Unusual Life

Hidden passages have a long history of appearing in fictional novels and films but an even richer past in reality dating back to Egyptian tombs passages for Christians to worship in hiding from Romans. Over the years hidden passages have been used to arrest kings and evacuate popes, hide shogun warriors, facilitate guerrilla fighters, enable drug smugglers and conceal serial killers.

In recent times, however, many more modest individuals have created (or discovered) secret passages in ordinary everyday households and there are even companies dedicated to designing secret doors, rooms and passages in middle-class houses. In some cases the discovery of a secret room is a wonderful find but it can also be a twisted nightmare.

Hidden rooms today usually serve one of two purposes: security or fun. Sometimes a hidden door is used to disguise a safe or a ‘panic room’ where residents can hide in an emergency.

Creative Home Engineering offers modern-day solutions to those who want to add a hidden room or secret passage in their own home.

Via Neatorama

1979 Michael & Leda moved themselves and their paintings from Provincetown MA to rural land in Cornville Arizona. There they began the first mixed media structure which they later called Eliphante. They continued building and sculpting on the 3 acre environment.

www.Eliphante.org

Thanks to Earl and Rhonda Brown for the tip!

Instead of throwing those glass bottles away, many folks have wondered how to recycle and build with these ubiquitous items.

This photo show walls being constructed on a build in New Mexico by Mike Reynolds at one of his “earthships”.

Apparently back in the 60’s Mr. Heineken came up with the idea of makeing the beer bottles and size and shape of bricks, while concerned about the about of litter and wastage beer bottles were causing. They never came to be, however.

Building with bottles has often been a choice of folk artists, early settlers and the poor in some countries, as they used whatever resources they had to build shelter. Agility Nut has a wonderful website featuring bottle houses around the world.

The Airlie Gardens Bottle House was created by a local artist, Virginia Wright-Frierson in 2004. It is officially named the “Minnie Evans Sculpture Garden Bottle House” after an artist/gatekeeper that worked at Airlie for many years. This bottle house is also referred to as the “chapel”. Frierson used bottles of all shapes and sizes as well as cement and chicken wire in its creation.

Beer Bottle Chapel created by Martin Sanchez of Riverside California

Ann’s Bottle House B&B in Arizona

Tom Kelly’s Rhyolite Bottle House

The Bottle Houses of Prince Edward Island

A sleepy east side street scarred with abandoned houses and weed covered lots in Detroit's depressed lower east side has become the center of a controversy involving a volatile mingling of ruins, art and politics.

Begun in the eighties by artist and Heidelberg Street resident Tyree Guyton the Heidelberg Project, as it came to be known, developed into a block long environment consisting of free standing found-object constructions and abandoned buildings and trees adorned with found objects. Much of the area and works are are simplistically painted upon with multi-colored polka dots being the signature icon.

Via Detroit Yes

Artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa say that their house in East Hampton, N.Y., opposes death and may extend life. Originally called the Bioscleave House (Lifespan Extending Villa), they say its architecture makes people use their bodies in unexpected ways to maintain equilibrium, and that will stimulate their immune systems.

The couple also built nine “reversible destiny” loft-style apartments in Mitaka, Japan.

The house on Long Island, which cost more than $2 million to build, is their first completed architectural work in the United States - and, as they see it, a turning point in their campaign to defeat mortality.

The house, which is still unoccupied, was commissioned in the late 1990s by a friend who sold the property to an anonymous group of investors after the project dragged on and costs mounted. But it is ready, Arakawa and Ms. Gins said, to begin rejuvenating whoever moves in.

In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy.

All of it is meant to keep the occupants on guard. Comfort, the thinking goes, is a precursor to death; the house is meant to lead its users into a perpetually “tentative” relationship with their surroundings, and thereby keep them young.

A House Not for Mere Mortals from the New York Times

Immortality House Audio Slideshow

(Thanks to Earl and Rhonda Brown for the tip!)

Weird houses and buildings on Utah blog

Ugliest House of the Year Award goes to…..

One of many wonderful details….

Slideshow of Purple Palace Art House

Like toilets? Check out Urinal Journal.

Frank Lloyd Wright slideshow

Photo from Chihuly’s Boathouse Studio. View from entering the hotshop under the Perisan ceiling in Seattle.

www.Chihuly.com

Bungalow Tour

One of LA’s most unusual homes: This pioneering work of vertically interconnected spaces defies domestic convention, using ideas once promoted in The Whole Earth Catalog now staples of architecture and sustainable design. Flexible live-work arrangements are accommodated within the lower levels, illuminated by a dozen skylights, earth sheltered and topped by a green roof for maximum thermal efficiency. The geodesic dome above shelters a vast interior studio volume for meditation, art, rehearsal, performance, or entertaining. Views of the valley and mountains from the house, decks and grounds are panoramic. Interior area totals approximately 1812 square feet on a site of nearly 1/4 acre. Suitable for an individual or couple comfortable in an alternative living environment.

Dome House for Sale

Plain apartment houses decorated in graffiti and Japanese-style anime designs on Damn Cool Pics.

This monolithic dome is the home of Bryan and Dianne Bremner, two sixty-something retirees in Republic, Washington. They built their 2800-square-foot Monolithic Dome home, Curlew Keep, on Curlew Lake, and it resembles a modified Torus — the first Monolithic Dome of this type to be built. In addition to the loft, Curlew Keep sports three bedrooms; three bathrooms; a sunken living room; dining, kitchen and laundry areas; and a two-car, attached garage leading into an outdoor room. If you are interested in building your own Dome Home, you can visit other Monolithic Dome homes at the Monolithic Dome Institute Web site. These homes are located throughout the U.S. and other parts of the world, and some are for rent and for sale.

Interesting photo set that documents the building of this unusual home.

Ensculptic House