In Situ Studio clad this rural cabin in darkened wood and set it far back from the road to protect it from view.
The dwelling is situated at the crest of a gentle hill, resting on a concrete base and oriented to maximise views and natural daylight, while also providing a sense of seclusion.
This lakeside house stretched across a woodland site features expansive window walls, and ample use of wood and pre-rusted steel.
The holiday home was designed to address “the clients’ desire to be deeply connected to the land in a clean, modern and simple work of architecture”, said Carlton Architecture.
In Situ Studio overhauled a mid-century modern dwelling in Raleigh that had been “haphazardly chopped up” over the years.
The architects set out to remove the modifications and uncover the home’s original character, restructuring interior spaces and adding new finishes inside and out.
Comprising a stack of cypress-clad volumes, this large house reaches away from its hillside perch to frame vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Retro+Fit Design wanted the building to make the most of the valley-scape, as well as to address developer Ciel’s request for a “modern, marketable, and exceptional” residence.
This L-shaped home was designed for couple and their in-laws on a farm, using the area’s rural vernacular architecture to inform the aesthetic.
Located in the rural town of Columbus, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, Hammock House is surrounded by dense woods and is built around an ancient oak tree.
The tragic hurricane and flooding in Texas filled the news in the U.S. this week. And because so many of us want to help however we can, it’s a good time to remember that generally the best thing you can give is money, in whatever amount works for you.
Yes, sometimes relief organization will ask for specific donations, and if you’re in the area that might indeed help, if done well. As Kelly Phillips Erb noted in an article for Forbes:
Check with the organization first. While most organizations prefer cash, there are some soliciting in-kind donations. … Those wish lists may change as needs are assessed and storage for items may be limited. Check with the organization before you send or drop off anything.
I’ve gathered some examples of the wish lists I’ve seen lately regarding efforts to provide relief from the storms in Texas.
Nirenberg said that the city council offices will be used as additional drop off locations for donations. They will be collecting any food, new clothes, diapers, pet food and other supplies. The mayor wanted to emphasize that no used clothing will be accepted.
Trusted World is looking for the following supplies: New underwear and socks (all sizes), non-perishable food, toiletries, feminine hygiene products, baby diapers, wipes and formula.
SPCA of Texas is looking for the following supplies: cat litter, litter boxes, towels, blankets, large wire crates, toys, treats, pet beds, newspaper and gas gift cards.
You’ll notice that most of the requested things are new items — not (in general) the kind of things you would bundle up from cleaning out your closets. Of course, there are a few exceptions. For example, if you live locally and you can safely get to a shelter that wants toiletries — and you accumulate all those little hotel bottles — this might be a great time to unclutter.
It’s called “the second disaster” in emergency management circles — when kind-hearted outsiders send so much “help” to a disaster zone that it gets in the way.
Unwanted donations of physical goods can divert important resources as people on the ground must deal with them — sort and store, for example.
If you live outside the disaster area and you really want to donate something specific, not just send money, you can look for organizations that have Amazon wish lists (or other such lists) and then purchase exactly what’s needed, knowing it will be shipped to the right people to handle your donation.
But otherwise, you might want to heed this thought from Alexandra Erin: “Relief donation tip: money does not have to be cleaned, sorted, stored, or inspected and can be turned into whatever resource is needed.” If you decide to go this route, there are many lists of organizations that would appreciate your support, including one from Texas Monthly.
This remarkable scene was captured by 72-year-old retiree Mervyn Van Wyk and his wife Tokkie while visiting Kruger National Park, one of Africaâs largest game reserves.”We happened to notice that one unlucky wildebeest was grabbed by a crocodile on his right rear hoof. This began a game of tug of war that lasted for around 8 minutes. The wildebeest would try dragging itself out of the water whilst the croc would pull it back in. You could see the exhaustion that the poor wildebeest was experiencing. Tokkie kept the cam rolling while I observed the area in the close vicinity. I then noted what I thought were more crocodiles approaching but then saw it was actually 2 hippos.”..(Read…)
This is a series of teensy tiny Game Of Thrones sculptures meticulously carved from the tips of pencil leads by artist Salavat Fidai using “an ordinary craft knife, a magnifying glass, and a microscope to add tiny details.” Impressive!”I present the characters and signs Game of Thrones created by me on the tips of a pencil, especially for all the fans of this famous series of TV network HBO.Signs of the houses of Westeros, the white walker, the king of the night, the dragons and the iron throne, of course.To create such unique miniature sculptures, I use an ordinary craft knife, a magnifying glass, and a microscope to add tiny details.”..(Read…)
Goodbye fidget spinner, hello infinity cube! This machined aluminum cube toy results in hours of fun while it keeps your fingers fidgeting and your mind racing. Comprising 8 interlinked mini-cubes that allow the toy to open up and close back in different orientations, the Infinity Cube keeps your fingers occupied and therefore helps deal with stress and anxiety, while also pushing your brain to solve problems faster.
The cube sits majestically on any desk, coming in two variants… anodized silver, and matte black. When in the cube formation, the smaller aluminum cubes sit in a 2x2x2 orientation, but when opened out, arrange themselves into a 2x4x1 layout that helps the Infinity Cube slide easily into your pocket, allowing you to carry your stress-buster wherever you go… because once you get your hands on this, you won’t be able to stop!
Le travail de la photographe Jeanette Hägglund est centré sur l’architecture comme en attestent ses précédentes séries. Ainsi, lorsque l’artiste fuyant un été suédois trop gris et trop pluvieux se retrouve dans une station balnéaire marquée par l’explosion du tourisme de masse dans les années 70, elle transforme sa déception en un magnifique projet photographique. Cette série intitulée « Beyond the Beach » s’intéresse à l’architecture brutaliste de la période. Grâce à son appareil, la photographe suédoise sublime les bâtiments qui se détachent sur un ciel azur sans aucun nuage.
Des corps sublimes évoluant dans un scénario irréel, mettant en scène un urbanisme grisâtre et mélancolique. Un minimalisme formel, froid mais magnétique qui empêche de détourner le regard de cette danse à l’élégance surnaturelle. Tel est le projet de Kurtis Lloyd, photographe et ancien danseur britannique, parti photographier les danseurs du fameux théâtre Bolchoï de Moscou. Le temple de la danse internationale dévoile ses interprètes à la beauté sculptée, le regard déterminé et empli d’ambition et de discipline. Une série qui laisse planer l’imagination sur ce monde suspendu, doté d’une grâce infinie.
Enlisted Design is seeking a new addition our group of creative visual and product designers. We are a passionate team and thrive on a highly collaborative relationship with our client partners to create and launch new brands and products. If you are a mid-to-senior level visual designer who loves packaging and pets, we want to meet you!
While the first Blade Runner was set in 2019, the sequel is titled Blade Runner 2049. What happened in that world during the 30-year gap? To fill us in, the producers are releasing three short films to provide some crucial details.
The first, just released yesterday, is below. Before you watch it, here’s some context to set up the short:
– Following the events depicted in the original Blade Runner, replicants were outlawed in 2023. This is referred to as “Prohibition”
– In 2025, the Wallace Corporation used an unspecified technology to solve a global food crisis
– In 2030, the Wallace Corporation began lobbying for a repeal of replicant Prohibition
– This short takes place in 2036, where Wallace Corporation CEO Niander Wallace is called before a panel of lawmakers
The cancellation of the Garden Bridge is one of those rare and precious moments where concerted campaigning, from a variety of groups, over several years, has managed to have a decisive effect. In the built environment, this doesn’t happen often, thanks to a planning system that is fundamentally biased towards the interests of developers, and with local democracy and public participation that is residual at best.
The Garden Bridge managed to be offensive on so many levels – stylistic, political, financial, environmental – that it antagonised a large enough group of people to manage to stop it, something that was not the case for its precursors in vacuous tourist urbanism, such as the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the Emirates Air Line and the “Boris Bus“.
The Garden Bridge managed to be offensive on so many levels
Unlike many of the more egregious things planned in the British capital, it was to be right in the centre of London, barging its way across two of the city’s most pleasant public spaces. What a mortifying thought, this galumphing, grinning structure, with its high-security gates and ground-floor retail concessions, its fluted golden mushroom columns and bushy oaks, interloping itself between the National Theatre and Somerset House, right into one of the finest and most admired views in London. That may have been what eventually did it for the project. That, and its labyrinthine financial opacity.
But the demise of the Garden Bridge leaves open another question. As Douglas Murphy demonstrates in his superb Nincompoopolis – The Follies of Boris Johnson, all the public projects that were embarked upon in London between 2008 and 2016, initiated by the former mayor, were attempts to increase what is usually called, with considerable grammatical ugliness, the capital’s “offer”.
Murphy puts this down to a certain unease about the relative merits of London as compared with New York, or Paris. We all know that London doesn’t really do spectacular vistas, great axes or grandiose civic buildings. Its royal palace is a joke, its baroque cathedral is surrounded by bombed-out precincts, and its vernacular architecture is generally municipal and brusque. Each one of those silly, badly conceived, “wow!” projects was a way of keeping tourists coming, and making the city constantly desirable to a trans-national capitalist class whose members might otherwise think, when going back to a tiny flat in Hackney, about the fact that they could live in Manhattan – Manhattan! – for the same amount of money.
On that level, when taken out of the specific eccentricities that went with the Garden Bridge – the famous friends, the fraudulent competitions, the unspecified financing, the moronic, relentlessly privatising approach to urban design – the ideas behind the bridge could easily outlive the unlamented administration of Boris Johnson.
Londoners’ interests are not being served by treating the capital as a bloated and bumptious real-estate fun park
A certain idea about London is dominant among a generation of politicians that came of age in the 1980s, when the city was – outside of the always wealthy Mayfair-Belgravia-South Kensington belt – a deindustrialised, depopulating city in serious trouble, with very similar problems to the post-industrial cities of the north of England. Even left-wing politicians like Ken Livingstone came to argue that what London needed at all costs was private investment, more people moving to and working in the capital, and a build up of employment opportunities in the city.
It is fair to say that in this, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. One unexpected upshot of this is that rather than being comparable to Newcastle or Liverpool in its trajectory of grandeur and decline, London is the immensely rich and influential capital of an increasingly poor and internationally ridiculous country. In brute economic terms, it is a city at the very top of the First World, in a country whose cities are otherwise on the level of the former Second World, with Swansea or Glasgow having more in common with Riga or Bucharest than they do with London.
All London politicians appear to agree that this is a good thing. London’s population must go up! Crossrail 2 must occur! The Bakerloo Line must go to Camberwell! At the same time, London is the only city in the country with an integrated transit system, while the government refuses to even electrify local rail lines elsewhere. This is the mentality that led to people thinking the Garden Bridge was a good idea in the first place. It is desperate, foolish, and it needs to stop, not only because it is awful for people in the North or in Wales, but because it is awful for Londoners, who have to cope with an increasingly overwhelming pressure of overcrowding, an overheating economy, outrageous rents and house prices, and a sense that every single inch of space is for sale.
What would be welcome, from London’s politicians, and its mayor, is a total break with this mentality. Yes, a mayor’s role is to defend a city’s interests. But Londoners’ interests are simply not being served by treating the capital as a bloated and bumptious real-estate fun park. They would be better served, firstly, by co-operating with Manchester, Liverpool, devolved Scotland and Wales, to build up rival centres that can take some of the pressure off the capital. They would also be far better served by shifting the emphasis from growth at all costs to building a fairer, decent city for the people who live in London, who badly need better air quality, the mass building of council housing, legally binding rent control, and to feel that they actually matter in the planning process.
The Garden Bridge was a horrible image of the kind of city London could become, but that city might not happen
So far, new mayor Sadiq Khan is avoiding the grossest excesses of Boris Johnson with impressive restraint, cancelling the baubles, making transport cheaper and easier rather than more expensive and more difficult, and promising strict regulation to enforce more “affordable” (a weasel word, to be sure) housing. But then, we find him cheerleading schemes such as a noxious North Greenwich project by a multinational consortium, designed by Santiago Calatrava – an architect whose flagrancy with budgets and structural integrity makes him Heatherwick’s only real rival. It’s not good enough.
The Garden Bridge was a horrible image of the kind of city London could become, but that city might not happen and not look as nails-down-a-blackboard hideous as that design. It’s the ideas behind that justly vanquished scheme that were the problem, every bit as much as Heatherwick’s excrescences. Its cancellation provides an opportunity to rethink, and it mustn’t be wasted.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
