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Peering through a hole in the hovering white skin of an unusual installation at the 22nd International International Garden Festival of Chaumont Sur Loire, France, seems to transport the viewer into a different place altogether. What could not be more than a few square meters, judging by the outside dimensions, becomes a vast forest that seemingly continues without end. Outside-In is a ‘visual paradox’ that intends to show us how relying on our senses can limit our imagination.

Designed by Meir Lobaton Corona and Ulli Heckmann architects, the installation is a white canvas box punctured with circular windows, rendering a small planted area inaccessible. But mirrors mounted inside that box reflect the few trees that are actually contained within it. The effect is enhanced in warm seasons, when the leaves are at their lushest.

“We think that all perception is locked within our body: The sense of seeing from the eyes, the sense of hearing from the ears, the sense of smelling from the nose, the sense of tasting from the mouth, and the sense of touch primarily from the hands,” say the creators.  “Our garden, entitled ‘outside-in’, is conceived as a visual paradox, as device that enhances such conditions in order to make the audience realize how by relying only on sight we rely on imagination, that is to say, on interpretation.”

“‘Outside-in’ is a garden within a garden, a contemplative space, a small universe where landscape and architecture are fused to create an experience capable of raising questions rather than answering them, a live mechanism whose aim is to make us reflect on the contrast between what we know and what we see, demanding us to constantly negotiate the gap between physical reality and visual perception. It is a meditation on space, light, and the possibility of infinity as seen through the limitless reflections of a trapped narrative meticulously fitted inside a world of two-way mirrors.”

The Sydney Opera House might have been little more than a squat concrete building resembling a factory, and a visit to the statue of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial could have required scaling a massive stepped pyramid. Ranging from close second-place finishes in design competitions to proposals that were little more than pipe dreams, these alternative designs for 12 major iconic landmarks around the world represent radical departures from the monuments we’re accustomed to.

Sydney Opera House

(images via: new world wonders, wikimedia commons)

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, with a dramatic series of vaults rising from the ground along Sydney Harbour. But Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s now-iconic design was controversial when it was first proposed in 1957, and the design that came in second place may have been more palatable to the public. American architect Joseph Marzella’s design was rather industrial in its appearance, but didn’t seem quite so out there.  It’s hard to imagine the magnificent performing arts venue looking so squat and dull.

Triumphal Elephant in Place of Paris’ Arc de Triomphe

(images via: wikimedia commons)

In place of one of Paris’ most famous monuments, the Arc de Triomphe, could have been a three-story elephant monument with a spiral staircase in the underbelly leading to the pinnacle. 18th century architect Charles Ribart offered this monument for the Champs Élysées, complete with a cross-sectional drawing showing the intricate rooms within, but was turned down by the French government.

This isn’t even the only massive, ridiculous elephant statue envisioned for Paris. Originally conceived by Napoleon, the imposing Elephant of the Bastille (third photo) was meant to be cast of bronze and placed in Paris’ Place de la Bastille on the site of the old Bastille prison, which was the birthplace of the French Revolution. A stairway set into the legs would give access to the top, and the base would be surrounded by a fountain. However, only a plaster model was built, as memorialized by Victor Hugo in the novel Les Miserables, and eventually the July Column took its place.

Unbuilt Design for the Golden Gate Bridge

(images via: pbs newshour, wikimedia commons)

Now 76 years old, the Golden Gate Bridge is an iconic symbol of San Francisco, coated in literally millions of gallons of orange paint. The Art Deco-style bridge is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, beating many experts’ predictions that it wouldn’t last against gale-force winds in the straight where the San Francisco Bay opens to the Pacific Ocean. But this wasn’t engineer Joseph Strauss’ first design. The original proposal is markedly different, with a heavier look combining cantilevered and suspension designs. It was rejected by the planning committee.

Lincoln Memorial Pyramid

(images via: i own the world, wikimedia commons)

Highlighted at Unbuilt Washington, an exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C., John Russell Pope’s Lincoln Memorial Proposal replaces the columned rectangular building honoring the 16th president with a pyramid. Anyone who wanted to get up close to Abraham Lincoln’s statue would have had to climb that entire thing to reach it. Some historians believe that this proposal was ridiculous on purpose; Pope wasn’t a fan of the swampy location chosen for the memorial, and may have created this and other absurd designs in an effort to encourage the committee to seek a new setting. Pope went on to successfully design the Jefferson Memorial.

Pyramid Necropolis for London’s Primrose Hill

(images via: andrew gough, wikimedia commons)

Infused in the Victorian preoccupation with melancholy and inspired by the Egyptian spoils of traveler and tomb-raider Giovanni Battista Belzoni, London architect Thomas Wilson proposed a massive, 15-acre pyramid-shaped necropolis for the city’s Primrose Hill. The granite pyramid would have towered into the air with 94 tiers of tombs in honeycomb shapes and a base measuring 18 acres, casting a gargantuan shadow over the hill many Londoners use for picnics and looking out over the city. Churchyards were so crowded at the time, that graves were bursting out of the ground – but concerns about what to do with London’s dead weren’t enough to convince the public that a necropolis was a good idea.

White House Alterations for President Harrison

(images via: loc.gov, wikimedia commons)

While he’s not nearly as forgettable as his grandfather, ninth United States President William Henry Harrison – who died after just 32 days in office – many Americans will struggle to recall any of twenty-third President Benjamin Harrison’s achievements during his tenure in the White House. However, Harrison could have made quite a mark. The first President to reside in the White House after it was wired for electricity, Harrison and his First Lady, Caroline Harrison, proposed significant changes to the complex that were never carried out. However, ten years later, Theodore Roosevelt made plenty of changes of his own, including the addition of the West Wing.

Next Page:
Alternative Landmarks 12 Monuments As They Almost Were

In an Paris apartment with just over 200 square feet, it is almost impossible to imagine anything but the more bare essentials resulting a boring space. But that is where illumination enters the equation, flooding in to add depth and complexity to this abode. This, then, is a short story of light.

The architects, Betillon | Dorval?Bory, examined the limited space available architecturally, but also scientifically, testing the type and quality of the natural light to be found (and then suggesting what should be carefully introduced) across the existing interior zones.

A single wall was introduced, dividing the main bedroom area from daytime activity spaces like the kitchen, but not just (nor even primarily) as a visual barrier – it was intentionally and most-importantly designed to be a backdrop for two types of light.

On the ‘night’ side: a diffused orange streetlamp glow of the after-hours city that we associate with evening, which washes the walls in a more monochromatic direction (suited for sleeping and showering). On the ‘day’ side, a pure all-purpose white of the kind found in active spaces like offices – one which allows us to see things in black and color as well (suited for cooking and gathering).

Notably, the ‘night’ side lights can also be turned off (or overpowered by daylight), allowing the entire place to ‘open’ into a single space. If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that physical objects are not the only things that form (or inform) the nature of space. Spatial variety can come via intangible elements like illumination, which in turn can serve equally powerful functions in fleshing out a space – particularly a small place with little room for solid decor.

Cone in 60 seconds? Though these 12 cool abandoned ice cream stands thought they could take a licking and keep on ticking, they ended up just being licked.

Twistee Treat Retreat

(image via: Telestar Logistics)

Around 90 fiberglass Twistee Treat buildings were produced from 1983 until 1990, when the original company filed for bankruptcy, and about half the distinctive, cone-shaped buildings remain standing. Above is an abandoned Twistee Treat in Sarasota, Florida, captured in September of 2005 by Flickr user Telstar Logistics.

(images via: Noahsgram, Yooperann and Facebook/Twistee Treat)

Designed by Robert G. Skiller, many of the 28 ft tall and 20 ft wide buildings have been painted in a wide variety of colors; others don’t even sell ice cream anymore. Due to their unique visual appeal, abandoned Twistee Treat buildings often exist in an odd architectural limbo between being quickly re-opened/re-purposed or (thanks to their light, unit construction) transported someplace where someone’s opening a new ice cream shop – it’s free advertising from the get-go, without the expense of a sign!

Ice Of The Beholder

(image via: Latitudes)

German Photographer/artist Sarah Ortmeyer‘s first solo show, “Sad Eis” (Sad Ice), included the above evocative snap of the closed Lasso Laden ice cream shop. Would it not have been easier to simply leave the shop’s seats inside and locked up instead of chained together outside, vulnerable to the vagaries of vagrants? Only Ortmeyer knows for sure, and she’s keeping that scoop to herself.

Ore-gone

(image via: Swedotorp)

Flickr user Swedotorp picked the perfect days (June 14th and 15th of 2008) to immortalize the abandoned Forest Park ice cream stand in all its faded glory. Located near Portland, Oregon, the stand would seem to be the right business in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, the aged elegance of the mid-century style paint & neon signage indicates this stand’s time has long since melted away.

(image via: Darren Sethe)

Flickr user Darren Sethe stopped at the abandoned Forest Park ice cream shop four years later in 2012 but not much had changed, barring the loss of a few more flakes of paint from the ancient sign. Sethe’s stark monochrome treatment seems to add a dash of timelessness to the ice cream-less scene.

The Other Meltdown

(images via: Spike Japan)

Kiyosato, Japan was a popular travel and tourism destination whose prospects weren’t improved by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant accident. Among the area’s attractions was the now-abandoned One Happy Park, explored and recorded in September 2011 by urban explorers from Spike Japan. The abandoned park exudes an unfortunate and uneasy aura epitomized by the not-so-merry Merry Land ice cream kiosk just outside a ramen restaurant.

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Scooped 12 Chilled Out Abandoned Ice Cream Stands

There are countless maps and other direction-finding methods for your smartphone that can help you get to where you want to go – but once you get there, you still have to worry about parking. This, of course, is one of the most frustrating aspects of going anywhere in a mid-to-large-size city. In fact, some 30 to 50 percent of urban congestion is caused just by people driving around looking for parking spots. But never fear – an app called ParkMe is here to provide real-time parking availability information in cities and countries all around the world.

The smartphone app works by utilizing data from a number of sources. Parking facility operators can update the app with their capacity and availability. Businesses can use a widget to provide real-time availability near their establishments, which is a win-win for them and their customers. Payment options are listed so you’ll know ahead of time if you need to have cash available.

Not all of the 1800 cities featured on ParkMe have real-time data available; only a handful of cities in the US offer that level of seamless parking integration. But the app does tell you where you’re most likely to find parking near your destination and how much you’ll have to pay for the privilege of leaving your car there. If you enter the amount of time you’ll need to park, the app will even tell you what your total cost will be.

Overall, the app will reduce traffic congestion in cities by helping people find a place to park in advance. If  you could figure out your exact route, down to the entrance to the lot you’ll leave your car in, before you even leave your house – imagine how much easier it would be to get to your destination and get your fun outing started.

Have you ever wondered how 19th century artists were able to produce such incredibly realistic drawings? It isn’t just because they were unusually talented, though it’s hard to argue that they were. Many of them benefitted from the use of a ‘camera lucida’, an optical device that reflects real-life images onto a drawing surface so they can be traced. A new version of the tool, called the ‘NeoLucida,’ aims to bring this drawing aid back, with a few modern updates.

Essentially a prism on a stick, the camera lucida was once a very popular drawing tool, making it easy to create realistic drawings. A portable version hasn’t been manufactured in nearly a century. Antique versions sell for hundreds of dollars, but Pablo Garcia and Golan Levin, the makers of the NeoLucida, aim to sell theirs for just $40.

“We want to make this remarkable device widely available to students, artists, architects, and anyone who loves to draw from life,” say the pair on their Kickstarter page, which has already raised nearly half a million dollars – far over the original goal of $15,000. “But to be clear: our NeoLucida is not just a product, but a provocation. In manufacturing a camera lucida for the 21st century, our aim is to stimulate interest in media archaeology—the tightly interconnected history of visual culture and imaging technologies.

The NeoLucida is made from a combination of mass-manufactured and custom-machined parts. It has a clamp to fit onto the edge of desks and tables, and a goose neck for adjustability. It’s lightweight, non-electric, and compact enough to fit in a handbag. Get more details at the project’s Kickstarter (via notcot.org.)

There is no unifying theme to these surreal depictions of urban architecture and landscapes, save perhaps their imaginative improbability and singular creator, Frank Kunert, a German photographer and his bemused sense of wonder.

Each is at once clearly a model yet quite lifelike, lovingly crafted, painted and photographed. Some show impossibilities seemingly for shock value alone, while others contain a subtle message – some commentary on politics, religion, television or other aspects of everyday life.

The resulting scenes question function, accessibility and the role of architecture, exterior and interior design in shaping both public and private experience.

It is also worth noting, too, that none of them are post-edited – they are created sans Photoshop and shot with an analog camera. The process and product are closely related, and each creative choice is made carefully by hand.

With New York City’s inexorable growth, 1980s legislation barring the creation of 400 square-foot, one-to-two-person apartments has been lifted. And the results are in: award-winning compact units ranging from 250 to 330 square feet each have arrived.

The solutions, sans traditional square-footage restrictions, involve both production and living innovations. They make the most of modular components and prefabrication, on the one hand, and utilize adaptable floor plans, copious common spaces and expansive rooftop decks to extend livable areas on the other.

Anyone who has spent time in ultra-dense yet highly-organized cities like Hong Kong, Tokyo or London knows that every square foot counts in terms of cost savings, and the less you have, the more you need to creatively make use of what is there.

Per NYC.gov and CBS New York and via ArchDaily,“Succeeding 33 international proposals and providing an innovative housing model for New York City’s micro-apartments, a team consisting of Monadnock Development LLC, Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation and nARCHITECTS was selected as winner of the adAPT NYC competition. Construction on the pilot project will begin by the end of the year and residents are expected to move in by 2015.”

Put on a futuristic-looking, geometric white mask and you’ll suddenly have superhuman senses, hearing targeted sounds from long distances or applying effects to images in real-time. The ‘Eidos’ masks were developed by a group of students from the Royal College of Art in London, fitting over the mouth or ears to enhance sensory perception.

The mask that fits over the mouth and ears features a directional microphone to capture audio, which is processed by software to eliminate background noise. The sound is transmitted directly to the inner ear through bone vibrations to make it seem as if someone else’s speech is coming from inside your own head.

The second mask, which fits over the eyes, adds visual effects to the wearer’s range of vision, and can also analyze visual data. That data is sent to a computer, where software processes it and picks out patterns and movements that are invisible to the naked eye.

“Eidos has broad application in areas where live audio and video analysis is valuable. For example, sportspeople can visualise and improve technique in real time. Eidos also has healthcare benefits where it can be used to boost or refine sensory signals weakened by ageing or disability. In the arts, Eidos can augment live performance such as ballet, fashion or music concerts. It allows us to highlight previously invisible or inaudible details, opening up new and customisable experiences.”

Within five years or less, we could be chatting with the three-dimensional holograms of faraway friends, controlling our computers with mental commands, charging our phones with energy harvested from wasted ambient energy and logging into our bank accounts with facial recognition scans. These are among the technology innovations that computer giant IBM has predicted within the last few years of its annual technology forecast. Here are seven of the most intriguing prospects.

3D Hologram Chat

(image via: Star Wars 20th Century Fox screen capture)

A 3D holographic chat system called “TeleHuman” is the first example of what will likely be a flood of virtual hologram technology that lets us see faraway contacts in three dimensions. TeleHuman creates a life-sized rendering of its subject using six XBox Kinect sensors, a 3D projector and a cylindrical display; the creators say it will be available for $5,000 within five years. A similar project called the RGB+D Toolkit is making waves in the indie filmmaking community.

Microsoft is also working on telepresence technology for Skype using holograms to literally bring conference participants to a central table, no matter where in the world they’re located.

Mind-Controlled Devices

(image via: forbes)

Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to type at all? You could simply think a command, an email, or anything else you want to do and it appears on your screen. Maybe we’re not quite there yet, but progress is encouraging. Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) technology is appearing in all kinds of experimental gadgets, from headphones that play music based on your mood to a headband that measures brain activity in real time and displays it on your smartphone or tablet. BCI devices are also being used to allow quadriplegic patients to complete previously impossible tasks.

Of course, there are drawbacks to this inevitably invasive technology. A 2012 study found that connecting minds to machines can allow sensitive private information to ‘leak out’ along with the users’ mental commands. The information revealed included the location of their homes, faces they recognized and even their credit card PINs.

Energy-Scavenging Gadgets That Don’t Need Batteries

(image via: dennis siegel)

Power lines, data centers, televisions and even your coffee maker output waves of ambient energy that typically just dissipate in the air, going to waste. That energy could be used to power all kinds of things, including crucial wireless sensors running on batteries, which keep track of factory machinery or measure environmental pollution. MIT has developed an energy-harvesting microelectromechanical system (MEMs) that translates even tiny vibrations, light and ambient energy into a surprising amount of power, eliminating the need for batteries.

Designer Dennis Siegel shows off some of the possibilities on the consumer side of the spectrum with ‘Energy Parasite,‘ a gadget that gathers energy from home appliances and power plants, stores it in a conventional battery and allows you to use it later for cell phones, mp3 players and other devices.

Multi-Factor Biometrics Eliminate Need for Passwords

(image via: siemens)

We’re not far from an era in which passwords are a thing of the past. Fingerprint scanners have been available for a range of devices for quite a while now, but they’re not ideal – burns, cuts, oil and other irregularities can interfere with scanning. In the future, a range of biometrics including voice, retina and face scanners could be used to verify our identities so we can access devices, personal accounts and private data.

Researchers are developing systems that ensure biometric data is secure, like taking a sample of a user’s voice, dividing it into similar samples, and then cryptographically protecting them before performing a comparison on the voice trying to gain access.

Computers That Can Smell, Taste & Replicate Touch Sensations

(image via: ntdtv)

IBM predicted that within five years, computers will be able to output and recognize smells and flavors, and even replicate textures, so we can ‘feel’ fabrics before purchasing, for example. Texture data fed into a computer’s drivers can re-create vibrations and temperature on a touch screen, similar to the way some computer game controllers shake to indicate on-screen action. Digitized taste buds breaking down flavors to their molecular components can help compare them, so users can find something that tastes like a favorite food, but is healthier, or get a sense of a recipe before trying it out. Chemical sensors that enable computers to ‘smell’ could guess health problems from changes in your breath or detect environmental toxins.

Changes in the way computers ‘hear’ sound could also lead to some major breakthroughs. Hearing the ‘whole picture’ rather than isolated voices or music could allow computers to learn more about the situations in which the sounds are produced. For example, a computer could analyze the sounds of a baby crying and identify based on past experience whether the cause is need for a diaper change or food, or more serious problem. Japanese researchers are currently integrating smell technology into humanoid robots, as well.

The End of Junk Mail

(image via: Minority Report 20th Century Fox Screen Capture)

Advances in creepily targeted advertising could mean that junk mail is no longer junk. When the ads that appear in your inbox and physical mailbox are tailored specifically to your tastes and interests, you’re going to be more likely to click on them, which is exactly what marketers want. Information assembled online, through customer loyalty cards and by other means tell advertisers more than ever about your purchasing habits, your household and your income. Of course, we’re trading the annoyance of junk mail for what could be considered a serious invasion of privacy. Many consumers have no idea how much can be learned about their lives from their surfing habits.

Finely tuned junk mail filters will also help combat the constant flood of invitations to buy black market Viagra, enlarge certain body parts and claim inheritances from long-lost relatives in Nigeria.

Harvesting Kinetic Energy

(image via: pavegen)

Just like all that ambient energy, kinetic energy from movement of all sorts is a potentially rich source of power that currently goes to waste. The movement generated by trains, cars, and our own hands and feet could provide electricity to the venues in which it’s harvested. This technology is already in place at a number of human-powered gyms, dance clubs and subway stations. Treadmills, stationary bikes, roller coasters, sidewalks and handrails absorb the energy from movements and convert it into power for lights and other electrical equipment.

Pavegen floor tiles are one example. These tiles, which capture kinetic energy from footsteps, have been installed at the Westfield Stratford City Shopping Centre in London, and were also used at the 2013 Paris Marathon.

These layered creations are surprisingly realistic, even in black and white, thanks in part to their scale and reinforced by their shadows, but also due to the ordinary nature of the sidewalk scenes being depicted.

Strøk (Anders Gjennestad) is a stencil artist and mural maker from Norway with works in various contexts, from city streets to suburban galleries.

Some of his gallery works repeat the same themes and similar scenes on scrap objects, from wooden pallets to metal doors, to those he presents on building walls.

From the creator’s website: “His hand-cut, multi-layered stencils create photo-realistic imagery with depth and detail that [are] complex, tactile and mentally engagement. The placement and choice of material … painted on rusty metal, gritty walls, shiny glass”

Facade or fantasm, this series of images presents an alluring picture of the layers – perhaps even literal  levels – of  history that lies beneath aged and famous buildings.

Blending physical fact and historical fantasy, these advertisements (for titled “Discover the Full Story”) extend three archetypal works of Soviet architecture to new subterranean depths. They seem a fitting set to promote the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, Russia.

The Kremlin, with its recognizably colorful onion towers, reveals even more (and larger) turrets below – what is on the surface turns out to be just the uppermost peaks. Neo-Classical and Gothic Revival play their parts as well, turning what looks like an old Greek tempt into the top of an edifice, and a stately structure into a skyscraper.

And for those who enjoy process as much as product, it is interesting to see the stages these illustrations went through to get to their final form – sketched figures and pillars, hand-drafted architectural elements, and then finishing touches.

Can you guess where in the world this unidentified Google Maps location is by landscape, road signs, architecture and cars? Test your geography skills with GeoGuessr, a site that drops you into a random Street View and challenges you to answer correctly five times in a row. Brilliantly simple, this virtual travel guessing game will stump you with featureless fields, and city scenes that seem to belong on entirely different continents.

Once placed in a location, you can move up and down the streets and use the arrows to view it in 360 degrees, just like on Google Maps and Google Earth. Sometimes, you might get lucky, and see some kind of identifying signs. Sometimes, there’s nothing but farmland and trees.

When you think you’ve determined the location, drop a pin on the world map on the right side of the screen and make your guess. You might be surprised how many times you’re about as off as you can possibly be. Some streets in Northern Canada look an awful lot like those in Argentina. Try it for yourself at GeoGuessr.com (via Laughing Squid).

Nuclear missile silos, former quarries, natural caves and man-made hills camouflage homes ranging from rustic and understated to modern and luxurious. Seeming ideally suited to shield unsavory dealings from view, these subterranean lairs are perfect for villains – or just ordinary people who want to live in a really cool place.

Secret Subterranean Passage Connects Barn to Home

Looking out over the land, all you’ll see here is a very unassuming stone-and-wood barn. But go inside that barn and you’ll discover a concealed entry to an underground passage that leads to a hidden home. Villa Vals emerges from the hillside to look out onto a beautiful view. Located in Switzerland, this subterranean residence is also a part-time rental.

Subterra Castle Converted Nuclear Missile Silo

When Ed Peden first laid eyes upon what would later become his home, it was little more than a dark, dark, unmaintained hole in the ground. This underground nuclear missile silo wasn’t exactly welcoming, but Peden bought it for the relatively low cost of $48,000 and transformed it into a comfortable family residence. The home is topped by a modest-looking wooden structure, and nothing would look amiss at all if it weren’t for the escape hatches that have been altered to look like castle towers. The home takes up just a third of the nearly 20,000 available square feet of space underground.

Cave House, Festus, Missouri

A 17,000-square-foot artificial cavern left by a 1930s sandstone mine in Festus, Missouri is now a beautiful modern family home. Located 45 feet below a forest (and a neighboring home), Cave House was temporarily a roller rink and concert venue hosting the likes of Tina Turner and Bob Seger, and the back chamber still has the stage they performed upon. The middle chamber measures 80 by 80 feet, used by the family as a ‘party room’, and the front chamber holds most of the home. The property is 2.8 partially wooded acres with three freshwater springs and fourteen waterfalls.

Atlas F Missile Base House, Abilene, Texas

Inspired by Ed Peden’s Subterra, a man named Bruce Townsley purchased an Atlas F missile base near Abilne, Texas for $99,000. Townsley transformed just 1,000 square feet of the sprawling base into his living space. Notable features like the massive blast doors have been preserved, while much of the home now has a coat of bright white paint that makes it feel surprisingly welcoming.

Malator, Wales

Commonly known by neighbors in Wales as the ‘Teletubby House’, Malator is mostly hidden within a hill, with no more than a clear glass facade and a steel chimney to give it away. Built in the town of Druidstone in 1998, the small underground dwelling has a turf roof and working porthole windows.

Underground House in a Former Quarry

An old quarry in the Eden Valley of Cumbria, UK hosts a two-story house with a massive glass facade to bring in daylight and warmth. The earth-sheltered, eco-friendly home was designed by architect John Bodger for Phil and Helen Reddy.

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Fit For A Villain 12 Surprisingly Homey Underground Lairs

The story has unfolded fast, and people on both sides are furious. Within days of a successful test firing of the Liberator, this working 3D-printed weapon has attracted the attention of the United States government. 100,000+ downloads in,  the State Department has stepped in to try and stop further distribution.

Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed and his crew have been harshly criticized, both by those who wanted him to stand up to authority and others who wish he had never created or released the blueprint files in the first place.

Despite adamantly contending they would not cave to external pressure, Defcad – the site hosting the 3D gun and other illicit-object designs – now has a white-on-red warning at the top of the page summarizing the situation for visitors. None of this, of course, has stopped people from distributing the files in a variety of alternative venues.

On the one hand, it is entirely understandable that people would fear a future in which gun control is difficult or impossible thanks to ease of on-demand printing. Further, its parts and breakdown also make it easy to sneak through security checks, making it potentially more dangerous in some ways than a traditional firearm.

On the other hand, people can already make guns with the right shop equipment (better ones than those that can be currently printed), plus history has shown that fighting inevitable shifts in technology is an uphill battle. In tech, much like in war, sophisticated capabilities tend to win in the end, regardless of which side was ‘right’ to begin with. Information, as they say, wants to be free.

This abandoned barber shop triple-quartet collectively echoes with the metallic chattering of honed clippers tempered by hazy undertones of warm conversation.

Losing Your Head

(image via: Adam’s Journey)

The abandoned Richardson’s Barber Shop in Yanceyville, North Carolina, appealed to potential customers by displaying the unique motto “We need your head in our business” on the outside wall. Kudos to roving photographer Adam Prince for snapping the shop in a favorable light, or at least in favorable lighting.

(images via: CCHA and Adam’s Journey)

Evidently the snappy slogan wasn’t the best way to get ahead IN business because by the fall of 2005, Richardson’s was OUT of business. On the bright side, though the ex-clip joint is looking faded and forlorn these days the circus flyers marring its front picture window in the autumn 2005 image above weren’t a permanent addition.

Rest In La Paz

(image via: Photorator)

The conquista-door has long slammed shut at the eerily exquisite La Paz Peluqueria de Caballeros (Gentlemen’s Hairdresser) shop sleepily snuggled in a small southern Spanish city. Shaded by gently waving palm trees and lit by a lone wrought iron lantern, the soot-stained stucco-walled shop exudes an aura of timeless style highlighted by the rich patina coating the frame of its cozy, glassed-in, second floor balcony.

A REALLY Close Shave

(images via: SeaBix, Chuck_893 and Byron Serrano/Pinterest)

The well-preserved ghost town of Bannack, Montana, had a good run: it was founded in 1862 and finally abandoned in the 1970s. The former gold-mining town and territorial capitol boasted a population of around 10,000 and at least four saloons at its peak; one of which featured a one-seat barber shop in a front corner.

(image via: Chuck_893)

Legend has it that occasionally gunfights would break out among the drinkers, giving whomever was enjoying a trim at the time a close shave without the benefit of razor or cream. A tip of the hat goes to Flickr user Chuck_893 for his snap of the weather-beaten barber chair above

Next Page:
Cant Be Shaved 12 Abandoned Barber Shops

Floodwaters rise, drench homes, then recede, leaving disaster in their wake – a temporary change renders many structures permanently uninhabitable. But what if houses could ride out the storms, rising with the tides, then settling back down to the ground when the water is gone?

Based on the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Morphosis (along with Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation) has designs for new adaptive architecture, while the Bouyant Foundation Project proposes a system for retrofitting existing homes. Each approach would allow structures to do lift off the ground in an emergency and uses regional shotgun-style dwellings as their baseline typology.

BFP outlines a process that involves attaching buoyancy blocks below the home, connecting them to the sub-frame, and installing four corner guideposts to keep the building in place along horizontal axes while allowing it to lift (and settle) vertically on demand.

Connections to utilities (gas, water, power and so forth) would be either severable or extendable, so they could detach and reattach or simply expand and contract as needed. In plan, nothing changes – in elevation, predictable but periodic disasters are accommodated.

Unlike most street art, INSA‘s murals weren’t made to be seen in person – they’re best viewed online. That’s because the UK-based artist painstakingly paints, photographs and re-paints each of his works several times over in order to create these amazing animated GIF images.

Each piece is created with movement in mind, with the artist envisioning the final animated result as he paints each step. What looks like a relatively ordinary mural when passed on the street becomes mesmerizingly kinetic when seen as a final work of art.

These made-for-the-internet works of physical street art defy the conventional wisdom that art is best appreciated in person, though it would still be nice to check out all of the details up close. The internet brings what was once hyper-local to the masses.

In an interview with Adobe, INSA says “I realized I was viewing more paintings online than in real life, the majority of art I was accessing was on the internet. Whether that was street art from around the world, or exhibition openings on blogs, and it disheartened me a little, because although it was great to be able to see so much work, I realized this was never the way the artist would have intended for their work to be seen. So I thought an interesting way to play with this idea was to create art specifically to be viewed online: to the point that you could not actually see it in reality. So, in fact, the internet becomes the best viewing platform for the work.”

A blend of fun, flexible, efficient and honest, The Gourmet Tea shop design in Brazil’s biggest city is both regional and universal, responding to everyday needs for opening and closing while also attractive to passerby pedestrians.

Designed by Alan Chu (images by Djan Chu), the storefront is a patchwork of brightly-colored squares and reflects the brand and its rich variety (35 flavors) of organic teas to be found within.

But the patches are more than decorative – they unfold in various ways to reveal everything from the store’s signage to its purchasing counter and shelves full of wares.

Despite its apparent complexity, it is ultimately built of inexpensive plywood and folds down into a space-saving box in a few simple steps, making it a cost-effective solution for street-side vending.

Children already at risk may also risk further abuse if they are seen to be seeking help, hence this twist on lenticular printing – a message that reads one way to tall adults, and another to small minors.

The ANAR Foundation needed a way for potential victims to read their communication secretly (including the unspoken visual content – bruises on the portrait), without alerting those accompanying them on the street.

Shifting from one perspective to the other slowly reveals an increasingly different image as well as additional text, including the helpline phone number.

Lenticular images are often used to create dynamic billboards that shift as people walk or drive by, but this variant flips the typical format on its side and gives it a higher purpose than mere marketing.

The chewed gum, fingernail clippings and cigarette butts you leave behind in public places could say a lot more about you than you’d like to imagine. Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg makes this abundantly clear with her series, ‘Stranger Visions’, which reproduces people’s faces using DNA extracted from such forensic evidence collected in New York City and Brooklyn.

Dewey-Hagborg is a PhD student studying electronic arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. After extracting the DNA from her samples, she focuses on specific genomic regions, sequences them and then enters the data into a computer program, which produces a model of the face of the person who tossed that item onto the ground.

From those models, Dewey-Hagborg produces sculptures of the faces using a 3D printer. These life-sized portraits, which look similar to death masks, hang on gallery walls, often beside wooden boxes holding the original samples and showing photographs of where they were found.

The artist learned about DNA extraction from a course in molecular biology at Genspace, a do-it-yourself biology lab in Brooklyn where she does some of her work. She uses standard DNA extraction kits ordered online to analyze the DNA. The results are shockingly detailed; a mask of her own face made using the same technique shows just how accurate the results can be. However, there’s no way to tell age from DNA, so the computer produces a 25-year-old version of the person. Learn more about the process at Smithsonian.

“These prophecies will seem strange, almost impossible,” reads the intro to a 1900 article printed in the Ladies Home Journal entitled ‘What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years.‘ And over a century later, many of them do. The “wisest and most careful men in our great institutions of science and learning” envisioned that by the year 2001, we humans would have willfully made all wild animals extinct to make room for ourselves, and we’d be eating sterile foods zipped from laboratories to our homes via pneumatic tubes. But some of these ideas are more prescient than others, accurately imagining innovations like factory farming and even the internet.

Wild Animals Don’t Exist Anymore, Except in Zoos

(image via: paleofuture)

“Man’s steadily increasing need for more space will eventually force untamed beasts to pay their way in the scheme of things, or join the species already extinct,” reads a 1926 article in the Galveston Daily News. That attitude was surprisingly common during the early 20th century, despite the fact that the predictions in the Ladies Home Journal article underestimated a century of future population growth by billions. The Ladies Home Journal article predicted that animals wouldn’t exist in the wild anymore at all, and would only be found in zoos, unless they were in use as livestock or service animals.

The article predicts that rats and mice will have been completely exterminated (along with mosquitoes, flies and roaches, which would require filling in all swamplands and chemically treating all still-water streams) and that cows will be so fat, they’ll be as slow as livestock pigs. “Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.” Sounds like modern-day conditions at many of America’s largest factory farms.

Purchases and Pre-Cooked Meals Are Delivered via Pneumatic Tubes

(image via: machinelake)

In an era when compressed food tablets actually seemed like a great idea, sterile pre-cooked meals made in laboratories rather than kitchens were an appealing concept. The Ladies Home Journal article imagines that ready-cooked meals would zoom from these central labs to private homes via a vast system of pneumatic tubes. Equipped with all manner of electrical gadgets not found in homes, these laboratories would also be able to supply food cheaper than it would cost to cook for yourself, since they’re buying ingredients in such large quantities. You press a button, your food zips to you within minutes, and then you send the packaging and utensils back to be chemically cleaned. Store purchases and mail would be delivered in much the same way.

Furthermore, you’d never have to worry about anyone breathing on your food, or exposing it to the atmosphere of the busy streets. Shopkeepers would be arrested if they dared to store food that wasn’t essentially hermetically sealed, or if they sold “stale or adulterated produce.” The miracle of always-fresh produce would be achieved using liquid-air refrigerators.

The idea of pneumatic delivery hasn’t gone away altogether – some cities use pneumatic tubes to dispose of trash, and a company called the Foodtubes Project aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by transferring much of the UK’s deliveries from trucks on the roads to underground tubes.

The Suburb is the Promised Land for Taller, Healthier Americans

(image via: mediaarchitecture.at)

The suburbs seemed like utopia for people living in clogged, smoggy cities. The predictions of the day envisioned Americans not only living much longer thanks to quiet lives in the peaceful suburbs, but also be one to two inches taller on average thanks to better health “due to vast reforms in medicine, sanitation, food and athletics.” In fact, suburbs would be so amazingly beneficial for mankind, city housing would be practically eliminated, and building in blocks would be illegal.

Americans, and humans in general, are indeed taller than we were in the year 1900, thanks to ample amounts of nutritious foods, though that could very well change with the unhealthy fast-food diets that have become increasingly common over recent decades. The suburban dream hit its peak during the ’50s, however, and is now starting to fizzle, with many young people choosing to live in cities for access to efficient transportation, jobs and culture.

Zero Traffic Noise in Cities as Transit Goes Underground

(image via: wikimedia commons)

The dream of the suburbs would be achieved with quiet, high-speed transportation that was virtually invisible at surface level, with “well-lighted and well-ventilated” underground railways in broad subways or tunnels, as well as monorails and elevated streets. Trains would take passengers from New York to San Francisco in a day and a night (imagine!). It’s easy to see why this seemed so readily achievable in the year 1900; the first underground railway in the world opened in London in 1863 and transportation grew more efficient by the year. People hadn’t yet been seduced by the status and freedom of individual automobiles.

We may have high-speed trains in much of the world (though sadly, still not in most of America), but car-free cities “free from all noises” are far from our current reality. However, at least one city may be able to achieve that ideal: ‘Great City’, a dense carless metropolis being built from scratch in a rural area outside Chengdu, China.

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Hong Kong has to be one of the most-photographed cities on Earth, but these shots present a rarely-seen perspective by documentarians or pedestrians … unless they look straight up.

From Vertical Art Space: “Romain Jacquet-Lagreze is a French graphic artist with a Masters in multimedia and art from East Paris University. His interest in photography began during his period of working in Los Angeles and Tokyo, and subsequently blossomed into a passion after his arrival in Hong Kong.”

His Vertical Horizon series emphasizes the vast scale of tall structures, but also the “heterogeneous character” of the built environment – traditional alongside modern, scrappy versus refined, small set against large.

While some of his images are taken from the top down, or at an angle, many of the most powerful ones are straight-up vertical captures. Somehow, these more predictable approaches lack the striking gravitas of their deceptively-flat  cousins.

We’ve gotten accustomed to the idea of vehicles having two or four wheels. However, not all vehicle designers are so restrained in their ideas. All of these conveyances are unique because of their lack of the conventional wheel count, making do (and even making a scene) with just one or three.

The Leanster Motorcycle

What’s the easiest way to make a motorcycle safer? Add one more wheel, of course. The Leanster from Brudeli Tech is a strange-looking bike that lets users make incredibly tight turns without the danger of falling over. The Leanster is somewhere between a motorcycle and a four-wheeled ATV, but somehow managers to look cooler than both.

UX-3 Commuter Unicycle

It wasn’t long ago that unicycles were reserved for the likes of circus performers. But this Segway-like motorized unicycle from Honda, called the UX-3, brings the unicycle firmly into the consumer market. It’s driven like a Segway, so all you have to do is sit down and lean slightly to tell it which way to go. It might take a little while to figure out how to ride the UX-3 without tipping over (or feeling like you’re about to), but once you master the trick you’ll never want to walk anywhere again.

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