SUNDAY FEBRUARY 19 2012
The memorial commemorates 91 people convicted of sorcery in the 17th century who were subsequently burnt at the stake.
It consists of two parts, one designed solely by 68-year-old Zumthor and another housing the last major installation by the late French-American artist and sculptor, Louise Bourgeois.
The first structure sees a fabric cocoon containing a long oak-floored corridor suspended inside a 125m-long framework made of pine.
Light bulbs in the corridor hang behind 91 windows, each one representing those victims executed during the witch hunts. All the lamps have a plaque explaining how each individual met their fate.
Bourgeois’s installation is called ‘The Damned, The Possessed and The Beloved’.
Housed in the second structure made of steel and darkened glass, it features a circle of seven mirrors that surround and reflect a flaming steel chair (fuelled by gas) inside a hollow concrete cone.
This stunning memorial to the 91 murdered 'witches' shines a modern light on the horrendous acts of cruelty that took place in the name of religion. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, 30,000 to 60,000 people were burnt at the stake for witchcraft in Europe, including 6,000 in Switzerland.
Three years ago, Zumthor won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour “a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture”.
For more information on Steilneset Memorial and Peter Zumthor, please visit www.nasjonaleturistveger.no/en/varanger/steilneset and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Zumthor
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 2012
The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
More than a quarter of all breast implants must be removed within four years, because neighboring tissues develop a rigid envelope of fibrous tissue to protect themselves from the foreign body.
On the left is an example of an implant that has contracted due to fibrous tissue growth, on the right is a Mycoat treated implant.
Labseed has developed a protective covering made up of a nanostructured surface and a layer of collagen that will prevent the body from rejecting the implant. Our bodies treat all medical or plastic surgery devices- things like breast implants, knee and hip replacements, pacemakers and insulin pumps - as foreign invaders. We are equipped with a complex surveillance system for recognizing and then eliminating them.
In the empty intracellular space between the device and neighboring tissues, special cells that are in charge of this reaction, called fibroblasts, assemble to deal with the intruder. In certain cases, sometimes even several years after the implant is placed, they surround it and cover it in a very hard capsule. In addition to its unattractive appearance, particularly in breast implants, this reaction can also prevent the implant from functioning properly, such that in a quarter of patients, implants must be removed within four years after implantation.
Labseed's Mycoat combines nano/microtechnology and biochemistry to render foreign bodies virtually "invisible" to cells that are watching out for invaders. Mycoat structures the surface of a medical device or implant at a nanometer-level precision. The implant is then coated with collagen. In this way, neighboring cells are no longer in direct contact with the foreign body but with the nanometer-structured, collagen-coated surface.
To the cells, this protective coating looks like just a new extracellular matrix, which they see as normal tissue. The fibroblasts will thus adhere quite naturally to the object, as if it was an integral part of the patient's body.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment, for which a patent has been registered, that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd. “We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
Heart pacemakers could also be coated making them less likely to be attacked by the boy's own defences.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
For more information about Labseed, please visit http://www.labseed.com/ and to find out more about venturelab, please visit www.venturelab.ch
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 05 2012
As it happens, he likes to glide. On wheels. On motorised wheels attached to his shoes.
Peter has developed a pair of battery-powered skates called spnKiX – a fancy way of writing Spin Kicks – which strap right on to your shoes and are hand-controlled by a wireless remote.
The remote, which is the size of a key fob and straps to your hand, allows you to vary the throttle while each skate has its own battery and motor, with the hardware and electronics cleverly integrated into the Nylon-fibre reinforced frame to create a sort of mini Segway for each foot.
“For most of my life, I have been interested in personal mobility and I have been asking the same questions all of you have been asking: Where are our flying cars? Where are the jet packs? Where are my motorised shoes?” says Treadway.
“Well, after spending five years researching, designing and developing a variety of different prototypes, the miniaturisation of certain technologies found in smart phones, laptops and radio controlled cars has finally made it possible for us to integrate them all into a pair of ‘shoes’ so that you can go for a spin!”
To gather the cash necessary to go into a full scale production, Treadway used Kickerstarter.com, the online threshold pledge system that helps to raise capital for projects by harnessing the power of ‘crowd funding’.
“Now the project is funded, we expect our first production run to arrive from the factory towards the end of February,” he says. “So expect the first delivery in March.”
Of course, if spnKiX use mobile phone-like technology, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the weather forecast the days you plan to use them – and not take them out for a spin in the middle of a tropical downpour. “Small rain or water puddles on the street shouldn’t be a problem, but spnKiX can’t be soaked in water, just like your cell phone,” says Treadway.
The robustness of the design will also be challenged by the heftier among us – to the point that the spnKiX team recommend that users weigh no more than 80kg (180lbs) – ruling out most rugby players, American footballers and sumo wrestlers from using them.
To brake with spnKiX, there is a stopper, like on rollerskates. Otherwise, you just take your finger off the gas and you will slow down fairly quickly.
It might be, though, that you come to a complete halt a lot sooner than you wish: The rechargeable lithium battery – which takes 2 to 3 hours to fully load – lets you go about 2 to 3 miles (4.8 to 6.4 km) per charge depending on the angle of the surface you are rolling on.
So, with a top speed of 16 kmh/10mph, that will give you an autonomy of only about 20 minutes, which means you could find yourself taking a long walk or jog home, which, if that were the case, would certainly dispel any accusations that using spnKiX will make the lazy among us even lazier.
“SpnKiX are closer to rollerblades than any ‘upright, stand-on’ vehicle and will not make anyone lazy,” says Treadway. “People will be outside and more active than before – and with more speed and style. These are a range extender!”
For more information, please visit www.spnkix.com and www.kickstarter.com/
SUNDAY JANUARY 29 2012
Unlike conventional cameras, the Lytro light field camera captures all of the rays of light (angle/colour/intensity) in a scene, providing new photographic capabilities hitherto impossible – including the ability to focus a picture after it has been taken!
The terrific pocket-sized camera creates three-dimensional, interactive ‘living’ images that can be refocused as many times you wish thanks to a light field sensor that records a far richer set of data than any previous photographic instrument – in terms of colour, intensity and the direction of every light ray that flows into the camera – about 11 million of them.
To process all this additional information, the camera contains a light field ‘engine’ that allows users to refocus the images directly on the camera via an intuitive glass touchscreen.
And when the Lytro’s living pictures are shared online, this light field engine travels with each picture, so anyone can interact with them on virtually any device – web browsers, mobile phones or iPads – without having to download special software
The camera also offers a pretty powerful 8x optical zoom and f/2 lens – and you don’t need a degree to work out all its functions; it features just two buttons – power and shutter – that both activate instantly. It also performs well in low-light environments, so there is no need for a flash.
Another neat feature is the minimalist, rectangular design that, thanks to its anodised aluminum case, weighs in at approximately 225g/5lbs, making it an extremely light yet sturdy companion wherever you want to exercise your picture-taking skills.
Light field science was the subject of Lytro CEO and Founder Dr Ren Ng’s PhD dissertation in computer science at Stanford University, and was once only possible with 100 cameras tethered to a supercomputer in a lab.
This year Lytro plan to apply special light field algorithms to the pictures to enable viewing on any 3D display – where viewers will be able to shift the perspective of a scene. We can’t wait!
Interview with the inventors
And is the Lytro really any good as a camera? Well I'll let you know as I've just ordered mine!
For more information on the Lytro camera, please visit www.lytro.com/camera. And for a demonstration of the ‘living’ pictures, visit the Lytro Picture Gallery at www.lytro.com/living-pictures (click anywhere inside a photo and watch that section come into focus).
SUNDAY JANUARY 22 2012
Christened Little Shining Man, the sculpture has also been complemented by an equally impressive video which shows the spectacular creation take flight at sundown above the beaches of Jersey, the biggest of the Channel Islands (between Britain and France).
Elegant yet robust, Little Shining Man was commissioned by luxury property developers Dandara and manufactured by Queen & Crawford, a Birmingham-based Design and Fabrication Workshop.
Its structure is based around the tetra kites developed by Alexander Graham Bell, multiplied out into colliding cubes, the form of which is inspired by the natural cubic formations of the mineral pyrite.
There were several challenges involved in creating Little Shining Man, which contains 23,000 individual components overall and took 16 months to develop.
The structure had to be very strong yet as lightweight as possible to enable it to fly and return to the ground again with minimal damage so it could be installed as an artwork afterwards.
State-of-art carbon fibre rods were therefore chosen in addition to a hand-made composite fabric – Cuben Fibre – normally used for yacht sails, as well as specially designed, 3-D printed nylon connectors. The ensemble allows Little Shining Man to float across the sky as if weightless.
The flying sculpture in these photos is just one section of an arrangement of three pieces, forming a final piece of art which has been suspended in the atrium of Dandara's Castle Quay development in St. Helier, Jersey.
In addition to being a permanent piece of sculpture, it will also serve as a working kite and will be annually taken down from its display to be flown in nearby St Aubin's bay.
Ivan Morison was more than satisfied after witnessing his co-creation make its maiden lift-off.
“When we first took Little Shining Man out onto the beach, you could feel the sculpture come alive,” he said. “It wanted to twist and tumble as we took it across the sands.
As the wind took hold, it rose slowly, bobbing just above our reach, until a gust caught its sails and lifted way up above us.
Standing there, watching this complex form that had taken us months to plan and build, rise high up into the sky was truly breathtaking.
We felt as Bell must have in his early experiments into flight – a time of true wonder and optimism.”
The debut flight was captured in this beautiful short film, shot at sunset to create a truly beautiful backdrop of light with some great close-ups of Little Shining Man’s geometric structure.
Complementing the superb visuals is an intriguing audio track – the sounds of waves gently lapping and slightly ominous electro music that makes Little Shining Man’s floating upwards seem science-fiction-esque.
The Steilneset Witch Trial Memorial in Norway
Prize-winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has designed the Steilneset Memorial, a stunning structure on the island of Vardø in the extreme northeast part of Norway.The memorial commemorates 91 people convicted of sorcery in the 17th century who were subsequently burnt at the stake.
It consists of two parts, one designed solely by 68-year-old Zumthor and another housing the last major installation by the late French-American artist and sculptor, Louise Bourgeois.
The first structure sees a fabric cocoon containing a long oak-floored corridor suspended inside a 125m-long framework made of pine.
Light bulbs in the corridor hang behind 91 windows, each one representing those victims executed during the witch hunts. All the lamps have a plaque explaining how each individual met their fate.
Bourgeois’s installation is called ‘The Damned, The Possessed and The Beloved’.
Housed in the second structure made of steel and darkened glass, it features a circle of seven mirrors that surround and reflect a flaming steel chair (fuelled by gas) inside a hollow concrete cone.
This stunning memorial to the 91 murdered 'witches' shines a modern light on the horrendous acts of cruelty that took place in the name of religion. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, 30,000 to 60,000 people were burnt at the stake for witchcraft in Europe, including 6,000 in Switzerland.
Three years ago, Zumthor won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, awarded annually by the Hyatt Foundation to honour “a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of talent, vision and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture”.
For more information on Steilneset Memorial and Peter Zumthor, please visit www.nasjonaleturistveger.no/en/varanger/steilneset and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Zumthor
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 12 2012
Labseed and venturelab: Implanting the seeds of success
Entrepreneurship is at the very heart of MB&F and that’s why it is always heartening to learn about start-ups succeeding, often thanks to young, hungry and visionary talent.The rise of Swiss medical engineering firm Labseed is one such success story.
Co-founders Hicham Majd and Dr Giorgio Pietramaggiore met when the former was researching cells responsible for wound repair for his thesis at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) while Pietramaggiore, from Italy, was training to be a surgeon at the University Hospital of Geneva.
“Our research projects were complementary,” says Majd, who has Swiss-Moroccan nationality. “By putting them together, they brought about an interesting technology.”
Contemporary medicine wouldn’t exist without implantable medical devices such as orthopedic, dental and breast implants or pacemakers, for example.
More than a quarter of all breast implants must be removed within four years, because neighboring tissues develop a rigid envelope of fibrous tissue to protect themselves from the foreign body.
On the left is an example of an implant that has contracted due to fibrous tissue growth, on the right is a Mycoat treated implant.
Labseed has developed a protective covering made up of a nanostructured surface and a layer of collagen that will prevent the body from rejecting the implant. Our bodies treat all medical or plastic surgery devices- things like breast implants, knee and hip replacements, pacemakers and insulin pumps - as foreign invaders. We are equipped with a complex surveillance system for recognizing and then eliminating them.
In the empty intracellular space between the device and neighboring tissues, special cells that are in charge of this reaction, called fibroblasts, assemble to deal with the intruder. In certain cases, sometimes even several years after the implant is placed, they surround it and cover it in a very hard capsule. In addition to its unattractive appearance, particularly in breast implants, this reaction can also prevent the implant from functioning properly, such that in a quarter of patients, implants must be removed within four years after implantation.
Labseed's Mycoat combines nano/microtechnology and biochemistry to render foreign bodies virtually "invisible" to cells that are watching out for invaders. Mycoat structures the surface of a medical device or implant at a nanometer-level precision. The implant is then coated with collagen. In this way, neighboring cells are no longer in direct contact with the foreign body but with the nanometer-structured, collagen-coated surface.
To the cells, this protective coating looks like just a new extracellular matrix, which they see as normal tissue. The fibroblasts will thus adhere quite naturally to the object, as if it was an integral part of the patient's body.
“We have developed a particular surface treatment, for which a patent has been registered, that can make implants more biocompatible, enhancing their acceptance and increasing their lifespan,” says Majd. “We wanted to transfer this technology to manufacturers of medical implants and creating a start-up was the best solution to lead our technology to the market.”
Heart pacemakers could also be coated making them less likely to be attacked by the boy's own defences.
To move from the world of research to that of entrepreneurship, Majd went to Boston in 2010 as part of the Venture Leaders Prize and Venture Challenge course, both organised by venturelab.
Financed by the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation, venturelab offers individual training for start-ups, including the know-how and contacts required to successfully launch your own company.
Priority is given to start-ups in high-tech fields such as computer science, life sciences and bio- or nanotechnologies and the courses offered are free of charge for anyone demonstrating an innovative and persuasive business idea.
For more information about Labseed, please visit http://www.labseed.com/ and to find out more about venturelab, please visit www.venturelab.ch
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 05 2012
spnKiX motorised roller skates - imagine a mini Segway on each foot
Peter Treadway is a design consultant based in Los Angeles and with a name like his you would think that he likes to walk places.As it happens, he likes to glide. On wheels. On motorised wheels attached to his shoes.
Peter has developed a pair of battery-powered skates called spnKiX – a fancy way of writing Spin Kicks – which strap right on to your shoes and are hand-controlled by a wireless remote.
The remote, which is the size of a key fob and straps to your hand, allows you to vary the throttle while each skate has its own battery and motor, with the hardware and electronics cleverly integrated into the Nylon-fibre reinforced frame to create a sort of mini Segway for each foot.
“For most of my life, I have been interested in personal mobility and I have been asking the same questions all of you have been asking: Where are our flying cars? Where are the jet packs? Where are my motorised shoes?” says Treadway.
“Well, after spending five years researching, designing and developing a variety of different prototypes, the miniaturisation of certain technologies found in smart phones, laptops and radio controlled cars has finally made it possible for us to integrate them all into a pair of ‘shoes’ so that you can go for a spin!”
To gather the cash necessary to go into a full scale production, Treadway used Kickerstarter.com, the online threshold pledge system that helps to raise capital for projects by harnessing the power of ‘crowd funding’.
“Now the project is funded, we expect our first production run to arrive from the factory towards the end of February,” he says. “So expect the first delivery in March.”
Of course, if spnKiX use mobile phone-like technology, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the weather forecast the days you plan to use them – and not take them out for a spin in the middle of a tropical downpour. “Small rain or water puddles on the street shouldn’t be a problem, but spnKiX can’t be soaked in water, just like your cell phone,” says Treadway.
The robustness of the design will also be challenged by the heftier among us – to the point that the spnKiX team recommend that users weigh no more than 80kg (180lbs) – ruling out most rugby players, American footballers and sumo wrestlers from using them.
To brake with spnKiX, there is a stopper, like on rollerskates. Otherwise, you just take your finger off the gas and you will slow down fairly quickly.
It might be, though, that you come to a complete halt a lot sooner than you wish: The rechargeable lithium battery – which takes 2 to 3 hours to fully load – lets you go about 2 to 3 miles (4.8 to 6.4 km) per charge depending on the angle of the surface you are rolling on.
So, with a top speed of 16 kmh/10mph, that will give you an autonomy of only about 20 minutes, which means you could find yourself taking a long walk or jog home, which, if that were the case, would certainly dispel any accusations that using spnKiX will make the lazy among us even lazier.
“SpnKiX are closer to rollerblades than any ‘upright, stand-on’ vehicle and will not make anyone lazy,” says Treadway. “People will be outside and more active than before – and with more speed and style. These are a range extender!”
For more information, please visit www.spnkix.com and www.kickstarter.com/
SUNDAY JANUARY 29 2012
Incredible Lytro camera doesn't just shoot light, it shoots 'light fields'.
Californian company Lytro have revolutionised the world of photography with their amazing light field camera.Unlike conventional cameras, the Lytro light field camera captures all of the rays of light (angle/colour/intensity) in a scene, providing new photographic capabilities hitherto impossible – including the ability to focus a picture after it has been taken!
The terrific pocket-sized camera creates three-dimensional, interactive ‘living’ images that can be refocused as many times you wish thanks to a light field sensor that records a far richer set of data than any previous photographic instrument – in terms of colour, intensity and the direction of every light ray that flows into the camera – about 11 million of them.
To process all this additional information, the camera contains a light field ‘engine’ that allows users to refocus the images directly on the camera via an intuitive glass touchscreen.
And when the Lytro’s living pictures are shared online, this light field engine travels with each picture, so anyone can interact with them on virtually any device – web browsers, mobile phones or iPads – without having to download special software
The camera also offers a pretty powerful 8x optical zoom and f/2 lens – and you don’t need a degree to work out all its functions; it features just two buttons – power and shutter – that both activate instantly. It also performs well in low-light environments, so there is no need for a flash.
Another neat feature is the minimalist, rectangular design that, thanks to its anodised aluminum case, weighs in at approximately 225g/5lbs, making it an extremely light yet sturdy companion wherever you want to exercise your picture-taking skills.
Light field science was the subject of Lytro CEO and Founder Dr Ren Ng’s PhD dissertation in computer science at Stanford University, and was once only possible with 100 cameras tethered to a supercomputer in a lab.
This year Lytro plan to apply special light field algorithms to the pictures to enable viewing on any 3D display – where viewers will be able to shift the perspective of a scene. We can’t wait!
Interview with the inventors
And is the Lytro really any good as a camera? Well I'll let you know as I've just ordered mine!
For more information on the Lytro camera, please visit www.lytro.com/camera. And for a demonstration of the ‘living’ pictures, visit the Lytro Picture Gallery at www.lytro.com/living-pictures (click anywhere inside a photo and watch that section come into focus).
SUNDAY JANUARY 22 2012
Little Shining Man: A stunning kite as scuptural art
Artists Heather and Ivan Morison have collaborated with architectural designer Sash Reading to create an amazing sculptural work that can fly like a kite.Christened Little Shining Man, the sculpture has also been complemented by an equally impressive video which shows the spectacular creation take flight at sundown above the beaches of Jersey, the biggest of the Channel Islands (between Britain and France).
Elegant yet robust, Little Shining Man was commissioned by luxury property developers Dandara and manufactured by Queen & Crawford, a Birmingham-based Design and Fabrication Workshop.
Its structure is based around the tetra kites developed by Alexander Graham Bell, multiplied out into colliding cubes, the form of which is inspired by the natural cubic formations of the mineral pyrite.
There were several challenges involved in creating Little Shining Man, which contains 23,000 individual components overall and took 16 months to develop.
The structure had to be very strong yet as lightweight as possible to enable it to fly and return to the ground again with minimal damage so it could be installed as an artwork afterwards.
State-of-art carbon fibre rods were therefore chosen in addition to a hand-made composite fabric – Cuben Fibre – normally used for yacht sails, as well as specially designed, 3-D printed nylon connectors. The ensemble allows Little Shining Man to float across the sky as if weightless.
The flying sculpture in these photos is just one section of an arrangement of three pieces, forming a final piece of art which has been suspended in the atrium of Dandara's Castle Quay development in St. Helier, Jersey.
In addition to being a permanent piece of sculpture, it will also serve as a working kite and will be annually taken down from its display to be flown in nearby St Aubin's bay.
Ivan Morison was more than satisfied after witnessing his co-creation make its maiden lift-off.
“When we first took Little Shining Man out onto the beach, you could feel the sculpture come alive,” he said. “It wanted to twist and tumble as we took it across the sands.
As the wind took hold, it rose slowly, bobbing just above our reach, until a gust caught its sails and lifted way up above us.
Standing there, watching this complex form that had taken us months to plan and build, rise high up into the sky was truly breathtaking.
We felt as Bell must have in his early experiments into flight – a time of true wonder and optimism.”
The debut flight was captured in this beautiful short film, shot at sunset to create a truly beautiful backdrop of light with some great close-ups of Little Shining Man’s geometric structure.
Complementing the superb visuals is an intriguing audio track – the sounds of waves gently lapping and slightly ominous electro music that makes Little Shining Man’s floating upwards seem science-fiction-esque.
