June 2012 Blog Posts (204)

How much do you have in common with your neighbors? If you choose to reside in Tokyo's NE Apartment, you're sure to have at least one big interest to discuss with your fellow residents — your shared affinity for motorcycles. Built in collaboration by architects Akiyoshi Takagi, Yuji Nakae, and Hiroshi Ohno, the modern residential building was…

New York-based Asymptote Architecture just revealed this stunning proposal for the Yongsan International Business District of Seoul. Velo Towers is comprised of two skyscrapers that are composed of dynamic stacked and rotated volumes, along with a collection of open atrium spaces and roof gardens. The structure utilizes the latest advances in design, materials and digital fabrication that…

We all have that one friend. That one who has that biting sense of humor that you don't know if he's joking or if he's telling you the truth. All in all, everyone knows he has a way with words. In fact, they're always dripping with sarcasm. If that person were to create street art, I imagine it would look something like this.

UK-based Mobstr puts up simple sentences that were designed…

Melbourne-based artist Robbie Rowlands manipulates and distorts unexpected spaces in these surreal sculptures. In his work, he bends and twists everyday items, pieces of outdoor landscapes, and sections of interior buildings that have been either condemned or are scheduled for renovations, and refigures them into these creative distortions.

There is a precision and symmetry to all of the…

Art gallery LUMAS recently teamed up with BMW for a one-off project showing the fascinating history of some of BMWs most impressive and exciting cars. The series, shot by Erik Chmil, shows a total of ten models, each of which they consider "a landmark in the history of contemporary automobile design." Each automobile is shot from the front and the side so that one can see and appreciate its…

American artist Tara Donovan uses all kinds of everyday household items, like plastic cups, No. 2 pencils, or drinking straws, to create her visually complicated and surprisingly complex sculptures. She doesn't start with a design but, rather, chooses to start with the object and let the material emerge organically into the end result. She says, "In a sense, I develop a dialogue with…

German photographer Menno Aden's Room Portraits series reevaluates the structure of a room by presenting an aerial perspective that typically flattens the three-dimensional space, reversing the effects of construction. This act of taking a real room and photographically reverting its appearance into a stylized blueprint offers insight into not only the size and shape of the…

Back in 2010, we all heard about the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland whose ashy discharge caused flight delays and ultimate cancellations. Over two years later, we're now revisiting the site of the volcanic activity through the extraordinary photographic captures of Reykjavik-based motion designer Davíð Jón Ögmundsson, who was at the scene with camera in tow to document…

Artist Yayoi Kusama is a master when it comes to bringing out a childlike wonderment in audiences, leaving them slack-jawed as they take in their enchanting surroundings. The Japanese visionary has a distinct style that doesn't go unnoticed, especially in recent years, with the employment of polka dots, mirrors, water, and an array of LED light fixtures. There's a surge of…

Twisting and turning into the skyline, Writhing Tower by China-based architecture firm LYCS is a new residential building conceptualized for Lima, Peru. With each unit rotating 45 degrees, residents will have uninterrupted views of both the public park in front of the site, and the ocean to the rear. Additionally, each unit has blocked views to the unit above and below, creating a nice extra…

At Expo Korea, going on from May to August in Yeosu, South Korea, a Korean oil company called GS Caltrex worked with German design firms Atelier Brückner and Tamschick Media+Space to come up with a fantastic space. 350 colored blades, 18 meters high, sway like grass in the wind, symbolizing the "never-ending flow of energy in nature." One can actually touch the individual blades to…

If you've ever wanted to find a hidden art gem in San Francisco, head to 16th and Moraga to discover The 16th Avenue Tiled Steps. Not only will you be able to see some amazing views of the city, you'll get to appreciate a beautiful mosaic running up 163 steps. Inspired by the…

Artist Amilka Olga Vercholamova has a fantastic talent for fashion illustrations. She creates these gorgeous portraits with pencils, pastels, acrylics, and aqua colors. The Athens-based artist draws much of her inspiration from fashion photographs and uses dramatic gestures and textured watercolor paper to evoke a sense of intrigue from each…

Jill Sylvia is extremely interested in financial data and transactions, but not in the way that you might think. The artist takes sheets of lined paper found in ledgers and other financial paperwork and meticulously cuts out bits of the page to build these incredible three dimensional paper sculptures. Using a drafting knife, she carefully removes all of the blank boxes, leaving just the lines to…

We're most familiar with Kumi Yamashita's mind-boggling shadow sculptures but the mathematically-inclined artist also uses her expertise in visual calculations in her ongoing series of thread and nail portraits called Constellation. The New York-based artist's work astounds…

Do you know what your carbon footprint is? It is nearly impossible for any person, let alone an entire energy-consuming home, to have a carbon-neutral footprint, but an underground one-story home in England is looking to change that. Architectural firm Make's ambitious project titled Bolton Eco House boasts a zero-carbon estate, the first of its kind in the North West of the…

The late French-born Polish artist Roman Opałka was a man of numbers. Best known for his numerical paintings known as The Finite Defined by the Nonfinite, Opałka began his famed work by hand-painting a consecutive series of integers, starting with "1" on the uppermost left-hand corner of the canvas, in 1965. He proceeded to produce canvases filled with the…

Like a master surgeon with his scalpel, artist Guy Laramee continues to carve out amazing book sculptures. Here, we feature a few pieces from his most recent collection, Guan Yin, which Laramee dedicated to his late mother, who died in 2011, only a couple days after…

Every so often, we come across an artist who blows us away with not only their skill but their attention to detail. Today that person is Sharon Moody. What sets her oil paintings apart from the rest is their hyperrealistic nature. Moody uses an art technique called trompe l'oeil. Her paintings are so detailed that they trick us into believing that we're seeing actual…

You've just got to love the quirkiness of these clever suitcase sculptures by artist Bo Christian Larsson. He's currently showing the one titled Mobile Home, above, at the Vogt Gallery in New York till June 16, 2012. He also created The Hotel, below, back in 2011. These vintage suitcases are…