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Urban Rigger: Floating Student Housing Made of Shipping Containers

22 Sep

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

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This hexagonal floating student housing complex made of stacked reclaimed shipping containers is better than any dorm you could hope to live in. ‘Urban Rigger’ by Bjarke Ingels (BIG) creates a sustainable solution to the pressing need for additional accommodations for students in the city, providing 15 living spaces arranged around an internal courtyard. Completely carbon-neutral, the structures are solar-powered and make use of hydro source heating and low-energy pumps, and the first unit opened to the public on September 21st.

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Each apartment is available to college students at $ 600 per month and includes a private bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Occupants get access to the courtyard as well as a kayak landing, bathing platform, barbecue area and roof terrace. The pontoon basement features storage zones and fully automated laundry. It’s a pretty sweet deal for students, who get to gaze out of giant windows at the sunset every evening and enjoy a water-centric lifestyle that most adults only dream about.

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Making use of the harbor ensures that students get to live close to the school, instead of far outside the city, where most affordable units are located. Eventually, BIG plans to create entire communities made up of multiple structures.

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“There are few strategies that allow cities to expand,” the architects explain. “Yet, Copenhagen’s harbor remains an underutilized and underdeveloped area at the heart of the city. By introducing a building typology optimized for harbor cities we can introduce a housing solution that will keep students at the heart of the city.”

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“Meanwhile, the standardized container system has been developed to allow goods to be transported by road, water or air, to anywhere in the world in a complex network of operators at a very low cots. By making use of the standard container system we are offered the framework of extremely flexible building typology.”

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“By stacking 9 container units in a circle, we can create 15 studio residences which frame a centralized winter garden; this is used as a common meeting place for students. The housing is also buoyant, like a boat, so that can be replicated in other harbor cities where affordable housing is needed, but space is limited.”

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

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12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds for Adults

13 Sep

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

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Slides actually make a lot of practical sense in urban environments, potentially zooming over busy streets and transferring pedestrians from high ground to low ground faster than an escalator or set of stairs. That is, as long as people use them in an efficient manner and don’t clog them up. A mainstay on playgrounds around the world, slides can add a sense of fun to urban settings for adults, too. These examples of slides integrated into architecture, temporarily installed in city streets and doubling as public sculptures offer some exciting inspiration (take the hint, architects and city planners!)

Skyslide Los Angeles

skyslide

Zoom from the 70th floor of Los Angeles’ U.S. Bank Tower to the 69th in a fully transparent, 45-foot-long glass slide with thrilling (or terrifying, depending on your feelings about heights) views of the city below. The Skyslide opened this year on the West Coast’s tallest building, and though the glass is only 1 1/4 inches thick, the slide is said to be earthquake- and hurricane-proof.

Giant Water Slide in Bristol by Luke Jerram

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‘Park and Slide’ by UK-based artist Luke Jerram temporarily turned Bristol’s Park Street into a waterpark, drawing in 65,000 visitors to watch 360 lucky lottery winners ranging in age from 5 to 73 slide from one end of the street to the next. “This massive urban slide transforms the street and asked people to take a fresh look at the potential of their city and the possibilities for transformation,” says Jerram. “Imagine if there were permanent slides right across cities?”

Transfer Accelerator Slide for Commuters

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Designed as part of the Overvecht train station’s redevelopment, the Transfer Accelerator slide in Utrecht makes leaving the train station a little bit faster, and a lot more fun. The slide was integrated into the stairs outside the station as part of a push to encourage more commuters to take the train instead of driving.

Cliveden House Slide

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This four-lane stainless steel slide at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire, former home to Waldorf and Nancy Astoria, distracts visitors from ongoing restoration work and offers an alternative way to get back to lawn level rather than the scaffolding-covered stairs. It’s not often that you see a theme-park-worthy slide attached to a regal old manor house – it’s too bad it’s not a permanent feature.

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12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds For Adults

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

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Invisible Buses: Photorealistic Prints Provide Moving Urban Camouflage

03 Sep

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

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The streets of Vilnius, Lithuania are full of ghost buses that blend right into their surroundings while passing through intersections as if only existing in translucent ethereal form. Matching up to the scenery beyond when glimpsed at just the right moment, the buses are momentarily camouflaged thanks to photorealistic printed imagery mounted to their exteriors for this summer’s Vilnius Street Art Festival.

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Illusion

A photo posted by Karolis (@draugas) on Aug 23, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT

Lithuanian artist Liudas Parulskis collaborated with Studio Vieta to print full-scale scenes from the city onto public trolleybuses, a charmingly retro mode of transportation that has remained popular here despite being replaced by newer transit systems in many modern metropolises. ‘Vanishing Trolleybus’ is a temporary installation encouraging pedestrians to try to catch a glimpse or a photo of the effect in action at just the right ‘vanishing point.’

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Jau vaziuoja! #vilnius #vilniusstreetart #vsaf #vilniusstreets

A photo posted by Vilnius Street Art Festival (@vilniusstreetartfestival) on Aug 23, 2016 at 12:07am PDT

Camouflage ? #vilniusstreetart @vilniusstreetartfestival Pusdienis planavimo, žadintuvas 5 valand? ryto, skambutis ? troleibus? parko dispe?erin?, netik?tas sve?ias, valanda laukimo ir dvi valandos retušavimo. Manau, kad visai pavyko ? Credits: Netik?tas pagalbininkas – @sveikutiss Id?ja ir ?kv?pimas – @michaelste

A photo posted by Kristijonas Trink?nas (@tabarzda) on Aug 25, 2016 at 10:54am PDT

One bus appears to be covered in imagery depicting traditional local architecture, while others capture specific street scenes around the city. Parulskis added a wolf running across an intersection to one of the buses, winking at the unofficial mascot of the city.

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

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Book City: Retail Space for Reading Mimics the Look of Urban Spaces

01 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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The appearance of the city outside – complete with crosswalks and grids resembling aerial views of urban blocks – acts as a transition space between the entrance of a bookstore and the quiet, private spaces beyond. This space by XL-muse, located on the fourth floor of the Réel Mall in Shanghai, references the orderly aspects of urban aesthetics, carrying them from the sunny, exposed main room into the darkened alleys full of floor-to-ceiling shelves.

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Street lights gently illuminate the rows of books in these tranquil hallways, organized like pedestrian promenades complete with central park benches and displays. Mirrors are employed to visually double the height of the shelves, making them feel as if they continue up into the sky and stretch far deeper into the building than they really do. Paths direct you from one ‘house’ of books to the next as you explore the shop.

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In these atmospherically-lit areas bursting with dark-stained wood, shoppers feel like they’re navigating the city late at night, when the traffic has died down and the streets are eerily silent. The crosswalks continue into the small cafe, stepping right up onto the ceiling and then back out into the showroom, where white pegs inserted into the concrete walls can be pulled or pushed to create display niches.

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Street Eats: Free Urban Refrigerators for Sharing Spare Food

22 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

A few years back, one man in Saudi Arabia was hailed as a hero for putting leftover food from his restaurant in a refrigerator along the street for anyone to take; since then, an ongoing effort in Europe has been scaling up the same approach to serve whole communities of people in need.

In Germany, urban refrigerators have spread thanks to help from online food-sharing apps and thousands of volunteers. A digital platform that connects those in need with stores and restaurants that have excess food boasts 10,000,000 pounds of shared edibles to date. Still, they have a long way to go: the European Commission estimates that over 100,000,000 tons of usable food is discarded annually across the EU. Globally, a whopping 40% of edible leftovers are thrown away.

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Currently, over 100 shared food spots have been developed across Germany, 20 of which are located in Berlin. Large chain supermarkets are playing a significant part, making a coordinated effort to donate food they cannot sell but that is still safe and edible. Passers by also fuel the efforts, however, depositing whatever they can spare at these sites.

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Germany is leading the charge on multiple food-related fronts these days, home to the world’s first packaging-free grocery store and first in-store vertical micro-farms. As a landlocked country without much space to grow (in terms of population or produce), Germany is bent on innovation and looks likely to remain a leader in this department for years to come.

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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Urban Camo: Bus & Train Fabrics Turned into Wearable Textiles

15 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

fabric matching transit dress

Transportation system patterns, right down to seat cloth details, are designed to last and look good even when stained by dirt and spilled drinks over time, making them an oddly suitable choice to turn into apparel.

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Of course, what looks best under those strained conditions can also look downright strange when turned into suits for human wearers, as Germany artist Menja Stevenson explored firsthand.

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“No matter how many subway lines, buses, trams, trains, and other public conveyances we ride, we are rarely left with a positive impression of the upholstery,” writes David Gibson of the BBC in discussing this art project. “As sure as roses are red and violets blue, transport fabric is a multihued graphic abomination, possibly crawling with pathogens.”

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Stevenson contacted transportation officials and managed to get large enough sections and samples sent her way in order to start making her distinct urban outfits.

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“For many years I had to take the bus to the academy where I studied art,” says the artist. “Such a pattern, like a lot of everyday things, imprints itself into our memory unconsciously without being actually perceived.Through my intervention the beholder (or passenger) becomes aware of the ‘invisible’ fabric.”

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Of course, by outfitting herself in transit-mapping fabrics, Stevenson goes from being invisible to highly visible, inevitably generating conversations from curious onlookers who notice her fitting in while standing out (via Colossal).

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Private Urban Paradise: 13 Dreamy Residential Rooftop Pools & Gardens

04 Aug

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

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If you don’t have access to your own private rooftop paradise, you can at least dream about it during the hottest months of the year with the help of this collection of dreamy swimming pools and lush gardens. Rooftop bathtubs, infinity pools overlooking some of the world’s most glamorous cities and elevated lawns offer respite from the heat and access to fresh air, even in densely populated urban areas.

Beach House Extension in Peru

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This stepped home on a hillside overlooking the bay of Ancón in Lima, Peru features a rooftop infinity pool that seems to extend right out into the sea. Architect Adriá Noboa added to and renovated the existing home, built in 1958 by Swiss architect Theodor Cron, whose work in Peru is considered historically valuable.

Tel Aviv Townhouse Pool, Israel

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Another apartment terrace swimming pool in an urban area sits atop a six-level townhouse in Tel Aviv. Architect Pitsou Kedem placed the lap pool at the edge of the rooftop terrace alongside a lounge area. The pool feels open to the city when you’re enjoying it, yet remains private from ground level.

Rooftop Bathtub and Shower, Portugal

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Enjoying a relaxing bath while staring up at the sky from your own private rooftop in Lisbon definitely isn’t too shabby. José Adrião Architects added this unusual feature to the all-white rooftop terrace of a home with a view of the historical city.

The Wall House, Singapore

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There’s no house in the world quite like this one, designed for a client in Singapore who wanted two distinct yet connected homes for various generations of his family while maintaining lots of privacy and outdoor recreation space. FARM architects created a multi-level plan with a lower-level courtyard connecting both residences while the lushly planted rooftop levels are private, each with their own swimming pool.

Apartment Pool Overlooking Madrid, Spain

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A terrace sticks out of the side of this top floor apartment in the heart of Madrid, its kidney-shaped swimming pool nearly at roof level on one of the city’s tallest buildings. I! Arquitectura wanted to bring the ‘countryside’ to a city setting, with all the perks of living in the suburbs. That deck could only be better if the pool went right up to the edge, allowing you to take in the views while swimming.

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Residential Rooftop Dreams 13 Top Level Terraces Pools

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

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Literal Streetwear: ‘Pirate Printer’ Lifts Patterns from Urban Objects

29 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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A Berlin art collective has taken to the streets, inking urban infrastructure and laying down shirts and tote bags to create a line of unique prints … their patterns directly lifted from city streets.

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Raubdruckerin (AKA Pirate Printer) press apparel to painted manhole covers, utility grates, etched signage, vents and other objects that have depth differences (and thus themselves to the relief-printing process, like woodcuts or letterpress).

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The group rolls out different colors of ink, much as one would with any kind of etched or raised printing process, then lays cloth down and applies pressure. Depending on the size and type of the object in question, the prints are partial or complete pictures of a given urban artifact.

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The crew has traveled to Amsterdam, Lisbon, Paris and other iconic cities to capture some of their least-noticed but still-beautiful urban artifacts, transferring overlooked parts of these places to a new style of streetwear. Naturally, each one is a little different – even when the same street fixture is used, the re-inking process results in variegation from one print to he next (via Colossal).

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

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Urban Dystopia: 11 Short Sci-Fi Films Set in Future Cities

14 Jul

[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

LIMA

The science fiction of the past thirty years has evolved beyond the midcentury’s optimistic space-age visions into a darker, grittier place, where technology is out of control and resources are running out. Whether you think these imagined dystopian futures are overly dramatic or prescient of harder times to come, their depiction of our downfall can be absolutely riveting, and worth watching for the urban scenery alone. Short films offer an ideal medium for filmmakers of all skill levels to explore these concepts, including architecture that’s taken on a life of its own and high-tech surveillance societies.

In fact, if you want to know what sci-fi films might be coming out in the next few years, keep an eye on the digital shorts that are proliferating across the internet, as many of them get snapped up by major studios to become full-length features.

Spatial Bodies by AUJIK

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Architecture in Osaka, Japan takes on a life of its own and begins to grow organically like vines and trees in the short ‘Spatial Bodies’ by AUJIK. “Spatial Bodies depicts the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an autonomous living and self replicating organism. Domesticated and cultivated only by its own nature. A vast concrete vegetation, oscillating between order and chaos,” say the creators, a collective referring to itself as a ‘mysterious nature/tech cult.’

Megalomania by Factory Fifteen

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From digital film studio Factory Fifteen, which has produced a number of striking shorts set in the future, Megalomania imagines a world in which cities are constantly in active construction mode. “The built environment is explored as a labyrinth of architecture that is either unfinished, incomplete or broken. Megalomania is a response to the state of infrastructure and capital, evolving the appearance of progress into the sublime.”

TEARS OF STEEL by Ian Hubert/Blender Institute

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This Creative Commons-licensed short made entirely with free and open source software was made in the Netherlands by the Blender Institute, which crowd-sources funding in online communities of 3D artists and animators. In ‘Tears of Steel,’ a group of warriors and scientists gathered at Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk attempt to stage a crucial event from the past in a desperate attempt to rescue the world from destructive robots.

The Sand Storm by Jason Wishnow and Christopher Doyle

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Starring Chinese dissident and artist Ai Weiwei, ‘The Sand Storm’ by Hong Kong-based cinematographer Christopher Doyle and director Jason Wishnow examines a dystopian future that’s not so far away, where society is facing water shortages and technology is not as helpful as we might hope.

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Urban Dystopia 11 Short Sci Fi Films Set In Future Cities

[ By SA Rogers in Drawing & Digital. ]

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Living Street Art: Contorted Human Bodies in Urban Spaces

09 Jul

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

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If you were to pass a bunch of colorfully-dressed human figures crammed into a crawlspace beneath a public staircase, you might think they’re mannequins at first, with their splayed limbs and claustrophobic positioning. The bodies are bent every which way, some hanging upside down, all of their faces obscured by hoodies, their positioning absurd. As you walk down the street, you spot more and more of them – folded beneath park benches, dangling from staircase railings, squeezed between utility boxes or piled on top of one another. But then a hand moves, or a muscle twitches, and you realize they’re alive.

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The brilliance of choreographer Cie. Willi Dorner’s ‘Bodies in Urban Spaces’ lies as much in the chosen setting as it does in the extraordinary flexibility of his performers. Dressed in vivid track suits, the performers quickly assemble themselves into position, hold their poses for an uncomfortably long duration, and then disassemble themselves to run ahead to the next spot and repeat the process. The temporary urban interventions leave no trace when the performance is over, and aim to encourage residents to experience their cities in a different way.

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‘Bodies in Urban Spaces’ has been traveling the world since 2007, showing up all over the UK and Europe as well as Texas, New York, Istanbul, Russia and Japan. The performers lead an audience through each city, highlighting various architectural and urban features and how we interact with them as human bodies.

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“‘Bodies in Urban Spaces’ is a temporary intervention in diversified urban architectonical environment,” says Dorner. “The intention of ‘Bodies in Urban Spaces’ is to point out the urban functional structure and to uncover the restricted movement possibilities and behavior as well as rules and limitations. By placing the bodies in selected spots the interventions provoke a thinking process and produce irritation. Passers by, residents and audience are motivated and prompted to reflect their urban surrounding and their own movement behavior and habits.”

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Urban’

Urban Rigger: Floating Student Housing Made of Shipping Containers

12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds for Adults

Skyslide Los Angeles

Giant Water Slide in Bristol by Luke Jerram

Transfer Accelerator Slide for Commuters

Cliveden House Slide

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds For Adults

Invisible Buses: Photorealistic Prints Provide Moving Urban Camouflage

Book City: Retail Space for Reading Mimics the Look of Urban Spaces

Urban Camo: Bus & Train Fabrics Turned into Wearable Textiles

Private Urban Paradise: 13 Dreamy Residential Rooftop Pools & Gardens

Beach House Extension in Peru

Tel Aviv Townhouse Pool, Israel

Rooftop Bathtub and Shower, Portugal

The Wall House, Singapore

Apartment Pool Overlooking Madrid, Spain

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Residential Rooftop Dreams 13 Top Level Terraces Pools

Literal Streetwear: ‘Pirate Printer’ Lifts Patterns from Urban Objects

Urban Dystopia: 11 Short Sci-Fi Films Set in Future Cities

Spatial Bodies by AUJIK

Megalomania by Factory Fifteen

TEARS OF STEEL by Ian Hubert/Blender Institute

The Sand Storm by Jason Wishnow and Christopher Doyle

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Urban Dystopia 11 Short Sci Fi Films Set In Future Cities

Living Street Art: Contorted Human Bodies in Urban Spaces

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Posts Tagged ‘Urban’

Skyslide Los Angeles

Giant Water Slide in Bristol by Luke Jerram

Transfer Accelerator Slide for Commuters

Cliveden House Slide

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: 12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds For Adults

Beach House Extension in Peru

Tel Aviv Townhouse Pool, Israel

Rooftop Bathtub and Shower, Portugal

The Wall House, Singapore

Apartment Pool Overlooking Madrid, Spain

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Residential Rooftop Dreams 13 Top Level Terraces Pools

Spatial Bodies by AUJIK

Megalomania by Factory Fifteen

TEARS OF STEEL by Ian Hubert/Blender Institute

The Sand Storm by Jason Wishnow and Christopher Doyle

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Urban Dystopia 11 Short Sci Fi Films Set In Future Cities

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
12 City Slides Turning Urban Settings Into Playgrounds For Adults

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Residential Rooftop Dreams 13 Top Level Terraces Pools

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Urban Dystopia 11 Short Sci Fi Films Set In Future Cities