Unusual Life

Incredible little house that is part-organic, part-pop culture. A miniature Flintstones House of delight.

Interior Seattle Public Library, originally uploaded by michael_troeger2001.

Here are a few cool photos of the Rem Koolhas designed Seattle Public Library. Following the photos of this library is a tour of other amazing libraries around the world, from Huffington Post.

Most Amazing Libraries in the World Part 1

Most Amazing Libraries in the World Part 2

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, just became home to the world’s largest LED project. The Yas Hotel looks like something out of a science fiction movie or, in the words of the hotel, “a giant fishing net tossed over the sea.” The eye-catching hotel is wrapped in 5,000 LED lights that can change colors and even display video. The hotel has several restaurants, a spa, two rooftop swimming pools and access to an 18-hole golf course on Yas Island.

World’s Biggest Stuff slideshow

Related: World’s Largest Collection of the World’s Smallest Versions of the World’s Largest Things by Erika Nelson.

Redwood Carwash - Googie Architecture, originally uploaded by western light.

Redwood Carwash on El Camino Real in Redwood City - its upswept towers an example of googie architecture that was popularized during the 50’s & 60’s.

Seattle Googie

Space Age City (California)

David Fisher’s Dynamic Tower is the world’s first building in motion, where each floor of the Tower rotates independently at different speeds, in different directions, resulting in a unique and ever-evolving shape.

The Dynamic Tower is a self-powered Green building with the ability to generate electricity for itself through the use of horizontal wind turbines and solar panels.

The first skyscraper to be built entirely from pre-fabricated parts custom-made in a factory, the assembly process of the Dynamic Tower will reduce construction time, offer cost savings, provide an environmental construction site and increase safety for workers on site.

The Wilkinson Residence is located in Portland, OR and is designed by architect Robert Harvey Oshatz.

Located on a flag lot, a steep sloping grade provided the opportunity to bring the main level of the house into the tree canopy to evoke the feeling of being in a tree house.

A lover of music, the client wanted a house that not only became part of the natural landscape but also addressed the flow of music.

This house evades the mechanics of the camera; it is difficult to capture the way the interior space flows seamlessly through to the exterior.

One must actually stroll through the house to grasp its complexities and its connection to the exterior. One example is a natural wood ceiling, floating on curved laminated wood beams, passing through a generous glass wall which wraps around the main living room.

Dornob: Design Ideas Daily

Mexican architect Senosiain Arquitectos created “Nautilus” for a young couple with two children who after living in a conventional home wanted to change to one integrated to nature.

The land, with upward topography, is limited to the south, north and east by high buildings. The west adjoining provides a wide view of the mountains. The model work generated numberless changes until achieving the volume needed by the construction: the Nautilus.

The metaphor was to feel like an internal inhabitant of a snail, like a mollusk moving from one chamber to another, like a symbiotic dweller of a huge fossil maternal cloister. This home social life flows inside the Nautilus without any division, a harmonic area in three dimensions where you can notice the continuous dynamic of the fourth dimension when moving in spiral over the stairs with a feeling of floating over the vegetation.

Via Geekologie

This image is unidentified, but is on a great design blog called Home Sweet Home featuring dozens of whimsical and creative interiors. Tip o’ the hat to Dan Dean!

Built in 1999 as a snowy mountain retreat, the two foot thick stone castle walls were built by laying up double walls of split ashlar rock to create a permanent formwork for the hidden steel reinforced concrete core and layers of waterproof insulation. Hydronic floor heat hidden in the stone and hardwood floors throughout the castle keep the interior toasty warm in addition to two stone fireplaces. Stone arched handcrafted walnut windows,stained glass, torches, and hand forged light fixtures. Includes 4-car garage, indoor pool, 3 towers, and real stone & carved hardwoods.

Castle is for sale and located in Sandpoint, Idaho. Castle Magic will build you your own castle on your lot!

You can build incredible homes with ferro cement. It is extremely strong and durable and the thing I love most is that you can build the whole building, walls, roof, gutters, cabinets, etc. out of the same material.

You build a cement home by first building the frame, which is made of metal. You wire rebar, remesh and lathing tightly together. You can make the design as fanciful as you wish.

Stage two of the process is stucco, covering the frame with concrete. Stucco goes on in layers. The first is called a scratch coat, for which the concrete should be a little drier than the subsequent coats. It’s called a scratch coat, because you have to scratch it up before the mud sets. This gives the second coat something extra to grip to.

The finishing coats are called brown coats. The stucco needs to be almost runny. It goes on a lot faster than the scratch, and can even be applied with a hopper gun.

Want to build your own ferro cement home? Start here at FerroCement.com

Caveland is the home of William Sleeper and Family. They have built this home in a cave found on ebay over the last five years.

Curt and Deborah Sleeper find themselves in a predicament millions of other Americans find themselves in these days: they own a house in which the mortgage payment is about to reset and they can’t afford it. Except the Sleepers’ house isn’t just any old house. It’s a cave, and a pretty cool one at that. Boing Boing ran a post on the cave house last Friday. Apparently, it’s listed for sale on eBay as “Unique Cave Home over 15,000 sf. Beautiful setting — 2.8 acres, commerical or residential.” Starting bid is $300,000.

Read story on Zillow blog by Diane Tuman

CAVELAND

Link to Unusual architecture in Michigan

• Architect Liz Diller shares her firm DS+R’s more unusual work, including the Blur Building, whose walls are made of fog, and the revamped Alice Tully Hall, which is wrapped in glowing wooden skin.

The Klein Bottle House is located in Rye, Australia and designed by Rob McBride. the unusual home design was inspired by its namesake: the klein bottle. this 19th century invention is used to describe a form which has no distinguishable inside or outside. the architects also wanted to move away from the paradigm of designing buildings based on orthogonal methods and instead imbrace the complexity inhernt with computer aided design (cad). while the desigm imbraced mathematics and digital design it also references
the vernacular australian cement sheet beach house. the house recently won the Harold Desbrowe-Annear award in architecture. it is made from concrete sheets and black metal, which are both folded and twisted
to create the multitude of angles.

Clingstone, an unusual, 103-year-old mansion in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay, survives through the love and hard work of family and friends. Via Grow-a-Brain