3.5 out of 5

http://marblefairbanks.com/?p=1694

Architecture, Design

Workers are seen at the Seed Cathedral, the centerpiece of the UK Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai February 21, 2010. The 20-meter-high cube-like Seed Cathedral will be covered by 60,000 slim, transparent acrylic rods, which will quiver in the breeze, according to the official website of Shanghai Expo. (REUTERS/China Daily)

Architecture, Design

“A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view.”

Go to Vimeo and watch it in HD fullscreen: The Third & The Seventh

Homepage: http://www.thirdseventh.com/

Credits:
CG Modelling / Texturing / Illumination / Rendering: Alex Roman
Postproduction & Editing: Alex Roman
Music Sequenced & Orchestrated by Alex Roman
Sound Design by Alex Roman

Compositing Breakdown: http://vimeo.com/8200251
Exeter Shot – Making of: http://vimeo.com/8217700

Found via: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=839673

Architecture, Art, Design

Visual Acoustics. The Modernism of Julius Shulman

Photographer of architecture, naturalist, educator, and commentator on urban form. One of the leading architectural photographers of the 20th century, Shulman developed close association with the modernist architects, principally those active in Southern California such as Gregory Ain, John Lautner, Richard Neutra, and R.M. Schindler. Shulman’s images played a major role in crafting the image of the Los Angeles and “Southern California lifestyle” to the rest of the nation and world during the 1950s and 1960s. A prolific author, consultant, lecturer, exhibitor, and editor of his own vast archive, Shulman remained active up until his passing away in July of 2009.

Also see:

Julius Shulman: Man Behind the Camera

People and Buildings. The architectural photography of Julius Shulman

Architecture, Movies

The world´s longest tree top walk

Take a walk in 8 to 25m height in unspoiled nature and experience completely new points of view. All this is possible upon the new tree top walk in the Bavarian Forest National Park.

Starting from the parking area next to the wildlife enclosure the world´s longest tree top walk starts at the entrance tower. With its elevator it gives easy access for all kind of visitors. Even for wheel chairs and children´s buggys it is absolutely no problem to enter the walk.

The wooden construction is integrated into the forest and delivers a natural experience. Along the path you will find various Points of information regarding the mountain forest as well as some adventures points. You may discover a unique forest and it`s different forms of life from a different point of view.

The path, 1300 meters long, winds up to an impressive tower with a height of 44 meters. You will discover an extraordinary and almost “borderless” view. Towards Lusen and Rachel mountains you will find the untouched wilderness and the sea of trees in the Bavarian and the bohemian forest. Towards Neuschönau it will be the vast cultural landscape and, on a clear and sunny day, even the silhouette of the alps.

http://www.baumwipfelpfad.by/bwp_en/index.php

Architecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu

Click for high res:

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) — Power was restored in Brazil after an outage at a dam providing 20 percent of the country’s energy thrust about half of the nation’s 190 million people into darkness for at least two hours.

The 14,000-megawatt Itaipu Binacional hydroelectric dam said operations were back to normal at 6 a.m. local time after transmission failed, causing the world’s largest dam by output to forcibly shut down for the first time since it went online in 1983. The government is investigating the incident.

Architecture

Suburbia and planned communities as seen by the artist Ross Racine.   New Prints – Fall 2009 exhibition @ the International Print Center New York, Oct 30 – Dec 12 . www.ipcny.org

www.rossracine.com

Architecture, Art, Design

This work seeks to create multi-performative material systems utilizing optimization, aggregation and efficiency.  Simple units and semi-finished materials were physically tested in order to extract potential performative characteristics and limits.  These limits were negotiated through rigorous digital and physical techniques in order to produce strategies of fabrication.

The formal systems have inherent structural capacities as well as an ability to adapt to changing conditions.  Meaning, although the system is adaptable, they must be self-structural and fabricated using off-the-shelf material that can weather.  Because of the system pliability, variation can occur within a seemingly homogenous system.

http://www.mikemckay.org/MCKAY/PERFORMA.html

More photos and press at mikemckay.org.

Architecture, Design

http://atlasobscura.com/places/root-bridges-cherrapungee

In the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren’t built – they’re grown.

The southern Khasi and Jaintia hills are humid and warm, crisscrossed by swift-flowing rivers and mountain streams. On the slopes of these hills, a species of Indian rubber tree with an incredibly strong root system thrives and flourishes.

The Ficus elastica produces a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves.

Architecture, Misc

USA Today Article – Divine vision inspired a 97-foot treehouse

More photos on flickr

Architecture, Art

http://www.denofgeek.com

Corridors make science-fiction believable, because they’re so utilitarian by nature – really they’re just a conduit to get from one (often overblown) set to another. So if any thought or love is put into one, if the production designer is smart enough to realise that corridors are the foundation on which larger sets are ’sold’ to viewers, movie magic is close at hand.

The designs that Roger Christian synthesised from Ron Cobb’s prolific and extraordinary conceptual sketches for Alien (1979) are lingered over lovingly at the start of the movie. Ridley Scott knows that corridors matter in a horror (or ‘haunted house’) movie, but these marvellous sets are also being showcased to sell the gritty and grimy, commercial and industrial reality of the Nostromo as well. The upper sections related to the command deck were dirtied down with gold and black paint after a reshuffle of sections in order to convey the grittier world inhabited and Parker and Brett on the engineering level.

Repeat sections are what corridors are all about, and they’re part of the iconography of pre-CGI sci-fi movie-making. For Alien, Roger Christian would have the production department mock up different sections of corridor for Ridley Scott’s perusement, and whatever got the green light was fabricated multiple times to create the final corridor, often with the classic trick of placing an angled mirror at the end of the long set to suggest further recession and depth.

http://www.denofgeek.com

Architecture, Sci-fi

src: http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2009/07/feral-houses.html

Architecture, Art

The LEGO Group and Brickstructures, Inc. to produce and distribute Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO® Architecture Building Sets

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation announced today that The LEGO Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO Architecture sets.

The LEGO Group and Adam Reed Tucker of Brickstructures, Inc. officially introduced the LEGO Architecture line in 2008. The line currently consists of six buildings – now including two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous and recognizable buildings, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and “Fallingwater.”

http://www.prairiemod.com/

Read more…

Architecture

http://dornob.com/

Dornob is as much an interactive design archive as it is a collection of the latest innovative architectural, interior, furniture, furnishing and fixture designs. The primary focus of this design publication (read: blog)  is on works that take form and function to the next level – that defy particular typologies, wander away from convention and are more than merely consumable objects.

Architecture, Art, Design

www.contemporist.com

House K. Zagreb, Croatia.
designed by 3LHD Architects.

Architecture

www.kevinbauman.com/100abandonedhouses/

Architecture

Mr Koolhaus, it burned.  China might not have reported it, but news travels well when it’s a 40-story building that’s engulfed in flames. At least the main building was largely unharmed.

CNN’s coverage.

Architecture

In december 2007 I sketched around a single theme for a while as a personal side project. I tried to envision what a huge -vertical- seaside city would look like in a world where dry land is very precious. This city would be situated on a huge pillar in a ‘cavity’ in the sea; possibly an inactive volcano crater of some sorts. I assumed a level of technology of western European countries around the seventeenth century. Naturally I had to take some huge liberties with the actual mechanical possibilities of these constraints to make a city in a hole in the sea work, not to mention a vertical city.

http://www.jessevandijk.net/g_08_76.html

Architecture, Art

Skyscraper canyons were obligatory part of urban visions from the 20s and 30s:

Many, many more images here.

Architecture, Art, Design, Sci-fi, Tech

The world’s first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai so the filthy rich holidaymakers don’t burn their feet on the scalding hot sand.

The revolutionary beach will sit next to the new Palazzo Versace hotel and will include a system of heat-absorbing pipes built under the sand and giant wind blowers, designed to keep tourists cool in the searing 40-50C heat.

The hotel, which is due to open late next year or early 2010, will be controlled by thermostats linked up to computers and feature a cooled swimming pool.

Article here

Architecture, humor