Eclectitude: 2012

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Lost Time by Glithero

How about some pre-holiday sculpture with Guadiesque origins? You in? I thought so....

British design team Glithero created this lovely installation for Design Miami. The piece references Gaudi's method for creating the shapes that would become Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. In place of a mirror, Glithero used a long pool of water to create the reflection, which coincidentally also gave the impression of champagne bubbles (Perrier-Jouët Champagne sponsored the installation.)

What I love about this is the creation of shapes over the reflection of water, the whole thing is just stunning.

Lost Time by Glithero

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Harbin Temple by SunRay Kelley, Architect

I've recently become enchanted by the work of SunRay Kelley, a cob builder decorating the West Coast with natural hand-made structures.

We'll start with his project, a Living Temple for Harbin Hot Springs. The structure is used for yoga and meditation. You'll be seeing more of SunRay's work here, so I've already assigned him a tag!

Harbin Temple by SunRay Kelley, Architect

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Earth House Estate Lättenstrasse - Vetsch Architektur

In honor of The Hobbit opening this weekend, how about some groovy hobbit-ish houses? This estate in Switzerland features 9 houses fronting a lake and an underground (of course!) parking structure.

Looks to me like an adorable place to live, although I might worry about the water level after a major rainstorm. Details, details, hrmmph.

The video shows some of the construction and philosophy behind the build - I particularly love the quote "not putting a box on top of nature." That one might be right up there with my favorite James Hubbell quote "a house is just a piece of sculpture you can live in."

Earth House Estate Lättenstrasse - Vetsch Architektur

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Musical Wood - Bach's Cantata 147

This is kinda perfect for your Sunday morning. The level of engineering ability to figure this out and build it is just astonishing. Bravo.

A wooden ball plays Bach’s Cantata 147 in a forest just by rolling down a track.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Earthships

I knew a bit about passive houses from my work on Energy Upgrade California and a bit about houses built using recycled materials, but I hadn't ever heard the term "Earthship" until recently. Nor had I seen any of these houses that were actually attractive enough to want to live in.

Earthship Biotecture actually builds really groovy, organic, passive structures that I'd live in. I particularly love the walls where they use glass bottles to create mosaics that also add natural light.

I'm totally stealing a bunch of these ideas for my own personal house-to-be...

Passive House by Earthship Biotecture

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Peacock Room - Castello di Sammezzano, Tuscany

I have a thing for ornate ceilings like the Peacock Room at this abandoned castle in Italy. From an art perspective, I don't care for the floor or the walls since I'm of the belief that there really is such a thing as too much ornamentation (shocking, I know!)

I wonder what the acoustics are like in this room because it would be an amazing place for a small concert with a big lighting budget.

After doing some image searches, I think I may have to blog the entire castle, but we'll start here :)

The Peacock Room - Castello di Sammezzano, Tuscany

Friday, November 23, 2012

Made by Humans / Hyundai Vision Hall by Universal Everything

A little something to stimulate your neurons post-Thanksgiving.

This video sculpture from Universal Everything is one of 18 visual art installations designed for Hyundai Vision Hall in South Korea.

Pull out of that turkey and pie coma....watch full screen.

#1 / Made by Humans / Hyundai Vision Hall, South Korea / Hyundai Motor Group from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

James Hubbell Home & Studio - The Boys' House

More goodies from my James Hubbell archives. The two structures that I always come back to are the Boy's House and the Small Studio. These are probably the most organic of the structures of the Hubbell compound in Julian and capture my imagination more than the others.

Previous James Hubbell posts are here.

James Hubbell home in Julian, The Boy's House

James Hubbell home in Julian, front door to The Boy's House

James Hubbell home in Julian, stained glass in The Boy's House

James Hubbell home in Julian, the bathroom in The Boy's House

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Golden Moon Pavilion by LEAD

Saturday eye candy. Isn't this gorgeous? The structure was built in Hong Kong for the Mid-Autumn Festival by LEAD (Laboratory for Explorative Architecture) as a tribute to the Moon Goddess.

Construction time: 11 days.

LOVE.

Golden Moon Pavilion by LEAD (Hong Kong)

Monday, November 5, 2012

Lighting Art - Arcades by Troika

Troika really is becoming my favorite creative lighting studio. A few months ago I showcased "Light Rain" and my friends at Dezeen posted recently with this stunning display. I am totally going to steal this idea for a future project (yet to be determined...)

Arcades by Troika

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Art Photography by Andoni Aleman

One of these crossed my visual sphere the other day and I was just blown away with art-love at first sight.

Photographer Andoni Aleman has a whole slideshow that's worth a few minutes of your time, very talented! I specifically love this series, called Zuhaitz.

Zuhaitz series by Andoni Aleman

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Jaquet Droz - The Bird Repeater Watch

This morning I am entranced by this absolutely magical piece of timekeeping engineering from Jaquet Droz. Normally, I don't really care much about watches now that we've all gone to using our smart phones for just about everything, including telling the time.

There are watches and then there is really expensive jewelry that serves a function, like this. Someone with a Rolex wouldn't impress me, but this sure would.

The Bird Repeater - Jaquet Droz

Monday, October 15, 2012

Art Photography - Markus Reugels

Today my eye was caught by these stunning photographs of the collision of water droplets in contrasting colors from German photographer Markus Reugels.

A quote from the artist, “I want to manage one genre very good and not many half-hearted" is one that a lot of people (like myself) could probably adopt to our betterment.

Water Droplet Photography by Markus Reugels

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Six Tables on Water by Gaetano Pesce

I'm not sure that having little figurines in my table is a concept that works for me on a practicality level, but I absolutely LOVE the idea of these artistic tables as bodies of water.

I'm linking to the artist's website, but I do have to warn that's it's a train wreck and impossible to find information on. Mini-rant: if you are an artist and want people to promote your work you really need to invest in a clean website with easily shareable links. End of mini-rant.