A. Kachmar

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

A quick doodle drawn in the heat of the moment on a napkin at an architectural cocktail party is more likely to be a concept diagram than a phone number. There is nothing architects love more than a sexy drawing with dotted lines, curvy arrows and a few key color accents.

Josh Lewandowski is a Minnesotan architect who is taking things to the extreme, producing a new diagrammatic sketch daily … with a catch: they do not represent anything and are ends unto themselves. The series is dubbed simply Pointless Diagrams.

Of his work, Josh writes: “I started this blog because for as long as I can remember I’ve always drawn and doodled 3d sketches that have an unapologetic dearth of meaning.” He draws his “inspiration from architecture, furniture, engineering, geometry, cereal boxes, Lego instructions, and Etch A Sketch memories. I always use pen and ink because erasing is for wimps.”

The works are populated with walkways, bridges, staircases, pools, trees and more, yet a whole never really emerges from the parts except when the viewer’s imagination takes part. Thus the mysterious and subjective side of the equation.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Pointless Diagrams Daily Architectural Nonsense Drawings

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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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Believe it or not, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is working on making sex more pleasurable. The Gates have already given out a number of $1 million in research grants to condom developers who are working to create a new, high-tech condom of the future. The next generation of condoms will be designed to be super-sensitive and super-durable, and may even enhance pleasure. The front-runner so far? A graphene condom so thin that it would feel like wearing nothing at all.

Read the rest of Graphene Condom of the Future will be Super-Pleasurable

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Post tags: bill and melinda gates foundation, Bill Gates Condom, condom of the future, eco design, Graphene condom, green design, sustainable design, ultra thin condom

A Swedish inmate had such a bad toothache that he escaped prison two days before he was supposed to be released, went to the dentist, and then turned himself back in.

Read more...

The price of lords-a-leaping and ladies dancing has spiked this holiday season, but other items mentioned in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" still cost the same as they did last year.

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medievalpoc:

thescienceofreality:

Academic Earth and Open Culture offer dozens of courses, text books, ebooks, and ways to educate yourself right at your fingertips!

[Edited: Make sure to read the full terms and agreements, and like most online course sites, do not expect this to act as a replacement for a real-life class unless any specific course you sign up for states it offers transferrable credits. Make sure you know most online-courses will not be recognized as a replacement for any part of any curriculum by credited educational institutions.]

Through Academic Earth, you can take courses in all of the fields below:

• Business
• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Engineering
• Science
• Humanities
• Social Sciences
• Art & Design
• Test Preparation

Academic Earth offers a variety of Universities, which you can click through below to see which University offers for specific online courses. 

• Berklee College of Music
• Caltech
• Cambridge
• Carnegie Mellon
• Case Western Reserve
• Columbia
• Cornell
• Dalarna University
• Dartmouth College
• Examkrackers
• George Washington University
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Open Culture offers dozens of FREE  [500] online courses, [450] audio books, [500] movies, [40] language lessons, [325] ebooks, and [150] text books for your personal mind expansion!

Online courses from Open Culture include the listed topics below:

• Archaeology
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• Engineering [Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical]
• Environment & Natural Resources
• Mathematics
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• Public Health
• Business

Enjoy the over-abundance of free educational resources, and never stop exploring and expanding! And if anyone knows of any other great self-education resources, let me know!

Wow! This is actually really great, and most of these classes seem to have sets of videotaped lectures for the classes!

now that is something

"Born in 1907, as the son of the famous political man, statesman and man of letters Moḥammad Ali Foroughi, Mohsen Foroughi is one of the pioneer of modern architecture in Iran. an influential professor of architecture at the University of Tehran, and a noted collector of Persian art. He was imprisoned in 1979 after the revolution."

Mahdi Shadkar

'The Walnut Set' Nutcracker by DDQ Design. This set reinstates a calming elegance to the act of cracking a nut open before eating it.

(Want more? See NOTCOT.org and NOTCOT.com)

• paul0v2's blog

Two initials are merged so each be read from different angles in this 3D-printed metal jewellery (+slideshow). (more...)

[U]nlike some other states that have moved to ban the use of LEED in public projects this year, [...] the Ohio resolution, SCR 25, takes on LEED v4 directly, asserting that LEED v4 should no longer be used by Ohio state agencies and government entities and that the state's Office of Energy Services begin an immediate review of alternative rating systems, codes, and standards.

Citing LEED's failure to adhere to "recognized voluntary standard development procedures," such as ANSI, the resolution makes a move to ban the use of LEED for its government buildings because of LEED's apparent lack of openness, transparency, and scientific basis in the development of its green building rating system standard. The USGBC has recently had to face similar challenges in other states including North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia. 

Above, watch molten gold transform into gold leaf as it is beaten into thinner and thinner pieces while cold. This clip is from PBS’ six-part miniseries The Ring of Truth: An Inquiry Into How We Know What We Know - Atoms (1987). 

"It was the craftsmen who mastered the remarkable properties that go with specific materials. They were the first to journey towards the atom. The goldsmiths slowly refined their craft to take advantage of what gold alone could do…”

MIT astrophysicist and Institute Professor Philip Morrison narrated the series, which he co-wrote with his wife, noted art and science educator Phylis Morrison. Philip Morrison also narrated and wrote the script for Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten, a must-watch video for all ages.

via Emily Lakdawalla.

Architects: Design band YOAP
Location: Bangbae-dong, Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Architect In Charge: Doran Kim, Inkeun Ryu, Hyunbo Shin
Area: 350.0 sqm
Year: 2013
Photographs: Jae-Wook Cho

Mechanical Engineer: LINE engineering
Structural Engineer: Qauntum engineering
Construction: Yiinsigak

From the architect. The site Located is limited to a very small area, small even for a house: 8 meters wide and 20 meters long, with a 175 m2 area. Nine studio apartments had to be packed into this 5 story multiplex housing building. As is the case for all rental housing in Korea, the building had to be profitable and economical and yet the building should be pleasant and even pleasing for the residents.

Each apartment was given the simplest floor plan possible, so that none of the nine apartment spaces would intrude into another in the limited area. This left the designers with some ‘leftover’ spaces in the plan, which then were turned into ‘breathing spaces’ such as the terrace and the community area on the rooftop.

Once people walk into their apartment through the red doors, large windows greet them with the views of small Seoul streets. The designers made maximum use of the location of the site, three sides of which faces the street, positioning windows to view the street, not the adjacent building, to create open view.

As a result, the pipelines and the aluminum grill windows of the equipment space came along to the west side, the building’s main façade. Part of this façade was given double layer outfit to conceal the pipes and grills and keep the simple and clean look of the façade.

On contrary to its bright white façade, colorful space opens up as opening the red door. Walking from the entrance of the building to the door of each apartment, people would find unexpected scene each time they turn around a corner. The yellow staircase intersects aqua blue and lime colored walls. Each time people open up the red door they will face colorful image set in door frame.

Its name YOAP White House comes from Korea word yoap, meaning just around or nearby. This small housing will stand in the corner site of old resident area of Bangbae-dong, giving intimate image.

“Full Turn” is an ingenious video installation by artist Benjamin Muzzin in which two back-to-back monitors are spun at high speed to create three dimensional animations. Muzzin created the installation as a diploma project at ECAL, an art school in Lausanne, Switzerland.

With this project I wanted to explore the notion of the third dimension, with the desire to try to get out of the usual frame of a flat screen. For this, my work mainly consisted in exploring and experimenting a different device for displaying images, trying to give animations volume in space.

via Creative Applications Network, prosthetic knowledge, Colossal, thinx, My Modern Metropolis

video via ECAL, GIFs via prosthetic knowledge

If there's such a thing as a manufacturer's version of an otaku—someone who is fiendishly obsessed with one thing—it's gotta be Sugatsune. The Japanese company produces specialty hinges and closing mechanisms for all kinds of applications, and while that might not sound sexy, their Multiple Motion Sliding Door System that we looked at here remains the most innovative cabinet door solution we've ever seen.

If you think about it, standard out-swinging hinges aren't always the best solution, they're just the incumbent ones. Watch someone pushing a baby stroller and trying to enter a store, and witness how awkward it is—they must get close enough to the door to grab and pull the handle, but must then back up to let the door clear the stroller, then they have to squirt through the doorway and use their shoulder to prevent the door from closing on them. In instances like that, it would be better if there was a solution in place like Sugatsune's Lin-X Lateral Swing Hinge:

I realize that will probably never happen for interior doors, but at least they're making them for cabinets. Anyone in a wheelchair would probably appreciate not having to back themselves up just to swing a cabinet door open.

(more...)

Butterfly. 25″ x 14″ x 22″ H. Legs: bike brake parts, pieces of windshield wipers, bike chains. Abdomen: old acetylene light tank. Thorax: car suspension part, small spoon parts, cream chargers. Head: headlights, bike parts. Butterfly trunk: clock springs. Hair: pieces of a typewriter daisy wheel. Antennae: brake cables, drawer knobs.

Butterfly, detail.

Butterfly, detail.

Rhinoceros beetle. 13″ x 11″ x 6″ H. Legs: bike brake parts, bike derailleur chain, bike chain ring. Head and horn: small bike brake, pieces of a typewriter daisy wheel. Antennae: small bike parts. Thorax: shoe tree, bike Luxor headlight. Abdomen: motorbike light, shell-shaped drawer handles.

Rhinoceros beetle, detail.

Three-spined stickleback. 34″ x 5″ x 13″ H. Body: moped fenders and chain guards. Bones: tablespoons. Gills: car door parts. Fins: cake tins, fish slices, compasses. Tail: motorbike silencer, fish slices. Eyes: flashlights. Head: Solex front fenders.

Moth. 31″ x 16″ x 7″ H. Wings: moped chain guards (rusted and patinated). Abdomen: motorbike headlights. Thorax: very old car headlamp. Legs: large upholstery tacks, car boot hinges, pieces of windshield wipers, bike brake parts, chain guards. Head: old rear position lamps, bike parts, pieces of a daisy wheel. Butterfly trunk: clock springs. Antennae: aluminium heating resistor.

Moth, detail.

Wasp. 11″ x 6″ x 16″ H. Abdomen: steel tips for boots, bike headlights. Thorax and head: steel tips and bells from bikes and typewriters. Eyes: vintage watch case. Antennae: spectacles arms. Legs: bike brakes, bike chain, spoon handles. Wings: glass.

Red ant. 25″ x 16″ x 9″ H. Thorax and head: sauce spoons, car parts. Eyes: marbles. Abdomen: bike or motorbike headlights. Antennae: small bike chains. Legs: cream chargers, brake parts, chains, alarm clock feet, spoon handles.

Dragonfly. 37″ x 49″ x 15″ H. Abdomen: patinated copper/brass bicycle pump, car horn part, parts of old acetylene bike lights (at the ends). Thorax: two motorbike rear lights, shell-shaped drawer handles, big upholstery tacks. Head: car or lorry old stop lights, parts of acetylene bike lights, parts of a daisy wheel for typewriter (hair from the mouth). Legs: tubes, bike cable guide, wing nuts, wire. Wings: umbrella ribs, wire, wire netting for hen coops.

Dragonfly, detail.

When looking at these perfectly assembled sculptures by French artist Edouard Martinet (previously) it’s difficult to believe the raw materials he used ever existed in another form. Yet every head, thorax, leg, wing, and eye from these assorted creatures was once part of a car, bicycle, typewriter, or other found object. Reading through his material lists it becomes clear how completely thorough and judicious Martinet is in selecting the perfect objects to realize his vision, truly a master of his craft. Via Sladmore Contemporary:

His degree of virtuosity is unique: he does not solder or weld parts. His sculptures are screwed together. This gives his forms an extra level of visual richness – but not in a way that merely conveys the dry precision of, say, a watchmaker. There is an X-Factor here, a graceful wit, a re-imagining of the obvious in which a beautifully finished object glows not with perfection, but with character, with new life. Martinet takes about a month to make a sculpture and will often work on two or three pieces at the same time. It took him just four weeks to make his first sculpture and 17 years for his most recent completion!

If you want to see these new pieces up close, Martinet opens a new exhibition at Sladmore Contemporary in London, November 27 through January 31, 2014. You can see several additional new works on his website.

This ram (Barbary sheep) sounds a lot like a human yelling. He would definitely get my attention.

video via Animal Area

via Tastefully Offensive

Dutch Design Week 2013: Portuguese designer Susana Soares has developed a device for detecting cancer and other serious diseases using trained bees ( + slideshow). (more...)

A dress with different faces, 'The Lenticular dress' demands the viewer to suspend judgement. The design has a pattern that changes depending on the viewer’s angle of perspective. Filmmaker Oscar Verpoort caught the optical illusion in a powerful video in which the dots change into stripes before your very eyes.

(Want more? See NOTCOT.org and NOTCOT.com)

Type nerds, check out this Adjustable Clampersand. Brilliant and amazing, right?

(Thanks Allan)

Classic cars are stretched into hollowed-out boxy forms and shown in fantastical interlocking arrangements in the surreal illustration series “Auto Aerobics” by UK-based artist Chris LaBrooy.

via Ian Brooks

What you're looking at is a cat lung being blown up with a straw. I know. It's ginormous. More ginormous than what you would think is inside a cat. But that's because lungs are incredibly expandable. What looks like a pile of bloody meat inflates into this perfectly pink balloon.

Read more...

More bad news from the FDA. Turns out frying, baking or roasting certain foods causes the formation of acrylamide, a carcinogen found in cigarette smoke. Why does death always have to taste so good?

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There are tasteful ways to talk about the looming anniversary of the JFK assassination, and then there's the New York Post's way, which involves mentioning the little-known-fact that JFK and Jackie totally boned on Air Force One during a short flight from San Antonio to Houston on Nov. 21, just 24 hours before the assassination.

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The first bite of a bitter fruit or nut can be shocking, even revolting. That's led scientists to think that bitter tastes evolved to help us avoid poisonous plants. But a new a genetic study in Africa challenges that notion.

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Des Hommes et des Chatons is a Tumblr blog that collects photos of sexy men and cute kittens in matching poses. See more of the funny (and occasionally spot-on) photos at Des Hommes et des Chatons.

images via Des Hommes et des Chatons

via Snap!, My Modern Metropolis

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Visionary applied geometer Ron Resch, who passed away in 2012, is the subject of the incredible documentary embedded above, that, while by no means new (it was produced back in the grainy days of 1970) seemed worth posting here. Over the course of its more than 40 minutes of mind-altering geometry and material experimentation, we watch Resch unfold, stretch, expand, and play with a mind-boggling wizardry of handmade models that seem to be blink in and out of the ordinary world.

Read more...

How much can one simple number tell you about your health? A growing body of research over the past few years has highlighted the shortcomings of the body mass index (BMI), a basic measure of rotundity, as a predictor of well-being. The latest--and in some ways most comprehensive--of these reports appeared in August in the journal Science .

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Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was presented with the Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy at the 2013 Britannia Awards. While walking on stage to accept the award, Sacha was given an old cane by Grace Cullington, the oldest living actress who worked with Charlie Chaplin (she said the cane belonged to Chaplin). As he waddled around with the cane, mimicking the classic movements of Chaplin, he tripped and “accidentally” slammed into the elderly actress’ wheelchair. People in the audience were shocked as they watched Grace fly face-first off the stage.

video via BBC America