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Photo Finished: 12 Closed & Abandoned Camera Stores

22 Jun

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

abandoned camera store 1c
Point, click, shut! Camera stores are rapidly fading into obsolescence as smartphones take the place of mass market cameras, film and paid photo processing.

abandoned camera store 1b

Now here’s a developing story… NOT! The long-abandoned Foto Hut on Forbes Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh sold cameras, film and greeting cards while promising to develop film in an unknown number of “hour” – well, either “one” or “24”, it’s hard to tell from the red rectangle on the Kodak Yellow sign. Kudos to Flickr users strawbrryff and john (J Blough) for capturing this frozen-in-time, eternally bankrupt abandoned camera store in November 2010 and February 2011 respectively.

Chick Clinic

abandoned camera store 0c

abandoned camera store 0a

Once a one-stop-shop for Louisville, Kentucky’s photo fans, Schuhmann’s Click Clinic opened in 1946 and its eye-popping animated signage dates from the early 1950s. Schuhmann’s kicked the bucket in 2001, however, and the sign out front was modified to advertise the store’s new tenants: the Show-N-Tell Showgirls Lounge. No cameras allowed, we’re guessing.

abandoned camera store 0b

abandoned camera store 0d

Takes a licking and keeps on clicking? Both the club and the subsequent owners, the circa-2013 Meta bar, cleverly modified the front signage while completely ignoring the former camera store’s other sign, mounted on the back of the building overlooking the parking lot.

Foto Finis

abandoned camera store 2

Flickr user Who Cares? (busy.pochi) snapped this abandoned Photographies camera and book store in February of 2011, and it didn’t take long for graffiti taggers and handbill posters to take advantage of the stores neglected status. One would think a city as photogenic as Paris could support at least a few camera stores.

Morgue & Camera

abandoned camera store 3a

abandoned camera store 3d

A Hollywood landmark since the 1930s, Morgan Camera Shop finally gave up the ghost a few years into the twenty-first century. Boasting an idyllic location amongst Hollywood’s iconic tall palms and a sign influenced by Bauhaus architecture, Morgan Camera played a large roll in introducing 35mm photography to the United States from Europe.

abandoned camera store 3c

abandoned camera store 3b

Morgan Camera exists in an odd sort of limbo – closed to be sure, but otherwise left pretty much alone inside and out thanks to the efforts of the Morgan family, members of whom who still own both the shop and the building.

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Photo Finished 12 Closed Abandoned Camera Stores

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Gone Green: Vacant 50 Years, Chinese Village Conquered by Ivy

21 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

green town

Nestled in the hills on a remote island at the mouth of the Yangtze River in China and full of rich foliage, one could imagine this small fishing hamlet to be an idyllic place, at least for nature if not for people – it has been abandoned by humans now for nearly half a century.

green town in mist

green platform balcony stairs

Ivy has become the dominant and defining feature of both the natural and built environments of this place, slowly but surely creeping over sidewalks and streets, up walls and roofs, and ultimately taking over the town.

green town deserted buildings

In some cases, collapsed portions of structures have made it all the more easy for the greenery to work its way over the sides of buildings and into their empty floors.

green overgrown alleyway path

Set on Gouqi Island, one of hundreds of small islands in the area, the Houtou Wan Village was a victim of changing times and circumstances, a combination of urbanization and depleted fish populations that drove its inhabitants to seek work elsewhere.

green window glass

Today, it is enjoyed only by visitors who seek it out explicitly, like photographer Jane Qing, chartering boats to travel to its shores and document the decay as well as the rebirth the place is now home to in its second life.

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The Hand of Man: Bonsai Hangs Inside Abandoned Power Plant

20 Jun

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

bonsai power plant 1

Inside the cooling tower of an abandoned power plant, a tiny bonsai tree hangs from a geometric metal frame, its roots exposed. The only other sign of life inside the cavernous space is an occasional slick of moss. The project meets at the junction between urban exploration, installation art and photography, with no one but the artist witnessing it in person before it was quietly whisked away, the bonsai re-planted to continue its life.

bonsai power plant 2

bonsai power plant 3

Located in the city of Charleroi, Belgium and originally built in 1921, the coal-burning power plant was decommissioned in 2007 after criticism of its inefficiency. While much of it was demolished, the tower – which once cooled 480,000 gallons of water per minute – still stands as a dystopian monument, drawing in determined explorers despite the security guards posted outside. Before protests shut it down, it was responsible for 10 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the nation.

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Japanese botanical artist Azuma Makoto doesn’t typically provide any explanation for the meaning behind his installations, but it’s hard not to see some potent symbolism in this image. Bonsai plants are painstakingly constrained by human intervention, and here one floats without the soil it needs to thrive, within a cavernous representation of waste and short-sighted thinking.

bonsai space

bonsai space 2

Makoto previously sent a bonsai into space for the Exobiotanica project, suspending a Japanese white pine and a bouquet of lilies and other flowers from carbon-fiber frames and launching them into the sky with a specially-equipped balloon. Six GoPro cameras captured their journey. Said the artist, “Roots, soil and gravity – by giving up the links to life, what kind of ‘beauty’ shall be born? Within the harsh ‘nature,’ at an altitude of 30,000 meters and minus 50 degrees celsius, the plants evolve into exbiota (extraterrestrial life.)”

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Retired Buses to Become Mobile Homeless Shelters & Showers

19 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

converted mobile homeless shelter

A fleet of still-functional city buses in Hawaii sits idle simply because the vehicles have too many miles for continued use in their current capacity, creating a unique opportunity to redeploy them toward helping the homeless. Thanks to a group with a vision and starting this summer, these retired transit vehicles will begin to be turned into mobile spaces and service centers for local populations in need of a place to stay and other basic necessities.

converted bus interior space

Developed by volunteer architects and Honolulu-based Group 70 International, the idea is simple: each of the dozens of buses will be converted to a single new purpose, providing bedroom spaces in some cases but also places to get cleaned up, accept and deploy donations (warm meals, fresh produce and clean clothes) and much more.

converted bus diagram design

From bathrooms and showers to sleeping quarters, each conversion can be done with tools and materials from the local hardware shop and be completed with unskilled volunteer labor. These relatively low-cost retrofits are designed to be donation-driven, providing all of the amenities of traditional homeless shelters with added flexibility and portability.

converted bus homeless shelter

converted buses hawaii

The resulting fleet will be versatile, able to split up and move in sections depending on need and travel to various locations to serve target groups where they are found. Existing seating inside the buses will be stripped and removed then replaced with remodeled elements suited to each vehicle’s new use. The first two conversions are to be completed by the end of this summer, ready for test deployments.

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Free Little Libraries: 25 Contextual Designs & Creative Reuses

19 Jun

[ By Delana in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

antique style little free library

Little Free Libraries have been popping up all over the U.S. – and in other countries as well – since 2009. The movement began in Wisconsin, where Todd Bol built a tiny replica of a schoolhouse and put it on a post in his front yard. The sign on the box read “Free Books,” and anyone passing by was welcome to take a book and leave a book. Above: a library in Toronto.

brown house little free library

green roofed little free library

Over the years, the movement grew. The Little Free Library boxes started popping up all over. The original was made from recycled materials, and Bol eventually teamed up with an Amish carpenter to start making the tiny libraries. You can now buy your own Little Free Library or, like a lot of people have done, get creative with your very own design.

triangular little free library

red cabinet little free library

green parrot little free library

Each official Little Free Library gets its own registration number. In January of 2015, LFL estimated that there were about 25,000 of the tiny lending boxes around the world, with thousands more being built every year. As word of mouth spreads and people get more interested in sharing books with their communities, the libraries continue to pop up everywhere.

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Free Little Libraries 25 Contextual Designs Creative Reuses

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Vertical Cities: 12 Towers Take Urban Density to the Skies

18 Jun

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

vertical cities singapore futuristic

Taking advantage of virtually endless vertical space within urban centers, entire cities-within-cities could spring up into the skies, packing in thousands of new housing units as well as parks, recreational space, offices, shops and everything else you’d expect to find on a typical block. These 12 residential skyscraper designs build up instead of out, often using staggered or stepped arrangements of stacked modules to maintain air circulation, access to daylight, and views. Rather than creating closed class-based communities, most make their communal spaces open to the public, and reserve the ground level for greenery.

High-Rise High-Density Tropical Living in Singapore
vertical cities singapore futuristic 2

How do you pack 100,000 people into a square kilometer without sacrificing quality of life? WOHA’s entry into a competition to design a vertical city for Singapore devised a greenery-laden ‘lattice city’ made of staggered modules. This porous arrangement ensures that all levels get plenty of fresh air and daylight, free up the ground level for nature reserves and heavy industry, and weave social spaces throughout. The plan was created to be walkable, but large elevators and people movers can zip inhabitants vertically and horizontally as needed.

Stacked Modules in Vancouver

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vertical cities geometric extruded

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Conceived for Vancouver, this design by Ole Scheeren is made up of stacked rectilinear modules that poke out of the main tower at various angles, projecting the living spaces outward to mimic the spacious feel of living on the ground and create cantilevered terraces. The aim is to reconnect architecture with the natural and civic environment, encouraging social interaction between inhabitants.

Vertical Village in Singapore by OMA

vertical cities singapore village

vertical cities singapore village 2

Condo units that would take up a lot of space if there were all placed on the ground are instead stacked in hexagonal arrangements for The Interlace, a residential project by Ole Scheeren/OMA. 31 individual six-story blocks come together to create a network of both private living spaces and communal areas, with eight large courtyards and various terraced gardens.

Vertical City in Jakarta

vertical cities jakarta

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The city of Jakarta in Indonesia is in need of both higher density housing and green space – but designs like these prove that you don’t have to choose. MVRDV has designed a 400-meter-tall tower called Peruri 88 that integrates housing, offices, retail, a luxury hotel, parking, a mosque, an imax theater and more into what is essentially its own city within the city.

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Vertical Cities 12 Towers Take Urban Density To The Skies

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2 Tons of LEGO: 10 Architects Construct Interactive Micro-City

17 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

interactive lego work

Using a staggering volume of LEGO bricks, a series of ten famous architecture firms has constructed a series of miniature built environments, deploying them on the High Line in New York City and encouraging the public to play with and reconfigure their work.

interactive lego architecture city

interactive lego block design

Organized by installation artist Olafur Eliasson (images by Timothy Schenck), The Collectivity Project features contributions from an all-star cast of local and international designers from: James Corner Field Operations, BIG, David M Schwarz Architects, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, OMA New York, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, Selldorf Architects, SHoP and Steven Holl Architects.

interactive architect building

interactive built environment

The results range from pointy towers and crooked skyscrapers to giant trees and complex landscapes, all created from versatile white bricks that can be added, removed and used interchangeably.

interactive building design

interactive people visitor architects

These are also not meant to be finished or stand-alone works – visitors and passers by are encouraged to remake this scaled-down urban landscape according to their own whims, transforming the architecture piece by piece over the coming months.

interactive miniature architecture nyc

interactive bridge building

Already, people have begun the conversion process, creating additions to bridges between the disparate LEGO buildings.

interactive cityscape

interactive high line architecture

Sitting the shadow of Hudson Yards, a floating megablock toward one terminus of the elevated park, those interacting with the work are encouraged to draw inspiration from their under-construction surroundings as well the historical hybrid of raised rail and modern pathway that is the High Line itself.

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Cast-in-Place Steel: Robots to 3D-Print Metal Bridge in Holland

17 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

3d canal crossing bridge

Designed to span a historic canal of Amsterdam, this cutting-edge structure will bridge traditional and automatic construction techniques using continuous extrusion technology to generate three-dimensionally-complex, self-supporting steel space frames. Imagine for a moment a pair of robots scaling the very structures they are building as they build them, walking themselves out over a bridge from both sides to meet in the middle. The approach of casting a material in place, generally associated with concrete, is suddenly possible for metallic substances as well.

3d welding steel extrusion

3d welding sautering prototype

3d printed bridge robots

Having already created a series of increasingly successful small-scale prototypes, Dutch design firm Heijmans (already well known for houses built in one day and glow-in-the-dark bike paths in The Netherlands), tech startup MX3D and designer Joris Laarman are working together to make this design/build concept a reality. Programmed to extrude and weld together steel segments, specialized robotic builders are able to assemble a network of structural lines and curves to form a load-bearing bridge in this case, but could be deployed to frame tall buildings in the future as well.

3d extruding robot curves

3d curved steel form

3d bridge prototype rock

“Construction and design are currently rather separate factors in construction – the architect designs something and the constructor interprets the design and builds what he thinks is needed,” says Jurre van der Ven, Heijmans’ Innovation Manager. “But using 3D printing for a bridge makes design and construction operate hand-in-hand. For instance, both activities are done at the same time, instead of first building the structure and then adding the design later. This means we will also have to start looking at design in a completely different manner.”

3d bridge design renderings

3d bridge span connection

3d on site construction

Refined and optimized, such techniques and technologies will ultimately bring down the cost of construction, reduce building waste and help automate worksites. The first real-world application being a bridge is no coincidence, but rather a “fantastic metaphor for connecting the technology of the future with the city’s historic past, in a way which would reveal the best aspects of both worlds.”

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Brutalist Playgrounds: Sharp Surfaces + Unforgiving Drops

16 Jun

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

brutalist playgroudn 2

The phrase ‘brutalist playground’ kind of sounds like a joke, emphasizing the great potential for injury that would seem inherent to a sharp, harsh play structure where kids are encouraged to roughhouse. But the very same rawness, heavy materials and stark shapes seen in the architecture that was built in this style after World War II was extended to quite a few playgrounds. Today, there are all sorts of laws about kids’ safety that would nix these designs before they were ever built, but as we all know, the ’70s were a different time.

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The actual Brutalist playgrounds were demolished long ago, but a new installation at RIBA in collaboration with artist Simon Terrill and architecture firm Assemble brings them back in the form of full-scale replicas. Housed within the RIBA headquarters in London, these recreations look just like the real thing.

brutalist playground 8

Being that they’re inside a museum – and meant for kids to actually play on – the replicas were made not of the original concrete, but of foam. The installation “encourages visitors to look at the materiality and visual language of now lost Brutalist landscapes in new ways through an immersive and conceptual landscape.”

brutalist playground 9

“Although the value of brutalist residential buildings today is much debated, this exhibition shifts the focus to the equally important playgrounds found at the feet of these structures, offering a renewed understanding and critique of the architects’ original designs and intentions.”

brutalist playground 5

brutalist playground 4

The installation will be in place through August 2015, and the photographs of the originals are just as fun to look at. Like all Brutalist structures, they’re not exactly inviting. Says Terrill of the Churchill Gardens playground in Pimlico, London (pictured top in 1978,) “Before these postwar playgrounds were built, children would have been playing in the bomb sites left after the war. It’s possible the architects were referencing that in their design.”

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A Step Above The Rest: 15 Spectacular Modern Staircases

16 Jun

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

modern stairs pool bridge

Going far beyond their practical function of connecting one level of an interior to the next, these modern staircase designs make a striking statement, often doubling as a sculptural element or offering some other additional purpose. Some act as amphitheater seats, some have built-in gardens and some simply steal the spotlight no matter what else is in the room.

Amphi-Staircase

modern stairs amphista

modern stairs amphi-staircase 2

modern stairs amphi-staircase 1

Inspired by the ‘circles and ovals’ that make up Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, this amphitheater-style staircase stands as the heat of an adult learning center in Denmark by architecture studio CEBRA. The lines of the multi-functional staircase echo those of the curving white balconies that jut out into the atrium at every level.

Glossy Spiral Stairs in a Modular Library

modern stairs glossy library

modern stairs glossy library 2

Soaring 115 feet toward the elevated ceiling, this glossy white building-within-a-building adds a library to a modern medical research center at a Rotterdam hospital. It basically functions like one very big bookcase within the large open space, featuring spiraling staircases on either end.

4-Story Living Staircase

modern stairs planted circle

modern stairs planted circle 2

A garden, tea bar and library can be found within a stunning four-story spiraling staircase by designer Paul Cocksedge at the Ampersand office building for creative technology businesses in London. Designed to encourage interaction between workers, it features a different function at every level, including a small curated selection of books on the first floor. Pick your own mint from the garden boxes along the railing to make tea at a hot water machine once you’ve reached the top.

Floating Staircase in an All-Black Room

modern stairs floating

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The warm wood lining the interior of this floating staircase by Hidden Fortress makes it glow against the black surfaces of a Berlin concept store, giving it the feel of an optical illusion. The maritime pine used throughout the store is left in its natural state upstairs, so the staircase serves as a visual connection to the next level as well as a literal one.

Partially Suspended Staircase

modern stairs partially suspended

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Italian architecture firm Francesco Librizzi Studio suspends most of a white-framed staircase from the stairwell, making it seem as if it’s supported by nothing but the walls. A separate section stands on its own at ground level. The designers were trying to use the stairs as a narrative scheme, asking questions like “Can a staircase tell us that time passes and children grow up?”

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A Step Above The Rest 15 Spectacular Modern Staircases

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