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Home Ice: 12 International Antarctic Research Stations

02 Mar

[ By Steve in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

antarctic research stations
Constructing a research station in Antarctica means thinking outside the box-like building but not TOO far outside… Great Scott it’s COLD out there!

USA: Palmer Station

Palmer Station Antarctica(images via: Christopher Michel and WHOI)

Built in 1968 on Anvers Island, Palmer Station is the only American antarctic base located north of the Antarctic Circle. The base’s activities focus on the study of marine life and most projects are seasonal in nature: the station’s resident population averages around 40 in summer but drops to 15-20 in winter.

Palmer Station Antarctica(image via: NASA)

But enough about the station, check out the photo above! In November of 2009, red-parka’d base personnel got together to send a friendly greeting to NASA’s DC-8 flying science laboratory flying overhead.

Ukraine: Vernadsky Research Base

Ukraine Vernadsky Research Base antarctica(images via: EYOS Expeditions, Wikipedia/Lewnwdc77 and Around This World)

Ukraine didn’t build the Vernadsky Research Base; the former Faraday Station on Winter Island was purchased from Great Britain in 1996 for the bargain price of one pound. The station’s main claim to fame is its bar, said to be the southernmost such establishment on earth, where thirsty and/or bored patrons can pay $ 3 a shot for vodka brewed on-site.

Ukraine Vernadsky Research Base Antarctica(image via: Rachel Lea Fox)

Now operated by the National Antarctic Scientific Center of Ukraine, the Vernadsky Station consists of nine buildings and can house up to 15 staff members. Full credit to Flickr user Rachel Lea Fox for the image above. Time for a new flag? Er, I wasn’t asking you, President Putin.

Norway: Troll Research Station

Norway Troll antarctic station(images via: Norwegian Polar Institute, Wikipedia/Islarsh and Reuters, Alister Doyle)

Constructed in 1990 and expanded 15 years later, Troll Station is Norway’s only year-round antarctic science base… problem? The Norwegian Polar Institute operates 8-person capacity Troll Station, which is located in the Norwegian antarctic dependency of Queen Maud Land. Troll Station is built on a bare rock outcrop poking through the ice cap and since the region is considered to be a “desert” in meteorological terms, heavy snowfalls and wind-blown drifting are not major concerns.

Norway Troll Station Antarctica(image via: Epoch Times/Heiko Junge/AFP)

As is the case with all antarctic research stations, accommodations at Troll Station are both limited and spartan… even if you’re Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

Belgium: Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station

Belgium Princess Elizabeth antarctic station(images via: Treehugger, International Polar Foundation and Architects24)

Belgium’s futuristic Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station opened in February of 2009 and claims to be “the world’s first zero emission polar research station.” The 16-person capacity station draws electric power from solar panels supplemented by a network of nine wind turbines.

Belgium Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Research Station bicycle(image via: IRM)

Though sunlight is unavailable for months at a stretch, Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station’s location backing onto the rocky Utsteinen Ridge in Queen Maud Land exposes it to howling gales measured at up to 300 kph (190 mph). Calmer days are much appreciated by station staff. He’s rollin’, don’t be hatin’.

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Home Ice 12 International Antarctic Research Stations

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Mountaintop Tent: Airlifted Alpine Retreat Built at 8,000 Feet

02 Mar

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Travel & Places. ]

mountaintop distance view structure

Created as a tribute to a mountain guide killed in an tragic avalanche, this tent-shaped shelter of wood and steel was helicoptered in pieces and assembled at an elevation of 2531 meters in Italy.

mountain cabin by cliff

mountaintop architecture design build

Commissioned by the family of the fallen and designed by Giovanni Pesamosca Architetto (images by Flavio Pesamosca), the building was made to honor Luca Vuerich, who perished in an avalanche while climbing a frozen waterfall.

mountaineer retreat construction helicopter

Thanks to the efforts of family, friends, colleagues and mountain rescue volunteers (twelve people in total), the shell was constructed on site in a single day from pre-marked parts deposited by helicopter.

mountain cabin entry side

mountain cabin in context

The triangular structure is shaped to shed snow but built capable of being covered entirely as well, with access on its south side where the sun melts accumulation the fastest.

mountain retreat edge

The wooden truss-reinforced frame is made to withstand high wind loads as well due to its exposed location, and set up on a series of concrete footings.

mountain tent retreat alps

mountain interior construction process

The interior sports nine beds for hikers and mountain climbers, which might look spartan to the outside observer but are strikingly luxurious when you consider their remote location.

mountaineering retreat hiking rest

mountain cabin money shot

Open to anyone who can get there, the building is located in the Julian Alps, on the crest of the Foronon Buinz Mountain along the Ceria-Merlone trail.

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Alley Stack: Brooklyn Home Made of 5 Shipping Containers

01 Mar

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Shipping Container Home Brooklyn 1

A tiny slice of real estate in Brooklyn is now an affordable, low-impact multi-level residence made of five stacked and renovated shipping containers. Williamsburg couple Michele Bertomen and David Boyle bought a 6×12-meter lot that had been vacant for 60 years, squeezed between two brick buildings. Conventional building materials would have stretched their budget, so they set out to design and build a shipping container house with a total cost of just $ 50,000 (not including the lot).

Brooklyn Shipping Container Home 2

That price is unheard of in New York City, and it took a lot of innovation – with more than a few bumps in the road – to make it happen. Getting the right permits took ten months, with city officials repeatedly requiring changes to the couple’s plans. Luckily Bertomen is an architect and Boyle a contractor, saving them a lot of money. Once the plans were done and the materials acquired, it took just a few hours to put it all together.

Brooklyn Shipping Container Home 3

The shipping containers were purchased for $ 1,500 each and once assembled, create an interior space measuring nearly 1,600 square feet. The container walls are insulated with Super Therm, a paint that contains ceramic particles, and the home is heated with radiant heat that runs through the concrete floors.

Brooklyn Shipping Container Home 4

Believed to be the first shipping container residence in New York City, the house features multiple outdoor areas (including a private porch for the couple’s dog) and a roof terrace. See a complete tour of the interior at Inhabitat and DNA Info.

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Conjoined Chopsticks: 2 Redesigns to Keep Utensils Paired

28 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

chopstick pair solution design

Like socks, or any other paired object of everyday use, it seems the eternal curse of chopsticks to become separated and mismatched over time, at least until now.

chop sticks wood corkscrew

Japanese design firm Nendo, well known for classy solutions to classic design problems, turned their attention to the chopstick and came up with a pair of ingenious solutions.

chop stick paired helix

One design, the Rassen, is strictly mechanical – the ends are carefully corkscrewed so they can intertwine with one another like tightly-interlocked strands of double-helical DNA.

chopstick magnetic design detail

The other design employs inconspicuous magnets that keep points and backs from sticking while helping them stay together (and appear part of a whole) when flipped and nestled.

chopsticks magnet flip solution

chopsticks yin yang pairs

Few everyday objects have remained so consistent in their shape and function for so long as the Chinese chopstick, but as these designs show: a few thousand years of history is no reason not to look at a product anew. Each of these easy-to-re-pair designs (as well as a few other clever variations) is set to go on sale soon via manufacturer Hashikura Matsukan.

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Decoding Streets: Secret Symbols of the Urban Underground

28 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Urbex & Parkour. ]

street paint language us

Somewhere between city signs and street graffiti lies a surprisingly rich and colorful language of secret messages, all hidden in plain sight on roads and sidewalks. This spray-painted slang we walk over and drive along every day is employed by infrastructure engineers, utility companies and other city workers.

street symbols multi colored

secret hidden street language

Laurence Cawley of BBC News recently explored this strange world of colorful spray-painted dots, arrows, text and more, all of which denote what lies below the surface of the city.

street symbols blue water

These markings may seem rushed and crude to the casual observer, but they are essential to the protection underground power lines, pipes and a maze of other potential subterranean hazards, as well as to the safety of those who work around them. There are no laws governing this mysterious language, simply conventions and colloquial shorthand that have evolved over time. As Cawley aptly summarizes: ”Its lexicon is numbers, lines and symbols. Its grammar is most definitely colour.”

street symbols white general

Colors are particularly critical – at least in the UK, red means electricity, blue stands for water, yellow is tied to gas, and green is used for cables (CCTV networks, television lines and fiber optics). White, meanwhile, is a kind of all-purpose color for broader communications about road and sidewalk planning. None of these are spelled out in any official manual in the UK – they are a matter of convention, and, sometimes, contention, as not all companies use the same visual dictionary.

street color decoder rings

In the United States, however, according to Smithsonian: “These ‘safety colors’–expanded to include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, grey, white, and black– have been formalized by the American Standards Institute (ANSI) as Safety Color Code Z535, which provides Munsell notation and Pantone color-matching information to help ensure consistency across mediums.”

street symbols green cables

At least back in the UK, though, numbers and arrows take on different meanings due to color and context. Sometimes they refer to the depth of a water pipe, or the pressure in a gas line. Infinity symbols may mark the end of beginning of a planned street, while zig-zags communicate an intended pedestrian crossing. Many of these are mapped out by third-party contractors whose sole job it is to locate and tag potential hazards below. All are biodegradable and many designed intentionally to fade over time.

street symbols yellow gas

street symbols red electricity

If you are looking for more specifics, the BBC article goes into detail about the particular meanings of various specific marks, but keep in mind: many of these may be particular to the United Kingdom, or even just specific towns and streets. There is no Oxford English Dictionary tying them all together … at least not yet. The next time you take a walk, consider taking some notes as well and see if you can decipher the local dialects of this curious language on your own city’s streets.

weburbanist hoboglyphs examples image

Recently popularized thanks to TV’s MadMen, hoboglyphs also come to mind – a semi-secret language of unobtrusive markings used by the homeless to note opportunities and hazards in urban environments. And one has to wonder: are there other hidden communications out there used by ancient orders, intelligence agencies or other groups hiding in plain sight? (Images via BBC and Smithsonian)

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A Tale of Two Londons: Classic Paintings x Modern Photos

27 Feb

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

Classic Paintings Modern London 1

London may have changed just a tiny bit since the 17th century, but you’d hardly know it looking at some of these mash-ups of classic paintings superimposed against modern scenery snapped by Google. London-based Redditor ‘Shystone‘ created a series of images matching up famous paintings of locations around the city with Google Street View images, with various elements of the two occasionally blending together.

Classic Paintings Modern London 2

Classic Paintings Modern London 3

The paintings often appear to be actual three-dimensional objects in the photos – oversized canvases blocking the roads or propped against light poles. Vans seem to come precariously close to smashing through the canvas in some shots. Modern tourists look out onto the Thames River as it was in 1746.

Classic Paintings Modern London 4

In one case, a long-demolished building is temporarily resurrected; a three-story townhouse stood on the South end of Trafalgar Square from 1605 through 1874.

Classic Paintings Modern London 5

As a Londoner, Shystone offers up some interesting tidbits about the city’s history, including how the locations shown tie into classic literature like Vanity Fair or Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit. Check out the full series.

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Algorithmic Architecture: 14 Complex Math-Based Structures

27 Feb

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Algorithmic Architecture Main

Mathematics are more integral to architecture than ever before, and as the methods of designing structures grow more complex, so do the calculations. As these fractal and parametric designs – both built and fantasy – prove, the only limit to architecture based on mathematical algorithms are those of physics and materials, and with the advent of 3D printing and other advanced construction techniques, the world of amazingly complex architecture just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Parametric Party House

Fractal Architecture Parametric Party House

Built for Copenhagen Distortion, a summer festival that draws thousands into the city’s streets and clubs for all-night dance parties, this mobile parametric pavilion aims to “give architectural expression to this Dionysian experience.” Designed and built by experimental technology and acoustics programs from three universities, the pavilion rotates and moves like a piece of fabric despite the fact that it’s made up of 151 hinged plywood triangles finished in a reflective copper.

Intricate Fractal Fantasy Architecture by Tom Beddard

Fractal Architecture Fantasy

Tom Beddard’s fantasy architecture is far from realistic; instead, it’s an exploration of just how complex structures derived from algorithms can get and still be recognizable as potential human habitations and cities. Beddard makes some of the scrips he uses to create his works available on his website. Says the artist, “For me the creative process is writing my own software and scripts to explore the resulting output in an interactive manner. The best outcomes are often the least expected!”

L-Systems by Michael Hansmeyer

Fractal Architecure L Systems

“For centuries architects have been inspired by nature’s forms and geometries,” says Michael Hansmeyer, a designer who produced the world’s first 3D-printed room as well as some amazingly complex fractal columns. “It is only in the past decade that much of the underlying logic, mathematics and chemistry of nature’s forms has been better understood. In the late 1960′s, the biologist Aristid Lindenmayer proposed a string-rewriting algorithm that can model simplified plants and their growth processes with an astounding ease. This theory is now known as L-Systems. This project examines whether this algorithm can open up possibilities in the field of architecture.” See more L-Systems in architecture at Hansmeyer’s website.

SOM Mumbai Airport Canopy

Fractal Architecture SOM Canopy

A fractal roof canopy tops off a terminal at Mumbai’s Chatrapati Shivaji International Airport, modernizing a complex that accommodates 40 million travelers every year. The design visually references the form of vernacular Indian pavilions with thirty mushrooming columns. The kaleidoscopic canopy extends across the arrivals roadway and is embedded with small disks of colorful glass to catch the light.

Fractal-Based Sky Habitat for Singapore

Fractal Architecture Sky Habitat 1

Fractal Architecture Sky Habitat 2

This fractal design by Moshe Safdie makes the absolute most of a small land footprint with a high-density 38-story sky habitat integrating stepped balconies that democratize views and private outdoor space. Envisioned for Singapore, the tower is porous to light and air to maximize air movement in the tropical climate, and features a series of sky bridges containing parks and swimming pools.

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Algorithmic Architecture 14 Fractalparametric Structures

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3-Story Floating School in Nigeria Rides on Recycled Barrels

26 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

floating school zoomed aerial

256 plastic barrels support this multistory marvel, which stands up and out even amid a sea of buoyant and stilted architecture in this fishing village alongside Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city.

floating school in contexts

floating school and boat

Nominated for a Designs of the Year 2014 award, the structure accommodates up to 100 students and serves as a community space when school is out. Children, parents and other guests arrive and depart this offshore center exclusively by boat.

floating platform barrel prototype

floating structure bridge city

In visiting the structure, surrounding residents get to experience relief from the dense adjacent stilt-supported sprawl, as well as higher views than most of the single-level homes in the area can afford.

floating school concept diagram

floating building wood frame

A collaborative pilot project spearheaded by NLE, a group focused on the architecture of developing cities, the Makoko Floating School is a working prototype designed to address local needs “in view of the impact of climate change and a rapidly urbanizing African context.” 

floating school broad view

floating school in context

A simple wooden stick-frame approach made it possible to construct the building inexpensively, using largely local building techniques and upcycled materials. The project’s “main aim is to generate a sustainable, ecological, alternative building system and urban water culture for the teeming population of Africa’s coastal regions.”

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Smear Campaign: Guerrilla Artist Remixes Adverts with Acid

26 Feb

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

vermibus repainted art poster

Mutating works of public advertising with corrosive acid, this cunning urban interventionist hijacks posters from bus stops and subway stations, then adds his own message into the mix.

vermibus steals ad poster

vermibus process

Vermibus takes posters then employs solvents to remake each surface in his studio, dissolving inks and colors already there and reusing materials from each de facto ‘canvass’ to make something new.

acid remixed street art

vermibus berlin movie posters

He then puts his transformed works back where he found the original or, in many cases, an entirely different site, city or even country, blending them back into the urban environment.

vermibus disturbing art example

Having taken them off the streets, Vermibus brushes the idealized figures, slowly morphing them into surrealist versions of their former selves. He has repeated this unusual artistic process in various major cities, including and beyond his home town of Berlin.

vermibus metro stop art

vermibus mobile metro installation

Sometimes the commentary is clear – a model made intentionally skeletal, for instance – while others evolve (or devolve) into abstractions and parodies that seem almost inhuman.

vermibus surreal figure remodel

The three fascinating short films embedded throughout this article (above and below) show his process, various examples of his work around Europe and his organization of and participation in the No-Ad Project. “Using a dubious inter-rail ticket, Vermibus set out with a set of 90 keys and his pallet of solvents to physically and temporally hijack the Western Worlds of advertisements in the name of fine art.”

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Smear Campaign Guerrilla Artist Remixes Adverts With Acid

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Pop-Up Parks: Brackets Turn Scaffolding into Furniture

25 Feb

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Softwalks Pop Up Scaffolding Park 1

Scaffolding is ugly, and steals valuable sidewalk space from city residents – but with a simple kit of parts that fit onto the frame with brackets, it transforms into an instant pop-up park. The Kit of Parts by Softwalks includes fold-up chairs, planters, counters, light reflectors and decorative screens that snap right onto scaffolding to create impromptu public spaces that encourage congregation and conversation.

Softwalks Pop Up Scaffolding Park 3

Softwalks Pop Up Scaffolding Park 2

Inspired by the interaction with urban environments that’s fostered by sidewalk cafes and by the sturdiness and ubiquity of scaffolding (or ‘sidewalk sheds’), the designers came up with a few essential components that make for a comfortable resting place. Leaving scaffolding up for long periods of time can have a negative effect on businesses, communities and sidewalk culture, and Softwalks saw an opportunity to change that.

Softwalks Pop Up Scaffolding Park 4

The pop-up park kit can’t be ordered by just anyone, and there’s a reason for that: the designers don’t want people potentially interfering with active construction sites in a dangerous way. But lots of scaffolding is ‘passive.’ The Softwalks team found that in New York City, when businesses fail the mandatory 5-year facade inspection, they sometimes leave scaffolding up for a long time to avoid having to do expensive repairs. In one case, scaffolding remained in place for 12 years.

Softwalks Pop Up Scaffolding Park 5

The design team identified an ideal site to install the parts for the pilot project, ensuring that there was plenty of room for pedestrians, and plan to make the kit available to cities for use at special events, street festivals and for temporary installations.

 

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