Sunday, November 30, 2008
Update
Legotastic Turkey
You are probably still eating the corpse remains of the 47.5-ton turkey your mom did for Thanksgiving. Which is cool. Unless the brother of that turkey has access to bricks and constructs a weaponized Lego Turkey Mecha to wipe your fat turkey-eating ass out of the face of this planet.
A Use for Old Newspapers
You've likely seen those hand-cranked, wrought iron presses that allow you to recycle your old newspapers into burnable bricks or fire logs. Now Shigeru Ota, a 75-year-old Japanese bicycle shop owner from Tateyama city in Japan's Chiba prefecture, has worked up something similar that cuts the unwieldy compressed brinks of newsprint down to size.
In both rural Japan and many third world countries, home heating in cold weather is usually done with charcoal burned on a small, hibachi-style, portable charcoal grill. Massive bricks or logs compressed from old newspaper just aren't practical.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
The Ferrari Desk
We have just the thing for you race car lovers to take home with you. A real Ferrari F40 Office Desk! And we thought the Luna Desk by Pininfarina was the ultimate desk. But trust us, one look at the Ferrari F40 Office Desk, and you will know what we are talking about.
Based on a minimalist sense of pattern, the Ferrari desk features an aluminium frame painted by Rosso Corsa in the trademark Ferrari red, that is held up by carbon fiber support rails and a floating glass top. This top glass flaunts a center mounted wire acces hole which is the actual dash vent from a Ferrari F40. To complete the race car effect, the maker has also provided a Belkin hardwired surge protector with LED status indicators. You will find the on/off switch just below the glass to the frame.
More with more photos.
Extreme Recycling
To solve the expensive office space problem of artists in London, furniture designer, Auro Foxcroft, came up with an ingenious solution. He took old subway cars, removed all the seating and retrofitted the subway cars to create a sustainable working space that can be rented for as low as £15 for an entire week.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Extreme Stairs
When it comes to staircases, most architects stick to the basics, putting safety and stability before aesthetics. But others strive to have both, and in some cases, their creations become the focal point of a room - more art installation than functional architectural element. Stairs made of glass seemingly float on air, and innovative wooden creations serve as book storage and seating. These stair designs that go far beyond the basic, becoming works of art, ecological wonders and a means of rediscovering the child within.
The Art of Light
Lighting designer Bruce Munro has completed 'Field of Light' installation at the in Cornwall, England.
The lighting installation situated on the grass roof of the visitors center, called the Link building, between the famous Rainforest and Mediterranean Biomes. It's made of 6,000 acrylic stems, through which the fibre optic cables run and each is crowned with a glass sphere. The sculpture slowly changes color, transforming from blue to pink, yellow, green and back to white.
More with more photos.
Hydrogen Powered
General Motors has announced that the company’s hydrogen fuel-cell powered car – HydroGen4 — is ready for open road testing. The company will be accompanied by nine others in its zero-emission test program. The car is a result of 10 years of research and development programs conducted by GM.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Appropriate for the Day, Food as Art
The next time you’re trying to figure out what to do with your left over food in the fridge, take a look at the work of British photographer Carl Warner for inspiration. If you weren’t hungry before, you’ll be famished after! Using nothing else but food bought in his local supermarket, Carl creates these awesome landscapes with the help of food stylists and model-makers before painstakingly shooting each scene in layers.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
London Busses Go Green
Among other things, London is very well known for its double-decker buses. The have been in operation for many years and thanks to improving technology, it looks like they will be around for many more. This confidence comes as a result of the delivery of the first hybrid version of the iconic bus, with more to follow.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Pakistani Truck Art
The under-appreciated, indigenous Pakistani tradition of truck painting has an extraordinary history, starting in the days of the Raj. As early as the 1920’s, competing transportation companies would hire craftsmen to adorn their buses in the hopes that these moving canvases would attract more passengers. The technique worked so well that pretty soon you couldn’t purchase a ticket without seeing dozens of beautifully painted trucks waiting to take you to your destination. While the art doesn’t serve the same purpose anymore, it is still as prevalent as ever and has become more intricate and developed a deeper cultural significance over time.
Underground Architecture
'Bahnhof Office' an interesting project at Stockholm, Sweden by Albert France-Lanord Architects. And what makes its so special is the location; its located 30 meters under the granite rocks of the Vita Berg in Stockholm. The client is an Internet provider and they have server halls and offices. The choice of lighting was quite a challenge for the architects but they brought about as much as variation as possible, which otherwise was quite easy to let go the feeling of time in an enclosed space.
The Water Maker
Every elementary school student learns about condensation. Water from the air accumulates on a cold surface, much like a toilet tank sweats in the summer or dew forms on grass overnight. The technology to extract water from air has been around for years - Waterex and Aquamaker both harvest water out of air using dehumidifiers. Now, though a British Columbian company in Kelowna called Element Four has come up with its version: the WaterMill.
