SPACE, one down…

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

SPACE City of Houston

We are in full production mode on the 17 SPACE units being purchased by the City of Houston for mobile solar power generators.  In the event of widespread power outage as the city experienced after IKE, the SPACE’s would be mobilized and micro-community centers providing power for cell phone recharging, information dissemination and staffing by disaster response personnel.  The units are being fabricated at Campo Sheet Metal’s new facility on Telephone Rd. near Hobby Airport by our new company Adaptive Container with Ameresco as the prime contractor.  The units will be finished and installed soon.

Artist of the Year

Metalab has been recognized with an AIA Houston Honor Award for Artist of the Year.  The award will be received at the AIA Annual Meeting on October 18th and will have a solo exhibition at Architecture Center Houston in May 2012.  Metalab recently created an interactive public art work in the new Houston Central Permitting Center through a commission from Houston Arts Alliance and City of Houston that integrates environmental sensing technology, algorithmic animation and digital fabrication.  Their work with the artists Dennis Oppenheim, Matthew Geller and Jaume Plensa has established them as an nationally recognized architecture and fabrication firm specializing in civic art installations.  Joe Meppelink and Andrew Vrana share this distinction with Sarah Hannah (UH School of Art MFA ’08) and Travis McCarra (UHCoA BArch ’09).

Ceiling Cloud / New Conference Room

We have moved to 1824 Spring St., Suite 220.

Our new conference room is the new home for the Ceiling Cloud

Nautical Swing

Our latest project with Matthew Geller has been on the server for a while but is now out for final pricing.  Three columns that mimic the infrastructure in the nearby WWII shipyards hold up a parametrically optimized waffle grid roof and suspend a 12′ communal swing.  It will occupy a hillside overlooking San Francisco Bay looking north toward the Bay Bridge.

Cloud Code at Houston Permitting Center

“Cloud Code” in the City of Houston Permitting Center is a conduit and real-time display of the occupancy, activity, and air quality in the building. The interaction of occupants within the physical space of the public areas is measured and displayed as civic art.

A rear-projection display of animated graphics is generated by a network of meshed micro-sensors housed in custom fabricated enclosures. The occupants feed data to processing software that Metalab coded for the project. The activity creates a cloud-like indication of indoor air quality in the first floor public area of the building. In addition to air quality and occupancy, other qualitative aspects of the building such as movement and ambient sound are graphically represented in an abstracted floor plan.

PV-POD installation at Houston Permitting Center

Our first PV-POD application has been installed on the roof of the new Houston Permitting Center opening soon.  The building will house the new Green Building Resource Center and the roof will be viewable from penthouse in the central staircase.  This installation will expand with to include more solar and wind turbines on the roof.

groPOD VOA garden installation

We’ve installed the first large-scale groPOD garden for the Volunteers of America on North Yale St. in Houston. The 64 units were installed on a Saturday with volunteer labor.

Radiant Fountains at night

Radiant Fountains from Andrew Vrana on Vimeo.

Lights on at the Radiant Fountains

Radiant Fountains from Andrew Vrana on Vimeo.