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MEGAblog

A blog dedicated to the biggest, the largest, the most expansive, and superlatives as they shape the built environment.

MEGAblog in ARCHITECT MagazineJanuary 11 2007

The January 2007 issue of Architect Magazine features MEGAblog.

"There’s nothing radical about students with blogs, and websites showcasing the projects of architecture studios are easy to find. But MEGAblog is something different: A site designed and run by students as a course requirement, it is a portal to the inner work- ings of one studio’s semester, from initial meeting to final review. It’s also, says Ronald Rael, whose students created MEGAblog, a step toward a new way of teaching architecture."

[ download pdf | Architect Magazine ]

Seismic CityJanuary 6 2007

EARTHQUAKE RISK

Earthquakes are known to occur mostly along fault lines, which are the edges of the earth's tectonic plates. These sections, large and small, of the earth's crust shift at approximately the same rate that your fingernails grow in one year. Along the fault lines, earthquakes are bound to occur and very frequently because of their uncontrolable and constant motion. Earthquakes form our mountains and create valleys, even at the bottom of the ocean (of course this process has occured over a long period of time). Small earthquakes can move the plates millimeters at a time, where a single large earthquakes can move the earth's crust one or two meters. The positions of continents in our world today are beleived to have drifted from the supercontinent, also known as Pangaea, and settled somewhat permanently into their current positions.



Earthquakes are much more common in specific areas than others, even along the fault lines, where they are most prevailent. High population and conscentration of buildings puts pressure on the earth and has been known to cause plate movements and earthquakes. For example, Taipei 101, the tallest building

Solar MoleculesDecember 22 2006

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

In 40 minutes of daylight the sun releases upon the earth the amount of energy that is consumed by the entire population of the planet in one year. Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy the planet's 6 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years. Currently, we harness about 1% of this energy. Photovoltaic cells are currently being used in large groups known as arrays to gather this energy and convert it into usable electricity.
A two-dimensional mapping was constructed to delineate areas of high Btu consumption, since the Btu is how we measure energy. Research shows that a considerable amount of energy is consumed in North America and areas throughout Asia. A datascape was then constructed based from solar absorption and irradiation along the earth’s surface. This information is an average of data gathered from satellites over a period of one year. The datascapes were combined to reveal further information at their intersections. After taking this new solar surface map and overlaying onto the Btu consumption map, it is apparent that areas the energy falling onto the earth’s surface lies in areas wher

proposal: Tsunami (resistant) ArchitectureDecember 20 2006

It was late on the morning of April 1, 1946, and on the island of Hawaii, children from the school at Laupahoehoe Point were the first to see the Pacific Ocean disappear. They watched, awestruck, as 500 feet of sand and coral emerged glistening into the sunshine. A few of the braver ones ventured out onto the exposed reef. Suddenly the water came roaring back, sweeping away the children along with the buildings near the shore and the entire waterfront of nearby Hilo. For nine hours, a teacher, 21-year-old Marsue McGinnis, clung to a piece of driftwood before she was spotted by her fiance, who had mounted his own rescue in a borrowed motorboat. "I saw a number of children floating near me, clinging to wreckage," she said. "We just kept floating out to sea, and some of the children disappeared." Five hours earlier, an earthquake had erupted under the ocean floor off the coast of Alaska. Officials of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, a branch of the Commerce Department, knew what might be coming toward Hawaii, even if they didn't know enough to call it a tsunami. (

msnbc.com)

A Tsunami is a significant global threat that can exist wherever there is a large body of water. A mega-tsunami, is a much larger scale disaster ranging anywhere from 30 ft to thousands of feet in height. These events occur when a

Segue City OneDecember 18 2006

Segue City One is a proposal for the first mega construction of a new global network of trade and transportation. The city discussed here is a result of research done earlier this semster in Mega Blog posts and the Mapimation project; links to these studies will follow.

The Mapimation project was the precursor to Segue City One; Mapimation began as an exploration of global flight paths and then turned into a study of the largest transportation networks covering the globe.The final map overlaps the world’s largest cities, ports, airports, and rail and road networks to find areas of intense overlap of the world’s largest transportation networks.These areas are crucial as distribution hubs in the global economy.However, the cities that act as major players in global trade are often characterized by unsightly ports, noisy airports, and disruptive road and rail networks which lower the living quality of these cities.Segue cities are meant to be new developments at the crossing of major transportation systems.The SegueCity acts as a mega hub for all passenger