Category: Creativity

Broken Mirror: Shard Hotel Views Reflect Next-Door Rooms

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

Splintered corners, giving The Shard in London its iconic multifaceted look, are now also responsible for letting guests of Europe’s tallest hotel see into the spaces of their nighttime neighbors.

As the Financial Times reports,a series of glass panels standing out from the structure have turned into a series of accidental mirrors, giving room-with-a-view a new meaning in the context of this building.

During the day, visitors to the Shangri-La can see out in nearly all directions, but at night with inside lights on they also get an uninvited sneak peak back into adjacent bedrooms. Designed by Renzo Piano, the famous building may not be as problem-plagued as its car-melting sibling but it certainly has some issues yet to be resolved.

The solution so far offered by the hotel seems somewhat incomplete – they are notifying guests of the issue and advising them to use curtains. Still, not everyone will remember to take such steps and many will want to leave their curtains open, since they came for the lovely views in the first place. In the end, one is left to wonder how no light modeling of the building revealed this potential problem (image above by Patrick Collins).

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Shattered Sunsets: Broken Mirror Photos of Evening Skies

Spanning multiple feet in each direction, these giant-sized photo prints transform the light and color of ordinary sunset scenes, reflecting them through a …
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Pipes to Capsules: 7 of the Smallest Hotels & Hotel Rooms

You can judge which one is the actual winner of this dubious award after taking a look at this incredible collection of the tiniest hotels in the world!
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16 of the Most Creative & Weird Hotel Rooms in the World

Even though some may look uncomfortable, unusual or downright freakish at least they aren’t among the 7 tiniest hotel rooms in the world.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 18, 2014
Get Your Virtual Wings: Oculus Rift Machine Simulates Flight

[ By Steph in Gaming & Computing & Technology. ]

Feel the wind on your face and smell the pine sap of the forest as you gaze down at the scenery far below – without ever leaving the ground. ‘Birdly’ is a new machine developed by the Zurich University of the Arts that simulates flight using an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, a motor-powered machine that mimics flying movements, a fan to fake the feeling of wind and even olfactory feedback tailored to the landscape of your choice.

The creators studied the movement of the Red Kite bird and translated it to a sensory-motor coupling that enables you to flap your ‘wings’ as if you’re really flying. The movement of your arms directly correlates to the flying sensation you experience through the Oculus Rift headset.

Once strapped in, you’re embedded in a virtual landscape as if you were the Red Kite itself for the closest possible simulation of flight that’s possible without ever actually going into the air. The faster you go, the stronger the air pushed out by the fan positioned right in front of your head.

While it’s easy to imagine Birdly becoming a fixture at amusement parks, so far, it’s just an art installation, with no plans for commercialization. The creators say there are a few tweaks still needed to keep users from getting sick during the flight experience. This device is just the latest in an intriguing line of creations using Oculus Rift to bend reality, like a recent Gender Swap experiment that allows the user to switch to the point of view of someone of a different gender.

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Virtually Reality: Real Futuristic Tools for Virtual Worlds

Virtual reality, like the hovercar, iis taking longer than expected to progress, but we’ve made some very large leaps in the right direction. Here are examples.
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Mini Rube Goldberg Machine Makes Cool Travel Companion

A Dutch design studio packs an amazingly complex Rube Goldberg machine into two suitcases, two years after producing the world’s largest room-sized machine.
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Cloud Machine Lets You Play God by Modifying the Weather

Sent into the atmosphere with a weather balloon, the Cloud Machine enables the user to influence the weather on a small scale.
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[ By Steph in Gaming & Computing & Technology. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 17, 2014
Urban X-Stitch: Street Artist Cross-Stitches Yarn on Fences

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

Whether you want to call it a new art form or a simply a hipster hobby, an artist France is pushing street-side string art in amusing new directions.

Not quite your grandmother-in-rocking-chair approach, Urban X-Stitch creates colorfully cross-stitched pieces along the lines of yarn bombing and knitted graffiti.

So far, these subjects are mostly tame – bright logos and cute animals mixed in with only a few things that look more like spray-painted tags, but the potential is there for something more.

Another neat possible direction in which to take this: pattern sharing between artists and places, the same way cross-stitching in its traditional setting can follow guides and designs.

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Tag Clouds: Geek Street Artist Remakes Messy Graffiti

In a play on both tagging and technology, this artist turns traditional tags into computer-style tag clouds, among other geeky street art projects.
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Banksy Paradox: 7 Sides of the Most Infamous Street Artist

The following seven examples illustrate the fascinating range of Banksy’s life and works through his most controversial and compelling projects, stories and …
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Wild Creatures in Urban Mexico: New Street Art by ROA

10-foot-tall wild animals spring to life in the streets of Mexico from the spray paint can of Belgian artist ROA, champion of the underdogs of nature.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 16, 2014
Real-Life Panopticons: Deserted Dystopian Prisons in Cuba

[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Imagine life inside a ring of cells around a central watchtower, where you can never be sure whether you are being observed. This surreal setup became an extreme reality under dictator Gerardo Machado on the Cuban Isla de la Juventud.

One of the creepiest concepts in the history of architecture, the Panopticon model of incarceration design proposes keeping prisoners forever on edge, fearing their watchers.

Both Fidel and Raul Castro spent time within the walls of this Presidio Modelo (Model Prison) complex, which, at its peak, held over 8,000 political prisoners. Apparently they found the approach sufficiently effective, since the Castro regime kept them open as well.

Originally the vision of Jeremy Bentham (and later nightmare of philosopher Michel Foucault), this 18th-Century idea was never realized in its creator’s lifetime but found expression in many structures after his death.

While there are other Panopticon-inspired prisons around the world, this complex in Cuba may be the most literal and direction realization of the original diagrams. It features circular structures and guardhouses in the center of a vast open spaces, all to keep residents in a perpetual state of uncertainty (images via Jason Florio and Wikipedia).

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Nautical Architectures: Electrified Reefs to Waterfall Prisons

Like a speculative fiction novelist, Margot Krasojevic creates fantastical work that manages to combine real design challenges of our times with futuristic …
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Not Just Jail: 12 Modern, Futuristic & Fascinating Prisons

These 12 correctional facilities deviate from the norm with unusual designs, often aiming to revolutionize the way in which inmates interact with the world.
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Nuclear Family Housing: Life In a Real Missile Silo Home

As dozens of decades-old nuclear missile silos slowly slip into disrepair and decay, a precious few are taking on new life as pre-apocalyptic family homes.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 16, 2014
Aviator’s Villa: Ultramodern House Made of Airplane Parts

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

A long, narrow ultramodern residence envisioned as a composition of disassembled aviation components offers an evocative home for a retired pilot. ‘Aviator’s Villa’ by Urban Office Architecture is elevated on a hill between a lake and a swimming pool, and exposed on three sides so it feels like it’s floating on air.

The cantilevered master bedroom juts out from the main volume of the home like the nose of an airplane, hovering over other ‘floating’ volumes conceived as abstracted clouds. You might expect a smoother silhouette from a plane-inspired structure, but the architects deliberately gave it a “twist and torque” to simulate the way a plane steers through air currents.

The house consists of three primary spaces including a thirty-foot-tall living area and kitchen, the 40-foot bedroom, and the library. Between the two separate structures are a series of hidden spaces revealed during the ascent up a circular staircase.

Throughout the villa, little details echo those found within a plane, like the riveted metal frames around the windows, and perforated metal screens that filter harsh direct sunlight the way clouds do in the sky. The sharp, geometric panes of glass that make up the windows are meant to recall the angles found within a cockpit.

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Villa Savoye: Classic Corbu House Comes to Life in LEGO

One of the most iconic buildings of the 20th Century, the Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier outside of Paris, France has long been a symbol of Modern Architecture.
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Dream-House Designs: 10 Uncanny Ultramodern Homes

Modernism is style – ultramodernism is undefined, but for the purposes of this article is that amazing design approach which brings the future into the present.
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Slim Living: World’s Thinnest House is Just Four Feet Wide

The world’s smallest house is a four-foot-wide guest residence for artists, crammed between two more conventional buildings in Warsaw, Poland.
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 15, 2014
Fairytale Hotels: 15 of the World’s Most Magical Lodgings

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

Waterfalls stream down the sides of mountain-shaped, moss-covered structures, while white horses gallivant in front of castles that look like they were ripped right out of a book of fairytales. These 15 hotels are among the most magical places to stay anywhere in the world, from ancient palaces in India to gleaming ice hotels in Quebec. While some are a peek at how the 1% live, others are surprisingly affordable.

Magic Mountain Hotel, Chile

If elves took up residence in Hobbiton, this is what their homes would look like. The mountain-shaped structure is dotted with arched windows and obscured with lush greenery. Waterfalls stream down the sides to drench the moss, ferns and flowers. Located within the remote Huilo-Huilo Biological Reserve, the hotel requires an adventurous spirit to even access, but it’s well worth the effort. Nearly everything is constructed from locally, sustainably sourced wood.

Neemrana Fort Palace, India

A 15th-century palace built into the hillside in India is now a five-star, 55-bedroom hotel with kingly views over the nearby village. Neemrana Fort Palace is full of authentic decor from periods throughout India’s history and contains displays that educate guests about the palace’s fascinating past. Though rooms here start at just £50 per night, guests are given the royal treatment, with options including poolside spa treatments and hot balloon rides over the valley.

Fairytale Hotel in Belgium

Sleep in a surreal medieval-style chamber within a massive wooden Trojan Horse at Belgium’s La Balade des Gnomes Hotel. This bizarre retreat boasts ten unique rooms sculpted with the natural earthen building material known as cob to create all sorts of curved custom surfaces. The horse is just one of the hotel’s suites – others include a troll’s lair and a Macquarie Island room with a boat-shaped bed.

Crazy House Hotel, Dalat, Vietnam

The aptly named Crazy House Hotel in Vietnam began as the private residence of architect Hang Viet Nga, who clearly let her imagination run wild in creating an organically shaped structure reminiscent of the Barcelona ouvre of Antoni Gaudi. Made from the base of a dead tree, the house is full of ladders leading into hidden nooks and through tight tunnels. Rooms cost as little as $ 22 USD per night.

Thorngrove Manor Hotel, Adelaide, Australia

The Thorngrove Manor Hotel could easily double as a princess castle at Disneyland, it’s so picturesque. Located in Adelaide, Australia, the castle-like structure looks centuries-old but was actually built in 1994 as part of a vineyard. Though all the rooms are together in one building, there are no common spaces, and couples staying there never need to see other guests.

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Fairytale Inn 15 Of The Worlds Most Magical Hotels

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8 Remarkable Palace, Fort & Castle Hotels Around the World

Imagine curling up in front of an 800 year old fireplace where a king once rested (or was arrested!). Sleep well in your own piece of world history.
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Like a King: 15 (More!) Spectacular Castle & Palace Hotels

These 15 exquisite castle hotels offer us regular folks the chance to live like kings and queens; all it takes is a reservation and a few extra dollars.
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5 Real Jail Hotels: Comfortable Cells to Nightmarish Slammers

A prison is probably the last place on Earth most of us would want to spend the night, right? What if we told you some people pay for the privilege?
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[ By Steph in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 15, 2014
Groundless City: A Guidebook to Underground Hong Hong

[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

Between raised walkways, subways, ferries, cable cars, a multi-block outdoor escalator and extensive double-decker bus system, it is possible to traverse a huge swath of Hong Kong without even touching the ground (photo above by HappyKiddo).

At the same time, it is hard to find maps and illustrations of this vast urban phenomena – at least outside of Cities Without Ground: A Hong Kong Guidebook, which maps 32 networks of pedestrian paths above and below the surface.

Architects and authors Jonathan D Solomon, Clara Wong, and Adam Frampton (through ORO Editions) documented these interconnected systems in amazing detail. As Kevin Kelly writes, the book captures the essence of a sort of shadow city: “Beneath and between the gleaming skyscrapers built over the cramped confines of Hong Kong proper are miles of subterranean malls, passageways, stairs, subway stations, parking garages, escalators, skybridges, and food courts.”

Like aged cities themselves (or water-carved catacombs or piecemeal-generated anthills), these networks were not designed as a whole. Rather, they developed organically over time via both private and public initiatives, slowly forming a convoluted but beautiful and evolving patchwork of voids with various degrees of privacy and accessibility.

If you do visit Hong Kong, try this for a start: take the escalator all the way up and back down the steeply-sloped hillside. Or: break off just before the bottom and stay on second-story walkways as far as they will take you. If you get stuck, instead of descending just to street level, go underground and see how far you can make it via subterranean passageways. If all else fails, hop on a bus, ferry or subway. You may be amazed at how far this combination can take you.

More about the book from the official description: “Hong Kong is a city without ground. This is true both physically (built on steep slopes, the city has no ground plane) and culturally (there is no concept of ground). Density obliterates figure-ground in the city, and in turn re-defines public-private spatial relationships. Perception of distance and time is distorted through compact networks of pedestrian infrastructure, public transport and natural topography in the urban landscape.Without a ground, there can be no figure either. In fact, Hong Kong lacks any of the traditional figure-ground relationships that shape urban space: axis, edge, center, even fabric.” (Photo by Nicolas Vollmer)

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Dense City: Photos Show Tightly-Packed Hong Kong Towers

Twice as dense as New York, and four times as crowded as London, Hong Kong is a fascinating mix of natural landscape edged by incredibly dense human …
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Amphitheater of the Dead: Hong Kong Hillside Cemeteries

This terraced structure is not the remains of some ancient amphitheater, but a metropolis of the dead that’s just as dense as that of the living city of …
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Vertical Horizon: Urban Photographs Turn City Upside Down

Hong Kong is a much-photographed city, but these shots present a rarely-seen perspective by documentarians or pedestrians … unless they look straight up.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 14, 2014
Empty Spaces: Photo Book Documents Eerie Urban Ruins

[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Crumbling cathedrals, decaying theaters and half-destroyed camping cabins: urban explorer Johnny Joo has seen it all, and he doesn’t just document these abandoned places, he does so with an eye for spine-tingling drama. The 23-year-old photographer is releasing his collection of stunning images in book form with ‘Empty Spaces,’ available for pre-order for just a couple more days.

The 116-page, hard-cover photo book ‘Empty Spaces’ includes the photographer’s favorites from years of urban exploration. Pre-orders come hand-signed with a free gift; the book is also available in E-book form. Order it at Architectural Afterlife.

The photographs take us on a visual tour of the abandoned Rust Belt. Some structures are so covered in moss and ivy, their former use is a mystery. Others, like bowling alleys and theaters, seem frozen in time, as if they’re just waiting for patrons to start filing back in.

“Why were these places vacated? And why are they left to sit, uncared for? The remains of a person’s bedroom, bed still intact, covered in a layer of mold and dust. Walls surrounding with cracked complexions and vivid, yet transparent voices telling a story of time. Living through the history of abandonments as you explore what once was an entirely different scene; now transformed into a desolate, yet incredible, stimulating image of complex patterns and great detail. Through this book, we will take a journey through the rust belt to see the unseen and find the forgotten.”

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Documenting Decay: Urban Atrophy’s Breathtaking New Book

The creator of the website Urban Atrophy has published an incredible picture book complete with the histories of the buildings he explores and documents.
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Rural Ruins: 20 Eerie Images of Abandonments

The countryside is littered with abandoned structures, from weathered stables and barns about to collapse to stately manors that have fallen into ruin.
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Out of Gas: 24 Eerie Abandoned Vehicles & Transit Structures

In some cases disaster strikes. In others, changing technologies render old designs obsolete, leaving majestic airplanes and giant steamers to rust and gather …
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[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 13, 2014
Floating Architecture: 16 Dramatic Cantilevered Structures

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Jutting out over cliffs or hovering over impossibly small foundations, these 16 dramatically cantilevered structures seem like they’re about to take off into the sky. With designs that appear to defy the laws of physics, these balancing homes, museums and mountain overlooks extend beyond the usual boundaries to take in majestic views.

Balancing Barn by MVRDV

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV has made a name for itself with wholly unexpected, often gravity-defying structures, and Balancing Barn is a prime example. The glittering metal-clad building looks like someone started to push it off a cliff and gave up, seeming to balance precariously on the edge of the hillside. The structure is 98 feet long (30 meters) and is actually no barn at all, but a home designed to take in the views of the surrounding forest.

Hemeroscopium House by Ensamble Studio & Anton Garcia-Abril

A swimming pool juts out over the grass at the highly unusual Hemeroscopium House by Ensamble Studios. Made of prefabricated concrete built from three massive I-beams, two segments of an irrigation canal and two steel girders, the house took just a week to assemble.

Top of Tyrol Viewing Platform, Austria

The sculptural Top of Tyrol overlook by Aste Architecture is a platform that juts 27 feet over a ridge at the pinnacle of Austria’s Mount Isidor. The oxidized metal structure was designed to blend into the environment as much as possible, seeming to disappear into the rocks during warm weather and meld with the snow in winter.

View Hill House by Denton Corker Marshall

Rather than placing the second story parallel to the first, as is most common, Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall chose a perpendicular approach for the aptly named View Hill House. The architects envision the isolated building as ‘land art,’ a shape that can be reduced to two sticks placed on top of each other and ‘dropped’ onto the landscape.

Five Fingers Viewing Platform, Austria

Five individual platforms stick out of this overlook in the Salzkammergut area of the Austrian Alps, each with a different way to experience the view. One has a picture frame at the end, another has a glass floor, the third has a trampoline, the fourth features a round hole in the floor and the fifth offers a telescope.

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Floating Architecture 16 Dramatic Cantilevered Structures

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Crisp White Angular Cantilevered ‘House R’ in Germany

German architecture studio Bembé Dellinger brings an ultramodern touch to a lakeside suburb with ‘House R’, a cantilevered daylight-filled all-white home.
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Origami-Inspired Architecture: 14 Geometric Structures

For all the effort, skill and time it takes to produce a typical work of origami, the result can be ephemeral, limited by the delicate nature of paper. But …
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Iconographic Architecture: The Unique Style of MVRDV

Rotterdam’s MVRDV, a team of 50 architects, has a sustainable vision for the future with stunning distinctive designs that seek to make cities more livable.
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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WebUrbanist

May 13, 2014
Pop-Up Portfolio: Mobile Furniture Folds Flat Between Pages

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

It is not unusual to see art and design students walking around with portfolios under their arms, but few open up to reveal such creative results as these.

Inspired by campus folder cases, origami and pop-up books, Japanese designer Mariko Tsujimoto created this series of unfolding furnishings that deploy into surprisingly solid (if small) functional objects.

Set in vivid colors to distinguish their functionality, the set includes a chair, table, desk and bookshelf, each of which refolds automatically when the end pages are closed.

These quite literal portfolio pieces are just plastic prototypes for now, but rendered in a more solid material they could provide the conceptual groundwork for a full-fledged furnishing set.

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Flat Pack: 20 Creative Furniture Designs for Cramped Living

Without further ado, here are 20 more examples of incredibly compact and transforming furniture for cramped urban living.
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Resource Furniture: Convertible Designs for Small Spaces

Multifunctional and convertible furniture solutions from Resource Furniture unfold and expand in unexpected ways, fitting lots of function into tiny rooms.
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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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[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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May 12, 2014