Posted by Dabney B. on Friday, April 27th, 2012
Image: Pondly
Yesterday, I covered a swimming pool with a mural on the bottom of it. Those types of installations are probably my favorite pieces of aquatic architecture, the ones that use water as the focal point or the message of art. Floating buildings are neat and all, but I’d much rather check out art pieces that make me view water in a whole new light. Continue reading…
Posted by Dabney B. on Thursday, April 26th, 2012
Image: Cubeme
Global temperatures are on the rise, and so are water levels. A bunch of different organizations are trying to raise public awareness about this environmental threat, but few are doing it quite as effectively as HSBC Bank.
The bank hired advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather in Mumbai to come up with a clever and chilling ad campaign. The ad agency took an aerial shot of the New York City skyline and put it at the bottom of a swimming pool in Mumbai. Swimmers might hop in to take a dip, only to realize that they’re backstroking over top of one of the world’s most iconic cities. The unsaid message is as clear as the chlorinated water: this is the fate of the world if we do not stop global warming. Continue reading…
Posted by Dabney B. on Wednesday, April 18th, 2012
Image: Dornob
Waterbeds never really caught on. They were an interesting fad, but the fact that your bed could spring a leak and ruin your bedroom really limited their potential. On top of that, they just weren’t very comfortable. I tried laying on one once, and I just couldn’t get used to the rocking motion. Continue reading…
Posted by Dabney B. on Thursday, April 5th, 2012
There’s just something inherently peaceful about the sound of rain. Even though the raindrops are all a bit random and chaotic, the end result is actually soothing and rhythmic. In fact, if you go out and buy one of those “peaceful sounds” CDs, you’re bound to find birds chirping, ocean waves, and of course the sound of rainfall.
Image: Inhabitat
Artists Annette Paul, Christopher Rossner, and Andre Temple have decided to take that feeling of peace to a whole new level by building Funky Blue, a series of rain-powered musical instruments on the facade of a building.
Image: Inhabitat
The whole setup is brilliantly simple. Rain water collects at the roof of the building and is funneled to the side of the building with the instruments. From there, water pours down a series of tubes, pipes, bowls, and troughs. The rain water makes a variety of different noises as it splashes down the concoction, from the pattering of falling water to the smooth hum of a running stream.
Image: Inhabitat
Some of the pipes are actually shaped like musical instruments, but don’t be fooled by their appearance. The shape is more an homage to musical instruments than any real attempt to create the sounds of trumpets or trombones. When it rains, the effect is certainly musical, but don’t expect the type of sounds you’d hear on your local music radio station.
Image: Inhabitat
The Funky Blue pipes fit brilliantly with the blue-green facade, which immediately calls to mind the colors of the ocean. You might think that this type of building would look a bit out of place, it actually fits right at home in the German city of Dresden. The city is famous for being one of the most progressive and green cities in all of Germany, and it is filled with Baroque and Rococo architecture. In Dresden, the fusion of green environmentalism and beautiful architecture is the norm rather than the exception. Funky Blue should definitely be on your itinerary if you happen to visit the land of weinerschnitzel and beer. After all, music is the universal language, so you can still enjoy the experience, even if you have trouble speaking the local language.
Image: Inhabitat
After all of this, I’m sure you’re dying to know: what does all of this sound like? Well, it sounds a bit like rain, to be honest. What’d you expect? If you listen closely, however, you should be able to pick out the various different sounds of the water all working together. It’s not Mozart, but it still sounds nice.
Posted by Dabney B. on Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Does a painting of the ocean count as aquatic architecture? I’d say no. How about a mural on the side of a building depicting the ocean? Eh, that’s still a little iffy. What about a gigantic virtual fish tank made from LEDs?
Image: Weirdomatic
Not all aquatic architecture has to have H2O. Sometimes, a structure only needs to invoke the image or feeling of water to get the message across. Water can be a great source of artistic inspiration and design features. Just look at these droplet-inspired buildings.
That’s the basic idea behind Beijing Mall’s massive virtual aquarium, a 250 x 30 meter screen dotted with millions of LED lights. The whole thing is suspended several meters off the ground so that shoppers can walk under it, look up, and experience what it would be like to walk on the bottom of the ocean.
Image: Weirdomatic
Or pictures of faces, or advertisements, or whatever else it happens to be displaying at the moment. The screen is actually designed to show a wide variety of images. It can show video games, uploaded pictures, special videos during events, or just about anything you could imagine. When it’s not being used for anything else, though, it defaults to a lively pseudo-aquarium.
This versatility makes it the most densely populated aquariums in the world, assuming we can get past the tiny little concern that none of the fish are actually real. Still, the screen shows off coral, manta ray, sharks, tropical fish, whales, and even a few dragons. Don’t expect to find views like that at your local aquarium.
Image: Weirdomatic
What did this elaborate light show cost? A whopping $32 million. Once you get up to numbers like that, it seems that you’d just be better off building an actual, real-life aquarium. After all, the folks down in Dubai pulled off a mall aquarium.
The Beijing aquarium is neat and all — don’t get me wrong. I just feel like it kind of misses the point. In this day and age, pretty much everything we come in contact with is simulated and virtual. We’re so disconnected from the world around us that we often go out of our way and travel halfway around the world just to experience a bit of authenticity.
Image: Weirdomatic
As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in front of a computer connected to the Internet, so I’m only a few keystrokes away from looking at pictures of fish, deep sea expeditions, sharks, or pretty much anything else. Yet, I still go to aquariums because it lets me see real fish. This LED screen is certainly a spectacle and I suspect that I’d spend a few minutes staring at it if I ever end up in a Beijing Mall, but I think I’d have more fun if I could stare at actual fish instead.
Posted by Dabney B. on Friday, February 24th, 2012
Aquatic architecture is usually quite a bit more complicated than you might initially think. Even if you do whatever it takes to make a building float, you’ll need to figure out a lot of other details in order to make the building functional. What about the building’s plumbing or power source? How can people get to it, and what prevents it from floating aimlessly through the world’s oceans?
We tend to take our infrastructure for granted, as the common features of terrestrial life are so ubiquitous that it can be hard to imagine a place without them. When you’re dealing with aquatic architecture, the very real problems of things like power sources and food supply are tremendously important for floating or submerged structures. If you build a community in the ocean, that community will need a source of power.
Image: Scientific America
One great example of a common and vital piece infrastructure here on land are road maps. When you want to figure out how to get from point A to point B, there are perfectly accurate maps that are to scale and contain up-to-date information about the world. Those of you with a smart phone can link up to satellites in space to give you information about your surroundings based on programs such as Google Maps. Unfortunately, Google Maps isn’t quite as detailed when it comes to the vast ocean.
Wayfaring
Well, until now. Google has recently announced their plans to work with the University of Queensland and the Caitlin Group to explore Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and chart its wonders for viewers across the world. Known as Seaview, this project will bring this hidden and beautiful world to life. With the use of special 360° cameras that are propelled by diver-controlled devices, Google will be able to record new and valuable data about the world’s most amazing natural reef.
Image: Digital Spy
Of course, scientists aren’t the only people who will benefit from the research. Google will post these dives on sites such as YouTube for anybody to enjoy. Eventually, we might even be able to come to expect a map that users can explore similar to the street views of Google Maps.
Image: Digital Spy
While this project doesn’t qualify as aquatic architecture in the strictest sense, it’s certainly relevant to architect firms like Baca Architects because Google is helping to map out the infrastructure that could eventually lead to aquatic housing environments.
Image: Digital Spy
Posted by Dabney B. on Monday, February 13th, 2012
Normally, the whole focus of this blog is to examine any type of architecture that incorporates water or ice into the design. Rarely, however, I get a chance to take a look at architecture that is about water, something that uses water as a message or a theme rather than an actual physical component.
Image: Plunge London
Michael Pinsky, a London artist, is using blue LED lights to draw attention to the changing climate and rising water levels. Rather than using water in his works of art, he is forcing viewers to imagine water by creating blue rings around famous landmarks, Seven Dials Sundial Pillar, the Paternoster Square Column, and the Duke of York Column.
Image: London Plunge
Appropriately dubbed “Plunge,” this set of artistic modifications imagines the fate of the earth 1000 years in the future by marking future water levels. As global warming continues unchecked and the ice caps melt, rising water levels will completely drown entire cities beneath the ocean. While grim, Pinsky’s vision of the fate of London is by no means farfetched. Many experts estimate a rise in sea levels by as much as 2 meters at the end of 2100, but these conservative figures are likely underestimations of the true impact of global warming.
Image: Plunge London
Pinsky’s pieces are as effective as they are disturbing. By placing these rings around some of London’s most famous landmarks, Pinsky is evoking the same kind of feeling one would typically get when they see graffiti or vandalism. It makes onlookers feel as though someone has callously defiled a historical monument. In a way, this concept isn’t very far from the truth, as the combined ecological footprint of every human on earth will inevitably lead to the destruction of all monuments near water.
Image: Plunge London
Those of us not in London can still experience the dismal future of mankind by checking out the interactive Plunge website. By entering your zip code, you’ll be able to predict just how long it will take before your great grand kids will need to take a boat for their morning commute. By these estimates, my coastal Connecticut town will look more like a bay around the year 2533. I’m safe for the time being, but Pinsky proves that we will need to get up and do something about climate change if we really expect to thrive on earth for another millennium.
Posted by Dabney B. on Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
Image: Boston
There’s something inherently appealing about ice sculptures. Artists working with this crystalline medium can create hauntingly beautiful sculptures that capture light and reflect it in a thousand odd directions. The ephemeral nature of ice gives the ice sculptures a sense of immediacy, as if viewers have caught a fleeting glimpse of beauty that is not intended to last.
Every January, tens of thousands of tourists ski, dog sled, skate, and drive ever-so-carefully to the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin to experience the annual Ice Festival. There are restaurants, events, and fireworks, but by far the most alluring feature is the fact that thousands of expert artists worked tirelessly to create beautiful ice sculptures that come alive at night with an almost ghostly glow.
Image: Boston
Don’t think of this festival as some small exhibition, because it is anything but. This sprawling festival creates something more akin to an ice city than a mere exhibition. Visitors can tour through entire houses made of ice (complete with ice furniture), zip down ice slides that are longer than football fields, and walk along icy replicas of the Great Wall of China. From these nighttime videos, it’s clear that the shifting colors and icy buildings provide visitors with an experience unlike any other on earth. These images look less like an ice building and more like something you’d expect to see in a Disney movie.
The artists cut the ice blocks from the nearby Songhua river, which provides them with a cheap and nearly endless supply of materials for their subzero creations.
Unlike most things in China, this tradition is a very new one. It began in the 1960s and took off around 1985 after China’s Cultural Revolution. As the years passed and China’s economy grew, the Harbin Ice Festival has reached truly epic proportions with their larger-than-life ice replicas of world wonders, buildings, and cultural images.
Image: Boston
As I mentioned, the most spectacular part of the Ice Festival is at night, when they illuminate everything with an array of multicolored lights. These ice lights span the spectrum of technology, ranging from cool-burning lasers to specially designed ice lanterns.
If you are ever lucky enough to visit Harbin in January, you’re in for a treat. Just be sure to bundle yourself up, because the temperature will range from 17° to -13° F (-8° to -25° C).
Posted by admin on Friday, December 2nd, 2011
It is an interesting quirk of human nature that we adore water. The fact that fountains are popular in every culture and that waterfalls are universally adored are both evidence of this. It’s no surprise that many artists attempt to capture the flowing beauty of water in their art.
When Florida’s St. Petersburg held a competition to determine a winning design for one of their piers, the BIG design team made waves with their ocean-inspired design. Their design entails a complete redevelopment of the pier, which will eventually enable them to build a massive wave-shaped structure. The design is a bit like an enormous O, except that the vertical portions of the building are skewed to replicate a cresting wave.
The structure isn’t all for looks. Visitors would be able to enter and climb up through the multiple levels of the bizarrely shaped building. The unique shape will require some creativity when deciding what sort of facilities to place within it, but the designers already have a few features in mind. They intend to add a rock climbing wall, pools, steam baths, and (appropriately) an artificial wave pool for surfers.
On top of all that, the designers want to make the project as green as possible in order to achieve LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Not only are the designers going to use as much preexisting infrastructure as possible, but they also intend to recycle demolition waste to help make artificial reefs. The wave structure will also use a water cooling system, solar power, and a number of other high tech green gizmos to make the structure as self-sufficient and green as possible.
Posted by admin on Friday, November 18th, 2011
Okeanos Aquascaping is all about fusing architecture with water, and adding a heaping dose of modern style. While aquatic architecture is usually our favorite topic, Kelp Constructs is just way too cool to pass up.
Everybody loves the look and feel of aquariums, with their fresh, aquamarine hue to their vibrant flashes of colors. It’s almost impossible to gaze into an aquarium without wondering what it would be like to live in such a colorful and alien world.
Thanks to artist Julia Lohmann, we don’t have to spend quite as much brain power trying to imagine it. She has created a series of unexpectedly beautiful lamps made out of kelp. Who would have thought seaweed could look this good?
Lohmann dries and rehydrates the kelp before working with it to keep it preserved. This process has a beneficial side effect from an artistic stand point, because this process creates a different effect every time. Because kelp is an organic plant, no two strands of kelp are uniform. Consequently, there will be slight differences in the curl, shape, flexibility, green-ness, and every other aspect of the kelp after it’s processed. Each of these hand-made lamps will be absolutely unique, as it will be literally impossible to recreate an identical lamp.
The finished product is beautiful and strikingly organic. The stuff doesn’t look processed at all. It looks as though somebody pulled kelp directly out of the ocean, artfully stuck a light bulb into it, and then hung it from the ceiling. The light creates a unique glow as it pierces through the thin kelp, reminiscent of many of the bioluminescent creatures in the depths of the ocean.
These kelp lamps add an incredible amount of atmosphere to a room. For aquarium lovers, these lamps hold a unique appeal, as it broadens the feel and aesthetic of an aquarium to incorporate it into an actual living space. With the right furniture and appropriately blue wall paint, these kelp lamps can help create a genuine aquarium room. All we need now is an artsy swimming pool and we can really feel like we’re swimming with the fishes.
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