Hasta La Ideas

Image taken from page 582 of ‘The United States of America. A study of the American Commonwealth, its natural resources, people, industries, manufactures, commerce, and its work in literature, science, education and self-government’. By various authors [1894]

In what could well become one of the most interesting image collections on the web, the British Library has announced it has uploaded over one million images to Flickr from 65,000 books spanning from the 17th to the 19th century…

Covering a huge range of subjects, the collection includes images of book illustrations, diagrams and maps as well thousands of decorative elements such as borders and illuminated letters. Each image is tagged by year of publication, its unique library book code – indicating the source of where it came from – and the author of the publication (where relevant).

By way of an introduction to this selection of often strange and wonderful imagery, the library’s digital research team has curated a small number of images in a Flickr set from which some of the images included here are taken.

Image taken from page 93 of ‘On the Domesticated Animals of the British Islands: comprehending the natural and economical history of species and varieties; the description of the properties of external form, and observations on the principles and practice’

Image taken from page 78 of ‘Songs for Little People’. With illustrations by H. Stratton

The images have been uploaded to Flickr Commons “for anyone to use, remix and repurpose,” wrote Ben O’Steen on the library’s Digital Scholarship blog on Friday.

O’Steen also explained the additional part to the project, which will rely on the input of users. This follows on from the launch of the British Library Labs’ Mechanical Curator tumblr blog, where “randomly selected small illustrations and ornamentations, posted on the hour”.

Image taken from page 298 of ‘On English Lagoons’. Being an account of the voyage of two amateur wherrymen on the Norfolk and Suffolk rivers and broads. With an appendix, the log of the wherry “Maid of the Mist”. Illustrated, etc

“We are looking for new, inventive ways to navigate, find and display these ‘unseen illustrations’,” he says. “The images were plucked from the pages as part of the ‘Mechanical Curator‘, a creation of the British Library Labs project. Each image is individually addressible, online, and Flickr provies an API to access it and the image’s associated description.

Image taken from page 295 of ‘The Works of G. J. Whyte-Melville’. Edited by Sir H. Maxwell. With illustrations by J. B. Partridge, Hugh Thomson, and others

“We may know which book, volume and page an image was drawn from, but we know nothing about a given image. The title of [the] work may suggest the thematic subject matter of any illustrations in the book, but it doesn’t suggest how colourful and arresting these images are.”

Image taken from page 25 of ‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin’. Originally published in “Dramatic Lyrics,” no. 3 in the series “Bells and Pomegranates”

Next year the library plans to unveil a “crowdsourcing application” which will enables users to help describe what the images portray.

“Our intention is to use this data to train automated classifiers that will run against the whole of the content,” says O’Steen. “The data from this will be as openly licensed as is sensible (given the nature of crowdsourcing) and the code, as always, will be under an open licence.

“The manifests of images, with descriptions of the works that they were taken from, are available on github and are also released under a public-domain ‘licence’. This set of metadata being on github should indicate that we fully intend people to work with it, to adapt it, and to push back improvements that should help others work with this release.”

Image taken from page 297 of ‘To the Snows of Tibet through China’, with illustrations and a map

“There are very few datasets of this nature free for any use and by putting it online we hope to stimulate and support research concerning printed illustrations, maps and other material not currently studied. Given that the images are derived from just 65,000 volumes and that the library holds many millions of items.”

The library is welcoming questions about the project, and can be reached via email labs@bl.uk and Twitter twitter.com/bl_labs. O’Steen can be reached on Twitter at @benosteen.

Image taken from page 109 of ‘Saturdays to Mondays’, being jottings from the notebooks of K. F. Bellairs on some phases of country life, yachting, etc

“We want to collaborate with researchers and anyone else with a good idea for how to markup, classify and explore this set with an aim to improve the data and to improve and add to the tagging,” says O’Steen. “We are looking to crowdsource information about what is depicted in the images themselves, as well as using analytical methods to interpret them as a whole.”

The British Library Flickr phtotstream is at flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary.

Image taken from page 124 of ‘Death’s Doings’; consisting of numerous original compositions, in prose and verse, the contributions of various writers; principally intended as illustrations of twenty-four plates designed and etched by R. Dagley

Dutch architecture studio Inbo has completed a transparent house in the Netherlands and has hidden it behind a grove of trees to protect the privacy of its residents (+ slideshow).

The single-storey house, named Villa Sterk, stretches across the full width of its site and features floor-to-ceiling glazing on its two longest sides, allowing views right through the building.

Inbo orientated the house so that its two long facades face north and south. “The location on the lot creates a north and a south facade with a public side and a private side, a sunny side and a shady side,” said the architects.

A dirt track leads up to the house from the nearby road. After passing through the woodland, the route leads into a sheltered driveway that cuts the house into two parts.

The smallest section accommodates a storage area and private office, while the larger side contains the main living spaces, which include an open-plan living and dining room, a pair of bedrooms and a separate study.

The house is raised slightly above the ground, so the architects have added small staircases and a ramp at various points around the perimeter, enabling easy access from the surrounding garden.

“The ground floor floats just above the earth as if the house has not yet ‘landed’ and is a guest in the landscape,” said the architects.

The end walls of the house are made from stone and extend out into the garden, while the glazed elevations feature doors that slide open.

Concrete walls and floors throughout the building’s interior are finished with natural white stone or stucco.

Solar panels have been installed in the garden to provide a self-sufficient energy source. The architects also want to add a folly at the end of the garden where residents can enjoy a cup of tea.

Photography is by Auke van der Weide.

Here’s a project description from Inbo:

Villa Sterk

Living in the countryside

On the outskirts of Bontebok, a village north of Heerenveen, Mr. and Mrs. Sterk have built a very special and interesting house. The long sweeping plot on which the house was built, is tucked away in the Frisian landscape and surrounded by ‘tree walls’, hiding it from the road.

Long lane through the private landscape

The house is designed within the landscape context. By placing the house across the full width of the lot, the lot is divided into a courtyard on the entrance side of the house and into an open landscape garden on the other side.

A long driveway leads the visitor through a small forest and the courtyard to the front door located at the entrance gate leading to the landscaped garden. The lane ends at the southern edge of the plot in the quiet of the countryside. At this point we suggested to make a folly where one can enjoy a cup of tea, while enjoying the silence of the landscape and the view of your home.

Inside and outside space gradually merge together

The architecture supports the spatial seclusion of the place. The location on the lot creates a north and a south facade with a public side and a private side, a sunny side and a shady side. The lot is enclosed by mature tree walls.

Where the tree rampart touches the house, a natural stone wall takes over the guidance of the landscape and at the same time serves as the termination on both short sides of the house. On the south side the stone wall retreats a little and provides a diagonal view of the landscaped garden. The ground floor floats just above the earth as if the house has not yet ‘landed’ and is a guest in the landscape.

Sustainable and energy efficient

The floors, walls and ceilings of the house are made of concrete, finished with natural white stone or stucco. High quality and durable materials that have been used include aluminum frames and high efficiency glass. The heat and cold storage in the ground ensures that no gas is needed. Together with a long narrow strip of solar collectors in the landscape garden, the house is very energy efficient.

Team: Eerde Schippers, Olof Schonewille, Fokke de Vries
Location: Bontebok, The Netherlands
Area: 470 sqm
Project Year: 2013

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behind a grove of trees appeared first on Dezeen.

The second in a series of modern fireplaces by Davide Tonizzo, Murazzi brings warmth and coziness to any modern living space. Named after a riverside area in the Italian city of Turin, the dynamic lines and inverted geometric arch pay homage to the city’s automotive heritage. With just the flip of a switch users can enjoy the comfort and glow of its virtual flame.

Designer: Davide Tonizzo

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(Virtual Fireplace was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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3. Virtual Architecture

These plates and dishes made of cellulose by Swedish design studio Tomorrow Machine have a special self-cleaning coating that means they never need washing up.

Tomorrow Machine and research company Innventia were asked by the Swedish Forest Industries Federation to envision uses for cellulose harvested from Swedish forests in the year 2035.

The prototype tableware was made to showcase the qualities of a new cellulose-based material developed by Innventia, which is light but strong and can be moulded into double-curved surfaces.

“The product not only saves resources during the manufacturing process, but also over its full life-cycle, not requiring water and chemicals to be kept clean,” claimed the designers.

The cellulose pulp is first made into a sheet, which is then heat pressed in a mould. “The material becomes as hard as a regular ceramic product, but with the advantages that it is lightweight and won’t crack or break in case it’s dropped,” Hanna Billqvist of Tomorrow Machine told Dezeen.

The coating is a new technology developed by KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, which mimics the surface of a lotus leaf to create a surface that’s resistant to dirt and water. “It is real but a very new technology that is still being developed, so it’s not ready for the industry yet,” explained Billqvist.

“KTH are using a process called Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions (RESS) to make the surface superhydrophobic,” she said. “A wax is dissolved in carbon dioxide at high pressure and temperature, and then sprayed onto the surface to be treated.”

The designers specified a marbling technique to decorate the cup, selecting a cobalt blue reminiscent of the glaze used on traditional porcelain and ceramic tableware.

Based out of Stockholm and Paris, Tomorrow Machine comprises Billqvist and Anna Glansén, and specialises in packaging, product and food concepts. “Our vision as designers is to build a better world through research, new technologies and intelligent material,” they said. “We believe in looking at science from a creative point of view to shape the innovations of tomorrow.”

Photographs are by David Axelsson.

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needs washing up appeared first on Dezeen.

P is for Peter Zumthor in today’s A-Zdvent calendar window. The Swiss architect designed a Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London in 2011, and was also responsible for the Brother Klaus Field Chapel in Germany (pictured) and a memorial to commemorate suspected witches in Norway.

See more architecture by Peter Zumthor »

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Peter Zumthor appeared first on Dezeen.