A neat flash-based map of Ile-de-France property prices. Price rises of over 100% in the past five years aren't uncommon, it seems / Going the extra mile to make mass transit more personal, by William J. Mitchell. Can MIT's Robot Car concept really save our cities? The Smart Cities site, and more on the City Car / Echochrome, Chuckie Egg meets M.C.Escher (via plasticbag).

Old but still good, a Pelican set / wonderful photos from Squirmelia / a tour around the Lomakov Museum of Antique Cars / abandoned asylum, The Kirkbride Buildings / Arkitera, an architecture weblog from Turkey (linked before, but interesting pictures of FOA's new shopping centre outside Istanbul / a set of speculative vehicles at CWW Car Design.

The Aquarium ('purveyors of the finest and roughest in art and publishing') are promoting 'the idiocy of idears', a free book without 'ISBN, barcode or author'. To be distribute covertly: find 'under the Fiction, Poetry, Art, Philosophy and/or Travel sections in Central London bookshops from 10th August and other locations around the UK after that.' A combination of Steal this Book and BookCrossing.

London in Oblivion, Allen Varney in the Escapist magazine on the intersection of modelling, architecture and gaming, and why 'real architects laugh at game engines'. The piece revisits things favourites Digital Urban, doing remarkable things with off-the-shelf gaming software and tools like SketchUp. According to Dr. Andrew Hudson-Smith of Digital Urban, 'Every architect's office should have an Xbox 360 or PS3, if only to remind them of the level of graphics they should be aiming for.' (the relentless glossiness of contemporary visualisation makes us wonder whether there is an 'uncanny valley' for buildings).

More at DU: Mapping Games, and a link to UpNext, a 'next generation local city guide' that is a 3D city in your browser. There's also the sad news that the epic Virtual London model developed by Hudson-Smith and the team at CASA (Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) won't make it into Google Earth / related, Spatial Miscellany, a weblog / images of Peckham Past / perspective correction: how to simulate an architectural projection.

Photographs of Phoenix Historical Buildings by Michael Lundgren / so where are the great pictures on flickr? A question, with answers, from Alec Soth / monkey magic, 'thoughts on thinking', a weblog / Zumthor's Kapelle St.Bruder Klaus, a flickr set / a post on the worst coffee in the world encourages a micro-debate and brewing tips, spanning several years, over at City of Sound (have a good journey and be in touch soon). posted by things at 09:35 / 0 comments