Did China sever undersea communications cables yet again? Are ships hauling crude oil leaking their cargo along the way? Are animal transport ships dumping feed bags overboard and causing unseen turtle and wildlife deaths? Are port authorities deliberately destroying underwater archaeology so projects can move ahead?

Getting away with bad business at sea may soon be harder with Mirai Robotics on patrol.

While security is a giant concern, Luciano Belviso, Mirai’s co-founder told Green Prophet: “Mirai’s autonomy can also support environmental monitoring, enabling continuous observation of marine ecosystems, pollution, and offshore infrastructure with persistent, autonomous operations, regardless of weather conditions.”

The company just raised $4.2 million in a seed round to continue development of its AI-driven autonomous marine vehicles. According to the company, the sea is one of the most critical infrastructures on the planet: more than 80% of global trade moves by sea, over 90% of Europe’s foreign trade depends on maritime routes, and roughly 95% of international internet traffic flows through subsea cables.

“The sea is one of the last major physical infrastructures not yet governed by software,” says Luciano Belviso, CEO of Mirai Robotics. “Autonomy is the key to finally making the oceans safe and usable, unlocking enormous resources and addressing critical security challenges. But it must be implemented through systems capable of operating continuously and safely in extreme environments. This is a technological and industrial challenge that requires a true robotics-lab approach.”

Mirai Robotics has already developed two autonomous vehicles designed for different operational needs, targeting ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and patrolling scenarios in both coastal and offshore environments.

The vehicles integrate advanced perception systems, autonomous navigation, remote control, and safety features. They are designed to operate either as standalone units or as part of distributed monitoring systems.

Alongside its proprietary platforms, Mirai Robotics also develops autonomy, navigation, and control systems that can be integrated into third-party vessels. This allows industrial and institutional operators to adopt autonomous technology without fully redesigning existing fleets.

The decision to start in Italy is deliberate. The country is historically a global leader in shipbuilding and maritime engineering, with strong expertise in defense, yachting, offshore infrastructure, and marine technology.

The company was founded by Luciano Belviso (CEO), Luca Mascaro, and Davide Dattoli. Belviso previously built and led complex industrial companies including Blackshape, an aircraft design and manufacturing company later acquired by Angel Holding.

Luciano Belviso (left) and Luca Mascaro (right). Supplied by Mirai

Mirai Robotics has closed a $4.2 million pre-seed equity round, one of the largest in Italy in the robotics and deep-tech sector, led by Primo Capital, Techshop and 40Jemz Ventures, with participation from Italian and international angel investors. The capital will accelerate technology development, strengthen the team, and launch new pilot projects with industrial and institutional partners.

We love that the company can catch polluters in real time and take risks to rescue those at sea where other seafarers may not dare or have the expertise.

Mirai (未来) is a Japanese word that means “future.”

They aren’t alone. Mirai Robotics enters a rapidly growing field of autonomous maritime technology that can support defense and environmental missions. Competitors include firms such as Maritime Robotics, Saildrone, whose wind- and solar-powered robotic vessels collect environmental and security data across vast ocean areas. Defense and dual-use companies like L3Harris Technologies and Thales Group are also developing autonomous patrol boats and surveillance platforms for naval and infrastructure protection. In Europe, look to startups such as Ocean Infinity and Sea Machines Robotics.

::Mirai

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I met this usual scientist from Russia who was sure that people can hear with their skin. Maybe he wasn’t so nuts after all? Scientists have no found a mechanism that help mice hear, and it’s in their whiskers. This might explain how blind voles can get around. And it may have applications in robotics.

“Whiskers are so delicate that no one had thought of checking whether they produce sounds that mice are able to hear,” says team leader Prof. Ilan Lampl of Weizmann’s Brain Sciences Department.

The study offers a unique glimpse into the complexity of natural perception, which commonly involves input from multiple senses, in this case touch and hearing. In fact humans too combine these two types of cues more often than one might think. Imagine, for example, your fingers delving into a crowded bag to search for a candy bar and the sudden, welcome rustle of the wrapper.

In the new study, Lampl’s team – led by Dr. Ben Efron, then a PhD student, who worked with Drs. Athanasios Ntelezos and Yonatan Katz – started out by recording the sounds made by whiskers probing different surfaces, including dried Bougainvillea leaves and aluminum foil.

The researchers used sensitive microphones that can record ultrasonic frequencies, which are beyond the upper limit of the audible range for humans. The same kind of microphones that can hear when plants speak. They placed the microphones some 2 centimeters from the source of the sound, about the same distance as from the mouse’s ear to its whiskers.

Next, the scientists made entirely different recordings: They measured neural activity in the auditory cortex of mice that were brushing their whiskers against different objects. The recordings showed that the auditory networks of the mice responded to the whisker-generated sounds, no matter how subtle.

When the researchers interrupted the pathways that convey the sensation of touch from the whiskers to the brain, the auditory cortex still responded to these sounds, showing that mice could process them as a separate sensory input, independent of the sense of touch.

Yet the fact that the mouse auditory system responds to certain noises does not necessarily mean that mice use them for sensing and can recognize objects by means of these noises. To explore this issue, the researchers resorted to AI. They first trained a machine-learning model to identify objects based on neural activity recorded from the auditory cortex of mice.

The AI successfully identified the correct objects from neuronal activity alone, suggesting that the mice might be able to similarly interpret these cues. Next, the researchers trained another machine-learning model to identify objects on the basis of recorded sounds made by whiskers probing these objects.

The two models – the one trained on neural activity alone and the one trained on sound recordings – were equally successful, which suggests that the neural responses to the whisking were caused directly by the sounds rather than by other sensory information, such as that coming from smell or touch.

“Our results show that the brain’s whisking network, called the vibrissa system, operates in an integrative, multimodal manner when the animals actively explore their surroundings,” Lampl sums up. This multimodal function, he explains, might have developed in the course of evolution to help mice hunt for prey or avoid their own predators.

“Since whisking generates much weaker sounds than does walking, a mouse could rely on it when, for example, choosing whether to walk across a brittle, drier field of crops versus a fresher, quieter one, to avoid being detected by an owl. Whisking could also help a mouse figure out whether a stem is hollow or sufficiently juicy and worthy of a bite.”

By breaking down the boundaries between touch and hearing, the study doesn’t just reveal something new about mice, it opens up a plethora of research directions for future explorations of the brain’s sensory systems, particularly mechanisms by which the brain integrates different types of sensory input. The new findings might also lead to practical innovations in technology.

The post How mice hear with their whiskers and what this means for robotics appeared first on Green Prophet.

French energy giant EDF have made an investment in agRE.tech, a pioneering startup in the Agrivoltaic sector

The company has completed a pre-seed fundraising round, securing approximately $2 million USD for the development of an advanced robotic operating system tailored for agrovoltaic fields.

The start-up agRE.tech is pioneering the development of advanced robotics technology and artificial intelligence for use in agriculture and climate management. This innovative approach addresses manpower challenges in agriculture, increases productivity, and supports the global goals of large-scale green energy such as solar energy production within the same agricultural areas.

This fundraising round saw notable contributions from key players in the economy, including Zemach Mifalim (Zemach Regional Industries) and EDF. Zemach Mifalim, a co-initiator of agRE.tech, leads the way through the “Kinneret Innovation Center,” specializing in climate and agriculture.

EDF, the French Energy giant, brings its international expertise in energy to the project, furthering the vision of leveraging agricultural spaces for green energy production.

Over the past year, agRE.tech has been dedicated to developing an advanced robotic operating system tailored for agrivoltaic areas. This system, integrated into existing photovoltaic infrastructure, utilizes artificial intelligence to execute complex agricultural tasks autonomously, such as selective spraying, pruning, and harvesting. Additionally, it oversees the control and maintenance operations of the solar fields.

CEO and co-founder Elad Levy brings a wealth of experience in robotics, having previously served as Founder & CEO of Roboteam, a company with thousands of robotic systems deployed worldwide. Elad leads the team alongside Yaniv Marmur, a seasoned expert in multidisciplinary systems engineering, serving as CTO. The company has filed several patents in the field and has already established a development field above a vineyard where its robotic operating system is operational.

The Agrivoltaics market, which combines solar energy production with agriculture, presents a $4 billion opportunity. agRE.tech is poised to accelerate and expand this market to tens of billions of dollars with its groundbreaking technology.

agRE.tech is currently in the advanced stages of establishing the first commercial fields with integrated robotic capabilities in both local and international markets, including Italy, where a significant budget of 1.7 billion euros has been allocated for grovoltaic projects.

“After over a decade in defense and civil robotics, we identified climate and agriculture as burgeoning fields where we can contribute to global efforts addressing the climate crisis and food security,” says Elad Levy, CEO of agRE.tech. “The convergence of these sectors presents immense potential for technological and business innovation. It’s a great honor for us to have esteemed companies like EDF and Zemach partnering with us to spearhead the robotic agrivoltaic sector and pave the way for a sustainable future for all”

EDF, with an installed capacity of approximately 137GW and an installed solar capacity of over 3,000MW, is a frontrunner in renewable and solar energy. The company invests heavily in international research and development in the agrivoltaic field, anticipating significant growth in the coming years.

Just recently EDF invested in the The Dumat Al-Jandal wind farm with a capacity of 400MW, stands as a pioneering endeavor in Saudi Arabia’s renewable energy landscape in an ancient land. It’s Saudi Arabia’s first wind farm. At 400MW, it is the largest wind farm in the Middle East, displacing almost one million tonnes of CO2 annually.

Developed by a consortium led by EDF Renewables (51%) and Masdar (49%), with the client being Saudi Aramco this project not only marks the kingdom’s inaugural utility-scale wind power initiative but also ranks among the largest wind farms in the Middle East.

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An electronic skin which can learn from feeling ‘pain’ could help create a new generation of smart robots with human-like sensitivity.

The Scots have always been known as great inventors. I know this factoid because my Scottish mother would never let me forget: There is James Watt’s steam engine, the bicycle, Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the first practical telephone, and John Logie Baird’s TV. Recently they have been pioneering the sustainable too by restoring wildlands in the United Kingdom with Rewilding. Now, University of Glasgow scientists invent an artificial electronic skin to feel pain.

The advance may help science make artificial limbs more life-like. It could be part of a new generation of smart robots with human-like sensitivity. 

“What we’ve been able to create through this process is an electronic skin capable of distributed learning at the hardware level,” says lead professor Ravinder Dahiya, “which doesn’t need to send messages back and forth to a central processor before taking action. Instead, it greatly accelerates the process of responding to touch by cutting down the amount of computation required.

“We believe that this is a real step forward in our work towards creating large-scale neuromorphic printed electronic skin capable of responding appropriately to stimuli.”

The artificial skin is based on synaptic transistors, which mimics the brain’s neural pathways in order to learn. A robot hand which uses the smart skin shows a remarkable ability to learn to react to external stimuli. 

In a new paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the researchers describe how they built their prototype computational electronic-skin (e-skin), and how it improves on the current state of the art in touch-sensitive robotics.

Scientists have been working for decades to build artificial skin with touch sensitivity. One widely-explored method is spreading an array of contact or pressure sensors across the electronic skin’s surface to allow it detect when it comes into contact with an object.

Data from the sensors is then sent to a computer to be processed and interpreted. The sensors typically produce a large volume of data which can take time to be properly processed and responded to, introducing delays which could reduce the skin’s potential effectiveness in real-world tasks. 

The Glasgow team’s new form of electronic skin draws inspiration from how the human peripheral nervous system interprets signals from skin in order to eliminate latency and power consumption.

As soon as human skin receives an input, the peripheral nervous system begins processing it at the point of contact, reducing it to only the vital information before it is sent to the brain. That reduction of sensory data allows efficient use of communication channels needed to send the data to the brain, which then responds almost immediately for the body to react appropriately. 

To build an electronic skin capable of a computationally efficient, synapse-like response, the researchers printed a grid of 168 synaptic transistors made from zinc-oxide nanowires directly onto the surface of a flexible plastic surface. Then, they connected the synaptic transistor with the skin sensor present over the palm of a fully-articulated, human-shaped robot hand. 

When the sensor is touched, it registers a change in its electrical resistance – a small change corresponds to a light touch, and harder touch creates a larger change in resistance. This input is designed to mimic the way sensory neurons work in the human body.

In earlier generations of electronic skin, that input data would be sent to a computer to be processed. Instead, a circuit built into the skin acts as an artificial synapse, reducing the input down into a simple spike of voltage whose frequency varies according to the level of pressure applied to the skin, speeding up the process of reaction. 

Giving artificial limbs a human touch

The new advance could make artificial limbs more human-like or your robotic girlfriend less complacent

The team used the varying output of that voltage spike to teach the skin appropriate responses to simulated pain, which would trigger the robot hand to react. By setting a threshold of input voltage to cause a reaction, the team could make the robot hand recoil from a sharp jab in the centre of its palm.

In other words, it learned to move away from a source of simulated discomfort through a process of onboard information processing that mimics how the human nervous system works. 

The development of the electronic skin is the latest breakthrough in flexible, stretchable printed surfaces from the University of Glasgow’s Bendable Electronics and Sensing Technologies (BEST) Group, led by Professor Ravinder Dahiya:

“We all learn early on in our lives to respond appropriately to unexpected stimuli like pain in order to prevent us from hurting ourselves again. Of course, the development of this new form of electronic skin didn’t really involve inflicting pain as we know it – it’s simply a shorthand way to explain the process of learning from external stimulus.”

Fengyuan Liu, a co-author of the paper, added: “In the future, this research could be the basis for a more advanced electronic skin which enables robots capable of exploring and interacting with the world in new ways, or building prosthetic limbs which are capable of near-human levels of touch sensitivity.”

Love this kind of science? Read about electronic skin that heal itself. 

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Make Your Pool Life Easier And Smarter With An Automatic Pool Cleaner

One of the growing trends right now is smart home automation systems. The technology has progressed massively over a surprisingly short period. But did you know that you can also make your swimming pool smart? Not to be outdone, the pool world has jumped on board the smart technology to help make your pool maintenance and management easier.

Keeping your backyard oasis sparkly clean and safe for everyone to dive in is time and energy-consuming, not to mention costly. With pool automation, there’s no need for you to depend on the services of a pool company for just about everything. Your automated smart system will notify you when your pool needs something. That means you will be able to control its water level, chemical levels, lighting, and filtration system effortlessly at the palm of your hands.

Moreover, you have smart pool cleaners that can take care of your nasty pool for you even when you’re not at home. So if you’re considering making your pool smart, spending a few extra bucks may just be one of the smartest decisions you can make.

What Exactly Is Pool Automation And How Does It Work?

Pool automation is an electric system wherein you link the equipment of your pool in a wireless connection to the main control unit. You can connect your smart home pool system either on your smart gadget or your home itself. It will depend entirely on your internet connection. That means you don’t have to be physically present at home for it to function.

The best thing about smart pool automation is its simplicity. These systems come with an intuitive app that enables you to manage the settings of your swimming pool wherever you are in the world. In terms of cost, this will depend on the technology’s quality, pool size, and the number of featured apps.

Installing a pool control system will not take an entire life to complete. Once installed, you will be able to control numerous different aspects of swimming pool maintenance and upkeep. This includes its pump, salt chlorinator, filter system, and management system.

Without pool automation, you have to check the pH balance of your pool routinely by yourself or a pool cleaning professional to ensure its water has enough chlorine. On the other hand, this smart home technology will automatically measure the level of chlorine. Not only that, but it will also disperse the proper chlorine level at regular periods. Moreover, a lot of automated pool systems come with self-cleaning features that add further value.

Some of the devices you can link to your smart pool system include the following:

• Automatic pool cleaner
• Entertainment system
• Sound system
• Variable speed pumps
• Water leak sensor
• Water control features
• Motion-activated pool alarm
• Valves
• Heaters

Automating The Way You Clean Your Pool

An automatic pool cleaner is another excellent option for pool automation. They enable pool owners to significantly cut back on pool upkeep. But which is the right type of pool cleaner is best for your needs? Basically, you have three options to choose from:

• Robotic Pool Cleaner

A robotic cleaner works using an automated program. This allows the device to factor in your pool’s size and shape. It will traverse across your pool, scrubbing down its floors and walls, ensuring every nook, cranny, and crevice is clean to your satisfaction.

One of its most convenient features is a smartphone app for pool owners. You can use the handy app to turn your unit on and off, as well as set your preferred cleaning schedules. Hence, you don’t have to worry about going home to a dirty pool even when you’re away on vacation or a business trip.

Its filter bag is also easy to clean. Once full, simply remove the canister from your cleaner and use a garden hose to clear it of any debris.

• Suction Pool Cleaner

It functions with the aid of a dedicated suction line in your swimming pool. The cleaner uses the suction of the filter pump to propel itself across your pool, allowing it to vacuum and wash the surfaces by getting rid of debris and filth.

• Pressure Pool Cleaner

To launch this automatic pool cleaner across your pool, it uses your pool’s pressure side water flow. What fuels it is the water that goes back in your swimming pool. Nevertheless, you can find units that need an extra booster pump to operate. It will filter out debris without the need to use the filtration system, unlike a suction cleaner. Also, it comes with its own filter bag for carrying all the dirt it sucks in, relieving your filter system of wear and pressure.

Among these three types of automatic pool cleaners, the robotic pool cleaner tops the list of most pool owners. That’s because it helps reduce wear and maintenance on your pool equipment, lower down overall energy consumption and costs, and provide you with outstanding cleaning power.

But when shopping around for automatic pool cleaners it will still boil down to what’s suitable to the requirements of your pool. This reliable data source can help you pick out which one is best for your needs.

Is It Possible To Automate My Pool Later?

Yes, of course! If you don’t have the budget right now and can’t afford an entire automation system, you can hold off for a bit. Regardless of how cool this feature is it can wait at a later date. However, ensuring the cleanliness and safety of your pool should be on top of your priority list. So while you may want to postpone fully automating your pool, you can still reap the benefits of technology by opting for an automatic pool cleaner, such as a smart robotic pool cleaner. Doing so is not only best for your budget, but it will work in favor of your beloved pool as well.

Is Pool Automation For Me?

A smart pool system may sound elaborate, but it can make the entire management of your pool quick, easy, and simple. For instance, the main concept behind a robotic pool cleaner is to make the aspects of the pool maintenance to be now programmable instead of doing things manually. You can do the arduous manual pool cleaning chores with a few clicks and taps. This will give you more time on your hands to just enjoy your pool or do other important matters.

Additionally, pool automation gives you the power to control your cleaner and other pool equipment no matter where your geographical location is. This is all thanks to app integration, remote controls, and wireless base stations. So is this a good fit for you? Well, if you want to make your pool life hassle-free and easier, then yes it is.

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Robotics, we have shown with the Israeli solar helicopter invention to spin panels in 3D, is important in advancing solar energy goals and renewable energy at large. While gig economy companies like AirBnB and Uber have nose-dived during a global pandemic with no clear path for recovering, renewable energy projects are still a safe bet going forward, despite job loss and overall investor cautiousness. In fact this is one of the only sectors that can get us out of future messes with pandemics and global warming hot on our heels. Meet the latest Israeli company making strides in solar.

One of the biggest challenges in solar energy is keeping the solar panels clean. Solar parks in the desert face two major challenges: a lot of dust on the photovoltaic panels and not enough water to clean them. Dust can cause up to a 40% decrease in efficiency of the panels. So there is  huge interest to avert this problem. Normally teams of humans come in with squeegees to clean the panels by hand.

Ecoppia founders understood there could be a better way: bring in the robotics cleaners.

Ecoppia, which we wrote about here in 2014, based in Israel announces a US $40 million strategic investment in the company by the $60 billion real estate holding company CIM Group.

Ecoppia’s robotic solutions are deployed globally in utility-scale sites and have been field-proven to keep solar panels at a year-round peak performance while minimizing operating and management costs. Despite the unique challenges of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, Ecoppia has secured over 10 gigawatts worth of energy of new projects over the last three quarters alone.

On a pilot site in Israel at a solar plant called Ketura, it would take up to five days to clean the panels manually and it was hard work that often put cleaners and panels at risk. But if they didn’t clean the panels, their ability to absorb the sun’s energy was reduced by about 35 percent. Over time, that amounts to a significant loss.

Completely self-sufficient, nearly one hundred E4 robots cleaned the plant’s panels every day after sunset. Using a sophisticated winch system, they clean 54 square feet in 30 seconds, and Ketura said they were thrilled with the results: “Ecoppia has changed the way we run the Ketura Sun field,” says Yanir Aloush, VP Operations at Arava Power which runs the site at Ketura. 

The solar energy sector uniquely requires vendors to meet stringent standards of financial integrity in order to deploy in large scale projects. With the CIM investment, Ecoppia says it strengthens its balance sheet and reduces its cost of debt. This brings the company in line with expectations of its tier-1 energy clients, who include ENGIE, EDF, Fortum, Actis, Brookfield and others.

“This latest investment by CIM Group is a vote of confidence from one of the most prominent and sophisticated US investors,” said Jean Scemama, CEO of Ecoppia. “This capital infusion will allow Ecoppia to continue its geographic expansion, as more and more regions realize the benefits of shifting to robotic cleaning.”

CIM explained why they invested: “Following an extensive market analysis and due diligence, which CIM undertakes in its proven investment process, we recognized Ecoppia as the leading robotic player in the solar industry,” said Jennifer Gandin, Principal, Investments of CIM Group. “We believe that Ecoppia will continue to pioneer the automation of the solar industry with its experience and data analysis capabilities,” she added.

More on Ecoppia

With over 17GW of secured projects, Ecoppia removes dust from solar panels on a daily basis leveraging advanced machine learning and IoT capabilities. Remotely managed and controlled, the Ecoppia platform allows solar sites to maintain peak performance with minimal costs and human intervention.

The post Solar panel “Roomba” Ecoppia gets $40 million investment appeared first on Green Prophet.

Elementary and middle school students from schools across Qatar recently tested their robotics know-how. The mock robot competition was held at the College of the North Atlantic Qatar (CNA-Q). Because science is a good thing!

Besides the social aspects of the event, the aim was to prepare the students for the National Robot Olympiad of Qatar, to be held October 24-25 of this year. The contest doesn’t stop there – finalists will advance to the World Robot Olympiad, which will be taking place this year in Sochi, Russia.

For months, students and teachers alike have been learning about robotics in a school initiative to boost STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education, called Go Robot. Teachers were offered up to 30 hours of instruction in robotics programming and utilized that knowledge to train their students. Some 300 Qatari teachers have been trained, and about 200 student teams are now registered to compete in the national competition.

The young competitors surely have some impressive tricks up their sleeve at this stage of the game. They have reached proficiency in building and designing robots, and solving programming challenges. But true mastery will win them a ticket to the international competition.

At the National Robot Olympiad, students will undertake such tasks as “launching a spaceship, collecting space debris, fixing a solar panel array on a space station, and setting up a Mars colony.” They can even enter their robots into a football competition! More details about the specific contests can be found here, on the official website of the competition.

One information technology teacher from the Osama Bin Zaid school in Qatar remarked that he has noticed a greater interest in the sciences and mathematics ever since robotics was first introduced at his school. The growing participation of students in the national and worldwide robot olympiads year after year suggests that his students are not alone, as the contests and STEM education complement one another.

The countdown to Qatar’s National Robot Olympiad has begun! Let’s wish the students luck (Good luck!) at their techie craft. Who knows – some of these students may design the robots that most everyone will be entrusting their household chores to, in a few decades…

Image of students at the practice National Robot Olympiad from Gulf News.

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Digital animation “Walking Architecture” (clip above) pays homage to a 1960’s design group while pushing the boundaries of their conjectural vision.

UK-based multimedia studio Universal Everything developed a slowly evolving “video sculpture” that changes form, gradually morphing through an array of architectural structures that include geodesic domes, perforated lattices and pixilated building blocks.  Meanwhile, its core motion, the act of walking, remains constant.

Matt Pyke of Universal Everything based the animation, entitled Walking Architecture, on the futuristic imaginings of 1960s architectural group Archigram; they envisioned a city as a living organism whose purposely stride is undeterred by its changing size and form. The title of the video is a reference to Archigram’s “Walking City”.

The original project, conceived by British architect Ron Herron, imagined massive robotic structures, each with its own intelligence, freely walking to wherever their owners wanted or wherever their resources or manufacturing capabilities were needed.

Archigram envisioned an entire series of walking cities, interconnecting when need arose to form enormous walking metropolises, and then dispersing when their concentrated power had served its purpose. Individual buildings could also be mobile.

“The language of materials and patterns seen in radical architecture transform as the nomadic city walks endlessly, adapting to the environments she encounters,” said Pyke. (Note that he recognizes Architecture as female.)

This movie starts with a structure whose massing and proportions are similar to those of a human body.  Over the next seven minutes, it gradually abstracts, transforming into varied shapes that include a cluster of pixilated cubes and a striated mound.

The figure ultimately returns to its original form, poised to begin the transformation anew.

Unlike their contemporary Buckminster Fuller, who worked to build more with less material (recognizing that most matter is finite), Archigram’s fantastical designs assumed a future of limitless resources. Never constructed, their schemes stimulated others to incorporate aspects of their designs into real bricks-and-mortar structures.

Often, hypothetical architecture sparks innovation that catapults significant developments in building materials and technologies. Dream on.

All images from Universal Everything

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