09.09.24 | USPTO X 3!
We’re delighted to announce that we recently filed our third USPTO application for the atmospheric water generator that we have been working on with SPARK IP. All of these patent-pending inventions use a network of plant-derived biopolymers to convert arid air into liquid water. It was a lot of work to prepare and complete this latest patent application, which included 93 patent drawings.
This Fall, we will continue to experiment with the composition of our hygroscopic biomaterials, because increased surface area helps increase water absorption and desorption (among other factors). Microscopy continues to help us envision exactly what’s going on, captured at the nanoscale, thanks to our ongoing partnership with BioCubic.
We’re using Gwyddion to glean a lot of interesting information from BioCubic’s AFM data, including: pore size and distribution, topography, surface area, and stiffness. The graph shows the rise and fall of the surface elevation across four random segments of the biomaterial sample, in nanometers. Obviously, there would be a lot less surface area if this terrain were flat.
In the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing more progress updates on the biomaterials, plus more details on the atmospheric water generator that we’re currently prototyping. The project began as a Yeadon Space Agency R&D initiative last year, and moved to SPARK IP for some additional prototyping and testing.
08.30.24 | An Interior Urbanism Theory Reader
A new book that’s been published by Routledge, The Interior Urbanism Theory Reader, explores the rich complexities of interior urbanism. Employing an interdisciplinary lens across fifty chapters, its authors investigate the topic in relation to architecture, planning, urban design, interior architecture, interior design, archaeology, engineering, sociology, psychology, and geography.
The book contains individual essays by leading educators, theorists, academics and practitioners. We are delighted and honored to see our BLOOM project included in Chapter 40: Sound Mind: Media and Mediations of Interior Soundscapes by Keena Suh. Congrats Keena!
07.18.24 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell AAP in Lower Manhattan
Peter delivered two back-to-back lectures at Cornell University’s Architecture, Art, and Planning department in Lower Manhattan today. The morning presentation focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials, and it contained many insights into a materials-driven innovation process that Peter has developed over the past couple of decades. The lecture was followed by a discussion on opportunities that the students envisioned for some of the nascent material technologies that he presented.
The afternoon presentation focused on biodesign, especially biomaterials that are enabling some of most adventurous projects of today. The students are now workshopping some ideas for a particular water soluble bioplastic that we focused on for many years, which you can see in some of our projects that mention bioplastics. Many thanks to the students and faculty for generously hosting today’s sessions.
07.08.24 | USPTO X 2!
Today, we filed a second USPTO patent application for the atmospheric water generator that we have been working on with SPARK IP. And, we received a second infusion of funding to help us develop the next prototype (I♡NY)! More on that later!
Both USPTO patent-pending inventions use a bio-based approach to convert arid desert air into liquid water. At the core of the technology is a hygroscopic composite made of easily accessible (and abundant) natural materials. Early in the process, we focused on biomaterials that were derived from plants, so one of the hygroscopic composites that we produced consists of plant-derived hydrogels and thermoresponsive cellulose.
06.13.24 | Challenging Biodesign
We’ll be checking out this year’s talent at the annual Biodesign Challenge (BDC), today and tomorrow, where Peter will serve as a Judge for the 2024 BDC competition. The event takes place at Parsons and MoMA, where 49 finalist teams from around the world will present their ideas that bridge art, design, and biotech to reimagine a more sustainable and equitable future. Only one team will be awarded the Glass Microbe Prize!
5.07.24 | A Review of Innovative Materials
Congratulations to Evelyn Grillo, Martino Milardi, and Francesca Olivieri, who have authored a new research paper, titled A Review of Innovative Materials for the Design of Adaptive Biomimetic Façades. Their report was published in Resilient Planning and Design for Sustainable Cities, part of Springer’s Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation book series.
We’re delighted that the report includes a self-regulating facade system that we designed and prototyped, which “automatically adjusts to suit changing exterior environments, such as sunlight and temperature variations. The actuator that runs the system is similar to muscles and It provides thermoregulation while reducing energy consumption and its associated emissions.” Thank you for reviewing our novel electroactive polymer sun screen!
04.21.24 | SPARK IP!!
On this Earth Day, we’re delighted to announce that we’ve launched a brand new company with Joe Hodler, called SPARK IP! The company will focus on providing climate change solutions, and we’ll soon release more information on SPARK IP’s first patent-pending invention, which aims to help communities address water scarcity.
The invention uses a compound of three plant-derived biomaterials to convert arid desert air into liquid water. It began as a Yeadon Space Agency R&D project last year, and was recently moved from the YSA lab bench to SPARK IP for additional prototyping and testing. Our atmospheric water generator produced its latest batch of water just last week! We envision numerous applications for this technology. More to come … !
03.18.24 | Yeadon lectures at Pratt Institute
Peter delivered a lecture at Pratt’s School of Architecture in Brooklyn. The presentation focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials in the built environment. It contained many insights into materials-driven innovation that Peter has developed in recent years, and concluded with seven key areas where smart materials are rapidly advancing today, drawn from the YSA Database on advanced materials.
12.30.23 | Thermally Responsive Building Envelopes from Materials to Engineering
Hongyu Zhou and Yawen He recently authored Thermally Responsive Building Envelopes from Materials to Engineering, which appears in a new book: Advanced Materials in Smart Building Skins for Sustainability, From Nano to Macroscale. Congrats, and thank you for including our work on using electroactive polymers for adaptive facade technologies!
11.25.23 | Bioinspired Soft Kinetics
A couple of recent research articles in two Journals have mentioned some of our early work on kinetic facade systems that are enabled by dielectric elastomers. The project was included in Bioinspired, biobased and living material designs: a review of recent research in architecture and construction (Bioinspiration & Biomimetics), and, Architecture and Soft Kinetics: Scale and Performance (The Plan Journal). Thanks for including the work!
10.10.23 | Future Designs
Many thanks to the Rhode Island School of Design for recently publishing an article on Peter’s work with his CATALYST students, in the Fall 2023 RISD Alumni Magazine. Much like Yeadon Space Agency, Peter’s CATALYST group at RISD is known for using a materials-driven approach to design innovation, with a focus on smart materials, nanomaterials, biomaterials, and other advanced materials.
09.13.23 | Yeadon joins NEW INC Mentors for Year 10
Located in NYC, NEW INC is an incubator for people working at the intersection of art, design, and technology. The organization is now celebrating its 10 years of success … congratulations! It’s such super group of talented Members who are in residence this year.
Peter has joined NEW INC’s roster of Mentors, a community of top professionals in the fields of art, design, technology, and entrepreneurship who support its current Members through monthly meetings. Through ongoing feedback and guidance, Mentors are a critical point of accountability as Members pursue new major projects or a sustainable business model. Mentors help NEW INC Members develop into future leaders!
07.30.23 | 4D Printing As A Solution For Saving Building Energy
We’re enjoying a new research paper authored by Eslam Abdelwahab and Marina Mahrous, titled 4D Printing As A Solution For Saving Building Energy in the March issue of MSA Engineering Journal (Vol. 2 Issue 2). Well done, and thank you for including our work on adaptive facade technologies!
06.27.23 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell AAP in Lower Manhattan
Peter delivered a lecture at Cornell University’s Architecture, Art, and Planning department in Lower Manhattan. The presentation focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials and nanomaterials in the built environment, and it contained many insights into materials-driven innovation that Peter has developed in recent years. The lecture was followed by a discussion on opportunities that the students envisioned for some of the nascent technologies that he presented.
05.10.23 | The Great Transition
Peter Yeadon recently participated in The Great Transition: Climate Action in a Changing World, in New York City, which was a series of roundtable sessions organized by Columbia Climate School and the Center on Global Energy Policy, in partnership with the University of Tokyo and its Center for Climate Solutions.
As the G7 prepares to gather in Hiroshima on the road to the Global Climate Action Summit and COP28, the Columbia+UTokyo roundtable was an opportunity to reflect on the role of education in strengthening resilience, tackling energy insecurity, and addressing the climate crises at a moment of geopolitical risk and economic turbulence. Peter participated in the roundtable on adaptation and resilience.
04.08.23 | The Pink Issue
We don’t know if this is related to the upcoming Barbie movie or not, but McGill University has posted its archive of The Fifth Column architecture magazine, including Vol. 10 No. 2/3 : The Pink Issue. Published 25 years ago, that memorable issue included an article by Terrance Galvin, titled Three Visionary Houses: Reflections on the work of Peter Yeadon. Nice to see this work released again. Thank you McGill University Library!
04.01.23 | Importance of Smart Materials Application In Building Skins: An Overview
Antima Kuda, Madhura Yadav, and Ankur Kuda recently authored Importance of Smart Materials Application In Building Skins: An Overview, which appears in a new IEEE conference book. Congrats, and thank you for including our work on using electroactive polymers for adaptive facade technologies!
03.03.23 | Yeadon Brings RISD Students to NYC Biodesign Hub
Peter hosted recently hosted twelve of his RISD Biodesign students in NYC. The students were participants in his three-week Global Studies course: Biodesign NYC. Throughout the three weeks, they had the opportunity to work directly with experts in biodesign and the creation of novel biomaterials.
“At RISD,” the course description states, “the biodesign studies that we have undertaken have supported our strategic plan: by introducing our students to new, collaborative ways of making and knowing; by engaging sustainability through a variety of means that can help decarbonize and detoxify our communities; and, by pursuing accessible projects, resources, and opportunities that can contribute positively to diverse peoples, and our planet. But RISD is not a hub for the study and practice of biodesign. Fortunately, just down the tracks, there’s a global center where biodesign has been flourishing for many years: New York City. Therefore, located in NYC, this Wintersession Travel Course provided students with an opportunity to learn about biodesign, and create meaningful contributions to the study and practice of biodesign, by directly engaging a selection of topics and projects with some of its pioneers and influencers.’
Read more about their great adventure in this article!
02.20.23 | Ecological Design Thinking!
Congratulations to Yomna Elghazi, Neveen Hamza, and Martyn Dade-Robertson, who recently co-authored a chapter titled Smart Materials for Thermo-responsive Architectural Applications in the new Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking. Well done, and thank you for including our work on adaptive facade technologies!
The book includes contributions from over 79 expert practitioners, educators, scientists, researchers, and theoreticians, as well as planners, architects, and engineers from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia. It investigates the ways in which ecology is addressed through the built environment by integrating ecological ideas and ecological thinking into discussions of urbanism, society, culture, and design.
Exploring innovative materials, habitats, landscapes, and infrastructures, the Companion encourages creative thinking in the face of ongoing environmental damage, with a view to making design decisions in the interest of the planet and its inhabitants.
01.30.23 | Dizziness – A Resource
The Kinetic Reconstructive System by Peter Yeadon is a three-minute animation that was completed in 2005-2006. As a work of virtual reconstruction, the project offered many new insights into Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Kinetic Constructive System, which is why the work was collected, exhibited, and published … it was also copied by Juan Ignacio Prieto López, a professor at the Universidade da Coruña, who even copied Yeadon’s title for his own derivative work. Sad.
In any case, we’re delighted to find out that the work has also been referenced in Dizziness—A Resource (Publication Series of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Vol. 24.), a cross-disciplinary reader that explores dizziness, beyond feeling dizzy. Edited by Ruth Anderwald, Karoline Feyertag, Leonhard Grond, the book includes contributions by artists, researchers from experimental sciences as well as cultural studies, and philosophers who trace dizziness not only as a phenomenon of physiological, emotional, and cognitive processes but highlight the transversal nature of the phenomenon.
Dizziness – A Resource puts dizziness as today’s conditio humana to the test, scrutinizing individual as well as collective states of unbalance, confusion, and disorientation. Yet, the programmatic claim of the editors is that these states of dizziness can be regarded as a resource – at least with regard to artistic research, philosophy, and current socio-political landscapes.
11.14.22 | Yeadon delivers a new lecture on innovation to students at Cornell University
Peter delivered a lecture on materials-driven innovation to students in the College of Human Ecology, at Cornell University. He was especially grateful to have this chance to engage the students afterwards, to answer questions and discuss some of the promise and challenges of a materials-driven approach to developing ideas for new applications. Peter taught at Cornell many years ago, and has fond memories of that time, when some of his foundational research into architectural applications for biotech and nanotech dramatically advanced.
11.04.22 | Yeadon joins international judges at 2022 Biodesign Sprint
Mars Wrigley and the Biodesign Challenge partnered on a month-long Biodesign Sprint that asked designers from 16 countries to create new ways to foster the physical, emotional, and social wellbeing of people with food systems that also support the health of the environment. Peter Yeadon joined the panel of international judges to select the finalists and winner.
09.16.22 | On Collapse
Throughout the Summer of 2022, Peter Yeadon interviewed Philosopher AI on the topic of Collapse. A video of the interview is being exhibited at the Rhode Island School of Design, during Fall 2022, to accompany a Center for Complexity symposium on signs of collapse.
Philosopher AI offers opinions that have been generated by a neural network trained/hosted by OpenAI. Since Philosopher AI lacks specific knowledge and opinions itself, and only imitates opinions that exist in its neural network, it sometimes produces conflicting results, which Yeadon was interested in exploring.
In the video, Philosopher AI’s responses are read aloud by another AI system that was developed by Well-Said Labs. Video images were generated by Midjourney AI in response to a text-based prompt on collapse.
09.01.22 | Yeadon appointed Head of RISD ID, again
We are pleased to announce that Peter Yeadon has, once again, been appointed Head of the Department of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design! The ID department offers three degree programs in industrial design, and has over 300 students and 55 faculty members. Peter has been a Professor at RISD since 2002. Before RISD, he taught at Cornell University and the University of Toronto.
06.30.22 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell AAP in Lower Manhattan
Peter delivered a lecture at Cornell University’s Architecture, Art, and Planning department in Lower Manhattan. The presentation focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials and nanomaterials in the built environment, and it contained many insights into materials-driven innovation that Peter has developed in recent years. The lecture was followed by a discussion on opportunities that the students envisioned for some of the nascent technologies that he presented.
06.13.22 | Challenging Biodesign
We’ll be checking out this year’s talent at the annual Biodesign Challenge (BDC), where Peter will serve as a Judge for the 2022 BDC competition. The event will take place June 20-24, online, when 54 finalist teams from 17 countries will present their ideas that bridge art, design, and biotech to reimagine a more sustainable and equitable future. Only one team will be awarded the Glass Microbe, a glass trophy that is passed between each year’s winning teams.
Please join us! tinyurl.com/42epb9vs
06.02.22 | Critical Analysis
The campus at Rhode Island School of Design was humming in late May, as RISD students presented their inventive works to fellow students, faculty members and visiting critics. Students in Peter’s CATALYST Studio were focused on creating new applications for smart materials that change shape, change color, and/or emit light. The students presented their projects in RISD’s Industrial Design Gallery. You can read about the course, and some of the other studios, here.
05.16.22 | Smart Tools for Smart Design
The Smart Tools for Smart Design (ST4SD) project is a collaboration between the Department of Textile and Surface Design at the Weißensee Kunsthochschule Berlin, the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology IWU, the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP in Potsdam-Golm.
ST4SD is a research resource that focuses on smart materials that change shape when they experience an external stimulus. The project focuses on three shape-changing materials: shape memory alloys, dielectric elastomers, and piezoceramics. Naturally, our work with dielectric elastomers is featured in their toolkit!
04.22.22 | House for a Single Person & Ditto House
Canada’s Research Chair in Architecture has created a database of architectural works that have received Canadian Architect Awards over the past half century. The Atlas of Research on Exemplarity in Architecture and the Built Environment includes the House for a Single Person project, designed by Peter back in 1995, which received an Award of Excellence.
In 1999, the Ditto House project received an Award of Excellence from the Ontario Association of Architects, in Toronto.
03.14.22 | The Stories Objects Tell
We’re delighted to have two projects in a new exhibition at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island! Opening today, The Stories Objects Tell, runs through April 14, 2022 at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology. The exhibition was curated by Kristen Marchetti, with assistance from Erynn Bentley. Works included in the show were a response to archaeology in general or to objects in the Institute’s Collection. Check out our Vessel and Set of Instruments!
02.25.22 | New Technologies in the Development of Facades
Another architecture magazine, this time in Bosnia, has mentioned some of our early work on kinetic facade systems that are enabled by dielectric elastomers. The project was included in the January issue of M-Kvadrat. Thanks for remembering the work!
01.09.22 | Intelligent Material Systems and Structures
We’re delighted that some of our early work on kinetic facade systems that are enabled by dielectric elastomers is published in the Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures. The project appears in a new research paper, Smart materials in architecture for actuator and sensor applications: A review, by Martin Sobczyk, Sebastian Wiesenhütter, Jörg Rainer Noennig, and Thomas Wallmersperger.
“The aim of the paper is to provide a comprehensive review of relevant technologies and approaches comprising smart materials in actuatoric and sensoric applications in architecture and civil engineering,” state the authors, who are researchers at the Technische Universität Dresden, in Germany. The print issue (Volume: 33 issue: 3, pp. 379-399) will be released on February 1, 2022.
11.21.21 | ASTRONOSH exhibited at RISD Museum
The Faculty Show at the Rhode Island School of Design closes today! Catch it if you can, at the RISD Museum, as our ASTRONOSH project is in the exhibition! The project looks at how astronauts might be fed during very long missions to the Moon and Mars. Spoiler alert … insects will help us achieve it! We’ll be posting more information on ASTRONOSH soon.
11.04.21 | Talk! Talk!
Peter delivered two back-to-back talks today, both on materials-driven innovation. The first was at the invitation of interior design students at SUNY’s Fashion Insitute of Technology, in Manhattan. HIs second talk was a keynote address, on the final day of the month-long Biodesign Sprint, a design innovation challenge by Biodesign Challenge in collaboration with Google. 40 teams from 15 countries were given one month to create designs for more sustainable electronics hardware and imagine a future where devices function in symbiotic harmony with the environment. Peter’s talk addressed materials-driven innovation, with a focus on biomaterials. You can watch it here!
10.10.21 | The Design of Autoresponsive Building Envelopes
A couple of recent research articles in have mentioned some of our early work on kinetic facade systems that are enabled by dielectric elastomers. The Homeostatic Facade Project was included in Taxonomical Investigation of Self-Sufficient Kinetic Building Envelopes (Journal of Architectural Engineering; Volume 27, Issue 4) by Cattaruzzi and Gaspari, and, a chapter titled Design of Autoreaction, Case Studies by S. Persiani in the book Design Science and Innovation. Thanks for including this important work!
09.01.21 | The Impact of Responsive Systems
A new research paper in Energy & Buildings includes some of our early work with kinetic facades that use electro-active polymers. The paper is titled Design processes and multi-regulation of biomimetic building skins: A comparative analysis, and is authored by Estelle Cruz, Tessa Hubert, Ginaud Chancoco, Omar Naim, Natasha Chayaamor-Heil, Raphaël Cornette, Lidia Badarnah, Kalina Raskin, Fabienne Aujard A. Ibrahim, and Ahmed H. Radwan.
07.07.21 | Using Nanotechnology to Improve Energy Performance
A new paper in the Journal of Urban Research (Vol. 40) references Peter’s extensive research into early materializations of nanotech in architecture. The paper is titled Using the Nanotechnology Treated Glass for Improving Energy Performance of School Classrooms in Qena, Egypt, and is authored by Dr. Mahmoud Attiya Mohamed and Dr. Samah Sobhy Mansour.
05.22.21 | Functionalized Biomaterials included in 17th Venice Architecture Biennale
The 17th Venice Architecture Biennale opened today! And it includes a short video of our work that’s titled Functionalized Biomaterials. The video is being shown as part of the CityX Venice exhibition, which is open to the public from May 22nd through November 21st at the Arsenale, in Venice. It will also be viewable online, at the Italian Virtual Pavilion Sezione del Padiglione Italia, which consists of the online exhibition, lectures, workshops, and a roundtable discussion that draws more than 300 of the world’s leading innovators together to share ideas for resetting the future. We are proud to have been selected to contribute!
03.22.21 | Bio-Inspired Urban Projects
The Centre Européen d’Excellence en Biomimétisme de Senlis (Ceebios) in Paris has produced a new report, titled Projet Urbain Bio-Inspiré. In a section on pioneers of building structures and facades, the report includes some of our work with biomimetic facades that open and close to regular solar heat gain.
02.10.21 | KRS at The Moholy-Nagy Foundation
We are proud to announce that the Kinetic Reconstructive System is now listed as part of the filmography database at The Moholy-Nagy Foundation. The project involved creating digital models and animations that were based on careful studied of Moholy-Nagy’s Kinetic Constructive System.
01.19.21 | Studies in Materials-Driven Innovation
Peter delivered a new lecture, titled Studies in Materials-Driven Innovation, at Dalhousie University in Canada. Using works from Yeadon Space Agency and RISD CATALYST, he outlined how an investigation of materials can lead to new discoveries for design innovation. See the announcement.
12.15.20 | Foresight Study in Energy Efficiency Technologies in Horizon 2030-2050
Some of our early work on kinetic facade systems was recently published by the Plataforma Tecnológica Española de Eficiencia Energética (Spanish Technology Platform for Energy Efficiency), in Madrid. The report is titled, Estudio de prospectiva 2030-2050 de tecnologías de eficiencia energética (Foresight Study in Energy Efficiency Technologies in Horizon 2030-2050).
10.19.20 | A Novel Approach to Adaptive Shading Systems
We’re delighted that some of our work on kinetic facade systems was recently published in the Journal of Facade Design & Engineering. The project is studied in a new research paper, A Novel Approach to Shape Memory Alloys Applied to Passive Adaptive Shading Systems, by Lorenzo Vercesi, Alberto Speroni, Andrea Giovanni Mainini, Tiziana Poli. All of the researchers are at the Politecnico di Milano Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering.
08.01.20 | Adaptive Building Skins – Potentials and Limitations
Raphael Neuhaus, Nima Zahiri, Jan Petrš, Thomas Bauernhansl, et al., recently authored Integrating Ionic Electroactive Polymer Actuators and Sensors Into Adaptive Building Skins – Potentials and Limitations, which appears in the journal Frontiers in Built Environment 6:95. Congrats, and thank you for including our work on using electroactive polymers for adaptive facade technologies!
06.01.20 | Yeadon joins Future Life project
Peter has joined a multi-disciplinary team that’s organizing a collection of responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through design, art and technology. The objectives of the FUTURE LIFE project are: to present a timely online exhibition connecting diverse global makers and thinkers imagining the future, to curate a physical exhibition of selected work at FICTION Gallery in Chelsea, NYC, and to archive the response in some form of publication.
Please visit the FUTURE LIFE website, now, to view some outstanding ideas and submit your own, or share it with your students and friends!
https://www.futurelife-fiction.com/
03.31.20 | The Path to City Resilience
A new book of conference proceedings, edited by Dr. Zeinab Feisal and Dr. Nihal Amer, reviews strategies for more sustainable cities. Its title is The Path to City Resilience, and it includes some of our early work with kinetic facades that use electro-active polymers.
10.21.19 | The Impact of Responsive Systems
A new research paper in the Journal of Al-Azhar University Engineering Sector includes some of our early work with kinetic facades that use electro-active polymers. The paper is titled The Impact of Responsive Systems on Energy Consumption and Thermal Performance of Buildings, and is authored by Manar Fouad, Vitta A. Ibrahim, and Ahmed H. Radwan.
09.11.19 | Regenerating Good through Tiny Provocations
Peter delivered a lecture, titled Tiny Provocations, at the Japan Society in Manhattan today. He was one of many speakers that Satoshi Nakagawa and his colleagues organized for the Regenerating Good international conference.
“Here, we will especially focus on such ideas as the use of micropower that employs both commonplace and microscopic energy resources along with the development of new sources of energy,” the organizers stated. “We will also consider how to balance industrial efficiency and the corresponding resource and environmental impact that modern society faces.”
Peter’s talk included some recent projects that use smart materials as energy resources that are structured at the micro- and nano-scale. His lecture also focused on various forms of energy that have been underutilized or neglected, but that now show promise and prominence because of material discoveries that have made them accessible in new ways.
07.28.19 | Advancements in Human Factors
The International Conference on Human Factors, Sustainable Urban Planning and Infrastructure wrapped up in Washington D.C. today, and we’re excited about the upcoming book that presents the conference findings. It’ll include a paper by Sandra Preto, titled Dynamic Façades: Optimization of Natural Light at Workplaces, which is a critical review of how dynamic facades provide natural views through windows, allow access to natural light, and promote Vitamin D production.
Preto’s research provides a literature review and analysis of four case study facade systems: Arab World Institute (Paris), Gardens by the Bay (Singapore), Investment Council Headquarters (Abu Dhabi) and Homeostatic Façade System (Prototype). We produced that last one!
06.08.19 | Retool
It’s a beautiful day to delete our Twitter and Facebook accounts! Thank you to our many followers, but these social media platforms are not what we imagined they could be.
05.22.19 | Wow
Who wouldn’t be honored to be compared to Antoni Gaudí, Norman Foster, Studio Gang, Doris Kim Sung, Bjarke Ingels Group, and Frei Otto? And we don’t even have a Wikipedia page! Thank you very much Glaucia Wesselovicz and Janaina Cazini, for recognizing the many years of experimentation that we have engaged in, and congratulations on the launch of your new eBook, Arquitetura e Urbanismo: Planejando e Edificando Espaços, just published by Atena Editora, in Brazil.
04.04.19 | Huh?
We recently read Jozef Hraska’s Adaptive Solar Shading of Buildings in the International Review of Applied Sciences and Engineering. Hraska is at the Slovak University of Technology, and we’re happy to see a project that we spent a long time working on, the Homeostatic Facade System, featured in his article.
Hraska is sadly mistaken when he writes, “Homeostatic facade system responds too quickly even to small changes of solar energy intensity such as floating clouds, shadows casted by surrounding buildings, trees and the like. The system cannot be individually regulated. In the case of changes in using of indoor spaces its function cannot be adjusted to change. The great advantage of the system is exceptional energy efficiency.”
There is no evidence to support these claims. We never tested the system for energy efficiency, and in fact it is the temperature of the room that is sensed, not clouds and trees, as the main goal is permit/deny solar heat gain to warm/cool interiors. And since when is it ok to infringe on our copyright by publishing images without asking for permission? This is sloppy work.
03.31.19 | Technologies used in responsive facade systems
We’re delighted that some of our early work on kinetic facade systems that are enabled by dielectric elastomers has been published TWO recent issues of Intelligent Buildings International. In the March issue, the project is discussed in a new research paper, Technologies used in responsive facade systems: a comparative study, by Negar Heidari Matin and Ali Eydgahi.
In the January issue, these same authors discuss the project in their paper, Factors affecting the design and development of responsive facades: a historical evolution. Congrats and thank you!
02.14.19 | 2018 New Material Awards
During Dutch Design Week, last October, Peter gave an impromptu interview after viewing the 2018 New Material Awards. Many thanks to the Het Nieuwe Instituut, which invited him, and were such marvelous hosts!
01.19.19 | Bustler
Bustler! Thank you for featuring our Wind Forest project in your weekly wrap-up of new design competitions worth checking out.
12.15.18 | Metabolism of Antwerp
A new publication, titled Metabolism of Antwerp, features four dossiers full of projects investigating the spatial impact of various urban challenges, such as: energy transitions, circular economy, climate adaptation, and air quality … all using a metabolic approach. The research-by-design project was produced for the municipality of Antwerp by FABRICations, and includes our work with polymorphic smart materials that can help buildings mitigate solar heat gain.
11.09.18 | Designing Kinetic Facades with Biomimetic Technology
We’re delighted that some of our early work on kinetic facade systems was recently published in Armenia. In a new research paper, Designing Kinetic Facades with Biomimetic Technology, Mazen Ibrahim Said of the National University of Architecture and Construction of Armenia states …
This research discusses the basic types of kinetic facades based on the technology and materials used to provide the possibility of reducing the sharp sunlight into the building. The design examples are also compared in the idea of inspiration from the biological world, which is reflected on the protection system used to protect from the sun and reduce energy consumption. Kinetic facades based on the features of smart materials are self-responsive and they do not need active energy for moving operation.
10.01.18 | What are you made of?
We’re excited to have work in a new Italian publication that’s been edited by Marinella Ferrara and Giulio Ceppi. Published by the Politecnico di Milano, the book is called Ideas and the Matter: What will we be made of and what will the world be made of? The editors explain:
To identify the actual evolution of the relationship between sciences, knowledge and design, the Madec (Material Design Culture Research Centre) of Politecnico di Milano, started in 2014 a wide debate with a series of contributions about innovation trajectories with well known scholars of many disciplines, researchers, professionals and companies. This public debate, entitled “Ideas and the matter” opens new options for design action today, new ideas, and the definition of design approaches, contributing to the development of a new methodology of creativity-driven material innovation that, in a world full of opportunities but also problems to be solved, helps design to play a role of “giving new meanings”, through designing materials and things with a critical approach. This is a mission designers cannot abdicate, following the successes of “Design Thinking”, which was opening up to social innovation challenges and achieving creative solutions beyond the reach of conventional structure and method. At the same time, “Open Innovation” is a go-to process stimulating way of creating positive change in production.
This book is the compendium of Madec’s one-year research. The contributors of the book come from several and diverse disciplines (medicine, biotechnology, engineering, art, anthropology, architecture and design), which design thoughts are fed by.
09.21.18 | Biomimicry? Biophilia!
In the July issue of Ecolibrium, Sean McGowan explored the growing influence of biophilia in the built environment with Dr. Dominique Hes of the Melbourne School of Design, Tim Angus of Grimshaw, and sustainability consultant and biomimicry specialist Jane Toner.
Toner states, “There’s some great work being done on adaptive, or dynamic, facades that respond to temporal environmental conditions. While much of this work is academic or in development, there are a few examples trickling through to the market.” She then goes on to note the work we did on a facade shading system that emulates the movement of muscles to expand and contract in response to heat.
Ecolibrium is a magazine that is produced by the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning, and Heating.
09.03.18 | Kinetic Solutions for your Skin
“The skin of buildings represents the first level of communication between construction, man and environment. In this relationship, the concept of communication acquires different values, because it can be applied both to the architectural field in relation to the shape, and to the perceptive and communicative sphere, aimed to transmission of messages or even to the interaction of the architectural envelope with the user and the environment,” writes Santina Di salvo, a professor in the architecture department at Università degli Studi di Palermo. Di salvo scribed these words in Kinetic Solutions for Responsive and Communicative Building Skin, published last month by Advanced Materials Research.
“This brings us back to the energy and sustainability aspects, since the primary role as a separation and filter layer of the building façades is that of shielding. The solution with a kinetic façade constitutes not only a possibility of climatic mediation between outside and inside, guaranteeing ventilation and protection from solar radiation, but allows to redesign the aesthetic, communicative and perceptive appearance of a building. The contribution focuses on the communicative and perceptive potential of the façades and the ongoing experimentations of the new smart materials applied to these.”
Our work’s in there … please have a look for it.
09.01.18 | Learning from practitioners of bio-inspired design
When designers develop biologically-inspired design (BID) solutions, they are engaging in a process of analogical design. Software tools have been developed to support analogical design processes, presenting designers with information to help in the construction of useful analogies. However, the requirements for such tools have not been explicitly informed by accounts of practitioners’ experiences.
To address this, Gülşen Töre Yargın, Roxana Moroşanu Firth, and Nathan Crilly interviewed 14 expert practitioners in BID, including Peter Yeadon, to understand how they find and apply cross-domain analogies. The analysis and findings have just been released in a new report, User requirements for analogical design support tools: Learning from practitioners of bio-inspired design, which was published by Design Studies (Volume 58, September 2018, Pages 1-35).
Three main themes emerged from the study: (1) the skill sets of individual practitioners; (2) the ways they work as part of an interdisciplinary team; and (3) their orientations to biology. The authors concluded that these themes present opportunities and challenges for developing future analogical design support tools.
08.15.18 | It’s a hot, sticky summer … let’s cool Singapore!
A new research project, titled Cooling Singapore, aims to reduce the urban heat island (UHI) effect in Singapore, and thereby improve outdoor thermal comfort (OTC). The team’s publication, authored by Lea Ruefenacht and Juan Acero, contains 86 strategies and measures that are grouped into seven clusters: vegetation, urban geometry, water features and bodies, materials and surfaces, shading, transport, and energy. And guess what else it includes? The book includes our state-of-the-art work with smart materials that can help buildings mitigate solar heat gain.
Each measure in the report describes its impact towards the UHI effect and OTC, its applicability in the tropical context of Singapore, its integration into urban planning, and its current research status. While many of the items in the catalogue may also be applicable to non-tropical cities, mitigation strategies and measures that are not applicable to tropical cities have been excluded.
This ongoing research is supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF), Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) program.
08.04.18 | Materials that Move!!
A new book, titled Materials that Move: Smart Materials, Intelligent Design, features an interactive facade system prototype made by Peter Yeadon. In their book, write that, “Outstanding projects have been selected from different fields including product design, arts, architecture, fashion design, and exhibit design. Most of these projects have been materialized in the last two decades although some projects go back as early as 1986. These case studies aim to provide certain details about the design process, material selection, technical difficulties and how they were solved, integration of kinetic materials or components, as well as aesthetic or artistic concerns. The particular role of kinetic materials in these projects are also discussed.”
Yeadon made the prototype with shape-shifting dielectric elastomers that can alter the surface of a facade.
07.07.18 | The originality of Fido Luggage
A new article in Russia’s NETRS provides a great overview of a number of recent developments in robotics. Written by Da Zhi, of Shandong Polytechnic University in China, the report includes advancements in a new luggage robot by Robotronics. The article also recognizes our early contribution to robo-luggage, stating that the idea originated with Peter Yeadon’s Fido Luggage project: “Ideja ni original, je kanadski oblikovalec Peter Yeadon izumil delovni model Fido Lugguge sredi leta 2000, vendar ni nikoli prišel v komercialno sprostitev.”
07.01.18 | Yeadon appointed Head of RISD ID
We are pleased to announce that Peter Yeadon has been appointed Head of the Department of Industrial Design at the Rhode Island School of Design! The ID department offers three degree programs in industrial design, and has over 300 students and 70+ faculty members. Peter has been a Professor at RISD since 2002. Before RISD, he taught at Cornell University and the University of Toronto.
06.23.18 | The Power of Biomimicry
We recently came across a new book that has a very long title: Interdisciplinary Expansions in Engineering and Design with the Power of Biomimicry. Inside, we found our work! How great is that???
In their chapter titled Biomimetic Facade Applications for a More Sustainable Future, authors Ayça Tokuç, Fatma Feyzal Özkaban and Özge Andiç Çakır explain, “This chapter looks at cutting-edge design principles, materials, and designs in building façades through the lens of biomimetics and biodesign. First, the design principles and then the materials and some cases are explained. The concepts of biomimicry and biodesign are in harmony with the concept of sustainability; however, to reach sustainable façade solutions, the sustainability principles should be at the core of the design problem definition.”
06.02.18 | Yeadon receives Frazier Award
Peter Yeadon was deeply honored to be awarded the John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design 2018 Commencement ceremony, yesterday, a celebration of each graduating student’s achievement, and that of Honorary Degree recipients Annie Leibovitz and Cai Guo-Qiang.
The John R. Frazier Award was established in 1968 by RISD alumni, friends, and family of the late John R. Frazier, who served as President of RISD from 1955-1962 and a professor of painting for many years, to honor faculty members who embody the highest ideals to which RISD’s faculty aspire.
05.20.18 | Introducing Black Flamingo
A durable, lightweight and finely detailed chair is being launched today, at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York City. Designed by Paolo Cardini & Peter Yeadon for Clear Carbon Interiors, the Black Flamingo chair raises the standard for luxury space-saving furniture.
The new chair evokes the exotic elegance of a black flamingo, with its graceful winged body and slender folding legs. Yet the beauty of the design is exquisitely matched by its high performance, as Black Flamingo is made with unique carbon fiber technology that is designed to excel in every environment.
The project is the result of a two-year collaboration with Clear Carbon Interiors, which is know for making high end carbon fiber furniture and fixtures for interior and exterior environments, including some of the world’s most luxurious yachts. CCI is a division of Clear Carbon & Components, Inc., in Bristol, RI.
• A compelling aesthetic that exemplifies performance and prowess
• Crafted out of enduring materials that require no maintenance
• Elegant and inimitable, yet light and comfortable
• Effortless folding and nesting for easy relocation or stowage
• Customizable and luxurious, with exclusive finishes
ICFF: Booth 115
05.01.18 | Mantle monument opens in Richmond, Virginia
Mantle is one of many public art projects that we’ve worked on with artist Alan Michelson. It is a site-specific monument on the grounds of historic Capitol Square, in Richmond, that honors Virginia’s Native American nations.. It’s finally recently completed. Check it out!
04.22.18 | We’ve won a 2017 LICC Award!
One of our recent projects has just received an award at the 2017 London International Creative Competition! Thousands of submissions were reviewed by the LICC jury, which awarded an Honorable Mention to us for BLOOM, a collaborative work that we created with Jesse Asjes and Laura Wickesberg. BLOOM regulates acoustic issues in large spaces by opening and closing a knitted surface to provide just the right amount of sound attenuation. The project was conceived as a kinetic cloud that can be folded as simply as origami paper, by using technical knits, coded movement, and small modular components. Because BLOOM is sensitive to sound, it can interact and behave intuitively, opening and closing to create a responsive environment.
03.25.18 | Fungal Bioplastics exhibited at RISD Museum
The Faculty Show at the Rhode Island School of Design closes today! Catch it if you can, at the RISD Museum. We’ve got a red slab of our Fungal Bioplastic in the exhibition, and are now working on a new batch that includes hydrogels to accelerate decomposition.
02.14.18 | Established career in new materials: Peter Yeadon
“Our family had a hardware and building supply company, plus a mill for manufacturing building materials and components, so I started making things and helping out at some construction sites at a pretty young age. I was probably lulled into architecture through those early experiences of drawing and making. It was fun, and only occasionally painful,” reminisces Peter Yeadon, in a new Alumni Spotlight that was published by Dalhousie University in Canada.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
02.01.18 | An Interior Architecture Theory Reader
A new book that’s been published by Routledge, The Interior Architecture Theory Reader, presents a global survey that collectively and specifically defines the emerging discipline of interior architecture. Edited by Gregory Marinic, the book presents diverse views and comparative resources as a theoretical survey of interior architecture, and allied fields: architecture, interior design, digital fabrication, and spatial installation.
With fifty essays authored by leading educators, theorists, academics and practitioners from Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Asia, we are excited and honored to see our work on responsive, adaptive facade systems included in Chapter 30: “Living” Rooms: The hypernaturalization of the interior by Blaine Brownell.
01.08.18 | On the Aesthetics of Seasonally Adaptive Buildings
Two researchers at Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Nogoya, Japan, have published a paper in Architecture Research that features an interactive facade system prototype made by Peter Yeadon. In their article, titled On the Aesthetics of Seasonally Adaptive Buildings – A Morphological Approach towards Climate Responsive Architecture, Agnes Nyilas and Yoshihito Kurazumi write that there is a contemporary trend to reconsider the relation between climate and architectural form. “Several examples of seasonally adaptive buildings are analyzed here to make clear the relation between their concepts and the architectural forms,” they write. Yeadon made the prototype with shape-shifting dielectric elastomers that can alter the surface of a facade.
12.04.17 | Yeadon lectures in Seoul
Peter Yeadon recently delivered a lecture at Ewha Womans University’s College of Art & Design in Seoul, Korea. His presentation included some current and recent projects at Yeadon Space Agency that use advanced materials and manufacturing to achieve design innovation. He concluded with a focus on a Fungal Bioplastic that is soluble in water. We have been exploring applications for this material in architecture and design.
11.20.17 | Wind Forest in Houston
We are honored and delighted that the Wind Forest project is being shown at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The opening reception is tonight! Wind Forest is a permanent land art installation that uses placemaking and an innovative form of oscillating wind power to generate electricity at the scale of urban infrastructure. Capable of powering about 300 dwellings, the project will be an important part of the creation of park-like spaces within a new mixed-use development currently being planned for 100 Acre Hill, in Glasgow. We created this project with a few amazing collaborators in Scotland: Dalziel + Scullion, Qmulus Ltd., and ZM Architecture.
11.04.17 | More Smart Materials in Architecture
Today, the Institute of Physics published an interactive facade system prototype made by Peter Yeadon, in their latest IOP Materials Science and Engineering conference publication. In her research paper, titled Smart Materials in Architecture: Useful Tools with Practical Applications or Fascinating Inventions for Experimental Design?, Dr. Bogusawa Konarzewska of Gdańsk University of Technology discusses the prototype, which is made of shape-changing smart materials that can perform work to change the surface of a facade.
10.31.17 | Smart Materials in Architecture
STRUCTUM, a Vilnius-based magazine that focuses on the built environment, has just published a new article that’s titled Šiuolaikinių pastatų fasadai: nuo atspindinčių grožį iki valančių orą. In it, author Giedrė Linden surveys a number of approaches to the design of contemporary facades and highlights a prototype that Peter Yeadon fabricated with dielectric elastomer smart materials.
09.10.17 | رویکرد هوشمند سازی در نماهای متحرک ساختمان سازگار با محیط
Iranian research engineers recently presented and published an interactive facade system prototype made by Peter Yeadon. In their paper, titled رویکرد هوشمند سازی در نماهای متحرک ساختمان سازگار با محیط, Farnoush Namdarpour and Sah Golfshan of Isfahan University of Technology’s Faculty of Civil Engineering discuss the prototype, which is made of shape-changing smart materials that can perform work to change the surface of a facade. The work was presented at the 2nd International Conference on Advanced Research Findings in Civil Engineering, Architecture and Urban Management.
07.27.17 | nBots nanorobotic environments featured in new XXL-XS book
We are excited to announce that a new book by Dr. Mitchell Joachim (New York University) and Michael Silver (University of Buffalo), XXL – XS. New Directions in Ecological Design, features the nBots project! The nBots are tiny machines that are designed to self-assemble into objects and environments, on demand. Peter Yeadon originally presented the nBots at the UIA World Congress on Architecture in Istanbul, back in 2005, but the project started well before that and has continued to evolve.
Joachim and Silver’s new XXL-XS book includes many projects, interviews and essays by preeminent architects, designers, and scholars. The editors summarize the thesis of their book as follows:
XXL-XS represents the emerging discipline of ecological design by assembling a wide range of innovators with diverse interests. Geo-engineering, synthetic biology, construction site co-robotics, low-energy fabrication, up-cycling waste, minimally invasive design, living materials, and molecular self-assembly are just a few of the important advances explored in the book. At one extreme are massive public works, at the other, micro to nano-sized interventions that can have equally profound impacts on our world. From terraforming to bio-manufacturing, a whole new generation of designers is proposing unique ways of confronting the difficult challenges ahead. In this way design becomes a totality of relationships that affects all disciplines, which can no-longer be thought of as self-contained fields, each handled separately by narrowly focused specialists. Globalization demands a restructuring of the profession, as we know it. This requires a new breed of generalists who can work across fields and engage research on multiple sites around the globe. Today we need planetary designers versed in the craft of integral design.
The book’s dust jacket was produced with a specially formulated ink that is made of sequestered carbon. You can look inside the book here.
06.29.17 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell AAP in Lower Manhattan
Peter Yeadon, Founder of Yeadon Space Agency, delivered a lecture at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning department in Lower Manhattan. The presentation, titled “Material Prospects,” focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials and nanomaterials in the built environment, and it contained many insights that Peter had developed at the MacDowell Colony and the China Academy of Art during this past winter. The lecture was followed by an open discussion on a few key issues and opportunities that his lecture raised.
05.18.17 | The future of now is cleverly revealed in Transmaterial Next
“Virtually every revolution in architecture has been preceded by a revolution in materials: think iron, glass, steel, concrete, plastics, or composites,” writes Blaine Brownell in his new book, Transmaterial Next: A Catalogue of Materials That Redefine Our Future. Brownell is one of the world’s preeminent scholars of advanced materials for architecture and design, and this book is the latest installment in his bestselling Transmaterial series, published by Princeton Architectural Press.
“What is the next revolutionary material that will reshape the very nature of architecture?” he asks. “A solid that’s lighter than air, metal latticework so delicate it rests on a dandelion, building insulation made from processed seaweed, self-generating microbial glue that repairs cracks in concrete, or transparent solar panels?”
It’s a challenging question! But with three of our projects featured in the book, clearly Brownell thinks that Yeadon Space Agency and its collaborators have created at least a few material innovations that qualify. The printable nanosensors, luminescent bioplastics, and responsive surfaces that were developed in our studio are all featured in the book’s extensive review of emerging trends and applications that are transforming the technological capacity, environmental performance, and design potential of architecture.
“Professor Brownell’s new book is a momentous contribution to the field,” says Peter Yeadon, “and is a fantastic resource for architects, designers, and other creative professionals engaged in materials-driven work. We are honored and delighted to have our work included amongst so many inspiring advancements.”
03.19.17 | The Art of Infrastructure
This month’s issue of Landscape Architecture magazine features our Wind Forest project, a collaboration with our talented partners in Scotland. In his article, titled The Art of Infrastructure, LAM staff writer Timothy E. Schuler delivers a timely article on the new energy infrastructure that will be provided by wind power, and reviews a number of projects and publications, including Wind Forest, which “uses bladeless wind turbines to create a series of inhabitable groves, turning the hillside into something between a public park and a power plant. The project is being prototyped on site next year.”
Using an innovative form of oscillating wind power to power about 300 dwellings, Wind Forest is a permanent installation that will be an important part of the creation of park-like spaces that are integrated into the fabric of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill, in Glasgow, Scotland. The project team includes: Yeadon Space Agency, ZM Architecture, Dalziel + Scullion, and Qmulus Ltd.
Landscape Architecture is the magazine of the American Society of Landscape Architects.
03.08.17 | Yeadon lectures at the China Academy of Art
Peter Yeadon delivered a public lecture at the China Academy of Art (CAA) in Hangzhou, China, on March 8, 2017. His presentation, titled Material Manipulations, included some current and recent projects at Yeadon Space Agency that use advanced materials and manufacturing to achieve design innovation. Yeadon is also running a four-week workshop on biomaterials, smart materials, and nanomaterials at the CAA until late March.
02.17.17 | Wind Forest project is published in The Environment
WIND FOREST, the large public art power generator that we designed with our outstanding collaborators in Scotland, was featured in the February issue of The Environment (London, UK). In their article, titled The great energy transition will make our cities more beautiful and more just, authors Robert Ferry, Chris Fremantle, and Elizabeth Monoian state:
“In order to entice people and stimulate political will, sustainable energy projects should at the very least be suitable to places and respectful of people. At best, they can bring lasting improvements to people’s lives and enhance public places.”
Wind Forest is a permanent installation that uses placemaking and an innovative form of oscillating wind power to generate electricity at the scale of urban infrastructure. Capable of powering about 300 dwellings, the project will be an important part of the creation of park-like spaces that are integrated into the fabric of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill, in Glasgow, Scotland.
“The project demonstrates the potential for artists, designers, architects and landscape architects to contribute to renewable energy infrastructure and integrate it into a placemaking approach,” wrote the article’s authors.
The Wind Forest project team includes: Yeadon Space Agency, ZM Architecture, Dalziel + Scullion, and Qmulus Ltd.
01.15.17 | Yeadon awarded MacDowell Fellowship
Peter Yeadon has been awarded a fellowship from The MacDowell Colony, where he will be in residence for a few weeks during 2017. The sole criterion for acceptance to The MacDowell Colony is artistic excellence. Its mission is, “to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination.”
At the Colony, Yeadon will advance his work with bioplastics that emit light, and he’ll place some of these elements in the landscape to biodegrade. The project intends to demonstrate a way of thinking about temporary architecture that biodegrades, and perhaps even nourishes, instead of having to be demolished and removed as waste.
01.01.17 | Our purchase of 100% wind power starts to add up!
Anyone following Yeadon Space Agency will be aware of our focus on using advanced materials to achieve new solutions to some challenging problems. But we also reflect on our most mundane day-to-day activities, frequently, and take direct action in ways that promote positive change. For example, we’ve been purchasing 100% wind power for years now, and that has resulted in offsetting 1.1 metric tons (2,429 pounds) of CO2 in 2016 alone. Pretty cool! And we’re just a tiny upstart in a big city! Try making your own calculations, here.
12.31.16 | The Application of Biomimicry in Kinetic Facades
We’re delighted that some of our early work on kinetic facade systems was recently published in Iraq, in a new research paper, The Application of Biomimicry in Kinetic Facades, by Wijdan Deyaa.
12.20.16 | Moinopolis publishes interview on BLISS urban surveillance
Theorist Felix Hoepner interviewed Peter Yeadon about our BLISS project for the new edition of Moinopolis, an annual publication out of Germany that disseminates contemporary problems that are being examined by architectural theorists. The theme of this year’s edition is Observations, which aims to approach new strategies of spatial articulation in the realm of security. The editors write:
Concepts of security are radically changing with the spread of the network society. Global trends such as smart cities and gated communities, as well as new technologies such as CCTV (closed-circuit television), Facefinder, ID cards with RFID chips, Google Streetview or GPS (Global Positioning System) can enhance a sense of security while simultaneously provoking insecurity.
Whereas in the medieval city physical structures such as perimeter walls and fortified towers were thought to provide security through the observation of the inner and outer space, the present-day use of digital information and communications technologies seems freed from physical and spatial constraints, spanning long distances and permeating material structures and boundaries. In the modern era, in-formation has become the key to security, and observation has been increasingly replaced by surveillance – the act of observation conducted in order to gain information.
Our BLISS (Better Living through Intuitive Soft Surveillance) project focused on how architecture might balance the public benefits of expanded surveillance via inconspicuous, non-weaponized, micro-air vehicles (MAV drones), and the desire for privacy. A couple of years ago, the work was selected by Amale Andraos (Architect, Work AC), Paola Antonelli (Architecture Curator, MoMA), and Michael Sorkin (Architect and Critic) to be exhibited at the Storefront for Art & Architecture.
12.09.16 | 135 Years of Nanomaterials
The next issue of Paprika, a publication produced by architecture students and faculty at Yale University, has just been released and includes a new essay by Peter Yeadon. The focus of the issue is “On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Instrumentality for Architecture,” for which contributors were asked to critically investigate the power and pitfalls of instruments and instrumentalization. The publication is meant to encourage critical reflections on our own technological, economic and social milieu, and an ecology of instrumentalization which has thus far been uncritical or overlooked. Yeadon’s new essay, titled 135 Years of Nanomaterials, reflects on architecture’s extraordinary aversion to taking on risk, and history of dependence on other fields for new materials innovations.
11.30.16 | Responsive Hydroactive Polymers Take Shape
Luke Franzke, Dino Rossi, and Karmen Franinovic recently authored Fluid Morphologies: Hydroactive Polymers for Responsive Architecture, which reports on Hydroactive Polymers (HAPs), a novel way of combining shape-changing Electroactive Polymers (EAPs) and water for potential design and architectural explorations. Congrats on publishing your research, and thank you for including our exploratory work on using electroactive polymers for adaptive facade technologies!
11.20.16 | The Art of Clean Energy
PROGRSS has published a new spotlight on Glasgow by Dalia Awad, titled Glasgow and the Art of Clean Energy. For her article, Awad talked to the Land Art Generation Initiative (LAGI) and Glasgow City Council about their recent art and engineering competition, in collaboration with EcoArtsScotland, which will result in our WIND FOREST project being built. WIND FOREST is a public art installation that will generate clean energy for a new kind of community that’s being planned for Dundas Hill, a brownfield site that is encapsulated by the ongoing Glasgow Canal Regeneration project. WIND FOREST will be visible from across the city. Awad reports:
“Glasgow prides itself on innovation and being in the forefront of the conversations surrounding it,” says Elizabeth Monoian, LAGI co-founder. “They wanted to implement something quickly, and the timing was perfect – 2015 was Glasgow’s Green Year, and 2016 is the Year of Architecture, Innovation and Design and the LAGI Glasgow project was able to bridge both,” adds Ferry. The Wind Forest was designed by a design team made up of local Glaswegian firm ZM Architecture, local artists Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion and Qmulus’ Ian Nicoll, as well as New York-based design and architecture firm Yeadon Space Agency, exemplifying LAGI’s collaborative ethos and the City Council’s key interests over the last two years.
10.19.16 | Yeadon lectures at the Royal College of Art in London
Peter Yeadon, the Founder of Yeadon Space Agency, delivered a lecture at the Royal College of Art in London tonight. His presentation, titled Nanovation: a new architectural problem, focused on challenges that smart materials and nanomaterials present to those engaged in innovation. Yeadon posited a future trajectory for nanomaterials in architecture by using architecture’s own history of materials advancements, from stone and cast iron, through reinforced concrete and contemporary composites. The lecture was followed by a discussion on the implications of nanotech.
09.14.16 | WIND FOREST published in Russia
WIND FOREST, our collaborative project in Glasgow with Dalziel & Scullion, Qmulus, and ZM Architecture, was covered by a half dozen journalists over the summer, including an article written by Светлана Дувинг, in Moscow’s Зеленый КАТАЛОГ magazine, titled ЧИСТАЯ ЭНЕРГИЯ В РАДУГЕ И ОДУВАНЧИКАХ. Fantastic!
08.12.16 | WIND FOREST public art project published in Turkey
WIND FOREST, a large public art project by Yeadon Space Agency and our collaborators in Scotland, was recently published by XXI Architecture & Design magazine in Istanbul. In her article, Public Art to Generate Green Power, Hülya Ertaş noted that the permanent installation uses an innovative form of oscillating wind power to generate electricity at the scale of urban infrastructure.
Capable of powering about 300 dwellings, the project will be an important part of the creation of park-like spaces that are integrated into the fabric of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill, in Glasgow, Scotland. The project team includes: ZM Architecture, Dalziel + Scullion, Qmulus Ltd., and Yeadon Space Agency.
07.10.16 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell AAP in Lower Manhattan
Peter Yeadon, Founder of Yeadon Space Agency, recently delivered a lecture at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning department in Lower Manhattan. The presentation, titled “Adaptive Materials,” focused on new, innovative applications for smart materials and nanomaterials in the built environment. The lecture was followed by a sixty-minute discussion with Yeadon on a few key issues that his lecture raised. Cornell’s location on Broadway is mainly for students and faculty in the post-professional M.Arch.II program.
06.15.16 | Inhabitat reviews three powerful art proposals for Glasgow
In her new article for Inhabitat, titled LAGI Glasgow showcases new energy art designs along Scotland’s canal banks, Cat DiStasio reviews the three finalists for LAGI Glasgow competition that are currently on exhibit at The Lighthouse in Glasgow. Our WIND FOREST proposal with ZM Architecture, Dalziel + Scullion, and Qmulus Ltd. eventually won the competition. DiStasio writes:
The LAGI Glasgow exhibition demonstrates three distinct and unique designs that employ renewable energy generation without sacrificing eye appeal. Each more fantastic than the one before, the installations pay homage to the site’s natural surroundings, while incorporating some of the latest evolutions of clean energy technology, such as bladeless (or “vortex” style) wind turbines. Air, water, and light are all treated as sources of potentially endless value, within clean energy projects designed and executed by multidisciplinary teams from multiple continents.
06.03.16 | WE WON! WIND FOREST wins LAGI Glasgow competition
A radical new genre of public art that can quietly and cleanly produce green energy for hundreds of homes
On behalf of the WIND FOREST team, we are delighted to announce that our proposal has won the international design competition: LAGI Glasgow. Conceived by Dalziel + Scullion, Qmulus Ltd., Yeadon Space Agency, and ZM Architecture, WIND FOREST is a permanent public art installation that uses an innovative form of wind power to generate enough electricity for approximately 300 dwellings. The project will be an important part of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill in Glasgow.
The LAGI Glasgow competition challenged participants to bring creative solutions for a clean energy infrastructure to a brownfield site. It was a brief that our team felt particularly engaged by. How can an artwork provide utility amounts of energy for the imbedded community and do this right in the heart of the development? And, how can an artwork make a significant contribution to the evolution of a new ‘Smart City’ initiative?
We were keen to address this brief in a way that was imaginative, resourceful and exciting, examining the context of the location from its geological origins through to its imagined interconnected future. Beyond Glasgow, our WIND FOREST proposition also resonates with issues connected with the reinvention of urban brownfield sites throughout multiple global post-industrial cities.
As the project develops further, each member of our team will bring particular qualities of understanding and experience to the concept, resulting in what we feel will be a very beautiful, innovative and ultimately deliverable project.
Thank you Urban Realm, for first reporting the results of the competition! You can access information about WIND FOREST here.
06.01.16 | Glasgow to harness the power of art for renewable energy
“They are brave, bold and perhaps even beautiful and are set to transform an unloved Glasgow site with a radical new class of public art that can quietly and cleanly produce green energy for hundreds of homes,” writes Alison Campsie in The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper.
Campsie’s article reflects on the results of an international design competition, called LAGI Glasgow, which challenged competitors to bring creative solutions for clean energy infrastructure to a brownfield site in Glasgow. Her review features WIND FOREST, our collaborative project with Dalziel + Scullion, Qmulus Ltd., and ZM Architecture. WIND FOREST, is a permanent public art installation that uses an innovative form of wind power to generate electricity for approximately 300 dwellings. The project will be an important part of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill.
05.29.16 | WIND FOREST exhibited at The Lighthouse in Glasgow
We are delighted to announce that WIND FOREST, a new project by Dalziel + Scullion, ZM Architecture, Qmulus, and Yeadon Space Agency, will be exhibited at The Lighthouse, Scotland’s premier architecture gallery in Glasgow. The show opens on June 9th, at 6:30 p.m., and runs through to July 29th.
The exhibition will present the results of an international design competition, called LAGI Glasgow, which challenged competitors to bring creative solutions for clean energy infrastructure to a brownfield site in Glasgow. Our team met the other invited teams, and numerous project stakeholders, at the launch of the competition in November.
Our proposal, WIND FOREST, is a permanent public art installation that uses an innovative form of wind power to generate electricity at the scale of urban infrastructure. Capable of powering 300 dwellings, the project will be an important part of the creation of park-like spaces that are integrated into the fabric of the new mixed-use development currently being planned for Dundas Hill.
We are very proud of WIND FOREST, and we are immensely appreciative of the fantastic, ongoing, collaboration that we have with our brilliant partners in Scotland. They are amazing, and the final outcome could not have been more successful!
04.25.16 | Biomimetica e Architettura
A new Italian book by Roberto Pagani, Giacomo Chiesa, and Jean-Marc Tulliani features an interactive facade system prototype made by Peter Yeadon. Yeadon fabricated the prototype with dielectric elastomer smart materials that can change shape and perform work, effectively behaving like artificial muscles to change the surface of the facade.
The book, titled Biomimetica e Architettura. Come la natura domina la tecnologia, presents the project as a model of biomimicry that is based on homeostasis in biological systems. The publisher describes the book as follows:
Questo libro si propone di descrivere la nuova scienza biomimetica con particolare riguardo ai settori dell’architettura e della scienza e tecnologia dei materiali per l’edilizia secondo un approccio adatto ai professionisti del settore. In particolare vengono affrontate le diverse implicazioni, teoriche, metodologiche, progettuali, e i diversi approcci inerenti questa tematica.
03.28.16 | Our smart textile, BLOOM, is published in The Netherlands
Allie Shiell recently reviewed our BLOOM project for Materia. The project is a collaboration with Jesse Asjes and Laura Wickesberg. In an article titled BLOOM: The smart textile that responds to sound, Shiell writes:
Smart textiles are a big interest of ours, so we are particularly intrigued by BLOOM, a knitted textile that is sensitive to sound, opening and closing in response to surrounding noise in order to provide the required sound attenuation. To prevent direct reflection of noise, and therefore dampen sound, BLOOM’s surface opens up to absorb sound waves. However, when reverberant sound is desirable, the surface closes up, allowing for increased sound reflection around the room.
03.05.16 | BLOOM, our shape-shifting textile cloud, is published in South Africa
Kate Walker recently wrote about our BLOOM collaboration with Jesse Asjes and Laura Wickesberg, in Design Indaba. Her report, titled Shape-shifting textile cloud can change sound quality in a room, Walker describes the project as looking like “a suspended canopy of giant white flowers but it is actually a smart, shape-shifting textile surface that can change the acoustics of a room by responding to its surrounding sounds.”
02.16.16 | We’re part of the Future of Energy!
We were delighted to have work included in the Green Revolution – LAGI: The Future of Energy is Here exhibition, which opened on February 13th at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in California. The show is running through to March 17, 2016, in the Wells Fargo Gallery on the second floor of MOAH. Check it out!
01.16.16 | Tangible Thinking becomes intangible tonight
We were honored to have our BLOOM project shown in the Tangible Thinking – The Intersection of Art, Design, Math, and Science exhibition, which was organized by the Art League of Rhode Island. Curated by industrial designer and artist Amy Leidtke, the show opened on September 12, 2015, and is closing tonight at the VETS Gallery (One Avenue of the Arts, Providence, RI).
“The Tangible Thinking exhibit examined how artists and designers use methods of observation, perception, experimentation, and visualization to explore, understand, and communicate complex systems and concepts of geometry, nature, physics, biology, new media, technology, and more,” explained Leidtke. “The work honored the combined and engaged artistic practice that is informed by both art and science. This multidisciplinary way of thinking relies on actively integrating and applying Science, Technology, Engineering, Art (+Design), and Math, and can be recognized as a form of STEAM Intelligence.”
“This form of intelligence is increasingly relevant to the development of new systems, products, media, and materials,” says Leidtke. “The works represented in the exhibit are current and exciting examples of what I call ‘tangible thinking.’ My goal was to create a shows that focuses on why and how artists and designers make art today – to examine what tools, materials, and technologies they employ – to value trying things out in the pursuit of figuring things out – and to hold dear the evidence of experimentation as much as the final finished work.”
12.31.15 | A Performative Dance of Agency
Many thanks to Bess Krietemeyer of Syracuse University, who wrote about our kinetic facade system in her paper, A Performative Dance of Agency, published as part of the 103rd ACSA Annual Meeting Proceedings, The Expanding Periphery and the Migrating Center.
11.09.15 | Yeadon joins The Climate Museum competition jury
The founder of Yeadon Space Agency, Peter Yeadon, has joined Olafur Eliasson and James Stewart Polshek on the competition jury for The Climate Museum in New York City. The museum’s mission is to raise public awareness of our greatest challenge, climate change, and move that issue to the center of public life and civic engagement.
The American public wants to learn more about climate change, an interest that will continue to grow, and museums are trustworthy sources of information on this vital subject. Nevertheless, climate change is insufficiently represented in existing museums. The Climate Museum is intended to fill that gap.
The Climate Museum will use interactive design and storytelling to inspire a climate–educated and engaged public. Its mission of kindling solutions-focused civic engagement will build on traditional museum strengths—signaling legitimacy, memorably conveying complex information, and providing a forum for community experience.
Initially staged through pop-up exhibits, community programming, and an interim facility, The Climate Museum will ultimately occupy a tourist-friendly site accessible to a million visitors, annually. The Museum’s extensive web presence will make its resources and experiences available to millions more. An ideas competition will be launched, inviting design teams across the world to envision a beautiful new global town square, with a jury that includes Olafur Eliasson, James Stewart Polshek, and Peter Yeadon.
11.06.15 | Public art projects that double as renewable energy sources
Today’s edition of The Guardian newspaper includes a proposal for a new kind of solar power generator that Peter Yeadon worked on back in 2010. The project was designed as a land art installation that generates 4,500 MWh of renewable power annually for Dubai, UAE. In her article, titled Public art projects that double as renewable energy sources, Kristine Wong reports on what happens when renewable energy meets public art.
10.15.15 | Prevent Products launches new product with Viemeister Industries and Yeadon Space Agency
Yeadon Space Agency, Prevent Products, and Viemeister Industries are pleased to announce that we have introduced a new product to the market, better hip protectors featuring a new foam technology that rapidly absorbs impact shock. Our new PPI-RAP™ foam works on a molecular level to provide superior hip protection in a comfortable, flattering new way:
- 60% more protection
- 40% thinner
- Contours to the natural body shape
- Microban® Antimicrobial Product Protection that kills 99% of germs
“We are transforming the latest technology that works for skaters and snowboarders, to help their grandparents!” said Prevent Products, Inc.’s President, Mario M. Garcia.
A proprietary, soft-contouring product of nanotechnology, PPI-RAP™ foam instantly dissipates force, absorbing up to 90% of energy at impact (as measured according to ASTM F1614-C). PP-RAP™ is soft when at rest, above the “glass transition temperature” (Tg) of the urethane molecules. When stressed at a high rate or impacted quickly, the Tg of the material reaches the point when the urethane momentarily “freezes” – like water freezing into ice. When this happens, the material firms to form a protective shell that shields and absorbs impact better than other protective foams currently available.
President Mario M. Garcia announced, “The new, improved GeriHip® is our first collaboration with Viemeister Industries and Yeadon Space Agency. Together, we are bringing new technologies and user-centered design to our suite of preventative care products.”
09.16.15 | Hypernatural brings intelligence to architecture via emulation of life
Work by Peter Yeadon appears in a new Princeton Architectural Press book, titled Hypernatural: Architecture’s New Relationship with Nature. In Hypernatural, architecture and material experts Blaine Brownell and Marc Swackhamer present an international collection of forty-two case studies that illustrate astonishing new applications made possible by using biomimicry to create intelligent buildings that emulate life itself. Together, these projects show that by looking to nature, design can be a tool that makes our built environment more efficient, sustainable, and, most of all, livable.
07.31.15 | Yeadon Space Agency helps Storm Hoogland create BioBench … landscape furniture that’s not meant to last
What becomes of aged public furniture? Most ends up in a landfill, and certainly does nothing to encourage more sustainable behavior among members of the public who use it. But our recent collaboration with Danielle Storm Hoogland, an industrial designer located in Los Angeles, demonstrates that such practices need not continue.
Storm Hoogland has created an innovative biodegradable stool that is made of some bioplastic smart materials that we’ve been been developing over the past couple of years. The stool’s biodegradable structure allows it to decompose into harmless organic compounds over time. As an added feature, it also absorbs sunlight during daylight hours and emits a strong, illuminating glow at night. Perfect for finding your way through a dark park.
The use of easily mass-produced molding techniques means that the product could be replaced regularly at low cost. And what better way to encourage us all to live more sustainably, than a daily (and nightly) reminder we merely have to sit on?
07.07.15 | Yeadon lectures at Cornell University
Peter Yeadon recently delivered a lecture on advanced materials to grad students enrolled in Cornell University’s post-professional architecture program (M.Arch. II). He described how advancements in the development of new materials offer tremendous opportunities for innovation, and demonstrated how this is particularly so with smart materials and nanostructured materials that adapt to changes that they “sense” in their environment, such as variations in temperature, humidity, pressure, or light. From substances that change color, fluidity, and shape, to composites that luminesce and generate electricity, Peter showed how novel materials offer an increasingly broad array of opportunities to contemporary architects and designers.
03.01.15 | Yeadon Space Agency bioplastics exhibited at RISD Museum of Art
A few different versions of our bioplastics are currently on exhibit at the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, RI. The bioplastics are presented as sheets, pellets, and 3D printer filaments. They feature smart material properties that are appropriate for temporary applications in architecture and design; they are biodegradable and are able to emit light. We have also created another bioplastic variant that conducts electricity.
The exhibition runs from February 20, 2015 through March 22, 2015.
02.06.15 | Prevent Products joins Viemeister Industries and Yeadon Space Agency in bringing new, proactive technology to healthcare
Prevent Products Inc., of St. Paul, Minnesota, has partnered with Viemeister Industries and Yeadon Space Agency of New York City to bring new technologies and user-centered design to its improved suite of preventative care products.
Prevent Products Inc., Viemeister Industries and Yeadon Space Agency are working together to apply smart materials, nanotechnology, and design thinking to preventative care needs. The products that are currently under development will offer new advancements in preventative care in the nursing home, hospital, and home healthcare markets.
Tucker Viemeister, a pioneer in Universal Design thinking, is one of the creators of OXO GoodGrip kitchen tools and other smart products. “We see huge opportunities to make things better for patients with some creative design thinking,” said Viemeister, speaking of his new partnership with Prevent Products.
Peter Yeadon, an explorer of applications for advanced materials says that, “innovation driven by the emergence of new materials will be especially beneficial to the needs of aging patients.”
Viemeister Industries creates integrated brands, products and places that make things work for most people, are economical to produce and, of course, are beautiful. Balancing these often-conflicting complexities is how we measure success. Partners include JCDecaux, Design Within Reach, Kikkerland and Omhu.
Yeadon Space Agency, a design innovation company, was founded by architect and professor, Peter Yeadon. The agency works on projects that exploit emergent materials, with the aim of making original, inventive contributions to architecture and industrial design.
Prevent Products, Inc. was founded in 1986. Since then, Prevent Products, Inc. has provided products for healthier and safer lifestyles in the nursing home, hospital and home healthcare markets across North America.
11.01.2014 | We’re at iGEM!
This weekend, we’re joining over 2,500 synthetic biology researchers at the annual iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines) competition in Boston, where Peter Yeadon is serving as one of the judges.
iGEM spun out of MIT in 2012 and became an independent nonprofit organization that fosters scientific research and education through organizing and operating the annual iGEM competition, the world’s premier synthetic biology competition. It also fosters scientific research and education by establishing and operating the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, a community collection of biological components used by scientific researchers across the globe.
The iGEM community has a long history of involving students and the public in the development of the new field of synthetic biology, and is a leader in advancing applications for synthetic biology. We’re at iGEM because we have been investigating the use of genetically engineered biosensors that can warn of toxins in our environment, and are excited about future synbio applications in architecture and design.
10.10.14 | Yeadon lectures in Chicago
Peter Yeadon delivered two talks on advanced materials at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The first presentation focused on the evolution of nanotechnology since the 1980s, with an overview of recent advancements in nanomaterials and nanomachines. The second presentation was to students in the Designed Objects department who are working on projects that grapple with future scenarios.
09.08.14 | Yeadon lectures at AIA NY Center for Architecture
Peter Yeadon will give a lecture at the Center for Architecture in Manhattan on Tuesday 9 September, 6:00 – 8:00 PM. His presentation, titled Substance Abuse: Various Exotic States of Manipulated Matter, has been organized by the Technology Committee of the American Institute of Architects New York.
The talk will provide architects and designers with an introduction to nanotechnology, by discussing some of the products of nanotechnology that have been used in the built environment. Yeadon will also focus on advanced materials that are being exploited by other design disciplines — these are technologies that are poised for application in architecture — and he will share some recent materials research that focuses on energy, water, health, and environmental issues. The presentation will conclude with new material discoveries and molecular machines that offer designers a future of promise and problems.
08.15.14 | Protosensor in Synthetic Aesthetics book
A new MIT Press book, Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology’s Designs on Nature, includes a water test kit that Peter Yeadon worked on with industrial design students at the Rhode Island School of Design a few years ago. Their research produced four field kit designs that employed a whole cell biosensor to warn of arsenic in drinking water.
In her chapter titled Design Evolution, author Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg provides a brief history of the project and lingers on the challenges that Yeadon and the students faced as they considered how to turn genetically engineered bacteria into a consumer product: “Designing packaging for a biological consumer product prompts questions of reliability, safety, storage, incubation, repeat use, and disposal, all of which impact the biological design of the bacteria themselves.”
Recognizing these many challenges, Yeadon worked with Dr. Oliver Medvedik to attempt a new approach, which resulted in the bimolecular sensor system that Yeadon Space Agency is currently advancing with Medvedik.
07.03.14 | Smart Textiles at the TextielMuseum in The Netherlands
We are delighted that our work will be included in the upcoming Building with Textiles exhibition at the TextielMuseum in The Netherlands. This important show will present work by internationally renowned architects, as well as interior projects that put textiles in the spotlight. The museum intends to demonstrate that building with textiles and flexible materials has aesthetic, functional and environmental advantages; that is why textiles are now seen as the fifth key building material alongside steel, masonry, concrete and wood.
The exhibition also explores the development of advanced textiles with special functions, from air purification to integrated light, images and sound. These emergent textiles open up new possibilities to design smart and interactive interiors. Our contribution to the exhibition is a knitted textile that emits light, but does not consume electricity. This smart surface is one of many custom textiles that were developed for a new project that we’ve been working on over the past year. It was made by textile artist Susan Williams, one of our essential collaborators on the project.
The Building with Textiles exhibition will run from September 27, 2014, through to January 25, 2015. It is part of a larger, long-term project initiated by the TextielMuseum and the TextielLab, which comprises an extended research and development plan spanning several years, special commissions for the museum collection and expert meetings.
06.03.14 | Sensing the Future at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin
A digital animation created by Peter Yeadon, titled Kinetic Reconstructive System, is one of many works that will be featured in the upcoming Sensing the Future: László Moholy-Nagy and the New Media exhibition when it opens at the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin this fall. The exhibition considers the impact of technology today by exploring how it was addressed in the practice of the Hungarian polymath artist László Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946). Moholy-Nagy is known for his work in traditional media such as painting and sculpture, but also for his speculations and experiments in new media such as light art, kinetic art, sound art, multi-media, expanded cinema, television, and immersive-participatory installations.
Curated by Dr. Oliver Botar, the exhibition is organized around some of Moholy-Nagy’s key themes: sensory training, technology/modernity, production/reproduction, immersion/participation, art as information/information as art, and transparency/reflection/motion. The show combines historical artworks with works by contemporary artists from the United States, Canada, and Europe who have been invited to respond to these themes. In addition to works by László Moholy-Nagy, the artists whose works are included in this exhibition include: Eduardo Aquino (Winnipeg); the team of Nike Arnold, Andreas Haus, Aline Helmcke, Frédéric Krauke and Walter Lenertz (Berlin); Naomi Claire (Baltimore); Lancelot Coar (Winnipeg); Olafur Eliasson (Berlin); Oskar Fischinger; Ken Gregory (Winnipeg); Patrick Harrop (Winnipeg); the team of Gottfried Jäger and Karl Martin Holzhäuser (Bielefeld); Eduardo Kac (Chicago); György Kepes; the team of Jörg U. Lensing, Gudula Schröder, Jürgen Steger, Thomas Neuhaus, Malou Airaudo and Sascha Hardt (Düsseldorf); Erika Lincoln (Winnipeg); Norman McLaren; the team of the team of Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Bob Kotyk and Ryan Simmons (Winnipeg); Bernie Miller (Winnipeg); Lucia Moholy; Francisco Javier Navarro de Zuvillaga (Madrid); Freya Olafson (Winnipeg); István Sebök; and Peter Yeadon (New York City).
The exhibition runs from October 8, 2014 through January 12, 2015.
06.02.14 | Biomimicry
Last month, Peter Yeadon delivered a presentation on bio•mimetic, bio•inspired, and bio•enabled materials and products to members of the Biomimicry Institute. His lecture featured carbon nanotube artificial muscles and various bioplastics with tunable properties that we’ve been working on here at Yeadon Space Agency. He also discussed recent research that integrates biomolecules into material composites, and used our biosensor work as an example of how synthetic biology will change the future evolution of products and environments.
05.24.14 | Letters to the Mayor
We were delighted to be included in the recent Letters to the Mayor exhibition at New York’s Storefront for Art and Architecture. This group show presented letters written by 50 international architects to the political leaders of ten cities around the world, and showcased the work of the finalists of Storefront’s Competition of Competitions. Drawing on the complex relationship between architecture and the political powers that influence the built environment, the exhibition expressed concerns and desires of architects and citizens in the construction of our cities.
Review the Press Release
Review the Exhibition Poster
03.30.14 | Smart materials serve as a creative catalyst for architecture
Peter Yeadon recently returned from the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, where he delivered a lecture on biosensors and biomimetic smart materials, titled Sense and Semblance. Yeadon was at UMN to participate in their annual Architecture as Catalyst event.
Held every spring semester, Catalyst week offers a rigorous, immersive, transformative and creative break to architecture students and faculty. Workshops are led by a faculty member who hosts an outside guest recognized as a leader within their field or specialty. Together, the instructors collaborate to meet the primary goal of catalyst: to expose students to themes and skill-sets which may not be addressed in the regular studio sequence. Each guest also delivers a lecture during the week, open to the design community.
02.27.14 | Storefront selects us as Finalists in Competition of Competitions
Architectural competitions often don’t address the most pressing and relevant needs of local communities, and architects are usually limited to satisfying the stringent requirements of the competition brief. So, as a response, Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York City set up the Competition of Competitions competition:
“The intention of “The Competition of Competitions” is to provide and deliver new and relevant forms of engagement and content to the economic, politic and social systems that currently act as the voice of authority for the development of our cities. “Competition of Competitions” asks architects, artists, economists, philosophers, writers, and citizens at large to create interdisciplinary teams to formulate the questions of our time and define the agents that should pursue the task to ask and commission the visions for the future in the form of a competition brief.”
We are pleased to announce that we are one of the eighteen finalists that were chosen out of more than 100 submissions. A selection of 50 entries will be exhibited at Storefront this spring (opening April 29th) with the official presentation of the competition winners. The jury will select 3 winners, 7 honorable mentions, and a Storefront Special Prize. The Special Prize will get to run their submitted competition as part of the 2014 Storefront for Art and Architecture program calendar.
02.24.14 | Yeadon in PSFK’s “The Future Of Cities”
In a new report by PSFK, Yves Béhar, the founder of Fuseproject, and Peter Yeadon, the founder of Yeadon Space Agency, were identified as two experts to follow when it comes to the future of urban environments. The report, The Future Of Cities, examines 28 key trends that are driving the sustainable development and efficient operation of modern cities as they respond to the unique challenges posed by rapid urbanization. Aided by connected technologies, social platforms, and flexible design thinking, cities at the forefront of these progressive solutions are creating a compelling blueprint for ensuring that their citizens, businesses and public institutions thrive. PSFK intends to track these advancements by producing a series of “Future Of …” reports that focus on various sectors: Work, Retail, Gaming, Health, Mobile Tagging, etc.
02.02.14 | Peter Yeadon delivers “Make It New” lecture in Canada
The founder of Yeadon Space Agency, Peter Yeadon, was one of eight architects invited to give a lecture at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. Every year, the university’s Faculty of Architecture and Planning invites students, faculty, professionals, and the local community to a full week of events and lectures on innovative architectural practices. This year, the list of speakers also included Bryan Bell (Raleigh, NC), Sergio Palleroni (Portland, OR), Nichola Feldman-Kiss (Toronto, ON), Ramzi Kawar (Halifax, NS), John Brown (Calgary, AB), Elizabeth Gray (New Haven, CT), and Pieter Sijpkes (Montreal, QC). Peter’s lecture was titled Make It New and focused on a mix of conditions that make innovation possible.
01.10.14 | Yeadon to speak at WIT materials symposium
Peter Yeadon will present a keynote lecture at the upcoming What’s the Matter? symposium on new materials, which will place at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston. Yeadon’s presentation, titled Nanostructured Futures, will introduce nanotechnology and the ways it is emerging in architecture, and will linger on where these materials advancements might be taking us.
11.11.13 | Yeadon nanotech research cited by Procedia
A new report by researchers at the National University of Malaysia, titled The Role of Nanotechnology in Architecture and Built Environment (Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 89 ( 2013 ) 10 – 15), cites our own research into the profound opportunities that nanotechnology presents to architects, interior designers, and related disciplines.
08.29.13 | WIRED UK interviews Yeadon on the future of architecture
WIRED UK asked Peter Yeadon: “What innovations will shape architecture in a decade’s time?” His answer was published in the “Big Question” column of the June/July print edition, which features various experts responding to broad questions:
“The past decade has seen its share of crises, so it’s hard to foresee any new external forces that will significantly redirect architecture’s current trajectory of innovation over the next ten years. The most disruptive innovations in architecture will continue to focus on how it is made, rather than the constructed artifacts it provides. Integrated, collaborative approaches to conceiving, delivering, and assessing built works will continue to evolve and accelerate. In terms of built work, the most remarkable innovations will likely be discreet and largely imperceptible. I think some of the largest advancements in architecture will be enabled by some of the most inconspicuous materials and devices, such as nanostructured coatings, multi-function composites, energy harvesters, and nano sensors.”
08.28.13 | nBots nanorobotics research published in European conference proceedings
One of our early studies that focused the aggregated self-assembly of nanoscale machines into larger devices, recently appeared in the published proceedings of the European Conference on Energy Efficiency and Sustainability in Architecture and Planning (EESAP). The nBots project was featured in a paper authored by Axel Ritter, titled Powered by Nature: Zero and Plus Energy Buildings through the use of Smart Materials.
Peter originally presented the nBots project at the 2005 UIA World Congress on Architecture in Turkey.
06.10.13 | Fresh Substances
Peter Yeadon delivers “Fresh Substances” lecture on three approaches to working with smart materials, at Materials Education and Research symposium.
04.20.13 | Smart FIT
Peter Yeadon recently delivered a new lecture on smart materials and nanotechnology at SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan.
12.30.12 | Yeadon awarded Open Science Prize
Peter Yeadon has been awarded an Open Science Challenge prize, supported by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
09.30.12 | Kill-Free Meat
Peter Yeadon recently participated in a diverse working group on Kill-Free Meat at the Rockefeller Foundation 2012 Innovation Forum in New York City.
04.28.12 | Yeadon lectures at RCA in London
Peter Yeadon delivered a lecture titled Larval Technologies at the Inspiring Matter conference at the Royal College of Art in London, and participated in roundtable on innovation.
03.14.12 | Thank You New York!
Yeadon has been awarded a New York State grant to help develop a new kinetic facade system prototype that exhibits homeostatic behaviors.
02.19.12 | Yeadon lectures in Canada
Peter Yeadon delivered a lecture on smart materials in architecture as part of the Winter Lecture Series at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.