The BMW Museum in Munich stands as a testament to the brands rich heritage, but also automotive design. Munich sits on my list of dream vacations to take as much for the chance to visit the BMW Museum as the opportunity to attend Oktoberfest (picture James Bond mixed with Beerfest). A multiple award winning feature of the BMW Museum is its Kinetic Sculpture an abstract symbolic representation of the design process.
The installation consists of 714 metal spheres hanging from thin steel wires attached to individually controlled stepper motors. Covering a six-square-metre area, the spheres enact a seven-minute long mechatronic narrative, creating a representation of the form-finding process in different variations. Moving chaotically at first, the sculpture evolves into several competing forms and eventually resolves as a final shape, which hints at the outlines of well-known BMW automobiles such as the 327, the 1500, the Z4 coupé and the Mille Miglia 2006. The cycle is synchronised with a graphic light strip running around the walls and texts and audio quotes from senior BMW figures on the company’s values and design aims.
Despite my love of NYC. part of me has always dreamt of a simple log cabin planted somewhere on a snowy mountain. However, as I have gotten older my taste has evolved to a more minimalist style, making a typical rustic cabin made of stacks of felled trees not as appealing. Sensing this turmoil in my life (or I like to believe), Swiss architects Localarchitecture designed the Maracon house. Part mountainous log cabin, part chic rustic-contemporary estate, the Maracon house is an ideal combination of mountain living mixed with a modern appeal. Complete with a full glass wall, to take in the breathtaking views of the winter wonderland that is Maracon, Switzerland. The Maracon house was designed to fit the scale of of the existing farmhouses surrounding it, while blending into the landscape both around and on the footpath of the structure.
The project is inspired from traditional architectural forms and codes and is reinterpreted to the use of the building and to contemporary esthetics. The form of the building nestles itself in the topography of the ground and inscribes itself in the landscape.
With all the bizarre building designs being thrown up around town the idea of a building, or series of buildings shaped like letters of the alphabet shouldn’t be all that shocking. Well, artist Scott Teplin has created just that, a series of “dream-houses” in the shapes of the alphabet. “Explore in each a bizarre, miniaturized constellation of bed rooms, drawing rooms, fantasy swimming pools, mysterious laboratories, personal ice cream parlors, gambling halls, nuclear reactors, and oozing phenomena of unknown consequence.” Available for individual sale for $80- each, or bound together in a book for $2000-. Get yours here.
Dubai is planning on creating the worlds largest full automated train system to carry residents between all the insane building developments. The first 2 lines of the project, started in 2006, is expected is be completed in four years, fully opening in 2010, with additional lines to be added in the future. So I ask, when is that 2nd Avenue subway opening?
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