Category: Creativity

No Life Support: 10 Abandoned Ambulance & EMS Stations

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Silence the sirens and be careful out there… these abandoned, closed and condemned ambulance & EMS stations no longer respond to medical emergencies.

Condemned In California

(images via: Tracy Press, Glenn Moore)

The condemned former American Medical Response substation at at 455 Beverly Place in Tracy looks pretty good for an abandoned building. Then again, these photos from the November 29th, 2013 edition of the Tracy Press were taken less than a week after the doors slammed shut. Supposedly, the station was condemned due to the presence of a large tree on the property that might fall over in a gale. It’s worth noting that the station’s owner condemned the building; city inspectors found no serious structural damage and thus no justification for closing it.

(images via: Tracy Press, Glenn Moore and Tracy Press, Glenn Moore)

Ahh, the eternal struggle between wanting your local EMS station to be as close as possible and wanting your local EMS station to be as QUIET as possible. Sorry friends, never the twain shall meet. The eardrum conundrum evidently proved too frustrating for one resident who in 2010 declared (in a drunken, late-night tirade in front of Tracy City Council) that having an ambulance station near his home has turned his life into “13 years of hell.” He must be in heaven now.

But Socialism!

(image via: Number Of The Month)

The UK’s NHS (National Health Service) has been praised and vilified to the extreme – often by the same people depending on whether they need its services or have just read the latest tale of wasted taxpayer’s money. Tongues are wagging once again due to the NHS’s (supposed) money-saving plans to close dozens of ambulance stations across the UK and consolidate their functions at larger “hub” stations. The plan may indeed save money but anyone and everyone will end up waiting longer for an ambulance as a result. Thanks, Obama!

Ghostbusters Of OZ

(images via: The Queensland Times, Claudia Baxter and The Ipswich Advertiser)

If the original Ghostbusters drove a modified ambulance and had their HQ in an old firehouse, one would assume their Australian counterparts (being “down under”) would park their customized firetruck in an old ambulance station. Good thing, as the old Queensland Ambulance Service station complex on Downs Street in North Ipswich is said to be haunted by the ghost of WC Tomkins. The former station superintendent lived upstairs at the station and passed away in his bed one night in 1934… and, some say, he’s still there.

(image via: The Queensland Times, David Nielsen)

“This ghost has never hurt anyone and I don’t think he would,” states renowned hauntings historian Jack Sim (above). “He founded the ambulance in Ipswich and he is a nice bloke.” Perhaps the station’s supposed supernatural aura helped keep it on the auction block for the better part of six years. All good things must come to an end, however, and Beetlejuice himself couldn’t stop the station from finally being sold in March of 2013 for a cool one million smackers.

Chairman Of The Boarded Up

(images via: Hull and Hereabouts)

Since the old ambulance station on Osborne Street in Hull, England closed, the only emergencies occurring at the site concern Phil Jude’s 24-hour Emergency Boarding Up Service… or so the sign above states. Take it from Phil, they’re “probably the cheapest in the area.”

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No Life Support 10 Abandoned Ambulance Ems Stations

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[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 27, 2014
12-County Coalition: Building the Great Green Wall of Africa

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Travel & Places. ]

The clock is ticking for the collaborative creation of a living green wall to span nearly 5,000 miles across the African continent, designed to slow or even stop the relentless spread of desertification. The scope of this unique organic building project is unprecedented, as is its urgency.

China took over 1,000 years to construct their Great Wall, but scientists believe Africa may only have a few decades before the Sahara Desert engulfs more than two thirds of its arable land. Hence the Great Green Wall of the Sahara, set to stretch from coast to coast, west to east.

The cooperation of the twelve contiguous African countries involved is as impressive as their challenge is daunting – participating nations include: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.

The idea to create a ‘green front’ to protect Africa is almost half a century old, but the plan began to be taken more seriously starting just over ten years ago. Since being ratified by participating countries, the program has raised billions of dollars in pledges from international organizations.

From AtlasObscura: “Leaders point out that the Great Green Wall is about more than just protection from windblown sand. The project will bring thousands of jobs to impoverished communities, and has already transformed otherwise unusable land into gardens scattered with tree nurseries. The influx of tourists, scientists, and medical professionals has also brought attention and resources to a neglected region in which aid is scarce and doctors are not readily available to needy populations.”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Travel & Places. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 26, 2014
Clever Counterfeit: Vacant Shops Pretend to be High-End

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

There’s something a little off about the highly recognizable logos splashed across this retail complex in the Chinese city of Wuxi: beside a round green & white approximation of the Starbucks logo, for example, green lettering spells out ‘SFFCCCKS OFFEE.’ Try saying that out loud. Zara has become ‘Zare’, and H&M is ‘H&N.’ These aren’t shops producing counterfeit versions of the goods offered by the real brands. They’re just facades. The entire building is actually vacant.

The shopping district has earned the name ‘Street of Fakes’ for these and many more fake high-end boutiques that look real from a distance, potentially luring in excited shoppers who approach an Apple store only to find that it’s ‘Appla,’ and the door is locked.

The signs were erected to appeal to potential property buyers, ostensibly by making the district feel more luxurious than it really is. There’s a good chance that some of the signs will have to come down, since they’re infringing on copyright laws. But in China, there really are counterfeit versions of all sorts of businesses that sell actual goods, like KFC ripoff ‘KLG.’

Property owners often get creative in their efforts to spruce up vacant shops. In North Tyenside, England, where more than 140 businesses closed up shop due to the flagging local economy, the council erected fake storefronts with murals that create an illusion of the real thing.

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Shops Pop Up Around Basement Windows in Urban Sofia

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 25, 2014
Playing With Food: Fruits & Vegetables as Temporary Art

[ By Delana in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

Romanian photographer Dan Cretu loves to play with his food. His series of food-themed photographs takes everyday foods and turns them into something that looks far more permanent.

Cretu takes normal pieces of food, then cuts and bends and twists them into shapes that make up objects we see and use every day. The exceptional food sculptures are created without the use of Photoshop or other digital manipulation.

What Cretu does require, however, is speed. All of his sculptures have to be constructed and photographed within a few hours before the food begins to get squishy and unattractive.

One of the more interesting aspects of Cretu’s series is the juxtaposition of the very temporary pieces of food and the far more permanent objects they become in the photographer’s hands. Cut oranges which right now look just like bicycle wheels will, very shortly after the photograph, look like withered piles of decaying fruit.

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[ By Delana in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 24, 2014
Mobile Hotel: Converted Double-Decker Bus B&B Still Drives

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

Quintessentially British, this boutique suite sleeps six, features a wood-burning stove and much more, but perhaps most amazing of all: the vehicle remains road-worthy, despite its conversion to a sweet retreat.

The Big Green Bus was originally part of the west midlands metro transit system and purchased by its new owner (and renovator) Adam Collier-Woods for approximately $ 7,500 at auction on eBay.

The still-working bus, driven back into the countryside by its buyer (and moved around on demand), required more than $ 15,000 to be turned into a unique three-bedroom accommodation, including a functioning kitchen and bathroom facilities.

Currently set on a “glamping site in the heart of the Sussex countryside,” the bus has its “own decking area, a fire pit and all this next to a beautiful pond.” The rural property can accommodate extra campers for parties larger than six who wish to enjoy a stay. In addition to pantry essentials (tea, coffee, milk, herbs and olive oil), logs for the fire pit or stove are available on request.

More from its maker and operator about its present location: “A gorgeous 15 minute walk away through country lanes to Chiddingly is the Six Bells pub, a classic traditional country pub, luring all sorts of music, poetry and arts lovers to its various festivals. Brighton is close by too with all its various charms, is 25 minutes drive down the road, or leave your car at Glynde and take the train. Lewes has more trains per hour, Make sure you get to the Lewes Farmers Market on the first Saturday morning of every month.”

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

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WebUrbanist

January 24, 2014
Haunting Haikyo: 7 Abandoned Wonders of Modern Japan

[ By Steph in 7 Wonders Series & Global. ]

Haikyo is the Japanese term for ‘ruins’ and intimates infiltration and exploration of the country’s abandoned places, of which there are many. The economic highs and lows of the past century have produced abandonments that are every bit as colorful and fascinating as the nation’s culture, from love hotels with genitalia-shaped rock gardens and ghost clinics full of human body parts in jars to a concrete tower deemed the world’s most perfect anti-zombie fortress.

Not So Sexy: Abandoned Love Hotels

Japan is famous for its ‘love hotels,’ places where busy parents, people carrying out illicit affairs and anyone who’s just plain curious can pay by the hour for bizarre themed rooms, which might feature anything from a real Japanese bridge to a carousel or a human-sized cage. But inevitably, some of these hundreds of hotels are going to go under – and what’s left behind can be eye-popping. Take, for example, Fuurin Motel in the small town of Chiba. Documented (along with many other fascinating Japanese abandonments) by Haikyo.org, this ten-room love hotel is still strewn with beds shaped like carriages, statues of knights, gold-painted bath tubs and zen gardens full of penis-shaped rocks.

Human Organs in Jars at the Nichitsu Clinic

Nichitsu is a former mining village in Saitama Prefecture that was once home to 3,000 people in the 1960s, and is now completely abandoned, tucked away in a valley that’s often shrouded in fog, making its yawning, deteriorating architecture even more eerie. While the entire town is worth a look, it’s within the wooden walls of a relatively unassuming-looking clinic that real horrors can be found. The entire place is strewn not only with debris, furniture, x-rays and arcane-looking doctor’s tools, but jars of human body parts – including the ear seen above, tucked away under a fern leaf just outside. Urban explorers like French photography Jordy Meow, who took these photos, report that these jars are disappearing, apparently taken home by tourists as macabre souvenirs.

Meme-Worthy ‘Zombie Fortress’ Shime Tower

Looming above the landscape in all its ugly concrete glory, its face stained and its legs often covered in ivy, the abandoned Shime Tower has so much character, it’s become the subject of countless memes. It’s all that’s left of the abandoned Shime coal mine and has been decaying for the last half-century. The wisdom of The Internet has deemed it the greatest anti-zombie fortress ever and thus made it the subject of one amazing photoshopped image after the other, depicting it as a Transformer, an AT-AT and the last thing standing on the beach after the Planet of the Apes apocalypse. In reality, the tower completely dominates the entire town of Shime, but the citizens don’t seem to mind. They erected a playground at its base and even installed uplighting so it glows like some kind of dystopian castle after nightfall.

The Ghost ‘Battleship’ Island of Gunkanjima

It looks like a military warship from afar, but bring your boat a little closer and you’ll see that this decrepit collection of concrete off the coast of Nagasaki is actually an island. Gunkanjima, or ‘Battleship Island,’ is the nickname for Hashima Island, a dense abandoned metropolis once packed with 5,259 people. It started as a small reef, but when coal was discovered there in the 1800s, it was quickly developed and expanded. It was used as a mine from 1887 to 1974 and its concrete architecture was designed to withstand typhoons. The switch from coal to petroleum in Japan led the mine to close, and for decades, accessing it was forbidden. The public is now allowed to explore a limited range of the island as part of an official tour.

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Haunting Haikyo 7 Abandoned Wonders Of Japan

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[ By Steph in 7 Wonders Series & Global. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 23, 2014
Cocaine Skull: Life-Sized Sculpture Made of Street Drugs

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

A pile of street cocaine mixed with gelatin is sculpted into a life-sized replica of a human skull in ‘Ecce Animal,’ a statement on humankind’s lingering tendency to lose control of ourselves. Artist Diddo created the piece as a private commission using street cocaine obtained the usual way – illegally – and declines to reveal the confidential details of the hows and whys.

Diddo had the cocaine tested at a laboratory before using it, and pharmacists and the unnamed facility discovered that mixed in with the pure cocaine was a number of other ingredients including “Phenacetin, Caffeine, Paracetamol, and a relative large percentage of sugars, most probably Mannitol or Inositol.”

The piece was initially released with no information other than a companion poem written by the artist, which reads in part, “It is frightening to look at the face of our animal side laid bare by comfortable excess; the spoils of aggression. But what exactly is it about this image that is so confronting?”

The artist reveals to Bullett that despite its initial appearance, Ecce Animal isn’t meant to be a statement on the destructiveness of addiction, but rather about our inherent nature as human beings. “We have temporarily outgrown the intended uses for our animal instincts. This leaves us in an uncomfortable conundrum. Where can we safely store them until we need them again?”

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WebUrbanist

January 23, 2014
Drop-Leaf Desk: Small Side Table Converts into Work Surface

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Designed as carefully as it is hand-crafted, this Tablet Desk has a deceptively streamlined look that hides a series of modular features and space-saving strategies, all made with technology in mind.

If setting aside a whole room for a home office is simply not an option, this dual-purpose wooden desk and end table lets you put work aside with relative ease, then flip out extra surface area supported with magnetized wooden legs.

Both the original two-toned and the newer 2.0 version from UK design studio Bee9 combine efficient storage and work space with minimal materials. Each also has a small-as-possible physical footprint, all oriented toward digital-first and future-proof use cases.

Modular panels and other moving components acknowledge that users will have wants and needs that cannot be universally anticipated, including ways to route cords (and places to keep them out of the way) and vertical surfaces against which to lean tablets or other devices.

The making-of video above shows the initial Tablet Design being carefully constructed – watching it reveals some of the subtle detailing and much of the behind-the-scenes effort required to integrate all of the necessary functionality.

From the designers: “Deceptively simple and endlessly adaptable, the Bee9 tablet desk is designed to redefine where you can put a desk. Frugal in its use of material and space, the desk [plus] side table makes optimum use of limited space.”

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[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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WebUrbanist

January 22, 2014
Throw a Bouquet: Guerrilla Seed Bombs & Flower Grenades

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

Filling shotgun shells with flower seeds is just the latest (and loudest) in a long line of designs for guerrilla gardeners. If you are looking for a little less bang for your buck than seed-swapped buckshot, you may wan to try a seed ball, bomb or grenade instead, all a bit more stealthy despite their loud-sounding names.

One throw-and-grow option for the concrete jungle is this compostable-shelled Flower Grenade packed with ryegrass, buttercups and poppies. This hardy custom-tailored mix is designed to flower in sequence for a multi-week, time-delay effect well beyond the ten seconds or so of their traditional wartime relatives.

Another cleverly-titled approach comes from Greenaid, a group intent on seeding the urban landscape with converted gumball machines rejigged to dispense seed bombs instead of sweets. Put in a quarter and receive a ball made of clay, compost and seeds to help you compact dull gray vacant lots and faded green parking medians.

These Greenaid creations are uniquely tailored to provide local wildflowers native to the areas in which they are deployed – in LA, for instance, they contain White Yarrow, California Poppy, Lupine and Blue Flax.

There are lots of other options, too, from region-oriented seed balls for sale on sites like Etsy to do-it-yourself instructions or kits to help you build your own. When it comes to guerrilla gardening, the real trick is understanding your environment and purpose, then strategically finding a solution for that particular context.

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

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WebUrbanist

January 21, 2014
Disappearing Bed for Tiny Flat Rolls Under Kitchen Floor

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

When you’re trying to pack an entire apartment worth of furniture into just 130 square feet, where do you find the room for a full-sized bed? The answer, in this case, is a place you’d likely never expect: under the kitchen floor. ‘Disappearing Bed’ rolls under a raised platform to go away altogether when floor space is required, or it can be pulled halfway out like a drawer to serve as a couch.

Architects Julie Nabucet and Marc Baillargeon found every possible inch of space in a tiny micro flat in Paris, hiding storage and extra functions in nearly every corner. Raising the kitchen to accommodate the hidden mattress is not only an incredibly clever solution, but also makes the room feel larger by adding an extra level.

A rectilinear table tucks away under a series of under-table cabinets, or can be swung out in front of the couch to act as a coffee table. Desk-height shelving that runs in an L-shape along the wall provides workspace, and staggered wall cabinets hide away clutter.

The stairs leading up to the kitchen offer hidden storage space for shoes, and the narrow bar overlooking the living space is hollow to hold magazines, books and other small items.

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WebUrbanist

January 21, 2014