Tag: Cleverly

  • Stacked: Cleverly Designed Chinese Hotel Gives Everyone a Unique View

    [ By SA Rogers in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

    Despite sharing a tiny footprint of land with other guests at this Chinese hotel, you can practically forget anyone else exists altogether thanks to a clever stacked arrangement that points each level in a different direction. Step out onto your private balcony – located on the roof of the room below – and look out onto the peaceful forest of rural Huang Shan, Anhui Province, China. Designed by Shanghai-based architecture firm Bengo Studio, the Qinyushan Tree House is a beautiful use of space.

    A spiral staircase runs up through the center of the hotel, which includes two guest rooms, two bathrooms, one living room, and a ‘landscape room’ located at the top of the building. Each room has its own roof access with a glass railing to avoid interrupting views of the trees.

    Elevated off the forest floor, the hotel features curvy volumes fanning out in different directions from the central core, capped on each cantilevered end by floor-to-ceiling windows. Guests ascend an enclosed glass hallway to either walk down into the lowest bedroom and bathroom, or ascend to the upper levels.

    Its vertical wooden cladding helps it blend into its natural environment, and the minimalist design is an interesting take on modern treehouse-inspired structures.

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    [ By SA Rogers in Boutique & Art Hotels & Travel. ]

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  • PanoMoments cleverly adds the element of time to 360-degree images

    PanoMoments’ ‘360-degree living photos’ are a kind of mashup between 360-degree images and Apple’s Live Photos. It’s not quite video, and it’s not a static image: PanoMoments can be created using any robotic panorama head (though the company is producing a specialized one), uploaded to their website for conversion and viewed on the web, with a VR headset or on a mobile device. Varying the time it takes for the device to complete a full rotation gives the resulting product a ‘live photos’ feel or a more time-lapse effect. 

    Click to view this PanoMoment. Note that you will need to be running Google Chrome version > 52.x or viewing on a modern Android/iOS smartphone.

    The process for creating a PanoMoment begins with the camera of your choice (ideally a larger sensor ILC) and a circular fisheye lens. Using PanoMoments’ PanoCatcher Loop or any panorama head, the camera is rotated 360-degrees while capturing at least 120 images. Convert your images to equirectangular format, upload them to PanoMoments.com and voila – you’ve got a PanoMoment. You can upload up to 20GB worth of images for free, while a ‘Pro’ membership will get you 500GB.

    At the moment, PanoMoments’ creators are looking for funding through Kickstarter to help with building costs. Currently, a $ 270 pledge will get you a PanoCatcher Loop along with a 1 year Pro membership.

    Head over to their Kickstarter page to learn more and see additional PanoMoments.

    Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

  • Nameless Paints: Cleverly Coded Tubes Show Color Composition

    [ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

    nameless paint content color

    Instead of names or swatches, this series of minimalist paints comes in tubes that show off constituent colors that double as lessons about how complex hues and shades are created.

    nameless paint closeup view

    The nameless tubes are intended to eschew the use of words altogether and thus avoid existing associations, representing contents instead as a combination of three primary colors (cyan, yellow and magenta) with dots indicating relative amounts. The effect simultaneously divorces the product from names and looks in favor of a more abstract representation scheme that recalls unintuitive systems like binary.

    nameless paint image series

    These 2012 Kokuyo Design Awards-winning visual labels hint at contents and teach kids how to make their own mixtures. The paints themselves will be on sale later this year.

    nameless tube paint colors

    “By not assigning names to the colors we want to expand the definition of what a color can be, and the various shades they can create by mixing them” says creator Yusuke Imai, who made these with design partner Ayami Moteki (via Colossal and Spoon & Tamago).

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    [ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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  • Clear Sailing: Cleverly Transparent Canoes & Kayaks

    [ By Delana in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

    see through canoe and kayak designs

    Sailing along in a canoe or kayak is an excellent way to spend an afternoon outdoors, but have you ever thought of everything you’re missing in a conventional boat? The solid bottom prevents you from seeing some of nature’s most amazing creations that exist in the water on which you travel. A transparent canoe or kayak, however, would give you a whole new perspective on the watery world.

    clear kayak and canoe

    (all images via: See Through Canoe)

    The see-through canoes/kayaks are even lighter than their wood or aluminum counterparts. Being made of the same material that is used to make bullet-proof windows, they are tough enough to withstand even the most brutal of conditions. And just like the glass-bottomed boats of years past, these transparent vessels let you see what is directly beneath you in the water.

    transparent canoe

    The canoe version weighs only 40 pounds and provides 100 percent visibility on all sides, including the bottom. You can check out the aquatic life below you as you wait for fish to bite, or simply take a long and luxurious tour of a lake to see characteristics of the area you’ve never before been privy to.

    clear kayak

    The transparent kayak is even more portable – at just 26 pounds, it is light enough for nearly anyone to transport. And best of all, it folds up to backpack size, making it ultra-portable. Of course, it is also transparent to allow you to check out all of the underwater features as you paddle along.

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    [ By Delana in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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