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Posts Tagged ‘Huge’

Huge Color-Coded ‘LEGO House’ Designed by BIG Now Open in Denmark

11 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Designed by architects from BIG, the new LEGO House is itself huge: a 130,000-square-foot ‘experience center’ welcoming people of all ages to play with and appreciate this ubiquitous toy.

“It has been a dream for me for many years to create a place that will give our visitors the ultimate LEGO experience,” said former president and CEO of LEGO, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen. A mesmerizing set of drone videos below show the building under construction and upon completion.

“With LEGO House, we celebrate creativity and the strength of learning through play. When they play, children learn the basic skills that they need, such as creativity, collaboration and problem-solving abilities.”

Located on the company’s main campus in Billund, Denmark, the building looks like it was made of 21 supersized blocks. Inside, differently colored zones denote different functions — red areas are for creative skills, blue for cognitive skills, green for social skills and yellow for emotional skills.

The venue includes paid attractions as well as experiences that are free and open to the public. Approximately 250,000 guests are expected annually, with around 2,500 visitors on peak days. Fans of their visit can take home something tangible from the experience as well:

The LEGO House opened its doors to the public in late September, coinciding with the release of a 744-piece kit of the building itself.

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Calm & Centered: Cemetery Tunnel Trek Reveals Huge Hill-Wrapped Buddha

13 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

A massive landscape intervention near Sapporo, Japan by architect Tadao Ando both conceals and reveals a 40-foot statue of the Buddha in the midst of a rural cemetery.

The designer was tasked with highlighting the scale of the figure — rather than setting it against something smaller, though, he surrounded the sculpture with a gently sloped and plant-populated hillside.

Thus enclosed, only the head is visible from the outside. Visitors have to make their way through a 120-foot tunnel to get the full effect, looking up at the statue from below. An arched concrete rotunda is revealed, and natural light casts down through a void above.

The design intention was to create a vivid spatial sequence,” says Ando, “beginning with the long approach through the tunnel in order to heighten anticipation of the statue, which is invisible from the outside.” Then, “when the hall is reached, visitors look up at the buddha, whose head is encircled by a halo of sky at the end of the tunnel.”

The greenery draped along the new landscape is designed to change with the seasons, blooming in spring and summer, thinning out in the fall then covered with snow in the winter. Visitors coming at different times of year will thus also experience the sculpture in different ways each time.

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Graffiti by Drone: Team of Spray-Painting UAVs to Make Huge Mural in Berlin

05 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Taking to the skies in Berlin, a set of color-coded drones aims to make the biggest spray-painted mural ever made (at least by robots) using unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with programmed paintings. And this is just the beginning: painting drones could enable civic artwork in hard-to-reach places, and eventually serve practical applications, re-coating infrastructure and architecture.

Designed by architect (and director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab) Carlo Ratti’s, the Paint By Drone system employs sets of four drones, each loaded with its own paint tank. Like a CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key [Black]) system much like modern printers, each contributes a layer to the piece. Together, these layers can add up to a full spectrum of color possibilities.

Ratti’s team has used drones before — as tour guides at MIT, for instance — and is now experimenting with ways to engage them with other activities in the built environment, testing their limits in a more public and large-scale setting. In this case, the sheeting that wraps scaffolding, ordinarily left blank and dull (or used for advertising) can be dynamically turned into something beautiful.

The drones can be adapted to work with different inputs, allowing passers by to submit designs, for instance, or to select sections of canvas to paint. For now, they are being deployed on a surface stretched across scaffolding, but the idea is to ultimately enable public art in more places — precision-guided small drones can reach high up on (or under) structures like bridges that would be difficult (and dangerous) for people to access directly.

More on the mechanics of the system: “A central management system regulates the drones’ operations in real-time, from image painting to flight, using an advanced monitoring system that precisely tracks the UAV’s position, detecting multiple devices simultaneously. Furthermore, a protective net placed on the scaffolding’s’ cover allows the drones to move into a safe space. Drones can draw content submitted digitally, via an app. The artistic input can come from either crowdsourced platforms or from a curator orchestrating the contributions of several people.”

“Paint by Drone represents a next step,” in their research, reports Carlo Ratti Associati, “on both vertical drawing and open-source design, which includes projects such as OSARC (Open Source Architecture) at the 2012 Istanbul Design Biennial and the Vertical Plotter system featured at Milan Expo 2015’s Future Food District, which entered the Guinness World Record as the world’s largest plotted image. The new concept pushes the previous boundaries of time and space, having the potential to be installed in just a few hours in a city and paint on any surface.”

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Culinary Arts: Rock Candy Geodes Hidden Inside Huge Chocolate Shells

13 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

Just like the dull rocks that often reveal geode formations in nature, one would not expect to find such a sweet surprise inside what look a bit like giant Easter eggs (or perhaps dinosaur droppings).

As a final thesis project for the Culinary Institute of America in New York, Alex Yeatts and Abby Lee Wilcox spent months crafting these monstrous treats.

After 6 months of hard work @alex.yeatts and I cracked open our chocolate geodes!!! I am so thankful to have had this experience. #proud2bcia #chocolate #geode #foodart #chefstalk #candy #bakerylife #confectionery #foodie #foodporn #cny #pastry #buzzfeast #geodecake

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Orange-red and purple crystals inside look remarkably natural, particularly the latter (resembling typical amethysts). While hardly healthy, one could imagine subsisting on these gigantic desserts indefinitely.

In a similar vein (treats imitating nature), the “flower cakes” (and cupcakes) of Iven Kawi are stunning works of culinary art, so lifelike one could imagine being pricked by the needles on cacti or grind one’s teeth on the sandy landscapes (via Colossal).

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Trinity River Park: Huge New 10,000 Acre Urban Nature District for Dallas

18 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

green-park-dallas

Designed to restore and augment the city’s floodplain, this new green recreation space features thousands of acres of forest as well as playgrounds, lawns and trails. Upon completion, it will be one of the biggest urban green space initiatives in the country.

park-view-flood-plain

In a state not exactly known for its greenery (or environmentalism), this project in Texas by Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates is designed in part to address a critical and ongoing issue: flooding damage during severe weather events.”I believe we can create the most value and the greatest benefit to our citizens when we complete projects around nature,” said mayor Mike Rawlings  of the project.

trinity-park-paths

trinity-park-renderings

The park aims to serve both recreational and engineering purposes, shoring up the city against future floods while creating a great green asset for citizens and visitors. Developed in collaboration with government engineers, it will be part community resource but also (and critically) part infrastructural insurance against the effects of climate change.

dallas-flood-plain-present

dallas-flood-plain-project

The development is part of a larger series of projects along the flood plain and will link into over seventy miles of regional trails. At an estimated cost of $ 50 million, the park is not cheap but surprisingly inexpensive given its scope and aims. So far, a private donor has stepped forward offering $ 20 million of the funds needed, leaving a smaller bill for the city and state governments as well.

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VW Doubleback: Hacked Camper Van Unfolds into Huge Mobile Home

09 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

doubleback huge

The recent comeback of modernized (and modified) mobile homes has seen many novel transformations of cars and trucks into various sizes of living space, but the Doubleback may have more secret additional area than any other vehicle of its size and class.

These modified T5 transports have a pop-up top, but also a slide-out back adding up to six feet of extra length – each of these extensions can sleep two people.

doubleback diagram

Self-leveling feet drop down from the rear extension, making sure the cantilevered zone remains level at all times, including on variegated terrain.

doubleback rear

Further exterior space can be covered as well via a roll-out canopy top or custom flip-up door, turning parking lots and campgrounds into cookout spaces and backyards.

doubleback interior

Various configurations are possible, sleeping up to four people (drop-down beds in the back and additional sleeping space above) and seating depending on the design details. Newer models also include space for a camping toilet and cooking amenities.

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Rainbow Connection: Huge Mural Spans 200 Houses on Hillside in Mexico

01 Jun

painted town after

Representing an enormous collective effort, this remarkable mural manages to look complete from a distance while, upon closer inspection, brightening 209 houses occupied by 452 families, impacting the lives of 1808 residents of this hillside community.

painted town before

painted town hillside

Even more remarkably, the color selections for different sections (totalling over 200,000 square feet of paint) were worked out in conjunction with those occupying the houses of Palmitas, who were asked about their favorite colors and included in the design scheme. The project has been credited with reducing youth violence and local crime rates while creating jobs for the area.

painted town tour

painted wall house closeup

The group orchestrating this massive undertaking is called Germen Crew, self-named after germs, the seeds of ideas and art. Led by Mibe, a street artist from nearby Mexico City, the group sees itself as much as collection of community organizers and facilitators as artists or creators.

painted town mexico

For them, residents provide multiplier effects strengthening project, process and outcome and making for a much different endeavor than murals made under the radar by individuals. In turn, the artists used a simple pallet of conventional and replicable paint colors, making it both easy to maintain but also enabling those in the neighborhood to turn doing so into a collaborative activity.

painted town steps

Like the Favela Project in Rio or Blue Town of Morocco, there are secondary benefits for the locals as well, including projected increases in tourism. In the case of the latter, the strange site of a single-colored town brought in close to 100,000 visitors in the six months following its completion. This project was completed with support from regional governments as well as the national government of Mexico


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Scaffolding Staircase: Huge Steps to Rise from Rotterdam Plaza

18 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

urban staircase

A temporary installation to commemorate the rebuilding of the city after the second world war, this massive staircase made from scaffolding will lead visitors up onto a postwar structure in the heart of Rotterdam.

scaffolding staircase close up

Standing 60 feet high, the staircase of the 180 steps end on top of the Groot Handelsgebouw, an early building from the postwar construction effort that began 75 years ago. Dubbed simply The Stairs, this project by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV will also involve film screenings and events on the rooftop.

central station rotterdam

If the resulting temporary roof-topping venue is sufficiently popular, a more permanent means of access may replace the temporary stairs.

mvrdv market hall

Other temporary and permanent architectural and urban design projects are also being developed and opened as part of the 75th-year commemoration (above: Market Hall with digital mural by MVRDV)

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Tone Tunnels: Huge Forest Megaphones Amplify Sounds of Nature

25 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

tone tunnel art installatoin

Large enough for visitors to enter and sit within, three gigantic wooden megaphones constructed in the forests of Estonia amplify ambient sounds of the environment.

forest huge megaphone

forest stage hiker

Nearly ten feet in diameter each, huge cones render quiet sounds of rustling leaves and birds chirping remarkably audible.

forest wood projection sounds

forest megaphone design

The Tõnu Tunnel installation was conceived of by interior architecture and design students from the Estonian Academy of Arts and implemented with advice from B210 Architects

forest sound project

forest megaphones

Thanks to their size and shape, the megaphones double as seating and shelter as well with space enough for a few hikers to spend the night.

forest musician

Each space can also be used in reverse as well by musical or other (small groups of) stage performers wishing to project sounds outward, or can double as seating for shows in the round.

forest wood construction project

student construction project

Construction of the megaphones was financed by RMK and the interior architecture department of the EAA. Each was built offsite and carefully transported into place.

truck students construction project

forest student construction

According to Valdur Mikita, a writer and semiotician involved in the project, “The trademark of Estonia is both the abundance of sounds in our forest as well as the silence there. In the megaphones, thoughts can be heard. It is a place for browsing the ‘book of nature,’ for listening to and reading the forest through sound.” 

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Abandoned Ship: Spacecraft Discovered in Huge Derelict Hangar

18 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

space shuttle destroyed prototype

Remarkably intact and beautifully documented by a Russian urban explorer, this space shuttle prototype rests in a massive above-ground graveyard at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, deserted due to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Originally destined to dock with Soviet space station Mir, the model was almost finished and had even completed a test flight when the facility was shut down in the early 1990s.

space shuttle view above

space shuttle interior angle

space craft close up

space shuttle tail section

space shuttle building exterior

Photographer Ralph Mirebs identified the massive (yet somehow still unassuming) structure as an excellent target for exploration, but did not know just how many surprises were in store for him when he took his camera into the ruins. Positioning himself on catwalks and even entering spacecraft models, he was able to take pictures of an amazing array of spaces and equipment.

space shuttle cockpit view

space shuttle cockpit side

space shuttle interior debris

space shuttle inside

space shuttle looking back

As incredible as the outside of the craft may be, the insides are all the more fascinating, filled with the equipment intended to take it to space that somehow seems surprisingly fragile right here on the ground.

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Abandoned Ship Spacecraft Discovered In Huge Derelict Hangar

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