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No Place (to Work) Like Home: 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

21 Apr

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Warning – your cramped, cluttered cubicle might seem even more soulless than usual compared to the magnificence of these beautifully appointed home offices, some with all glass walls overlooking the ocean, others set into the backyard for privacy and connection to nature. From prefab pods to brilliant DIY creations, these unusual home office designs make the prospect of working feel downright pleasant.

Office In Flight

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A wing of this vacation house in the woods of California lifts up into the air as if it’s about to take off, its glass walls the only thing separating the home office inside from the natural surroundings.

Park-Like Office with Swing Table & Moss Carpet

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When you can’t actually take your work outside, you can just feel like you’re outdoors with a little creative decorating. Nidolab Arquitectura outfitted this home in Argentina with a hanging table and real moss floor covering in lush green hues, illuminating the whole thing with natural daylight via an oversized skylight.

Lush Ivy-Covered Backyard Office

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You can barely even tell there’s a building under all of the ivy that’s been trained to grow up trellises on the outside of this gorgeous backyard office in San Francisco. ‘Parkside Garden’ by Scott Lewis Landscaping Architecture creates a visual link between the main house on the property, and the adjacent public park.

Vintage Ikarus Bus Turned Office Cube

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The cab of an old Ikarus bus was cut in half and inserted into the corner of a living room to create a tiny enclosed home office in Hungary. The owner spruced up the vintage find and added a corner desk to the interior to make it a cozy place for concentration.

Shingled Spherical Office Pod

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This shingled orb by Archipod looks like it could have fallen right out of a massive tree and into the backyard. Each one of these luxury prefabs comes equipped with porthole windows, top-hinged gull doors, electrical hookups, a semicircular interior desk, lighting and a heater.

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No Place To Work Like Home 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

[ By Steph in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Blue Light Special: Colored Streetlamps Precede Decline in Crime

20 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

blue lights glasgow downtown

In the early 2000s, the city of Glasgow, Scotland, changed over to blue street lighting in an effort to improve the appearance of the city, but areas with the newly blue lights saw an unexpected and disproportionate decrease in crime.

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No one could say for sure whether there was a causal correlation, but half a world away another city followed suit – Nara, Japan, experimentally began turning their street lamps blue. They also saw a decrease in crime.

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In the years that followed, similar deployments were tested, including the addition of over 150 blue lights to an expressway near Tokyo, aimed at reducing accidents.

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The Keihin Electric Express Railway Co. even changed the color of eight lights on the ends of platforms at Gumyoji Station in Yokohama, Japan, to curb track-jumping suicides. A subsequent report showed that in the years following, the station saw no suicide attempts (after previously being the site of multiple suicides per year).

There are a number of theories about why the blue light could be causing a decrease in criminal behavior.

Some argue the association of blue with police presence, except: Japanese police use mostly red lights.

Another theory posits that blue light has a calming effect, feeling more pleasant than orange or red. Indeed, studies have shown that blue lights (associated with calm waters and open skies) can reduce stress responses in fish and be used to treat SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) in humans.

blue light versus red

Of course, it is also possible that the new colored lights are simply different and unfamiliar enough to cause people to feel awkward engaging in illicit or dangerous behavior where they are present. And if that is the case, changing all the public lights in the world to blue might be at best temporary fix, working until people get used to the new blue lighting. Experts have warned not to read too much into the effect, regardless, since the causal mechanism or connection has not yet been definitively determined.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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House of Eternal Return: Trippy Exhibit Owned by George RR Martin

19 Apr

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin purchased a sprawling abandoned bowling alley in Santa Fe, New Mexico so an art collective called Meow Wolf could transform it into a bizarre and colorful immersive environment called The House of Eternal Return. Step inside to find 20,000 square feet of trippy black-lit spaces you can literally get lost within, crawling into a fireplace to find an expansive new space full of surreal wonders like neon forests, alien plants and twenty-foot rabbits.

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Unlike most art installations, it’s made to be experienced physically, with strange new sights around every corner waiting for you to touch, climb, squeeze and swing your way through all of their secrets. The result of a collaboration between over 100 artists, the House of Eternal Return is a “wild new form of non-linear storytelling which unfolds through exploration, discovery and 21st century interactivity. The premise: Something has happened inside a mysterious Victorian house that has dissolved the nature of time and space. Venture through the house of the Selig family, and discover secret passageways into fantastic dimensions!”

Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

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Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

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There are no guides, maps or pathways, and you could have a different experience in the space no matter how many times you explore it. At the center of the massive facility is a full-sized Victorian house where everything’s a little bit off: floors ripple, lights come streaming out of drains, refrigerators lead to secret tunnels and even the toilets contain unexpected surprises. You may enter through the front door, but you don’t leave that way. In fact, it’s hard to tell whether you’ll ever leave.

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Meow Wolf House of Eternal Return

A team of six writers created the story elements, taking cues from the objects the various participating artists produced for the installation. In addition to this art exhibit turned fantasy world, there’s a jungle gym, a children’s museum and a music venue hosting such acts as CocoRosie and Mykki Blanco. Martin has granted Meow Wolf with a ten-year lease to do whatever they want with the space, so there’s plenty of time to plan a road trip to check it out. In the meantime, check out all the photos on Meow World’s Instagram.

[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Buildings in Motion: 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

18 Apr

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital & Photography & Video. ]

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Architecture spins, zooms, slides, grows, shrinks and blooms like oversized artificial flowers in animated GIF form, with the effects originating from both fantasy motions that the real-life buildings don’t actually perform and functional movable parts. With these graphics we see architecture from a new perspective as it seems to take on a life of its own – and while watching elements of a building click into place from the sky like a game of Tetris is satisfying, it’s also really cool to see how transforming elements of real buildings work, like a massive sliding metal roof that covers or uncovers an all-glass house at the push of a button.

M.C. Escher and the Droste Effect

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M.C. Escher’s drawing of a landscape. spotted inside a window (Prentententoonstelling or ‘Print Gallery’, 1956), serves as the basis of this Droste effect gif. The artist used a mathematical grid to create the twisted perspective in the original drawing, and then researchers at Leiden University reproduced it on a computer, adjusted the perspective and applied the zooming effect.

Rapid Perspective Shift

This somewhat disorienting gif gives us an idea of what it would be like to zoom through a city in a flying car, quickly shifting our perspective of a single building’s corner several times.

8 Animated Architectural Images by Axel de Stampa

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A series of structures by famous architecture firms like MVRDV and Herzog de Meuron come to life in these gifs by Paris-based architects Axel de Stampa and Sylvain Macaux. The Mirador Buidling by the former zooms into place on the ground like a life-sized game of Tetris, while the randomly stacked levels of the latter’s Vitra House appear and disappear. ‘Architecture Animée’ adds a fourth dimension to architecture by quickly applying changes that normally would only be seen with the passage of time.

Sliding Pergolas House

We get to see just how the star feature of the ‘Sliding Pergolas House’ in Brazil by FGMF Arquitetos works in this fun gif. The movable roof elements make it possible to shelter some areas of the spacious courtyard while letting sun stream into others.

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Buildings In Motion 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital & Photography & Video. ]

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Le Corbusier Murals Applied as Graffiti to Notre Dame du Haut

18 Apr

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

corbu vandalized notre dame

Actual murals made by architect Le Corbusier have been digitally added to the walls of one of his most famous buildings, transforming Notre Dame du Haut, added an array of colors to its complex curves.

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Architect Le Corbusier, who passed 50 years ago, remains famous for his rigid Modernist works, but for spiritual spaces he made an exception, shifting from a rule-based to an artistic approach.

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Still, the resulting structure was simply white and gray, devoid of color until these murals were introduced. The thin-seeming walls are covered from the ground up, but so too are the thick swooping roofs that curve up and around, seeming almost to float above the sides.

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The fictional images were crafted by Belgian photographer Xavier Delory, who applied a set of artworks Corbu made for an architectural colleague.

corbu chapel side view

“Le Corbusier was not only an architect, he was also a painter and sculptor. He is the author of the phrase ‘synthesis of the arts’ meaning an alliance between painting, sculpture and architecture. At first he thought about what painting and sculpture could bring to architecture, not playing a decorative role but rather ‘as a house guest’ in a second phase, he moved this level of synthesis to a fusion of modern architectural styles at Ronchamp.”

vandalized savoye

In a previous series, the same photographer re-imagined the Villa Savoye, another famous work by Corbu, sparking a series of fake stories suggesting the iconic house had actually been vandalized.

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

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Scaffolding Staircase: Huge Steps to Rise from Rotterdam Plaza

18 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

urban staircase

A temporary installation to commemorate the rebuilding of the city after the second world war, this massive staircase made from scaffolding will lead visitors up onto a postwar structure in the heart of Rotterdam.

Standing 60 feet high, the staircase of the 180 steps end on top of the Groot Handelsgebouw, an early building from the postwar construction effort that began 75 years ago. Dubbed simply The Stairs, this project by Dutch architecture firm MVRDV will also involve film screenings and events on the rooftop.

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If the resulting temporary roof-topping venue is sufficiently popular, a more permanent means of access may replace the temporary stairs.

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Other temporary and permanent architectural and urban design projects are also being developed and opened as part of the 75th-year commemoration (above: Market Hall with digital mural by MVRDV)

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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Fruitless: 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit & Produce Stands

17 Apr

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Once vital threads in the fabric of Americana, these abandoned fruit & produce stands no longer entice hungry travelers into making roadside pit stops.

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An urban farm in a state whose rivers have been known to catch on fire? It’s more likely than you think: the six-acre Ohio City Farm in Cleveland operates between June and November though the Farm Stand only opens on weekends.

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Etsy member GregMurrayPhoto and Flickr users MMW Horticulture Group and LAND studio, respectively, snapped the photos above. Gotta love that eggplant-purple, zombie-proof corrugated facade – all that’s missing is a herd of vegetarian walkers milling about in front. BROOOCCCOLIIII…

An Apple Less

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North of the border, a similar unsavory situation is unfolding as Canada builds more major highways and country farms lose access to vehicular travelers – and vice-versa. The abandoned apple stand above was snapped along Highway 11 near Coulson’s Hill in northern Ontario

Michaux Lonely

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Speaking of TWD, the abandoned Michaux Produce stand (and matching flatbed truck) in Goochland County, VA might have served as an alternate filming location had Georgia’s governor not vetoed a certain bill. They could call it “Michonne’s Produce”, harvested with a samurai sword while-u-wait! Kudos to Flickr user Aes D for getting up close and personal with the pleasant yet eerie scene in September of 2015.

Sign of the Times

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No sign remains of this Florida roadside produce stand – er, the stand seems to be gone but the sign remains, though not for much longer by the looks of it. Flickr user Dan Optimus Prime (dvn225) captured the sorry signboard standing – barely – just outside Daytona Beach in March of 2013.

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Fruitless 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit Produce Stands

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Secret Rooms Installed in Deserted Sewers & Maintenance Shafts

17 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

underground art installation

A series of abandoned subterranean spaces in Milan have been transformed into tiny living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, complete with furniture and fixtures.

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Designed by Italian artist Biancoshock, these small dwellings are rendered especially surreal thanks to bright colors and attention to detail. The project has a social dimension as well, inspired by the actual people forced to live in extreme spaces thanks to unfortunate circumstances, including the hundreds that live in the sewer systems of Romania or places like Las Vegas.

underground manhole shaft room

Whatever your own interpretation, the next time you pass a sewer grate, manhole cover or set of maintenance doors on the streets of Milan, it might be worth taking a closer look. More about the artist and his philosophy: “Ephemeralism has the purpose of producing works of art that have to exist briefly in space but limitlessly in time through the photography, the video and the media. He has realized more that 650 interventions in the streets of Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, England, Hungary, Lithuania, Malesia, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak, Slovenia and Spain and he is not thinking about stopping.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Time Travel in China: Photos Reveal A Century of Dramatic Growth

15 Apr

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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Few nations have experienced quite the explosive rate of growth over the last century as China, and a new photo series shows us just how dramatic those changes actually look on the ground. Photographer, computer scientist and MIT alum Dheera Venkatraman pored through books and archives to find images taken in the 20th century and then went out and re-took them, shot by shot, attempting to frame them exactly as they were originally photographed. All of the new imagery has been converted to black and white to highlight what’s different and what has managed to survive after decades of frantic industrialization.

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The result is a series called Time Travel in China, creating pairs of images that Venkatraman likens to a ‘spot-the-difference’ game. Agricultural fields become towns, skyscrapers shoot up into the air, bridges stretch across waterways, dirt roads are paved, infrastructure becomes more complex.

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Yet not only do the contours of the land and the silhouettes of the mountains remain the same, a surprising number of buildings do, too, especially temples and historical structures. In some cases, the only notable shifts in a forty- or even eighty-year period are the vehicles, some lights and a handful of modern towers.

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“When most people travel, they think of traveling in space,” she says. “Whether it’s hiking through a national park or learning about a distant culture, it’s usually about the destination. This time, I decided to travel in time.”

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“It wasn’t always easy to get that perfect angle match,” she continues in a post on PetaPixel. “In some places, the vantage point ended up being in a private location, and in some cases there was a large obstruction or building preventing me from getting the same view. But nonetheless, I managed to capture several shocking contrasts over the past century of Chinese history.”

[ By Steph in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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World’s Tallest Wood-Framed Skyscraper Proposed for London

15 Apr

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

wood tower for london

An angular affair of wood and glass, this proposed skyscraper is designed to reach nearly 1,000 feet in the air and, if it goes forward, will be the first timber-framed tower in London and tallest such structure on Earth.

wood skyscraper design

Stick-framed houses are standard in many parts of the world, but using wood for skyscrapers has a lot of potential advantages, including: lower costs, less embedded energy, more renewable resources and a look and feel scaled to human occupancy.

wood skyscraper skyline

The obvious worry for most people is, of course, fire. However, timber buildings are famously good at standing up to flames – columns and beams will char in an inferno, and that charred surface can actually stand up longer to heat than exposed steel. While steel heats up and buckles, wood first loses its water weight, then chars and resists the flames.

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As it turns out, “Wood is one of nature’s most innovative building materials: the production has no waste products and it binds CO2. Wood has low weight, but is a very strong load-bearing structure compared to its lightness.”

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Rising 80 stories above the city and providing 1,000 housing units, the London stick tower project is a collaboration between PLP Architecture and Cambridge University’s Department of Architecture. Completed, it would be the second-tallest building in the city next to The Shard.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

No Place (to Work) Like Home: 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

Office In Flight

Park-Like Office with Swing Table & Moss Carpet

Lush Ivy-Covered Backyard Office

Vintage Ikarus Bus Turned Office Cube

Shingled Spherical Office Pod

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
No Place To Work Like Home 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

Blue Light Special: Colored Streetlamps Precede Decline in Crime

House of Eternal Return: Trippy Exhibit Owned by George RR Martin

Buildings in Motion: 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

M.C. Escher and the Droste Effect

Rapid Perspective Shift

8 Animated Architectural Images by Axel de Stampa

Sliding Pergolas House

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Buildings In Motion 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

Le Corbusier Murals Applied as Graffiti to Notre Dame du Haut

Scaffolding Staircase: Huge Steps to Rise from Rotterdam Plaza

Fruitless: 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit & Produce Stands

An Apple Less

Michaux Lonely

Sign of the Times

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Fruitless 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit Produce Stands

Secret Rooms Installed in Deserted Sewers & Maintenance Shafts

Time Travel in China: Photos Reveal A Century of Dramatic Growth

World’s Tallest Wood-Framed Skyscraper Proposed for London

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Office In Flight

Park-Like Office with Swing Table & Moss Carpet

Lush Ivy-Covered Backyard Office

Vintage Ikarus Bus Turned Office Cube

Shingled Spherical Office Pod

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: No Place To Work Like Home 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

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12 Offbeat Office Interiors & Innovative Desk Designs

Outside Offices: 14 Detached Work Pods, Eggs, Modules & More

Double-Duty Desks: 14 Adaptable Office Furniture Designs

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Composite Crime Scenes: NYC Past Patched onto Present

Criminal Contours: Crime Rates as Topographic Maps

Utopian ‘Private City’ Envisioned as Crime-Free Urban Oasis

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Disorienting Design: 14 Trippy & Surreal Interior Spaces

Striking Gravel-Covered Japanese House is a Study in Contrasts

Transformer Theater: Deserted House, Upcycled in Disguise

M.C. Escher and the Droste Effect

Rapid Perspective Shift

8 Animated Architectural Images by Axel de Stampa

Sliding Pergolas House

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Buildings In Motion 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

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Tilt & Whirl: 13 (More!) Amazing Buildings In Motion

Moving Architecture: 12 Unbelievable Buildings in Motion

Adaptive Architecture: 12 Transforming & Convertible Buildings

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3D Architectural Illusions: 12 Paintings, Murals & Mosaics

Fake Facades: Transformative Murals Make Cities Vibrant

Villa Savoye: Classic Corbu House Comes to Life in LEGO

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Hybrid Desk & Storage Rise Up to Meet Suspended Staircase

Living Staircase: Spiral Stairs Wrapped in Organic Greenery

Stair Rover: Smooth-Ride Skateboard Glides Down Steps

An Apple Less

Michaux Lonely

Sign of the Times

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Fruitless 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit Produce Stands

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Go Somewhere Else: 8 Abandoned Roadside Rest Stops

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5 Stunning Modern Secret Rooms, Hidden Doors & Passages

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Amazing Aerial Photos of LA and NYC Reveal Urban Geometry

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Building Up Iraq: World’s Tallest Skyscraper Planned for Basra

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No Place To Work Like Home 15 Extraordinary Office Designs

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Buildings In Motion 15 Most Mesmerizing Architecture Gifs

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Fruitless 10 Abandoned Roadside Fruit Produce Stands