Snowmen are great. Everyone loves a good snowman! But if you’re expecting piles and piles of the white stuff this year, have a ton of free time on your hands, and want to make something truly cool, why not go all-out and construct an urban igloo?
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How good are you at solving Rubik’s cubes? I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m particularly bad at it. In fact, I have yet to successfully solve a 3×3 cube and I’ve been trying for five years and counting already.
If the usual handheld cubes are starting to bore you and you happen to be in Austria, then you might want to drop by the Ars Electronica center in Linz. The building’s facade is actually covered in 1,085 glass panes that are illuminated by 95,000 color-changing LED lights. It has been used by a number of artists as a medium for their work.
The latest is Javier Lloret, who turned the building into a game. Specifically, he turned it into a giant Rubik’s cube, and he’s calling it the Puzzle Facade.
The interface-cube holds electronic components to keep track of rotation and orientation. This data is sent via Bluetooth to a computer that runs the Puzzle Facade designed software. This software changes the lights and color of the large-scale Ars Electronica’s media facade in correlation to the handheld interface-cube.
Puzzle Facade is made more challenging since the player can only see two sides at a time. However, it’s not really a huge factor since the player can flip and rotate and interface cube.
The Puzzle Facade is part of Lloret’s thesis for the Interface Culture master program at the University of Arts and Industrial Design Linz.
[via C|NET]
Beer and brick have both been essential to humanity for thousands of years, dual pillars that helped us build the societies we know today. Now, scientists have combined them, fortifying bricks with grains left over from breweries to create bricks that keep a building better insulated. Turns out beer really can keep you warm on a cold day.
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You’re looking at the Soto dolmen in Trigueros, Spain—and you’re right to be amazed. This prehistoric tomb has been home to rituals of life and death since 4200 BC, and now after nine years it’s been restored to its prehistoric glory.
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Between 1923 and 1951, a diminutive Floridian single-handedly and without heavy machinery moved 1,000 tons of limestone, creating out of it a castle. This is his story.
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Inflatable buildings are definitely an interesting way of creating temporary structures, like for concerts, weddings, etc. This particular blow-up building concept has been in the works for at least a year and it looks pretty impressive.
Arata Isozaki and Anish Kapoor collaborated to make this concert hall dubbed Ark Nova. The concert hall will tour the areas of Tohoku, Japan that have been ravaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
It takes about two hours to inflate the building, and it can hold about 500 people. It’s filled with wooden benches made from tsunami-damaged cedar trees.
Ark Nova makes its debut in Japan today. It will be interesting to see if other mobile venues like this start popping up.
[via Telegraph via Spoon & Tamago]
Kindergarten is all about having fun while learning things like your ABCs and numbers. And what could be more fun than going to school inside of a giant cat?
Die Katze in Wolfartsweier near Karlsruhe, Germany is just such a children’s school. The building is designed to look like a giant, white cat. It was designed by artist Tomi Ungerer and architect Ayla-Suzan Yöndel. The building looks like it is ready to pounce at any moment.
The circular windows at the front are the eyes and the tail in the back is actually a slide, for recess time. What kid wouldn’t love to go to school here? Inside this school has all of the usual amenities like classrooms, coatrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and a main hall.
This is definitely one way to make kids want to go to school.
[via Like Cool]
There’s a lot to know
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Imagine if we had robots that could not only tear a building down, but also recycle it. Large building projects would go much faster and they would likely be cheaper and safer too. This new concept in robotics may just improve the efficiency of building demolition and recycling. It comes from Swedish student designer Omer Haciomeroglu who says that ERO is a smart recycling robot like Wall-E.
He states that ERO would “efficiently disassemble concrete structures without any waste, dust or separation and enable reclaimed building materials to be reused for new prefabricated concrete buildings.” In other words it could be a dream come true for the construction sector.
It uses high-powered water jets to crack the concrete. The cement and water is then sucked up and separated. The water is recycled back into the system, while clean aggregate is packed and sent to concrete precast stations for reuse. The rebar can then be cleaned and cut on the spot for reuse as well.
A fleet of ERO robots working together would be able to scan the area and plan their demolition/recycling. The robots could “literally erase a building”. It is a great idea, and I hope it sees action one day.
Marcus Daly is a Washington-based carpenter on a mission: to produce the most environmentally friendly handcrafted wooden caskets he can. This short film, by Dan McComb, reveals the beauty of his work.
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