FACE AHOY
posted by stresstwig on Nov 23, 2009 - 43 comments

Whole Tree Architecture - if you'd like a house built by pioneering architect Roald Gundersen, your first step might be to hike in your nearby woods to choose some young, wind-bent, and diseased "Charlie Brown" trees. Small diameter round trees have 150% the strength of milled lumber and twice the strength of steel in tension. Besides structural and environmental advantages, whole trees make for some beautiful and naturally sculptured environments. [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Nov 22, 2009 - 35 comments

Projecting images onto buildings is nothing new. Even projecting buildings themselves has been theorized. But Dutch firm NuFormer has created a new means for projecting custom-made images onto buildings. The results are amazing.
posted by jefficator on Nov 12, 2009 - 35 comments

It will be the site of 12 medal finals this February, but Richmond's Olympic Oval has already won gold in one event: on October 9th, it was awarded top honors for a sports or leisure structure from the Institution of Structural Engineers, beating out Wimbledon, the Copenhagen Zoo's Elephant House, and another Olympic venue, Beijing's Birds Nest. The Richmond Oval won largely on the strength of sustainability, including a 2 hectare roof built out of salvaged lumber from the Mountain Pine Beetle infestation. [more inside]
posted by mannequito on Oct 26, 2009 - 33 comments

Urban exploration has been featured here once or twice before, but Jim Griffioen's site photo-documenting his discoveries in and around Detroit deserves a look. Griffioen was recently interviewed [direct mp3 link] on the American Public Media radio program The Story. [more inside]
posted by Item on Jul 25, 2009 - 14 comments

Top 10 comic book cities
posted by Artw on Jul 13, 2009 - 45 comments

The Reas' previous house was destroyed in a winter storm - such are the perils of living on Unst - most northerly of the Shetland isles. On re-building the pensioner couple have constructed what they claim is the world's first occupied zero carbon emission house - using off the shelf materials. Here is a video interview with them and a few more details about the house. [more inside]
posted by rongorongo on May 11, 2009 - 8 comments

100 Abandoned Houses. A photo essay from Detroit-based photographer Kevin Bauman.
posted by dersins on Apr 3, 2009 - 71 comments

The real estate crisis has started to hit the fantasyland capital of real estate, Dubai. Projects are being abandoned and workers skipping town just the Dubai tower tops out at 818 meters. Pre-vi-ous-ly.
posted by dances_with_sneetches on Jan 20, 2009 - 18 comments

I work as a film location scout in New York City. My day is basically spent combing the streets for interesting and unique locations for feature films. In my travels, I often stumble across some pretty incredible sights, most of which are ignored every day by thousands of New Yorkers in too much of a rush to pay attention. As it happens, it's my job to pay attention, and I've started this blog to keep a record of what I see.
posted by grumblebee on Dec 26, 2008 - 44 comments

"A Smart Garage energy paradigm could simultaneously reduce the environmental impact of both the transport sector and the electricity sector. Driving a vehicle that uses electricity creates fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a vehicle that uses gasoline, even if the electricity is made from fossil fuels (such as coal)."
posted by flabdablet on Aug 29, 2008 - 8 comments

It's 1881. You're real estate speculator James Lafferty, and you've just bought a large parcel of empty, scrubby shoreside land just south of Atlantic City. Problem is, it's cut off from the AC streetcar line by a deep tidal creek. How do you entice potential buyers to make the trek over the inlet and look at your property? Build a giant elephant, of course. Capitalizing on the celebrity of P. T. Barnum's famous Jumbo, Lafferty built 65-foot tall Lucy the Elephant, the first of three giant elephants Lafferty built (followed by Cape May's Light of Asia and Coney Island's Elephantine Colossus). He even took out a patent on the very idea of buildings shaped like animals. Though threatened by decades of neglect and rot, the Save Lucy Committee began preservation efforts in 1970, moving her to her present site and giving her a complete restoration. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Jun 22, 2008 - 21 comments

The [US] National Trust for Historic Preservation has released its 21st annual list of the nation's Most Endangered Historic Places. Among them: Sumner Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, (where Linda Brown tried to register for school, resulting in Brown vs. Board of Education); New York City's Lower East Side; California's State Parks; Philadelphia's Boyd Theatre, and several others. The previous 20 years of Most Endangered Historic Places can be found in the Archive. [more inside]
posted by Miko on May 20, 2008 - 16 comments

Dan Dare, pilot of the future, scourge of the Venusian Mekon menace, and modernist architectural inspiration?
posted by Artw on Apr 28, 2008 - 12 comments

Eikongraphia - Browsable architecture design theory thingy.
posted by carter on Feb 26, 2008 - 3 comments

The Nautilus House is pretty awesome. [more inside]
posted by dersins on Feb 22, 2008 - 40 comments

Tiny Buildings - "a collection of tiny buildings handcrafted from business cards, packaging and other nice papers."
posted by dobbs on Dec 25, 2007 - 10 comments

How to wash your hands and ride the elevators in the new New York Times Building.
posted by Xurando on Dec 20, 2007 - 21 comments

Apocalyptic Manhattan (in An Apartment). More pictures when you scroll down.
posted by Armitage Shanks on Nov 14, 2007 - 12 comments

American Ruins: a gallery of photgraphs by Chuck Hutchinson. "a gallery of houses, barns, automobiles and businesses that have become the ruins on the landscape of America."
posted by dersins on Nov 6, 2007 - 20 comments

Unusual Life Dot Com: Unusual Homes. Amazing Architecture. Strange Places. Fascinating People.
posted by dersins on Oct 9, 2007 - 13 comments

An interview with Lebbeus Woods -- designer and illustrator of speculative futuristic landscapes and buildings. Woods just set up his own website, which has an amazing quantity of drawings, photographs, and text focusing on his lesser known projects [for those willing to deal with a frustrating flash interface and sound. It's better in IE than Firefox.] [more inside]
posted by salvia on Oct 6, 2007 - 10 comments

A Paternoster lift [wiki] is a cyclic elevator with "an endless chain of cabins moving at a moderate speed; some passing downward past a line of entrances and other cages moving upward past another set of openings. Passengers may embark or alight at any floor whenever they please, without delay. " (As seen on TV!) They're still in use in the the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, and the UK among other places. (Via this list of interesting elevators.)
posted by dersins on Oct 4, 2007 - 58 comments

Illicit Ohio has a wide range of photos and essays of abandoned places in Ohio, from the Cincinnati subway system (yes, there really is was one, and it's been discussed here before), to various and sundry prisons, government installations, hotels, hosiptals, houses and more. And don't miss the old vs. new galleries, either.
posted by dersins on Aug 29, 2007 - 20 comments

Buildings UI, good and bad
posted by nthdegx on Aug 13, 2007 - 38 comments

Abandoned places: A satellite facility. A drag strip. A sports arena. A factory. A highway. A school. Another factory. An industrial park. A missile site. A church. A brewery. And much more at Abandoned But Not Forgotten. (Warning: Web 0.2 site with very large photos of variable quality...)
posted by dersins on Jul 26, 2007 - 42 comments

Helix — a 1D skyscraper with a single corridor. The principle is a cylindrical building with a helical shape for the floor. The slope of the floor is 1.5% (it rises by 1.5 cm every meter), thus hardly noticeable. The height of each ’storey’ is 3 meters, so that when you walk 200 meters along the corridor, you have walked a full circle, but you end up one ’storey’ above or below your starting point.
posted by psmealey on May 21, 2007 - 50 comments

Americas Favorite Architecture - The American Institute of Architecture lists its 150 most favorite buildings as ranked by its members. Zoom-able photos and building information herein. You can also rate your top five.
posted by Burhanistan on May 3, 2007 - 65 comments

The AIA 150 The blue has been filled over the years with "greatest" posts We all have seen the American Film Institute's 100 Greatest Movies. The 100 Greatest British Albums, the 50 Greatest Commercials of the 1980's, you name it, they've all appeared on MeFi. The American Institute of Architects has taken a different tack. Instead of relying on a "blue ribbon panel", like the AFI, and despite being the experts, the AIA took a public poll to find out what the people actually think are the Greatest American Buildings. The results are the AIA 150. The whole thing is being turned into a website and a museum exhibition which will tour the country.
posted by Ironmouth on Feb 12, 2007 - 35 comments

Unintelligent Design. The History Images of Sze Tsung Leong. "Then there's the other type of history that is recorded in the fabric of cities. This includes the houses that are being destroyed; it has to do with the history of quotidian things, really, the layers of history that have slowly accumulated. The loss of this fabric the spaces and histories particular to different cities means that the particular cultural value and artistic qualities they contain, are lost." also here and here.
posted by arse_hat on Feb 6, 2007 - 8 comments

There are already some strange Soviet buildings. Gazprom intends to build these unusual skyscrapers in St. Petersburg. Maybe they will include caviar vending machines?
posted by nickyskye on Jan 18, 2007 - 25 comments

The extraordinary Center For Land Use Interpretation is a tertiary reference for one of today's posts, and it's been mentioned in comments before. Don't miss the Land Use Database or the Newsletter.
posted by scrump on Jul 25, 2006 - 9 comments

The Ryungyong Hotel is a nearly 1,000 foot tall abandoned pyramid in the heart of Pyongyang that North Korea has officially tried to forget. [discussed previously here] The architecture magazine Domus had over 200 entries to a contest to repurpose the Ryungong, a similar project is also underway elsewhere on the web, though some architects think the effort is a bad idea. [For Domus, use:mefier/mefite]
posted by blahblahblah on Apr 27, 2006 - 43 comments

Weird buildings.
posted by angrybeaver on Feb 20, 2006 - 64 comments

The Tokyo skyline [Windows or Real media] drawn from memory by savant Stephen Wiltshire.
posted by tellurian on Feb 5, 2006 - 38 comments

Frank Lloyd Wright's Beth Shalom Synagogue - Cool photo essay about a beautiful building
posted by Afroblanco on Jan 28, 2006 - 20 comments

Kirkbride Buildings. Once state-of-the-art mental healthcare facilities, Kirkbride buildings have long been relics of an obsolete therapeutic method known as Moral Treatment. These massive structures were conceived as ideal sanctuaries for the mentally ill in the latter half of the nineteenth century. AKA:The Kirkbride Plan. [more stuff inside]
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Dec 29, 2005 - 21 comments

Huge "Do it with friends" Greenhouse, Medium DIY PVC Greenhouse[pdf], Small DIY PVC Greenhouse. Now make some money with that greenhouse.
posted by bigmusic on Nov 22, 2005 - 11 comments

Action Squad – Urban Adventurers

"In a nutshell, Action Squad explores. This generally occurs late at night, to aid in avoiding other people, particularly those with badges and funny blue uniforms. We climb buildings, sneak into factories, crawl through all kinds of tunnels, spelunk old brewery caves, poke around abandoned buildings, and run across the rooftops."

Missions of the Action Squad are fully documented with descriptions, photographs (historical & intraoperative) and sometimes maps but always with a sense of wonder at the urban flotsam they enjoy exploring.
This is my particular favourite but poke around, there's a fair bit in this gem of a site worth exploring from the armchair. [via]
posted by peacay on May 24, 2005 - 27 comments

looking at buildings A website letting you take a leisurely jaunt around some of the cities of England.
posted by johnnyboy on Mar 23, 2005 - 4 comments

Tall Buildings (Flash required)
posted by riffola on Jul 28, 2004 - 19 comments

The Leo Masuda Architectonic Research Office Homepage.
posted by hama7 on Jun 12, 2004 - 4 comments

Kampung: 60 photographs of Singapore architecture.
posted by sgt.serenity on Apr 20, 2004 - 10 comments

arcspace. Modern architecture, by name, for you.
posted by the fire you left me on Feb 29, 2004 - 8 comments

At least one person is dead when Toronto theatre The Uptown (a frequent haunt of my childhood) collapses. The 2000 seat Uptown was built in 1920 and closed in September of this year, right after the Toronto International Film Festival, which regularly used the theatre for its screenings. Ignoring a Cinema Treasures' petition, and heartfelt articles from local media, Famous Players, the theatre's owners, decided to sell the building to a condo developer after losing a two year battle with The Ontario Human Rights Commission, who were insisting that the venue be made wheelchair-friendly. Oddly, as I was walking past the site last night, I considered contacting the demolition company about what was being done with the theatre's sign when it finally came down.
posted by dobbs on Dec 8, 2003 - 12 comments

Forgotten Detroit ; the Book-Cadillac, an abandoned hotel in Detroit; Indiana Historic Architecture; the history of Hammond, Indiana; Marktown Historic District, East Chicago, Indiana. The American Midwest seems to be full of interesting, crumbly places.
posted by plep on Oct 12, 2003 - 12 comments

Create your own little cityscape, using the drag and drop feature offered, and enjoy a little Friday time-wasting fun. Add lots of little pixel people and create your own blackout block party.
posted by FunkyHelix on Aug 15, 2003 - 4 comments

Stone inhabitants and extraordinary houses of Prague. More at the Praha experience.
If you like this, you might also like fifty doors of Paris and San Francisco.
posted by plep on Jul 18, 2003 - 6 comments

I So Want This House It Hurts. Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House is up for sale. If price was no object and location wasn't a problem, where would you choose to really live? What architect, living or dead; what building, available or not, would you choose? [NYT reg. required for main link..]
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 31, 2003 - 44 comments

Explore the abandoned - all things we build must pass into an inevitable and steady deterioration. Thanks to those who chronicle civilization's entropy and put it on the web, because it's mad fun to watch.
posted by jdaura on Mar 18, 2003 - 9 comments