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Forest Pavilion is World’s First 3D-Printed Architecture

29 Aug

[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

Worlds First 3D Printed Architecture 1

There has been a lot of competition to design and execute the first prototype of a 3D-printed architectural structure, including complex concepts for houses inspired by nests and möbius strips. But it looks like that honor goes to Smith | Allen, an Oakland, California-based duo of designers who have created the Echoviren Pavilion.

Worlds First 3D Printed Architecture 2

The airy white pavilion consists of 585 interlocking components made of plant-based bio plastics, printed over 10,800 hours, mimicking the look and feel of its setting in a redwood forest. Measuring 10x10x8, the structure was assembled in four days.

Worlds First 3D Printed Architecture 3

The bioplastics will enable the pavilion to eventually decompose naturally within the forest, just like the trees that grow all around it. That process will take 30 to 50 years. It will also become a habitat for insects, moss and birds during its time in the forest.

Worlds First 3D Printed Architecture 4

The Echoviren Pavilion was made using 7 of the Type A Machines Series 1 printers. The team actually used these small-scale printers to create large bricks with which to build, leading some critics to state that it’s not a truly 3D-printed structure, printed in much larger parts to create the whole. The true test of 3D architecture will come when larger printers are used to lay out the material for the components, layer by layer, but the Echoviren Pavilion is still a beautiful example of what 3D printers can do.

[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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8 August, Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO Sonnar – The World’s Best Lens?

08 Aug

There are a number of truly great lenses on the market, but with the new Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO Sonnar may have outdone even themselves.

"Having been to Antarctica with Michael and Kevin, I would say after having traveled the world and shot nearly my entire life as an exhibiting photographer, it was one of my highlights in my life and I talk about it, all the time. The images and experience of seeing something visionary and nearly extinct from the world, to see and experience the wildlife and scenery that does not fear humans is amazing. The images I shot there won me two Smithsonian awards and nearly 18 other international awards". – Tim Wolcott

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These Expeditions Will Sell Out Quickly. They Always Do

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The Luminous Landscape – What’s New

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Toshiba announces first UHS-II SD cards as world’s fastest

17 Jul

Toshiba has announced the Exceria and Exceria Pro ranges of SD cards – the first to conform to the UHS-II standard and the fastest SD cards yet announced. The Exceria Pro cards will be available in 16GB and 32GB sizes from October 2013 and will offer read/write speeds of 260MB/s and 240MB/s respectively. 32GB and 64GB Exceria series cards offering the same read speeds but half the write speed will follow a month later.

News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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20 Million Sq Ft: World’s Biggest Building Opens in China

16 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

biggest building record breaking

Night never comes to this massive complex newly constructed in China. Complete with its own artificial sun (as well as beaches and waves), the world’s largest structure is not a skyscraper but a building both horizontally and vertically vast.

worlds biggest building design

biggest building night view

The New Century Global Center in Chengdu, Sichuan, has offices, shops and five-star hotels as you might expect, but it also has simulated exterior spaces with LED screens depicting views of artificial horizons as well as theaters, amusement park rides and an Olympic-sized ice skating rink.

worlds biggest interior space

Its square footage is hard to fathom, even in meters (1.7 million square), so its creators have come up with another way to visualize the enormity of the space: you could fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses inside of it, 3 copies of the Pentagon or 329 football fields.

worlds largest building china

Critics call it boring and massive, but fans admire its relative simplicity and highlight its variegated interior experiences. Though basically minimal overall, a thick and wavy roof line helps define it and provides a way to brand and identify it as both a Chinese structure and potentially iconic symbol.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

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15 of the World’s Weirdest Low-Tech Film Cameras

19 Jun

[ By Steph in Technology & Vintage & Retro. ]

Unusual Cameras Main

A pistol that shoots photos instead of bullets, a harness for pigeons, a cane and a human skull are among the unexpected objects that have been turned into film cameras since the dawn of photography in the 19th century. Here are 15 strange and unusual cameras, including historic collector’s items and new experiments in low-tech techniques like pinhole photography.

Miniature Pigeon Camera

Unusual Cameras Pigeon Surveillance

Inventor Julius Neubronner’s tiny harnesses fitted with cameras were received with understandable skepticism when he first unveiled the idea in the early 20th century, but once he put the photos taken by pigeons on display, his idea took off, and even the military took interest. But it wasn’t long before the invention of the airplane made the need for pigeon photographers null and void for reconnaissance purposes. Each pigeon was trained to wear the harness and fly to a specific location, and a timer in the camera took care of the rest.

Skull Camera

Unusual Cameras Skull 1

Unusual Cameras Skull 2

Photographs taken from inside a human skull are suitably eerie and nightmarish. The Third Eye Camera by Wayne Martin Belger is made from the 150-year-old skull of a 13-year-old girl. It’s a pinhole camera, with a hole drilled between the eyes letting light hit a piece of photo paper placed inside.

900-Pound Camera from 1900

Unusual Cameras Mammoth Oversized

The world’s largest camera at the time, this monster made by Chicago camera builder J.A. Anderson weighed 900 pounds and required 15 men to load it onto a horse-drawn van for transport. And it’s all because the Chicago & Alton Railway company wanted to show off their new train to the world. The camera had a 8-by-4.5-foot glass plate to take the largest possible photo of the train, which was displayed at the Paris Exposition in the year 1900.

Turtle Shell Camera

Unusual Cameras Turtle Shell

Virtually any hollow object can be turned into a pinhole camera, as demonstrated by Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs in their two-volume series of books, “As Long as It Photographs” and “It Must Be a Camera.” The pair found their turtle shells, taxidermy animals and other objects at flea markets.

Cane Handle Camera, 1903

Unusual Cameras Cane Handle

Made in 1903, the Ben Akiba cane handle camera features a shutter released by pulling a knob below the handle. When a roll of film is exposed, you just remove the side face of the handle to pull it out, and a new roll pops up from a storage area inside the cane. Both originals and replicas of this odd camera are in demand these days, with one selling for $ 27,000 in 2002.

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15 Of The Worlds Weirdest Low Tech Film Cameras

[ By Steph in Technology & Vintage & Retro. ]

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World’s Largest LEGO Model: Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter

24 May

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

Forty-two times larger than the toy set currently available in stores, this Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter is made of over five million LEGO bricks weighing a whopping 45,000 pounds. Assembled in the LEGO model shop in Kladno, Czech Republic, the model is 43 feet long and 11 feet high with a wing span of 44 feet. It was unveiled in New York City’s Times Square on May 23rd, and will be on display for Memorial Day weekend before reaching its final destination at Legoland in California.

The model had to be carefully engineered with a steel framework system in order to withstand all of the travel, breakdown and re-assembly required to transport it across the Atlantic Ocean and from one side of America to the next.

It took an international team of designers, builders, engineers, mechanics and logistics experts over a year to devise the plan that brought the massive model from concept sketches to reality. The time it took to construct the model, which is made using the same LEGO bricks sold at retail, was 17,336 hours, or about four months.

The model can seat multiple fans in the cockpit for photo opportunities, and its four rear engines light up to a glowing neon red. “We thought it would be a great idea to say ‘What if you took this, scaled it up to the size of what a real X-wing looks like, and here’s the end result,’” LEGO Master Builder Erik Varszegi told MTV Geek.

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Small Worlds: Strange & Shocking Miniature City Scenes

17 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

surreal model architecture

There is no unifying theme to these surreal depictions of urban architecture and landscapes, save perhaps their imaginative improbability and singular creator, Frank Kunert, a German photographer and his bemused sense of wonder.

surreal crafted city scenes

Each is at once clearly a model yet quite lifelike, lovingly crafted, painted and photographed. Some show impossibilities seemingly for shock value alone, while others contain a subtle message – some commentary on politics, religion, television or other aspects of everyday life.

surreal architecture model images

The resulting scenes question function, accessibility and the role of architecture, exterior and interior design in shaping both public and private experience.

surreal structural montage scapes

It is also worth noting, too, that none of them are post-edited – they are created sans Photoshop and shot with an analog camera. The process and product are closely related, and each creative choice is made carefully by hand.

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Algae-Fueled Building: World’s First Bio-Adaptive Facade

02 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

algae powered building

Bio-reactors and micro-algae sound like the stuff of science fiction, but this is the real deal: biomass built into panel glass is both generating heat and acting as a responsive light and sound barrier, all in one brilliant new building in Hamburg.

bio facade algae building

Arup has long been predicting incredible innovations in architecture, but they are also keen to show that their designers and engineers are actually working toward world-changing technologies.

algae biomass building design

Bright sunlight causes the bio-reactors to grow faster and supply more shade on demand. The resulting biomass captures solar heat as well, and can be harvested and used as a source of energy itself. It is, in essence, an architectural ecosystem in which all parts of the process are not only sustainable but multi-functional and fully integrated.

algae energy fuel source

There is always talk of futuristic building technologies, but few firms are able to break new ground in some of the most promising directions. If there is to be a new ‘living architecture’ movement involving micro-climates, bio-chemical processes and responsive materials, Arup continues to prove itself on the forefront of its exploration.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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World’s Most Powerful Man-Made Tornado in a Museum

25 Apr

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

World's Strongest Man Made Tornado 1

Experience the awe-inspiring power of a tornado, up-close and personal, without putting yourself in serious danger chasing a real one. The Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart hosts the strongest artificially generated tornado in the world, with 144 jets spewing 28 tons of smoke in a 112-foot-high column. Why intentionally produce a tornado in a showroom full of over 150 luxury vehicles? The answer may surprise you.

World's Strongest Man-Made Tornado 5

World's Strongest Man-Made Tornado 2

The facility, designed by Dutch architecture firm UNStudio, is one of the most cutting-edge of its kind. Reminiscent of the Guggenheim, the Mercedes-Benz Museum is a steel structure based on a double-helix, featuring a massive central atrium viewable from the floors that spiral around it. All rooms are open, all walls are curved and each of the 1800 triangular window panes on the exterior walls is unique.

World's Strongest Man-Made Tornado 3

World's Strongest Man-Made Tornado 4

The 1500 exhibition areas contained within the space are connected without any fire zones – making them a bit of a hazard if a fire were ever to really break out. The solution? An artificial tornado created by injecting air into the interior courtyard of the museum from those 144 jets. The smoke is collected by the air currents and whisked outside.

Though it’s actually a safety measure, the tornado effect is so spectacular that it has become a bit of a tourist attraction, bringing even more people to check out the museum. See it in action above.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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World’s First Mobile Research Station Opens in Antarctica

28 Mar

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

First Mobile Research Station Antarctica Main

Built under some of the most extreme conditions on planet Earth, the Halley VI Research Station by Hugh Broughton Architects is now serving as a mobile home base for Antarctic expeditions. The facility is located on the floating Brunt Ice Shelf, and can be moved inland on its ski-like feet to avoid being stranded as the shelf drifts. Hydraulic rams enable it to be raised above accumulating snow.

First Mobile Research Station Antarctica 1

First Mobile Research Station Antarctica 2

The $ 25.8 million research station was constructed over 36 weeks spread out over four years of Antarctic summers, and consists of seven interlinking blue modules that serve as laboratories, offices, bedrooms and energy plants. A two-story red module offers up to 32 crew members social space in the summers, with that number dwindling to 16 in the three winter months with total darkness, when temperatures dip as low as -56 degrees Celsius.

First Mobile Research Station Antarctica 4

In fact, the wintering team often includes no scientists at all – it typically consists of technical specialists including a vehicle mechanic, a doctor, an electrician, a plumber, electronics engineers and meteorologists to keep the scientific experiments running. Halley VI was shipped to Antarctica in 2007 after a trial-run assembly in South Africa, but due to the extreme weather conditions on-site, it only became ready for use in February 2013.

First MObile Research Station Antarctica 3

Halley VI replaces the 20-year-old Halley V, and is the sixth to be built on the Brunt Ice Shelf. The location for this research facility has long functioned as a ‘natural laboratory’ for the Earth’s magnetic field and the near-space atmosphere. It is under the auroral oval, resulting in frequent displays of the magnificent Aurora Australis natural light display overhead.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘world’s’

Forest Pavilion is World’s First 3D-Printed Architecture

8 August, Zeiss 135mm f/2 APO Sonnar – The World’s Best Lens?

Toshiba announces first UHS-II SD cards as world’s fastest

20 Million Sq Ft: World’s Biggest Building Opens in China