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Totally Transparent: 14 See-Through Homes, Cars, Gadgets & Tech

06 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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If all walls and opaque surfaces were to disappear, leaving only see-through materials, what effect would that have on how we perceive the world around us? Designers present transparency in all sorts of objects, from washing machines and kayaks to entire houses, as a way to get a clearer picture of how we interact with and connect to our environments and each other.

PurePods: Clear Vacation Homes in New Zealand

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Tiny vacation homes in the countryside of New Zealand, these ‘PurePods’ have all-glass floors, walls and ceilings to give guests uninterrupted views of their beautiful surroundings in every room – even the shower.

Clear Acrylic Car

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All of the inner workings of a full-sized functional car are on display through a transparent acrylic body on this clear car by TWR Automotive, a company that manufactures auto parts. The car may not actually be road-ready, intended for exhibitions only, but it looks pretty cool and it’s fun to imagine watching the parts in motion.

Glass House Series by Santambrogiomilano

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Designed to completely immerse occupants in nature in any location around the world, the glass houses by Santambrogiomilano consist of structural glass on every surface except the ground floor. Different versions are adapted for different climactic conditions, with ‘Snow House’ able to withstand heavy snow loads, for example. Want privacy in one particular room? Sliding curtains make it possible, but the houses are intended for places where peeping toms are not a concern.

Infinity Kitchen

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Better hope your kitchen cleaning habits are on point – the ‘Infinity Kitchen’ by Dutch firm MVRDV won’t be forgiving with crumbs and streaks, as it displays everything from your stored food to your flatware and even features a clear cooktop and sink. “I see this as part of a wider dream, this kitchen,” says designer Winy Maas. “Imagine if not only our kitchens were transparent, but the walls through to the neighbor and the next neighbor even. This would create infinite perspectives in our cities. It would make within our claustrophobic environments possibly a view into the direction of the mountains or the sea.”

Transparent Kayaks

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Crystal-clear kayaks are actually catching on, with models like the Molokini, Crystal Explorer Kayak and See Through Canoe offering users views of the aquatic life beneath them as they float. Made of Lexan for durability, these transparent vessels start at around $ 1,000 each.

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Totally Transparent 14 See Through Homes Cars More Reveal All

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Modular DIY Dome Kit: Flexible Connectors Join Geodesic Wood Structures

05 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Reducing complexity and difficulty for would-be geodesic dome builders, this series of connective ‘Hubs‘ makes it possible for do-it-yourself types and even kids to collaborate on creating stable architecture.

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Connector rods are joined at a hub that acts as a ball joint. The connector ball screws into a piece of lumber then attaches to the node. A simple structure can use materials on hand to build a working dome in a matter of minutes, all assembled by just a few people.

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Building geodesic domes from metal parts can be laborious and frustrating – each piece has to be perfectly bent to join the rest, and the resulting structure is extremely heavy. The Hubs system is much cheaper than buying (or bending) a conventional dome.

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Chris Jordan and Mike Paisley started work on this system a few years ago and recently made it available for purchase after a successful round of crowdfunding brought it to market. Their hope is to make dome-building a more accessible, cheap and easy process for everyone.

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While wood and plastic are technically more durable, this approach lends itself to organic settings, creating wood structures that look appropriate in backyard settings and for temporary purposes or as ersatz tree houses. It is also more adaptable: cutting different lengths of wood lets users scale their dome more easily than with metal or plastic. And it is more flexible, too: the joints can bend and give, as can the wood, making the construction more forgiving.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Las Pozas: Surreal Concrete Sculpture Garden in the Jungle of Mexico

04 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Stairs spiral up to the sky in strange configurations, going nowhere, in a tangle of surrealist sculptural structures in a Mexican jungle. Why is this series of concrete wonders hidden within the lush vegetation of Xilitlha, and who put it there? The answer lies within the mind of Edward James, a 20th century art collector described by Salvador Dali as “crazier than all the Surrealists together.” If Dali is calling you crazy, that probably says something, and photos of James’ creations reveal a visionary thinker on par with the artists he so admired.

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James, a poet and well-to-do heir who was once painted by René Magritte, was a passionate and early supporter of Surrealism, sponsoring Salvador Dali in a crucial early period of his career during which he produced some of his most valuable works. A 1978 documentary called “The Secret Life of Edward James” shows off some of his personal art collection, as well as his quirky refurbishment of Monkton House, a small 20th century house plastered with surreal interior designs. He was certainly an interesting character, which explains how Las Pozas came about.

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Built more than 2,000 feet above sea level about seven hours (drive) north of Mexico City, ‘Las Pozas’ was named for the natural pools and waterfalls that characterize the site. James saw it as the ideal romantic spot for his vision of a “Garden of Eden set up.” Between 1949 and 1984, he built dozens of towering concrete structures around the pools, each of them given names like “The House on Three Floors Which Will in Fact Have Five or Four or Six,” and “The House with a Roof Like a Whale.”

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The sculptures were conceived by James and his guide Plutarco Gastélum, who helped him scout the site, after his living orchid garden decades in the making was destroyed by a blizzard. The concrete ‘flowers’ would be everlasting, much hardier than anything organic he could grow. It took a crew of about 150 people to build them all. It cost more than $ 5 million to construct, a sum James raised by selling his collection of Surrealist art at auction.

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After James’ death in 1984, Las Pozas was opened to the public, and it’s know owned by Fondo Xilitlha, a foundation overseeing its preservation and restoration.

Top photo: Wikimedia Commons; all other photos: Victor DeLaqua, Julia Faveri and Herbert Loureiro/ArchDaily

[ By SA Rogers in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Seeing Space in New Ways: 13 Creative Maps & Navigational Guides

03 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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With the advancement of technology, the ways in which we perceive information have become increasingly visual, interactive and all around multi-dimensional – so why shouldn’t maps evolve to reflect it? These map concepts, installations and renderings in a variety of materials and forms let navigational data pop off the page into 3D creations, or blend the information with functional objects to tell a story.

3D Tube Map of London Made of Pipes

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British designer Nick Fraser used a network of copper pipes on a black wall to create a map of London’s tube system, making the nickname literal. To differentiate the different lines, Fraser uses a series of colored washers.

Neon Subway Lights by Petr Koll

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Subway maps for various unnamed cities are rendered in vivid neon lights by designer Petr Koll for this fun series. What you can’t see in the still images is that the lines light up one at a time and then blink together.

‘Philadelphia Explained’ Installation Art by Paula Scher

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A hand-drawn map of Philadelphia is fitted to the interior surfaces of a gallery using dimensional modeling, immersing visitors in a navigational experience as “a personal reaction to information overload.” Famed designer Paula Scher worked with students at her alma mater, the Tyler School of Art, to create the installation.

Rijksmuseum Paper Pathfinder

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How do you explain to visitors in clear visuals how they can navigate 8,000 objects spanning 800 years of art spread through 80 individual galleries in the same building? Graphic designer Marjin van Oosten came up with a refreshingly simple analog solution: a pop-up paper model of the building with color-coded and labeled ‘floors.’ It lets you see the whole building at once and physically hold a model of it in your hands to get a better idea of where things are.

3D Map of Tokyo’s Subway System

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The surprising number of dips and turns in Tokyo’s subway system, hidden from sight, are revealed in this rollercoaster-like model by Takatsugu Kuriyama. Different colored liquids pulse through the various tubes to show movement in each line.

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Seeing Space In New Ways 13 Creative Maps Navigational Guides

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Urban Food Park: Scandinavia is Growing a “Silicon Valley for Agriculture”

03 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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An expansive master-planned complex to facilitate urban agriculture and private/public collaboration, The Agro Food Park is Denmark’s version of “Silicon Valley” for food research and development. From experimental greenhouses to vertical farm prototypes, the park is bringing together academics and businesses to work on creating a sustainable future via global food security.

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Co-designed by an array of architecture, engineering, technology and agriculture firms, the food park was first opened in 2009 and already hosts nearly 100 companies in 44,000 square meters of space. The newly-expanded plan, however, will grow the park by 280,000 square meters over the coming decades, requiring careful strategic planning reflecting environmental considerations.

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The long-term master plan features a communal Lawn showcasing experimental developments, a main-street Strip hosting various gathers and activities, and a series of Plazas to facilitate interactions between companies and researchers. The huge complex is also designed to recycle its own waste efficiently and minimize its footprint, a “practice what you preach” approach to ecological urban agriculture.

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“Innovation occurs best when knowledge is concentrated in clusters and cross-pollinate. By linking food production to urban life, we have tried to create an environment where people, knowledge and ideas meet. The dream is to create the framework for agriculture’s answer to Silicon Valley.”

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Though the plan is complex, the mission of the place is simple: to feed the world in a healthy way. The expressions of that mission, however, vary greatly, from initiatives to use clean energy and create biodiversity to facilitating healthy air and clean water. In short: it is not just about good food, but how best to produce edible goods in a sustainable way.

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“Embracing Agro-Urban Ecosystem Design, the AFP treats urban and agricultural development together as a unified, productive and restorative ecosystem,” said the project architects.

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“By integrating the carbon cycle and other ecological processes into large scale urban systems and their surroundings – buildings and energy flows, water cycles and wastewater treatment, land use and food production – the AFP creates economic value within the urban and agricultural infrastructure.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Park Places: 10 Paved Painted & Personalized Driveways

03 Oct

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

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Do you drive on a parkway and park on a driveway? These unusual painted driveways prove that when it comes to painted pavement, nobody’s really asphalt.

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The Milne Boys Home in Gentilly, a neighborhood in New Orleans, LA was built in 1933 to house “orphans and troubled children” – an all too common social phenomenon in the Great Depression. Featuring a cluster of seven antebellum-style buildings, the facility closed in 1986 and was used only sporadically thereafter. Fast-forward to 2005 when Hurricane Katrina caused enough damage to make the campus completely unusable unless one was a squatter or drag-addict – or both.

In 2008, however, things began to change at the old Mllne Boys Home thanks to a multimillion-dollar injection of funding from the state, the city and FEMA. One of the site improvements concerned the campus’s winding driveway, contracted out to AORTA Projects.

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“With the help of a crew of approximately 20 volunteers,” explains lead artist Jacqueline Bishop, “I painted the asphalt driveway of the Milne Boys Home with approximately 5,000 simple black bird silhouettes that were individually cut from original drawings and applied with Industrial Zone and Marking paint. Considering there are approximately 460 bird species in Louisiana, we stenciled a variety of these species in an effort to celebrate and raise consciousness about our unique and fragile environment.”

Bishop titled the finished work “Field Guide”. “After experiencing the power of Katrina while sitting in my house, the most immediate, haunting memory after the storm was the deafening silence. There were no birds for ages. It seems appropriate that this project can bring attention to birds who in turn bring life to abandoned areas in post-K New Orleans.”

Tile Of The Century

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There’s not much we can tell you about the dazzling, impressionistic tiled driveway above, other than the fact it was photographed on April 1st of 2011… no foolin’! Kudos to Betty Broccoli of Betty’s Fashion Corner page at Tumblr for bringing some much-needed color into the gray monotony that is the pervue of far too many driveways.

Shock & Oz

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Alas, there’s no Emerald City at the end of this yellow brick, er, asphalt road though the homeowner must be a wizard of sorts. Located just off Hwy 28 in Bailieboro, north of Port Hope, Ontario, this “brilliant” idea makes a weird sort of sense being there aren’t any visible road signs in the vicinity, so this is one way to attract notice (and alert the pizza delivery guy). On the other hand, the lemon-yellow laneway leads not just TO the highway but oozes over a significant portion of the soft shoulder… Mr Wizard can expect a visit from the Wicked Witch, er, the local county mountie sometime soon.

Treads On Me

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You’ll find this patriotic piece of roadwork in Spafford, NY, fronting a home at the intersection of routes 41 and 174. Something tells us the jacked pickup that probably gets parked here sports a Confederate flag on its rear window, because freedom.

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Park Places 10 Paved Painted Personalized Driveways

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

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Reading Coaster: NYC Public Library Installs Tiny Book Delivery Trains

02 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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A crafty conveyor system helps bring up books from a series of research stacks and storage spaces hidden beneath Bryant Park, making the volumes accessible via a system of miniature trains.

This particular branch of the New York Public Library in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building houses millions of volumes, many of which are stored below the ground.

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This book train system looks a bit like a tiny roller coaster and is used to transfer materials seamlessly, quickly and automatically along the vertical-and-horizontal track system, carrying requested books directly to places like the Rose Main Reading Room.

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Each cart (of which there are 24) can hold 30 pounds of reading materials and can climb 11 stories within the building to service various floors.

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A pivot joint between the book-carrying basket and the main body of the cart allows the former to remain upright without spilling its contents while the latter tilts up to 90 degrees, carrying books straight up between levels.

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Crate Core: Shipping Container Tower Hidden Inside a Carriage House

30 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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When glimpsed from above, this stack of vivid orange shipping containers on a Brooklyn rooftop looks like an add-on structure, but it doesn’t end where the original house’s roof begins. It continues straight through the building, all the way to the ground floor, creating a sort of house-within-a-house to subdivide the space in dynamic new ways. The four reclaimed crates that can be seen from higher floors of neighboring buildings are just the penthouse portion, which opens onto a connected rooftop patio.

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Designed by LOT-EK, the crate creation reinvigorates the 1930s carriage house, separating the kitchen from the living area on the ground floor and acting as a staircase and room divider on the second level. The containers are cut diagonally to let light pierce through the home from the front to the back.

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Placement directly in the center of the building effectively slices the living space into thirds, creating new rooms, like the master bedroom in the back of the intermediate level and the children’s room in the front. On the penthouse level, the same diagonal slices that can be seen below are filled in with glass to frame views of the treetops and other buildings on the block.

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When standing at street level, you can just barely see the corrugated orange metal sticking up beyond the matte black facade of the home, but the neon color and diagonal lines of the crates are definite attention-grabbers through the glass garage door.

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Check out 9 more architectural shipping container creations by LOT-EK.

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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World’s First Non-Rectangular Soccer Fields Activate Asymmetrical Spaces

29 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Turning disused spaces in Bangkok into odd-shaped soccer (or: football) fields, this project provides much-needed places to play in dense cities where conventional lots are hard to find. It also serves as a potential model for creatively rethinking leftover urban land more broadly.

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Developed in partnership with the Khlong Toei community, The Unusual Football Field project takes advantaged of abnormally shaped sites scattered around the district. Once areas of opportunity were identified and sides outlined, permission was sought, trash was cleared, land was leveled and fields were fit into each location.

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Kids who might not otherwise have access to normal 105-by-68-meter fields can kick balls around these unusual courts, overcoming (or working with) the unique challenges of each variant. Sides can of course be switched mid-game as well to make sure things stay fair even on fields where one half could be seen as having an advantage.

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Developed by AP Thailand, these creative fields represents an outside-the-box approach to working with urban density, rethinking possibilities and opportunities for irregular land configurations.

These soccer-playing zones may be unconventional but are nonetheless popular, catering as they do to Thailand’s most popular sport. On the flip side, they can also be re-purposed again with equal ease if demand shifts.

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The hope, in part, is that other developers and community activists might see potential in this model, adapting it to other dense cities where large regular spaces are hard to come by. Indeed, other sports and athletic activities could adopt similar models as well – though given the tight confines a baseball-oriented version may be out of the question.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Wild & Scrappy: 3D Trash Sculptures of Animals Pop Up in Urban Spaces

29 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Literally popping out of city walls in three dimensions, wild animals emerge from a jumble of car parts, corrugated metal and random industrial objects masterfully layered and painted by Bordalo II. The Portuguese street artist has spent much of the last decade installing these giant murals in the streets of his hometown of Lisbon and other locales around the world, literally infusing new life into the stuff we’ve deemed junk and tossed away. Several new pieces have emerged in recent months, including a possum in Ft. Smith, Arkansas and a flying squirrel in Estonia.

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Each of Bordalo’s sculptures grows in an almost organic fashion depending on what kind of trash the artist can find on the streets near his installation location. As you can probably imagine, he has no trouble accumulating more materials than he can handle just with a quick trip driving around a few city blocks. Certain materials, like tires, are preferred because they’re easy to cut and shape.

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Like so many street artists, Bordalo started out making illegal street graffiti, and his style emerged over time as he began to integrate 3D objects into the paint. “Even if in the beginning it was all about exploring and discovering the way to do, the way to make it work, I’m still trying to innovate, create new problems and have fun with them – this is the process that creates different expressions, forms, textures, etc.,” he says in an interview with Street Art News.

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Take a look through Bordalo’s Instagram for more projects, and see if you can identify all the individual elements that go into each piece.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Totally Transparent: 14 See-Through Homes, Cars, Gadgets & Tech

PurePods: Clear Vacation Homes in New Zealand

Clear Acrylic Car

Glass House Series by Santambrogiomilano

Infinity Kitchen

Transparent Kayaks

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Totally Transparent 14 See Through Homes Cars More Reveal All

Modular DIY Dome Kit: Flexible Connectors Join Geodesic Wood Structures

Las Pozas: Surreal Concrete Sculpture Garden in the Jungle of Mexico

Seeing Space in New Ways: 13 Creative Maps & Navigational Guides

3D Tube Map of London Made of Pipes

Neon Subway Lights by Petr Koll

‘Philadelphia Explained’ Installation Art by Paula Scher

Rijksmuseum Paper Pathfinder

3D Map of Tokyo’s Subway System

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Seeing Space In New Ways 13 Creative Maps Navigational Guides

Urban Food Park: Scandinavia is Growing a “Silicon Valley for Agriculture”

Park Places: 10 Paved Painted & Personalized Driveways

Tile Of The Century

Shock & Oz

Treads On Me

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Park Places 10 Paved Painted Personalized Driveways

Reading Coaster: NYC Public Library Installs Tiny Book Delivery Trains

Crate Core: Shipping Container Tower Hidden Inside a Carriage House

World’s First Non-Rectangular Soccer Fields Activate Asymmetrical Spaces

Wild & Scrappy: 3D Trash Sculptures of Animals Pop Up in Urban Spaces

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

PurePods: Clear Vacation Homes in New Zealand

Clear Acrylic Car

Glass House Series by Santambrogiomilano

Infinity Kitchen

Transparent Kayaks

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Totally Transparent 14 See Through Homes Cars More Reveal All

3D Tube Map of London Made of Pipes

Neon Subway Lights by Petr Koll

‘Philadelphia Explained’ Installation Art by Paula Scher

Rijksmuseum Paper Pathfinder

3D Map of Tokyo’s Subway System

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Seeing Space In New Ways 13 Creative Maps Navigational Guides

Tile Of The Century

Shock & Oz

Treads On Me

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Park Places 10 Paved Painted Personalized Driveways

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Totally Transparent 14 See Through Homes Cars More Reveal All

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Seeing Space In New Ways 13 Creative Maps Navigational Guides

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Park Places 10 Paved Painted Personalized Driveways