Are you doing a Wordle each day? You probably are – it is growing exponentially, even faster than Covid, although a lot more enjoyable.
For those that don’t know, and that must be very few, there was a guy called Wardle who set up a game called Wordle (ho ho!) and it has gone from less than a 100 users to about 100 million users in less than 3 months. It’s fun, it’s simple, it requires a modicum of brain power, and what is best is that you can’t do it non-stop all day – you can only do it once a day, and the whole world is doing the same Wordle every day. In NZ it drops at midnight. Its probably a reason why I haven’t posted much lately… sorry!
You probably knew all that. What you may not know is that some bright spark set up a link where you could send, via Twitter, your daily Wordle trial, to another program called Townscaper, and then Townscaper can turn your Wordle into what I’m calling a Twordle.
Here’s some links. First, to the original Wordle page (as lots of people are copying). And to Josh Wardle, the inventor,
Secondly, to the Townscaper game (more on that soon!)
Thirdly to the guy who wrote the link between the two (Tarmo byte or @tarmo888 )
And lastly, to the person who alerted me to this all: Oskar Stalberg
But what has all this got to do with Architecture and Design? Well, if you can follow me so far, and hopefully play the video below, you can see that the Wordle attempt can transform into a fun piece of architecture…. and then I got lost down a rabbit hole… or more accurately, a twordlehole…
Just because I’m so pleased with Townscaper I’m going to include a series of Twordles that I have created. The lovely thing about Townscaper is that they have programmed it to be live – the water sloshes around, birds fly in and settle on the roofs, and then fly off again if your house building got too close…
So, purely because I have, I include for you here a series of images that make an architecture, that looks at times like a cross between Sir Ian Athfield on acid (as if he ever needed that!) and Sir Clough William-Ellis at Portmeirion (aka the Prisoner’s island home).
What I’m going to try and do next is to recreate Athfield’s house in Amritsar St, using this method…. or perhaps I will model a cycle way all the way to Island Bay, with some appropriate new architecture. Hours of fun.
Normal transmission, if there is such a thing, will eventually resume…
Some of those would look rather pretty in Oriental Bay.
Indeed – imagine them rising up, at the end of the boardwalk with the changing rooms, or better still, growing from the remains of the reef that is exposed on the Eastern end at high tide…
It’s all quite Studio Ghibli…
https://www.itl.cat/wallview/hmiTmi_download-kikis-delivery-service-town/
Indeed, quite Ghibli. A question for you Starve, as I know you will know, being a film buff and all – How do you pronounce Ghibli? With a B? or not? I never know….
I always go with the “b” myself. Although since Ghislaine hit the headlines, I find it doesn’t pay to be too sure of these things…
And then, just in this morning, there is a comment from a colleague too shy to post up here, about an “Architectural Conspiracy theory” that you may or may not have seen recently, on the Spinoff:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/irl/14-01-2022/inside-the-wild-architecture-conspiracy-theory-gaining-traction-online
Is this seriously a conspiracy theory or just a rather dry piece of tongue in cheek fun? I mean, nobody really takes it seriously, do they? But then again, I thought that with the “911 truthers” who were a bunch of fucking nutters, and of course more lately, and even more stupidly, Donal T. Rump and its followers, who are the absolute retarded pygmies of the intellectual world, as we have all sadly learned.
“Thousands of people online are convinced of an alternative historical truth” – but do they, really? And – are there really “thousands”? or is it more like just one, the author Josie Adams ?
I volunteer the Beehive as an apparent alien artifact.
I think that they like to think of themselves as all the bees in the Hive, but sometimes, I think the varroa mite is winning….
This Tartarian thing is popping up everywhere
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n20/owen-hatherley/amerikanist-dreams
Well that was interesting – I haven’t been to the London Review of Books for years – but my computer hated that. Kept trying to load, but wouldn’t, and eventually spat the dummy and crashed. Maybe Owen Hatherley is a bit toxic? Anyway – I’ll have to take your word for it….
The Russian fascination with futuro-modernism and all things American didn’t stop there. The 1959 World’s Fair in Moscow featured Buckminster Fuller, the Eames, Richard Nixon and a faked up luxury kitchen. All thanks to massive funding from the CIA.
http://www.georgenelsonfoundation.org/george-nelson/works/american-national-exhibition-moscow-124.html
Apparently, though, according to grandson Eames Demetrios who attended a 60th anniversary event, what had persisted in the popular Moscow memory was the cars – tonnes of Detroit’s finest and finniest.
And just like that it was over,,,,
“Wordle, a simple game that has gone viral in recent weeks, has been acquired for “an undisclosed price in the low-seven figures” by The New York Times Company”
“<.bFor now, Wordle will remain free to play, and gameplay will not change, The Times noted.”
https://whnt.com/news/the-new-york-times-buys-wordle-for-low-seven-figures/
Oh that IS a shame – well done to Mr Josh Wardle, he deserves to get millions for it, but now it is likely to be monetised by having to pay to use, or it will be stuffed full of shitty advertising, as per most of the world these days. Advertising truely is the scourge of the western world in my eyes…. as it stands, The Eye of the Fish may be the only thing left in the world that does not have any advertising. And long may that continue!
Yes you and Postsecret
Post Secret – that was a new one for me, so thanks for that. I’m not sure that I am their target market. But the Guardian today had some more info on him:
“He is the toast of New York, of London – and of a small village called Llanddewi Rhydderch. Just four months after Josh Wardle invented the wonderfully simple and soothing puzzle Wordle, he is a megastar in the world of games and is a great deal wealthier after the New York Times acquired his creation for a seven-figure sum. But back in his home village in south-east Wales, which has a church, a chapel, an ancient yew tree and not much else, Wardle’s family expressed quiet joy at their son’s success, and also, perhaps, a little bemusement.
“We’re very proud but it won’t change him at all,” said his father, Christopher, a farmer. “He’s not interested in the money side of things. He just likes creating. This all got so big so quickly.”
Apropos of nothing Frank Lloyd Wright apparently designed this place for Ayn Rand
https://www.designboom.com/architecture/three-frank-lloyd-wright-unbuilt-houses-digital-reconstructions-01-30-2022/
and no Post Secret is neither of our target market
Terribly angsty