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Out of Surface Space, Island of Singapore Expands Underground

07 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

subsurface urban expansion

Bound by water on all sides, the city-state of Singapore is pioneering subterranean urban development, starting with storage and transportation systems and escalating with plans for power plants, sports stadiums, libraries and more.

rock cavern expansion

In an interview, Jian Zhao, professor of geomechanics at Monash University, noted that “with the limited land available, one of the best possible ways to increase space is to create it underground.” Wealthy but spatially limited, “Singapore is leading the world on exploring underground space as part of the urban development.”

subsurface singapore development

Currently in progress, the Jurong Rock Caverns, for example, are designed to store vast amounts of oil. Nearly ten stories tall, they can house 150,000,000 cubic meters of oil. This is one of the many projects under construction or in development at the behest of the government’s National Innovation Challenges: Land and Liveability.

rock cavern diagram

The caverns were created through a combination of drilling and explosives, hollowing out the rocky subsurface, then bolstered with a water curtain that keeps the hydrocarbons in place through hydrostatic pressure. A series of support infrastructure projects includes access shafts and operation tunnels, many hundreds of feet below the ground. Other densely-populated islands, from Manhattan to Hong Kong, may be looking to these projects as examples of how to increase development in areas where land expansion simply is not feasible. Images courtesy of the JTC Corporation.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Butcher Chopped: 15 Bloody Unusual Meat Markets

07 Dec

[ By Steve in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

butcher-shops-1a
Traditional independent meat markets are dying off faster than the products they serve, though these 15 unusual butcher shops somehow managed to make the cut.

butcher-shops-1b

If a møøse ønce bit yøur sister, here’s your chance for revenge… or so it would appear. Gord’s Butcher Shop was run (by Gord, presumably) out of an abandoned trailer in Port au Choix, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The above images taken in January and September of 2012 don’t reveal if Gord really butchered moose (mooses? meeses? whatever!) inside, and we may never know for sure: when Flickr user Oleo snapped the store in 2015 it had lost its power connection. Don’t ye be messin’ wit’ da moose, lord tunderin!

We Bloody Well Deliver

butcher-shops-2a

Flickr user Dan Field (FieldDan) came across this curious Granada Hills, CA combination meat/mail market on September 15th of 2007. “Going postal is much easier when you have a meat cleaver,” observes one of the commenters at the photo page… gee thanks, Erik, for that disturbing observation.

Edible Animals

butcher-shops-3a

If the sign says Meat You Can Eat, you know you’re not in my kitchen. Flickr user(s) Stig & Lisa snapped this snappily-named meat market on July 27th of 2008 though the shop was closed at the time. As the sign in the window advertises “Whole Baby Rump,” one would hope local child protection services made the closing permanent.

Abe Froman, I Presume?

butcher-shops-4a

No, Bueller-fans, the Bari PORK STORE is located in Brooklyn, not Chicago. Flickr user Frank Winters snapped the self-styled “King Of The Sausage” on February 16th, 2009. Known For Quality, the Bari PORK STORE offers “self service” (butcher your own hogzilla?), caters parties – sausage parties, most likely – and proudly boasts “Nobody Beats The King”… at least, not in the category of over-the-top store signage.

Too Fresh Flesh

butcher-shops-14a

OK, we all know where the packaged meat sold in supermarkets originally comes from but isn’t this a little too close for comfort? Won’t somebody think of the children? Speaking of which, hey little Jimmy, stop petting that rib roast!

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Butcher Chopped 15 Bloody Unusual Meat Markets

[ By Steve in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Small Footprints: London’s First Pedestrian & Bicycle Bridges

06 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

london minimalist bridge crossing

Bucking the trend of extravagant elevated parks, this new walking-and-cycling-only bridge uses tight spirals on either side to minimize land usage with a slender tension-supported pathway (suspended from twin spires) stretched elegantly in between.

london spiral foot bicycle

Designed by Bystrup, a Danish firm, the crossing will span the River Thames in West London and beat out more lofty and complex proposals by other contributing architects.

london bridge at night

While certain other vehicular bridges accommodate non-motorized traffic in London, this one (if constructed before its close cousin, discussed below) is slated to be the first exclusively dedicated to walkers and bikers.

london operable bridge

This somewhat heftier structure is designed to be raised on demand, requiring a bit more bulk as a result (as well as waiting areas when the central portion is lifted to let boats pass).

london brige raised

Meanwhile, across town, another new bridge by ReForm is also in the works between Canary Wharf and Rotherhithe.

From the architects: “Our design will do this, creating an internationally recognisable landmark. Its unique and elegant form and operation will become an attraction for visitors. It will enhance the views along and across the Thames, providing scale and interest in the way that the ships on the river itself do.”

london night view

This latter bridge is integrated to pathways and green spaces both extant and planned on either side of the Thames.

london canary wharf bridge

Both bridges will help cut commuting times across London and help make the city friendlier toward those on foot or traveling by bike. Each also aims to become a defining feature of the city, without overwhelming existing bridges or architecture.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Muji Huts: Affordable Pop-Up Modern Homes Made for Japan

05 Dec

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

muji huts 1

The same Japanese retail chain selling household supplies like space-saving furniture, bed linens and travel toothbrushes will soon sell pop-up houses, too, so you can literally walk out with a kit for an entire, fully-outfitted home in one trip. The Muji Hut, designed by Konstantin Grcic, Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa for retailer Muji, comes in three variations starting at $ 25K. Each offers just enough space for one or two minimalist residents.

muji huts 2

muji hut 7

The Japanese housing market is a little different from that of the U.S. and other parts of the world in that real estate doesn’t accrue value over time, and demand for preexisting houses is low. Not everybody has the money to knock down an old house and build a new one in its place, however, and lots tend to be tiny.

muji huts 3

muji huts 4

Each designer created their own version of an affordable, no-frills structure that can be assembled in short order, including one made of aluminum, a two-story timber creation and a little cabin clad in cork. Each takes inspiration from kyosho jutaku, the Japanese style of micro homes that aims to squeeze as much function out of tiny footprints as possible.

muji huts 5

muji huts 6

The Muji Huts are envisioned as weekend getaway destinations rather than full-time living spaces, but each contains a generous living room, bathroom and kitchen, and can be heated with a wood stove. The huts can be installed in virtually any location, from tight city lots to the banks of a river, and will be available for purchase in 2017.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Mild Max: Perth Police Put a Stop to Motorized Picnic Tables

04 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

mobile motorized picnic tables

In what could be viewed as a pre-apocalyptic take on hacked vehicular hybrids of the Mad Max movies, a pair of picnic table cars have been spotted on the streets of Western Australia’s capital city.

These road-worthy cruisers can apparently reach speeds of 50 kilometers per hour, handling like go-karts with bonus table space for passengers to set down their beers.

motorized picnic tables

Cops put out alerts on the vehicles based on CCTV footage and eventually spotted them as they stopped to fuel up at a gas station.

picnic table vehicle

“They told the boys that were drinking to tip their liquor out and get rid of it which we did and they said we’re not allowed to drive [the picnic tables] on the road and just to push them back across the other side of the road and then we can carry on from there.”

picnic table intersection

Inspired by a friend who constructs similar creations in New Zealand, the tables’ owner and builder explained that each model is constructed with a four-speed clutch, gears, accelerator and brakes. Police are still evaluating their presumably-illegal road usage, with potential penalties or fines yet to come, though all appears to have been in good fun.

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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Last Stop: 2,800 Drowned NYC Subway Cars Turned Marine Habitats

04 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

dropping reef closeup

Since the early 2000s, decommissioned New York City subway cars have been seeded into the waters around New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia and other eastern states, creating infrastructure for fish habitats along the coastal shelf running from New York to North Carolina. Artificial reefs like these can increase sea life concentrations dramatically in otherwise-flat subsurface regions, boasting up to hundreds of times as much biomass per area of seafloor.

dumping subway cars

dropping reef filling

In late 2000, the Metro Transit Authority began dumping 1200 old cars into the water; in 2007, another 1600 were added to the list. These frameworks of these sunken cars serve as replacement rock outcrops on which corals and plants grow, leading to oysters, mussels and further sea life. Photographer Stephen Mallon has spent years capturing this deliberate subway-dumping activity in action on the surface.

dropping reef then

Meanwhile, sequential underwater images show the subsurface results over time. The progress photos above and below were shot after 5 years and 10 years, respectively, demonstrating just how rapidly and effectively these places can become populated, first sparsely and then densely.

dropping reef now

The critical amount of biomass that develops makes these cars hotspots for diverse populations of underwater creatures all along the food chain, together forming self-sustaining regional ecosystems.

dropping car crane water

In turn, these locations can attract fishermen and divers as well, keen both to see the thriving populations of aquatic life but also to explore the underwater ruins of modern machines. Far as they may be from their original subterranean homes, these train cars still manage to serve citizens of cities along the Atlantic coast in their own unusual ways.

[ By WebUrbanist in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]

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Sound Sculptures: Music Translated Into Transforming Objects

03 Dec

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

sound sculptures 1

An experiment in intentional synesthesia, this combination of sculpture, music and technology enables us to actually see the physical form of individual songs. ‘Reify’ is a collaborative project that creates a new way to experience music, transforming it into a tangible object that transforms before our eyes. So-called ‘totems’ are made to visually represent an artist’s song, and encoded with music and interactive visual experiences that can be viewed on a smartphone or tablet.

sound sculptures 2

Musicians, sculptors and app designers got together to build a platform that lets artists express their music in physical form. Each totem is a sculptural object in its own right, entirely unique in shape, 3D-printed from plastic or cast in bronze. Simply gazing upon these visual translations of sound is cool enough, but then comes the app that truly brings them to life.

sound sculptures 3 sound sculptures 4

Load up the Stylus app, point your mobile device at the totem and you’ll be treated to an interactive visual experience that plays along with the song. “Each experience is unique in style and content,” say the designers. “Some are game-like. Some are conceptual explorations. Others are both… and neither. All are direct expressions of the artist’s creative vision.”

sound sculptures 5 sound sculptures 6

While a Kickstarter campaign held in July didn’t raise enough funds to move forward with the project, it’s a really cool look into how various forms of creative expression will continue to evolve along with technology, and the potential for more crossover. Check out another cool project exploring what music looks like in 3D.

[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]

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Knit Wit: 17 Fantastically Weird Fiber Art Creations

03 Dec

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

weird knits my boyfriend

Imagine your grandmother presenting you with a knitted facehugger, dwarven helm or a life-sized boyfriend pillow for your birthday instead of a scratchy wool scarf. The world of knits goes far beyond beginner’s patterns for sweaters and caps, occasionally encompassing entire rooms or covering military tanks. This collection of weird knitted and crocheted things might even inspire you to break out a pair of needles yourself.

Facehugger Mask

Well, isn’t that cute. It’s a cozy little alien face hugger, just like you always wanted.

Brutal Knitting by Tracy Widdess

weird knits brutal 2

weird knits brutal 3

weird knits brutal 5

‘Brutal Knitting’ is a fitting name for this ongoing project by artist Tracy Widdess, which stretches the craft far beyond its humble origins of warmth and practicality. Her highly unusual knit works include some of the most bizarre hats you’ve ever seen, and a replica of the Lament Configuration puzzle box from Hellraiser.

The World’s Cutest Penguin Sweaters

weird knits penguin sweaters 2

weird knits penguin sweaters 3

Australia’s oldest man, 109-year-old Alfred Date, put his 80 years of knitting experience to work to create the world’s cutest sweaters for a bunch of oil-covered penguins after a spill on the Australian Phillip Island. The sweaters keep the penguins from ingesting toxins and prevent water from getting trapped under their oily feathers, which can cause them to freeze.

Gimli’s Dwarven Helm

“The helm I based directly on the helm that Gimli wears in the Lord of the Rings movies, the beard was my own design with massive creative input from my brother,” says DeviantArt member SadDaysCrochet of this creation.

My Knitted Boyfriend

weird knits boyfriend 3

If it’s a little lonely in your bed, but you don’t have the patience that a real flesh-and-blood boyfriend requires, there’s a solution. ‘My Knitted Boyfriend’ can be worn like a terrifying bodysuit by a real person, or stuffed to create a life-sized man-shaped pillow.

Surreal Knitted Room by Olek

weird knits room oleksiak 2

The fiber artist known as ‘Olek,’ who’s responsible for yarn bombing practically every surface you can think of, knitted an entire gallery space for a piece called ‘Keith Meets Arch of Hysteria,’ a tribute to artists Keith Haring, Annie Leibovitz and Louise Bourgeois.

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Knit Wit 17 Fantastically Weird Fiber Art Creations

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Night House: Artist Cloaks Suburban Home Facade in Starry Skies

02 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

night house suburban intervention

House painting is such time-consuming and meticulous work just to get a single color on a facade; perhaps next time you could clad your home in printed image of the night sky instead.

night house looking up

night house in making

For the Night House, Chicago artist Kate McQuillen covered a suburban house with a contiguous skyscape of nighttime space images digitally printed on weatherproof styrene panels.

night house poster project

The project was funded by sales of a screenprinted poster and created as part of the Terrain Biennial, an Oak Park-based international exhibition of yard, balcony and porch interventions.

night house glowing stars

night house screenprinted wall

Like some kind of suburban camouflage, the covered sections of the home start to disappear against the backdrop of the sky at the right times of early evening and morning. Read also: The Night House, a poem by Billy Collins.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Cities of Tomorrow: Refugee Camps Require Longer-Term Thinking

02 Dec

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

refugeeeee

Former mayor of the world’s second-largest refugee camp, humanitarian Kilian Kleinschmidt notes that the average life of a refugee camp is 17 years, “a generation,” and these places need to be recognized as what they are: “cities of tomorrow,” not the temporary spaces we like to imagine. “In the Middle East, we were building camps: storage facilities for people. But the refugees were building a city,” Kleinschmidt told Dezeen in an interview. Short-term thinking on camp infrastructure leads to perpetually poor conditions, all based on myopic optimism regarding the intended lifespan of these places.

kilian kleinschmidt

Many refugees may never be able return home, and that reality needs to be realized and incorporated into solutions. Treating their situation as temporary or reversible puts people into a kind of existential limbo; inhabitants of these interstitial places can neither return to their normal routines nor move forward with their lives.. On the one hand, assert experts like Kleinschmidt, planners need build up refugee camps to be durable and sufficient places in their own right. On the other, they also need to move refugee migrants toward countries and regions where they will end up virtuously integrated into struggling economies, including (though controversially): areas of nearby Europe with unused housing and high labor needs.

refugee housing

Beyond providing more thoroughly for essentials, Kleinschmidt sees additional opportunities to enable refugees with new technologies: “With a [3D-printing] Fab Lab people could produce anything they need – a house, a car, a bicycle, generating their own energy, whatever,” he said. Unfortunately, governmental bureaucracies and aid organizations are reluctant to push boundaries and try new approaches. More fundamentally: they frequently fail to recognize the need for robust solutions that help facilitate refugees who are themselves working hard to create real places for living.

refugee housing ikea

“I think we have reached the dead end almost where the humanitarian agencies cannot cope with the crisis,” he said. “We’re doing humanitarian aid as we did 70 years ago after the second world war. Nothing has changed.” Kleinschmidt worked with the United Nations and their High Commission for Refugees for 25 years before starting an independent consultancy that continues to address humanitarian issues around the globe.

His previous senior roles included deputy humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, deputy special envoy for assistance to Pakistan, acting director for communities and minorities in the U.N. administration in Kosovo, executive secretary for the Migration and Refugee Initiative (MARRI) in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and many field-based functions with U.N.H.C.R., U.N.D.P. and W.F.P. He worked extensively in Africa, Southeastern Europe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Out of Surface Space, Island of Singapore Expands Underground

Butcher Chopped: 15 Bloody Unusual Meat Markets

We Bloody Well Deliver

Edible Animals

Abe Froman, I Presume?

Too Fresh Flesh

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Butcher Chopped 15 Bloody Unusual Meat Markets

Small Footprints: London’s First Pedestrian & Bicycle Bridges

Mild Max: Perth Police Put a Stop to Motorized Picnic Tables

Last Stop: 2,800 Drowned NYC Subway Cars Turned Marine Habitats

Sound Sculptures: Music Translated Into Transforming Objects

Knit Wit: 17 Fantastically Weird Fiber Art Creations

Facehugger Mask

Brutal Knitting by Tracy Widdess

The World’s Cutest Penguin Sweaters

Gimli’s Dwarven Helm

My Knitted Boyfriend

Surreal Knitted Room by Olek

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Knit Wit 17 Fantastically Weird Fiber Art Creations

Night House: Artist Cloaks Suburban Home Facade in Starry Skies

Cities of Tomorrow: Refugee Camps Require Longer-Term Thinking

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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

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