technology
the most dramatic chapel on earth
if god was real and happened to be a sci-fi fan i reckon the cadet chapel at the air force academy in colorado would be his chapel of choice. it looks like no place of worship you’ve ever seen and from the outside resembles a row of 17 angular spacecraft sitting on their back-ends, ready to shoot off at any minute. the chapel and its surrounding complex was designed by walter netsch of architectural firm skidmore, owings & merrill and construction was completed in 1963. no sooner had the spire-fest been announced than the public outcry began…
extremely impressive shiny balls
the enormous 34ft diameter shiny ball pictured above goes by the name of ‘la géode’. this stunning metallic structure houses a 1000m² hemispheric imax screen at the ‘cité des sciences et de l’industrie’ in paris. it was designed in 1983 by french architect adrien fainsilber and then realised by engineer gérard chamaillou. it’s apparently one of the largest geodesic domes on earth.
2 stunning and surreal gasometer conversions
the reason for this post is to show you 2 incredible converted gasometers and illustrate that demolition shouldn’t always be the answer when industrial structures come to the end of their career. with a bit of imagination even an enormous disused gas container can look incredibly inviting whilst also serving a new purpose.
man vs mountain: avalanche control structures
one of the places i’d refuse to set up home would have to be at the bottom of a mountain with a history of avalanche activity. unfortunately for some that choice doesn’t seem to exist and after reading a post over at the highly recommended blog pruned yesterday the frightening world of avalanche survival systems nearly became an obsession, for a couple of reasons.
hamburg’s unique elevator tunnel
running under the river elbe in hamburg is a beautiful tunnel like no other. this 1/2 kilometre ‘technical marvel’, known as the ‘old river elbe tunnel’, was built in 1911, sits 24 metres below the river and connects central hamburg with the shipyard island of steinwerder. what makes the tunnel unique are the entry points on each side of the river: rather than just driving straight into the tunnel, vehicles enter a freight elevator which slowly descends to the tunnel below, the tunnel then taking traffic to a similar elevator on the opposite side which lifts them back to ground level.
i hope those pillars are strong
below is the recently (2003) extended runway at funchal airport in portugal. the original 1400m runway was notoriously short and, as a result, sometimes dangerous for landing planes. the runway extension won the iabse’s ‘outstanding structures award’ and rightly so: due to an obvious lack of land, engineers have supported the extension on 180 pillars, each 70m high. on the last photo you can see the presumably noisey car park that now lives under the end of the runway.
10 stunning ultra-geeky home cinemas
huge screens, incredible sound systems and luxurious seats are popping up in seemingly spare rooms and basements larger than my entire flat. however this is also giving a few movie geeks a real chance to shine and it seems they’re not content with a simple in-home movie theatre decent enough to hold a premiere in. so, in no particular order, here are 10 of the best, geekiest, themed home cinemas on earth…
4 more stupidly cool research facilities
the joint european torus (jet) is the largest nuclear fusion experimental reactor on earth and is also a unique facility for researching fusion technology. jet is an example of a ‘tokamak’, a machine which produces an extremely strong, doughnut shaped magnetic field in order to confine a plasma. in jet’s case these plasmas can reach temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees centigrade…
5 fascinating ‘alternative’ school premises
the majority of tourists who visit vietnam (around 90%) will end up at halong bay, a huge stretch of coastline containing nearly 2′000 islands of varying size. surrounding many of the islands are floating villages - small communities of locals who have probably never lived on solid ground. above is one of many floating schools to be found dotted around the shores, flanked by school boats, the floating village’s equivalent to a school bus. in case you can’t read the sign…
israel’s bizarre uphill subway system
maybe i live a sheltered life but i’ve never been more surprised by a public transport system than when i came across this little beauty. it’s called the carmelit, it runs underground in the citry of haifa, israel and it’s the country’s only subway system. due to the city being located on the side of mount carmel, the entire single track ‘funicular’ system has been designed to accomodate the incline, hence the strange stepped stations and diagonal trains.
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