Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka - My visual and architectural archive

JAJA and me

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:56:00 +0000

I've been living an alter ego at JAJA Blog and have found it increasingly difficult to maintain my personal blog. Initially, I wanted separate the two but I've finally given up on trying to separate things that are in reality the same.

So for the time being this blog will take a long time out...

Aquarium in Osaka

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:27:00 +0000

I stumbled across this beautiful video of Kaiyukan which is the worlds 2nd largest tank. It is located in Osaka, Japan, and I was there a couple of years ago and was especially fascinated by the main tank, "Kuroshio Sea", and its large whale sharks. One of these whale sharks is approx. 6 meters long but they can grow to become 12 meters and weigh 15 tons.

The main tank holds 7,500-cubic meters of water and features the world's second largest acrylic glass panel, measuring 8.2 meters by 22.5 meters with a thickness of 60 centimeters.

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Flight Patterns

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 22:16:00 +0000

I'm back from an excellent summer vacation and I looked through my favorite video website, Vimeo, and I found this little fantastic video.

It is a long exposure footage of flying bugs by a lamp post. The bug's flight patterns makes it appear as beautiful random scribbling.

flight patterns from Charlie McCarthy on Vimeo.

Barack Obama!

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:01:00 +0000

Hilarious video celebrating Barck Obama created by jibjab

I wonder how long this Obama euphoria will continue...

Bursting water ballons in Super Slow Motion

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 09:55:00 +0000

Garth Davis from EXIT films has created this captivating commercial for Schweppes of bursting water balloons shot in super slow motion.

Double deadline mode and we got it!

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:02:00 +0000

I'm going into a double deadline mode and have to hand in a project in two weeks... and again the week after.

Hopefully, I'll resurface again in the end of the month.

And onto a totally different topic. Below is a nice video created by the talented RAMA

And some behind the camera footage.

Potato Head

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:09:00 +0000

Ginou Choueiri is Lebanese artist living in Beirut. She says about her potato portraits:

"I chose the potato to portray human faces because of the many striking parallels. Not only is their skin porous like ours, but their skin texture and color is very similar, and like us, they come in different sizes, shapes and forms. Potatoes grow, live, and then decay, mirroring the ephemeral existence and fragility of our own human nature."

LED music facade

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:04:00 +0000

lights on from thesystemis on Vimeo.

lights on is an audio visual performance created for the Ars Electronica museum in Linz, Austria, which has a facade that contains 1085 LED controllable windows. The windows' colors are changed in realtime with music that's broadcasted on speakers surrounding the building.

Wind facade

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:03:00 +0000

In 2002, Ned Kahn worked with the staff of Technorama, the major science center in Switzerland, and their architects, Durig and Rami, to create a facade for the building which is composed of thousands of aluminum panels that move in the air currents and reveal the complex patterns of turbulence in the wind.

via Swissmiss

Living Tokyo

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:47:00 +0000

The energy of Tokyo beautifully portrayed by WOW.

The video is a promotional video they did for the Citizen.

It is by far one of the best videos I've seen in a while. It's a beautifully orchestrated combination of amazing images, nice music and well-excuted editing that perfectly encapsulates the ever-changing urban rythm of Tokyo.

As An•D pointed out, the city seems to come alive as if it was one single organism.

Vote for the 15 housing projects from hell

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 06 May 2009 22:36:00 +0000

Oobject.com is perhaps one of my favourite sites. It is a site that compiles ranks of unusual and interesting gadgets and stuff.

This time it is a ranking of 15 housing projects from hell.

check it out and vote for yourself.

My vote goes to the mass housing project in Ixtapaluca, mexico.

Despite the mechanic soullessness of the plan layout, I can't help but being a bit fascinated about the image.

50 cars = 1 bus

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sun, 03 May 2009 09:02:00 +0000

Thousands of Swedes drive every day in their own car to the airport. A car carries an average of 1.2 passenger while a bus carries 50 passengers.

In an environmental awareness campaign and advertisement for Flygbussarna, Acne advertising stacked and packed 50 cars to form the shape of one bus.

An attempt in making people in passing cars aware of the environmental impact they have... or could save by taking the bus.

Almost Walking Cities

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:31:00 +0000

I stumbled across these images of this humongous excavating machine built by Krupp in Germany. It is used to move earth open air mines.

The machine is 95 meters high and 215 meters long, weighs 45,500 tons. It took 5 years to design and manufacture at a cost of $100 million. It requires 5 operators and can move at the speed of 0,5 km an hour.

Seeing the image above, I instantly thought of Archigram's ideas of walking cities.

"The Walking City is constituted by intelligent buildings or robots that are in the form of giant, self contained living pods that could roam the cities. The form derived from a combination of insect and machine and was a literal interpretation of Corbusier's aphorism of a house as a machine for living in. The pods were independent, yet parasitic as they could 'plug in' to way stations to exchange occupants or replenish resources. The citizen is therefore a serviced nomad not totally dissimilar from today's executive cars. The context was perceived as a future ruined world in the aftermath of a nuclear war." from wiki

Imagine having these giant mechanical beasts roaming the earth. It would be something straight out of something from a 60's sci-fi movie.

Superhuman delivery boys

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 08:06:00 +0000

Why use a truck to transport stuff when you can handle it by bike or mopeds?

I found the images on this perfect website - slightlywarped - to kill some time or just see some curious stuff. It is place highly recommended for people down with the flu that needs some entertainment.

Balancing rocks

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:41:00 +0000

A pretty unreal balancing act by Bill Dan.

Paper thin stereo speakers

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:56:00 +0000

Imagine posters that play music!

A group of researchers from Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has developed stereo speakers that are paper thin and can be rolled up like a poster!

They call it Flexspeakers.

The aim of the researchers is to develop it for mass production, so that an A2 (594x420mm) format will cost 20$.

One of the researchers ideas is to create movie posters that are able to emit sounds as people pass them.

Imagine, as an architect, to create project proposals that were printed on Flexspeakers. Then you'd be able to add sound to your proposals! For a park proposal you'd have birds twittering in the background. For a concert hall a symphony orchestra. Or have your own voice narrating the project.

A great project!

But imagine when the researchers one day add moving images to the sound...!

Found at PCworld

Happy Birthday Gameboy!

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:12:00 +0000

I'm two days late announcing it... but what the hell... better late than sorry. April 21st was the 20th birthday of the Gameboy.

The Gameboy was a great companion of mine during the entire 80's and early 90's. The Gameboy transformed boring 12 hours long distance flights to Japan into a world of magic mushrooms, turtles, King Koopa (aka. Bowser) and Italian plumbers.

It turned boring math classes in school into a world of descending blocks in different shapes that had be aligned to disappear.... hmmm that sounds pretty boring as well... but Tetris was definitely one of my all time favourites.

Anyway. Happy birthday Gameboy!

Google alphabet

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:10:00 +0000

Aerial photos by Alex MacLean

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Some fantastic aerial photos by Alex MacLean.

below is an excerpt from his website:

"Pilot and photographer Alex MacLean has flown his plane over much of the United States documenting the landscape. Trained as an architect, he has portrayed the history and evolution of the land from vast agricultural patterns to city grids, recording changes brought about by human intervention and natural processes. His powerful and descriptive images provide clues to understanding the relationship between the natural and constructed environments."

What's happening?

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Usually I'm not keen on posting things of commercial intends but when it's presented as nicely as this I surrender.

I must add that I'm a sucker for numbers and stats as well.

A wolf and a pig

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:43:00 +0000

A wonderfully made stop motion movie by Takeuchi Taijin that I guarantee will make your day.

Found at booooooom

Robot lost in New York

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:01:00 +0000

This is a story about a robot created by Kacie Kinzer. It's called Tweenbot.

It's a simple constructed 10-inch tall robot made out of cardboard and an engine that makes it move forward.

Its objective is to make it from point A to B. In New York City.

Armed with a little smile on its face and a flag that carries the text of its purpose and journey it is surrendered to the fate of the city and the people it encounters.

Prior to the journey Kacie Kinzer didn't expect the Tweenbot would survive the trip in the urban jungle where it most likely would trip in a pot hole, get stuck under a bench or fall over at the street curb.

Which it also did.

Most people ignored the fallen Tweenbot but every once in awhile it got picked up by strangers that read the message on the flag and sent it along its intended journey.

On its first mission, it took the Tweenbot 42 minutes and the help from 29 people to get from the Northeast to the Southwest Corner of Washington Square Park.

A nice little narrative about random encounters and the helpfulness of strangers in sending a small lost robot along towards its destination.

Future Engineers

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:42:00 +0000

Found at Rasmus Brønnum's Blog

The income throughout a lifetime

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:06:00 +0000

A recent survey conducted by Danish Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd shows the income throughout a lifetime categorized in different professions.

The article and the graphics (shown below is in Danish). But in short the top earners are, not suprisingly, doctors and economists.

They earn 23,9 mill DKK That is approx. 4,31 mill USD, 430 mill YEN or 3.21 mill €

Architects in comparison earn 14,8 mill DKK which is 2,67 mill. USD, 266 mill YEN or 1,9 mill €

Not even close to the doctors but we are... or hopefully will be... better off than I thought.

I wonder whether they've have taken the recession into account...?

The full article can be found here.

On the edge to nowhere

jan@ja-ja.dk (Jan Yoshiyuki Tanaka) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:52:00 +0000

I wonder where this is...?