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Wayfinding in Subways: 3D Blueprints Show NYC Tunnel Systems

27 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

nyc underground blueprint render

Inspired by detailed three-dimensional maps of Hong Kong subway stations, a New York artist has painstakingly documented and rendered a gorgeous series of helpful underground diagrams.

nyc subway 3d maps

Exiting a subway network can be a disorienting experience. While stair signage and sidewalk compasses can help, anyone navigating based on landmarks or other surface features is lost. Project Subway NYC by Candy Chan is a step in the right direction. Using pen, paper and a camera, she meticulously recorded directions and relative positions of tracks and lines, referring to Google and MTA resources as a baseline.

nyc complex subway navigation

She then took the results into AutoCAD, verified those drawings in person, and proceeded to model and render the results using Rhino, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to produce 3D maps. Her explorations have helped her identify pain points for navigating these multilevel stations.

nyc subway station map

From CityLab: “The first batch includes five stops along Broadway: Columbus Circle, Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square, and Union Square. But Chan hopes to do more, in Manhattan as well as in the outer boroughs. Since the project just launched two weeks ago, she’s gauging people’s reactions to decide which stations to explore next.”

nyc track paths stairs

Still, 3D maps may not in themselves be a solution – murals, screens, signage or other indicators tied to visual landmarks from the world above would be a welcome addition for those who cannot read English or simply navigate using different means and methods.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Miniature Museum: Scaled Scenes with Jaw-Dropping Details

26 Sep

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

miniature museum 1

Before special effects went digital with CGI, part of the magic of movie making included artists laboring over tiny scaled-down sets, creating little worlds that look totally real until a normal-sized human hand appears in the scene. One museum in France lets visitors explore over 100 such sets, each standing out for its incredible realism. At Musée Miniature & Cinéma in Lyon, you can gaze upon these miniatures as well as a collection of over 300 full-scale movie props.

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Painstaking attention is paid to textures and weathering in the miniature scenes, like a kitchen with cooking implements smaller than sewing needles, peeling floor tiles and grimy windows. A thick layer of dust covers the floor of a brick-lined underground storage space.

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A dimly-lit hair barber shop boasts photos of Elvis on the walls, with stained towels crumpled on the counters. The lighting is half of the magic, often coming in through windows or illuminating only one small section of a scene so the rest remains shadowy and mysterious.

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Pick up a magnifying glass and examine the museum’s 1,000-piece collection of arts and crafts in miniature, including stringed instruments, origami, micro paper art and other tiny delicate creations. Then, move on to the Cinema Collection, which “unveils all the tricks that are used by cinema magicians” like masks, prop guns and robotic dinosaurs. Walk onto scaled sets that are somewhere between miniatures and full-size, which made train crashes and spaceship scenes a lot easier to film.

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The Musée Miniature & Cinéma is owned and curated by Dan Ohlmann, himself a famed miniaturist responsible for many of the scenes that can be found within the museum. You can even go ‘backstage’ to watch him and other miniature artists work on commissioned pieces and restore artifacts from famous films, like the giant Alien Queen body from the movie Alien vs. Predator.

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Droneport: New UAV Hub to Ship Medical Supplies Across Rwanda

25 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

drone airport emergency medical

This architect-designed drone airport will be the first of its kind, created to facilitate an unmanned aerial vehicle supply chain servicing remote areas of Africa, addressing urgent medical and other ongoing needs. Just as much of the continent skipped landlines and went straight to mobile phones, this strategy could jump steps in the development of infrastructure for delivering for physical goods.

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Developed by Afrotech in collaboration with Foster + Partners, work is set to begin next year with a pilot program completed by 2020. The vaulted brick structure will have spaces for drone building and repair as well as packaging, shipping and storage of goods both medical and otherwise. The architecture is intentionally open, simple and able to be constructed with local materials and labor.

drone airport side view

Two systems will function simultaneously to provide emergency and ongoing supplies, respectively. The Redline will include small situation-specific drones that can serve targeted emergency needs, carrying over 20 pounds. Larger 200-pound-capacity Blueline drones will manage more sizable shipments of less urgent supplies.

drone airport rwanda

“The Droneport offers a new typology for a building which we hope will grow into a ubiquitous presence, much like petrol stations have become dispersed infrastructure for road traffic,” acting as a network of stopping, refueling and repair stations.

drone alternative shipping routes

Currently, only a small percentage of the African population lives within a mile of year-round accessible roads, while UAVs from the Droneport will be able to more quickly, easily, safely and reliably access nearly half of Rwanda’s citizens.

drone airport commerce

“We require immediate bold, radical solutions to address this issue. The Droneport project is about doing ‘more with less’, capitalising on the recent advancements in drone technology – something that is usually associated with war and hostilities – to make an immediate life-saving impact in Africa.”

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“It is inevitable on a crowded planet, with limited resources, that we will make more intensive use of our sky using flying robots to move goods faster, cheaper, and more accurately than ever before. But it is not inevitable that these craft or their landing sites will be engineered to be tough and cheap enough to serve poorer communities who can make most use of them. Droneport is an attempt to make that happen, and to improve health and economic outcomes in Africa – and beyond.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Hot Pop-Up Shops: 14 Imaginatively Risky Retail Designs

24 Sep

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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The temporary nature of pop-up shops seems to inspire a bolder, braver, more experimental approach to retail design, encouraging architects to make use of unexpected materials and play with shoppers’ perception. The resulting spaces are undeniably dynamic and often interactive, grabbing our attention so effectively, it’s wonder we don’t often see permanent stores this creative.

Minimalist COS Shop by Bonsoir Paris

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A simple framework system of joints and rods comes together into a geometric installation that serves both as racks for the clothing being sold, and a visual contrast within the stark space. The fuss-free yet graphic style by Bonsoir complements the simple lines of Swedish fashion label COS.

MOMO Recycled Pop-Up By Andy Tong

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Made entirely from recycled and reclaimed materials like wood, windows, bubble wrap and mirrors, this pop-up by Andy Tong for MOMO attracts attention in the center of a Hong Kong mall. The designer wanted a temporary space that would stand out against the comparatively sterile corporate identities of the mall brands.

Modular Wood Pop-Up Shop for COS

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A series of modular wooden elements come together to form a room-within-a-room reminiscent of studio apartment pods where everything you need is cleverly packed into one tiny space. Another creation for Swedish retailer COS, this pop-up for the Salone del Mobile furniture fair has a cozy feel, drawing in passersby without overshadowing the goods themselves.

Mirrored Philip Lim Pop-Up by Schemata Architects

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Schemata Architects play with reflection and symmetry to create a disorienting environment where you’re not sure what’s real and what’s illusion. Designed for fashion label Philip Lim, the space features needle-like pendant lights dripping down from the ceiling, glass-topped illuminated plinths and large mirrors facing each other.

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Hot Pop Up Shops 14 Imaginatively Risky Retail Designs

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Soviet Bus Stops: Surreal Architectural Roadside Wonders

24 Sep

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Standing stark against silent desert backdrops like sculptures made for Burning Man, these leftover Soviet structures are actually bus stops scattered throughout one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. Photographer Christopher Herwig followed bus routes from Estonia to Armenia to photograph odd little roadside shelters in former Soviet satellite states for a new book.

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‘SOVIET BUS STOPS’ chronicles dozens of these entirely unique and surprisingly artistic structures in 157 color photographs, exploring the bus pavilion as its own architectural form. “There is a certain amount of [utilitarianism] here,” reads the foreword by Jonathan Meades. “But it is atypical. The norm is wild going on savage. Just as follies were, in the 18th century, often try-outs for new architectural styles, so may some of these wayward roadside punctuation marks have been structural or aesthetic experiments; they certainly don’t lack grandeur and audacity.”

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Herwig first discovered the strange beauty of these huts on a long-distance bike ride from London to St. Petersburg in 2002. Designed by local artists, seemingly without any restrictions from the government providing the money, each one displays a bit of the character of the town in which it stands.

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Throughout his journey, which took him to 13 countries and through territories that are rarely traversed by tourists, Herwig reports that he was occasionally accused of being a spy. The photographer scoured maps, Google Earth and traveler’s blogs for clues to find many of the shelters, which appear to be in exceptionally good shape for their age.

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Twelve years in the making, the photos were originally published in a limited-edition, sold-out version of the book, which is now available in an expanded, smaller-format trade edition.

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Floating Blue: Bold Plan to Expand Dense Cities into Open Seas

23 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

Ocean cities are a longstanding Utopian dream, but many such schemes fail to address the immediate need of cramped urban centers, many of which around the world are bordered and constrained by large bodies of water.

Blue 21, a Dutch architecture and design group, aims to sustainably extend such cities into adjacent lakes and oceans, alleviating the stress on existing metropolitan areas and providing vital resources (like space to grow food) in close proximity to urban cores. The team has experience building floating homes in the Netherlands but wants to take their experience global and work at a larger scale.

These modular buoyant extensions can be added to over time and used to grow algae, veggies, crops and seafood, producing food and biofuels to support existing populations on land.

At the same time, they can serve to productively process and recycle city wastes and absorb emissions, becoming a productive rather than consumptive part of the regional ecosystem. “As an integrated concept it proposes floating development that can be ‘plugged in’ to existing cities and help them recycling waste nutrients and CO2 that often end up in the environment, polluting it.”

While Blue 21 may not be a solution on the immediate horizon as yet, it represents an approach that bridges the gap between fantastical floating cities and more realistic solutions that engage accessible stretches of ocean. “We are Blue21, starting a Blue Revolution. This is how: by building world’s first floating city with a positive impact on nature. Because we believe our future is on the water for seven reasons: 1. We are running out of land, 2. Cities on land are vulnerable, 3. Water will save us from our addiction to fossil fuels, 4. Water is the new oil, 5. Water is an innovation playground, 6. We can actually have a positive impact, 7. We can do this, now.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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Dirt Cheap: World’s Largest 3D Mud Printer Makes Green Homes

23 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

3d printer aerial view

Able to print full-sized structures from mud and clay, this 40-foot-tall 3D printer represents a huge step toward printing affordable housing from free materials. The project was unveiled yesterday, debuting with a live demonstration at a three day rally event in Italy along with a series of workshops and conferences.

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wasp printer

Representing a hybrid of biomimicry, new technologies and ancient building techniques, the BigDelta printer from World’s Advanced Saving Project (WASP) draws inspiration from natural and human precedents.

3d printer demo

3d printer scale models

BigDelta’s structural strategies and resulting home shapes are informed by a breed of wasp that constructs mud homes as well as a long human tradition of creating earthen dwellings.

3d mud printer above

Building with water, dirt, clay and plant fibers taps into a set of plentiful organic resources, reduces environmental impacts, obviates the cost of and need to ship materials and provides naturally robust and insulated housing shells.

3d mud printer nozel

The lightweight steel frame of the printer itself, supporting a giant printing nozzle suspended in its open center, is easy to collapse and transport between construction sites.

3d printer italy stage

This larger model follows a smaller Delta prototype used to execute a series of complex geometric structures at reduced size, testing the technology and materials.

The design aims to address a growing housing crisis: “by 2030, international estimates foresee a rapid growth of adequate housing requirements for over 4 billion people living with yearly income below $ 3,000. The United Nations calculated that over the next 15 years there will be an average daily requirement of 100.000 new housing units to meet this demand.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Abandoned Ship: Artist Paints Figure Onto Floating Ruins

22 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Hawaiian artist HULA paints the head and arm of a floating woman onto the rusted steel surface of an abandoned ship, all while balancing on a surfboard. The woman’s face appears and disappears with the tides, the rising water sometimes only revealing her hand. This large-scale guerrilla mural is the latest waterside work to be completed by HULA, who’s known for his unusual balancing act technique.

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Otherwise known as Sean Yoro, the Oahu-born, NYC-based artist gained attention this summer for translating his oil paintings on canvas to urban surfaces located along canals or other bodies of water. HULA’s favorite subjects are bathing women, painted with photorealistic detail onto crumbling concrete.

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The artist was inspired to create ‘Ho’i Mai’ (which translates to ‘Come Back’) on the stern of a half-sunken ship off the Hawaiian coast after watching the water rise and fall as the tides change throughout the day. Floating out to work alongside the ship on his paddle board, HULA hand-painted the image without the apparent use of a projector or, in fact, anything other than a few cans of paint and some brushes.

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Yoro hopes to turn the ship into a public work of art rather than just a forgotten vessel left to slowly sink into the water over the decades. The painting won’t last forever, though, as the artist uses traditional oil paints knowing they won’t stand up to the elements for long.

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“I use it in a traditional old masters’ technique, mixing both loose brushwork with very tight strokes of sharp lines,” he told CNN. “I’m always trying to make the paint have a juicier texture to really help the portrait come alive. Oil paint outdoors definitely isn’t the best and it doesn’t last nearly as long as acrylics, but I kinda like that my figures have their own lifespan.”

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Blowing Up: 16 Impressive Inflatable Works of Balloon Art

21 Sep

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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The clown you hired for your kid’s birthday party probably can’t make balloon iguanas with tiny scales, swirling three-story inflatable sculptures inspired by mythology, or floating illuminated installations that blink along with the music. These blown-up works of art go way beyond standard balloon animals, elevating an iconic decorative element at parties to a respectable medium for sculptures of all sizes.

Amazingly Realistic Balloon Animals by Masayoshi Matsumoto

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Our expectations of balloon animals will never be the same after seeing these incredibly detailed creations by Masayoshi Matsumoto. The artist uses nothing but balloons and transparent thread to replicate scales, toenails, whiskers, gills and other small parts of all sorts of creatures.

Three-Story Balloon Sculpture by Jason Hackenwerth

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A swirling, organic form seemed to grow overnight in the Grand Gallery of the National Museum of Scotland following the installation of ‘Pisces’ by Jason Hackenwerth. Made of 10,000 individual balloons that took three people nearly six days to inflate, the sculpture references the Greek legend of Aphrodite and Eros, in which they escaped the monster Typhon by transforming into a spiral of two fish.

Balloons Bursting at High Speed by James Huse

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Balloons filled with milk are captured mid-rupture at high speeds by designer James Huse in a photo series entitled ‘An Abrupt End.’ It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on here, with all of those textures swirling and splashing, but it’s fascinating to look at.

Fruloons & Vegaloons by Vanessa McKeown

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Artist Vanessa McKeown makes use of cast-off materials and items that can be found around the house, proving that ultimately, the most important aspect of creativity is the ability to stretch your imagination. In this series, ‘Fruloons & Vegaloons,’ she carefully attaches balloons in the appropriate colors to real fruit and vegetable stems, and inserts an orange one in the perfect size inside a peel.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Wayfinding in Subways: 3D Blueprints Show NYC Tunnel Systems

Miniature Museum: Scaled Scenes with Jaw-Dropping Details

Tone Tunnels: Huge Forest Megaphones Amplify Sounds of Nature

Droneport: New UAV Hub to Ship Medical Supplies Across Rwanda

Soviet Bus Stops: Surreal Architectural Roadside Wonders

Floating Blue: Bold Plan to Expand Dense Cities into Open Seas

Dirt Cheap: World’s Largest 3D Mud Printer Makes Green Homes

Abandoned Ship: Artist Paints Figure Onto Floating Ruins

Blowing Up: 16 Impressive Inflatable Works of Balloon Art

Amazingly Realistic Balloon Animals by Masayoshi Matsumoto

Three-Story Balloon Sculpture by Jason Hackenwerth

Balloons Bursting at High Speed by James Huse

Fruloons & Vegaloons by Vanessa McKeown

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Blowing Up 16 Impressive Inflatable Works Of Balloon Art

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

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Stealth Style: Navigate Subways with a Map-Backed Necktie

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Project Wing: Google Testing Drone Delivery Service

Hello World: Precise Aerial Art Drawn by Light-Painting Drones

Collaborative Construction: Aerial Drone-Built Architecture

Minimalist COS Shop by Bonsoir Paris

MOMO Recycled Pop-Up By Andy Tong

Modular Wood Pop-Up Shop for COS

Mirrored Philip Lim Pop-Up by Schemata Architects

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7 (More!) Abandoned Wonders of the Former Soviet Union

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Mobile 3D Clay Printer: Whole Houses from Local Mud & Fiber

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Balancing Act: Artist Paints Seaside Murals from a Surfboard

Abandoned McBarge: Floating Fast Food Restaurant in Ruins

Coming Next Year: World’s First Floating Apartment Complex

Amazingly Realistic Balloon Animals by Masayoshi Matsumoto

Three-Story Balloon Sculpture by Jason Hackenwerth

Balloons Bursting at High Speed by James Huse

Fruloons & Vegaloons by Vanessa McKeown

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Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Blowing Up 16 Impressive Inflatable Works Of Balloon Art