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Secret Studio: Suspended Mobile Room Slides & Hides Under Busy Overpass

25 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

Designer Fernando Abellanas has built a remarkable micro-dwelling in Valencia, Spain, that slides into position under a bridge, suspended safely out of sight from the traffic passing by above.

The clever construction of the room’s frame allows it to roll over tilted sections of beam, making its way between a lofted and secluded position and the top of a slope on the other side for entry and egress.

A hand-crank lets the dweller move the enclosure back and forth without any need for an external power source. Furniture and fixtures, meanwhile, stay put, attached to the vertical span of bridge supports where the room docks.

Embracing a minimalist approach and industrial palette, this urban refuge has flexible walls that can form an enclosure and act as privacy screens, allowing the occupant to hiding completely behind raised plywood surfaces.

A light-touch approach means the structure leaves essentially no footprint – it glides lightly around existing infrastructure. And its built-in mobility mechanism assures castle-like protection, vertical space acting as a natural moat.

Indeed, the designs were based on childhood fantasies and real-worldassociations with hard-to-access spaces like tree houses and table forts easy for children to access but hard for adults.

The dull hum of the road is a bit like the buzz of a family going about its business — the buffer of concrete also dampens some of the noise, making the space less loud than it would be to occupy a space alongside the highway.

Abellanas has long been fascinated with furniture as well as forts, and his work with other artists and architects reflects an ongoing interest in paradigm-challenging designs do-it-yourself guerrilla interventions.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Suspended: 13 Hung-Out-To-Dry Abandoned Cable Cars

08 Feb

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Suspended in time and place, only eagles dare go where these abandoned cable cars once reached as these glorified zip lines lost their zip long ago.

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If you build it, they will come… or not, as was the case of the ill-conceived Okutama Ropeway. Constructed in 1962 at an artificial lake west of Tokyo, the two-car transportation system operated for only four years before shutting down for good. Perhaps the builder/owner was unaware of plans to construct a bridge that would make his pride & joy redundant.

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That said, the cars and associated infrastructure have held up remarkably well over the past half-century! Kudos to Lee Chapman of Tokyo Times for visiting this long-forgotten relic and photo-documenting its current (as of July, 2013) status. This video by Riding Japan explores the abandoned and, to quote the videographer “quite eerie” station.

Georgia On My Mind

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Lovely “Seaside Park” in Gagra, Abkhazia suffered significant damage during the early-1990s Abkhaz-Georgian Conflict; the still unsettled political situation and a chronic lack of funding has constrained any moves toward restoration. A single yellow gondola remains in place – its red-painted partner was blown up some years ago during the filming of a movie.

High Wire Act

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Can a cable car system that’s lost its cars still move you? Yes it can… figuratively speaking. Flickr user philm1205 snapped the spindly remnants of an abandoned Soviet cable-way in August of 2007, fifteen years after the fall of communism. One thing about the commies, at least they made the cable cars run on time – or run, period.

“Top Of Youth”

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It’s the “Top of Youth” and the bottom of the barrel in Berlin, courtesy of Flickr user TheSleeping03 and the photo above. Taken on February 6th, 2014 at an old abandoned theme park in the German capital, the image presents the permanently-grounded gondola in a raw yet oddly appealing light.

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Suspended 13 Hung Out To Dry Abandoned Cable Cars

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Anti-Gravity Hotel: Sleep Suspended in Levitating Space Suit

26 May

[ By Steph in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

antigravity sleep 1

If various aches and pains or a childhood fantasy about being an astronaut make you wish you could sleep in antigravity, here’s a way to make it happen – sort of. A group of architecture students at the AA Visiting School Slovenia have designed a ‘levitating’ suit suspended from ropes so you can find out what it feels like to sleep in ‘3D.’

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The suit is essentially a bunch of mini hammocks that support individual parts of the body, including the feet, knees, hips, arms and neck. Pulleys allow the wearer to adjust the ropes to distribute their weight in whatever way feels most comfortable, so you can recreate your favorite sleeping position in mid-air.

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It’s part of a project called KSEVT Hotel, which invites visitors to spend a night at the Cultural Centre of European Space Technologies in rural Slovenia. The experience is meant to replicate what it feels like to sleep in space, minus the straps that astronauts use to keep themselves from bumping into things in the night.

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“The site-specific added value to the KSEVT exhibition is the experience of levitation in an environment of gravity. The team’s field of research was the transition from conventional 2D sleeping to the experience of 3D sleeping.”

It’s an intriguing idea, and can probably be quite comfortable if you adjust all the ropes just right, but you’d better hope you don’t have to go to the bathroom once you’re strapped in.

[ By Steph in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

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Sunken Sky: Courtyard Light Well Suspended in Warehouse Loft

20 Feb

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

converted warehouse 1

A formerly dark, poorly ventilated caviar warehouse is illuminated naturally thanks to a sunken courtyard with a retractible glass roof, connecting the interior spaces to an outdoor terrace, acting as both a space and a sort of floating lantern in the unit. Many of the historic details of the 1884 building in Manhattan’s Tribeca North have been preserved in the renovation, including weathered roof joists, antique windows and brick walls.

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The converted loft by architect Andrew Franz occupies the top floor and roof of the old industrial building, reusing as many of the original materials as possible. The glass courtyard functions as a mid-level in the open-plan space, with a new staircase with reclaimed walnut roof joists as the treads and landing leading up to the transparent indoor/outdoor room.

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When the retractible roof is open, fresh air flows freely into the living space. When closed, it functions as a 150-square-foot skylight during the day. An additional staircase provides access to a rooftop garden planted with native, low-water plant species.

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New walnut cabinetry connects the modern elements of the loft to the historic, highlighting the building’s industrial past and simultaneously creating a space that feels warm and comfortable. Vivid orange in the kitchen backsplash and furniture add pops of color throughout the mostly-neutral space.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Hybrid Desk & Storage Rise Up to Meet Suspended Staircase

06 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

steel wood staircase design

Playing tricks on the eye, this split-style stairway merges a desk and storage below with a framework of steps hanging down from above, all with a daunting-looking gap left in the middle.

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Dutch designer Mieke Meijer hand-crafted this hybrid interior system for the home of Just Haasnoot in The Hague, inspired in part by the black and white photography of Bernd and Hilla Becher.

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The frame-based structure was made to save space and maintain a sense of openness. The unfolding angular geometries add elements of visual interest to a toned-down space while accommodating various storage surfaces, nooks and crannies.

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The use of alternating steps allows for a steep incline to be safely traversed, though some might still question the absence of a hand rail (which would be mandated by building code in most locations).

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This approach seems particularly well-suited to places with less-used upstairs spaces – as the photographs show, it would be easy to let certain steps simply become shelves most of the time, then be cleared off when guests come to stay in the spare attic bedroom.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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In Orbit: Transparent Suspended Net Playground in the Sky

12 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Tomas Saraceno Net Installation 1

A suspension of transparent nets hovering 80 feet over the floor of an indoor courtyard makes for a surreal playground for the brave, and a terrifying sight for those afraid of heights. Artist Tomás Saraceno created this 2500-square-meter installation at the Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Dusseldorf, Germany for visitors to explore.

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The interactive exhibit invites museum guests to walk out onto the cloud-like nets amidst transparent and mirrored spheres, for the sensation of hovering in some kind of dream space. The steel wire construction spans the museum’s glass cupola on three levels.

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The transparency of the nets make it look like the people engaging with the installation are floating when viewed from ground level or some of the mid-floors. “When several people enter the audacious construction simultaneously, their presence sets it into motion, altering the tension of the steel wires and the intervals between the three meshwork levels,” states the museum on its website.

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“By virtue of its magnitude and radically, in orbit has no precedent in Saraceno’s oeuvre to date. Even visitors who do not wish to climb the net or hang suspended above the abyss, but who choose instead to explore the installation in exclusively visual terms are confronted with themes of flight, falling, and floating, are inevitably gripped by the archetypal emotions associated with these states.”

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A previous installation by Saraceno, ‘On Space Time Foam,’ utilizes a similar effect with translucent PVC membranes at a museum in Milan. The work plays on the ‘mutual dependence’ that becomes necessary when multiple people are moving within the installation at once.

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Urban Fabric: Stretched, Stitched & Suspended Mobile Home

15 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Urbex & Parkour. ]

fabric mobile urban home

Imagine rooms that expanded and compressed depending on occupancy, then stretch your mind to conceptualize a whole home that works the same way – it folds virtually flat then unfolds as you move through it.

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Thi sultra-slim temporary dwelling design, dubbed Cocoon by Tanya Shukstelinsky, is early-stage and essentially conceptual at this point. It is nonetheless compelling as an idea and prototype for nomadic urban explorers – a thin and lightweight way to slip oneself in between buildings or into other cracks in a city.

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A series of handholds and other slim elements are stitched into place to create horizontal and vertical spatial dividers as well as other essential domestic elements like stairs, seats, sleeping platforms … even a fillable bathtub. Then, of course, like a tent without poles, the entire structure can be packed up into a highly portable unit, too.

fabric temporary portable shelter

Giving a new, more literal meaning to the phrase ‘urban fabric’, the designer writes: “I came up with an idea for a space between two stitched layers of fabric. A person who lives in the space can move upon the stitches. The stitches are dividing the fabric into different areas – dining area, sleeping area and bath.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Urbex & Parkour. ]

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Beautiful Suspended Bridge Hangs from Helium Balloons

31 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Neither this installation artist nor his work are full of hot air – this is no optical illusion or structural trick, but an actual bring hanging in mid-air that can actually hold the weight of a human user.

Oliver Grossetête (images by Thierry Bal and Toby Savage) crafted this lovely slatwork structure from rope, wood and synthetic fabric, installed over water at a Japanese garden for the Tatton Park Biennial.

To call Grossetête obsessed with everyday uses for balloons would be an understatement. His other projects include a floating bench (strung up to helium-filled orbs) and a conceptual transportation system that (you guessed it) soars through the sky on the back of giant balloons.

In this case, three large, evenly-spaced balloons create a series of rises in the path below, while the rope-and-wood slats allow some flexibility as the construct rises, falls and sways in the wind.

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Posts Tagged ‘Suspended’

Secret Studio: Suspended Mobile Room Slides & Hides Under Busy Overpass