Category: Creativity

Hoverboards are Here! Design Floats Above Metal Surfaces

[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

Twenty-five years after ‘Back to the Future’ convinced an entire generation that we’d soon be able to zoom around the city on wheel-less floating skateboards, it looks like we might finally get our wish: a working hoverboard actually exists. The Hendo Hoverboard, currently blazing past its funding goals on Kickstarter, features four disc-shaped hover engines that create a magnetic field to levitate the board off the ground.

Naturally, there’s a catch: it only works on certain metallic surfaces. The creators are currently using non-ferromagnetic conductor sheet metal, but are working on new compounds that could increase performance while minimizing cost. The magnetic field created by the board levitates it an inch above the ground, offering an ultra-smooth ride that you just can’t get on wheels.

“While one day we expect to have hoverboards that can effortlessly float over any medium (even water!), our current technology requires special types of surfaces,” says Hendo. “Therefore, we need a hoverpark to go with our boards, and have been busy designing a park befitting the awesomeness of our technology.”

In addition to snagging a ‘Whitebox’ developer kit that enables you to play around with the technology yourself, Kickstarter rewards include reserving a brick-sized piece of the eventual Hoverpark with your name engraved onto it. The first 10 production Hendo Hoverboards have already been snagged at $ 10,000 each.

After all the hoaxes, it’s understandable that people are skeptical – but Gizmodo got to actually give it a try, confirming that it works. Check it out in the video above, and get all the technical details at Kickstarter.

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Shape-Shifting Furniture: Interactive 3D Surfaces from MIT

The Tangible Media Group from MIT has developed an approach to responsive design in physical space that is both conceptual and plausible, futuristic yet …
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Sky Park: Design Idea Floats City Block Over Penn Station

Out of four recent proposals for a radical overhaul of Penn Station in New York City, this concept is far and away the most dramatic.
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Skinned Buildings: Latex Casts of Derelict Urban Surfaces

Draped like the macabre souvenirs of a serial killer, ghostly skins of old buildings billow on clotheslines, bearing the grime of the surfaces from which they …
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[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 25, 2014
Radiotopia Fundraiser: Support 7 Story-Centric PRX Podcasts

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

Last year, Roman Mars of 99% Invisible and PRX broke records, raising $ 375,000 with a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign – this year, Radiotopia aims to collect $ 250,000 in contributions on Kickstarter page to support its lineup of seven amazing radio shows. So far, this campaign has gained over 2,500 backers and $ 100,000 in its first 24 hours – to see why, read on and listen to a collection of select stories, one per show, embedded for your listening pleasure below.

Funded directly by fans, Radiotopia represents “a new model for audience engagement and revenue growth in public radio” as well as a “collective of the best story-driven shows on the planet.” For their last campaign, designed to make 99% Invisible a weekly production, WebUrbanist brought you seven of the show’s most compelling episodes in an effort to support their crowdfunding endeavors. This year, we are highlighting one episode from each of these unique and compelling podcasts. As fellow independent media producers, we encourage you to check these out for yourselves and show your support for these amazing programs.

99% Invisible has gone from a garage radio startup on design and built environments to one of the most popular and celebrated award-winning audio programs in the world. From this past season, Holdout represents the a great example of how the show explores the intersection of urban planning, zoning laws and esoteric architectural history. At the heart of this episode is the nail house of Edith Macefield, a woman who refused to sell her home at any cost – developers ended up building around it, but, like any good story, the end is not the point, and there are many twists along the way. Bonus: a t-shirt featuring this famous home is one of the Kickstarter rewards you can get for supporting Radiotopia!

Radio Diaries “tells the extraordinary stories of ordinary life,” enabling citizen journalism since the 1960s and collaborating “with teenagers and octogenarians, prisoners and prison guards, bra saleswomen and lighthouse keepers” along the way. When Borders Move explores the strange phenomena of geographical boundaries defined by landscape features like rivers that stubbornly refuse to stop moving over time. In this episode, personal interviews with impacted individuals are spliced in between larger examples and explanations, showing the human side of these larger historical shifts.

Love + Radio “features in-depth, otherworldly-produced interviews with an eclectic range of subjects, from the seedy to the sublime.” Bedouin Love is a short show featuring a poignant but “brief conversation of love, death, and camel’s milk” with a guide in Petra, Jordan, an ancient historical site where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and other films were shot. It represents another side to the tourist experience – those hard-to-capture but powerful person-to-person moments that go beyond the contents of superficial and sanitized travel guides and give you a sense of the day-to-day life and culture of a place.

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Radiotopia Fundraiser Support 7 Story Centric Prx Podcasts

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99% Invisible: 7 Episodes of the Best Radio Show on Design

There is no witty wordplay nor shocking truth in our title today, but that is quite by design – we simply did not want risk underselling Roman Mars, the …
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If You Build It: A True Story of Hands-On Design Education

What if high schools replaced shop classes with results-driven, full-scale architectural projects, where the goal was to collaborate and make something …
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Remodeling Suburbia: Rerouting Classic, Car-Centric Design

What will the city of the future look like? These ten visions of urban life imagine spaces that are pedestrian-friendly, safer, and more inviting for all.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 16, 2014
Ultra-Compact Stairs: 12 Next-Level Space-Saving Designs

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

Clever integration of storage, dangerous-looking alternating treads and unusual wall-mounted designs enable these 12 compact staircases to avoid the problem of wasted space. Whether leading up to lofts in tiny houses and micro apartments or simply taking a smarter approach in larger spaces, these space-saving stairs look cool in addition to taking advantage of every square inch.

Stairs Packed with Storage

Combining staircases with storage is nothing new in Japan, where carpenters have built drawers and cabinets into them for centuries. This project by architect Kotaro Anzai is a traditional ‘kaidan dans’ staircase cabinet made of linden plywood. Drawers open both out and to the side to make maximum use of the space.

Incredible Built-In Loft & Stairs from HBO’s ‘Girls’

Any architecture and design enthusiasts who watched HBO’s ‘Girls’ probably drooled over the clever built-ins in the fictional Bedford-Stuyvestant home of the character named Charlie. A lounge space is lofted over a semi-enclosed bed, and the stairs leading up to it also function as a closet and storage cabinet.

Built-in Bookcase Loft Stairs

A small apartment in Camden feels far more spacious after a renovation that added a central volume enclosing the bathroom and lots of storage, with a lofted bed on top. The most clever part is the wall of built-in shelves that double as a staircase to get to the top.

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Ultra Compact Stairs 12 Next Level Space Saving Designs

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Steps to Saving Space: 15 Compact Stair Designs for Lofts

Alternating treads, ultra-narrow ladders, built-in storage and other tricks enable these 15 smart space-saving designs to fit into the smallest of apartments. …
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15 Flat-Pack Furniture Designs & Ideas for Saving Space

A pizza box that folds out into a desk? Flat-pack furniture is incredibly clever, saves space, cuts shipping waste and is fun to put together.
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When Every Inch Counts: 14 More Clever Small Space Hacks

Making a tiny living space comfortable and practical means integrating multi-purpose furniture, custom built-ins and lots of other clever space-saving tricks. …
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[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 16, 2014
Rounded Market Hall: Huge Digital Mural Wraps 118,000 Sq Ft

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

A massive mixed use project in Rotterdam by MVRDV, this newly-opened building wraps vertically around an open central space but also features one of the largest works of art in the Netherlands: an incredible digital display spanning over 100,000 square feet of the interior surface area.

The closed-but-open solution is a response to new Dutch legislation requiring produce markets to be enclosed, balanced with a desire to keep an open-air feeling to the space. The resulting design with its vibrantly-colored displays makes the place seem inviting from the outside, drawing people in to visit the nearly 100 shopping stalls within. The complex is expected to have over 5 million annual visitors.

Glazed on two sides with transparent glass, apartments wraps the others sides and top of the structure, giving over 200 residents views down into the market below as well as balconies toward the outside world on the exterior skin of the structure. The suspended glass panels are held in tension by thin wires, making the supports as invisible as possible while providing protection against strong winter winds.

From the firm’s press release: “The large mural which covers the vaulted interior, ‘Cornucopia’ by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam has a total surface of 11.000 m² and shows oversized images of market produce which can be bought at the market, as well as flowers and insects referencing the work of Dutch still life masters from the 17th century. In order to achieve the required sharpness, the image was rendered by Pixar software. It was printed onto perforated aluminium panels, then attached to acoustic panels for noise control. The print resolution of the art work is comparable to a glossy magazine.”

More about the layout: “Markthal comprises 96 fresh food stalls and shop units, ranging from Rotterdam based businesses and market vendors to established local heroes. They will offer a diverse range of products: from fresh fish to game, from cappuccino to cheese, from Chinese to Dutch, from ice cream to local produce, from bargains to exclusive slow food. The ground and first floor accommodate 20 retail units, restaurants and cafés. All shops are food-related and include a crockery- and a wine shop. A supermarket is located on the 1st underground level allowing the shoppers to complete their shopping under one roof.”

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City-Sized Artwork: Huge Building Mural Spans 99 Structures

In his most ambitious and large-scale work to date, Felice Varini has created a perspectival piece that wraps around the entire historic core of Hasselt, …
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Roaming Market: Modern Update on 16th Century Tradition

A colorful cart with a rooftop stage and a built-in seating area for chess based on 16th-century pageant carts promotes the Waterloo district of London.
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Endless City: Skyscraper Wraps Upward with Walkable Ramps

An urban pedestrian paradise, this conceptual design proposes to turn cities skyward with a system of flexible open spaces that gradually rise as floor plates …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 15, 2014
Cyclists Wear Car Skeletons to Prove that Bikes Save Space

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

The absurdity of single drivers taking up so much space on the road was vividly highlighted when a group of Latvian cyclists went for a ride wearing car-sized frames made of bamboo. In celebration of International No Car Day on September 22nd, the cyclists gave their bikes a temporary makeover that forces actual automobiles driving alongside them to treat them like they would another car.

They look ridiculous, and that’s the point. Standing out in the transparent structures, it’s clear how little space each person actually takes up within that space. The frames are easily three times the width and length of the individual cyclist.

The protest, held by members of Let’s Bike It, highlights how much congestion could be eased on the roads if more people commuted by bike instead of cars, not to mention all of the other benefits.

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Beyond Basic Bikes: 12 Twists on Classic Cycle Designs

Plug-and-play accessories, bendable frames, built-in tents and totally unexpected redesigns transform the classic century-old bicycle design for the modern …
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Need a Lift? Road Elevator Boosts Cyclists up Steep Hills

If there’s a particularly daunting hill on your cycling or stroller-pushing route, you may have already thought to yourself, “I wish there were …
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Bike Campers: 12 Mini Mobile Homes for Nomadic Cyclists

Who says you can’t camp in luxury when taking a bicycle tour? These 12 bike trailers
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[ By Steph in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 14, 2014
Juice to Go: 13 Ultra-Portable Phone Charger Designs

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Tiny phone chargers that you slide onto your keyring, store on your belt buckle or snap onto the spokes of your bike can help feed your addiction to technology when wall chargers aren’t available. Since most of us can’t go ten minutes without using our phones, staying juiced up is crucial. These 12 offbeat and innovative portable cell phone chargers use everything from kinetic energy to boiling water to make sure you’re never cut off from your emergency contacts and all of your favorite apps.

World’s Smallest Emergency Phone Charger

Shaped like a gasoline can, the tiniest cell phone charger yet fits easily onto your key ring and provides an extra 20-30 minutes of talk time or a few hours of standby time per charge. It plugs directly into your phone and can hold its own charge for 1-3 months between uses.

Siva Cycle: Pedal Power Charger

A compact gadget snaps onto any bicycle within minutes to harness the kinetic energy you create while you ride. You can either plug your phone or any other USB-powered device directly into it, or store the energy in a detachable battery pack. The creators envision it as the perfect solution for bike commuters who miss out on the phone-charging time that other commuters get in the car.

Belt Buckle Phone Charger

An ordinary-looking belt buckle pops off and plugs into the wall to charge your cell phone. The Volt Buckle eliminates the problem of being unable to carry a charger without a purse or bag of some sort, keeping it as compact as possible. A hook on the belt ensures that your pants stay up while your phone is charging.

Flame Stower: Charging with Fire

Going a step beyond solar power, the Flame Stower is a portable phone charger designed with campers and hikers in mind. One end of the charger is placed in a campfire, and the other connected to your cell phone. Any flame source will do, so you can also use BBQ grills or candles.

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Juice To Go 13 Ultra Portable Phone Charger Designs

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The Charge Cycle: Bike-Powered Public Phone Charging Station

Soon, you’ll be able to charge your iPhone at strategic locations around New York City – but you’ll have to put in a little leg work.
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Solar Socket: Portable Plug-In Creates Free Energy to Go

With batteries running low, your eye roams the room for a place to plug in, but then you remember: you brought your own power supply – all you need now is a …
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13 Energizing Batteries: Mini Nukes to Hand Cranks

From hand-cranks and USB ports to memory foam and – um – bacon, these battery designs and concepts create portable power in clever and sometimes strange ways.
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[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 14, 2014
View Forward: Driverless London Train Cars Arriving in 2020

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

Called the New Tube, the next phase in London’s Underground system will feature partially and entirely automated cars, including ones that let passengers sit up front in the space heretofore reserved for drivers.

This forward-looking plan calls for 250 driverless trains for the Piccadilly, Central, Bakerloo and Waterloo & City lines, rolling out in the year 2020 and beyond, each with larger doors for faster entry and exit capabilities.

These new models will not be segmented in traditional cars but instead be continuous and segmented (able to be walked from front to back) and feature built-in wifi as well as passive air conditioning. The newly-freed front ends of these will feature emergency egress doors as well.

An LED lighting system will glow to show the speed and direction of travel and light up to let passengers know when doors are opening or closing as well. Digital displays will replace paper advertisements inside the cabins, too.

These sleek new machines are being made to operate 24 hours a day with a projected lifespan of 30 to 40 years so their technologies must, as much as it is possible, take into account existing issues as well as population growth and other future-proofing concerns.

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Transits Of Venus: 8 Women-Only Subway & Train Cars

Subway sandwich: good if you’re hungry, bad if you’re a female commuter. These 8 women-only transit cars offer groups of gals a grope-free rail road trip.
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Future Shocks: 5 Incredible Concept Cars & Cool Prototypes

From two-and-three-wheeled concept cars to real-life transformers for land, sea and air, the idea of all-terrain vehicle is starting to take on new meaning …
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Subway Parasite: Stealth Projector Lights Up Train Tunnels

Here to lighten the mood a bit during the duller parts of your nighttime or subterranean transit is a quirky little projector that suctions to vehicular shells.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 13, 2014
Punched Cards: 12 Closed & Abandoned Bingo Halls

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

These 12 closed and abandoned bingo halls couldn’t compete with an increasing variety of online gaming options and the gradual spread of gambling casinos.

Down & Out In Dudley

Bingo can trace its history back to early 16th century Italy but the classic cards & numbers game really took off in the 1920s when its rules, format and equipment were standardized. Bingo boomed in Great Britain as well when, following the flight from movie theaters to in-home television in the 1950s, many newly-closed cinemas were converted to bingo halls.

The Hippodrome in Dudley, just northwest of the city of Birmingham, was one of these re-purposed silver screens. The 1,750-person capacity Hippodrome opened in 1938, closed (as a theater) in 1964, reopened as a bingo hall operated by Gala Bingo, and finally closed for good in 2009. Cheers to Flickr user Mikey Jones (donebythehandsofabrokenartist) for capturing the once-grand Hippodrome in its current (as of November 2010) sad state.

Punched Card

Bingo was (and still is) popular at traditional social gatherings held at and by churches so when the church is abandoned, so is the bingo. Credit Flickr user Forsaken Fotos for the evocative image above depicting a scattered remnant of fun times past from Brownsville, PA.

Odeon, Odeoff

When Bradford’s New Victoria cinema opened in 1930 it was the first such theater to be designed especially for showing “talkies”. The stately Renaissance Revival building underwent multiple changes in ownership over the next few decades until it was bought by Odeon Cinemas in the late 1960s. Odeon converted part of the building into the 1,000-seat Top Rank bingo hall, which shut its doors in the late 1990s. Credit Flickr user jST. with photographically capturing the abandoned bingo hall in mid-March of 2011.

Under The B: INGO

The photographer who snapped the image above didn’t give any details whatsoever on where the sign is located or what bingo hall it advertised – and the striking yet generic sign itself offers no clue either. Give Flickr user geo3pea credit, however, for bending over backwards (literally) to create an outstanding image that gives real perspective on the current state of the bingo “industry”.

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Punched Cards 12 Closed Abandoned Bingo Halls

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The Bucks Stop Here: 9 Closed & Abandoned Dollar Stores

Dollar Stores may be the new face of retail in post-9/11 America but when they close or are abandoned, that’s change we don’t want to believe in.
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Nix Tape: 10 Closed & Abandoned Blockbuster Stores

Blockbuster Video’s torn-ticket logo once fronted thousands of stores worldwide. That was then, this is now… by late 2013, Blockbuster was officially busted.
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Empty Chambers: 10 Closed & Abandoned Gun Stores & Shops

If your business involves getting fired, going off half cocked or triggering bankruptcy, you just might be one of these 10 closed and/or abandoned gun shops.
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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 12, 2014
Schematic of Structures: 90 Buildings, Prehistory to Present

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Graphics & Branding. ]

This stunning blueprint-inspired poster takes you on a visual tour of 90 celebrated structures around the world, highlighting architectural achievements from the Greek Parthenon to Buckingham Palace to Taipei 101 to the Freedom Tower, “a lineup of landmark landmarks and eminent edifices erected and perfected throughout history.”

An 18-by-24-inch print available from Pop Chart Lab for around $ 30, this frame-worthy work of art and design may solve your architectural gifting needs for the foreseeable future. The juxtapositions of old and new, Classical and Modernist, help show off the rich historical variety of buildings and monuments. Some structures made the cut for being canonical classics, while others are record-setters or unusual examples of unique typologies. Rendering them all in a way that would make them consistent but bring out their different characters was also a challenge for the creators.

More from the creators: “Each breathtaking building has been beautifully hand-illustrated to scale in blueprint-like style—and is accompanied by notations for location, height, year of construction, and architectural mode. For the serious sight-seer, history hobbyist, or architectural aficionado, this collection of captivating cornerstones is sure to tower above all others. Using 100 lb. archival stock certified by The Forest Stewardship Council, this poster is pressed on an offset lithographic press with vegetable-based inks in Long Island City.”

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Rotating Architecture: 16 Spinning Buildings & Structures

Architects have always aimed towards building bigger, wider and higher. Now technology has made a fourth design dimension possible: movement.
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Cinematic Structures: Illustrating Famous Film Architecture

Some cinematic experiences are defined by their built environments, be it the minimalist architectural plan outlines of Dogville or the lavish Mid-Century …
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Balancing Buildings: 14 Seemingly Gravity-Defying Structures

Heavy structures seem to hover in mid-air, supported only by spindly poles or narrow beams of concrete. Towers lean toward the ground at alarming angles. …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Graphics & Branding. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 12, 2014
Solar-Powered Art Etched with a Magnifying Glass & the Sun

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Magnifying glass clutched in his fist, Jordan Mang-osan uses nothing but focused rays of sunlight to burn detailed drawings onto panels of wood. A native Igorot from the Cordilleras of the Philippines, the artist draws inspiration for both his imagery and his unusual techniques from his heritage, using indigenous materials.

Other than a pencil used to draw on his initial designs, a magnifying glass is his only tool, and no paints or inks are required. Mang-osan holds the glass steady to burn one tiny detail at a time onto the wood.

It takes several months to complete a single work, slowly moving the glass just millimeters at a time in a technique that’s similar to pointillism. It’s another unusual way to harness the power of fire to make art – see 14 more pyro-centric sculptures and installations including ‘fire sculptures,’ portraits drawn in soot, and graffiti set ablaze.

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Loaves of Art: Classical Works Revealed in Slices of Glass

This loaf of colored glass may not look like much from the outside, but slice into it and you’ll find an incredible recreation of Leonardo da …
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Laser-Cut Record: Music Etched Onto Slices of Wood

Slices of wood take the place of traditional vinyl in these beautiful hand-crafted, laser-cut records by designer Amanda Ghassaei.
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House of Glass: Cabin Facade from Antique Window Frames

On an unusual kind of cross-country road trip, this couple visited garage sales, antique dealers and added these to other roadside finds, all toward the quest …
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[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 11, 2014