Designer Garth Britzman of Lincoln, Nebraska used recycled bottles filled with colored water to create stunning topographical shade canopy for a vehicle. I love how the natural shape of the plastic bottles makes the pooled water look like leaves. See more over on Behance. (via my amp goes to 11)
While not particularly the fine art you might be accustomed to on Colossal, it was impossible to pass this up. Guadalajara-based architects Hernandez Silva Arquitectos recently designed the interior of a new penthouse situated on top of a 1970s Mexican colonial building in Guadalajara, México. A notable feature of the home is a powder room situated atop an unused 15-story elevator shaft. Via Hernandez Silva Arquitectos:
A characteristic feature of the project is that a volume that was originally intended for a second elevator and was never installed becomes a powder room with a glass floor that looks down all the 15 levels, the PPDG penthouse is a great versatile modulated space, with great views all this with the concepts of transparency and the simplicity of materials.
What a fantastic if not completely terrifying idea. See much more of the residence on Home DSGN. (via neatorama)
Update: If this makes you queasy or uncomfortable, I urge you not to read about Skywalking.
Photographer Marianne Kjølner snapped this pair of photographs of a bizarre tree in Denmark. Of the photo she says:
This old pink house is situated at the old dunes, a few hundred meters from the west coast, a very windy place were there isn’t much that can grow. So the tree can only grow where it has shelter. It has looked this way always.
I can’t help but think the tree might have had some helping human hands, but perhaps nature really is this awesome. (via adding)
A few days ago I happened upon a rather unique art project called Last New Year in the Austin American Statesman, showing photos of a dilapidated home recently transformed with a number of installations by a small arts collective called Ink Tank. The premise for the project was fascinating: the ensemble imagined a fictional group of people living in the home who would react to the prophesied end-of-times 2012 date. One of my favorite pieces from the show is a giant installation called The Purge by artist Chris Whiteburch who decided to imagine how the house itself would confront the impending doom. The result is a structure purging its contents, all manner of debris and structural material shooting violently through a window into a giant wooden splash.
One of the most fascinating things about this project to me was its similarity to Inversion House, another modified house installation created by sculptors Dan Havel and Dean Ruck in 2005, roughly 150 miles east in Houston. The resemblance is uncanny in that they are essentially exact opposites. Via phone Whiteburch says the similarity is purely coincidental and that he wasn’t even aware of Inversion House until somebody mentioned it after seeing his work. Unfortunately the Last New Year has been taken down, but you can see more images over on Ink Tank’s website. I want to thank both Chris and photographers Julie and Adam Schreiber for providing the imagery for this post.
The Luminarie De Cagna is an imposing cathedral-like structure that was recently on display at the 2012 Light Festival in Ghent, Belgium. The festival was host to almost 30 exhibitions including plenty of 3D projection mapping, fields of luminous flowers, and a glowing phone booth aquarium, however with 55,000 LEDs and towering 28 meters high the Luminarie De Cagna seems to have stolen the show. ( via stijn coppens, sacha vanhecke, sector271)
How fun is this? Bâtiment (Building) is a mirrored installation by artist Leandro Erlich currently on display at Le 104 in Paris as part of their In_Perceptions exhibition. The piece is clever in its simplicity: a massive building facade is constructed on the floor near a towering mirror giving anyone reflected the uncanny appearance of being weightless. Optical illusions are familiar territory for Erlich, whose pool installation appears to plunge air-breathing gallery patrons several feet underwater. Bâtiment is on display through March 2012. (via present and correct, lonely planet)
This fantastic series of murals entitled the The Nefelejcs Project was painted by a group calling themselves Merge Invisible in Budapest, Hungary with support from the Ludwig Múzeum. Using data from the city archives, information from neighbors and the feint imprint of old structures, the group sought to reconstruct the walls, rooms, and even inhabitants of these forgotten places. Photographs by Preciz Photography. (via wooster)
After graduating from the Tasmanian School of Art in 2002, Sean Edward Whelan left Australia to discover the mysteries of Japan, settling in Joetsu, Niigata where he began working as an English teacher and now works as an illustrator and artist. His lovely pencil drawings depicting a rich texture of traditional Japanese buildings, bridges and lanterns, create singular super structures in the shape of people. I can’t tell you how much I love these. Whelan had his first solo show earlier this year at No Vacancy Gallery in Melbourne, and you can see much more of his work here and here.
If you like these illustrations, you might also like the works of Vasco Mourao and Sagaki Keita. All images courtesy the artist.
Update: There’s now a nice interview with Whelan over on Charles and Ford.
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Copyright © 2010-2012 Christopher Jobson unless otherwise noted. I try my best to attribute images, videos, and quotes to their creators and original sources. If you see something on Colossal that's misattributed or you would like removed, please contact me. For more visual fun, see the visual archive.
