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Architectural Gems: 13 Blinged-Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

23 Dec

[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

diamnd chapel bali

Architects hoping their creations will be described as ‘gems’ could take the literal route and design faceted structures that call to mind diamonds, geodes and other precious stones. Made of glass or mirrored stainless steel, the geometric panels shimmer in the sunlight and give off their own glow after dark.

Rock Gym by New Wave Architecture, Polur, Iran

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A jagged stretch of glass slices up the boulder-like walls of this climbing gym in Iran, mimicking the look of crystals poking out of a geode. The design, by New Wave Architecture, was inspired by the geological process of large-scale movements of the earth’s crust and tectonic forces.

The Diamond Chapel, Bali

diamond bali

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A massive blue diamond tipped on its side sits in a clear pool of water at Sanur’s Grand Bali Beach Hotel, serving as a dramatic and highly photogenic wedding chapel.

Park & Suites Arena, Montpelier, France

gemstone architecture park & suites 1

gemstone buildings park & suites 2

French architecture firm A+ Architecture gave the Park & Suites Arena in Montpelier a highly unusual look with an amethyst gemstone design on its steel cladding.

The Octopus, Make Architects, London

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Make Architects call the Octopus, a proposal for London’s western gateway, “part building, part sculpture.” Sitting beside a derelict site next to a busy intersection, the building features a metallic, semi-transparent shroud that acts as a solar shade as well as a screen for high-resolution LED displays showing advertising.

Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

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Designed by Yann Weymouth, who helped create the Louvre Museum’s famous glass pyramid, the $ 36 million Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida boats an undulating geodesic wave comprised of over 1,000 glass triangles that contrasts with extra-thick concrete walls.

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Architectural Gems 13 Blinged Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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Snoozeboxes: Mobile Container Hotels Travel by Truck or Rail

22 Dec

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

snoozebox trailer flat bed

Modular, stackable and robust, these cargo containers may not look like much on the outside but provide surprisingly refined accommodations inside and can be packed and shipped cheaply and easily around the world to meet different demand.

snoozebox modular system interior

snoozebox interior module design

Recently renovated, the newest Snoozebox models can be shipped by road, rail, air or sea, fully deployed within two days and configured in a variety of ways for festivals, events or emergency housing.

snoozebox shelves sofa door

snoozebox fashionable interior design

snoozebox new remodel version

Making them appealing for off-the-grid contexts as well, “each of the units require no mains service – no provision for electricity, water or sewerage is necessary. each room is climate controlled and features a wet room, double bed, flat screen TV, power sockets, free wi-fi and a safe.”

snoozebox wet room walls

snoozebox door room divider

These small-footprint shipping container modules allow for “two upper level units, each offering two bedrooms, can be placed on top of the lower level, accessed by stairs with a walkway leading to each dwelling. internally, each temporary residence has four stowed bunk beds, which can be readily and easily converted.”

snoozebox stairs and ramps

snoozebox interior space design

shipping container hotel design

The older models were a bit more bare-bones in terms of their cladding but still provide all of the essential basics, including flat-pack circulation structures and shade provisions for sunny and hot climates.

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

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Classy: Abandoned Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School

22 Dec

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School 1

In search of an earthly savior, Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School in Powhatan, VA served from 1899 to 1970 as a school for young African-American women.

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Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School 8

Known as “The Castle on the James”, Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School opened in 1899 and 115 years later, straddles a precarious limbo between demolition and restoration. These photos by Joel Handwerk of Lithium Photo aren’t the only such images of the approximately 50 buildings at the 75-acre site but they are among the most breathtaking thanks to Handwerk’s keen eye for the beauty and sadness commonly evoked by such abandonments.

Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School 7

Credit the establishment of Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious community founded in 1891 by St. Katharine Drexel (1858-1955), who was canonized a saint on October 1, 2000 by Pope John Paul II. Born into the fabulously wealthy Drexel family, Katherine made it her life’s mission to aid and assist downtrodden Native Americans and Afro-Americans.

Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School 12

Taking the name Mother Katherine, Drexel would spend the better part of six decades (and about $ 20 million of her inherited and invested fortune) building schools and churches, of which Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School in Powhatan, VA is a prime example.

Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School 5

After Mother Katharine passed away on March 3, 1955 at the age of 96, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament could no longer depend on the Drexel fortune to fund their many facilities. Though the order continues to work with African-Americans and Native Americans in 21 states and Haiti, the abandonment and deterioration of massive complexes like Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School and its environs reflect the Sisters’ paucity of resources.

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Classy Abandoned Saint Frances De Sales Catholic School

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Iceberg Homes: London Boroughs Curb Luxury ‘Super-Basements’

21 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

underground estate luxury home

It is increasingly common to find London properties that have more subterranean interior space than above-ground square footage, a byproduct of the wealthy desiring to build additions without tripping over surface-oriented building codes. New legislation in some boroughs of the city aims to cut down on permits issue to such underground expansions.

mega basement

'Iceberg house' illustration

Anecdotes around these mega-basements abound, including stories of the compromising neighboring houses by undermining their structural integrity. As Curbed reports: “In a famous case from 2012, excavation work under the mansion of a Goldmann Sachs director resulted in his neighbor getting trapped inside her home, unable to open her front door since it had shifted so much.”

mega basement design

Indeed, the billionaires building these projects do a lot of strange things to maintain their bottom line while maximizing their additions, including leaving diggers worth thousands of dollars each (millions in aggregate) buried in unmarked and self-dug graves simply because the cost of excavating exceeds that of retrieving them. Like other facets of this phenomena, the lack of visibility relating to such practices has helped keep them hidden from public scrutiny.

london basement expansion diagram

Over the last decade, the demand for permits to extend below ground has skyrocketed, increasing by over tenfold. In response to the growing concern over these practices, Chelsea and other boroughs are considering measures including: restricting below-ground extensions to a single story, reducing the distance they can expand beyond the building footprint and capping the total subterranean square footage by project (diagrams via TheDailyMail and TheGuardian).

mole man underground house

Finally, any discussion of tunnels and London would be remiss not to mention the famous case of the Mole Man, which helped bring many of these other oddities to light. Without permits or permission of any time, this now-infamous Hackney resident began to burrow beneath his house. William Lyttle ultimately tunneled outward in various directions and well beyond his own property line and underneath adjacent streets and homes. For the safety of all involved, the building has been condemned though there are potential plans in place to turn it into artist housing.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Ruins of Crumbling Church Salvaged with Geometric Addition

20 Dec

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

sant francesc 1

A faceted glass structure clings to the ruins of a stone church in Santpedor, Spain, filling in a gaping hole that was created with the demolition of an adjacent convent. Built modestly by priests between 1721 and 1729, the hermitage of Sant Francesc started to crumble long ago, and by 2000 the roof had sunk and the vaults of the nave and chapels had partially collapsed, leaving it looking as if it the rest of it would come down at any time.

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But anyone brave enough to step through the doors would have found an interior that was still stunning in its cavernous arched spaciousness, daylight streaming in through massive holes in the ceiling. That hint of promise, along with its historical value, is what led to the intervention by architect David Closes (photographs by Jordi Surroca.)

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Closes transformed the church with a stunning modern addition and interior renovation that integrates the character of the ruins into the new elements, creating contrast and preserving a perspective of the church’s past. Sant Francesc is now home to a multi-functional cultural center and auditorium.

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Smooth concrete and timber enhance the aged qualities of the stone in the new interiors, with partially-collapsed areas and holes simply filled in with windows to show off rather than correct the damage that was done to the structure over the centuries.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Chinese Homeowner’s Illegal Skyway Bridges 2 Highrise Condos

19 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

china condo bridge connector

Sky bridges are a common sight in many cities, but are generally used to create a semi-public pathway from one building to the next, not to illicitly join two private highrise units in midair.

china illicit private sky bridge

In Nanning, China, one resident apparently purchased two apartment units situated nearly across from (and facing) one another with a novel plan in mind: connect them via a slightly-sloped extension to expand his interior space. As a local paper reports, the raised structure is raising concerns for pedestrians passing below.

skyway illegal bridge china

The makeshift metal-roofed-and-clad addition is supported by a system of somewhat rickety-looking steel trusses forming a spaceframe below – given their elevation (and lack of planning permission), it is unclear whether these will survive natural disasters like serious storms or earthquakes.

penthouse top

It also remains uncertain how this development got so far in the first place, but given other precedents in the region (like the illegal ooftop penthouse mountain shown above) this kind of rogue building project is not entirely shocking.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Hand-Grown Murals: Watch as Plant Paintings Take Over Walls

19 Dec

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

weed painting interior

Some say art is as much about process as product – these time-lapse animations show just how true that can be, illustrating the evolution of green-themed graffiti as it creeps, crawls and overtakes the walls on which it is painted.

weed progress animation

weed growth painting

Weeds is a series of projects by artist Mona Caron (via Colossal), captured on film, that is as much about slow and usually-unseen urban processes as it is about artwork in public spaces.

weed corner illustration painting

weed wall art space

Of her work and plants themselves, she writes: “they may be tiny but they break through concrete. They are everywhere and yet unseen. And the more they get stepped on, the stronger they grow back. This is a series of paintings of weeds, some of them on-site animations, created as a tribute to the resilience of all those beings who no one made room for, were not part of the plan, and yet keep coming back, pushing through and rising up.”

weed rooftop image picture

weed building side growth

weed roof mural art

Mona paints native wild plants and invasive species alike, bringing to light processes that are typically hidden both due to their slow progression and their ubiquitous nature – over time, we stop noticing what is happening “at the margin of things” if we are not paying attention. So far, she has painted plants in Switzerland, India, Greece, and the United States but she is looking for more places to travel and paint as well.

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

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Residential Rollercoaster: Buyers Ride Through House for Sale

18 Dec

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

roller coaster ride 5

Perhaps ‘roller coaster ride’ isn’t the most desirable term that a seller would want potential buyers using to describe the property they’re showing, but in this case, it might not be such a bad thing. Dutch brokerage firm Verder Met Wonen literally takes prospective residents on a ride through the home on a specially-installed roller coaster in single-rider wooden cars.

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house rollercoaster 1

The ride starts in the driveway, descending into the basement and then hoisting viewers up the stairs to see the first level. It then rises to the second floor, winds through the bedrooms and plummets out an upper window into the backyard.

house rollercoaster 2

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A 90-second promotional clip gives us a glimpse at the journey, even if we can’t take it ourselves. No word on whether the stunt has helped the home’s chances of selling, and it’s certainly not giving prospective buyers a lot of time to mull over each space, but it’s certainly getting the firm some attention.

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

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Deceptively Reflective: 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick the Eye

18 Dec

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

mirror buildings ring lapierre 3

Intentionally fooling the eye to either completely disorient you or focus your vision on a certain part of a scene, these mirrored buildings reflect their surroundings, often seeming to disappear entirely when viewed from certain angles. Hopefully, all of these deceptive reflective surfaces aren’t killing too many birds.

Reflective Roadside Cafe

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The branches of an adjacent row of cherry trees are multiplied many times over in the polished mirrored surfaces of this roadside cafe by japanese firm Bandesign. The trees are a tourist draw during bloom season, so putting the focus on them helps draw in business for the cafe owners.

Chateau de Rentilly: Mirror-Clad French Country House

mirror buildings chateau 2

Mirrored panels completely transform a 1960s country house, Le Château de Rentilly, in the French countryside. Architecture studio Bona-LeMercier worked with artist Xavier Veilhan and set designer Alexis Bertrand to enhance the structure itself and also put the focus on the picturesque hillside setting. The former home is now a permanent gallery for Frac Île-de-France, the region’s contemporary art fund.

Invisible Barn

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A combination of see-through portals and mirrored surfaces make this structure seem like a mirage as you approach the little park in which it stands. Designed for the 2014 Folly Competition, the mirrored barn isn’t actually a three-dimensional structure but rather a house-shaped wall.

Optical Illusion Street Facade Art

mirror buildings street facade 1

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Ordinary passersby suddenly become talented acrobats when they interact with ‘Bâtiment,’ an installation by Leandro Erlich on display at Le 14 in paris as part of the In_Perceptions exhibition. The project added a massive mirror to the vertical facade of a real building, reflecting a fake facade that was applied to the sidewalk in front of it. The result is a fun optical illusion that made participants appear to defy gravity.

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Deceptively Reflective 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick The Eye

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Radiocative Chernobyl: New Aerial Drone Footage of ‘The Zone’

17 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

gif rezided

Satellite images and pictures from the ground tell a limited story of one of the world’s most dangerous abandoned places – this flyover footage fills in the gaps, covering the 20-mile nuclear wasteland with uncannily captivating footage.

Postcards from Pripyat was filmed by Danny Cooke on a trip to Ukraine as part of a 60 Minutes story aired on CBS about the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear incident and ongoing efforts to cap the remains of the reactor. Of his adventure, he recounts: “During my stay, I met so many amazing people, one of whom was my guide Yevgen, also known as a ‘Stalker’. We spent the week together exploring Chernobyl and the nearby abandoned city of Pripyat. There was something serene, yet highly disturbing about this place. Time has stood still and there are memories of past happenings floating around us.”

chernobyl from above

abandoned waterfront

abandoned ferris wheel

The incident turned Pripyat from a city of 50,000 into a ghost town overnight, and that was just the beginning – fallout spread to neighboring countries and continues to leak out locally. Residents were told to evacuate but that they could return within a few days – a promise that could not be kept. Mice in the area have been recorded as having 10,000 times more radioactivity than normal rodents.

abandoned interior

abandoned pripyat

swimming-pool-fixed

Today, the focus is on containing the problem. “With funds from over 40 different countries, 1,400 workers are building a giant arch to cover the damaged reactor. It will be taller than the Statue of Liberty and wider than Yankee Stadium — the largest movable structure on Earth. Until the arch finally seals up that stricken reactor, and no one knows when that might be, something like that could happen again. Unlike other historic relics, Chernobyl does not belong to the past; its power will never die. Chernobyl is forever.”

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Architectural Gems: 13 Blinged-Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

Rock Gym by New Wave Architecture, Polur, Iran

The Diamond Chapel, Bali

Park & Suites Arena, Montpelier, France

The Octopus, Make Architects, London

Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Architectural Gems 13 Blinged Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

Snoozeboxes: Mobile Container Hotels Travel by Truck or Rail

Classy: Abandoned Saint Frances de Sales Catholic School

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Classy Abandoned Saint Frances De Sales Catholic School

Iceberg Homes: London Boroughs Curb Luxury ‘Super-Basements’

Ruins of Crumbling Church Salvaged with Geometric Addition

Chinese Homeowner’s Illegal Skyway Bridges 2 Highrise Condos

Hand-Grown Murals: Watch as Plant Paintings Take Over Walls

Residential Rollercoaster: Buyers Ride Through House for Sale

Deceptively Reflective: 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick the Eye

Reflective Roadside Cafe

Chateau de Rentilly: Mirror-Clad French Country House

Invisible Barn

Optical Illusion Street Facade Art

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Deceptively Reflective 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick The Eye

Radiocative Chernobyl: New Aerial Drone Footage of ‘The Zone’

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Rock Gym by New Wave Architecture, Polur, Iran

The Diamond Chapel, Bali

Park & Suites Arena, Montpelier, France

The Octopus, Make Architects, London

Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Architectural Gems 13 Blinged Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

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Architectural Kaleidoscopes: Buildings Spun into Fractal Art

Crystal Castles: 15 Glittering Glass Buildings

Hidden Depths: Architectural Illusion Unfolds Underground

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Almost Popup: 15 Pre Fab And Shipping Container Hotels

18 Super Shipping Container Schools, Youth Centers & Hotels

Mobile Architecture: Portable Housing to Temporary Hotels

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Classy Abandoned Saint Frances De Sales Catholic School

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Then & Now: Hybrid Images of a Deserted School in Detroit

Deserted for Decades: Derelict Old Building Houses New School

Bright and Blocky Modular Portable School in Amsterdam

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Live Between Buildings: Narrow Micro-Homes Fill City Gaps

Under London: Disused Tunnel Now a Subterranean Skate Park

The Desertron: World’s Largest Super Collider Lies Abandoned

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Contemporary House Inserted into Crumbling Castle Ruins

Ruined Renaissance Palace Gets Rusted Steel Addition

Word Worship: Church Converted to Awe-Inspiring Bookstore

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Penthouse Mountain: Stone Villa Tops Chinese Condo Tower

Amazing Houses: 6 Crazy Condos & Curious Townhouses

Tall Temple: Bizarre Rooftop Palace on Chinese Skyscraper

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Tree of 40 Fruit: Single Plant Grown with Dozens of Grafts

Subtractive Street Art: Sculptural Murals Cut into City Walls

3D Architectural Illusions: 12 Paintings, Murals & Mosaics

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Vertical Garage: Hide Cars Below or Lift Your Ride to the Sky

Tourism Tech: Audio Tour App Takes You on a Tram Ride

Abandoned Power Station Transformed into a Roller Coaster

Reflective Roadside Cafe

Chateau de Rentilly: Mirror-Clad French Country House

Invisible Barn

Optical Illusion Street Facade Art

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Deceptively Reflective 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick The Eye

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Invisible Borders: Mirrored Picket Fence Blurs the Lines

Mirrored Street Facade Art Turns Pedestrians into Acrobats

Surreal World: 14 Reality-Bending Mirror Art Installations

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24 Global Tales of Ghost Towns and Abandoned Cities

Exclucity: Unique GoPro Footage of Pyongyang, North Korea

No Child Left: 10 Eerie Abandoned Daycare Centers

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Architectural Gems 13 Blinged Out Buildings Cut Like Stones

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Classy Abandoned Saint Frances De Sales Catholic School

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Deceptively Reflective 12 Mirrored Buildings Trick The Eye