Showing posts with label Architectural DESIGN. Show all posts
Living Compact! It's Cool!
When you live in a small space, every square inch counts, and furniture that can expand and contract on demand makes it a lot easier to fit all the functions you need into your home without feeling overwhelmed with clutter. Modular furniture sets and rooms-within-rooms containing fold-out and slide-out components make clever use of the space available, and the ability to hide things away when they’re not in use will please minimalists, too.
Sleepbox: Tiny Bedroom for Public Spaces
Cocoon 1 Room Pod
Boxetti: 3 All-in-One Fold-Out Living Spaces
Sleek and Simple Fold-Out Bedroom Box
Fold-Out Kitchen by Giorgio Armani
Slide-Out Platform Room Set
Mobile Fold-Out Office, Desk & Work Station
Z Box Bedroom Cubes
Mobile Office Made of Foam
4 All-in-One Kids Rooms
Fold Out Furniture Set
A 34-Story! Wooden Skyscraper & its Green Architecture...
The Art of Architecture!
Towers that seem alive, twisting and
dancing with each other. An alien-like blob that looks like a UFO after
dark. A building that’s literally a blur. All of these and more are
homes,hotels,
museums and cathedrals around the world created without any sense of
restraint or desire to fit in. To say these bizarre buildings are
unconventional would be putting it mildly – they’re almost too strange
to be real.
The Tianzi Hotel, China
(image via: damn cool pics)
Could this be the weirdest-looking hotel in the world? Ten stories tall, the Tianzi Hotel in Hebei Province,
China holds the world record for the world’s “biggest image building”.
The three figures that make up its hulking shape are Fu Lu Shou – good
fortune, prosperity and longevity.
Nautilus House, Mexico
(image via: dvice)
Fanciful and strange, the shell-shaped
Nautilus House in Mexico City hardly looks like a home. But even though
the inside is just as unconventional as the outside – with carpets of
plants, stone walkways and entirely curvilinear surfaces – a couple and
their young children actually live there.
Atomium, Belgium
(images via: o palsson)
The aptly named Atomium building consists
of nine interconnected steel spheres that together form the atomic
crystal structure of iron (magnified 165 million times, natch). Designed
for the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, this 335-foot-tall wonder contains exhibition spaces, a restaurant and a dormitory for visiting schoolchildren with escalators connecting the spheres.
Cathedral of Brasilia, Brazil
(image via: wikimedia commons)
From the outside, this bizarre building
hardly looks like a cathedral – but that’s exactly what it is, and once
you step inside the beautiful and colorful stained glass affirms its
identity. The Cathedral of Brasilia is made up of 16 curving concrete
columns with glass in between them, and a glass ceiling.
Errante Guest House, Chile
(image via: beauty addict)
The word ‘unusual’ doesn’t quite cut it
when describing this extremely odd building, which hardly looks
habitable with its sloping surfaces. Details on this structure are
fuzzy, but it’s certainly an eye-catcher.
Kunsthaus, Austria
(image via: annia 316)
Called the “Friendly Alien” by its creators, Peter Cook and Colin Fournier, the Kunsthaus Graz is an art museum in Graz, Austria built in 2003 for the European Capital of
Culture celebrations. The blob-like structure definitely deviates from
the typical minimalist style of modern art museums and at night, when
it’s lit up, it looks unlike anything else in the world.
Blur Building, Switzerland
(image via: diller & scofidio)
From afar, it looks like little more than a
strangely earthbound cloud. But get a little closer and you realize
that it’s actually a building shrouded in man-made fog. The Blur
Building in Switzerland is a suspended platform that sprays tiny drops
of lake water into the air from 31,400 jets, creating the mist effect.
The building was created for the sixth annual Swiss National Exhibition
and can host up to 400 visitors at a time.
Tenerife Concert Hall, Spain
(image via: extra noise)
Who else but Santiago Calatrava could have created this sculptural work of art,
the Tenerife Concert Hall in the Canary Islands of Spain? The dramatic
curve of its sweeping roof gives it an entirely unique silhouette,
especially when viewed from the side. Made from concrete, the auditorium
connects the city of Tenerife with the ocean.
Kettle House, Texas
(image via: bizarre records)
Made of steel sometime in the 1950s, the ‘Kettle House’ in Texas has attracted many a curious tourist. The unusual choice in materials and shape was probably influenced by the owner’s previous occupation – building storage tanks for oil companies.
Casa Batllo, Spain
(images via: bert k, laurea)
One of Barcelona’s treasured buildings designed by the famed Antoni Gaudi, Casa Batllo
is known locally as the ‘House of Bones’ for its flowing, skeletal
stonework. With small balconies that resemble the faces of lizards and
an exterior texture reminiscent of scales, perhaps it could more
accurately be called reptilian.
Olympic Stadium, Quebec
(images via: nicholas nova, rene erhardt)
Built for the 1976 Summer Olympics, the
Olympic Stadium in Montreal is now used as a stadium for the city’s
professional baseball and football teams. Its centerpiece is the
Pisa-like leaning tower, the tallest inclined tower in the world at
nearly 575 feet.
Guggenheim Museum, Spain
(image via: dalbera)
Considered one of architect Frank Gehry’s greatest works, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain
is a mass of random curves made from titanium, which resemble fish
scales. Gehry says “the randomness of the curves are designed to catch
the light”, and that they do, with a brilliant shimmer that reflects the
sparkling water of the Nervion River.
Kansas City Library, Missouri
(image via: marnox1)
What could be more appropriate for a
library design than making it look like books on a shelf? The Kansas
City Library in Missouri features a façade of book spines, including
Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, that
fence in the parking areas which sandwich the historic building.
Federation Square, Australia
(image via: rob young)
Taking up an entire city block, Federation Square is an imposing collection of architecture,
but there’s more than enough whimsy to balance out its sheer size.
Reminiscent of Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao – albeit far more geometric –
this building’s design was the winner of an international competition to
create a new civic precinct in the center of Melbourne, Australia.
Dancing Building, Prague
(image via: ahisgett)
Hmm, what super-famous architect could have
been involved in this building? That’s right, Frank Gehry had a hand in
the design of the Nationale-Nederlanden building
in downtown Prague, Czech Republic, which was co-designed by Vlado
Miluni?. The building’s two main structures resemble a pair of dancers,
hence its nickname – but it’s also known as ‘Drunk House’.
Cubic Houses, Netherlands
(image via: darksidex)
After many Rotterdam buildings were destroyed in WWII, architects had a bit of fun redesigning many areas in new, modern and sometimes surprising styles. The Cubic Houses
are one example, designed in the 1980s by architect Blom. They’re
basically standard houses turned on a 45 degree angle, each resting on a
hexagonal pylon. The cubes are so fascinating that one owner decided to
buy and manage a “show cube” to keep tourists from disturbing the rest
of the residents.
Human Made Architectural Wonders of the Ancient World
Chand Baori, India
(images via: moolf)
Perhaps one of the most beautiful examples of patterns in architecture, the 10th century Chand Baori well in the Indian state of Rajasthan is the world’s deepest, extending 100 feet below the surface of the earth. Built as a solution to chronic water supply issues in this arid region, the well has a total of 3,500 steps in 13 levels arranged in an inverted ‘V’ shape and is adjacent to the Harshat Mata temple. The walls are so steep that when standing at the bottom, you sometimes can’t see people who are on the steps above you.It’s difficult to imagine the construction process for such a complex stone structure with the technology available at the time. Local legend has it that ghosts built it in a single night; perhaps that accounts for its preternaturally preserved state as well.
Sacsayhuaman, Peru
(images via: world-mysteries)
How did the Incas move these massive stones? That’s just one of the mysteries surrounding Sacsayhuaman, an immense fortress located on the outskirts of the city of Cusco in Peru. While the much more famous Machu Picchu is renowned for its views, Sacsayhuaman is a marvel of engineering, confounding Spanish conquerors who were so amazed by the construction, they thought it must be the work of demons.The largest of the boulders that make up the three dry stone walls of Sacsayhuaman – all carried from a quarry located over three kilometers away – weighs an estimated 120 tons. But the seemingly superhuman feat of moving these boulders is not the most incredible aspect of the ruins: even thousands of years later, the stones of the walls fit together with such precision, you can’t fit a piece of paper between them. This precision, along with the various stone shapes that fit together like a puzzle, is likely the reason that the structure has survived earthquakes that have devastated the area.
Leshan Giant Buddha, China
(images via: wikimedia commons, national geographic)
The largest carved stone Buddha in the world towers over 232 feet into the air, with fingers measuring 11 feet in length and 92-foot-long shoulders big enough to be basketball courts. Leshan Giant Buddha overlooks the confluence of three rivers in the Sichuan Province of China. Begun during the Tang Dynasty in the year 713, the Buddha was built at the behest of a monk called Hai Tong who hoped to supplicate the temperamental water spirits thought to be responsible for numerous boat accidents. It took thousands of workers more than 90 years to complete the project.Seemingly cosmetic details are even more complex and meaningful than they look upon first glance. For example, the 1,021 buns in the Buddha’s coiled hair are part of drainage system that continues behind the ears, in the clothing and along the limbs, protecting the statue from water-related damage.
Teotihuacan, Mexico
(images via: travel this world)
A massive urban complex laid out to celestial, geographic and geodetic alignments, the Teotihuacan archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico contains some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. The city was established around 100 BCE and may have had as many as 200,000 inhabitants during its prime in 450 CE. It has been called the first true urban center in the Americas; its remains measure at least two miles across but the city was likely much larger and its influence extended as far away as Guatemala. Very little is known of the Teotihuacan people or what may have caused the city’s decline, which occurred in the 8th or 9th century.An astronomer-anthropologist named Anthony Aveni discovered that the grid of the city was based on a point of prime astronomical significance. The builders seem to have aligned the east-west axis of the city to the point on the horizon at which the sun sets on August 12th, the anniversary of the beginning of the current Mesoamerican calender cycle.
Strangely, thick sheets of shimmery mica were found within the tiers of the Pyramid of the Sun. Hidden between layers of stone, the mica clearly wasn’t decorative; today it is used as an insulator in electronics but it seems unlikely that these ancient people understood such properties. Furthermore, the particular type of mica used in the complex was reportedly traced to Brazil, nearly 2000 miles away. The Pyramid of the Sun has never been fully excavated.
Underground Churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia
(images via: wikimedia commons)
The tiny town of Lalibela, one of Ethiopia’s holiest cities, is home to 11 monolithic churches– all carved from the same block of red volcanic rock, with their roofs at ground level. Likely built during the 12th and 13th centuries, the rock-hewn churches include four that are fully free-standing, with the rest either partially attached at the sides to the rock or with ‘liberated’ facades. They’re connected to each other with a maze of underground tunnels, and their construction was engineered to take advantage of natural aquifers deep in the ground.El Mirador, Guatemala
(images via: authentic maya, wikimedia commons, the history blog)
The 500,000-acre site of El Mirador in Guatemala is referred to as ‘the cradle of Maya civilization’ and contains not only five Preclassic Maya cities that pre-date the far more famous Tikal by at least 1,000 years, but also the world’s largest pyramid by volume and the remains of the world’s first highway system.A remote site located deep in the jungle, El Mirador was’t ‘discovered’ until 1926, and wasn’t mapped until 1978. The civic center of the site measures about 10 square miles and contains around 35 ‘triadic’ structures, with ‘La Danta’ being the most notable at 230 feet tall. Its volume, 2,800,000 cubic meters, rivals that of far more well-known ancient pyramids around the world including those in Egypt. El Mirador is also home to a complex network of large roads, which once linked important architectural compounds and nearby cities.
The 500,000-acre site of El Mirador is threatened by looters, drug traffickers and deforestation, prompting the creation of a 810,000-acre national park in the region, which is currently being established by the Global Heritage Fund and the Guatemalan and U.S. governments.
The Lost City of Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan
(images via: wikimedia commons, abbas, national geographic)
4,500 years ago, Mohenjo-Daro was one of the largest early urban settlements in the world. It thrived for over a thousand years, but was completely forgotten until excavation revealed its ruins along the Indus River floodplain of what is now Pakistan in 1921. Abandoned around 1500 BCE for reasons unknown, Mohenjo-Daro has a planned layout based on a street grid of buildings made of mortared brick and likely housed around 35,000 residents.Among many interesting features, what stands out the most about Mohenjo-Daro is plumbing and sewage system that was more sophisticated than what most Western households had until the 20th century. Not only did some home have indoor toilets, but there were actually sewage drains that ran below the streets.
