Tag: Shanghai

Cyberpunk City: World’s First Self-Driving Grocery Store Hits Streets of Shanghai

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least: science fiction films — an autonomous grocery store on wheels (staffed by a holographic assistant) that can deliver late-night snacks as well as everyday essentials.

The Wheelys “Moby Mart” looks the part as well, sporting a trapezoidal shape, illuminated display in front, vintage neon sign on top, and mysteriously uniform boxes on the shelves inside.

But that retrofuturistic look is just part of the package: fueled by solar panels on the roof, this driverless shopping center operates staff-free 24/7.

When it runs low on stock it returns itself to a warehouse automatically for reloading — eventually, its makers hope to task a fleet of rooftop drones to do those pickups (maybe they could be extended to make deliveries, too).

Like other new grocery store prototypes, there will be no need to check out — items taken are automatically tallied and added to a shopper’s bill. If you need any help, the aptly named Hol (a holographic store assistant) is on hand to assist.

To top it all off, the Moby Mart has the potential to be carbon-negative, at least in terms of its urban travels — soaking up the sun for fuel, it also captures and cleans smog on its grocery runs.

A project of Himalayafy, Hefei University and Wheelys the first prototype is currently being tested out in Shanghai, a sweet spot for cyberpunk fans but a bit far for some of us to travel. But don’t worry: if all goes well your city may get one soon, too.

Unverpackt: Zero-Waste Grocery Store Packages No Products

The first of its kind in the country, this German supermarket strips away wasteful packaging and sells its goods in bulk to customers who bring or borrow recycled and reusable …

Rolling Landscape: Driverless Geodesic Garden Hits the Streets of London

As robotic cars take to the streets, designers are beginning to see possibilities for urban mobility that go beyond human and cargo transport. What if plants, for instance, could be moved around …

Retail Micro-Farming: MIT & Target to Launch In-Store Vertical Farms

At the convergence of the localvore and vertical farming movements, Target’s new in-store micro-farms are positioned to offer the freshest possible produce to consumers. On offer: leafy greens …

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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WebUrbanist

June 16, 2017
Shanghai Tower Timelapse Film Captures 4 Years of Construction

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

The second-tallest building in the world seems to appear out of nowhere, shooting into the sky as if of its own accord, in this stunning time-lapse video of the skyline in Lujiazui, China taken over a four-year period by filmmaker Joe Nafis. The 2,073-foot Shanghai Tower is surpassed only by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai and features a double-decker elevator offering the longest single elevator journey in the world at an amazing 1900 feet in under a minute. Its construction has made the skyline even more iconic, dwarfing all of the other buildings in the city.

Every single shot taken by Nafis is a work of art – razor sharp, beautifully composed, dynamic – and seeing them all put together in the final video is breathtaking. The filmmaker spent 1,000 work hours taking and editing 350,000 photos to capture the process as each of the 128 floors is built.

“Construction had already begun when I arrived in the city in 2009,” says Nafis. “The site was a large hole in the ground with construction crews milling around pouring concrete for the base. I began exploring the city looking for views and locations that would serve as groundwork for this video. In 2011, I secured a location with unobstructed views of Lujiazui where I could just glimpse the tower peeking behind the 185m (607 feet) Aurora Plaza.”

“I maintained a camera there for the next 4 years until the tower was completed. In the meantime I took hundreds of thousands of photos from various viewpoints around the city filling up around 8TB in the process. In all, over 1000 hours were dedicated to this project in exploring, shooting and post-processing.”

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10K Timelapse: 80-Megapixel Camera Captures Urban Rio in Motion

No monitor in the world can fully do justice to the amazing level of detail in this sequence, but be sure to go full screen when watching in this video, …
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3D NYC Timelapse: 500 Years of History in 1 WTC Elevator Ride

Riding to the top observation deck of 1 World Trade Center opening next month, visitors will be treated to a dizzying view of the city below, but not the one …
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Triangle Tower Approved: First New Paris Skyscraper in 42 Years

At nearly 600 feet (180 meters) tall, this structure was narrowly granted permission to be the first skyscraper to grace the Parisian skyline in nearly half a …
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[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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WebUrbanist

March 24, 2016
Shanghai bei Nacht

In der Nacht verwandelt sich jede Stadt zu etwas Neuem. Lichter und Schatten verändern sie, andere Menschen laufen mit anderen Zielen durch die Straßen. Nachts verändert sich nicht nur die Stimmung einer Stadt, man kann in der Dunkelheit den sonst so bekannten Ort auch völlig neu entdecken.
kwerfeldein – Fotografie Magazin | Fotocommunity

February 24, 2015
Cities in Time-Lapse: Shanghai

A portrait of Shanghai city. Equipment: Nikon D5000 Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 OS Macro Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 VR (for one sequence) Time-Lapse Software: LR-Timelapse (de-flickering and parameter ramping) Photomatix Pro 4 (batch single-image tone-mapping) Soundtrack: Karmapoint – Rocco Bronte
Video Rating: 4 / 5

November 30, 2012
Shanghai Bomb Shelter Becomes Bustling Underground Night Club

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

With a population of nearly 13.5 million packed into just 2,448 square miles and a large network of disused bomb shelters, it’s no surprise that some Shanghai businesses are going underground. The Shelter is a new nightclub that makes use of one of the roughly 2,000 bomb shelters that can be found beneath the Xuhui district alone, leaving many of the original elements intact.

To get to the club, you’ll have to make your way down a long, narrow stairway and through a dark, cave-like cement tunnel that twists and winds beneath street level. For The Shelter, the rawness and darkness of the setting is part of the appeal.

There are hundreds of thousands of bomb shelters all over China, built in the ’60s and ’70s to prepare for possible air raids from the Soviet Union. “Some projects remain as secrets,” said Tong Songyan, an official at the Xuhui district government, in an interview with Reuters.

Other businesses that have made their home in these underground passages range from the appropriate to the incongruous including a wine shop, a men’s gay bar and a men’s underwear store. The location currently inhabited by The Shelter was formerly a vegetable market, ice storage facility, massage parlor and public bath house.

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Underground Rooms: Waiting for the End of the World

Is the end near? These stark but beautiful photos of underground bomb shelters give us a taste of what life may be like if we had to go underground to survive.
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Down Towns: 6 Unbelievable Underground Spaces

The above-ground world is far from being the whole story. There’s another world beneath our feet – one that many of us never see – like these 6 amazing spaces.
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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WebUrbanist

October 23, 2012