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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

20 Million Sq Ft: World’s Biggest Building Opens in China

16 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

biggest building record breaking

Night never comes to this massive complex newly constructed in China. Complete with its own artificial sun (as well as beaches and waves), the world’s largest structure is not a skyscraper but a building both horizontally and vertically vast.

worlds biggest building design

biggest building night view

The New Century Global Center in Chengdu, Sichuan, has offices, shops and five-star hotels as you might expect, but it also has simulated exterior spaces with LED screens depicting views of artificial horizons as well as theaters, amusement park rides and an Olympic-sized ice skating rink.

worlds biggest interior space

Its square footage is hard to fathom, even in meters (1.7 million square), so its creators have come up with another way to visualize the enormity of the space: you could fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses inside of it, 3 copies of the Pentagon or 329 football fields.

worlds largest building china

Critics call it boring and massive, but fans admire its relative simplicity and highlight its variegated interior experiences. Though basically minimal overall, a thick and wavy roof line helps define it and provides a way to brand and identify it as both a Chinese structure and potentially iconic symbol.

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3B Printing: Bees Create Bottle for Dewar’s Whiskey

16 Jul

[ By Steph in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

3B Printing Honeycomb Bottle
This ’3D-printed’ bottle wasn’t made by a machine, unless you consider an army of industrious honeybees a machine. For a new Dewar’s Whiskey campaign, 80,000 highlander honey bees producing the prime ingredient for its new highlander honey whiskey were enlisted to work on a side project: a three-dimensional bottle made of honeycomb.

3B Printing Whiskey Bottle Bees 2

The bees were placed inside a vessel that mimics their usual hive setup in all ways except one: the shape. They quickly got to work creating the honeycomb bottle. Sid Lee Creative Studio and The Ebeling Group call it ’3B Printing.’ Watch the video to see the process in action.

3B Printing Whiskey Bottle Bees 3
3B Printing Whiskey Bottle Bees 4

This isn’t the first time living creatures have been put to work on creating three-dimensional projects. The MIT Media Lab created a “collaboration between digital and biological fabrication” with a network of silk threads made by a CNC machine, which was then covered in a natural netting made by dozens of silkworms squirming all over its surfaces.

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Urban Apps: 13 Interactive City Maps, Tools & Guides

15 Jul

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

Urban Apps Main

Chances are, even if you’re a lifelong resident of a particular city, you don’t know every nook and cranny, every food truck location, or the lore of every interesting local building. Apps for smartphones, tablets and other gadgets are making big urban centers feel smaller than ever, making it easy to catch a ride, find cheap eats, check out street art and make new friends.

Eat Cheap – Roaming Hunger

Urban Apps Roaming Hunger

Find out where your next meal is parked with Roaming Hunger, an app that shows real-time food truck locations in your area. The app not only displays the trucks on a map, with their hours at that location, but also allows you to sort results by meal, and browse menus. Additional apps are city-specific, like Street Food App, which currently shows schedules for Boston, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.

Maps and Travel Guides – City Maps 2Go

Urban Apps City Maps 2Go

Want access to maps while traveling abroad, without gobbling up roaming data or lurking in a spot that offers wi-fi? City Maps 2Go downloads maps for the cities of your choice for offline use, including millions of POI (restaurants, bars, hotels etc.), 500,000 Wikipedia entries for sites and attractions, and travel guides. It’s avaiable for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Connect – MeetMe

Urban Apps MeetMe

Among the most popular apps to show you who’s nearby and looking to meet new people, MeetMe gives both social butterflies and the shy an easy way to connect. You’ll probably find more people looking to date than to make new friends, and it might be easier to just walk up to someone and introduce yourself than spend your time scrolling through photos, but hey – whatever works.

Avoid Your Friends – Hell is Other People

Urban Apps Hell is Other People

Maybe, instead of making new friends, you want to avoid the ones you already have. There’s an app for that, too. Hell is Other People will show you where your friends are based on check-ins on Foursquare, Facebook, Instagram and other networks, and provide ‘safe zones’ where you can hang out without being recognized. Of course, it only works if your contacts are avid users of social media, and you might find yourself relegated to unexpected places in the city.

Find Street Art – 1AM Mobile

Urban Apps Street Art

This free photo app called 1AM Mobile lets users pinpoint, share and discover street art in their own communities before it’s gone, as it often is within days or weeks of completion. Shoot photos of street art and the app will map them, date them and credit you as the photographer before sharing them worldwide.

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Urban Apps 13 Interactive City Maps Tools Guides

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Urban Fabric: Stretched, Stitched & Suspended Mobile Home

15 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Global & Urbex & Parkour. ]

fabric mobile urban home

Imagine rooms that expanded and compressed depending on occupancy, then stretch your mind to conceptualize a whole home that works the same way – it folds virtually flat then unfolds as you move through it.

fabric home nomadic urbanists

Thi sultra-slim temporary dwelling design, dubbed Cocoon by Tanya Shukstelinsky, is early-stage and essentially conceptual at this point. It is nonetheless compelling as an idea and prototype for nomadic urban explorers – a thin and lightweight way to slip oneself in between buildings or into other cracks in a city.

fabric hanging home design

A series of handholds and other slim elements are stitched into place to create horizontal and vertical spatial dividers as well as other essential domestic elements like stairs, seats, sleeping platforms … even a fillable bathtub. Then, of course, like a tent without poles, the entire structure can be packed up into a highly portable unit, too.

fabric temporary portable shelter

Giving a new, more literal meaning to the phrase ‘urban fabric’, the designer writes: “I came up with an idea for a space between two stitched layers of fabric. A person who lives in the space can move upon the stitches. The stitches are dividing the fabric into different areas – dining area, sleeping area and bath.” 

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Highest Steam: 9 Abandoned Railroad & Train Bridge Trestles

14 Jul

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

abandoned train trestles
Durable by design and situated by necessity in difficult to access locations, train trestles are often all that remain when railroads are closed and abandoned.

Tallulah Falls Railway, Georgia

Great Locomotive Chase Tallulah Falls train trestles(images via: DukeWayne.com and Photography-On-The-Net)

Georgia’s Tallulah Falls Railway operated over a span of nearly 90 years – from September 1st, 1871 to March 25th, 1961. You may have seen the railway from your living room as it was featured in several films including 1951′s I’d Climb the Highest Mountain and the 1955 Walt Disney production, The Great Locomotive Chase. As well, 1972′s epic film Deliverance featured two of the main tourist attractions the Tallulah Falls Railway was built to serve: the waterfall at Lake Tallulah Falls and the scenic view from Tallulah Gorge. Guaranteed to make you squeal!

Tallulah Railway Georgia train trestle (image via: Je Kemp)

In order to keep trains running on the straight & level along the railway’s 58 mile stretch from Cornelia, Georgia to Franklin, North Carolina, more than 40 wooden trestles and one series of steel and concrete trestles had to be constructed. It’s little wonder the railway closed due to a mounting and unsustainable debt load. One of the railway’s now bridge-less steel and concrete trestles is shown above, courtesy of Flickr user Je Kemp.

Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic Railroad, Michigan

Marquette Michigan wooden abandoned train trestle (images via: Andy Larsen Photography and Beaded Heron)

A combination wood and steel trestle and pocket dock was constructed in 1931 to bring iron ore to ships waiting in Marquette, Michigan’s lower harbor. The dock officially closed on December 31st, 1971 when ore shipments were diverted to Escanaba and the railway, trestles and dock subsequently fell into disrepair. In the early 2000′s, redevelopment resulted in portions of the trestle and dock being demolished. Kudos to Beaded Heron who captured the wooden portion of the trestle standing in majestic solitude after the adjoining steel dock had been salvaged.

Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railroad, Colorado

Rollins Pass Colorado Devils Slide train trestle (images via: Gather/Winston W and The Long Ranger/Justin Simoni)

In 1903 when the Denver, Northwestern and Pacific Railroad first laid rails across the Great Divide at Colorado’s 11,660 foot high Rollins Pass, it was hailed as a triumph of American railway engineering. Twenty-five years later, another engineering triumph – the Moffat Tunnel – negated the need for the Rollins Pass line and the rail bed was converted to accommodate road traffic.

Devils Slide Trestle train Colorado(image via: Colorado4x4.org)

Supported by the east and west Devils Slide Trestles, the route has been off-limits to cars and trucks since 1990 when a rock slide blocked the Needle’s Eye tunnel. Hikers and bikers are still allowed to cross the over-a-century-old wooden train trestles, though one might end up meeting the Devil himself should he or she take an unexpected slide.

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Highest Steam 9 Abandoned Railroad Bridge Trestles

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Painting Robot Plans Each Stroke Of Its Own Masterpieces

12 Jul

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

eDavid Robot Painting

If you think humans in creative professions aren’t in danger of someday being replaced by robots, which ostensibly don’t possess the ability to produce real art, you’re going to want to watch this video. A robot called e-David watches itself paint and constantly adjusts its style and technique, planning each stroke in succession to create works of art that feel much more alive than you might expect.

eDavid Robot Painting 2

The team behind the e-David project equipped a standard robot with all the necessary means for painting, including five different brushes, a range of 24 colors, and a camera so it can watch itself independently while painting.

eDavid Robot Painting 3

eDavid Robot Painting 4

The robot takes a picture of what it’s going to copy, and then processes it through its software to determine where to add dark or light tones to reproduce the original. It can even decide to switch brushes or clean them.

eDavid Robot Painting 5

The paintings created by the robot aren’t determined by a human programmer; they’re really and truly the creation of the robot itself. It even signs them. Of course, robots can’t express emotion – yet – so they’re still pretty far from being able to capture the spirit of human-created art. But give them a few decades.

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On Not Off: Giant Light Switch Mural is Brilliantly Literal

12 Jul

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

mural building side art

A photo-realistic mural with a nuanced message, this giant work of wall art is impressive in scale and a definite surprise to passers by. Complete with shade and shadow, the huge on-and-off power switch has hidden meaning behind its more obvious shock-and-awe appeal.

mural on off switch

Buildings consume as much as half of the power used in many developed countries. Even in winter, many of the world’s biggest skyscrapers are in constant cooling mode to offset the heat of humans and equipment. In short: most structures are in some sense ‘always on’ when it comes to energy use.

murals escif animated graffiti

Muralist Escif has a reputation for pointing out political, economic and social problems with his often-animated street art. Still, this piece in particular goes to the heart of an issue we often forget, but one that is right under our noses (or at our fingertips, as it were).

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Vertical Garage: Hide Cars Below or Lift Your Ride to the Sky

11 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

japanese car lift stack

There are all kinds of houses designed to showcase your prized luxury vehicle or custom cruiser, but few can boast so blatant a mechanism to quite literally put your sports car on a pedestal.

car lift japanese house

Tucked into a hillside, the main house sits below the street level at which you drive up and enter, leaving only a driveway, walkway and deck visible from above … until, that is, you jack up your car collection two more levels into the air.

japanese top entry level

To be fair, this unusual architectural solution was designed by Atelier K (images by Kazushi Hirano) not to showcase the vehicles as such, but to simply make room for the owner’s Porsche, Ferrari and Honda on a narrow lot where a three-car garage or driveway was simply never going to work.

japanese vehicle centric home

Inside, modern simplicity and regional minimalism influence the interiors within the house, which hugs and runs along the steep hill behind it. The result is a series of cozy, house-scaled rooms more practical and conventional.

japanese wood minimalist view deck

japanese house top entry deck

Still, back up above, one has to imagine that at least from time to time it is tempting to hop in the top-stacked vehicle, push the button and ride up a few more meters for an even more amazing view of the Japanese city sprawled out below.

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Stair Rover Goes Where Other Skateboards Can’t

11 Jul

[ By Steph in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

Stair Rover Skateboard Design 1

An eight-wheel mechanism allows the unusual Stair-Rover skateboard to descend flights of steps the way conventional skateboards never could. Designed by Po-Chih Lai, the wheel system mounts to a longboard and flexes to follow the contours of stairs and ride up curbs.

Stair Rover Skateboard 3

In addition to the original design, which fits wood boards, Lai offers an upgraded Pro version with a fiberglass deck and black components. The chassis goes to work on rough surfaces like cobblestones or uneven paving to reduce impact and prevent falls.

Stair Rover Skateboard 2

Stair Rover Skateboard 5

“Reach the top of a flight of stairs and simply keep going – let gravity and the patent-pending V-frame design do the rest. The wheels bounce up and down independently and conform to the shape of each step. It’s a balancing act that gives the board its crab-like scuttle and gives you a butter-smooth ride to the bottom.”

Stair Rover Skateboard 4

A new video of the board in action shows it navigating London landmarks like the Royal Albert Hall, Emirates Stadium and the Millennium Bridge. Currently up on Kickstarter, the project is seeking £50,000 in funding to bring the board into production. Backers donating at a certain level are pre-ordering a board before it’s available to the general public.

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Fold-Out Room: 12 Ultra-Compact Living Pods & Systems

10 Jul

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

Fold Out Rooms Main
When you live in a small space, every square inch counts, and furniture that can expand and contract on demand makes it a lot easier to fit all the functions you need into your home without feeling overwhelmed with clutter. Modular furniture sets and rooms-within-rooms containing fold-out and slide-out components make clever use of the space available, and the ability to hide things away when they’re not in use will please minimalists, too.

Sleepbox: Tiny Bedroom for Public Spaces

Fold Out Room Sleepbox

Sleepy travelers can catch a night’s sleep in private surroundings with the Sleepbox, a compact lodging pod meant for public spaces like airports and train stations. For those with layovers or unexpected delays, a room-in-the-box right inside the transit station could definitely be an affordable and convenient option.

Cocoon 1 Room Pod

Fold Out Room Cocoon 1

This unusual room-within-a-room is almost as much an art piece as it is a functional living space. Cocoon 1 by Micasa Lab is a plastic pod offering a separated space that provides a sense of privacy and solitude while maintaining a connection to the outside world. It contains built-in furniture, a kitchen and a power pack that can provide either 40 hours of light, or 20 hours of light plus 30 minutes of cooking.

Boxetti: 3 All-in-One Fold-Out Living Spaces

Fold Out Room Boxetti 1

Fold Out Rooms Boxetti 3

Fold Out Room Boxetti 2

Minimalists, rejoice – options that hide virtually everything from view when not in use are not only becoming easier to procure, they’re more stylish than ever, too. The Boxetti Collection by Rolands Landsbergs is a series of fold-out, slide-out living spaces contained within simple white modules. It includes a bedroom box, a living room box, an office and a kitchen.

Sleek and Simple Fold-Out Bedroom Box

Fold Out Rooms Bedroom Oda 1
Fold Out Rooms Bedroom Oda 2

For those in temporary living spaces, or who just don’t care about personalizing their homes, all-in-one box systems like the Room by ODA offer a modular dwelling system that collapses and expands. It comes with three elements – the pod, a media station and a satellite. Colors and materials can be customized.

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Fold Out Room 12 Ultra Compact Living Pods Systems

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