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Posts Tagged ‘Bricks’

LEGO Ideas design recreates the iconic Nikon F3 out of plastic bricks

29 Dec

Photographer and LEGO designer Ethan ‘LegoDog0126’ Brossard has recreated the iconic Nikon F3 film camera as a LEGO kit featuring 549 pieces. The design has been submitted to the LEGO Ideas website where it was selected as a Staff Pick on November 25. At this point in time, the submission has nearly 1,400 supporters and 190 days remaining for others to support it.

Brossard detailed his project in a recent post on Emulsive, where he explained that his LEGO recreation of the Nikon F3 is only a bit larger than the actual camera. The render features an impressive degree of detail for something made from small plastic bricks and other components, including almost all of the levers found on the F3, the main dials and a plastic representation of the SLR’s mirror.

Though the renders include a blocky roll of film, Brossard notes that it can’t actually fit in the camera due to the thickness of the LEGO bricks. As well, the recreation features an approximation of the Nikon AI-S prime lens. The shiny chrome featured in the renders isn’t actually a color produced by LEGO, meaning anyone who attempts to build the model will need to use gray or some other color.

Brossard has shared a Google Drive folder containing the Studio and Ldraw model files for anyone to download. As well, the model can be found on Rebrickable. The submission will need to achieve 10,000 supporters on LEGO Ideas in order for its to undergo a LEGO Review, at which point the company will evaluate the design for its potential as an official LEGO kit.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Splitting Bricks: Architectural Art Installation Tears a London Building Apart

10 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

A London building appears to have fallen victim to an earthquake tremor or foundation collapse, with a jagged section of its brick facade split in half and threatening to collapse altogether. But the deteriorating appearance of this otherwise pristine structure isn’t quite what it seems. Artist Alex Chinneck used 4,000 bricks to create the effect of a ripped piece of paper to create ’Six Pins and a Half Dozen Needles,’ a nearly 66-foot tall sculpture outside a mixed-use complex known as Assembly London.

With the paper reference, the artist pays tribute to the site’s former life as home to the publishing company Hammersmith. Chinneck says he spent months scanning torn sheets of paper to find just the right pleasing edge for the split. The sculpture blends into the main building behind it, partially obscuring a few windows, and its elevated position makes it a real eye-catcher. It’s two bricks deep, and took 14 months to complete, with the help of structural engineers, steelworkers and brick makers. Its stainless steel framework is bolted and welded to the building behind it.

Chinneck previously dropped jaws and raised eyebrows in London with two particularly dramatic installations: an upside-down car clinging to a curling piece of pavement outside the Southbank Centre, and a brick facade sliding off the front of a building in Kent. Unlike these previous works, however, ‘Six Pins’ is permanent.

“The work was onceived to engage people in a fun and uplifting way,” says Chinneck. “Although we use real brick, it was designed with a cartoon-like quality to give the sculpture an endearing artifice and playful personality. I set out to create accessible artworks and I sincerely hope this becomes a popular landmark for London and positive experience for Londoners.”

Paper Cuts: 40 Puzzling Pop Culture Silhouettes

Some people – and characters – are so recognizable, we can tell who they are just by the outlines of their heads. All it takes is a few basic details, like a hat, a necklace or a certain …

Road A-Peel: Upside-Down Car Clings to Curling Street

An upside-down, cherry-red car clings improbably to a slice of a concrete parking lot as it curls up over itself in this gravity-defying installation by British artist Alex Chinneck. Hanging in …

Put a Miniature Diorama On It: Amazing Tiny Ring Box Art

A vendor at a market in Paris handed artist Talwst an antique ring box and said, ‘I want to see you do something with this.’ From that chance encounter has sprung an entire collection of tiny …

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Rebuilding Blocks: Mobile Factory Turns Disaster Debris into Modular Bricks

26 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

mobile-factory-homes-copy

In the wake of intentional demolition or unexpected disasters, the Mobile Factory system can be shipped inside just two cargo containers and begin to turn rubble from ruins into building blocks for reconstruction.

Developed in The Netherlands, the technology filters concrete from other rubble, which is then cast into interlocking blocks (like LEGO bricks) that require no joinery to form stable walls. These units can be stacked without specialized training or equipment, making it possible for communities to rebuild efficiently and cheaply.

The resulting structures are earthquake-resistant, held together in part by bamboo rods threaded through voids in a certain subset of the wall blocks (which can also be used to thread in utilities, including plumbing and electrical lines).

mobile-factory-walls

Since the system fits into a pair of shipping containers, it can easily be transported from site to site, building blocks close to where they will be used and reducing transit time and costs. The reversibility of this construction approach also means that temporary buildings can be erected quickly in the wake of a disaster. In turn, these can be disassembled or adapted easily in the weeks, months and years following an emergency situation.

Consider the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless. Over five years later and the country is still littered with 25 million tons of construction debris, which technologies like this can help turn into affordable housing. Indeed, the Mobile Factory organization is looking into expanding their work in Haiti, Peru and other countries in need of this tech.

mobile-blocks

“In disasters, you have piles and piles of rubble and the rubble is waste. If you are rich, you buy more bricks and rebuild your home,” said one of the organization’s founders. “But what happens if you are poor? In disasters it is the poorest people who live in the weakest houses and they lose their homes first. I thought, what if you recycled the rubble to build back better homes for poor people?”

Beyond wars and tsunamis in nations further afield, there are potential urban applications in densely-built places like the Europe and the United States: cities like Baltimore and Detroit spend vast amounts of money demolishing buildings (and in some cases: entire blocks), then clear the rubble and put it in landfills. This technology suggests an alternative: reusing on or close to the demolition site, reducing material and energy waste as well post-demolition transportation costs.

Smart Bricks: Life-Size LEGO-Style Blocks for Human Habitats

Aiming to revolutionize the most basic material units of construction, these building blocks snap together like LEGO bricks while leaving space for insulation and infrastructure inside and …

LEGO-Like Architecture: $ 5,000 Homes from Recycled Plastic Blocks

A company in Colombia is tackling plastic waste issues and affordable housing with a single ingenious solution: interlocking LEGO-like bricks that can be used to build houses for a few thousand …

GoGo & Multiplo: Modular Building Blocks for Kids & Adults

Two very similar designs with somewhat different audiences, Multiplo emphasizes their kit-of-parts approach as a means toward making convertible adult furniture, while Gogo Blocks are presented …

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LEGO Shadow Show: Masses of Toy Bricks Reveal Surprising Silhouettes

27 Aug

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

LEGO GIF

What looks like no more than an unweildy mass of Lego bricks stuck together into an abstract shape reveals itself to be not just one but two separate intricate shadow-casting designs. Artist John V. Muntean mounts his unusual sculptures on a special table to rotate them into just the right position in front of a spotlight so we can see what’s hidden within the positive and negative spaces created by the bricks.

LEGO Shadows 6

LEGO Shadows 1

The artist calls it a ‘magic angle sculpture,’ and it’s just the latest of an impressive collection he’s created over the past couple decades. This appears to be the first time he’s worked with Lego bricks, though – the rest are sculpted wood.

LEGO Shadows 5

lego sculpture 2

lego sculpture

“As a scientist and artist, I am interested in how perception influences our theory of the universe,” says Muntean in his artist statement. “A Magic Angle Sculpture appears to be nothing more than an abstract wooden carving, skewered with a rod and mounted on a base. however, when lit from above and rotated at the magic angle (54.74 degrees) it will cast three alternating shadows. Every 120 degrees of rotation, the amorphous shadows evolve into independent forms. Our scientific interpretation of nature often depends upon our point of view. Perspective matters.”

Pixelated Masterpieces: 3 Classic Paintings in LEGO Form

Chances are, you recognize these images, even though they’re simply arrangements of a few dozen colored LEGO bricks. Squint your eyes, and three of the world’s most famous masterpieces come into …

LEGO Brooklyn: Artist Recreates Borough with Plastic Blocks

Familiar scenes from Brooklyn, from the local flower shop to the train station, are lovingly rendered in pixelated plastic by local resident and artist Jonathan Lopes. Lopes loves BK so much, he …

Smart Bricks: Life-Size LEGO-Style Blocks for Human Habitats

Aiming to revolutionize the most basic material units of construction, these building blocks snap together like LEGO bricks while leaving space for insulation and infrastructure inside and …

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Stronger than Concrete: New Glass Bricks Support Dutch Facade

22 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

glass brick facade

A new type of see-through glass brick used in this Dutch building facade aims to bridge traditional brick with transparency; the assembled bricks have been tested and shown to be as strong as concrete, able to support heavy loads in compression like its opaque competitor.

glass brick assembly

Architecture firm MVRDV applied this new technology to the front of a Chanel shop in Amsterdam that was damaged behind repair, allowing for a see-through storefront that still references local historic brick while using fully-recyclable glass.

glass brick detail

The bricks themselves are held in place with likewise see-through glue and help support the remaining terracotta brickwork on the floor above into which they visually transition. The structurally-sound result stands out against the street, but also lets additional light into the interior of the building.

glass brick details

glass brick in context

This new approach to brick can help mediate between the desire for solidity and openness, providing a cheap alternative to both masonry and glass construction traditions. The construction process was as much a laboratory experiment as an architectural process, involving teams from around the world in different disciplines.

glass brick view

Researchers from Delft University of Technology, engineers at ABT and contractors at Wessels Zeist joined forces to develop and test structural solutions and fabrication techniques, ultimately leading to the development of this new type of brick. The bricks were then cast by a glass company Venice and joined using glue from Delo Industrial Adhesives in Germany. (Photos by Daria Scagliola and Stijn Brakkee).

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Bricks and Scones: British House Built Entirely of Legos

Have you ever wished you could build a Lego house big enough to walk into? UK TV presenter James May and a team of volunteers and builders are doing just that.
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Smart Bricks: Life-Size LEGO-Style Blocks for Human Habitats

09 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

kite bricks building blocks

Aiming to revolutionize the most basic material units of construction, these building blocks snap together like LEGO bricks while leaving space for insulation and infrastructure inside and between them.

kite building block prototype

kite wall construction detail

Designed by Kite Bricks, a startup company with lofty aspirations, these Smart Bricks offer “high thermal control, full passage of pipes, wires, cables and the like, finishes for both indoors and outdoors, extraordinary tensile strength, ease of construction, safety of materials, and total application throughout a structure—floors, ceilings, and walls.”

Among other ecological and cost advantages, a core idea is to reduce the difficulty of construction and the equipment and debris associated with the building process. The bricks can be stacked by hand and are self-supporting from the start – no scaffolding needed.

kite brick window wall

kite lego like building block

As for applications: “The brick is amenable for building houses, buildings, bridges and more.. The block is constructed of high-strength concrete with unique properties that allow for … large savings in electricity expenses associated with seasonal heating and cooling. The block allows for faster, cheaper, more precise, and stronger building than is available through traditional building methods.”

kite life size lego

robotic construction blocks

Whether this approach will replace bricks as we know them remains to be seen, but the next step will certainly involve full-scale prototypes, albeit hopefully ones more creative and attractive than the rough-and-ready examples shown in the video above.

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Brass Meets Bricks: 20 Steampunk LEGO Art Creations

It may seem an incongruous combination but legions of LEGO-maniacs have employed the versatile bricks to create stunning scenes of plasticized steampunk glory.
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