A UK project called Ekinoid aims to produce free/open plans for spherical houses that perch on poles seven feet off the ground. The goal is a house that can be built in a week. Ekinoid homes will be designed to be as easy as is pratically possible to fabricate (ideally using no expert knowledge or skills), house a family of three/four, and will take under one week to build. Ideally, the main structure should last over 100 years (and then be recycled). Build each town using unskilled labour. All parts of an Ekinoid home will be designed to suit the local climate and terrain, and will be delivered on-site for fabrication. We think one crane (possibly two) and a team of approximately four people (one skilled, three unskilled) would be adequate for the one-week construction of each house; and after, these newly-skilled people (the new owners) might then help to build more Ekinoid homes, and train new owners. This training would, in principle, work exponentially and would therefore service the whole new community in a very short time. All the land under the houses would remain useful and accessible. The Ekinoid Project: 2012 ( via IO9 )

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Free/open spherical lollipop houses

This LEAPFactory Refuge Gervasutti is an alpine refuge commissioned by CAI Torino, the Italian Alpine Club. It perches, cantilevered, on a mountainside, offering accommodations and safety to mountain-climbers. It’s got a clever prefab design, and is intended to reduce the amount of waste left on mountainsides by climbers. Each module is entirely prefabricated, from the outer protective shell to the interior fittings. All the modules were transported by helicopter thanks to their light weight and assembled on site in just a few hours. The modules particular design means that they can be planned and constructed based on the specific requirements and can be customised depending on the location where they are to be positioned, in order to make them in keeping with the surrounding environment. New Refuge Gervasutti by LEAPfactory ( via Cribcandy ) ( Image: Gughi Fassino )

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Mountaineering refuge perched on a cliffside

Note: Picture is of Volkswagen’s 20-story robotic parking garage. A $650-million, 57-story highrise designed by Porsche is going up in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida and will feature a robotic car elevator that takes condo owners directly to their door while still in the vehicle. That…sounds convenient. Convenient and terrifying. I guess that’s the price you pay for not having to carry groceries. Carry groceries, LOL — units are $9-million . After the resident pulls over and switches off the engine, a robotic arm that works much like an automatic plank will scoop up the car and put it into the elevator. Once at the desired floor, the same robotic arm will park the car, leaving the resident nearly in front of his front door. The glass elevators will give residents and their guests unparalleled views of the city or of the ocean during their high-speed ride, expected to last 45 to 90 seconds. The 57-story luxury tower will have 132 units. Smaller units will be allocated two parking spaces and larger ones will have four, with 284 robotic parking spaces in total. There will be three elevators. Residents will be able to see their cars from their living rooms. Can you hear that? It’s my Explorer crying because he’ll never get to experience this. “He’s not crying , he’s leaking oil.” Yeah I call that crying. “Well at least put a flattened piece of cardboard down.” Tissues — I call those tissues. At planned Sunny Isles Beach condo, cars and drivers ride elevator home [miamiherald] Thanks to daniel, who just lands his helicopter on the roof like a normal filthy rich person.

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57-Story Porsche Designed Highrise Features Car Elevator That Drops Both Car And Resident Off At Unit

A New Yorker with a $235,000, 450sqft studio apartment in Manhattan paid $70,000 to remodel it with a series of clever, well-thought-through dividers and pull-out furniture that makes very good use of the space, effectively giving him a guest-room as well as a good-sized kitchen and bedroom Tiny Origami Apartment in Manhattan ( via Runnin’ Scared )

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Pull-out furniture and moving dividers cram a good-sized apartment into a 450sqft Manhattan studio

Ambitious gingerbread -builders Melodie and Brenton went and created Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic ‘ Fallingwater ‘ in edible form as their entry in this year’s Gingerbread Festival in Orem, Utah. Good looking, guys. I’ve actually been to see Fallingwater before and I’ve got to admit, it does look like it was made out candy. Plus I got busted for skinny dipping. haha, crazy acid. FAX AND FIGURES!: It took over 12 hours to design It took Brenton and I around 40 hours to build and decorate There are around 164 different pieces of gingerbread It took roughly 12 square feet of gingerbread dough (that’s four large batches) to make all the walls, floors and roof Over 8 bags of powdered sugar were used to make all the frosting It took over 40 sleeves of large Smarties which are used to simulate dry stack stone on the building exterior The river and water fall are made up of three batches of hard candy Sadly, Fallingicing didn’t take first prize in the contest, as it was beat off by a stranger in the back of the bus out by ‘Candyland Carnival’ (picture after the jump), which may or may yes look like Santa vomited up part of his intestines. Mmmm, fat people guts. Don’t even act like the French don’t eat that shit as a delicacy! Hit the jump for a bunch more pics and a shot of the house that beat Fallingwater.

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Edible Architecture: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Iconic ‘Fallingwater’ As Gingerbread House

The Shanghai Corporate Pavilion, which will be part of the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, has a facade made from thousands of plastic tubes that were originally CD cases. [via Inhabitat ]

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Building in Shanghai made out of CD cases

Robin Sloan : I think the conversation about “The Earth Is Hiring” sensitized me to this point: Watching the trailer for Home , I couldn’t help but think, “Oh, I get it. The beautiful shots are the ones without humans.”

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The prettiest anthill

Filed under: Gadgets , Etc. , Tech , Volkswagen Vehicle infotainment systems, those all-inclusive interfaces controlling the myriad electronics on today’s modern cars and trucks, can make or break the driving experience. CNET is offering us a sneak-peek at Volkswagen’s latest iteration from the company’s Electronic Research Laboratory (ERL). Developed with Intel, the new system uses Global Open Research Infotainment Architecture, or GLORIA. Most systems today us a joystick-like device, touch screen, or hard buttons on the edge of the display (or a combination of the three) to control the inputs. Volkswagen’s new GLORIA system takes it one step further by making Apple iPhone-like “gesture control” possible. This means that users are able to navigate quickly by simply tracing single letters across the pressure-sensitive display. Another unique feature may allow users to import third-party widgets for the system, much like consumers currently load apps from iTunes onto their iPhones. As cool as it sounds, GLORIA is still under development and she isn’t expected to see showrooms for a few more years. [Source: CNET , Photo by CNET] REPORT: Volkswagen’s next-gen nav system to get Apple iPhone-like gestures originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 21 May 2009 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink ?|? Email this ?|? Comments

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REPORT: Volkswagen’s next-gen nav system to get Apple iPhone-like gestures

The Grass Wheel was created by David Gallaugher, Kevin James, and Jacob Jebailey of the Dalhousie School of Architecture, and provides a comfortable, shoe-free mode of eco-transportation in the concrete jungle ( grass-sandals guys, just saying). And I think we can all agree, it makes a very powerful statement. One about renewable energy or something. No? Human hamster wheels? A-ha — space technology and growing grass upside down! Yes, very thought provoking. How DO they do that? Grass Wheel [neatorama] Thanks to Armando, who is all man and refuses to walk in anything but a broken-glass wheel. Nice, Armando, but I’ll stick to my burning coals wheel.

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A Grass Wheel For The Concrete Jungle