Drain Pipe Hotel
While I might be slightly squeamish about staying in Austrian Andreas Strauss’s open-to-the-public, semi-outdoor, pay-what-you-want dasparkhotel, I love the idea of using drain pipe sections as small outdoor structures.
building
How-To: Road Sign Fence
Instructables member wholman designed this fence, and as construction manager for the Greensboro, AL chapter of YouthBuild, he made it a community project as well: “The local county and state highway engineering offices donated old road signs, which we then cut, sanded, filed, and drilled to create pickets. Using jigs and a self-organized assembly line, […]
Gallery of buildings and architectural elements
This astounding architectural resource is a treasure to anyone working with building design, construction, or for those of us just fascinated by architecture from our armchairs. Run by ArchitectureWeek, the site seems an inexhaustible database of photos, building plans, building and architectural element information and history, and other technical and cultural-historical aspects of architecture. You […]
Trippy Treehotel
The Treehotel opened recently in Harads, Sweden. It currently consists of four structures: the Cabin, the Blue Cone, the Nest, and the Mirrorcube (see here). Two additional structures are scheduled to open in October: the UFO and A Room with a View. Treehotel
CNC-based “global building system”
MAKE subscriber Pierre Grand (France) has developed a CNC-based building system, sort of a Lego set for real-world applications (desks, chairs, tables, loungers, room dividers, etc.). He’s been working with 100kgarages.com and will be showing off some of his Ekkoflex concept models at both Detroit and NY Maker Faires (at the Shopbot booth). Ekkoflex
Another Tiny Yellow House
Derek “Deek” Diedricksen (Stoughton, MA) is back, with another episode of his Tiny Yellow House. This guy is such a natural, “endlessly entertaining,” as Letterman likes to say. In this episode, Deek gives us a tour of his mini-cabin/house built out of recycled junk (from dumpster diving/repurposing), and curbside materials. With a guitar tease/ guest […]
Materials library lets you play with exotic samples
If you’re interested in materials science, design, architecture, and/or chemistry, and you live in Austin or the central Texas area, you should not miss the UT Austin School of Architecture Materials Lab, located in room 3.102 of the West Mall Office Building on The University of Texas Campus. They’re closed this week for Spring Break, but are normally open from 9-5 every weekday. It’s open to the public, and is chock-a-block with physical samples of all kinds of exotic materials that would otherwise be difficult to get your hands on in small quantities. Anyone can poke around, and registered students can check out samples just like a book-library.
If you’re not in the area, the UTSOA Materials Lab is building an online database of its collection organized by composition, form, properties, process, and application. And although they don’t have photos of all the samples uploaded yet, it’s still fascinating browsing.
