MetaFilter posts tagged with buildings

Amazing Building Projections

jefficator — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:02:33 -0800

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.

Always Listen To Structural Engineers

mannequito — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:50:21 -0800

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. Also nominated for the David Alsop Sustainability Award, the building lost to South Africa's Mapungubwe National Park Interpretive Centre but was given a special second place commendation.

Detroit schools urban exploration & reclamation.

Item — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:49:39 -0800

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. Jim is most interested in schools. He's taken photos of trees growing through books and other things left behind. Recently Jim has gone beyond documenting what he sees and is reclaiming what he finds. He collects abandoned library books and other school supplies and gives them to community centers. Previously - blog post by Griffioen on Detroit's abandoned Belle Isle Zoo

Bruxellisation

Artw — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:22:21 -0800

Top 10 comic book cities

Zero carbon emission living: ingenuity and woolly hats

rongorongo — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:44:40 -0800

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 on the somewhat confusing definitions of zero-energy buildings. (Unst - population about 700 - also boasts its own unique bus shelter).

100 Abandoned Houses in Detroit

dersins — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:33:51 -0800

100 Abandoned Houses. A photo essay from Detroit-based photographer Kevin Bauman.

Dubai-bye

dances_with_sneetches — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:15:30 -0800

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 .

I walk the same streets. Why don't I notice these things?

grumblebee — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:30:46 -0800

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.

All our battery are belong to you

flabdablet — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:46:34 -0800

"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)."

I Have Seen the Elephant

Miko — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:01:09 -0800

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. Photo of the Elephantine Colossus Lucy the Elephant jingle [warning: earworm] Great collection of antique Lucy postcards, many incorrectly identifying her as a hotel (she never was, but the Turkish Pavilion from the Philadelphia Centennial was moved to a site behind her and operated as a hotel)

Coming Soon: A pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot

Miko — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:28:48 -0800

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. The Trib weighs in on the inclusion of Chicago's Michigan Avenue Streetwall The Inky on Boyd Theater Topeka Capitol-Journal (CapJo?) on Sumner Elementary Times-Picayune on Charity Hospital SF Chronicle on the state's parks Lower East Side Endangered? So what else is new?asks the New York Times

Dan Dare and the Birth of Hi-Tech Britain

Artw — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:39:53 -0800

Dan Dare, pilot of the future, scourge of the Venusian Mekon menace, and modernist architectural inspiration?

Eikongraphia

carter — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:59:55 -0800

Eikongraphia - Browsable architecture design theory thingy.

A Shell of a House

dersins — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:48:31 -0800

The Nautilus House is pretty awesome. A little more.

Tiny buildings made of paper.

dobbs — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 18:33:33 -0800

Tiny Buildings - "a collection of tiny buildings handcrafted from business cards, packaging and other nice papers."

Put Wet Towels On The Sensor

Xurando — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:23:54 -0800

How to wash your hands and ride the elevators in the new New York Times Building.

Apocalyptic Manhattan

Armitage Shanks — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:39:31 -0800

Apocalyptic Manhattan (in An Apartment). More pictures when you scroll down.

Ruinous America

dersins — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:13:31 -0800

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."

Unusual Homes. Amazing Architecture. Strange Places. Fascinating People.

dersins — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 08:44:58 -0800

Unusual Life Dot Com: Unusual Homes. Amazing Architecture. Strange Places. Fascinating People.

speculative landscapes and radical reconstruction

salvia — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:48:44 -0800

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.] From his comments at a recent conference (transcript, summary with video) and the overview to his website, it appears he wants to start some conversations.

Our father who art in elevator shafts

dersins — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 10:58:20 -0800

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.)

More abandoned places, because they're creepy and beautiful

dersins — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:07:13 -0800

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.

Buildings UI, good and bad

nthdegx — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 13:27:05 -0800

Buildings UI, good and bad

Abandoned but not forgotten.

dersins — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:00:27 -0800

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...)

An innovative design for an office building - No screwing around

psmealey — Mon, 21 May 2007 14:30:19 -0800

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.