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Offbeat & Off the Grid: 15 Surprisingly Mobile Solar Gadgets

12 Aug

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Mobile Solar Main

Solar power projects go truly off-the-grid in mobile applications that range from practical if goofy solar panel-equipped Ray Bans to donkeys that stroll around with photovoltaics mounted to their backs. While some are just for fun, others have the (solar) power to bring electricity to remote places, or get around restrictions that hold back renewable energy progress.

Shrub Rover Solar-Powered Camouflaged Car

Mobile Power Shrub Rover 2

It looks like an ordinary shrub. Then it starts inexplicably rolling along the ground as if it has gained sentience a la the plot of a particularly terrible horror movie from the 1950s. The Terrestrial Shrub Rover by Justin Shull is a solar-powered, foliage-covered vehicle that lets drivers explore new territories in disguise (as long as you wait to actually drive it until after dark.) Cameras on the outside display the car’s surroundings on screens within so you can see where you’re going.

Pop-Up Solar Power Station

Solar installations can be costly and time-consuming to install, but load them into a shipping container so that they can pop right out when it’s opened and you’ve got a convenient mobile solar power station. The Ecos PowerCube is available in 10-foot, 20-foot and 40-foot ISO shipping container footprints with solar panels hidden within protective drawers. Batteries inside the container store power. Once unrolled, the panels increase the size of the array to three times the footprint of the shipping containers.

Solar-Powered Wheelchair

The winning entry in a competition for inventions that can make a significant difference to people with disabilities, this solar-powered wheelchair can run continuously on the power of the sun. Designed by students at the University of Virginia, the wheelchair features a custom-built 11-square-foot solar panel that doubles as a sun shade and enables the wheelchair to travel indefinitely at 1mph without drawing power from the battery.

Autonomous Solar-Powered Lawnmower

The equivalent of a Roomba for your lawn, this open-source robotic lawn mower runs entirely on solar power so you don’t have to sweat it out on a hot summer day. No need to even control it via remote, since it’s totally autonomous. If you’re handy with electronics, you can try making one yourself – instructions are available at Open Electronics.

Freshwater Floating Solar Power Plant

The world’s largest freshwater solar power plant will be installed over reservoirs and lakes in India’s southern state of Kerala in a $ 72 million, 50 megawatt project. Using freshwater gets around the problem of landowners overcharging for solar developments, with projects paying rent to the owners of the bodies of water. The total cost will end up being around 15 percent lower than equivalent land-based projects.

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Offbeat Off The Grid 15 Mobile Solar Gadgets

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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Inverted Zoo: Enclosure-Free Design Puts Animals in the Open

11 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

open air zoo reversed

Aiming to change the nature of zoo experiences for species on both sides of the glass, Zootopia radically reverses traditional layouts and changes conventional expectations. It almost looks as if the humans were on the display while the animals are given the most space possible to roam.

open zoo path concept

Being created in conjunction with the Givskud Zoo and Safari Park in Denmark, this architectural design by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is in part a response to some long-standing criticisms of zoos, attacked for putting animals into barred, walled and windowed boxes.

big zoo sky bubbles

big zoo interactive concept

Instead, this architecture is meant to disappear, with barriers becoming effectively invisible and the experience more seamless for humans and animals alike. Rolling hills and strategic rocks replace over dividers, creating an environment that looks, feels and ultimately is more natural.

big zoo master plans

Additionally, habitats are being designed around the spatial needs and social desires of individual species, granting them the freedom as well as privacy required for each animal type to both survive and thrive.

big zoo habitat examples copy

For visitors, a central entrance gives a wide view in all directions to section spinning out from the middle and representing various climates and regions. Travel through the zoo will happen on foot but also by bike, boat and sky car.

big zoo physical model

big zoo central circle

The idea itself is not entirely novel – there are many drive-through zoos and wildlife refuges that attempt to simulate more organic conditions and break down barriers between humans and the animals they are visiting. Still, for a large-scale zoo, this approach is rare is not unprecedented in its aims and scope.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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The Peeling Project: Thinking Outside The Big Box Store

10 Aug

[ By Steve in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

BEST Products The Peeling Project 1a
What happened when an edgy architecture firm met an open-minded chain of big box retail stores? The very appealing Peeling Project, that’s what.

BEST Products The Peeling Project 1

We’ll leave it for others to document the startling and unlikely history of The Peeling Project in detail; our task at hand here is to display, in chronological order, the unique and individual extreme makeovers given to nine Best Products catalog showroom stores between 1971 and 1984. We’ll also show, if possible, the fate of these bold experiments in retail architecture following Best Products’ demise in 1998. We’ll begin where it all began: the Best Products store at 5400 Midlothian Turnpike in Richmond, VA.

BEST Products The Peeling Project 1c

BEST Products The Peeling Project 1d

Designed (as were all of the Project’s, er, projects) by architecture firm SITE Inc. (“Sculpture In The Environment”), the initial installation featuring a front facade that appears to be peeling away from the building ended up giving its name to the entire series of nine works. Built with safety in mind, the surrealistically embellished front facade was constructed with care and at obvious expense. Even so, that didn’t prevent new owners the Daily Pawn Shop from reverting the building to its original boring boxy look shortly after acquiring it.

Indeterminate Façade

BEST Products Indeterminate Facade 2a

BEST Products Indeterminate Facade 2b

Built in 1974-75, Indeterminate Façade was the second of SITE’s collaborations with Best Products and over time has emerged as the most famous. Located at 10765 Kingspoint Road in Houston, TX, the store started out as a standard large building but SITE artists then extended the outside walls unevenly to evoke a “distressed” appearance – the highlight of which was a waterfall of brick and masonry spilling onto the front awning.

BEST Products Indeterminate Facade 2c

BEST Products Indeterminate Facade 2d

Perhaps due to its notoriety, Indeterminate Façade remained unchanged through at least one change of ownership after Best Products declared bankruptcy for the final time. Sometime in 2003, however, the artistic extensions suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Some say the building’s owner heard rumors the City of Houston was about to declare the structure to be of historical significance and feared losing the freedom to alter the building at will in the future.

The Notch Project

BEST Products Notch Project 1a

BEST Products Notch Project 1b

BEST Products Notch Project 1c

When a Best Products store at 1901 Arden Way in Sacramento, CA known as The Notch Project opened in 1977, balloons poured out of the gaping “notch” that appeared when the building’s 14ft high, 45-ton front corner wedge slid aside to reveal the main entrance. Each morning thereafter, the corner piece would slide aside and each day at closing time it would slide back into position – sans balloons, mind you.

BEST Products Notch Project 1d

After Best Products sold off its bricks & mortar assets, the former Notch Project building was bought by Best Buy – an infamously non-innovative corporation who’s directors dictated all its stores must conform to the corporate look. We’re sure you’ll agree that when it came to imaginative branding, Best Products bested Best Buy by far.

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The Peeling Project Thinking Outside The Big Box Store

[ By Steve in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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City-Sized Artwork: Huge Building Mural Spans 99 Structures

10 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

city sized aerial art

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, Belgium, and can only be fully seen from above.

city perspectival art view

The work spans all sorts of downtown buildings, from the local cathedral to restaurants, stores and private residences, covering pieces of walls, roofs, sidewalks, and streets, all striped with white and playing a small part in the massive overall composition.

city spanning mural painting

city white painted stripes

The point of Trois Ellipses Ouvertes en Désordre is, in part, to create a public puzzle, causing people to wonder at the seemingly random components they see from any given perspective. The entire piece is only visible from the top of one local hotel, the Radisson Blu.

city sized art piece

To create the piece, light was projected on the buildings below at night. A team of painters then drew outlines around the resulting shadows and filled them in over the course of weeks using cranes to finish the work.

street art projected light

viewed from above

Varini is well versed in the art of view-specific installation pieces, some placed throughout interior spaces and others seen in open city streets.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Bloodswept Lands: Poppies Pour out of the Tower of London

08 Aug

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Tower of London Poppies 1

Bloodswept Lands and Seas of Red is the appropriately dramatic name for this incredible installation of red ceramic poppies pouring from an upper window into the dry moat around the Tower of London. A striking visual representation of loss, the work will ultimately consist of 888,246 blooms, each representing a British or Colonial military fatality.

Tower of London Poppies 2

Seen from a distance, the installation could be perceived as either a profusion of vitality in the form of out-of-control flowers, or a macabre river of blood.

Tower of London Poppies 3

Tower of London Poppies 4

Commemorating the centennial of Britain’s involvement in World War I, the installation continues to evolve as members of the public show their support by purchasing individual poppies.

Tower of London Poppies 5

Proceeds from the sale of each poppy will be shared among six service charities, including several that support the mental health and physical needs of veterans in the UK.

Tower of London Poppies 6

Tower of London Poppies 8

The flowers are being placed one at a time by volunteers, the process not set to be complete until November 11th. Progress on the installation can be tracked using the #TowerPoppies hashtag on Twitter.

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Pocket Tent: Tiny Prefab Home Inflates Itself with Body Heat

08 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

portable pocket house inflated

A brilliant application of material science toward simple living, this portable self-inflating structure folds up into a manageable miniature package but expands to create a small dwelling space.

portable fold up home

Created by Martin Azua, the Basic House is a genius “habitable volume; foldable, inflatable and reversible … made from metalized polyester” that uses body or solar heat to inflate itself. As its designer explains, “is not a product, rather a concept of extreme reduction.”

portable modular prefab design

In a clever twist, this tiny portable space is made to be inverted so that it can deflect solar heat (for cold situations) in one configuration but capture it (to warm its interior) when reversed. Versatile and durable, the design could be used for everything from homeless shelters and travel tents to emergency housing and much more.

portable pocket travel tent

portable tent home concept

portable house interior exterior

More from its maker on his motivation: “Our habitat has turned into a space of consumption in which an unlimited number of products satisfy a series of needs created by complex systems and relations that are difficult to control. Cultures that maintain a more direct interaction with their environment show us that the idea of habitat can be understood in more essential and reasonable terms.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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

08 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

tree of 40 fruits

Giving the phrase ‘garden variety’ a fresh new meaning for urban gardeners, this amazing hybrid plant makes it possible to raise dozens of types of produce on a single tree using low-tech grafting techniques.

tree 40 fruit growing

A work of both art and science by Syracuse University art professor Sam Van Aken, the all-in-one Tree of 40 Fruit is the culmination of years spent experimenting with hybridized stone fruit trees that produce peaches, plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines, cherries and much more.

tree fruit growing experiments

Treating his work (with over 250 types of fruit) as a combination of farming and arborsculpture, Aken combines heirloom, antique, and native varieties, all set to bloom in seasonal sequences designed to create edible results as well as aesthetic effects throughout the year.

tree fruit before after

The custom-crafted hybrid looks like an ordinary fruit tree until it blossoms a key points through spring, summer and fall with its rich variety of flowers and fruits.

tree fruit peaches branch

Using a chip grafting process, Aken takes a sliver off of a tree and tapes it the growing hybrid, letting the pieces grow together over the winter then pruning them back as needed.

tree 40 fruit sites

The resulting trees of 40 fruit continue to be grown and dispersed around the country to museums, community gardens and other public spaces.

In an interview with Epicurious, Aken explains that “as the project evolved, it took on more goals. In trying to find different varieties of stone fruit to create the Tree of 40 Fruit, I realized that for various reasons, including industrialization and the creation of enormous monocultures, we are losing diversity in food production. In addition to maintaining these varieties in my nursery, I graft them to the Tree of 40 Fruit. Additionally … I go to local farmers and growers to collect stone fruit varieties and graft them to the trees. In this way they become an archive of the agricultural history of where they are located as well as a means to preserve antique and native varieties.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Cardboard Ferrari: Urban Art Installations by Benedetto

07 Aug

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

Benedetto Urban Art Installations Main

Ordinary cars become Ferraris with cardboard camouflage, campers stretch high into the sky and disused telephone booths transform into glowing sidewalk aquariums in fun urban art installations by artist Benedetto Bufalino. Aiming to transcend the mundane in city life, Bufalino repurposes existing objects in unexpected ways, creating head-scratching spectacles all over his home country of France.

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 6

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 8

Witnessing one of these installations in person feels a bit like wandering onto the set of a surreal film, asking yourself whether you’re actually dreaming.

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 3

Chickens cluck and scratch inside the back of a converted police coop, comfortable in their unconventional new home. Bathers lounge in a car-turned-Jacuzzi.

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 2

Passersby tug confusedly at the door handles of a classic red telephone booth, gazing at the goldfish inside as if they haven’t quite realized yet that they can’t step in and make a call.

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 7

Teens perched on a massively oversized picnic table look as if they’ve been shrunk down to half their normal size.

Benedetto Urban Art Installations 9

See lots more dreamlike urban art installations at Benedetto’s website.

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

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Forested Facades: 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery to the City

07 Aug

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Vertical Greenery Main

Why stop at parks when we could make cities lusher and greener by integrating thousands of plants right into the facades of urban buildings? Vertical greenery improves air quality, shades the buildings, adds privacy and creates habitats for native birds and insects. These 13 examples include a parking garage, private residences, retail spaces and the world’s tallest vertical garden.

Vo Trong Nghia House Renovation

Green Facades Vo Trong 2
Created as an example of how greenery can be incorporated back into urban Vietnam, this house renovation incorporates a galvanized steel screen that acts as a trellis for climbing plants, enhancing privacy and security while also filtering air and sunlight.

Stacking Green by Vo Trong Nghia

Another approach by the same architecture firm, Vo Trong Nghia, uses 12 layers of concrete planters to create a vertical garden around a tall and narrow home that’s 65 feet deep but only 13 feet wide. Staggered spaces between the layers offer room for different heights of plants.

Bosco Verticale: Twin Green Towers

Vertical Greenery Bosco 2

Vertical Greenery Bosco 3

Nearly 1,000 trees, 5,000 shrubs and over 10,000 other small plants have been added to the city of Milan in these two urban towers alone. The twin towers of the Bosco Verticale by Stefano Boeri were designed to meet all of the needs of a heavy load of plants, including irrigation, root systems and weight. The greenery brightens up the city, provides shade and cleaner air for residents, and offers habitats for regional birds and insects.

Biological Concrete Absorbs Water & Grows Moss

Green Facade Moss Concrete 2

Building materials could be made with the growth of greenery in mind, making a layer of moss or ivy on the exterior a natural part of the structure rather than a potential problem. Scientists at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona are developing a ‘biological concrete‘ that captures rainwater to create living walls of moss and fungi.

Green Cast by Kengo Kuma

Kengo Kuma and Associates created a patchwork aluminum facade with spaces for plants to grow for a pharmacy and clinic in Japan. Ventilation shafts and rainwater downpipes are concealed within the panels to keep the plants healthy.

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Forested Facades 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery To The City

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Wi-Fi Visualized: Signals Translated to Ghostly Light Orbs

06 Aug

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

Wifi Spirit Photography 1

Translated into glowing orbs of light with a rainbow of colors representing signal strength, these visualizations of wi-fi signals are like Victorian spirit photography for the modern age. Luis Hernan of Newcastle University makes the invisible not only visible but also vaguely eerie with his project, Digital Ethereal.

WiFi Spirit Photography 2

WiFi Spirit Photography 6

Hernan developed a homemade gadget called a Kirlian Device that, appropriately enough, looks like a piece of ghost hunting equipment. The instrument “scans continuously for wireless networks, and transforms the signal strength to colour LEDs.”

WiFi Spirit Photography 3

WiFi Spirit Photography 4

The effect is captured in a series of long-exposure photographs akin to light painting, the results a mass of swirling colored light showing the movement of the signals across a space.

WiFi Spirit Photography 5

WiFi Spirit Photography 7

In another segment of the Digital Ethereal project, a gallery demonstration of a ‘chandelier’ running on the accompanying Kirlian Device Android App, which “explores the interaction of visitors with Hertzian Space.” Visitors interact with the electromagnetic waves around dangling cell phones, producing different lighting effects on the screens.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Offbeat & Off the Grid: 15 Surprisingly Mobile Solar Gadgets

Shrub Rover Solar-Powered Camouflaged Car

Pop-Up Solar Power Station

Solar-Powered Wheelchair

Autonomous Solar-Powered Lawnmower

Freshwater Floating Solar Power Plant

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Offbeat Off The Grid 15 Mobile Solar Gadgets

Inverted Zoo: Enclosure-Free Design Puts Animals in the Open

The Peeling Project: Thinking Outside The Big Box Store

Indeterminate Façade

The Notch Project

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
The Peeling Project Thinking Outside The Big Box Store

City-Sized Artwork: Huge Building Mural Spans 99 Structures

Bloodswept Lands: Poppies Pour out of the Tower of London

Pocket Tent: Tiny Prefab Home Inflates Itself with Body Heat

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

Cardboard Ferrari: Urban Art Installations by Benedetto

Forested Facades: 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery to the City

Vo Trong Nghia House Renovation

Stacking Green by Vo Trong Nghia

Bosco Verticale: Twin Green Towers

Biological Concrete Absorbs Water & Grows Moss

Green Cast by Kengo Kuma

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Forested Facades 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery To The City

Wi-Fi Visualized: Signals Translated to Ghostly Light Orbs

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Shrub Rover Solar-Powered Camouflaged Car

Pop-Up Solar Power Station

Solar-Powered Wheelchair

Autonomous Solar-Powered Lawnmower

Freshwater Floating Solar Power Plant

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Offbeat Off The Grid 15 Mobile Solar Gadgets

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Street Smart: Solar Roadway Lights Up & Feeds Power Grid

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Lunar Power: Solar Spheres Energized by Both Sun & Moon

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100+ of the World’s Weirdest Plants and Animals

Open House(s): 10 Wonderful Open-Plan Home Designs

Free to Forge: Open Source 3D-Printed Metal Mesh Furniture

Indeterminate Façade

The Notch Project

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70 Stunning Works of 3D Street Painting & Mural Art

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Parasite Tent Pods: Vertical Urban Wall Homes for Homeless

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Dystopian Dumpster Living: Trash Bins Turned Tiny Houses

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Meatium as Art: Meat & Fruit Sculptures of Dimitri Tsykalov

Invisible Tree: Trunk Wrapped & Camouflaged to Float on Air

Treehouse Taster: 3 Wildly Different Types of Tree Houses

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See What? 14 Amazing & Unexpected Urban Art Installations

The City is a Playground: 15 Interactive Installations

Mark Reigelman’s Playful & Thought-Provoking Urban Art

Vo Trong Nghia House Renovation

Stacking Green by Vo Trong Nghia

Bosco Verticale: Twin Green Towers

Biological Concrete Absorbs Water & Grows Moss

Green Cast by Kengo Kuma

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Forested Facades 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery To The City

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Buildings That Don’t Exist: Fake Facades Hide Infrastructure

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Vertical Forests: 2 Lush Urban Towers Support 16,000 Plants

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Painting with Light: 15 Long-Exposure Light Art Photos

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Offbeat Off The Grid 15 Mobile Solar Gadgets

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The Peeling Project Thinking Outside The Big Box Store

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Forested Facades 13 Buildings Bringing Greenery To The City