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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Fist-Bump This Crosswalk Signal to Get a Green Light

08 Oct

[ By Steph in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

walkbump 1

Pedestrians approaching a crosswalk button that has been modified with a silicone fist knew exactly what to do in order to get across the street. Anthropomorphizing a common urban fixture, designer duo Alfredo and Alberto make a walk through Los Angeles a lot more fun with nothing more than some silicone, glue and a #walkbump sticker printed with the simple instructions “fist bump to cross.”

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Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 5.20.00 PM

The designers captured video of pedestrians as they encountered the guerrilla installation. Nearly everybody seems game to play along, some snapping selfies. While the Spanish-born designers don’t explain exactly how they made it, all it likely took to create was taking a quick clay mold of the button for a seamless fit, and a separate one of a fist, casting them into one piece in an eye-catching yellow hue.

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rotten apple 1

This ‘quick and dirty’ urban intervention calls to mind the Rotten Apple Project, a series of cheap projects that anyone can replicate in their own cities, from turning a bike rack into a folding seat to screwing coat hooks onto bus stop signs. This kind of active participation in how cities look and function – often without the permission of officials – can enliven public spaces, whether the installations are just for fun or create new uses for existing structures. Check out 12 more creative DIY urban interventions.

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NYC Secrets: 10 Hidden Sights in The City That Never Sleeps

08 Oct

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

NYC secrets mmuseumm 1

Even if you’re sick of the surface-level, tourist-friendly version of New York City, there are still many sights to be seen, including fun little secret installations right under your nose in busy places like Grand Central Terminal and subway platforms. These 10 unexpected and little-known attractions in the New York City area include a tiny gallery in an elevator shaft, a slice of punk history, an actual piece of Berlin and a scenic tram ride straight to a stunning abandoned hospital on an island in the East River.

Whispering Gallery, Grand Central Terminal

NYC secrets whispering

If you see someone with their face in a corner and their lips nearly touching the walls in the middle of Grand Central Terminal, don’t worry – they’re not acting out the last scene of Blair Witch Project. They’re just whispering. The ‘Whispering Gallery’ is an unofficial attraction created by the acoustic properties of the ceiling between two diagonal corners between the archways. Whisper, and the person standing at the opposite end can hear what you’re saying as if you’re talking into a megaphone. Have a friend stand on the other side, or just freak out random passersby, as seen in the video above. It’s located just outside the Oyster Bar.

Pedestrian Shortcut with Waterfall View
NYC secrets 6 1:2 Ave

NYC secrets 6 1:2 Paley

Like something out of Harry Potter, a street marked 6 1/2 Ave offers a semi-secret shortcut from 51st to 57th, and it’s only open to pedestrians. Take a break from screaming cabbies as you stroll (or whatever the New York City version of strolling would be called) down a slightly-slowed-down path through Midtown Manhattan, adjacent to the beautiful 20-foot waterfall in Paley Park. There’s another waterfall at Midtown East’s Greenacre Park at 217 East 51st St., as well as the five located within Central Park.

Remnants of the Berlin Wall

NYC Secrets Paley Park Berlin Wall

Speaking of Paley Park, this little pocket recreation space in the heart of Midtown at 3 East 53rd also boasts five sections of the Berlin Wall, originally located along the Waldemarstrasse and decorated by German artists Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny in 1985.

C-Squat: Punk History in the East Village
NYC Secrets C-Squat 2

NYC Secrets C-Squat
A little bit of New York City’s legendary punk heritage can still be found at 155 Avenue C, nicknamed C-Squat. Squatters claimed the abandoned space in the ‘80s, rebuilding it to make it habitable, and started throwing punk shows in the basement in the ‘90s. The city hammered out an agreement with the long-term residents, allowing them to stay as long as they bring it up to code, so it will soon officially pass into the hands of a bunch of artists and musicians. The walls are still covered in decades’ worth of graffiti and murals. One of the last holdouts of old school punk culture in the city, it’s still used as a location for underground parties.

Musical Subway Installation

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

An unassuming pair of green metal bars blend into the walls of New York City’s 34th Street Subway Station, but pay closer attention and you’ll notice a sign alerting transit riders to an installation called REACH: New York. Created by Christopher Janney in 1995, this weird interactive exhibit features speakers embedded with motion sensors so that when you place your hand in front of one of the holes in the bars, you’ll trigger a sound. Move from one sensor to another to compose your own musical sequence. The artist changes out the sounds every year.

Roosevelt Island Smallpox Hospital
NYC Secrets Roosevelt Island Hospital

NYC Secrets Roosevelt Island Tram

Patients infected with smallpox, leprosy and other highly infectious diseases were once kept quarantined in a hospital on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, which treated about 7,000 people per year between 1856 and 1875. It was abandoned altogether by the 1950s and fell into disrepair before the Landmark Preservation Commission declared it an important part of the city’s heritage, reinforcing the walls. The island has also been home to insane asylums and prisons, and is now a great place to take a riverside walk and get a nice view of the Upper East Side. For the swipe of a MetroCard, you can take a scenic tram to gaze up at the hospital facades, check out a lighthouse and view some public art.

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Nyc Secrets 10 Hidden Sights In The City That Never Sleeps

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[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Chinese Skywalk: World’s Longest Glass Bridge Spans Two Cliffs

07 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

glass suspension bridge

If you thought Twin Peaks was suspenseful, test your mettle on the new glass-bottomed Brave Man’s Bridge connecting two cliffs in the Hunan province of China and spanning nearly 1,000 feet.

glass panel bridge below

glass china walkway

Located in the Shiniuzhai National Geological Park (images by Sina), the bridge employees a new type of glass 25 times stronger than the ordinary variety, achieving its structural purpose despite being just 1 inch thick.

glass kneeling walks

glass bridge above

Framed in steel, the converted bridge previously held wooden walking platforms, but to compete with the rise of glass walkways around the world these were swapped out for glass equivalents.

glass park

glass bridge side

While there are other similarly glass-bottomed bridges arcing out over canyons or crossing natural expanses, this is the longest glass suspension bridge to date. Its engineers have assured the public that it is safe, even if feisty tourists jump on the panels.

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Farm-to-Desk: Vertical Urban Farm Shares Tokyo Office Space

07 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

farm office seating

Two hundred species of edible greens occupy a quarter of this 215,000-square-foot office in Tokyo, Japan, sharing space with thousands of workers who in turn consume harvested fruits, vegetables and rice right in the building’s cafeteria, a direct farm-to-table connection.

tokyo rice paddy

office rice paddy

Plants are expertly interspersed with other functions throughout the building, sustained via soil-based and hydroponic systems, including 1,000 square feet of rice paddies and extensive broccoli fields.

farm bench detail

urban office farm

Kono Designs elaborates on the ways different food-bearing plants occupy any extra (and sometimes hidden) spaces throughout the structure: “Tomato vines are suspended above conference tables, lemon and passion fruit trees are used as partitions for meeting spaces, salad leaves are grown inside seminar rooms and bean sprouts are grown under benches.”

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Farm To Desk Vertical Urban Farm Shares Tokyo Office Space

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Fast-Flipping Flybike Folds for Easy Transport in Seconds

06 Oct

[ By Steph in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

flybike 3

Pull up on the center of this electric bicycle’s frame and the whole thing instantly folds in half, making it easy to tote the smart-phone-connected bike virtually anywhere in the city. The Gi ‘FlyBike’ aims to revolutionize urban commuting with ultimate portability, zero maintenance requirements and an electric system that helps riders ascend tough hills. It’s crafted from ultra-lightweight aircraft grade aluminum, weighing in at just 37 pounds.

flybike 2

The three speed assistance propelling motor gets 64 kilometers (39.7 miles) per charge and can sync with both Androids and iPhones, offering up a GPS tracking system, hands-free navigation system and smart-lock anti-theft system. It’s got full-size 26” wheels, anti-puncture tires that still provide a comfortable ride, and a “trousers-friendly” non-grease belt drive.

flybike 4

flybike 5

You can charge your phone while you’re riding, and smart lights come on automatically after dark when the bike is in use. The FlyBike achieves a top speed of 15mph on the highest level of electric assistance, but you can go faster by pedaling if you’re not in a heavily-trafficked urban area. It takes about four hours to fully charge the battery using an ordinary power outlet.

flybike 6

flybike 7

A mobile app lets you control the lights, lock the bike automatically, loan it to a friend and keep tabs on its location. You can program it to lock automatically when it detects that your phone is 10 feet away from the folded bike.The Gi FlyBike is currently raising funds for production on Kickstarter, and the rewards that’ll get you one of your own start at $ 1,990.

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Lounge in an Alcove: 14 Nooks for Napping & Relaxing

05 Oct

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

nooks h2o 1

Who could be blamed for lounging around reading all day when you’ve got a cozy built-in nook surrounded by books or overlooking a scenic landscape? These nooks, niches, window seats and bunks create tiny sheltered spaces within larger rooms, sometimes stacking enough sleeping spots for eight people onto a single wall.

La Refuge by H2O Architects

nook h2o architects 2

nooks h2O architects 2

nooks h2O architects 3

H2O Architects created an entire apartment full of nooks called ‘La Refuge’ in Menuires, France, embedding multiple levels of twin beds, reading areas and storage space into an oversized wooden cabinet that curves along the wall of the room.

Seating at Raheen Library by Woods Bagot

nooks raheen library

nooks raheen library 2

Architecture firm Woods Bagot inserts cozy reading spaces right into the bookshelves at Raheen Library on the campus of Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

Space-Age Sleeping Nook by Van Staeyen Interior Architects

nooks space bunk 1

nooks space bunk2

Inspired by an Alpine chalet but looking more like something you’d find in a spaceship, this clever bedroom by Van Staeyen Architects fits a partially-hidden bed, closets, a fold-down table and other amenities into a wall-mounted cabinet system in a tiny space.

Pull-Out Reading Lounge

nooks pull out lounge 1

nooks pull-out lounge 2

An elegant curving chaise pulls right out of a bookshelf with the Recamier Reading Corner by Inbar Paradny Kalomidi, and can be tucked back in when you’re done reading.

Teeny-Tiny Reading Nook in a NYC Apartment

Nooks wood NYC 2

nooks wood NYC

A 240-square-foot apartment in New York City gets a more spacious, organized feel with a wooden built-in that adds tons of storage, countertops, a loft and even a tiny ‘library’ nook next to the bed.

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Lounge In An Alcove 14 Nooks For Napping Relaxing

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Nameless Paints: Cleverly Coded Tubes Show Color Composition

05 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

nameless paint content color

Instead of names or swatches, this series of minimalist paints comes in tubes that show off constituent colors that double as lessons about how complex hues and shades are created.

nameless paint closeup view

The nameless tubes are intended to eschew the use of words altogether and thus avoid existing associations, representing contents instead as a combination of three primary colors (cyan, yellow and magenta) with dots indicating relative amounts. The effect simultaneously divorces the product from names and looks in favor of a more abstract representation scheme that recalls unintuitive systems like binary.

nameless paint image series

These 2012 Kokuyo Design Awards-winning visual labels hint at contents and teach kids how to make their own mixtures. The paints themselves will be on sale later this year.

nameless tube paint colors

“By not assigning names to the colors we want to expand the definition of what a color can be, and the various shades they can create by mixing them” says creator Yusuke Imai, who made these with design partner Ayami Moteki (via Colossal and Spoon & Tamago).

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RV There Yet? Abandoned Trailers Of The Salton Sea Shore

05 Oct

[ By Steve in Culture & History & Travel. ]

salton-sea-trailer-pink-6
California’s Salton Sea was once a sparkling desert oasis, attracting vacationers in mobile homes and RVs. The people have gone but their trailers remain.

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salton-sea-trailer-pink-0

Located in Southern California’s Colorado Desert, the Salton Sea was created inadvertently in 1905 when a “perfect storm” of heavy rains and ill-advised construction of irrigation canals allowed the mighty Colorado River to divert into the bone-dry Salton Sink. Though saltier than the Pacific Ocean, the resulting below-sea-level lake sparked a development boom that included resorts, marinas and trailer parks.

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By the late 1950s, however, increasing pollution and a series of massive (and massively smelly) fish die-offs took the bloom off the rose – the number of visitors and residents dropped while many of those who left the area left their unwieldy trailers behind. Some of these long-abandoned trailers have achieved an unlikely sort of fame as photographic subjects – as symbols of post-apocalyptic failed consumerism, they can’t be beat! One of the most well-known abandoned Salton Sea motor homes is the very pink (even the kitchen sink is pink!) trailer photo-documented above by Flickr users nate2b and jawbox57.

Gone, Fishin’

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There are dozens – possibly several hundred – abandoned trailers scattered around the receding shores of the Salton Sea though very few are as artistically decorated as the rather “fishy” example above. Flickr users Jamie Valenta (Jamie V Photography) snapped the Tilapia Trailer in February of 2011 while Erin Yamagata captured one of many possible inspirations on a salt-encrusted beach in January of 2010.

Skinned Game

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You won’t see much graffiti of any type on these abandoned Salton sea trailers but that’s not to say they’ve never been tagged. In recent times, metal scavengers and scrappers have been busily stripping away the siding from countless old trailers including the once-impressive RV above. Meth: it’s a hell of a drug. Kudos to Flickr users Hans Proppe (shadowplay), Brent (brentus69), and Patrick Maloney (analog_chainsaw) for stopping to snap instead of strip.

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Rv There Yet Abandoned Trailers Of The Salton Sea Shore

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Underwater Homes: Deserted Basements as Stormwater Cisterns

04 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

basement cistern basetern

In a dual effort to address urban blight and ailing infrastructure, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is piloting a new program to turn the basements of abandoned houses slated for demolition into rainwater basins. Meanwhile, the surface expression of these cisterns could be anything from a revealing expression of this new underground infrastructure to micro-parks or urban farms depending on neighborhood needs.

basement cistern project

Conceived by Erick Shambarger, the deputy director of Milwaukee’s Office of Environmental Sustainability, “The BaseTern concept is simple. Stormwater will be directed to an abandoned or foreclosed property’s basement, which, after the aboveground structure is demolished, is waterproofed and filled with gravel and stormwater-harvesting cells.” Effectively, load on existing stormwater runoff systems is reduced and complete demolition costs are simultaneously mitigated.

underground cistern system milwaukee

GIS data shows that the neighborhoods with the largest flood risks are also those with the highest foreclosure rates. The city owns over 900 deserted and condemned buildings, now potential candidates for unusual adaptive reuses. A basement cistern can hold anywhere from 10,000 to 40,000 gallons of water during storms and reduce adjacent flooding accordingly. Similar systems could also be deployed in coastal areas particularly susceptible to floods and where many waterfront homes are already being abandoned.

underground basement abandoned fill

Author Geoff Manaugh observes that “while there is something metaphorically unsettling in the idea that parts of a blighted, financially underwater neighborhood might soon literally be underwater—transformed into a kind of urban sponge for the rest of Milwaukee—the notion that the city can discover in its own economic misfortune a possible new engineering approach for dealing with seasonal flooding and super-storms is an inspiring thing to see.” (Flooded basement image by Naql).

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Star Wars Speakers: May the Force (of Sound) Be With You

02 Oct

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

star wars speakers 1

Blast your tunes out the eyes of either C-3PO or a Stormtrooper, the bass pounding from beneath their heads, with this set of Star Wars speakers painstakingly reproduced from George Lucas’ original designs. A company called ACWorldwide landed a licensing deal with Disney to release a range of characters from the films over the next 12 months, and is funding production of the first round on Kickstarter.

star wars speakers 7

star wars speakers 2

The designers started by sculpting originals of both heads, ensuring that every last detail is an exact replication of how the characters originally appeared. After making molds, they created reproducible castings using high-grade injectable plastic for “a more tactile feel and solid look.” The Stormtrooper helmet is made up of 48 different components.  In fact, these speakers are more like real character heads than the props used in the movies, boasting real vents and grills instead of paint and stickers that mimic them.

star wars speakers 5

The 2.1 system combines stereo sound with a down-facing ported subwoofer for powerful bass. Measuring 12 inches in height, the indoor/outdoor speakers can be plugged in or taken on the go with a rechargeable battery. Player music wirelessly with built-in Bluetooth, or hook the speaker up to your PC or external audio systems. Once paired with your device, the speaker’s eyes with glow blue and the character will either say “I do believe they think I am some sort of god” or “move along.”

star wars speakers 6

star wars speakers 4

Each speaker will come in special Collector Branding packaging “reserved for only the finest authorized Star Wars merchandise.” As a backer on Kickstarter, you can choose from standard editions of each character, limited collector’s editions, or perhaps some of the most luxurious Star wars merch ever made: a white gold-plated version of the Stormtrooper, and a rose gold-plated C-3PO.

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