Alvarado House

10:00 AM |





Terry & Terry Architecture, an revovation firm in San Franciso, Calfornia has outdoing themselve in an extreme renovation, on a home called the Alvarado House. The front of the home remain the same however the interoir and the back has been completely taken down and redone increasing the space and modernizing the home as a whole. The rear side of the house has been open up to make space for new bedroons, bathrooms, dining room and living space. A large stair and patio is added to the outside.

Other infomation:
  • Project Team: Alex Terry AIA, Ivan Terr


  • Engineer: Santos Urrutia Structural Engineers Inc.


  • Landscape Architect: Outer Space Landscape Architecture

  • General Contractor: Timberline Construction



    • When passing by the street, Alvarado House appears to be part in the neigborhood,retaininge same look and style. The front view is sample of what a proper home should look like. It must be exceptable for the community. However the insde and the backside can go as far as one imagination takes you. The way the house appears is the same as that of men. The way we represent ourselves in largely limited by what the soceity deems worthy. The way we act is also the same. People must behave the proper way but under that layer we hides our individualty just as Alvarado House has done.



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    Posted by Level6

    Words from shadows

    9:53 PM |

    Fred Eerdekens is an artist who create artwork through the play of light and shadow. He arranges the position of everyday objects so when light hit it on a certain angle, words are spelled out. Eerdekens' choice of materials ranges from wires, cotton balls, food container, to household plants. The characteristic of the objects are taken into consideration to create variety in fonts and beautiful typography.


    View without the correct lighting, the metal wires, the piece to the left appears nothing but a total mess. It would just be wired bits sticking out of a wall. However art doesn't have to be beautiful or even make sense. People enjoys art because they can relate to the work or understand the message the work sends out. In this case the "message" is given in a literally through typography. Fred Eerdekens advises people to take notes on what is around them, suggesting that little thing like how an object is place can tells us how the person who placed feels.



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    Posted by Level6

    RGB exhibition

    1:35 AM |


    Francesco Rugi and Silvia Quintanilla created RGB, a very special series of wallpapers for Jannelli & Volpi, the famous Italian wallpaper brand. Inspired by a famous Virgil phrase “Color est e pluribus unus” from the poem “Moretum”, describing the blending of colors, they overlap three different images each one in a primary color into one surface. The resulting image becomes bizarre with its colors mix up and the lines and shapes intersects. Through colored lights, of red, green and blue filters, the layer of the opposite color is reveal while hiding the other two. 



    The three layer all portrays an animal kingdom but each one has their own specific kingdom giving the piece unity in theme but also great contrast through species, sizes, and color. Without special lighting, the colors contrast and fight over which to be seen yet it is through the blending of the combinations that makes it  aesthetically pleasing. In a sense our world is as the wallpaper portray; it is a strange combination of critters splatted a giant canvas called earth. It doesn't even have to be animals, the layers could be compose of culture or country.   



    These works are current shown in the RGB exhibition at Johanssen Gallery at Direktorenhaus, Berlin run through February 10, 2011. Visit http://www.carnovsky.com/index.htm for more detail.

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    Posted by Level6

    Acrylic & Photography

    12:47 AM |





    Alexa Maeda is a 24 year old artist, challenges the ideas of traditional painting through her work which intersect painting with photography and performance. Her work involves cover live models, objects, and the architecture of the installations in layers of acrylic paint. As a result, the subject, foreground and background are unified and appears to be on one plane. The 3D space she painted scenes becomes a 2D plane optically.

    Alexa's says "I paint representational portraits directly on top of the people I am representing. The models are transformed into embodiments of the artist's interpretation of their essence. When captured on film, the living, breathing people underneath the paint disappear, overshadowed by the masks of themselves."




















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    Posted by Level6

    Nyan Cat

    9:14 PM |





    Nyan Cat, sometimes refer to as Pop Tart Cat, is the new internet meme. It is an 8-bit animation depicting a cat with a body of a strwberry flavor poptart flying through cyberspace, and shi  leaving behind a trail of rainbow. It goes with the MAD soundtrack- Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya.

    The original Nyan Cat a  posted on the daily comics site LOL-COMICS by illustrator prguitarman on April 2nd, 2011. The user daniwell loop UTAU synthesized's soundtrack in the background. On April 5th, 2011, YouTuber saraj00n posted Nyan Cat, gaining over one million views in its first two weeks and now approaching five millions. Beginning on April 10th, the Nyan Cat video was picked up by popular blogs and social networking sites including Memebase, Buzzfeed, Tumblr, and Facebook among others.


    Cat has always been a favourite in the net community with the spark of lolcats follow by spaghetti cat, long cat, and many others. Nyan cat combines this highly regard topic with others like itself, such as rainbow and the revival of 8bit art and start our new craze. The bizarre idea and the surreal humour has inspired You Tubers and online art communities into creating dozens of fan-arts and coming.

    familiar anyone?


    http://nyan.cat/ is a site dedicated purely to Nyan Cat where the clip is looped and your time on the page, or how long you nyaned for is logged.

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    Posted by Level6

    3D Fog Projection

    9:14 PM |






     The 3D Multi-Viewpoint Fog Projection Display, developed by Osaka University was unveiled at the interaction 2011 event in Japan. This device creates 3D forms that actually takes up space and appearing as if it has a volume. It unitizes a series of projectors encircling the fog machine and project images of an object taken at different angle onto it. The result is as shown above.

    The research group from Osaka University hope this new technology will benefit healthcare and entertainment industry. I am not sure about healthcare but this is the revolution to entertainment and communication. The 3D Multi-Viewpoint Fog Projection Display can be sum up in a simple word, hologram. It is  something that frequently appears science fiction and has finally taken root in reality. With more work, this device can debut in movies, video games, or even create holographic monsters for a certain children's card game.


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    Posted by Level6

    Rainbow stairs

    8:22 AM |


    In the small gap between the two buildings is a flight of stair painted in the in variety of color as if a rainbow. The location is uncertain but it seems to be in a older, less populated downtown street. The simple idea of a rainbow staircase brighten up the sleepy neigborhood. It modernizes the street, giving it flare and a focal point with a minium cost.

    Adding colors to this otherwise blanche surrounding no doubt lives it life, but it's resemblance to a rainbow may be what really drawing in the eye of people. According to Wikipedia a rainbow "is an optical and meteorological phenomenon that causes a spectrum of light to appear in the sky when the Sun shines on to droplets of moisture in the Earth's atmosphere". However, because of myth and fairytales, this phenomenon is often asssociation with magic, wonder, hope, and such. Rainbow is also a reaccuing element in pop culture making it an attraction to a large audience.

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    Posted by Level6

    The time is 3:13

    10:51 PM |


    This image is posted by an anonymous users on a blog i frequently visit showing the time 3:13 on a digital clock. As shown above when the time 3:13 is rotated sideways, a bearded man with a mustache and wearing a crown becomes visable. This anonymous user named it: the king of time. How the user discover this image is also unexplained. He may have stumble upon it while looking at a flipped digital alarm clock/watch or by pure chance.

    I find this simple discovery very refreshing. Everybody have seen a digital clock before yet very few has seen it as something other than the time of the day. I feel it is unfortunate that because we are in such a hurry, we fail to notice these interesting little things around us.

    On the side note, this image is nostalgic as it remains me of the the days we still use emotioncons like the sideways smiley, :) , rather than animated icons we now use.

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    Posted by Level6

    Heat Sensative Wallpaper

    10:15 PM |



    Heat sensative paint Shi Yuen has created. The wallpaper alone has a dull traditional floral of green ivy on a beige background However when heat is introduce the green bubs of the ivy will turn pink and eventually bloom into small flowers. At 15 degree, the "plant" will start its growth. At 25 degree, the pink tip wuuld reveal itself and bloom into at flower by 35 degree. At night, when the temperature it cool enough the ink, itself will fade away.

    Heat sensitive ink brings the beauty of nature into the comfort of your home. The change in temperature creates movement in the paper as if it is actually alive. People repaint their home every once in a while for a change of mood so would it be much or efficient if the wallpaper will change itself. How great would it be if the walls of your home can be change a frequently as your computer's desktop? However the development of Heat sensitive paint is still developing. It is not widely uses for some fear the chemicals used. Nevertheless this is an intererting idea, and i believe, with time be the stranded for modern homes.





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    Posted by Level6

    Up in reality

    8:04 AM |


    Disney Pixar's movie UP, tells the tale of Carl Fredricksen, a 78-year-old man sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America. the old man ties balloons to his house and flies away to his dream unfortunately with the company of an 8-year-old stowaway.

    When we think about Disney, we think magic and dreams, more often than not, blown out of porportion of reality. Children loves them but as they age they lose the believe for these magical events.

    Disney's dream remained as a dream until National Geographic Channel took on this challenge in their program- How Hard It Can Be?. A group of engineers, scientist, and two balloon pilot dedicated themselves on this experiment. On March 5th, a 16 by 16 foot house, hold by 300 8 foot diameter weather balloons to the 18 foot tall roof, took flight reaching an altitude of 10,000 feet before gently returning to earth breaking the the world record for largest flight of balloons in a cluster.

    The "UP" house is in no way practical. Most sees it as a Pixar gag or a waste of natural resource but this experiment is signifient as it proof to us, dreams can become reality. It encourage us to strive higher and reach for what we consider as impossible however silly it may be.
    

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    Posted by Level6

    TreePods

    8:44 PM |

    Dr Klaus Lackner, Director of the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University and developer of Treepods, collabrates with ShiftBoston to use this environmental friendly technology in the city. In the central neighborhood of downtown Boston, artificial trees made with recycle plastic are being rooted in. These trees mimics the looks and benefit of being nature’s lung possess by real trees. Each tree works to purify the air, absorbing up to 13 pounds of CO2 gases a year. They are completely self efficient. Treepods takes is shape from the dragon blood tree as it large surface of solar panel absorbs enough energy to convert carbon dioxide into clean air and light up the city streets and night.

     This project is supposed to be a green project, an idea to help protect the environment. So, here is the irony- "MANMADE trees" are being planted in center Boston but not REAL trees. Treepods may purify air but cannot provide food or shelter  for wild animals. They are environmental friendly, to humans only, proven by the bonus feature of city light. Then, is the form it take really necessary if Treepods are only air purifiers. This rises the questions, would we still protect nature if we no longer need it to sustain our way of life? With the advancement of technology, mankind may no longer need to protect nature as we can simply replace it.

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    Posted by Level6

    Tape Scupture Contest

    10:16 PM |

    
    

    Contest Logo

     
    Scotch is holding a scotch tape sculpture contest to market their brand's product, scotch tape every year. Entry must not contain any inappropriate material or third-party intellectual property. It must be constructed with 90% or more Scotch® Heavy Duty Shipping Premium or High Performance Packaging Tape. Aside from these details, contestants are free to  do whatever they desire. 

    In 2011, this year many amazing dreamlike sculptures are submitted demonstrating creativity and a high degree to details. These are my favorite entries of 2011. 

    The Flying Dream Ship

     One of the most common fantasy element,  a flying boat has finally been created in the form of scotch tape. The lightness of this structure allow a single helium balloon to lift it in the air. sunlight passing through the translucent tape looks utterly stunning. As the artist said, this boat comes "bringing hope and dreams".



    The Movement Before Away
    This piece portrays a peacock as it is preparing to fly of the branch. One would think a peacock without is color to be dull but the details on the feathers prove it to beautiful, especially close up.





    Sweet Tooth

    A simple replica of a gum-machine placed in front of a candy store. It simpler that the first two, however it is something that most people can connect to. The colorful gumballs give it a fun and playful feel.





    The contest is for US residence only but if you would like to view or vote for a entry, visit http://www.offtherollcontest.com/main/home.aspx
     
    What make Scotch's Off the Roll contest so interesting is that it inspires people to think outside the box. It shows us what an everyday object can be used for or can become rather than just what it is meant to be. Scotch sells packaging tape but as shown above tape can be used for much more.

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    Posted by Level6
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