Pop-Up Apartments: Post-Disaster Housing Prototype for NYC. Creepy Creatures: The Dark and Quirky Art of Scott Radke. Travel Through Trees: Root-Like Wooden Tunnel Installation. Loaves of Art: Classical Works Revealed in Slices of Glass. Uninvisible: Amazing Urban Camouflage Outfits & Artworks. Uninvisible: Amazing Urban Camouflage Outfits & Artworks Article by Steph, filed under Street Art & Graffiti in the Art category.
Camouflage isn’t just for hunters and the army anymore – it’s being used to make artistic statements, beautify urban environments, make ugly cars look nicer and for shock value. These examples of unusual use of camouflage show how versatile the concept is, from making homes blend into forest environments to creating eerie optical illusion effects in photography. Trompe L’Oeil Body Painting. Paint the Town: 3 More Strangely Legal Urban Street Artworks. Interactive Urbanism: 5 Simple Street Art Projects. Urban Infill: Colorful Tile Mosaics Patch Potholed Streets. Colorful Calls to Action: Decorated Pothole Projects. Virtual Light: Facade Installation Casts Fake Illumination. Empty Spaces: Photo Book Documents Eerie Urban Ruins. Empty Spaces: Photo Book Documents Eerie Urban Ruins Article by Steph, filed under Abandoned Places in the Architecture category.
Crumbling cathedrals, decaying theaters and half-destroyed camping cabins: urban explorer Johnny Joo has seen it all, and he doesn’t just document these abandoned places, he does so with an eye for spine-tingling drama. Hanging Hotel: Camp in a Trunk-Friendly Tree House Retreat. Hanging Hotel: Camp in a Trunk-Friendly Tree House Retreat Article by Urbanist, filed under Boutique & Art Hotels in the Travel category.
Without harming the forest that supports it, this streamlined tree house design is stabilized by a central trunk but ultimately suspended from the branches above to minimize negative environmental impacts. Tree houses typically rely on being either attached to trunks or translating their loads to grounded supports – in short: they either harm trees or are not truly ‘treehouses’. Farrow Partnership Architects proposes a middle path, relying on the tree without constricting its growth. Manhattan of the Desert: Oldest Skyscrapers in the World. Manhattan of the Desert: Oldest Skyscrapers in the World Article by Urbanist, filed under Cities & Urbanism in the Architecture category.
Most people think of skyscrapers as inventions of the post-industrial world, characteristic of tightly-packed urban environments. Density in cities is, of course, nothing new. Surprisingly, neither is the art of constructing tall buildings, as evidenced by the city of Shibam. Shibam, Yemen has been continuously occupied for over two millennia. Since becoming a World Heritage city over 20 years ago, the area has largely catered (for better or worse) to tourists. Liters of Light: DIY Solar from Used Bottles, Bleach & Water. Liters of Light: DIY Solar from Used Bottles, Bleach & Water Article by Urbanist, filed under Products & Packaging in the Design category.
Now setting its sights on a million homes, the organization behind this remarkably cheap approach to solar home lighting has already transformed the lives of thousands who were previously living in the dark. Installed in the metal roofs of windowless shacks, bottles of water help spread incoming light while the bleach keeps each bottle clean and clear, resulting in an output equivalent to that of a 60-watt bulb. These light bottles reduce the fire danger posed by poor electrical connections, cuts down on the cost of electric lighting and encourages recycling at the same time. But a big part of the brilliance of the endeavor, pardon the pun, is in the simplicity of installation: effectively anyone can scavenge the major materials involved and teach others how to put them in place. Cutting Edges: Layered Back-Lit Paper Art Gets Deep & Dark. Cutting Edges: Layered Back-Lit Paper Art Gets Deep & Dark Article by Urbanist, filed under Sculpture & Craft in the Art category.
Together, Hari & Deepti (Deepti Nair and Harikrishnan Panicker) turn sets of two-dimensional cutouts into vivid and haunting three-dimensional dioramas, often set in shadowy fantasy spaces. Despite the darkness of their subject matter, in ordinary lighting conditions there is almost nothing to be seen of these pieces. The work waits in the shadows, so to speak, popping out when you turn out the lights and turn on the LEDs inside each individual light box. Loosely analogous to a book, perhaps, the story plays out in the space between the pages, each one individually flat but, together with illumination, adding up to something more than the sum of its parts.
While most of their works are relatively small, a recent project challenged them to build at a much bigger scale, creating an entirely monstrous (pun intended) New York cityscape (shown below). Camera-Shaped Cafe Offers Picture-Perfect Cups of Coffee. Camera-Shaped Cafe Offers Picture-Perfect Cups of Coffee Article by Steph, filed under Offices & Commercial in the Architecture category.
A giant two-story camera rises from the grass beside an ordinary suburban home in the hills of South Korea. The Dreamy Camera Cafe is housed in a re-creation of a vintage Rolleiflex, featuring two lens-like oversized windows offering panoramic views of the surrounding countryside. The cafe was built by a former army helicopter pilot with a passion for photography and vintage cameras, who lives in the house next door with his family. A range of miniature and toy cameras are displayed on the first floor, with a collection of photographs tacked on the walls upstairs. It may be unusual, but the Dreamy Camera Cafe is hardly the first building shaped like a giant object – there’s a 40-foot-tall milk bottle building among others modeled after food items, and even a house shaped like a toilet.
Deep Roots: Underground Farm in London Air-Raid Tunnels. Deep Roots: Underground Farm in London Air-Raid Tunnels Article by Urbanist, filed under Culture & History in the Travel category. 100 feet beneath the surface, below even the level of the London Underground, there is another layer of World War Two shelters where something amazing is coming to life.
Richard Ballard and Steven Dring are behind Growing Underground, experimentally introducing hydroponic systems to 2.5 acres of abandoned subterranean passages right in the UK’s capital city. The closed-loop nature of their approach means that weather and environmental factors (like rodents and runoff) are nothing to worry about. Blob: Oblong White Mobile Home Looks Like a Dino Egg. Blob: Oblong White Mobile Home Looks Like a Dino Egg Article by Steph, filed under Houses & Residential in the Architecture category.
Designed as an extension to a home, this mobile live/work pod eschews conventional mobile home aesthetics in favor of something decidedly more eccentric. ‘Blob VB3′ is an oblong white living space that looks like a gigantic egg when it’s all closed up, but the sides open to reveal a gridded interior for storing small items, working and even sleeping. Architecture firm dmvA came up with the prototype in response to strict building codes in the client’s city. 3D Cat Furniture Set: Modular Hangouts for Walls & Ceilings. Furnishings for felines are nothing new, but this one-stop shop provides modular bridges, beds, posts and platforms designed as a kit-of-parts solution to turn any room into a cat’s personalized paradise.
Goldtatze boasts ground-up scratching posts but also wall-hanging walkways and ceiling-mounted spaces to allow cats full access both horizontally and vertically, while conveniently leaving room below and between for human companions (especially useful in small-space urban dwellings). Designer and craftsman Stefan Hofmann set about to solve a problem for his own domestic best friend (an indoor-only cat) and went on to create solutions that could be deployed beyond his own home. By breaking the system down into a series of individual pieces, the effect is much like that of visiting an IKEA store – the parts are made to be structurally and functionally autonomous, but also to mix and match in custom configurations.
Swedish fun theory! LEGO Architecture Studio: Boldly Monochromatic Block Set. LEGO Architecture Studio: Boldly Monochromatic Block Set Article by Urbanist, filed under Gaming & Computing in the Technology category. A colorless LEGO kit may sound boring at first blush, but consider the spatial advantages of letting form, line and shadow stand apart from the profusion of colors normally associated with their iconic blocks. LEGO Architecture Studio‘s pigment-free approach is unusual for the company and intentionally so: it is made to create an experience that is more like pencil or pen sketching in three dimensions, a thinking-through-building process without the complications of shades and hues. Though the all-white block series contains over 1,200 pieces uniformly absent of color, it also comes with a colorful 268-page book that shows aspiring architects (or simply interested kids) what is possible in the world of built environments.
From FastCo: “At the end of each chapter, the lead architects will all sit around a table with Lego and play with the pieces! Urban Farm Kit: Modular Chicken Coops, Planters & Benches. Urban Farm Kit: Modular Chicken Coops, Planters & Benches Article by Urbanist, filed under Furniture & Decor in the Design category. A solution for all seasons and regions, the premise is simple: every would-be urban farmer has space, weather and other growing constraints, and yet draws from the same set of essential needs. For some folks the focus may be raising chickens and a few hardy outdoor plant varieties that can stand the shifts in weather.
For others, perhaps in colder climates, built-in storage compartments (that helpfully double as benches) and miniature greenhouse spaces may be the essential or desired accessories. A series of wooden slats rhythmically wrap the exterior, creating both material continuity between sections as well as a way to hide joints between separate pieces in plain sight. The currently-built prototype features dark-stained natural wood and examples of most of the potential modules, demonstrating their feasibility. Hot Cup of Tub: Portable Wood-Fired Outdoor Soaking Pool. Hot Cup of Tub: Portable Wood-Fired Outdoor Soaking Pool Article by Urbanist, filed under Products & Packaging in the Design category. No need to plug in this particular hot tub – heat naturally circulates as you burn wood, keeping yourself warm outside by throwing logs on the fire much like you would in front of a living room hearth. Dutchtub, which started making waves with its distinctive mug-shaped design and off-the-grid mobility, is back with a wooden twist on its original poly-fiber shell (and the same stainless steel lining).
Both the classic and new designs boasts extreme portability, able to be towed behind a bike, tossed on top of a car, or even dragged behind a canoe for the truly ambitious soak-seeker. Like the outdoor equivalent of a fireplace flue, the spiral contraption sticking out the side allows users to adjust the temperature along with the burn rate. Giants in Living Color: Massive Street Murals by Etam Cru. Giants in Living Color: Massive Street Murals by Etam Cru Article by Steph, filed under Street Art & Graffiti in the Art category.
Polish duo Sainer and Bezt, collectively known as Etam Cru, paint massive-scale murals of people and animals on blank building faces around the world. Their unexpected visuals liven up dreary urban surfaces, often stretching dozens of feet into the air. Multi-Building Murals: Repainting a 100-Home Neighborhood. Deserted Elevator Shaft Hides Single-Room Street Museum. Pointing Nowhere: Mysterious Arrows in Remote Places. Surreal Subterranean Space: Hand-Carved Cave for Sale. Street Origami: 30,000 Pieces Folded to Create Colorful Art. Reconstructed Destruction: Flyover of Bombed WWII Warsaw. Constant Motion: Open-Plan, Puzzle-Piece Apartment Design.