MILITARIZED ARCHITECTURES ~ The American Geography of Incarceration ~

~ Via The Funambulist ~

Rikers Island in New York City

Prison Map is a project developed by Josh Begley, a graduate student studying Interactive Telecommunications at New York University. Thanks a small script and geo-coordinates, he obtained a google earth snapshot of each of the 4,916 incarceration facilities in the United States. Let’s recall here that a bit less than 2.5 millions people are living in prison in this country. Such a project illustrates therefore a sort of hidden urbanism in which 0.8% of the American population live for a given time. Of course, these photographs are interesting to observe the architecture of incarceration, but more importantly in my opinion, is the relationship they develop with their direct environment as they illustrate a geography of exclusion.

Many of these facilities use the obvious strategy of remoteness to engage this will of exclusion. In this regard, from the cartographic point of view, they often ironically appear similar to European palaces with well-ordered classical plans. Others are situated on islands (like Rikers in New York) or piers in order to use water as a buffer zone between the included society and the excluded one. Finally, others are situated in the center of some cities like the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago (see previous post) or the Brooklyn Detention Complex using the verticality of their architecture to implement the exclusionary status.

The page Prison Map is only displaying 700 facilities for convenience reasons but the 4,216 others can be seen by following this link. Josh Begley also have another page entitled Prison Count which establishes a photographic inventory of California State Adult Prisons.

<< Léopold Lambert.

Check this : http://prisonmap.com

Battlefield-Ready Flying Car

The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals for a Humvee that can fly over insurgents, conduct night raids or whisk injured soldiers away from the battlefield. Textron, the defense company, says it has the solution—and they have the sketches to prove it.

Sure, the concept looks like a model car you might buy at Toys R’ Us, but the technology is sound, and the engineers think it could be ready to fly relatively soon, according to Steven Reid, vice president of unmanned aircraft systems at AAI, the Textron subsidiary that produced the Shadow UAV.
“Envision a Humvee-like vehicle with wings that fold out from the side and attach just above the rear door…” Reid says.

Textron’s plan is to integrate its work on military ground vehicles and unmanned aircraft like the Shadow, and combine it with licensed technology from its partnership with Carter Aviation Technologies, a small Texas-based outfit working on a personal air vehicle for the commercial market. Textron is incorporating Carter’s slowed compound rotor technology, which uses rotors that are similar to helicopter blades but heavily weighted in the tips. As the aircraft takes off, the rotor provides lift, but as the vehicle gains speed, the rotor slows down and the wings provide lift.
The vehicle would have a roof panel that contains wings that rotate and fold out from the sides, as well as a mast that comes up and houses the slowed rotor system. Coming out the back of the vehicle is a shrouded, ducted fan that provides forward motion, and then a series of control surfaces that help regulate speed, as well as pitch, roll and yaw.

To win funding for the project that DARPA formally calls Transformer, the company has to meet a challenging set of demands. The defense agency has asked companies and researchers to come up with a flyable vehicle that can carry up to four people, is capable of vertical takeoff and landing and can travel without having to refuel at ranges for 250 nautical miles (with a combination of driving and flying). While DARPA officials have talked about such a vehicle for avoiding roadside bombs, they are also considering it for a variety of missions, including “strike and raid, intervention, interdiction, insurgency and counterinsurgency, reconnaissance, medical evacuation and logistical supply.”

For veteran defense companies like Textron, the DARPA project did elicit some surprise. “I have to admit…” recalls Reid, “we scratched our heads and asked: Is this real?” But if the goal of DARPA’s Transformer project to hunt down innovative technologies that may lie resident at nontraditional defense companies, then Textron’s approach, which draws heavily on Carter Aviation, may pave the way.
Despite the far-out notion of a flying Humvee, Reid says the company’s engineers are intrigued by the idea of pushing the envelope on aircraft technology, and the concept fits well with ideas they already have about combining manned and unmanned aircraft, particularly helicopters. While Reid jokes about flying cars not being in Textron’s “five-year plan” he says the DARPA program is exciting because it allows the company to build off Carter Aviation’s technology, and perhaps incorporate that into the Shadow UAV.
“Quite frankly, our hopes are quite modest…” Reid says. “We don’t have visions of fleet sales of flying Humvees quite yet.”

By SHARON WEINBERGER (Pop Mech)

http://www.darpa.mil/

MIT Media Lab

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology officially opened the doors to its MIT Media Lab Complex, the school’s most famous interdisciplinary program.

The new building, designed by architect Fumihiko Maki and his “Maki and Associates” firm, broke ground in 2007.
Influences on the building’s design included the artists Piet Mondrian and George Seurat, as well as the art of Japanese paper lanterns. The white, glass, and aluminum building includes touches of the primary colors red, blue, and yellow, which are often found in Mondrian’s paintings.

” The model is literally open collaboration between industry and academia. Research here at the Media Lab is highly creative but finds its way into the world via industry. The idea of designing serendipity, this building was designed to promote this type of thinking and capturing in an uncanny way this magic,” said Frank Moss.

The MIT Media Lab Complex design, which MIT had originally requested consist entirely of glass walls, had to be tempered to fit Cambridge energy requirements that restrict the use of glass construction in buildings. To accommodate the codes, Maki and his team integrated translucent aluminum screens over the building’s many glass and solid walls.
The screens over glass create a slightly pixelated view of the Charles River and Boston skyline when looking outside from within the building. It’s a nod to both the Media Lab’s digital world, as well as a pointillist adaption of landscape as seen in the paintings of Impressionist George Seurat.
Looking in at the Media Lab Complex at night, those same screens are lit from behind by the building’s interior lights and create semi-translucent views into some labs. The effect hints that a giant Japanese paper lantern has been plopped down on the corner of Ames and Amherst Streets in Cambridge.
It’s a distinct contrast to the dim and cozy den atmosphere of “the Cube,” the MIT Media Lab’s old space in the I.M. Pei-designed Wiesner Building. That space consisted of a series of rooms overlooking a multistory common area with minimal outside light. Keeping “the Cube” as inspiration, the new six-story building is connected to the Wiesner Building and consists of seven cubes awash in white walls, glass, and natural light. The staggered double-height units with glass walls allow various groups to look across, down, or up at one another. The cubes then form another cube around a common atrium.

Maki and his team have created a series of literal think tanks filled with professors, students, computers, and robots all working in tandem on future technology.
The cubes themselves, now referred to as labs, have retained the same creative and colorful preschool feel of the original Wiesner cube, with many of the usual players and odd projects-in-progress that the Media Lab has come to be known for.

In addition to housing new labs and offices for the MIT Media Lab organization, the building will also be home to several programs belonging to MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, the Jerome Lemelson Center for Inventive Thinking and the Okawa Center for Future Children. It also has a digital fabrication and machine shop, a lecture hall, a winter garden, a cafe, and conference rooms.

http://web.mit.edu
http://www.maki-and-associates.co.jp

Geliografic studio_Moscow

“All kitsch is academic, and conversely, all that is academic is kitsch.”
Clement Greenberg.

Geliografic studio from Moscow is a crew of professional artists, illustrators and graphic designers, “sharing the same creative views”.
“Personal skills, experience and communism imagination meet here with the ability to work as a part of a team, thus providing the realization of the most challenging projects and the achievement of the highest efficiency”.

The Russian based illustration studio decided to mix classic still life paintings, with modern weapons.
Enjoy This KGB kitsch art !

http://www.geliografic.com

HULC™_Exoskeleton

The HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) is the third generation exoskeleton system from Berkeley Bionics, a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC’s load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com
http://www.berkeleybionics.com

The Dubaï Airshow_from orbit

The Dubai Airshow is the largest aerospace event in the Middle East and the fastest-growing airshow in the world.
The GeoEye-1 satellite, which tirelessly photographs the world at half-meter resolution from its constant orbit, swung by the Dubai Airport the other day and took this snap of the Dubai Airshow, in progress this week.
Click to enlarge & enjoy !

Taken from 423 miles in space by the GeoEye-1 satellite on Nov. 16, 2009 during the Dubai Airshow 2009.

http://dubaiairshow.aero
http://www.geoeye.com

MQ-8B_Hunts drug smugglers

The Fire Scout unmanned helicopter got its first job—hunting drug smugglers.

MQ-8B became the first unmanned helo to conduct actual operations on a navy ship. The UAV left on an anti-narcotics mission when from a port in Florida on Monday. The USS McInerney (FFG-8) is no stranger to the unmanned aerial vehicle because it hosted it during developmental testing. A crew of Northrop Grumman engineers are on board to help the aircraft stay healthy.

The operational tests will help the Navy field rotorcraft UAVs on its Littoral Combat Ship, which is still in development.

http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/mq8bfirescout_navy/index.html

Afghanistan_The Cost of War

One of the factors President Obama must weigh as he decides whether to send more troops to Afghanistan is the cost — not just in lives, but in dollars. With the economy still struggling, questions exist about how much the U.S. can afford to spend in Afghanistan — and for how long.
Earlier this week, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the war in Afghanistan had already cost a “staggering” $243 billion.
In fact, it is a challenge to calculate exactly how much the U.S. has spent on the war so far.
The Congressional Research Service estimates that since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the U.S. has spent closer to $227 billion. The Pentagon puts the number at $156 billion.
The variables include which expenses are actually included and whether the total relies on how much Congress has approved for the war compared with what the Pentagon has actually spent.
Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, says one useful way to break down these huge numbers is to look at how much it costs to send just one soldier to war.
“We are at a point where it’s unbelievably costing us close to a million dollars, in additional costs — above and beyond salaries and the equipment that’s already in the inventory — per soldier or Marine per year,” he says.
Fighting in Afghanistan means fighting in one of the most remote regions on Earth, and that plays a large role in the seemingly astronomical figure.
Dov Zakheim, a former chief financial officer for the Defense Department, says the $1 million price tag includes getting the soldier to Afghanistan, getting his equipment to Afghanistan, and moving the soldier around once in the country.
“So, it’s the cost of some allocation of the cost of the plane, some allocation of the cost of the fuel, some allocation of the cost of the pilots, the maintenance folks,” Zakheim explains. “If you focus just on the soldier, it seems outrageous. But if you focus on the support for the soldier — that’s not all that outrageous at all.”

The White House has used the $1 million per soldier statistic in private briefings to Congress, and that has obvious implications. If it costs $1 million to send one soldier to war for a year, then sending 40,000 more troops — as the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has urged — could cost an extra $40 billion per year, on top of what the U.S. is already spending.
Meanwhile, the Defense Department disputes the $1 million figure and says it probably costs closer to $500,000 to send a soldier to war for a year. A Pentagon spokesman adds that any figure provided by the Defense Department or other sources is “speculative at best.”
What is beyond dispute is that a major troop buildup would get very expensive, very fast.
But O’Hanlon of Brookings says that other options — such as a scaled-back, counterterrorism mission — might not be much cheaper. It would require fewer troops, he says, but it’s not clear when they could ever go home. As a result, he says, the government may spend less per year — but need to do so over a longer period of time.
Ultimately, says Zakheim, the former Pentagon official, wars simply cost an “awful lot of money.”
But he says there is a steep cost to failure in Afghanistan, too. “We shouldn’t be going to war or not going to war because it’s going to cost us more or less. We should be choosing to make those decisions on the basis of the national interest of the United States,” he says.
In other words, Zakheim argues, the president should focus on getting the war strategy right, and then figure out how to pay for it.

by Mary Louise Kelly.

COSTOFWAR.COM – The Cost of War

Peace Robot

The United Nations have enlisted Peace Robots to serve as an ad-hoc intervention squad on their behalf.
They are subject to the UN-Principles «neutrality » and « non-partisanship » in crisis areas. Non-lethal system & self-governed, this «cute» machines will be deployed in swarms…

 Designers : Jupin Ghanbari, Benjamin Cselley, Jelena Stoikovic & Dominik Premauer

MQ-8B_The Navy’s Smartest UAV

The Fire Scout is arguably the smartest unmanned aerial vehicle ever built. Unlike remote-operated drones such as the Predator, this helicopter is a true robot, with enough computing power to take off, fly and land on its own. Last year a pair of test Scouts made history, landing on the deck of a moving ship without help from human pilots. Slated for use by the Army and Navy, the chopper is undergoing flight tests, but this on-schedule and on-budget UAV could be ready to gather intel and relay targeting data as early as 2008. While the Navy coyly describes it as “weapons-capable,” firing a barrage of rockets would call for human control — for now.

FIRE SCOUT SPECS
Autonomous Control: The Fire Scout can fly unaided for more than 8 hours, then land on the ground or on a warship.
Modular Payload: The 23-ft.-long unmanned chopper can carry up to 600 pounds of equipment, such as sensors, mine detectors and rockets.
Proven Airframe: The UAV’s airframe is based on the Schweizer Model 333, a manned helicopter used by police agencies around the country. 

http://www.as.northropgrumman.com/products/mq8bfirescout_navy/index.html