Hasta La Ideas

His “crazy bike” was scaring off pedestrians in Yekaterinburg this summer. Coming together with his fantasy helmet and a loud exhaust sound from V8 Lexus engine. This guy decided to built his custom V8 bike after seeing one from USA. He liked the idea but didn’t like the bike so he decided to build one. He found a Lexus V8 engine and Lexus Automatic transmission. “It’s a 300 hp engine.” says the guy, “we wanted our bike to be really nice, but we also had to put it in in a way that doesn’t make the bike longer than 3 meters to stay road legal” The rear wheel is huge – over 360mm (1’3″) wide, has two chains coming from the engine, one on each side of the wheel. They use two chains because if it was only one chain the powerful torque would twist the wheel. The weight of the bike is 800kg (1763.7 pounds). ..(Read…)

7 Essential Knots You Need To Know..(Read…)

This housing block in Mexico City, designed by locally based HGR Arquitectos, is arranged around a large circular courtyard where a Japanese guava tree grows.

The MX581 residential building is located in the city’s southern San Jeronimo Aculco district, near to the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Completed earlier this month, the housing block encompasses 12 units across four levels, with parking on the ground floor.

HGR Arquitectos gave the project a rectangular footprint to leave room on the L-shaped site for a garden, which serves as the access point and leads into the circular courtyard in the middle.

The yard is landscaped in a Japanese style, including benches for residents, grassy patches, a pool filled with gravel, and a large planter from where the feature tree grows.

“At the centre of the circle a nine-metre-high Japanese guava tree was placed, allowing the view of all common areas of the [apartments] to be of this tree,” said HGR Arquitectos in a project description.

Curved black balconies wrap around the outdoor space, with the residences set into the rectangular block behind – creating a porch-like space in front of every unit.

“The design of the circle creates four triangular shaped terraces, which are part of each of the individual apartments,” added HGR Arquitectos, which previously completed a brick housing complex organised around a line of patios.

The typical apartment layout on the ground, first and second floors is a three-bedroom unit, with as many bathrooms.

HGR Arquitectos placed the communal spaces next to the courtyard, allowing residents to open their kitchen, living and dining areas onto the semi-private patio.

Bedrooms are placed farthest away from the courtyard, on the building’s east and western facades. From the exterior, these are articulated as a gridded concrete frame, which is 12 bays wide and planted with lush greenery.

“Vegetation was strategically placed in all the bedrooms, which generates green views and helps as a sound barrier to the noise generated in the streets,” said the firm.

Each bedroom enjoys two windows, one of which is full-height and opens onto a small balcony set in the deep facade.

Penthouse units are double-height, with access to a rooftop terrace. They also encompass three bedrooms, but have an additional lounge area overlooking the living room.

The interiors of MX581 match the stark concrete exterior, including pale white finishes that are offset by rich wooden floors.

This reflects the treatment of the courtyard, where wooden decking and doors bring colour to the otherwise concrete exterior finishes.

More apartment complexes in Mexico City include a caramel-coloured concrete building by Taller Hector Barroso, and a block comprising staggered glass-fronted volumes by Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos.

Photography is by Diana Arnau.

Project credits:

Architect: Marcos Hagerman / Hgr Arquitectos.
Development: Ciudad Vertical
Landscape design: Ambiente Arquitectos
Construction drawings: Rodrigo Durán
Graphic design: Leolab
Structural design: Grupo Sai
Installation: Zmp Instalaciones

The post Mexico City housing by HGR Arquitectos surrounds circular Japanese-style garden appeared first on Dezeen.

Designer Marta Nowicka has built a three-storey house on the site of a former garage in London’s Dalston, featuring walls clad in cedar shingles.

The Gouse – a combination of the words house and garage – stands on a site that Nowicka bought online “without even seeing it”.

The plot measured just 45 square metres, surrounded by the back gardens of Victorian terraced buildings and facing onto a road.

The designer managed to squeeze a three-bedroom house into this small space, containing 126 square metres of floor space across three storeys. These include a basement cut through by light wells, glass floor sections and a “living wall” on the first floor that allows the creation of an indoor-outdoor living space.

The focus of Nowicka’s design was to retain the “end of garden character” of the garage, but improve the way in which the building met the street.

As well as addressing this balance, as Nowicka termed it, there was also a sense of introducing the materiality and “random contents” of a shed back into the new building.

Previously a set of wooden garage doors created a break in a yellow stock brick wall.

The new street elevation reinstates and continues the brick wall, forming the house’s ground floor with a “secret yellow brick door” and a slim window.

Inside, carefully framed views make the most of the house’s neighbouring gardens.

From the entrance, a corridor leads past a bedroom to a glazed wall facing out onto a small exterior space enclosed by a perforated brick wall.

The master bedroom sits on the first floor, which is clad in cedar shingles and appears to sit atop the brick wall, in a nod to the old shed. Illuminated by skylights, a thin picture window provides views of an adjacent ash tree.

In the basement, the dining area and kitchen opens onto a terrace, clad in cedar shingles that bring what Nowicka describes as “the gentle scent of musky woodland”.

The interior materiality is again inspired by the old shed.

“Inside a shed you’d expect to find wood off-cuts, logs, rush metal parts, copper pipe and plant pots…these elements influenced the interior palette”, said Nowicka.

Herringbone oak floor and timber stairs referencing a ladder bring a functional, slightly industrial feel.

Meanwhile a wood burner in the basement creates, as Nowicka described, “nostalgia, warmth and a smokey scent akin to the burning of autumnal leaves”.

Nowicka completed the project for DOM Stay & Live, a property rental company she runs, which offers stays in architect-designed properties.

Other residential projects that Nowicka has designed for DOM Stay & Live include the conversion of a former St John’s Ambulance Station in Rye, East Sussex.

The post Marta Nowicka swaps a garage for a three-bedroom house in east London appeared first on Dezeen.

Jonathan Ball est un artiste Anglais qui a lancé sa propre agence de création à Cardiff. Axé sur l’illustration, le design commercial et les animations, ce passionné est réputé pour son « design de personnages farfelus et non conformistes, ses univers complexes et son graphisme vidéo ». Majoritairement inspiré par ses souvenirs d’enfance, Jonathan réalise cette série intitulée « characters v’s sci-fi », qui regroupe une partie de ses travaux personnels et quelques travaux commerciaux. « En ayant grandi dans le centre ville du Royaume-Uni, j’ai croisé énormément d’étrangers qui vivent souvent dans de vieilles rues victoriennes en terrasses. Je me souviens de mes ballades dans les rues de la ville lorsque j’observais les personnes assises à l’entrée de leurs maisons. Ce sont des moments uniques », lance-t-il.

« Les monstres et les créatures que je dessine représentent des personnes de toutes sortes. Quand j’étais plus jeune, il y avait énormément de personnes ayant des troubles mentaux qui erraient dans les rues. À l’époque je n’avais aucune idée que quelque chose n’allait pas chez eux, je me disais juste qu’ils étaient étranges. Je pense que ces personnes m’ont inspirées pour certains travaux ». Des fêtes foraines effrayantes aux monstres divers et variés, plongez dans l’univers de science-fiction de Jonathan Ball.

Retrouvez les œuvres de l’artiste sur sa page Instagram : @pokedstudio.