Bustler reports on the winning commission awarded to Metalab and RE:Site for Memory Cloud to be installed in the new student center at Texas A&M. Bustler is an online forum that publishes architecture and design competition and event listings.

SPACE receives praise for its energy efficiency, versatility, and portability in Taflin Laylin's March 2012 article for Inhabitat.  The weblog is devoted to forward-thinking design and the principles of innovation and sustainability.

View SPACE sites in a larger map A map of the locations in the city of Houston were SPACE solar powered generators are installed.  

Images from the Memory Cloud presentation at TAMU. Re: Site, Artists Metalab, Architecture + Fabrication  

Memory Cloud is the winning commission awarded to RE:Site (Norman Lee and Shane Allbritton) and METALAB (Andrew Vrana, Joe Meppelink, Michael Gonzales and Thomas Behrman) by Texas A&M University for the new Memorial Student Center 12th Man Hall. Through a competition and short-list interview process the team demonstrated the ability to harness the potential of programmable LEDs, remote sensing, parametric design and digital fabrication to create an open ended narrative of the story of the University through animated silhouette imagery of past and real-time present student life on the campus. Texas A&M a place of deep traditions that are played out on the football field at every game and in the everyday lives of students will create the imagery that will be active within the layers of the LED matrix at different speeds and durations. Parametric design generated a unique cloud form that creates a landscape within the student center where monumental and ephemeral figures will pass through the space, blurring the distinction between the past and present.  Presentation Board    

The ability of computational technology to inform facade design from novel geometries and enhanced environmental performance to rationalized component optimization and digital fabrication is creating new possibilities in the development of intelligent building skins.  The confluence of visible forces (structural, functional and physical) and invisible forces (cultural, political and temporal) can now be measured, managed and realized through the integration of enhanced information processing, cross-disciplinary material organization and computer assisted manufacturing ingenuity.  From a broad spectrum of expertise representing the professional, academic, applied research and engineering consultation community, the speakers participating in this discussion present a series of façade design case studies that articulate these forces of innovation in practice and lead the speculative dialogue on where this trend will head in the future.

Performative facade systems Anna Dyson Case Study:  Helioptix

Optimization of facade systems Erik Verboon Case Study:  King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture

The Winter 2011 issue of Cite Magazine focused on Fabrication and specifically the interesting array of manufacturers and designers working with them in Houston.  Metalab was featured in an article by guest editor, Jose Solis.

I.D. Magazine's Annual Design Review is a prestigious competition that recognizes the best in product, furniture, graphic, and environmental design.  Smilebooth Queso earned honorable mention among other product submissions in 2011. 

17 to go.  This one is going to Nigeria, the rest will be here in Houston at Neighborhood Centers, Fire Stations, City Parks and HISD schools near you.