Check out the article here; http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6326/visiondivision-al-hakawati-the-storyteller-dubai.html
There you can also see more of our projects.
Friday, May 29, 2009
designboom #1
Designboom is one of the biggest sites for design and architecture on the internet. We are therefore glad that one of our projects, Al-Hakawati, has reached the no. 1 spot as the most popular and read article this month with over 43000 views.
Check out the article here; http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6326/visiondivision-al-hakawati-the-storyteller-dubai.html
There you can also see more of our projects.
Check out the article here; http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/view/6326/visiondivision-al-hakawati-the-storyteller-dubai.html
There you can also see more of our projects.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
visiondivision in 4ARK magazine
If you have some knowledge in the Swedish language you can pick up the latest issue of the 4ARK-magazine where the visiondivision project "Capilla para el Tio" is published.
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
Friday, May 22, 2009
Office Music Sample
Hi there.
We just wanted to share some of the music we listen to in our office to stay creative and happy.
http://open.spotify.com/user/visiondivision/playlist/0fw9N8X8JdvDpMNMJR4QDN
Have a nice weekend!
We just wanted to share some of the music we listen to in our office to stay creative and happy.
http://open.spotify.com/user/visiondivision/playlist/0fw9N8X8JdvDpMNMJR4QDN
Have a nice weekend!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Umbrella
Due to our northern location we seldom get the chance to do something for the poorest people on this planet. So when we saw this competition we felt urged to do a proposal.
Insufficient water is one of the most severe problems in rural Africa. For many families it is extremely time consuming to collect and can easily start conflicts between villages.
We had an idea that we should create a dew/rainwater collector as a roof and the rest of the building would more or less handle itself.
To test the idea we went to the Sahara desert where an experiment with a dew collecting umbrella where performed. (http://thegoldbrain.blogspot.com/2009/02/sahara-field-trip.html)
We wanted to design a modern and free-standing structure that could be added to a rural building and at the same time supply the hospital with clean water.
The solution is simple. An upscaled upside down umbrella serves as a roof to a rural built hospital. The umbrella roof is gathering rainwater or dew depending on location to supply the hospital with clean water. The big umbrella also serves as a light roof giving shadow to the hospital. The umbrella will be a recognizable symbol for children healthcare seen from miles around.
Phases:
The structure is made out of light felt and steel. In the middle of the umbrella shaped tent there is a water container gathering the clean water from the roof.
At first the hospital is built as a small village with local materials under the umbrella, the water container becomes the midpoint of the hospital. The hospital gets energy supply from solar panels.
When the hospital grows the umbrella can easily grow by adding an outer layer of felt and moving the pillars outwards from the centre point. The different houses expands by mirroring themselves outwards. As the structure grows the water supply surface gets bigger at the same time.
As time goes by, modern material can be added to improve the village without interfering with the design. Our hope is that the structure becomes a roof for constant developing
As a final stage a facade with sun protection can be added, making the building into a modern hospital. It is our hope and belief that the regions in need for this hospital will develop into strong economies one day. This building is prepared to stand in better times as well. 
Insufficient water is one of the most severe problems in rural Africa. For many families it is extremely time consuming to collect and can easily start conflicts between villages.
We had an idea that we should create a dew/rainwater collector as a roof and the rest of the building would more or less handle itself.
To test the idea we went to the Sahara desert where an experiment with a dew collecting umbrella where performed. (http://thegoldbrain.blogspot.com/2009/02/sahara-field-trip.html)
We wanted to design a modern and free-standing structure that could be added to a rural building and at the same time supply the hospital with clean water.
The solution is simple. An upscaled upside down umbrella serves as a roof to a rural built hospital. The umbrella roof is gathering rainwater or dew depending on location to supply the hospital with clean water. The big umbrella also serves as a light roof giving shadow to the hospital. The umbrella will be a recognizable symbol for children healthcare seen from miles around.
Phases:
The structure is made out of light felt and steel. In the middle of the umbrella shaped tent there is a water container gathering the clean water from the roof.
At first the hospital is built as a small village with local materials under the umbrella, the water container becomes the midpoint of the hospital. The hospital gets energy supply from solar panels.
When the hospital grows the umbrella can easily grow by adding an outer layer of felt and moving the pillars outwards from the centre point. The different houses expands by mirroring themselves outwards. As the structure grows the water supply surface gets bigger at the same time.
As time goes by, modern material can be added to improve the village without interfering with the design. Our hope is that the structure becomes a roof for constant developing
As a final stage a facade with sun protection can be added, making the building into a modern hospital. It is our hope and belief that the regions in need for this hospital will develop into strong economies one day. This building is prepared to stand in better times as well.
Monday, May 11, 2009
In the pipeline: Stretch house
On the drawing board today: A new house facade for a major energy company made by movable statues and stretch fabric. We hope you like it (because we do).
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Al-Hakawati - The Storyteller
So we finally did a competition in Dubai.
The Arabic influences we came in contact with on our Sahara field trip helped us greatly, and it is also from that trip where we got the idea of the storyteller, which is a genuine Arabic phenomenon.
They wanted an emblem building, like the Eiffel Tower for example, that would at the same time interact somehow with the Zaabel Park; the Central Park of Dubai.
Zaha Hadid was in the jury so probably they would like some shape experimentation, but that’s not so interesting, at least not from our point of view anyway.
Buildings with a symbolic value easily becomes quite cheesy, so we focused on what this great park could use instead and asked ourselves if they really needed a building to become famous and give their park something unique.
Interaction with buildings is only done in 2D, which is a little bit boring when you think about it, so we wanted to give them a 3D experience.
We gave them a big statue that can move its head, its arms and rotate its torso as well as telling stories.
We have been experimenting a little bit with robots in the past, but never before in this scale.
These are probably the new statues for the 21st century, giving a whole new layer to the monument.
The Proposal
The Al-Hakawati is a storyteller whose profession is to spellbind his audience with his eloquent stories and tales.
It is a beautiful profession that goes way back in ancient Arabic times and still is performed in the Arabic world today.
Unfortunately the profession is dying, along with all the stories that have travelled from people to people for generations.
But Dubai can now have its own Scheherazade, the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights, to recite all the legends and stories that the Arabic culture is so full of, and where can be a better place to relax and enjoy these tales if not in a vast and beautiful park like the Zaabeel Park.
The storyteller will add an extra layer to the park environment, making people linger
longer in the park, promoting conversations and stimulating the imagination, unifying the different parts of the park with its appearance. The statue will be a home of stories; a children’s library in its base and various spaces for performance and reading inside of the statue.
The podium which contains a childrens library
The statue will leave a small footprint in the existing park and it will enhance the park
experience for everyone; as a unique visual landmark and a creation of new possibilities for the park.
In every part of the Zaabeel park, small speakers are set up so people can gather around them and listen to the statue when he recites stories; perhaps great legends from One thousand and one night, historical anecdotes from the city itself and future speculations, all this performed with an animated body language.
Families can relax in the well kept grass areas of the park while listening and gazing at this new friend of the city.
A continuous monument of memories.
Siteplan
Telling stories ar night time
The Statue
A pedestal, that contains a children’s library and
exhibition areas that can be divided into smaller units, is the base of the statue.
The walls in the base are stairs on the outside which leads to the platform where the storyteller begins to rise. Windows punctuates various stairs for a bright indoor environment without any direct sunlight.
The statue can move its arms and hands, tilt its head slightly, open and shut its eyes and mouth. The statue has also big rooms inside of it for reading,
relaxing and other social activities. Each big room has its own theme, may it be a gold room, a crystal cavern, a green room or a room full of fish tanks, or why not just the splendid night views of Dubai.
These rooms are mood setters and they can also be used as theater/storytelling rooms.
Each big room has also a small additional room adjacent to it, for technical purposes, storing, changing rooms and such.
Tourists will find exhibitions about the city in the pedestal and have great views of Dubai from the
statue, as well as guided tours where people can sit in the storytellers hands and having a sweeping
panorama of the city accompanied with explanations.
Transparent railings are hidden in his hands that can be elevated in tour mode.
Golden nightclub inside the statues head
Technical aspects
The statue can move its arms and head; this demands an articulate joint between the elevators and the floors on these critical points. The joints are similar in function to those seen in joint buses, and will guarantee an uninterrupted movement inside of the statue, even if he slightly tilts his head.
The arms and head movement is controlled by computers and can mimic a prerecording of an actor for example.
The rigid parts of the statue are made out of a steel frame structure with a cover of sheets of steel. The movable parts must be flexible, thus a material like rubber or silicon with a coating that mimic the glossiness of the steel is preferable.
The speakers in the park can use a flexible frequency method, meaning that the distance the sound travels can be controlled, allowing intense hotspots of sound.
During storytelling evenings and festivals these hotspots may be expanded by changing the frequency and during daytime a shorter range can be used.
Section
Library plan
Special thanks to Andrés Morelli for renderings of the statue, see some of his work at: http://www.andresmorelli.com/
The Arabic influences we came in contact with on our Sahara field trip helped us greatly, and it is also from that trip where we got the idea of the storyteller, which is a genuine Arabic phenomenon.
They wanted an emblem building, like the Eiffel Tower for example, that would at the same time interact somehow with the Zaabel Park; the Central Park of Dubai.
Zaha Hadid was in the jury so probably they would like some shape experimentation, but that’s not so interesting, at least not from our point of view anyway.
Buildings with a symbolic value easily becomes quite cheesy, so we focused on what this great park could use instead and asked ourselves if they really needed a building to become famous and give their park something unique.
Interaction with buildings is only done in 2D, which is a little bit boring when you think about it, so we wanted to give them a 3D experience.
We gave them a big statue that can move its head, its arms and rotate its torso as well as telling stories.
We have been experimenting a little bit with robots in the past, but never before in this scale.
These are probably the new statues for the 21st century, giving a whole new layer to the monument.
The Proposal
The Al-Hakawati is a storyteller whose profession is to spellbind his audience with his eloquent stories and tales.
It is a beautiful profession that goes way back in ancient Arabic times and still is performed in the Arabic world today.
Unfortunately the profession is dying, along with all the stories that have travelled from people to people for generations.
But Dubai can now have its own Scheherazade, the storyteller of One Thousand and One Nights, to recite all the legends and stories that the Arabic culture is so full of, and where can be a better place to relax and enjoy these tales if not in a vast and beautiful park like the Zaabeel Park.
The storyteller will add an extra layer to the park environment, making people linger
longer in the park, promoting conversations and stimulating the imagination, unifying the different parts of the park with its appearance. The statue will be a home of stories; a children’s library in its base and various spaces for performance and reading inside of the statue.
The podium which contains a childrens library
The statue will leave a small footprint in the existing park and it will enhance the park
experience for everyone; as a unique visual landmark and a creation of new possibilities for the park.
In every part of the Zaabeel park, small speakers are set up so people can gather around them and listen to the statue when he recites stories; perhaps great legends from One thousand and one night, historical anecdotes from the city itself and future speculations, all this performed with an animated body language.
Families can relax in the well kept grass areas of the park while listening and gazing at this new friend of the city.
A continuous monument of memories.
Siteplan
Telling stories ar night time
The Statue
A pedestal, that contains a children’s library and
exhibition areas that can be divided into smaller units, is the base of the statue.
The walls in the base are stairs on the outside which leads to the platform where the storyteller begins to rise. Windows punctuates various stairs for a bright indoor environment without any direct sunlight.
The statue can move its arms and hands, tilt its head slightly, open and shut its eyes and mouth. The statue has also big rooms inside of it for reading,
relaxing and other social activities. Each big room has its own theme, may it be a gold room, a crystal cavern, a green room or a room full of fish tanks, or why not just the splendid night views of Dubai.
These rooms are mood setters and they can also be used as theater/storytelling rooms.
Each big room has also a small additional room adjacent to it, for technical purposes, storing, changing rooms and such.
Tourists will find exhibitions about the city in the pedestal and have great views of Dubai from the
statue, as well as guided tours where people can sit in the storytellers hands and having a sweeping
panorama of the city accompanied with explanations.
Transparent railings are hidden in his hands that can be elevated in tour mode.
Golden nightclub inside the statues head
Technical aspects
The statue can move its arms and head; this demands an articulate joint between the elevators and the floors on these critical points. The joints are similar in function to those seen in joint buses, and will guarantee an uninterrupted movement inside of the statue, even if he slightly tilts his head.
The arms and head movement is controlled by computers and can mimic a prerecording of an actor for example.
The rigid parts of the statue are made out of a steel frame structure with a cover of sheets of steel. The movable parts must be flexible, thus a material like rubber or silicon with a coating that mimic the glossiness of the steel is preferable.
The speakers in the park can use a flexible frequency method, meaning that the distance the sound travels can be controlled, allowing intense hotspots of sound.
During storytelling evenings and festivals these hotspots may be expanded by changing the frequency and during daytime a shorter range can be used.
Section
Library plan
Special thanks to Andrés Morelli for renderings of the statue, see some of his work at: http://www.andresmorelli.com/
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Framed
Hi there old fellow!
Housing by Anders Willhelmsson
Postcard House by visiondivision 
We like that you borrow our idea with the framed windows Mr Willhelmsson, but we think you should have taken the whole concept, the important thing is the actual painting, how you emphasize the motive like in a renaissance painting, perhaps you can come over for tea and cookies some day and we can give you a quick brief. We live in the same town after all.
Send us a mail to visiondivision@gmail.com and we’ll start baking.
(We also have already cut out images of other gold frames if you want.)
Send us a mail to visiondivision@gmail.com and we’ll start baking.
(We also have already cut out images of other gold frames if you want.)
Cheers man!
Housing by Anders Willhelmsson
Postcard House by visiondivision
Postcard House by visiondivision
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wat Hut
We got a commission to do an extension of a private house outside Stockholm for a Swedish-Thai couple. The woman has two children back in Thailand that now is going to move in to the house.
The site is very idyllic and Swedish and the house is situated on a southern slope to a beautiful and calm lake. Moving to a completely different country can be difficult, especially if you are a kid, so we wanted to give the Thai-kids some playful elements to easier adjust to their new country.
The new house follows the form and scale of the old building but has a more modern expression with a white and shining corrugated steel façade that slightly reflects the surroundings.
Different functions interlink in this extension to include all family members but the focus is onthe children.
The new building consists of two rooms for the children with views towards the lake and a family room between the rooms with an undulated fake grass floor that offers a relaxed atmosphere.
The room can be completely opened at summertime, so the children rooms will feel like two small cottages and the family room will extend to the nature around it.
The Swedish man likes golf so the grass will be an ideal spot for a driving range.
A cliff next to the house on the northern side is painted in gold as a symbol of Thailand and a place where the mother can have her shrine where she occasionally can pray.
The gold is lit up at nighttime and will be highly present in the family room while playing Nintendo.
The proposal is still under evaluation; we will give you more information about the outcome later on.
The site is very idyllic and Swedish and the house is situated on a southern slope to a beautiful and calm lake. Moving to a completely different country can be difficult, especially if you are a kid, so we wanted to give the Thai-kids some playful elements to easier adjust to their new country.
The new house follows the form and scale of the old building but has a more modern expression with a white and shining corrugated steel façade that slightly reflects the surroundings.
Different functions interlink in this extension to include all family members but the focus is onthe children.
The new building consists of two rooms for the children with views towards the lake and a family room between the rooms with an undulated fake grass floor that offers a relaxed atmosphere.
The room can be completely opened at summertime, so the children rooms will feel like two small cottages and the family room will extend to the nature around it.
The Swedish man likes golf so the grass will be an ideal spot for a driving range.
A cliff next to the house on the northern side is painted in gold as a symbol of Thailand and a place where the mother can have her shrine where she occasionally can pray.
The gold is lit up at nighttime and will be highly present in the family room while playing Nintendo.
The proposal is still under evaluation; we will give you more information about the outcome later on.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Spring Clean Up
Visiondivision has produced a lot of material over the last five years, sometimes we forget that we actually made them. During a spring clean up in the office, our co-worker Clive found some early material that never have been published so far, so here you go;
.jpg)
The vd alley where some of the early work reside
Slope House - avant garde villa with a fake tree that you can pull away to open the livingroom glass pane.
Villa Jaws - Three shells creates shelter for this little summer residence.
Summerhouse Archipelago edition - A floating summerhouse with an integrated rubber terrace that follows the water's movement among other things.
Summerhouse Ocean View edition - A simple yet delightful creation that has intricate room sequences.
.jpg)
The vd alley where some of the early work reside
Slope House - avant garde villa with a fake tree that you can pull away to open the livingroom glass pane.
Villa Jaws - Three shells creates shelter for this little summer residence.
Summerhouse Archipelago edition - A floating summerhouse with an integrated rubber terrace that follows the water's movement among other things.
Summerhouse Ocean View edition - A simple yet delightful creation that has intricate room sequences.
Monday, April 6, 2009
The VD Guide - part V
Visiondivision gives you a brief tour of inspiring projects and phenomenon around the world.If you have more suggestions, dont hesitate to contact us at: visiondivision@gmail.com For more VD Guide >>> http://www.visiondivision.com/
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Esther Williams pool - A Florida shaped pool for a moviestar
Birth: 1950s
Location: Cypress Gardens, Florida, USA
Architect: Esther Williams
VD says: This is what a pool should look like
Florida's first theme park, Cypress Gardens, was the brainchild of Richard Downing "Dick" Pope Sr. With his wife, Julie Downing Pope, he transformed a marshy, lakeside property in Winter Haven into a magnificent garden. The park's first visitors in 1936 toured pathways surrounded by lush plants from around the world. Two years later, electric boats meandered through the park's winding, hand-dug canals. Water ski shows commenced in 1942, and the park became the "Water Ski Capital of the World." The Florida-shaped Esther WilliamsSwimming Pool still graces the shore of Lake Eloise. The park was a set for dozens of short feature films, a stage for beauty pageants, and a site for special television broadcasts.The Esther Williams Swimming Pool was built in the shape of the map of Florida, projecting out in Lake Eloise as a set for MGM technicolor movie filmed at Cypress Gardens.
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Cueva de los Cristales - The Sistine Chapel of crystals
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Naica Mountain, Chihuahua, Mexico
Architect: Earth
VD says: Outstanding natural wonder that once again proves that Earth still is the best architect so far
Buried 300 meters below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, this astonishing cave was
discovered by two miners in 2000.
Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals - translucent beams of gypsum as long as 11 meters.
The cave reminds of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
New studies report that for thousands of years the crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment.
Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 55 degrees Celsius, and the cave was
filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth.
The Cave of Crystals is a horseshoe-shaped cavity in limestone rock about 10 meters wide and 30 meters long.
The volcanic activity that began about 26 million years ago created Naica mountain and filled it with high-temperature anhydrite.
When magma underneath the mountain cooled and the temperature dropped, the anhydrite began to dissolve. The anhydrite slowly enriched the waters with sulfate and calcium molecules, which for millions of years have been deposited in the caves in the form of huge selenite gypsum crystals.
The humidity is 100% inside the cave which in combination with the extreme heat, you cannot visit this wonder without a heat resistant suit. That is also cool.
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Place Djemma El Fna - A mythical square in Morocco
Birth: Thousand year ago or so
Location: Marrakesh, Morocco
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Magicians, storytellers, monkeys and snakes, how can you not love this place.
Djemma el Fna, the "Meeting Place of the Dead", a suitably chilling phrase which conjures an aura of exoticism and savage justice to an otherwise fully functional public square, has continued unabated for centuries. By day it serves as a venue where magicians, fortune tellers, herbalists, acrobats, monkey handlers, snake charmers, dentists, astrologers, numerologists, and sorcerers create intriguing displays of bewitching spectacle. By night, the square transforms into a symphony of mystical brotherhoods and night musicians: the Aissoua, Derkaoua, Hamadasha, Jilila, and Gnaoua. Free from the restrictions and expectations of light entertainment for a tourist crowd, this "Rendezvous of the Dead" is where the performances animate the audience and musicians alike into an elevated spiritual congress colliding in sonorous ecstacy.
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Mickey's Trailer - A great show-off gadget
Birth: 1938
Location: Movie screen
Architect: Disney
VD says: One of the best Disney inventions
Mickey's Trailer is a animated short film by Walt Disney productions. It stars Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy on a trailer vacation. The trip is an architectural showoff of custom made details. The most genius gadget would be the fan construction that can be unrolled for nicer scenery. The picture has also become a classic cartoon on Swedish Christmas television for several years, teaching the Swedish youth how to be inventive. The results may vary.
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Däckshus - A Swedish modernistic classic
Birth: 1960
Location: Smörgatan 23 Kallebäck, Gothenburg
Architect: Erik Friberger
VD says: Probably the building with strongest modernistic concept ever erected in Sweden.
Many architects has thought about 3d stacked villas with gardens but this is the only realized project we know about. The “Däckshus” by the Swedish subversive modernist hero Erik Friberger is a three story concrete construction where villas are placed later on. The distance between the decks is 4 meters and the plots varies from 144 m2 to 210 m2 and all installation is put in the circulation space. The idea was that the villas would expand with a growing family. Most of the houses was however already fully built from the beginning.
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Crazy Horse Mountain - An epic mountain transformation
Birth: 1948-
Location: Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
Architect: Native Americans with Korczak Ziółkowski
VD says: You have to admire the dedication of these people, the result will be overwhelming in scale if they ever complete the project.
The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the form of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance.
The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 10 km away from Mount Rushmore.
The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 195 m wide and 172 m high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 27 m high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 18 m high.
The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is still far from completion. If finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture.
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Barbershop Mall - A mall with a Guggenheim ramp with just barbershops in it
Birth: around 1980
Location: Valparaiso, Chile
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Next time you should have a haircut, go to this mall.
This mirror clad mall with a Guggenheim-like ramp has only barbershops in it, we counted them to around 80, the cheaper ones are higher up. What also enhances this insane mall is the tacky Darth Vader character that walks around, making it a South American Star Wars feeling over the whole place. A must see.
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Matterhorn - The peak of peaks
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Swiss Alps (and to some extent Italy)
Architect: Earth
VD says: Mont Blanc in all its glory, we still think that Matterhorn is the proudest peak of the Alps, the worlds most refined area. It could have been a little higher though.
Although not the highest mountain in the Alps, the Matterhorn is considered as an iconic emblem of the region of the Swiss Alps.
The Matterhorn acquired its characteristic pyramidal shape by natural erosion over the past million years. At the beginning of alpine orogeny, the Matterhorn was only a rounded mountain like a hill. Because its height is above the snowline, its flanks are covered by ice, resulting from the accumulation and compaction of snow. During the warmer period of summer, part of the ice melts and seeps into the bedrock. When it freezes again, it fractures pieces of rock because of its dilatation (Freeze Thaw), forming a cirque. Four cirques led to the actual shape of the mountain.
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Xanadu - A movie mansion classic
Birth: 1941
Location: Gulf Coast, USA
Architect: Charles Foster Kane
VD says: "cost: no man can say", maniac mansions always ranks high in our humble office.
"Here, on the deserts of the Gulf coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built. One hundred thousand trees, twenty thousand tons of marble are the ingredients of Xanadu's mountain. Contents of Xanadu's palace: paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace - a collection of everything so big it can never be catalogued or appraised; enough for ten museums; the loot of the world. Xanadu's livestock: the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, the beast of the field and jungle. Two of each; the biggest private zoo since Noah. Like the Pharaohs, Xanadu's landlord leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the Pyramids, Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself."
From the intro to Citizen Kane
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Cave School - A school inside of a cave
Birth: 1984
Location: China
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Amazing setting for a school.
Built in 1984, this school sits in one of three caves inside a mountain.
Nowadays, it accomodates 186 students with a teaching force of 8 staff.
Eerie but cool, we think the kids like their school setting too.
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Honghe Hani Terrace - One of the largest alteration of the landscape ever made
Birth: Thousands of years ago
Location: Yunnan Province, China
Architect: The Hani people
VD says: Agriculture that also becomes an artform
On the banks of Honghe River in South China's Yunnan Province are millions of acres of agricultural and ecological wonders - otherwise known as the Honghe Hani Terrace. Making full use of the special geological and climactic conditions in the area, the Hani people have found a perfect combination between human civilization and the environment. In terms of size and coverage, the Hani Terrace is largest in the world.
The Hani People, creators of this wonder, originated from the Tibetan Plateau on the upper reaches of the Yellow River. After centuries of migration, a group of the ancient Qiang people settled down in the Ailao Mountains in Southern Yunnan, and became today's Hani race. About 600,000 Hani people still dwell in the region and their ancestors totally altered the landforms there to grow crops to feed themselves, yet the ecology was not damaged. In fact, they have made the place even more attractive, presenting a perfect testimony to harmony between man and nature. The terrace shows that human intervention doesn't necessarily mean destroying nature.
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Viken - A landscape lit up as a painting
Birth: 2007 (temporary)
Location: Alingsås, Sweden
Architect: Jan Dinnebier / Jan Blieske
VD says: The most conceptual and beautiful landscape project made so far in Northern Europe.
The focus of interest is a solitary tree in a marshland at the lakeside.
At first the designers defined the viewpoint of the scene, the idea was to make a scenery like a painting. They used a layer technique to create a picture and worked with nature's own layers to achieve the typical layout of a landscape painting. The basic setup was defined as:
-a diffuse background
-the tree as the focus in the painting
-a foreground giving the scene a defined frame
Bravo!
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Bora Bora - "The" tropical island
Birth: A long time ago
Location: French Polynesia
Architect: Earth
VD says: The perfect honeymoon island
The island is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. In the center of the island are the remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks.
Thirty years ago, Hotel Bora Bora built the first over-the-water bungalows on stilts over the lagoon and today, overwater bungalows are a standard feature of most Bora Bora resorts. The quality of those bungalows ranges from comparably cheap, basic accommodations to very luxurious - and pricey - places to stay.
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Noah's Ark - Immense vessel for animals designed by god
Birth: A long time ago
Location: The ocean
Architect: God and Noah
VD says: Being an animal loving office, we like this project because it shows great respect to our fellow friends. The design is a little bit too crude though, you could have expected more from the god allmighty.
The Genesis narrative tells how God, grieved by the wickedness of mankind, decided to destroy the corrupted world. However, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord", so God instructs Noah to build the Ark and take on board his family and representatives of the animals and birds. The flood rises to cover the Earth, but at its height "God remembered Noah", the waters abate, and dry land appears. God promises never to do it again, displaying a rainbow as a guarantee.
Great project.
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Swiss bunkers - Camouflaged buildings
Birth: 1950-60
Location: Around Switzerland
Architect: The military
VD says: Buildings that tries to look like something else is always fascinating
Who would have thought that peaceful Switzerland could have produced camouflaged architecture during the cold war: fake upper-middle-class houses, fake farmhouses, fake rocks, etc.
Fake buildings are in general always cool in one way or another and that some fake trees actually are a highly sophisticated missile detector are of course supercool.
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Esther Williams pool - A Florida shaped pool for a moviestar
Birth: 1950s
Location: Cypress Gardens, Florida, USA
Architect: Esther Williams
VD says: This is what a pool should look like
Florida's first theme park, Cypress Gardens, was the brainchild of Richard Downing "Dick" Pope Sr. With his wife, Julie Downing Pope, he transformed a marshy, lakeside property in Winter Haven into a magnificent garden. The park's first visitors in 1936 toured pathways surrounded by lush plants from around the world. Two years later, electric boats meandered through the park's winding, hand-dug canals. Water ski shows commenced in 1942, and the park became the "Water Ski Capital of the World." The Florida-shaped Esther WilliamsSwimming Pool still graces the shore of Lake Eloise. The park was a set for dozens of short feature films, a stage for beauty pageants, and a site for special television broadcasts.The Esther Williams Swimming Pool was built in the shape of the map of Florida, projecting out in Lake Eloise as a set for MGM technicolor movie filmed at Cypress Gardens.
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Cueva de los Cristales - The Sistine Chapel of crystals
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Naica Mountain, Chihuahua, Mexico
Architect: Earth
VD says: Outstanding natural wonder that once again proves that Earth still is the best architect so far
Buried 300 meters below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, this astonishing cave was
discovered by two miners in 2000.
Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) contains some of the world's largest known natural crystals - translucent beams of gypsum as long as 11 meters.
The cave reminds of Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
New studies report that for thousands of years the crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment.
Temperatures hovered consistently around a steamy 55 degrees Celsius, and the cave was
filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth.
The Cave of Crystals is a horseshoe-shaped cavity in limestone rock about 10 meters wide and 30 meters long.
The volcanic activity that began about 26 million years ago created Naica mountain and filled it with high-temperature anhydrite.
When magma underneath the mountain cooled and the temperature dropped, the anhydrite began to dissolve. The anhydrite slowly enriched the waters with sulfate and calcium molecules, which for millions of years have been deposited in the caves in the form of huge selenite gypsum crystals.
The humidity is 100% inside the cave which in combination with the extreme heat, you cannot visit this wonder without a heat resistant suit. That is also cool.
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Place Djemma El Fna - A mythical square in Morocco
Birth: Thousand year ago or so
Location: Marrakesh, Morocco
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Magicians, storytellers, monkeys and snakes, how can you not love this place.
Djemma el Fna, the "Meeting Place of the Dead", a suitably chilling phrase which conjures an aura of exoticism and savage justice to an otherwise fully functional public square, has continued unabated for centuries. By day it serves as a venue where magicians, fortune tellers, herbalists, acrobats, monkey handlers, snake charmers, dentists, astrologers, numerologists, and sorcerers create intriguing displays of bewitching spectacle. By night, the square transforms into a symphony of mystical brotherhoods and night musicians: the Aissoua, Derkaoua, Hamadasha, Jilila, and Gnaoua. Free from the restrictions and expectations of light entertainment for a tourist crowd, this "Rendezvous of the Dead" is where the performances animate the audience and musicians alike into an elevated spiritual congress colliding in sonorous ecstacy.
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Mickey's Trailer - A great show-off gadget
Birth: 1938
Location: Movie screen
Architect: Disney
VD says: One of the best Disney inventions
Mickey's Trailer is a animated short film by Walt Disney productions. It stars Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy on a trailer vacation. The trip is an architectural showoff of custom made details. The most genius gadget would be the fan construction that can be unrolled for nicer scenery. The picture has also become a classic cartoon on Swedish Christmas television for several years, teaching the Swedish youth how to be inventive. The results may vary.
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Däckshus - A Swedish modernistic classic
Birth: 1960
Location: Smörgatan 23 Kallebäck, Gothenburg
Architect: Erik Friberger
VD says: Probably the building with strongest modernistic concept ever erected in Sweden.
Many architects has thought about 3d stacked villas with gardens but this is the only realized project we know about. The “Däckshus” by the Swedish subversive modernist hero Erik Friberger is a three story concrete construction where villas are placed later on. The distance between the decks is 4 meters and the plots varies from 144 m2 to 210 m2 and all installation is put in the circulation space. The idea was that the villas would expand with a growing family. Most of the houses was however already fully built from the beginning.
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Crazy Horse Mountain - An epic mountain transformation
Birth: 1948-
Location: Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
Architect: Native Americans with Korczak Ziółkowski
VD says: You have to admire the dedication of these people, the result will be overwhelming in scale if they ever complete the project.
The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the form of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance.
The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 10 km away from Mount Rushmore.
The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 195 m wide and 172 m high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 27 m high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 18 m high.
The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is still far from completion. If finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture.
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Barbershop Mall - A mall with a Guggenheim ramp with just barbershops in it
Birth: around 1980
Location: Valparaiso, Chile
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Next time you should have a haircut, go to this mall.
This mirror clad mall with a Guggenheim-like ramp has only barbershops in it, we counted them to around 80, the cheaper ones are higher up. What also enhances this insane mall is the tacky Darth Vader character that walks around, making it a South American Star Wars feeling over the whole place. A must see.
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Matterhorn - The peak of peaks
Birth: A long time ago
Location: Swiss Alps (and to some extent Italy)
Architect: Earth
VD says: Mont Blanc in all its glory, we still think that Matterhorn is the proudest peak of the Alps, the worlds most refined area. It could have been a little higher though.
Although not the highest mountain in the Alps, the Matterhorn is considered as an iconic emblem of the region of the Swiss Alps.
The Matterhorn acquired its characteristic pyramidal shape by natural erosion over the past million years. At the beginning of alpine orogeny, the Matterhorn was only a rounded mountain like a hill. Because its height is above the snowline, its flanks are covered by ice, resulting from the accumulation and compaction of snow. During the warmer period of summer, part of the ice melts and seeps into the bedrock. When it freezes again, it fractures pieces of rock because of its dilatation (Freeze Thaw), forming a cirque. Four cirques led to the actual shape of the mountain.
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Xanadu - A movie mansion classic
Birth: 1941
Location: Gulf Coast, USA
Architect: Charles Foster Kane
VD says: "cost: no man can say", maniac mansions always ranks high in our humble office.
"Here, on the deserts of the Gulf coast, a private mountain was commissioned and successfully built. One hundred thousand trees, twenty thousand tons of marble are the ingredients of Xanadu's mountain. Contents of Xanadu's palace: paintings, pictures, statues, the very stones of many another palace - a collection of everything so big it can never be catalogued or appraised; enough for ten museums; the loot of the world. Xanadu's livestock: the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, the beast of the field and jungle. Two of each; the biggest private zoo since Noah. Like the Pharaohs, Xanadu's landlord leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the Pyramids, Xanadu is the costliest monument a man has built to himself."
From the intro to Citizen Kane
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Cave School - A school inside of a cave
Birth: 1984
Location: China
Architect: Unknown
VD says: Amazing setting for a school.
Built in 1984, this school sits in one of three caves inside a mountain.
Nowadays, it accomodates 186 students with a teaching force of 8 staff.
Eerie but cool, we think the kids like their school setting too.
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Honghe Hani Terrace - One of the largest alteration of the landscape ever made
Birth: Thousands of years ago
Location: Yunnan Province, China
Architect: The Hani people
VD says: Agriculture that also becomes an artform
On the banks of Honghe River in South China's Yunnan Province are millions of acres of agricultural and ecological wonders - otherwise known as the Honghe Hani Terrace. Making full use of the special geological and climactic conditions in the area, the Hani people have found a perfect combination between human civilization and the environment. In terms of size and coverage, the Hani Terrace is largest in the world.
The Hani People, creators of this wonder, originated from the Tibetan Plateau on the upper reaches of the Yellow River. After centuries of migration, a group of the ancient Qiang people settled down in the Ailao Mountains in Southern Yunnan, and became today's Hani race. About 600,000 Hani people still dwell in the region and their ancestors totally altered the landforms there to grow crops to feed themselves, yet the ecology was not damaged. In fact, they have made the place even more attractive, presenting a perfect testimony to harmony between man and nature. The terrace shows that human intervention doesn't necessarily mean destroying nature.
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Viken - A landscape lit up as a painting
Birth: 2007 (temporary)
Location: Alingsås, Sweden
Architect: Jan Dinnebier / Jan Blieske
VD says: The most conceptual and beautiful landscape project made so far in Northern Europe.
The focus of interest is a solitary tree in a marshland at the lakeside.
At first the designers defined the viewpoint of the scene, the idea was to make a scenery like a painting. They used a layer technique to create a picture and worked with nature's own layers to achieve the typical layout of a landscape painting. The basic setup was defined as:
-a diffuse background
-the tree as the focus in the painting
-a foreground giving the scene a defined frame
Bravo!
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Bora Bora - "The" tropical island
Birth: A long time ago
Location: French Polynesia
Architect: Earth
VD says: The perfect honeymoon island
The island is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. In the center of the island are the remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks.
Thirty years ago, Hotel Bora Bora built the first over-the-water bungalows on stilts over the lagoon and today, overwater bungalows are a standard feature of most Bora Bora resorts. The quality of those bungalows ranges from comparably cheap, basic accommodations to very luxurious - and pricey - places to stay.
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Noah's Ark - Immense vessel for animals designed by god
Birth: A long time ago
Location: The ocean
Architect: God and Noah
VD says: Being an animal loving office, we like this project because it shows great respect to our fellow friends. The design is a little bit too crude though, you could have expected more from the god allmighty.
The Genesis narrative tells how God, grieved by the wickedness of mankind, decided to destroy the corrupted world. However, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord", so God instructs Noah to build the Ark and take on board his family and representatives of the animals and birds. The flood rises to cover the Earth, but at its height "God remembered Noah", the waters abate, and dry land appears. God promises never to do it again, displaying a rainbow as a guarantee.
Great project.
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Swiss bunkers - Camouflaged buildings
Birth: 1950-60
Location: Around Switzerland
Architect: The military
VD says: Buildings that tries to look like something else is always fascinating
Who would have thought that peaceful Switzerland could have produced camouflaged architecture during the cold war: fake upper-middle-class houses, fake farmhouses, fake rocks, etc.
Fake buildings are in general always cool in one way or another and that some fake trees actually are a highly sophisticated missile detector are of course supercool.
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