weird and wonderful news
Sandcrawler
AJ votes for its fave buildings in Star Wars. The Sand Crawler of Tatooine might not be quite a building, but it sure is good. Also pics of some more recent buildings bearing an uncanny resemblance. The Death Star wins of course.
16.06.09 in weird-wonderful
DCM pick up sticks
Some kiwis don’t appear to be that impressed with Denton Corker Marshall’s output, presented to them recently at the NZIA conference.
06.06.09 in weird-wonderful
Microsoft living
I think the Jetsons were trying to warn us about this sort of carry on.
03.06.09 in weird-wonderful video-clips
planning a shed
I was just sent the link to this hilarious but rather old article from last May – about an architect who seems to have snapped while writing a planning report for a farm shed somewhere in the UK.
22.02.09 in weird-wonderful planning
Comment [1]
Open Home
What’s to distinguish one bland apartment building from another? How to coax the punter into believing that yours is the one for them when they have become immune to the thrills of european kitchens and views of gold courses. In West Australia, Mirvac have inserted a little drama into their display apartments to give them some edge they don’t otherwise possess. Not only do buyers get to inspect the apartment, they can now watch a real life(?) drama unfold inside.
05.07.08 in weird-wonderful
Architect-designed
COMMENTS
by kdaveson @ 28.09.07 09:19 am
And that’s why he’s reviewing bars instead of architecture.
by anna @ 04.10.07 11:25 pm
she actually. she also works at RRR, hopefully The Architects can set her right.
07.09.07 in weird-wonderful
Shared nothing architecture
This caught my eye… “Shared Nothing Architecture”. I thought it was the name of a new and rather nasty architecture practice. Then I thought it was maybe the opposite of urban design. But no, it’s, “a distributed computing architecture where each node is independent and self-sufficient, and there is no single point of contention across the system.” Phew.
07.08.07 in weird-wonderful computing
Sick of us
COMMENTS
by yobitch @ 27.07.07 10:55 pm
Sad but true – but you do grow out of it don’t you ?
Or do people spend their adulthood smitten with ehro worshipping promoting “starchitects” that effectively oppress smaller but not lesser practitioners? Interested in comparing notes………
25.07.07 in architects weird-wonderful
Knife slice
Here’s one to churn your stomach… photographic evidence of the hazards of being an architecture student doing an all-nighter while making models with sharp knives.
23.07.07 in weird-wonderful
Brick veneration
COMMENTS
by anna @ 21.06.07 04:25 pm
hmm, have these people ever seen ANYTHING Howard Arkley did??
methinks not…
oh the beigeness
07.06.07 in weird-wonderful
Tall Order
What to do when you’re a billionaire… so much money so little time. A Mumbai billionaire has found an efficient way to offload money by building a 245m high storey house for his family, so he can get a good view of the Arabian Sea. It contains six floors of parking, and space for 600 household staff. Leighton Asia, an offshoot of the Australian company, is building it now. An indian blog describes it as, “a fortunate island in the midst of a flat-broke ocean of humanity.”
Local architect Hafeez Contractor reckons all is well though: “This is a right way to build a private house in a congested city. A man like him in any other city would have 10 to 15 acres of land to himself.”
BBC 01.06.07
FORBES 01.06.07
RENDERING
03.06.07 in weird-wonderful
Spinner
A skyscraper prefabrication factory is set to open in Dubai. Brainchild of an Italian architect, David Fisher, the first tower to be built off site will be a 68 storey rotating skyscraper in… Dubai. Each floor rotates independently, activated by voice. This allows the building to, “constantly change shape.” Very useful. Another handy feature, not particularly environmentally friendly either, is that residents can put their cars in the lift and take them up to their floor with them. Handy! Amazingly this structure is billed as a green building – gaps between the rotating floors will scoop up enough wind to power this and four other buildings. The architect bills his work as, “a total revolution in the 3,000 year history of man building homes.”
GULF NEWS 12.04.07
AME INFO 12.04.07
PHOTO GALLERY
07.04.07 in weird-wonderful
Small
Remember how houses used to be really small, before rumpus rooms and spa baths were invented. Now you can live like your great great grandparents, by your self a very 19th Century looking Lusby or Rockport, or if you’re after something a little more… Godsell, you could try the “z-glass”. 
Plans are all US$997 and covered in nostalgic imperial measurements.
They will build to your order, but there is a $4 per mile for delivery from California, which could make it a bit pricey.
TUMBLE WEED
07.04.07 in weird-wonderful
iPad
James Law Cybertecture of Hong Kong have designed a large docked ipod for the increasingly weird Dubai. It isn’t quite an ipod as you can’t play illegal downloads on it while you commute. But you can live in it, so they’ve called it an iPad. Which kind of sounds like Hype Ad.
SMH 28.12.06
JAMES LAW (HK)
28.12.06 in weird-wonderful
Really old weird news - a collection
05.07.03 Brad, is
that a wise career move? Brad
Pitt into architecture
22.03.03 in weird-wonderful