Like a burst of color on an otherwise grey canvas, a single majestically colored building rises out of a sea of dull grayness. This is not Christo’s latest “wrapping” project, which is what the photographer Peter Steinhaur first thought, naturally, upon encountering the phenomenon. In fact, these are construction sites wrapped in a colorful mesh material, a traditional method employed in Hong Kong to prevent debris from falling onto the streets below. According to Steinhauer, who’s lived and worked in Asia for the last 21 years – but was stunned to discover this unique construction method in Hong Kong – buildings are wrapped regardless of whether they’re coming up or going down. I’ve seen a similar method employed in Japan with smaller houses, but never anything of such monolithic scale. You can see many more photos over on Steinhauer’s site, where he has two series aptly titled “Cocoon.” (via Featureshoot)
Early last year motion graphics artist and Alexandra Khitrova decided to utilize some of the digital tools she had acquired in her profession to explore concept illustration. While she did study art in school, this was an entirely new creative realm, a pet project to explore realms of science fiction and fantasy where flying dragons mingled with terrifying storms and otherworldly beings were brought to life on the screen.
The reaction online and off was swift, and Khitrova soon found herself working on increasingly complex drawings as she suddenly began to get commissions. Now, only a year later, she is already working with a team of writers and artists on a feature film. You can see more of her work over on DeviantArt.
Created by digital artist Takeshi Murata, this rippling, reflective sculpture was unveiled at Ratio 3 gallery as part of the Frieze art fair. Titled Melter 3-D, the sculptural animation is technically a zoetrope, and only achieves the illusion of motion with the help of a strobe lights or perfectly synchronized still images captured with a camera. That is to say, it’s a physical object but it wouldn’t look exactly as you see here if you were standing in front of it, not unlike Matt Kenyon’s Supermajor. Read more about Melter 3-D over on Creator’s Project.
Drawing inspiration from early theatrical training, and influenced by methods of staged photography and set design, artist Barry Underwood (previously) transforms ordinary landscapes into something out of science fiction. The artist utilizes LED lights, luminescent material, and other photographic effects to create fleeting abstract landscapes that are influenced by both accidental and incidental light. He shares via his artist statement:
My artwork examines community and land-use in rural, suburban and urban sites. I created this series of installations by researching local agricultural, industrial, and recreational land-use. Curiosity about ecological and social history of specific places drives my work. By revealing the beauty and potential of an ordinary landscape an everyday scene is transformed into a memorable, visual experience. Each photograph image is a dialogue – the result of my direct encounter with nature and history. Inspired by land art, landscape photography and painting, as well as cinema, my images are both surreal and familiar.
Underwood will open an exhibition of both old and new work at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York titled Scenes, on May 29th, 2014. You can see more over on Johansson Projects and read a 2011 interview at Juxtapoz. Images courtesy Sous Les Etoiles Gallery and the artist.
Born in Hanoi, artist Phan Thu Trang paints decorative landscapes inspired by images of the city and Northern villages of Vietnam. In her colorful yet minimalistic paintings she works with limited colors and textures, focusing on only bare essentials to create each piece centered around billowing, pointillistic trees. See more of her work over at ArtBlue Studio in Singapore, and if you enjoyed these also check out Lieu Nguyen Huong Duong. (via Art of Animation)
Studio de Materia’sLight Soil V2 is a beautiful fusion of clean lines. The intersecting elements seem to float and hold one another, but in a way that oozes effortlessness. The use of the natural shape of the terrain by placing the garage on the street level helps separate and delineate functionality of the spaces.
Situated in Poznan, Poland, the use of concrete, glass and wood are so well integrated that the resulting architecture seems almost soft. The lack of clutter and nod to the surrounding landscape are both subtle and contextually sensitive. Studio de Materia has combined a clear technical knowledge base with a minimalist aesthetic that compliments the context and adds clear value to the aesthetic appreciation-ist.
“Blue Tape” by architecture graduates Evan Shieh and Ali Chen is the 1st-prize winner of the Dubai Architecture School Tower competition. In the single-phase ideas competition, participants had to design an architecture school tower whose environment would play a vital role in the students’ education, as well as make an iconic addition to Dubai’s skyline.
Blue Tape – school tower is a vertical re-imagining of the typical architecture school typology. Located adjacent to the American University of Dubai and publicly integrated with the Dubai metro system, the tower campus houses an international architecture program offering students opportunity to pursue a modern architectural education within an iconic landmark of the Dubai skyline.
At the core of Blue Tape is the concept of the Pin-Up Space – a place where students share their ideas, while collaborating with their peers and participating in academic critique of their designs with instructors and colleagues. The tower re-defines the Pin-Up space as the integral and vital tool of the architectural education and recognizes that in many examples of current schools it is often pushed to the margins of physical space.
Placed within the tower typology, the typically horizontal space becomes vertical, forming a visual, physical and conceptual epicenter for the tower. As one moves upward, the Pin-Up space forms the conceptual spine of larger public programs – classrooms, workshops, an auditorium, a library, event and gallery spaces, and finally culminates in an outdoor roof terrace. These public programs become conceptual extensions of the Pin-Up spine, expressed on the façade of the tower as formal voids, representing a symbolic and public expression of a continuous space of academia.
Nous avions déjà posté un article au sujet de la géniale série de Mike Wrobel, reprenant les héros de la série Game of Thrones avec un look 90′s. Depuis, ce talentueux Français vivant à Tokyo n’a pas chômé et a travaillé sur quasiment la totalité des personnages principaux de Westeros.
Yesterday, Los Angeles illustrator Julian Callos released a new set of prints on The People’s Print Shop. Titled “Sun”, “Moon”, and “Earth”, the captivating images are taken from his Cosmos series, a body of work that explores “the tension between light and dark and the consequences of that struggle.” I honestly can’t decide which is my favorite, though I think I’m leaning toward the middle print, “Earth”.
While poking around a condemned building in Berlin, street artist Daan Botlek (previously) dreamed up the idea of his white shilhouette figures executing a daring escape. The series of pieces here, Escape from Wuhlheide, was the result. (via Lustik)
Forget roads. Google is more and more frequently found mapping the entire face of the planet, often with their 360 degree recording, backpack-based Google Trekker. In one recent adventure, they sent one man to document abandoned Hashima island off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. With buildings deteriorating so quickly that it’s reported you can hear concrete collapse when the wind blows, it could be the Trekker’s most dangerous foray yet. Don’t worry about wearing a hard hat though – you can now tour the island from the safety of your screen.
Occupied between 1887 and 1974, Hashima served as a coal mining facility and residential complex for as many as 5,259 people at its peak; making it one of the most densely populated areas of the world. Because of the fortress like appearance of the island, and the flat lay of the land, it is often referred to by its nickname Gunkanjima, or “Battleship Island.” Today, the concrete tower blocks that crowd the place are abandoned after Japan moved away from coal and onto petroleum as their primary fuel source. Slowly plant life and weather are taking over, breaking apart the infrastructure as abandoned black and white TVs and soft drink bottles recall a bygone era.
Long closed over concerns for safety, the island was re-opened to tourism on 2009… but those tours don’t take you off the safely beaten path. Google was given special permission to wander the premises, giving us unprecedented access to this unusual place… so unusual in fact, you might recognize the buildings as the hideout of the villain from the Bond film Skyfall.
Robert Morris’ Glass Labyrinth is no walk in the park. Commissioned by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the transparent installation honors the 25th anniversary of the museum’s permanent outdoor sculpture collection. Clearly, Glass Labyrinth is there to stay; measuring seven feet tall by 62 feet wide, the triangular behemoth weighs in at almost one million pounds and took a team of construction crew, engineers, and staff two months to install.
The interactive sculpture reroutes our typical understanding of outdoor paths – think garden bed labyrinths, hiking trails, or your run-of-the-mill corn maze – by utilizing sleek architectural materials, namely glass and bronze. Since the surrounding landscape is clearly visible from inside the labyrinth, the piece allows viewers to experience the literal and conceptual space between nature and architecture.
Photo: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Photo: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Unlike a maze, a labyrinth has only one entry and exit. Despite its predetermined path, however, navigating the sculpture’s angled glass hallways has been described as a dizzying experience. Viewers have commented that its transparent walls had them running into corners and bumping into walls. Yet, from what we’ve heard, labyrinths never claimed to be easy. Talk a stroll among the glass at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website.
Depending on where you are in life, these graphics will either be highly motivating or panic inducing.
We all know our life has a limited number of years, and if we’re optimistic that might be 90. You’d think with such a small number like 90 we’d be more willing to make the most of each year, but most of us are pretty short sighted, letting each small day pass without any more motivation than getting to those two glorious days we call the weekend. Maybe there’s a better way to visualize this…
Tim Urban over at the hilariously thought provoking Wait But Why is helping us see our life broken down into its segments of time. Where does your life fit in?
First let’s look at the years of our life:
What if we break it down to the months of your life? 1080 of them if you make it to 90:
But we’re talking about weeks here. That’s more manageable length of time to keep in mind each day:
Here’s the best part. The life of a typical American broken down into weeks. While we might think the weeks stretch on forever, there are possibly just 4,680 of them. Where are you?
Henrique Oliveira (previously) is getting big, and I’m not just talking about his popularity. Transarquitetônica, his latest work, sees his signature scrap plywood sculptures filling a gigantic 1600m2 space (17222 sq. ft.) in the new building of the Museu de Arte Contemporânea (MAC) in São Paulo, Brazil (April 26 – November 30, 2014). It’s easily his largest piece to date.
Oliveira’s new work allows visitors to explore on a grand scale, with unfamiliar textures, smells and spaces providing a stimulating assault on the senses. The installation is not a path to any destination, but rather an place of discovery where all routes lead back to the beginning.
Oliveira’s work is a study in transformation. In one aspect, he takes a natural resource – wood – that has been transformed into geometric units, and then restores the organic form of a tree to the material. Similarly, Transarquitetônica explores the comparison of Brazil’s shanty towns to growing tumors. But here, a tumorous form is envisioned on such a large scale that it ceases to be frightening and instead becomes a warm and welcoming home.
20 years ago, Greg Girard and Ian Lambot published “City of Darkness“, a book which documented life inside the notorious Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong during its peak in the late 1980s. When the high-rise slum was cleared and demolished soon after in 1993, this collection of photographs, interviews and essays became a eulogy of sorts, becoming one of the key texts on the most densely populated place the world has ever seen.
Two decades later, Girard and Lambot have revisited the book – and to fund this new edition, they have turned to Kickstarter.
Read on after the break to find out what’s new in this edition and how you can help fund the book.
With a full twenty years between the publication of the original and this new book, Girard and Lambot were able to approach “City of Darkness Revisited” with fresh eyes. In the early 1990s, the existence of Kowloon Walled City was a current issue, and a politically controversial one; now, it is a historical and cultural topic. Though this means that a direct experience of the city is no longer possible, on the other hand it means that people are more willing to open up about the controversies involved.
This has enabled new sections about the City’s architecture, the City’s peculiar legal status, the myths and realities of the Triad’s activities there, and how the police tried their best to keep up with each new development.
There are also essays focusing on the ongoing life of Kowloon Walled City since its demolition, exploring how perceptions of the Walled City have changed over time, from being shunned by most Hong Kong residents during its lifetime to now being seen, almost with pride, as part of the territory’s rich cultural heritage.
The look of the book is also getting a major overhaul: in addition to the new graphic design by Susan Scott, the time and distance has also allowed the authors to revisit their photographs: “both of us have come across images either omitted or used in a minor way that make us wonder now, what were we thinking? The new book will allow us to make amends, adding new images here and there, and giving due prominence to others previously hidden away.”
New photographic material, both new and old, has also surfaced: previously unpublished photographs of the City from the 1960s and 70s, as well as numerous drawings and images from popular culture created since the demolition demonstrate how the Walled City continues to influence popular culture.
The new edition of City of Darkness promises to not only retain its authoritative status on what life was like in Kowloon Walled City, but also to become one of the foremost historical authorities on the Walled City as an urban and cultural phenomenon.
A Single Note / 48″ diameter, 150″ (12.5 feet) circumference
A Single Note, detail
A Single Note, detail
A Single Note, detail
A Single Note, detail
A Single Note, detail
A Single Note, detail
With meticulous determination and a steady hand, artist Ben Sack picks up a black 0.05 Staedtler pigment liner pen and begins to draw the dense, intricate details of fictional cityscapes: buildings, roads, rivers and bridges. He draws until the ink runs out and picks up another pen. And another. And another. Sapping the ink from dozens of writing utensils until several months later a canvas is complete. His most recent piece, a vast circular drawing titled A Single Note (top), has a 12.5 foot circumference. It staggers the mind.
The architecture found in Sack’s artwork spans centuries, from gothic cathedrals to towering skyscrapers, underpinned by patterns of urban sprawl reminiscent of European cities with a healthy dose of science fiction. If you look carefully you might even recognize a familiar landmark here and there. He shares as his influence some thoughts on “western antiquity”:
Its this sort of image that I think most people, if not all of society have of western antiquity; stainless marble facades, long triumphal avenues, monuments to glory. In actuality, the cities of the past were far from idealistic by todays standards. Yes there was marble, lots of marble, and monuments galore, however these urban centers were huddled together and unless you were considerably wealthy, life in dreamy antiquity was often a heroic struggle. Though the societies of antiquity were bloody, dirty and corrupt the idea of antiquity has come to represent some resounding ideals in present society; democracy, justice, law and order, balance, symmetry. These ideals are now the foundation stones of our own civilization, a civilization that some distant future will perhaps honor as antiquity.
Sack graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 and has since had work numerous solo a group exhibitions, most recently at Ghostprint Gallery. And just this week he returned from a circumnavigation of the globe as part of a residence aboard the m/s Amsterdam. You can see more of his work on his website, and over on Tumblr. Prints are available here. (via Waxy.org, Laughing Squid)
I have been an admirer of York-based graphic designer and writer Daniel Benneworth-Gray‘s for a while now — be it his beautifully simple, mathematical book covers or the captivating articles in his long-standing blog.
His latest design work is particularly spare, balanced — there doesn’t seem to be a pixel out of place. His book covers show tremendous subtlety, power, and a welcome and refreshing pop of color. We caught up with Daniel recently and chatted with him a bit about his creative process. Being particularly fascinated by the way one achieves the delicate balance of minimalist compositions, I was very interested in how he achieved his particular brand of simple.
My objective is always to find that perfect point just before minimalism becomes emptiness, where the aesthetic, mathematical purity of an idea resists clinical starkness. If I become too conscious of how I’m achieving that, or if I try to pursue it in a very precise way each time, I leave myself no room for chaos.
Daniel says that as simple the end result may be, it belies a creative process of scribbles, mess and mistakes. I’ll work with pen on paper (or increasingly, the rather smashing Paper app) for a long time before going anywhere near the computer. The trick is learning how to identify the good things worth keeping that are tangled up in those inky briars. It can take an awful lot of awful to reach a concept I’m happy with.
Browse through Daniel’s gallery of book jackets, unused concepts and personal projects (like the memorable Blade Runner poster, available in his shop) for a glimpse into the lovely minimalist results of his design methodology.
The team at Australian firm March Studio (previously) are currently finishing work on this amazing interior staircase for the Japanese-inspired Nishi building in Canberra, Australia. The building is billed as “Australia’s most radically sustainable mixed-use building and apartment complex,” and if this interior treatment is any indication, it seems they might have achieved that goal. The stairwell and ceiling is constructed from thousands of repurposed boards taken from old homes, a basketball court, as well as remnants from the construction site of the Nishi building itself. Although it looks somewhat chaotic, every single board and suspension rod was designed and placed before construction began. You can see much more at the Hotel Hotel Blog. (via Jeroen Apers, Hotel Hotel Blog)
Located near the Red Sea in El Gouna, Egypt, Desert Breath is an impossibly immense land art installation dug into the sands of the Sahara desert by the D.A.ST. Arteam back in 1997. The artwork was a collaborative effort spanning two years between installation artist Danae Stratou, industrial designer Alexandra Stratou, and architect Stella Constantinides, and was meant as an exploration of infinity against the backdrop of the largest African desert. Covering an area of about 1 million square feet (100,000 square meters) the piece involved the displacement of 280,000 square feet (8,000 square meters) of sand and the creation of a large central pool of water.
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Photo by D.A.ST. Arteam courtesy the artists
Although it’s in a slow state of disintegration, Desert Breath remains viewable some 17 years after its completion, you can even see it in satellite images taken from Google Earth. You can learn more about the project in the video above or read about it here. (via Visual News, Synaptic Stimuli)
Based in Canada, designer Thibault Sld explores the realm where “geometry, light, mechanisms and interaction collide,” by creating interactive displays and lights that respond to exterior input. One of his most captivating ideas is Hexi, an interactive array of 60 hexagonal modules embedded with mechanical servos that use data from a nearby depth camera to physically respond to nearby motion. It would be amazing to see an entire room or hallway covered in something like this. You can learn more over on his website, or watch the video above to see it in motion. (via Designboom)
This is a lovely video about Metropolis II, an impressive kinetic installation that circulates 100,000 toy cars every hour through a vast network of 18 tracks. Created by conceptual artist Chris Burden, the piece has been on view since 2011 at the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Via the museum:
Chris Burden’s Metropolis II is an intense kinetic sculpture, modeled after a fast paced, frenetic modern city. Steel beams form an eclectic grid interwoven with an elaborate system of 18 roadways, including one six lane freeway, and HO scale train tracks. Miniature cars speed through the city at 240 scale miles per hour; every hour, the equivalent of approximately 100,000 cars circulate through the dense network of buildings. According to Burden, “The noise, the continuous flow of the trains, and the speeding toy cars produce in the viewer the stress of living in a dynamic, active and bustling 21st century city.”
Created by artist Alyson Shotz, this reflective picket fence is made entirely of mirrors and has been installed in several locations since 2003. The iteration shown here was on view through 2012 at the Storm King Art Center in New York. The fence has the uncanny ability to reflect its surroundings resulting in a barrier that is at times almost completely camouflaged, or, depending on your perspective, in stark contrast to the nearby landscape. (via Designboom)
Somewhere on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, nestled at the foot of a desert mountain range, sits a peculiar sight that is almost completely out of place: hundreds of seats for an outdoor movie theater. Estonian photographer Kaupo Kikkas recently visited the desolate location and brought back these amazing shots of a decaying dream. He shares via his blog that the theater was built not too long ago by a man from France with considerable means. Tons of old seats and a generator were hauled in from Cairo, not to mention a giant screen that looked like the sail of a ship.
Everything was set for opening night, with one small problem. Kikkas says the locals weren’t particularly keen on the whole idea and decided to discreetly sabotage the generator. A single movie was never screened. So now it sits in the middle of a desert, a random movie theater that was never used. You can still see it on Google Maps. (via Lustik, Abandoned Geography)
Architect and freelance illustrator Maja Wrońska (previously) continues to amaze with her beautifully executed watercolor paintings of iconic cityscapes from around the world. From London and Paris to Prague and even Disney Land, the Polish artist brings a colorful, dreamlike perspective to everything she paints. Wrońska has been extremely active since we first covered her work here back in 2012, see much more on Behance, and pickup prints and other things on Society6.
A unique biotechnology start-up company have developed a method of growing bricks from nothing more than bacteria and naturally abundant materials. Having recently won first place in the Cradle to Cradle Product Innovation Challenge, bioMason has developed a method of growing materials by employing microorganisms. Arguing that the four traditional building materials – concrete, glass, steel and wood – both contain a significant level of embodied energy and heavily rely on limited natural resources, their answer is in high strength natural biological cements (such as coral) that can be used “without negative impacts to the surrounding environment.”
According to bioMason, “global cement production in 2008 amounted to 2.8 billion tons, with equivalent quantities of CO2 released into the atmosphere”. The energy intensive series of processes, ranging from extracting of the raw material, transportation, and fuel sources for heating kilns, contribute to the fact that “40% of global carbon dioxide emissions are linked to the construction industry.”
“Bacteria, which provide a precise environment to form in combination with a nutrient, nitrogen and calcium source allow for the formation of natural cement in ambient temperatures, taking less than five days to produce a pre-cast material.” bioMason has created a market viable model which involves licensing existing masonry manufacturers to begin growing. The inputs for biocements are inexpensive, globally abundant, and can be sourced from waste byproducts. Rather than being cast in fuel intensive furnaces, the material is grown in ambient temperatures. The water component used to deliver the cementation reagents is recycled in a closed-loop system and reused in the manufacturing process. Furthermore, since biological cements are formed in a different crystalline process than Portland based cements, “recent tests have been successful with seawater.”
In his review of Spike Jonze’s movie “Her”, LA Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne explains a rather comforting aspect of the movie: instead of the dystopia that usually characterizes films set in the future, “Her” is set in a future version of LA which is more dense, has better public transport (with a subway map with a story all of its own) and has managed to overcome its dependence on the car. No wonder this film has touched a chord with architects and urban designers. Read the full review here.
