Lucy + Jorge Orta, Potential Architecture

Cells are a part of the human body; they are at the origin of its being, its feelings, its emotions, and its sufferings. Thus, they speak the language of the body. There are also cells of habitation. The relationship between people and their habitat is formed in this metaphorical cell. Living and being become a single and unique life experience. Cristina Morozzi Potential Architecture explores artists Lucy + Jorge Orta’s recent architectural endeavors that derive from their fascination with cell biology and the process of differentiation. Through drawings and sculpture, the artists conceptualize the communication process the human cell undertakes from its embryonic state, and the infinite transformations that lead to defined structural organisms. This new body of work draws from Lucy + Jorge Orta’s artistic practice, grounded in the universal concerns of community, shelter, migration, and sustainable development. Potential Architecture is a powerful rejoinder to the arbitrary boundaries that define art, architecture, and design

Potential Architecture

The exhibition brings together new work: sculpture, drawings and models created by Lucy + Jorge Orta during their research on new organic and modular architecture as a result of their collaborations with the Greenham partnership and other communities across Europe. Lucy Orta’s practice from the early 1990s began with a series of artworks that combined architecture, fashion and social intervention. Produced in collaboration with her partner, these works took the form of temporary refuges, prototype survival clothing, portable shelters, and tent villages for symbolic emergency situations exploring notions of identity, architecture and communication through workshops and community based actions. In 2002, Orta began working on a series entitled Totipotent Architecture marking a shift away from the body and the transient shelters, to more permanent proposals for sculpture and interventions in urban space. Totipotent Architecture is a reflection on the process of differentiation the human cell undertakes from its embryonic state, to a defined cell structural organism, the wonderful building block of our body

QMCPACK: Advances in the development, efficiency, and application of auxiliary field and real-space variational and diffusion Quantum Monte Carlo

We review recent advances in the capabilities of the open source ab initio Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) package QMCPACK and the workflow tool Nexus used for greater efficiency and reproducibility. The auxiliary field QMC (AFQMC) implementation has been greatly expanded to include k-point symmetries, tensor-hypercontraction, and accelerated graphical processing unit (GPU) support. These scaling and memory reductions greatly increase the number of orbitals that can practically be included in AFQMC calculations, increasing accuracy. Advances in real space methods include techniques for accurate computation of band gaps and for systematically improving the nodal surface of ground state wavefunctions. Results of these calculations can be used to validate application of more approximate electronic structure methods including GW and density functional based techniques. To provide an improved foundation for these calculations we utilize a new set of correlation-consistent effective core potentials (pseudopotentials) that are more accurate than previous sets; these can also be applied in quantum-chemical and other many-body applications, not only QMC. These advances increase the efficiency, accuracy, and range of properties that can be studied in both molecules and materials with QMC and QMCPACK

Environmental accounting for ecosystem conservation: Linking societal and ecosystem metabolisms

This paper proposes an approach to environmental accounting useful for studying the feasibility of socio-economic systems in relation to the external constraints posed by ecological compatibility. The approach is based on a multi-scale analysis of the metabolic pattern of ecosystems and societies and it provides an integrated characterization of the resulting interaction. The text starts with a theoretical part explaining (i) the implicit epistemological revolution implied by the notion of ecosystem metabolism and the fund-flow model developed by Georgescu-Roegen applied to environmental accounting, and (ii) the potentials of this approach to create indicators to assess ecological integrity and environmental impacts. This revolution also makes it possible to carry out a multi-scale integrated assessment of ecosystem and societal metabolisms at the territorial level. In the second part, two applications of this approach using an indicator of the negentropic cost show the possibility to characterize in quantitative and qualitative terms degrees of alteration (crop cultivation, tree plantations)for different biomes (tropical and boreal forests). Also, a case study for land use scenarios has been included. The proposed approach represents an integrated multi-scale tool for the analysis of nature conservation scenarios and strategies.Comment: 29 pages including 6 figure

An Architecture for Integrated Intelligence in Urban Management using Cloud Computing

With the emergence of new methodologies and technologies it has now become possible to manage large amounts of environmental sensing data and apply new integrated computing models to acquire information intelligence. This paper advocates the application of cloud capacity to support the information, communication and decision making needs of a wide variety of stakeholders in the complex business of the management of urban and regional development. The complexity lies in the interactions and impacts embodied in the concept of the urban-ecosystem at various governance levels. This highlights the need for more effective integrated environmental management systems. This paper offers a user-orientated approach based on requirements for an effective management of the urban-ecosystem and the potential contributions that can be supported by the cloud computing community. Furthermore, the commonality of the influence of the drivers of change at the urban level offers the opportunity for the cloud computing community to develop generic solutions that can serve the needs of hundreds of cities from Europe and indeed globally.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure