Toyota has revealed that the 2016 version of its adventure truck will come pre-fitted with a windshield mount for a GoPro camera. Those interested in filming their muddy, dusty and rocky scrambles will be able to fit a camera to point forwards or backwards to capture either the ‘flight’ or passengers reactions. Read more
Tag: Years
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Triangle Tower Approved: First New Paris Skyscraper in 42 Years
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]
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 century. Designed by Herzog & De Meuron, the Tour Triangle will be the third tallest building in the city, shorter only than one other skyscraper and the Eiffel Tower.
The triangular tower (already nicknamed simply ‘Triangle’) is slightly pyramidal in shape, tapering toward the top on all sides but most dramatically along two of its facades. An affair of steel and glass, it is starkly modern with respect to its neighboring buildings. Perhaps like the Eiffel Tower, originally widely hated, or the Centre Pompidou, a structurally-inverted museum, it can become an icon within the city over time.
Despite being located at 1 Place de la Porte de Versailles, right on the edge of the central ring road surrounding the innermost part of the city (and arguably reinforcing a key nexus point), critics are concerned about the building overshadowing the surrounding urban landscape. The measure to approve its construction barely passed.
Advocates are quick to point out that the building will create thousands of jobs both as it is constructed and once it is completed, as well as creating much-needed residential and office space in the city. For decades, the city limited new structures to around 100 feet, curbing development inside the city limits and forcing developers into suburban spaces.
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Tower with a Twist: Very Top-Heavy Vancouver Skyscraper
This is what creative design is all about: taking a familiar typology and turning (or twisting) it around … not merely to show off something new and unique.
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Crowdfunded Skyscraper: Record-Breaking Tower in Bogotá
With over $ 200 million from more than 3,500 supporters, the world’s largest crowdfunding campaign has generated the means to create the highest …
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Error of Omission: 50-Floor Skyscraper Lacking an Elevator
Twin towers raising up the existing skyline and joined at the top – these were supposed to be a sign of recovery in a city and country ravaged by the …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]
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Gone Green: Vacant 50 Years, Chinese Village Conquered by Ivy
[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
Nestled in the hills on a remote island at the mouth of the Yangtze River in China and full of rich foliage, one could imagine this small fishing hamlet to be an idyllic place, at least for nature if not for people – it has been abandoned by humans now for nearly half a century.
Ivy has become the dominant and defining feature of both the natural and built environments of this place, slowly but surely creeping over sidewalks and streets, up walls and roofs, and ultimately taking over the town.
In some cases, collapsed portions of structures have made it all the more easy for the greenery to work its way over the sides of buildings and into their empty floors.
Set on Gouqi Island, one of hundreds of small islands in the area, the Houtou Wan Village was a victim of changing times and circumstances, a combination of urbanization and depleted fish populations that drove its inhabitants to seek work elsewhere.
Today, it is enjoyed only by visitors who seek it out explicitly, like photographer Jane Qing, chartering boats to travel to its shores and document the decay as well as the rebirth the place is now home to in its second life.
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Pirated Architecture: Chinese Copies of Famous Buildings
First it was a small town in Austria, copied in exacting detail and replicated in China. Now: a complex by a famous architect that may be done before the …
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Boneyard Studios: Vacant Lot Hosts New Micro-Home Village
In a bold bid to change urban landscapes, a series of tiny home builders and enthusiasts has come together to turn empty space into a microcosmic example of …
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Surreal Estate: China’s Village of Empty Villas
In the Year of the Dragon, white elephants abound as an eerie village of empty and abandoned villas epitomizes China’s ever-expanding real estate bubble.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
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3D NYC Timelapse: 500 Years of History in 1 WTC Elevator Ride
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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 they might expect – instead of looking out windows, they will see their surroundings on lifelike screens, enveloping them in a time-lapse view of New York City’s historic evolution. All of this is packed into a trip that lasts less than sixty seconds (video below).
Inevitably included in this fast-paced vertical ride through history is a view of one of the former Twin Towers, which appears then vanishes off to the right, reflecting its real-world existence and absence. This inclusion was contentious but hopefully will be seen by the public as a tribute to the fallen towers.
A circular display on one panel scrolls up through the years rather than heights, highlighting the fast passage of time. The show was designed and produced by the Hettema Group and Blur Studio in conjunction with architects of Montroy Andersen DeMarco.
The New York Times sets the scene: “Nine 75-inch, high-definition monitors are arrayed in each cab behind windowlike mullions to convey the impression that one is in a glass-walled elevator. At first, one feels enclosed in bedrock. The year is 1500 and the elevator is 55 feet below ground. As it rises, time advances. The cab seems to head skyward from an offshore marsh, a reminder that the trade center site was originally underwater.”
The experience is as historically complete as it is educational and immersive: “A peaceful riverfront settlement is then seen, just before the Europeans arrive. Soon enough, the still verdant island is dotted with the steep, crow-stepped gables of New Amsterdam, as windmill vanes poke up over the treetops.”
“Height records are made and broken by a succession of tallest towers: the Park Row Building, the Singer Building, the Woolworth Building and the original trade center. Then, the steel framework of the new 1 World Trade Center seems to assemble itself around the cab before visitors once again find themselves within an enclosed space — this time, an elevator shaft.”
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Error of Omission: 50-Floor Skyscraper Lacking an Elevator
Twin towers raising up the existing skyline and joined at the top – these were supposed to be a sign of recovery in a city and country ravaged by the …
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Deserted Elevator Shaft Hides Single-Room Street Museum
Like so many secret spaces of New York City, this one-room exhibit space (hidden inside an abandoned elevator) is not exactly on the beaten path. This pop-up …
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Top of the World: Photos & Videos from Atop Tallest Towers
First he presented a photo-edited version (carefully stitched together) to show what the view would look like without the building he on top of which he took …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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Adobe celebrates 25 years of Photoshop
Photoshop turns 25 today, and Adobe is marking the occasion with a look back at the software’s humble roots, along with a chance for users under the age of 25 to take control of the company’s Instagram handle for two weeks. Short of supplying its subscribers with complimentary birthday cake, the company has put together some entertaining graphics comparing Photoshop’s icons, toolbars and splash screens for a short trip down the digital memory lane. Read more
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Lost & Found: Underwater Ghost Town Resurfaces 30 Years Later
[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
Like a corroded time capsule, this submerged village has risen from the depths after being flooded decades ago when the local lake broke its banks and left Epecuen under dozens of feet of water. In 1985, a rare weather pattern broke a nearby dam first, then the dike protecting the town, quickly making most of it uninhabitable. Today, long-term changes in the regional climate have brought down the overall level of the lake, resurfacing the town.
Giving a tour of his devastated hometown, the man in the award-winning video above , Pablo Novak, claims his father predicted the return of water to the areas of land on which people were building back in the 1980s – at its peak, the place drew in over 25,000 tourists a year. Today, Pablo is the only remaining resident, slowly exploring the remnants now revealed as waters around the lake have lowered.
Located near Buenos Aires, it is hard to imagine that this place – with a permanent population of 5,000 at one point – was once a busy destination from tourists around the country and even the world, renowned for its high-salinity lake in which people came to bathe. This salt content is largely responsible for the high levels of damage done to the town’s buildings and infrastructure during its years underwater.
First, the fields began to flood, driving our narrator’s cows, horses, pigs sheep and goats back further onto land and forcing Pablo to buy a family home in a neighboring village. Now 85 years old, he always assumed the town would be rebuilt, but that has never come to pass.
Since the waters have receded, Pablo now tries to appreciate the solitude left in its wake and gives tours to those who come these days not to soak but to see the once-sunken village now risen once again to the surface. Images by Sam Verhaert, Jonathan Evans and Pablo Gonzales via Inhabitat.
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Drowned Towns: 10 Underwater Ghost Cities & Buildings
Mildewed crosses, lonely spires, barely-visible stone foundations and rusting bed frames are all that’s left to show for these 10 intentionally submerged …
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Underwater Town: Single Spire Marks Architectural Tomb
A 700-year-old bell tower is the only part of an old Italian village that is still visible, after the town was flooded after World War I.
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From the Dead: Businessman Resurrecting Canadian Ghost Town
Built in the late 1970s, this mining village housed 1,200 people at its peak and was left effectively intact for over twenty years before being sold as a …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]
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Cool as Ice: 10 Years of Artist-Made Shanties on Frozen Lakes
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
Over the past decade, over 1,000 artists and 60,000 visitors have taken part in this incredible seasonal arts event, coming together to create an annual temporary arts community-on-ice in one of the nation’s coldest states.
Known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” but also as a center for the arts, Minnesota seems the perfect place for the Art Shanty Projects – a temporary autonomous zone where two disparate concepts to come together: the tradition of ice shacks built for fishing and the idea of public, interactive, community-built art on those same iced surfaces.
Comparisons have been made to Burning Man, but those sell short the unique local nature of this undertaking. One thing they do share, however, is a harsh (if opposite) environmental context that makes serious demands on buildings and shapes their form and function. The resulting structures are a mixture of wooden stick-framed shacks, metal geodesic domes, triangular tipis and other proven engineering approaches mixed with creative touches and unusual applications.
In years past, first on Medicine Lake and later White Bear Lake, the spaces these shape have featured a little bit of everything, from interactive games and dance floors to indoor and outdoor theatrical and musical performances. Sometimes a wild art car or two can be spotted patrolling the streets of the the shanty village as well and strange sculptures have been known to crop up in between buildings as well. While some things are scheduled, visitors learn to expect the unexpected.
This winter, the Art Shanty Projects is taking a break from the On-Ice Program to celebrate 10 years of success and complete a pivotal transition into an official non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. However, the organization is hosting a fundraising retrospective featuring some of the best shanties of years past as well as a custom-brewed beer specifically created for the event, taking place on February 28th at the Fulton Brewery in Minneapolis (more details can be found on ArtShantyProjects.org). Anyone wishing to donate to next year’s program can also do so online at Give.MN. This year, ASP is also a finalist for an Art Place America grant and is competing for a Black Rock Arts Foundation grant.
More about ASP: “Art Shanty Projects is an artist driven temporary community exploring the ways in which relatively unregulated public spaces can be used as new and challenging artistic environments to expand notions of what art can be. Our organization values artists, art in all communities, and the importance of interaction between the two. Through an array of artists receiving fair wages for their work, we broaden perceptions of art while maintaining respect for the environment and communities in which we work.” Note: the writer of this article serves as on the Board of Directors for the Art Shanty Projects, an unpaid position.
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Arctic Vacation: Artist Suites of the Frozen Icehotel
For vacation unlike any other, a person might try a visit to a hotel built of ice and snow. There are 32 artist suites for snuggling within the ICEHOTEL.
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The Shape of Sound: New Orleans Village Made of Music
Is this shantytown in New Orleans the most musical neighborhood in the world? Every tiny shack here is a functional musical instrument.
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Porta-Park: Mobile Urban Square the Size of a Parking Spot
Compact and portable, this crafty collaborative design-build project is part art installation and part impromptu gathering space. This student-built platform …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]
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CES 2015 Samsung Interview: Mirrorless to outsell DSLRs ‘in three years’
Since releasing the NX1 late last year, Samsung has been gathering feedback from users, and is preparing a major firmware update before the end of this month. We made time at CES in Las Vegas to sit down with Byungdeok Nam, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s R&D team in the company’s Digital Imaging division, to speak about the NX1, the new firmware, and the mirrorless camera market in general. Click through to read our interview
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CES 2014 Samsung Interview: Mirrorless to outsell DSLRs ‘in three years’
Since releasing the NX1 late last year, Samsung has been gathering feedback from users, and is preparing a major firmware update before the end of this month. We made time at CES in Las Vegas to sit down with Byungdeok Nam, Senior Vice President of Samsung’s R&D team in the company’s Digital Imaging division, to speak about the NX1, the new firmware, and the mirrorless camera market in general. Click through to read our interview
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New Year’s Resolutions for Photographers
Last night the confetti dropped and we cheered our way right out of 2014!
Now the time has come to get started on those New Year Resolutions. But hey, no need to fear. Resolutions can be fun!
This is especially true if you decide to try one or all seven of our Resolutions for Photogs in 2015.
Trust us, these are resolutions you’ll actually want to follow through on. Not only are they fun, but they’re sure to make this upcoming year the best ever in terms of some seriously cool photo feats.
7 Resolutions To Rock Your Photos This Year
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Read the rest of New Year’s Resolutions for Photographers (944 words)
© Taylor for Photojojo, 2015. |
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