21st Century boy

zoom

James Law’s futuristic designs wouldn’t be out of place on a sci-fi movie set. But some of the celebrated architect’s more ambitious ideas are coming close to reality in the Gulf.

The mirror in James Law’s bathroom doesn’t take any prisoners. Instead, it takes his blood pressure, checks his temperature and tracks his body mass index. When Law puts on weight, the mirror tells him to his face.

“There’s a very important distinction between feeling unfit and knowing the data on how unfit you are,” says Law with a rueful smile. “You know that you’ve put on weight, but to actually be told that you’re 5kg over what you thought you were is another issue altogether.”

Law’s tormentor is known as an ‘intelligent mirror’. It gathers data about each user and allows them to track health trends, storing a mine of information online as well as presenting it on the mirror’s surface, should the user wish to be reminded. And this good-looking glass is just one of a series of gadgets the Hong Kong-born architect has become familiar with since he founded James Law Cybertecture (JLC) in January 2001.

“I got married last year, and before that my fiancée and I were living in an apartment I built to test all of the technologies. We almost split up several times because of that,” he recalls, deadpan.

Today, JLC is synonymous with innovation, blending the latest technology with the latest in building design through more than 100 staff in five offices in Asia and the Middle East.

All of which meant that just because Law’s “guinea-pig” apartment was in Hong Kong, the couple weren’t stuck with a Kowloon view. Thanks to a technology dubbed ‘Cybertecture Reality’, which allows users to stream real-time scenery instead of the view they currently have, their windows were open to the world. “We have a home in Thailand and we placed some cameras on the beach. Every morning walls came down mechanically and streamed the view of the beach to our apartment in Hong Kong,” explains Law. “We were living in Hong Kong, but admiring a view of Phuket.”

Print | Email | Discuss this article

| Share |

READERS' COMMENTS

Click here to post a comment

Add your Comment All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *	(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments
Enter the words above *
Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM