No Technical Know-How Needed: Endless Forms Web Site Helps Users ‘Breed’ 3-D Printable Objects

Forget draft tables and complicated computer-aided design programs: You dream it. Endless Forms helps you design it.

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Cornell University engineers are allowing anyone to point, click, collaborate and create online in the evolution of printable, three-dimensional objects. They aim to transform the design of art, architecture and artificial intelligence.

Their new, interactive website EndlessForms.com, allows users to design their own things — from lamps and butterflies to furniture and faces — without any technical knowledge and using the same principles that guide evolutionary biology.

The Web site was developed by Jeff Clune, Cornell postdoctoral fellow; Jason Yosinski, Cornell graduate student in engineering; and Eugene Doan, Cornell undergraduate student in the Creative Machines lab of Hod Lipson, Cornell associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and computing and information science.

EndlessForms users can develop objects just as gardeners raise roses — a “generation” of objects is displayed, and a user chooses objects they like, which are “bred” to produce the next generation. Over time, objects evolve and users can publish these objects. Others can further evolve, share and rate them, creating a collaborative exploration of designs that, according to Lipson, represents an entirely new way of thinking about design. Users can then have their objects made by 3-D printing companies in a wide range of materials, such as silver, steel, ceramic or sandstone.

The concept eliminates the need for skilled engineers to draw in Computer-Aided Design (CAD) programs, which can be complicated and non-intuitive. These new design tools free people to focus creativity, instead of being mired in technical details, Lipson said.

Now that 3-D printing is taking off, the goal is to unshackle the design process, flooding the industry with objects that are truly one of a kind. Lipson likens the 3-D printing industry to iPods with no music — the printers exist, but the availability of content is bottlenecked by the old methods like CAD that few people know how to use and that stifle creativity.

read more : Here

Go to EndlessForms.com to try it out yourself!!

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• How 3D Printing Will Change Absolutely Everything It Touches (forbes.com)

Suspended Staircases

Cantilevered from the wall, made from heavy steel, concrete or glass, these stair treads seem unfettered by the laws of physics, hovering in the air. All manner of engineering tricks were used to make these 18 modern staircases into works of art that we just can’t stop staring at.

Suspended Stairs at the Godzilla House, South Korea

South Korea’s ‘Godzilla House’ is quite an interesting piece of architecture as a whole, but the curved shape and chameleon-like     metal facade are just the beginning. One particularly striking element included by Chae Pereira architects is a wooden staircase with white vertical supports that almost look like rope from a distance.

Ribbon Illusion Stairs by HSH Architects

If you have to stare at your staircase from the living room every day, why not make it a work of art? This beautiful ribbon staircase by HSH Architects puts ordinary stairs to shame, distributing weight down to the floor through hidden brackets mounted into the wall.

Barely-There Stairs Above a Reflecting Pool

The way that these stairs play with light and reflection in the space around them is almost more important than the stairs themselves – design-wise, at least. Positioned above a reflecting pool, the cantilevered stairs provide a bit of shady respite on the way to a sunny terrace.

Incredible Bird’s Nest Suspended Staircase

These stairs definitely aren’t trying to hide – they’re the most interesting element in the room. Reminiscent of a bird cage, the chaotic criss-crossing metal bars are balanced by the serene white of the walls and cabinets.

Hanging Black-and-White at BUMPS, Beijing

These highly unusual blocky black-and-white stairs are a visual echo of the BUMPS building’s exterior, which consists of black and white rectangles seemingly stacked Jenga-style. Each step is connected to the next leaving negative space as they descend, resulting in interesting optical effects when viewed from the lower floor.

Minimalist Black Stairs by Ecole

Like an Escher drawing sprung into three dimensions, this floating staircase by Ecole is made all the more dramatic with the use of bold black against a white wall.

Read more over: Here

Trompe L’oeil: Artistic Wall Murals that Bend & Twist Reality

 

surreal Murals

Trompe L’oeil, french for “deceive the eye,” is the art of creating two dimensional images with such realism that they appear to be in three dimensions. A trick often used in the backdrop of classic films before the advent of green screen technology, these illusions are found in cities across the world.



 

 

 

Surreal Murals - trompe-loeil-wall

 



Why add a window to a drab backyard or side alley, when one can have one that opens into a gorgeous world. Feeling claustrophobic? Gaze out into the lush jungle on the other side of your wall.







Imagine walking down the street and stumbling upon a building that looks like the surface of a disturbed pond. This is one of the most dedicated examples, and stunning in the largeness of its scale.



READ MORE over here: http://weburbanist.com/2011/01/13/trompe-loeil-murals-that-twist-reality/

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• Unreal 3D Murals by Eric Grohe (odditycentral.com)
• Givenchy (style.com)

Izmir Opera House by Nuvist Architecture and Design

 nuvist Izmir Opera House

This futuristic architecture design is a work of art by Nuvist Architecture and Design for Izmir Opera House competition. They have to design an Opera House that reflects as an art center building, yet still play its role as a participant in the society and connect the citizens with the artist’s works. The result is fabulous and futuristic Opera House.

Designer : Nuvist

izmir Opera House Nuvist

Text from Nuvist:

Art has a great role in showing what happens in human beings’ life. Soul, intelligence and the emotions are the reflections of the community, and Art forms the social identities of communities. It also shows us the difference between the various social identities. Global influences effect the types of knowledge acquisitions or the social values in the art, and the artists determine the standards of modern life.

Thus, art centers have many roles beside their fundamental functions that should be participant, shared with society and create a modern level in connection between the citizens and the artists’ works. This concept is the key criteria for the Izmir Opera House Project. The project should be reflecting the history, the culture and the modern life in Izmir, furthermore it should be an identity for the city of Izmir.

In this context, we have started to design an urban art dome that we call Artistic Foyer. The urban power effects the functional system, and the functional system defines the artistic foyer. As a result, all these things together create a parametric topography which forming the dome.

 

Read more over here: http://www.tuvie.com/izmir-opera-house-by-nuvist-architecture-and-design/

 

See Complete Project from Nuvist : http://www.nuvist.com/

“Surreal” sculptures of Fine steel-wire : Shi Jindian

Shi Jindian

Born: Yuxi City, Yunan province, 1953

“I don’t like hard, heavy materials like bronze, stone and clay. I have a fondness for fine and delicate things.”

Shi Jindian

Say sculpture and most people think of something solid and opaque. Shi Jindian’s sculptures are made of steel, yet they are light, transparent, almost ethereal. After searching for years for “a material that was brand new, completely untraditional”, he settled on steel wires. By trial and error, he learned how to crochet the two-dimensional strands into three-dimensional forms, using tools of his own devising. His wire meshes start out as wrappings around some common object. When the mesh is complete, Shi Jindian destroys or extracts the object, leaving only its steel exoskeleton. The result, he says, is a kind of fiction, a virtual reality that can be walked around and touched.

Shi Jindian

Surrealist René Magritte painted a pipe along with the words: “This is not a pipe.” Shi Jindian does something similar in sculpture, making not-quite-replicas of items from musical instruments to machines. His Blue CJ750 (2008) is a replica of the Chiangjiang [Yangtze] 750, a military bike based on a pre-World War II BMW. It took him three years to make, but he found deep serenity in the toil. When people touch his sculptures, he says, they also touch “the state of mind that emerges from the labour of my hands: tranquillity and calm”.

´Saint of Saen Swan´-Sculpture, is inspired By the Soul of this song:

Shi Jindian

Shi Jindian

Shi Jindian

Shi Jindian

Birth no.1 and birth no.2 Shi Jindian

There is going to be an exhibition from Shi Jindian on 09-09-2010 more info click here: 

Contemporary by Angela Li gallery is proud to present “Fabrication – Shi Jindian Solo Exhibition”. On show will be more than 10 works of sculptures, paintings and installations.

There are in Total 3 dealers, who handle the Selling of Shi Jindians’ Works of Art, they are:

1.

A Thousand Plateaus Art Space (Chengdu, Sichuan, Beijing, China)

2.

Andrew Bae Gallery (Chicago, IL, USA)

3. Contemporary By Angela Li (Hong Kong, China)

For more information You can view this website:

and

This website.

I absolutely hope to see alot more from Shi Jindian, as these works of Art are not only a pleasure to watch but also, to realise how much time, energy, passion, and above all: patience, went into them. ..Just-Wow!

Good Luck Shi Jindian and all my respect.

HBeltman

Outstanding Offices: 12 Unorthodox Business Buildings

Why should office buildings be sprawling gray complexes in uninspired shapes, filled with depressing gray cubicles in which workers sit and long for a glimpse of nature? For a space so integral to a company’s most important functions, offices tend to be far too bland – but not these 12 buildings. Like a breath of fresh air in a stale room, the architecture of these structures is a welcome change, from high-energy urban penthouses to peaceful glass lookouts in the woods.

Via weburbanist.com

White Mountain Office, Sweden

Location:Stockholm, Sweden
Program: Datacenter
Collaborators: Frida Öster and Jonatan Blomgren
Geology Consultant: Geosigma AB
Construction: Albert France-Lanord Architects Albert France-Lanord Architects
Client: Bahnhof AB
Construction Area: 1,200 sqm
Project year: 2008
Photographs: Åke E:son Lindman

  

Deep underground in a former anti-atomic shelter is the White Mountain Office, a 1200-square-foot complex that exploits the jaw-dropping contrasts between raw, rustic rock faces and the sleek curvature of modern glass and steel architecture. Albert France-Lanord Architects admit that science fiction films and even James Bond served as inspiration for the office structure, saying “The client is an internet provider and the rock shelter hosts server halls and offices. The starting point of the project was to consider the rock as a living organism. The humans try to acclimate themselves to this foreign world and bring the ‘best’ elements from earth: light, plants, water and technology.”

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Red Bull Headquarters, London

 

What else would you expect from the signature beverage of the hyperactive than an office building featuring a gigantic slide? Outfitted in the brand’s red, blue and silver color scheme (along with plenty of steel), the building is thoroughly modern and adult yet retains a sense of playfulness.

(images via: design verb)

 

 

 

 

Selgas Cano Architecture Office, Spain

Everyone needs a window in their office so they can take a moment every now and then to gaze out at nature for a while and recharge before getting back to work. But what if half of your office building’s roof were open to the sky, framed by a canopy of trees? The Selgas Cano Architecture office building in Madrid is set partially into the ground with one side entirely transparent, giving employees the ideal inspiration to design more incredibly architectural masterpieces.

 

 

(images via: iwan baan)

 

 

 For many more Outstanding Offices and Beautiful Business Buildings head over here:

http://weburbanist.com/2010/08/20/outstanding-offices-12-unorthodox-business-buildings/

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• Architectural Craziness: Red Hook’s Zero Energy Building Keeps the Renderings Coming (ny.curbed.com)
• Building as a Verb: Designing a Building That Works Harder for You (greenbiz.com)

The true Stone House

The true stone house, in the montains of Fafe, Portugal.  Watch a video of the house(no English)in link below.

Photography by Feliciano Guimaraes.

  

“Inspired by the Flintstones, this odd house was constructed between two giant stones on the hillside of Fafe Mountains in Portugal. Like most contemporary homes, it has a front door, roof, and selection of windows, while the huge spherical boulder on the uphill side of the house and scoop-shaped end give it a prehistoric feel.”

 

 

 
Google Maps, here
Photos by Feliciano Guimaraes.

Photography by Feliciano Guimaraes.

For more images visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsome1/sets/72157615078780504/

 

See video at: http://www.likecool.com/The_true_Stone_House–Building–Home.html

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsome1/392996757/in/set-72157615078780504/