Geologic City: A Field Guide To The GeoArchitecture Of New York
Anyone could point out several factors that make up a city. In a quick glance, it’s easy to see the layers of pollution, vehicles rushing by, statues that hark to another era of local history, buildings being built up and other ones being torn down. But where did the city come from? All those buildings are made out of something. And what about time? How has the literal influence of time changed the landscape, health and aesthetic of the city? In Smudge Studio’s Geologic City: A Field Guide to the GeoArchitecture of New York, the guide visits twenty sites in New York City that identify geologic material and consider their relationship with the space they inhabit and once inhabited. The examples takes readers all over New York City and the world — sometimes even the galaxy — and the guide provides an interpretation the human connection to this geologic material or process. Smudge Studio follows the Dutch scientist Paul Crutzen’s idea that the modern human impact on the planet is so massive that is is “geologic in scale” and worth of its own era, the Anthropoecene.
DIY Tiny House
First spotted on designboom, this whimsically illustrated guide on tiny home living is an extreme DIY take on the tiny home trend. The author, Dan Price, built his own tiny house for less than $100! Almost all of the construction materials were salvaged for free and the site is leased at a minimal cost.
Reclaim The Street, Eat!
A street festival in Indonesia is reclaiming public space by encouraging people to eat their way through their city. Keuken is a food festival that aims to help locals in Bandung, a city outside of Jakarta, to use food as a way to inhabit and recreate the narrative of public spaces and improve urban living. As far as Keuken is concerned, eating is one way to strengthen the bonds of a local community and it uses the tagline “Those who eat together, stay together.”
The Mobile Dog Grooming Salon
The pop-up economy is flourishing. More and more services don't need a permanent and fixed location in the city, but prefer to offer their services in a flexible way. In our home town of Amsterdam we came across one of the most unexpected pop-up concepts we've ever seen — a mobile hair dresser for dogs. Moving from place to place in an old white and pink painted truck, the dog grooming salon offers several treatments for all kinds of dogs right in front of you own house or even on the campsite during holidays.
Designers Turn Abandoned Walmart Into America’s Largest Library
Walmarts, the granddaddy of big box stores, are ubiquitous in America. Their lumbering structures and parking lots cover vast areas - a single store is the size of 2.5 football fields. Often cited as a major reason for sprawl in North America, Walmarts have been further criticised for their habit of abandoning stores for various reasons from upgrading to poor business. These soulless shells often sit idle for long periods, taking up space and infrastructure, contributing to nothing but blight. When the city of McAllen, Texas inherited one such store, it decided to give it a better use. Designers Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle completely overhauled the interior to create a bright and playful space for books and people to intermingle. At 124,500 sqft, this McAllen Public Library is the largest single-floor public library in the US.
Hybrid Furniture Breathes New Life Into Office
Tree chair, house table, sky cave, mountain office? By placing books in the tiers of a coliseum-like setting, American architect Edward Ogosta creates a book-arena, a de facto reading area that also doubles as a space for office-wide meetings. Ogosta uses a quirky mix of indoor and outdoor elements in his furniture pieces.
Pop-Up City Presents…. Blogging The City!
We have something great to announce. On 4 October, Amsterdam's creative hub Pakhuis de Zwijger will be setting the stage for Blogging the City, a conference for leading European bloggers of architecture, design and urbanism to meet, discuss, and plan for the 21st city and beyond. It will examine developments and trends of the urban landscape and discuss the role of the Internet in a global and digital world.
Second-Hand Materials Get New Life As Café In Amsterdam
Noorderpark in Amsterdam needed a new community structure, but funds were limited as the project was crowd-funded. Designers Bureau SLA and Overtreders W decided to save expenses by using 100% second-hand materials. Even the van used to collect the materials from all over Holland was purchased second-hand.
Little Bird Spreads Secret Messages In Public Space
How to leave secret messages in a place where everyone can see or hear them? Art science student Matthijs Munnik has developed a digital bird that's able to chirp secret messages right there where everybody hears them. Using special software, the bird's messages are encrypted into an undefined series of beeps. No-one will be able to hear what the actual message is, but if you use a special app on a smartphone you can translate the sounds to text. This way a secret layer is added to the city's public space. Great for senseless nerd talk, funny gossip and more...
Restaurant Sprouts From Giant Tree
Putting a building in a tree seems to be an almost surefire way of producing that elusive cool factor. We've seen trees support actual houses, an entire resort, and even a concept for future city living. Yet, none of these compare to the shocking appearance of the Naha Harbor Diner in Okinawa, Japan. The restaurant is nestled atop a 20-ft concrete replica of a gajumaru tree, also known as a banyan. The replica is actually life-size as gajumarus really grow to mammoth proportions.
Restaurant Day In Amsterdam — A Report
Around the globe one week ago, strangers broke bread and clinked glasses to celebrate Restaurant Day, a new Finnish tradition that has taken the casual dining world by storm and surprise. From Helsinki to Tokyo, people set up pop-up restaurants and dining tables and everyone celebrated the spirit of creativity and just having a nice time. It’s a seasonally-occurring dining event that encourages everyone to relax and enjoy themselves, and it just might be coming to a park, boat peer, or street corner near you. In Amsterdam, six restaurants set up shop for the day, each one providing a different taste of hospitality. In Vondelpark a pop-up picnic offered granola and cakes starting at 11 AM, a nice pick-me-up to start a sunny Sunday morning.
Swedish Architects Propose A City On Wheels
Often, the obstacle to adapting spaces for new and different uses is the permanence and rigidity of the physical environment. Cities are planned for fixed uses and that is how they are accordingly built. The architects at Swedish firm Jägnefält Milton challenge this traditional urbanism in their redesign concept of Åndalsnes, a small Norwegian town.
Theater Group Launches Pop-Up Crosswalk To The Arc De Triomphe
La Place de L'Etoile (also known as Place Charles de Gaulle) is the most dangerous roundabout in Paris. Everyone who has ever visited the Arc de Triomphe knows what I'm talking about — the authorities kindly advise visitors to take the tunnel to the monument instead of crossing the road. Theater group X/TNT came up with a great idea to raise awareness for the issue and to provide a (temporary) solution.
Recycled Shadows In Madrid
It is estimated that about 938,000 copies of free newspapers are distributed daily in Madrid, out of which a large ends up in the trash. Under the name 'Recycled Shadow', the Spanish architecture collective Meva transforms wasted newspapers into precious shades for the madrileños.
World’s First Pop-Down Restaurant Pops Down In Finland
We've seen loads of pop-up restaurants, but what about pop-down restaurants? In September, the world's first pop-down restaurant will open its doors in a unique mining environment in Tytyri, Lohja, Finland. This obviously makes clear what a pop-down restaurant is in this case — a pop-up restaurant under deep underground. Called 'Muru Pops Down in Tytyri’, the pop-down restaurant is located 80 meters below the surface. During dinner evenings visitors can even go as deep as 350 meters underground, according to the website of World Design Capital Helsinki.
