped within the case. This microfiber matches the power button, which is a nice touch.

Asked how much Treetop is spending on the capital improvements, Taylor’s boss Felix Reyes implied it was well over $1 million. 

The most significant of these is an intelligent, efficient, torque on-demand all-wheel drive (AWD) system, which is designed to provide the optimum torque distribution to suit the current road conditions2.

The appearance of the world that these photographs document is shaped by two things. Digital architectural tools have enabled a drift from a domestic floorplan characterized by perfect rectangles to one in which rooms are often trapezoidal or completely irregular. The increasing complexity of the resulting measurements is handled by the software, and the 3D representation is so easy to zoom, to rotate, that an overview remains available to the designer even as the spatial relations become more entangled. Secondly, the extraordinary degree of standardization in these spaces, the standardization of measurements, the conformity of fittings and of colors, means that the spaces look continuous in these photographic portraits. You can infer these interiors from the plan alone, down to the position and shape of the door knob. Even as the plan becomes more nuanced, the interior elevations are virtually extruded.

In some cases, they are literally extruded. In APIs developed for real estate websites, apartment floorplans are automatically extruded into immersive 3D models that can be “visited” within a browser. A minimum of information is transformed into a maximally detailed illusion of reality, with kitchen islands, doors, windows, shadows, and all. A prospective tenant can even add, and rearrange, furniture within the model. Other companies, such as Archilyse, use the same floorplan data to calculate the subjective psychological qualities of spaces, thereby answering questions such as “will this kitchen seem intimate, or merely cramped?” The goals are pragmatic: either to sell property or to predict sale prices. This information is profitable. Even with the enormous volume of data collected by real estate portals, price predictions are notoriously inaccurate. But then again, their models are based almost exclusively on the post code, square feet, and a previous sale price. Other data was simply too qualitative, too vague, too hard to collect. If data analysts can work out how much people will pay for such hard-to-measure effects, developers will work out how to provide them. The results of these attempts to refine metric models are therefore not only predictive, but normative. What is the exact value of a higher-than-average ceiling, of a load bearing wall, or a secluded bedroom? One possible result of an increase in the range of indices used to predict prices would be a rediscovery of some qualitative aspects of interior architecture by its old adversary, the developer. If spatial complexity is demonstrably, and—above all—predictably related to prices, it will return to developments. Is this an alienation of architecture? Perhaps.

According to Pearlman, the haute-casual dining trend also helps restaurateurs run bigger and more successful businesses. Constructing interiors out of hard surfaces makes them easier (and thus cheaper) to clean. Eschewing ornate decor, linens, table settings, and dishware makes for fewer items to wash or replace. Reducing table service means fewer employees and thus lower overhead. And as many writers have noted, loud restaurants also encourage profitable dining behavior. Noise encourages increased alcohol consumption and produces faster diner turnover. More people drinking more booze produces more revenue. Knowing this, some restaurateurs even make their establishments louder than necessary in an attempt to maximize profits.

Lukas Meyer Ira Pattini Architetti, Quartiere abitativo Ronchetto, Cadempino, 2004. Photo: Enrico Cano.

In the field it can get very cold and very hot. The device must be able to handle that. The L10 tablet can operate in temperatures as low as -4 degrees Fahrenheit and as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 to +60 Celsius), enough for virtually any conceivable deployment.

giuliani.hönger architekten, Wohn und Gewerbehaus Weidenhof, Dietikon, 2015. Photo: Giuliani Hönger.

Suitable for both commercial and domestic new-build or renovation projects, Freefoam says X-Wood can also be successfully used in coastal and highly exposed areas, thanks to its high-performance credentials.

If such experiments can enter into the mainstream, however, they first have to be proven in the field. It is here that the Swiss context of this project becomes significant. For Switzerland has a long tradition of supporting Genossenschaften, housing cooperatives that build collective housing, and in return, are granted free land by the state. The Genossenschaften, much like the housing projects of Red Vienna, became prominent after the First World War. In the last ten years, Genossenschaft projects, insulated from the austerity that has constricted developments elsewhere in Europe, and benefitting from Swiss political structures that encourage small, autonomous community organizations, have become test beds of spatial experimentation. Overwhelmingly, these experiments have been carried out within the plan. As Christian Inderbitzen, of Edelaar Mosayebi Inderbitzin architects, told Emma Letizia Jones and Philip Shelley: “The importance of the floor plan—that’s something that needs to be pointed out. The floor plan in a housing project determines the life that can happen, or not happen. It’s crucial.” Until now, in contemporary Swiss architecture, the plan has been the main site of contest, and it is through the plan that the power relations within the house become legible. The plan, it seems, is where power can be deconstructed, and reconstructed. Politics, implicitly, has its truth in the plan. The façade, also true to its name, is all about rhetoric. In the hermeneutics of architectural suspicion, the façade presents myth, and the floorplan its underlying truth. Elevations, ignored in this debate, threaten to disappear. But precisely because elevations are not so hotly pursued, they yield more. The more we look at them, the more that they reveal about our memories, our expectations, about media history, architectural vernaculars, and the future of the discipline.