FUTURE CITY MOBILITY BICYCLE- Marten Wallgren

I thought this article was quite interesting. As i know alot of people love bicycles which will hugely become a key factor of future sustainable living!! Enjoy!!

Imagine riding through Picadily Circus and all you hear and see are people talking and birds in the sky. This was the guiding vision of this year’s winners at the Future City Mobility competition for designers to envision how London’s transportation could look in 2030.

Marten Wallgren, a Swede studying at the Royal College of Art and with three collegues, won the SeymourPowell award for their concept dubbed, “London Garden”. The scheme incorporates a

network of electric buses, taxis, and scooter-bikes, all of which interconnect to make London Garden a car-free zone.

The concept of London Garden includes special bicycles that operate in three modes. The first mode is the cruising option with the possible addition of regenerative braking. The second mode is a rigorous bicycling, where additional resistance is supplied to generate and store electricity. The third mode cashes in on stored power and turns the bike into an electric scooter. These bicycles are foldable, and are stored for community use in tall, treelike structures that double as bus stops. The bike racks themselves are meant to generate power from rainwater, sun, and even kinetically from the wind as its swooping arms away.

The bicycles also work as modular components within the urban environment where they can be folded and carried on-board electric buses and taxis. Once docked inside, they double as seats and the stored energy that was generated during pedaling is now transferred into the vehicle and even credited as currency towards your fare.

http://www.psfk.com/2009/08/future-city-mobility-bicycle-transportation-via-folding-scooters-electric-buses-and-bike-trees.html

HUMERA ...

"The Monowheel!" a new means of transport? Humera

Can this possibly be a new means of transport, or is this simple design a recreation of our beloved bicycle?! make your own mind up? would you travel from A to B on this..?think of the back pain? is it a success or will it fail happily?!

Designer Ben Wilson has produced a monowheel – a cycle where the rider sits inside a large, spokeless wheel.

The cycle was commissioned for the XXIst Century Manexhibition at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo.

“As part of the exhibition the 21st century man (showing at 21-21 tokyo midtown until july) I was comissioned to create a new piece of work,” says Wilson. “As part of the exhibition the 21st century man (showing at 21-21 tokyo midtown until july) I was comissioned to create a new piece of work,” says Wilson.

“Since the 1860’s many patents have been filed in the monowheel’’s name and today there are even rumors of a production monowheel in China, but as it stands there is nothing currently available. As we couldn’t buy a monowheel we made one.”

“We don’’t suggest for one moment that a functioning human powered monowheel could ever provide an improvement on the modern bicycle. Instead its value comes from the discourse and ideas generated as a result of this research.”

-Ben Wilson

Would you purchase one of these? humera...!

you know how they say that one day everything and anything will be replaced by robots... well i came across something really interesting... its relevent to mobility, as we physically move from humans to robots in the mere future...and relevent to architecture as building a brick wall is a main aspect to most buildings...one day once we're all successful architects, you may decide to invest in one of these !! but take a look and let me no what you guys think.. :D :D :D

On September 29, Storefront for Art and Architecture will inaugurate a new exhibition showcasing research conducted over the past 3 years at ETH Zurich by Swiss architects Gramazio & Kohler into full-scale digital fabrication in architecture using industrial robots. At the same time, construction work will begin on Pike Loop, the first architectural project to be built on site by an industrial robot in the US.

Located on Pike Street, the robot, R-O-B, will work for up to four weeks—in full view of the public— to construct a brick wall, a highly sculptural response to the specific identity of the site. The same robot unit recently built the award-winning installation, Structural Oscillations, at the 2008 architectural biennial in Venice. For the Pike Loop installation, more than seven thousand bricks aggregate to form an infinite loop that weaves along the pedestrian island. In changing rhythms the loop lifts off the ground and intersects itself at its peaks. The installation was coordinated through the New York City Department of Transportation’s Urban Art Program.a