It’s legit. We’ve done some digging and ‘Determined to Be Different’ is registered trademark # 1211855 of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, lodged by CBA’s Legal Counsel John O’Sullivan on November 23.
There is also a website that will reside at http://www.determinedtobedifferent.com.au/
The DNS servers attached to that domain are .SE – Sweden. We could speculate that this is a possible sign that the website is being developed by a partner/supplier Goodby have used before – the Sweden based North Kingdom. This is pure speculation however.
After co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001, Bjarke Ingels started his own office in 2006: BIG / Bjarke Ingels Group. Their work combines experimentation sustained by specific knowledge, social responsibility and humour. Three of his projects were the focus of his presentation: Superharbour, REN and Kløverkarreen.
The Superharbour project was an attempt to re-invent the role of an architect regarding the constant evolution of seas. It started with a proposal to “re-design Denmark, to re-brand the country”.
Video of the Superharbour project:
The project started with a few facts:
– 40% of the coast line in Denmark is urbanized (compared to only 12% of the whole country), urbanity in the country is defined by the proximity to the sea. 2/3 of the Danes live within 5 km of the sea. But it is harbour and its industries that occupy the best plots of land.
– Containerization. 98% of goods travel on ships. Over time container ships have become bigger ad bigger and they also reach deeper in the ocean. As a result, boats cannot pass between Germany and Finland anymore. Solution envisioned by BIG: bridge the two countries by combining a bridge and a tunnel: the hybrid solution would cost less than building a full-length bridge or tunnel and would create an artificial island.
BIG proposed to use the island (located thus at the intersection between Europe and Scandinavia as well as between the “new” Europe and the rest of the world) as a Baltic super harbour where all the shipping traffic would be concentrated. According to BIG’s analysis, the island would liberate 20 billion euros of prime real estate in Denmark’s 12 biggest cities for new forms of life, instead of pushing people to the periphery of the cities where they want to live. Shaped like a star, the harbour will be organized around piers, each of them focusing its activities on its own program and uses.
The principle of Yin Yang and the 5 elements of Feng Shui are embedded in the architecture of the Hotel & Conference Center Shanghai (REN)
It actually started as a project for a hotel in Sweden. But the building was never made. Later on, the architects discovered that the shape of the building is the same as the Chinese character ‘Ren’ which means People. The Chinese liked the building as they felt that it “bridges the gap between traditional China and progressive China.”
“The REN Building is a proposal for a hotel, sports and conference center for the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The building is conceived as two buildings merging into one. The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center. The second building emerging from land, is devoted to the spirit and enlightment, and houses the conference center and meeting facilities. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living. The building becomes the Chinese sign for ‘The People’, and a recognizable landmark for the World Expo in China.”
The new mayor was seduced by the idea, the football clubs who usually train on the field agreed with the idea. However, some people in the neighbourhood did not want to share their green oasis with the less wealthy and opposed the development. A survey was carried and and it emerged that 64% of Copenhagen’s citizens thought the project was a good one. A few months later, it was decided that project would indeed be carried out.
Bjarke Ingels believes that the role of architects is a constantly evolving one, they have the responsibility to make sure that the city evolves in the right direction.
LONDON – Richemont and Coach, two of the largest luxury goods makers, have reported that demand from Japan and the US for Cartier watches, designer handbags and expensive jewellery is slowing, signalling that even the wealthiest consumers are reining in their spending.
ASIA-PACIFIC – Agencies are lining up to challenge incumbent Universal McCann for Intel’s global media buying and planning, in a review that will include Asia-Pacific.
LONDON – CBS-owned free-to-use social music portal Last.FM is attempting to get users to buy more song downloads by limiting how often they can listen to free streams, after signing content deals with Universal, EMI, Warner and BMG.
LONDON – Sony Ericsson has awarded its global advertising and communications account to McCann Erickson London, and the IPG network has also picked up the business in China, displacing incumbent Saatchi & Saatchi.
LONDON – Ministers have ordered a ground-breaking £75 million advertising campaign, in partnership with the industry, in an attempt to create a cultural shift to tackle Britain’s obesity crisis.
LONDON – Acquisition activity by some of the world’s major marketing groups could grind to a halt amid fears that this week’s stock market turmoil heralds a global recession.
LONDON – The Government is to speed up a review of whether more curbs on junk-food advertising are needed amid growing support among ministers for a 9pm watershed on television.
Just a few lines to remind you of the Digital Networks and Physical Space production-oriented workshop and seminar at the Medialab Prado in Madrid. There’s only a few days (deadline is January 30) left to send your projects.
Projects and papers should deal with the relationship between digital networks and physical space: how new locative technologies are changing the way citizens perceive the physical and geographic space and how these media are reorganizing civic communication and interaction (from “geobrowsers” to the Local Web 2.0 or the “hyperlocal” journalism). The aim is to explore how we “tag the world” with new devices and how the digital and the physical world interact, creating new artistic tendencies as well as new kinds of human relations. The projects don’t have to focus strictly on geo-localizing and gps. The scope is broader: place blogging, locative media gaming, or public art connected to digital networks…
The two week production workshop which will also include seminars, lectures and mini-workshops (for other examples of the results from Medialab Prado workshop see my ongoing coverage of visualizar and of interactivos?)
People whose projects will be selected are provided with travel costs and accommodation. Collaborators will get accommodation.
In other news, this winter fewer people eat (68.8%) and more people do laundry (58%) while consuming media (70% and 57.4% in July 2007, respectively). This and other amusing tidbits in the new BIGresearch’s research of simultaneous media consumption SIMM 11.
YProductions – Eliasson’s NYc Waterfalls
Olafur Eliasson’s New York City Waterfalls, which will be realized from July through October 2008 in four East River locations.
The Association of Professional Political Consultants has called an emergency meeting to look into a complaint about the public affÂairs firm linked to the Peter Hain donations scandal.
Spectator editor Matthew D’Ancona and BT retail comms head Zoe Arden will join 18 other media experts speaking at next month’s PR and the Media conference, organised by PRWeek.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
