-
Tech NewsDesign
12 Buildings Nominated For the Year’s Best Design
A cemetery in Sweden. A floating school in Nigeria. A cast-iron facade in the UK. The wildly divergent list of nominees for the Design Museum’s annual awards make you wonder: How the hell do you pick a single building to represent such a broad profession? A little background: Every year, the Design Museum picks a … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
Tomorrow’s Spacecraft Could Be Made of the Same Bone You Are
Human bones are amazing—seriously, they’re incredibly cool—but up until recently, it’s been hard to engineer a synthetic material that replicates the super-strong structure of the real thing. Now, scientists in Germany are using a 3D printer to do just that—and it could mean a breakthrough for how we build everything from architecture to spacecraft. A … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
The New High Line for Queens Could Include This Human Roller Coaster
If you could build your own High Line, what would it look like? That’s the question the QueensWay Project, an effort to turn an abandoned stretch of railway in Queens into an elevated pedestrian and bike path, recently asked designers to answer. Some of the winners announced today are truly wild. QueensWay has been compared … Continued
-
io9
What would Google, Apple, and Facebook look like if they built cities?
Large technology corporations like Google, Facebook and Apple already have employee populations that rival those of some small towns. So what would it look if they actually did become their own towns? Alfred Twu of First Cultural Industries created these imagined cityscapes to show what it would like if tech companies were to build up … Continued
By Ria Misra -
Tech News
Watch Two Crazy People Climb the World’s Second Tallest Building
At this point, we’ve all seen the insane Russian dudes who dangle off of tall things. But that looks like child’s play when you see these Ukrainian guys scale the second tallest building in the world. Like, they literally go to the very top. The building in question is the spirally Shanghai Tower, and it … Continued
-
io9
A proposal to wrap the world’s tallest building in a reflective fabric
As if the Burj Khalifa wasn’t spectacular enough, a Dubai-based think tank has proposed a radical installation that would encase the entire building in a super-lightweight, reflective and semi-transparent material suspended off its central spire. Called EXO-BURJ, the project was proposed by Dubai-based interdisciplinary practice and think tank OP-EN. The casing would reflect the superstructure … Continued
-
Tech News
Get A Load Of This Waterfall That Was Almost Built In San Francisco
San Francisco’s skyline has a handful of famous landmarks dotted around the city—the Transamerica Tower, the Painted Ladies, the Golden Gate Bridge—but the most visible might be Sutro Tower, standing 977-feet-tall on Twin Peaks since 1973. As icons go, it’s definitely got the minimal, industrial-chic vibe going on—essentially the complete opposite of this ambitious 1933 … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
This Shipping Container City Above an Old Grain Silo Is Actually a Dorm
In Johannesburg, where student housing is sparse, one developer is taking extreme measures—by creating a 370-bed dormitory out of shipping containers perched atop a set of abandoned concrete grain silos. Mill Junction will open its doors to students tomorrow, offering amenities like roof decks and free Wi-Fi. It’ll also offer the chance to live inside … Continued
-
Tech NewsGoogle
Google’s Got a NASA Blimp Hangar To Go With Its Barge
Google just snatched up a piece of American history in Silicon Valley. NASA announced on Monday that Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures LLC would take over the Moffett Federal Airfield including the iconic and hulking Hangar One, former home of America’s biggest blimps. Well, that sounds pretty weird. What on Earth does Google want with a … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
A Ghostly Memorial to Lost Architecture Recreates It In Scaffolding
Some of the most important buildings of our time exist only on paper—and we’re left to reconstruct them, over and over, in our imaginations. But that doesn’t mean we can’t experience these lost structures through other means. To honor El Lissitzky—the famously unbuilt German architect who inspired a generation of avant-garde designers in the 1920s—an … Continued
-
io9
Floating hotel could house Qatar’s World Cup guests—or Bond villains
Where will Qatar put tens of thousands of football fans who will descend upon the nation for the 2022 World Cup? One proposal is to create an off-the-grid floating hotel island that could be towed to a new location once the tournament is over. Image from Sigge Architects. Sigge Architects and ADMARES/ALMACO have been developing … Continued
By Lauren Davis -
Tech News
Moby wants you to join his perpetual pool party in Los Angeles, and a group of scientists wants China to use “spatial economics” to design more walkable cities. Plus: informal transit in Nairobi, a failed utopia in California, radical ideas for the Vegas of 2034, and a significant prehistoric site that’s currently being uncovered in … Continued
-
Tech News
This Abandoned Nazi Bunker Just Reopened As a Clean Energy Plant
The last time Hamburg’s hulking air raid bunker saw use, it was 1945—and locals were taking cover from Allied bombs inside its six-foot-thick concrete walls. That was almost 70 years ago. This year, the bunker is serving a new purpose: Supplying the city with renewable energy. After the war—only two years after the bunker was … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
Most Beautiful Items: January 31 – Feb 7, 2014
Starting about two days ago and lasting until about two weeks from now, it’s all Olympics all the time. That’s all fine and well, but if you’re looking for a reprieve, you’ve come to the right place. From fungus towers to slinky-like sculptures, here are the most beautiful things we showed you this week. Human … Continued
By Leslie Horn -
Tech News
These Heavenly Photos Reveal Cities Hidden In the Sky Above NYC
So, you think you know Manhattan and New York City, do you? Well, multimedia artist Peter Wegner is about to show you a completely unexpected side of your city. His series, Buildings Made Of Sky, turns you upside down to show you the hidden “skyscrapers” all around you. Wegner, who was born in South Dakota … Continued
By Attila Nagy -
Tech News
Intricate Architectural Office Supplies Put a Skyline On Your Desk
The only thing worse than being stuck at a desk all day is being stuck at a desk in an office without a view. So if you’re not high enough on the corporate ladder to warrant a window yet, these lovely Archi-desk accessories can put a New York-style skyline on your desk, no matter where … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
A Tower Grown From Fungus Is Coming to NYC This Summer
Buildings “grown” from fungus and other organic materials may seem like a far-off concept to some. But this summer, a group of young Brooklyn architects are planning to demonstrate just how real the technology is—by building a tower out of bricks “grown” from mycelium in the courtyard of MoMA P.S.1. The curators at MoMA P.S.1 … Continued
-
Tech News
Don’t Throw Stones in This House with Glass Ceilings and Floors
Privacy is a big deal in the home. That’s why we have walls and curtains and doors and things. Because after all, you don’t want even your closest friends and relatives to see what you’re up to all the time. Unless you live in Shanghai’s Vertical Glass House. With glass ceilings and floors, privacy is … Continued
-
Tech News
These Origami-Inspired Kiosks Fold Open and Closed Like Paper Fans
We’ve all had that thought while playing with origami: “If this paper swan were bigger, I would live in it.” Okay, so maybe not all of us have had that thought, but it certainly crossed the minds of the architects at Make,in London, who recently designed these crazy folding kiosks. Each kiosk is essentially a … Continued
-
Tech NewsDesign
Let an Awesome Structural Engineer Show You Around NYC’s New Supertall
The closest most of us will get to 432 Park Avenue—the 1,400-foot skyscraper rising in midtown Manhattan—is ogling it from the deli across the street. But in this adorable little video, the structural engineer behind the building leads us through its upper floors. Silvian Marcus, the CEO of the global structural engineering firm WSP, recently … Continued