Designs revealed for Helsinki Guggenheim

GH-04380895 is one of six finalists chosen from an original 1,715 submissions

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's 11-member jury announced its shortlisted designs for Helsinki's proposed Guggenheim museum this morning. A veritable gaggle of Guggenheims – some 1,715 submissions – were whittled down to just six concepts from relatively lesser-known architecture firms, which were no doubt hoping to emulate the renown of the two iconic Guggenheim buildings in Bilbao and NYC, by Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright, respectively.

The six finalists are: AGPS Architecture, Asif Khan, Fake Industries Architectural Agonism, Haas Cook Zemmrich STUDIO2050, Moreau Kusunoki Architect, and SMAR Architecture Studio. However, owing to EU rules, the names of the competitors were not made known to the jury, and are rather boringly referred to by registration number.

GH-76091181 is likened to a beacon by its anonymous designers

Of the six, GH-76091181 and GH-121371443 are the standout concepts. The former comprises five independent towers, likened by its anonymous designers to a beacon. The towers feature a reinforced concrete core and prefabricated glue-laminated timber beams and panels. The concept also features some sustainable design, including a near-airtight envelope, heliostats (movable mirrors, to channel natural light inside), and demand-driven ventilation.

GH-121371443 is our pick to win

GH-121371443 has winner written all over it. This concept comprises six timber-clad galleries and a seventh administration and retail building – all of which is wrapped entirely in a glass skin. The glass is translucent at ground level and rises to become transparent toward its top, offering views of the Helsinki waterfront from within.

The competition has already garnered its fair share of controversy though. Some locals question the wisdom of Finnish tax money being used to fund the museum, and others cite the project as an example of the Americanization of Finnish culture. A rival competition called Next Helsinki was even set up to offer an alternative vision of what could be done with the choice waterfront location intended for the museum, currently inhabited by the Makasiini Terminal.

The six finalists have until March 2015 to further mature their concepts before a winner is announced in June of next year. The winner will be granted €100,000 (US$124,000) prize money, and the runners-up each get €55,000 ($68,000).

Head to the gallery to check out each of the proposals.

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Aquaponic urban farm puts seniors to work

Homefarm is a concept that mixes accommodation for seniors with an urban farm run, in part, by its retiree residents (Image: Spark)

Among the oft-cited benefits of urban farming are improved food security and production sustainability. According to Spark Architects, its Homefarm part retirement home, part retiree-run urban farm concept would achieve not only these, but improved health and community spirit among Singapore seniors.

Many of the urban farm concepts featured in Gizmag are large outlandish blue-sky ideas. Some, however, are more realistically employable, like the Globe (hedron) rooftop fish farm. And others, like the Windowfarms indoor gardening system, actually become a reality. Though ambitious, Spark's Homefarm concept arguably falls into the employable category.

Spark says that its actual aim is to "generate discussion about the many potentials that can emerge from the mixing of two typically separate realms." Specifically, in this case, it's referencing the combination of accommodation and facilities for seniors with an urban farm. It notes the context that Singapore has a significantly aging population, growing city populations and imports over 90 percent of its food. The Homefarm concept, it says, addresses all of these issues.

Homefarm would mix accommodation with vertical aquaponic farming (fertilizing plants from the waste produced by fish also being farmed) and ground-level and rooftop soil planting of vegetables. Rainwater would be collected for use in the aquaponic system and plant waste collected for use in biomass energy generation. Not only would the accommodation be designed specifically to meet the needs of seniors, but it is proposed that the seniors would be instrumental in running the farm under the instruction of a professional team.

In this way, the project could increase the amount of food produced domestically in Singapore, increase inner-city food production, provide work and income for post-retirement individuals, provide an opportunity for improving health among seniors and develop a sense of community within a retirement complex. Spark also suggests that such developments could serve as places for community education.

Spark Director Stephen Pimbley says he is keen for the Homefarm concept to be built in the future, calling it a "realizable solution to real and pressing problems."

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New hope for MS sufferers: Drug shown to alleviate symptoms in mice

Seema Tiwari-Woodruff, associate professor of biomedical sciences at the UC Riverside School of Medicine (Photo: I. Pittalwala, UC Riverside)

Researchers are zeroing in on what looks like an effective treatment for the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. Teams from UC Riverside and New York's Rockefeller University have both used the same compound, indazole chloride, to successfully reverse the progression of MS in mice. The drug appears to be able to stimulate the regeneration of the myelin sheath – the nerve pathway coating that is progressively destroyed as MS attacks the nervous system.

MS affects around 400,000 people in the United States alone, and some 2.5 million around the world, according to Healthline. It's a debilitating disease in which the body's immune system begins to attack its own nervous system, gradually breaking down the protective cover called the myelin sheath, which coats the axons of nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord.

As this demyelination progresses, patients begin to slowly experience the breakdown of their nervous system – sensation, vision and motor control begin to slowly degenerate, and permanent paralysis can be the end result. It's a horrible sentence.

One well known quirk of the disease is that female sufferers seem to have a reversal of their MS symptoms during the third trimester of pregnancy. This reversal has them feeling great for a couple of months, but then the symptoms reappear with a vengeance after childbirth.

This led researchers to investigate pregnancy hormones. They found that estriol, a form of estrogen, had a significant effect reducing the MS symptoms of lab mice.

But estrogen is a highly compromised treatment. It's been strongly linked to breast and uterine cancers, and has a feminizing effect which makes it particularly unattractive to male sufferers. Which led researchers from UC Riverside and Rockefeller University to start investigating compounds that might produce a similar effect on MS symptoms without the hormonal side effects.

Both teams have zeroed in on indazole chloride, a ligand that stimulates the ERβ estrogen receptors in the body without requiring raised levels of estrogen. And both teams have reported impressive results reversing the progression of MS symptoms in mice. The drug appears to be effective long after the onset of the disease, and seems to be able to stimulate the rebuilding of the myelin sheath, not only in MS cases, but in cases of traumatic brain and spinal cord injury. In simple terms, if the nerves haven't already been totally destroyed, indazole chloride helps rebuild them.

"Our work on mice suggests that its effect is permanent," said Associate Professor Seema K. Tiwari-Woodruff of UC Riverside. "But perhaps more significant, Ind-Cl remyelinates, that is, it makes new sheaths around those axons that have not been lost for good. This means Ind-Cl not only inhibits inflammation but is capable of reducing axon degeneration and restoring neuronal function… Ind-Cl works in two ways: through the immune system in terms of reducing brain and spinal cord inflammation, and directly by remyelinating the axons. This makes it an extremely promising drug."

We've written before about promising potential MS cures, particularly Dr. Zamboni's CCSVI work, but that proved to be completely ineffective under rigorous scientific testing.

In contrast, the Riverside team expects to go to clinical trial soon. The teams believe the drug can be tweaked to be even more effective, and eventually administered orally.

So, it's promising news for MS sufferers and their families, but there's still an agonizing wait ahead.

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Fisker-Galpin's bespoke 725 hp Mustang Rocket

The Rocket made its debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show

The new Ford Mustang hasn't been out for long, but tuners are already beginning to explore what is possible when given the Mustang’s coupe body and more sophisticated suspension setup. Galpin Auto Sports and Henrik Fisker have approached the challenge of improving the Mustang by adding (much) more power and a bespoke carbon fiber body, for the Fisker-Galpin Rocket.

Fisker is best known for his work on the Fisker Karma, an ambitious attempt at creating a properly sustainable hybrid sportscar that was crippled by financial difficulties. But Fisker is also a car designer with an impressive set of credentials, including being the pen behind BMW's Z8, and also serving a stint at Aston Martin.

In their quest to create the “Ultimate American Muscle Car”, Henrik Fisker and Galpin have taken cues from some of the best-loved "specialty" Mustangs in history and worked them into the Rocket’s carbon fiber bodywork – especially the design of the 1968 Shelby Mustang GT500. The car’s hexagonal grille with its polished aluminum bar and large Mustang icon separate the car from Ford’s standard offering, as do the aggressively flared wheel arches and neatly integrated bootlid spoiler.

That huge front grille isn’t just for show, because hiding behind it is the Rocket’s V8 heart. Producing 725 hp (541 kW), the supercharged V8 needs plenty of air to keep it cool, hence the car’s massive front intake and splitter, which helps draw hot air out from underneath the car and more efficiently cool the motor. As well as helping to facilitate cooling, the front splitter works with the car’s rear diffuser and polished-carbon side skirts to provide high-speed downforce.

There is more to the Rocket than a massive engine and aggressive bodykit. Its 21-inch ADV.1 wheels are wrapped in Pirelli P-Zero tires, and hide 15-inch Brembo Gran Turismo brakes behind them. The whole package also sits on a fully adjustable independent suspension system, that will allow drivers to set their Rocket up specifically for how they plan to use it.

The Rocket debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show, and Galpin claims the car will go into production before the end of 2014, with the first customer deliveries taking place in early 2015.

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Could electric clay be the world's next wonder-material?

A fan of conductive clay? (Photo: Drexel University)

Researchers at Drexel University have hit upon a conductive clay which they claim is an "exceptionally viable candidate" to one day replace the electrode materials used in batteries and supercapacitors. Sure, another day another super material, but MXene, as it's called, does boast some rather intriguing properties.

Why's it good, then?

You don't beat about the bush, do you? Very well. The three main properties of MXene that caught our eye are:

1. It's hydrophilic. That means, unlike graphene, it loves water. And that's good news because it means...

2. It's very malleable. You can mold it into complicated forms, or roll or press it very flat – both of which are potentially very handy for a material with conductivity supposedly is up there with metals.

3. The material has a very healthy capacitance of 900 F/cm³ – and that's basically at the first attempt. The team has done nothing to improve that performance. But perhaps more intriguing still is the claim that MXene lost no capacitance after more than 10,000 charge cycles.

How do you say MXene?

The researchers pronounce it mex-een.

And this is a new material?

Yes and no. MXene was first discovered in 2011. It's a material composed of two-dimensional titanium carbide derived from MAX phases.

What's new is the researchers' ability to make it as a clay, a form which is not only useful, but much quicker and safer than the old method, and using readily-available materials. It used to take the researchers a day to make a MXene electrode. Now they can do it in 15 minutes.

What does it look like under an electron microscope?

This:

So we can expect clay batteries from tomorrow, then?

No. This is absurdly early stages for the material. And so far we've only read the press release, which tend not to emphasize any shortcomings or problems that may exist. We'll track down a copy of the paper and will update this article if we spot any major caveats.

All of that said, the researchers do seem rather excited. "We’re talking about quite a special lump of clay here," said doctoral student Maria Lukatskaya.

The short Drexel University film below is worth a watch.

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