En Derin

Great MSNBC collection of animal photos (best of 2009).

It must be something in their genes. Supermodels like Tyra Banks and Naomi Campbell simply get prettier and prettier as time goes on. How is that possible? It has been over ten years since these top models first came to the scene and they are absolutely as gorgeous as they were the day they got into the business. There is absolutely no reason why they shouldn’t age like the rest of us but for some mysterious reason they don’t. Their beauty is difficult, if not impossible to kill.

Cindy Crawford

Rebecca Romijn

Naomi Campbell

Tyra Banks

Janice Dickinson

Christy Turlington

Linda Evangelista

Kathy Ireland

Helena Christensen

Christie Brinkley

Kate Moss

Eva Herzigova

Paulina Porizkova

Niki Taylor

Claudia Schiffer

Karen Mulder

Elle Macpherson

Cheryl Tiegs

Stephanie Seymour

Twiggy

Iman

Jerry Hall

[ By Delana in Architecture & Design, Subvertising & Counter-Ads, Urban Images. ]

It’s common knowledge that living in a city as large as New York can be chaotic, and the laws meant to provide order and protect citizens can be beyond confusing. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a user’s guide for navigating key NYC laws? Artist/graphic designer Candy Chang is doing her part to help make tenants’ and vendors’ rights more understandable for the people they affect.

New York’s official Tenants’ Rights Guide is notoriously dry, confusing, and difficult to navigate. Finding the answer to your renting-related question is not a simple task, but Candy Change believed it should be. Working in cooperation with non-profit organization Tenants & Neighbors, she turned the Tenants’ Rights Guide into a set of snazzy, easy-to-read flash cards.

You simply find the topic you’re looking for, like eviction, security deposits, or pets, and the corresponding flashcard has a paragraph explaining your rights in easy-to-read language. Chang’s vision was to make vendors’ rights a more friendly, fun topic. It’s doubtful that the subject itself will ever really be fun for anyone, but flipping through the pack of flashcards definitely sounds more enjoyable than flipping through the official Tenants’ Rights Guide.

Candy Chang has also designed a pamphlet outlining vendors’ rights in an easy-to-understand, multilingual format. The guide is called Vendor Power! A Guide to Street Vending in New York City, and its illustration-rich fold-out format makes even the mundane subject of street vending laws look fun. Chang worked with The Street Vendor Project and the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) to put together the guide that’s meant to help street vendors avoid fines and understand their rights.

The guide is reminiscent of Ikea assembly instructions: light on the text, heavy on the pictures. The small amount of text that does appear on the pages is in English, Arabic, Spanish, Bengali and Chinese. But along with the explanations of various laws and codes are personal stories from vendors, fun facts about the history of street vending in New York City, and other tidbits that can be seen as attempts to increase camaraderie and pride among street vendors.

These two design project are more than the typical overpriced art objects that many designers churn out. They’re about real, tangible social change from the ground up. They’re empowering the people of New York City by informing them of their rights in language that’s easy to understand rather than the legalese in government-supplied handbooks. And that’s enough to change the social landscape of a city significantly.

You can purchase your own set of tenants’ rights flashcards in the Tenants and Neighbors online store for $10, or get Vendor Power! for $6 (or download a PDF version for free) from CUP’s online store.

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[ WebUrbanist - By Delana in Architecture & Design, Subvertising & Counter-Ads, Urban Images. ]

[ By Delana in Architecture & Design, Urban Images, Urbanism. ]

Rooftops have long been popular urban substitutions for yards; city dwellers use their rooftops for sunbathing, grilling a few hamburgers, hanging clothes out to dry, or even a bit of rooftop gardening. But these clever dwellings use sky-high rooftop space as a prime location for living quarters. Rooftop dwellings run the range from shanties to luxury penthouses, but they all bear the benefit of offering the residents a bird’s eye view of their surroundings

Manhattan Rooftop Homes

(images via: Apartment Therapy)

In a city where real estate is precious and scarce, it makes sense to build up. These structures were built on top of existing buildings, and they’re not an entirely unusual sight in New York and other densely populated cities. They are usually built to give the existing owners/occupants more room, or to provide a warm-weather retreat. However, smart building owners could easily rent them out as luxury penthouses, given their unparalleled views of the city.

London Rooftop Home Extension

(image via: Hut Architecture)

When graphic designer Morag Myerscough decided to add on to her Clerkenwell home, she called Hut Architecture to design her very own rooftop retreat. The tiny hut atop her roof looks like it was simply plopped there by a crane, but in fact it was built on site. A stairwell inside the main home leads up to the hut on the roof, emerging inside the tiny addition. The project was featured on BBC3’s Guerrilla Homes, possibly providing inspiration for other city dwellers who don’t feel they have room to expand their homes.

Rooftop Home Addition in Buenos Aires

(images via: Treehugger)

Textile designer Rosa Skific needed to add a workshop on to her small Buenos Aires home, but there were some rather constricting stipulations: it had to be low-budget, of low environmental impact, and take up virtually no space. FPS Architecture stepped in with a solution: perch a prefab metal container on the roof and connect it to the main house via a set of stairs. The resulting workshop adds the needed space without taking up any additional real estate, and the cheery red color adds a bit of life to the otherwise grey and chaotic Buenos Aires rooftop landscape.

Mexico City Rooftop Shack-Turned-Penthouse

(image via: The Architectural Review)

This home, in an architecturally fascinating part of Mexico City, once featured a tiny artist’s shack on its rooftop. The owners decided to keep the rooftop living, but to actually extend the formal living space up into a brand new penthouse. The Austrian group Architects Collective worked with Mexico City architects at.103 to create this fluid, modern addition to the existing three-story building.

Prefab Rooftop Dwellings

(images via: Dornob and Apartment Therapy)

Building a permanent addition to an existing home isn’t the only way to add rooftop living space. These prefab additions could easily function as temporary additions, then later be moved to a different location. The top image is a LoftCube: an all-in-one dwelling designed to be easily dropped into place on a rooftop via a crane. This modern design lets in plenty of natural light and would look perfect atop a tall building. For those who prefer the DIY life, the bottom image is an Icosa Village Pod. These sustainable, low-cost pods actually snap together in place, making them ideal for on-site building. This one lives in New York, no doubt giving its occupants stunning high-rise views of the city.

Rooftop Rentals, or Removable Rooms

(image via: Everland)

These rooftop hotel rooms represent a surprisingly luxurious side to both “mobile” homes and rooftop living. The above image is Hotel Everland, which is as much art project as it is hotel room. Designed by art duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann, it’s a one-room hotel that travels to different locations, landing atop each roof for a limited time. The room can be rented for one night only, and comes with a stocked minibar (included in the price), towels which the artists encourage guests to steal, and unforgettable, ever-changing views.

(images via: Dornob)

These pictures are from the Grand Daddy Hotel in South Africa, the owners of which decided to add a distinctive penthouse level made of old Airstream mobile homes on the building’s roof. The rooms are all uniquely decorated and share a central open-air courtyard, much like an urban rooftop campground.

Hong Kong’s Rooftop Communities

(images via: Peperoni Books)

Rooftop living isn’t all about luxury. In many parts of the world, the poor and the homeless have taken to the rooftops as a last refuge. Illegal rooftop homes in Hong Kong, such as those above, have been considered by officials to be a public safety hazard for quite some time. They are systematically removing the homes, which are often little more than shanties built of sheet metal. The fascinating rooftop communities of Hong Kong were documented – with pictures, explanations and even architectural drawings – in the book Portraits From Above: Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities by Stefan Canham and Rufina Wu.

(image via: UrbanPhoto)

Lined up on the tops of apartment buildings, at first glance they almost appear to belong there. Indeed, they are often bought and rented just like regular real estate. But most of these rooftop dwellings are occupied by immigrants, asylum seekers and indigent people who simply cannot afford conventional housing.

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[ WebUrbanist - By Delana in Architecture & Design, Urban Images, Urbanism. ]

Hallelujah!!i got an email from the man himself, Justin Blyth to let me know that the site, Them Thangs was back up & running. Thanks to REVOK for originally posting abt this amazing pictorial blog last year.

I became hooked instantly and was gutted when it had to close down due to bandwidth issues 2 months ago. However, JBlyth managed to get some serious funding and is now able to do what he does best; Re-mix other people’s work into one massive psychedelic, dark , sexual collage!

LTR HDS Melbourne/Sydney
The exhibition of the English alphabet
Letterheads 2010 brings together twenty-six contemporary artists to each re-envisioned a single letter of the English alphabet, creating a collection that explores the influence of the ubiquitous letterform in all aspects of contemporary art. The lineup of high profile and emerging artist, represent the fields of illustration, cartooning, fine art, graffiti, street art and graphic design from around the globe. Featuring 26 artists (incl. Lister, Usugrow, Mr Jago, She-One, Meggs) who you can see HERE

Melbourne Exhibition
from 26th February until 26th March at 1000 £ Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St Melbourne.
Opening Reception
26th February, 6pm until 10pm

Sydney Exhibition
from 16th April until 17th May at Red Bull Gallery, Huntly St and Burke Rd Alexandria.
Opening Reception
16th April, 6pm until 10pm

[VIA]

“Throughout history, information has always been recorded on physical objects. Important documents, favourite songs, videos and more were stored on mountains of tapes, polaroids, cassettes and disks. As media is rapidly absorbed into the World Wide Web the rich variety of formats of the past are becoming obsolete.”

This represents a big shift away from physical, real world objects, driving towards a human existence that is ultimately governed by billions of intangible data files. This release of information from the physical form allows personal data and identities to now be revealed and infinitely shared online. At the same time many of us consider individuality and privacy to be more precious than ever. Will humans be forever compatible with our own technology?

Each floppy disk used in the paintings has a history and story of its own. It represents the increasing pace of the modern life cycle, where objects are created, used and disposed of quicker than ever.

To challenge this notion, as these personal artefacts of life are cast aside, the obsolete are now given new life and a renewed purpose by using them as a medium for art.” – Text from his website…

See more of Nick’s disc art HERE.

Jef Aerosol

Matt Sewell
Nearest Tube: Oxford Circus

Crawfurd Adamson & Barbara Steinberg

On January 29, 2010, London’s Signal Gallery opens Mortal/Immortal. The exhibitions brings together two mature artists – Crawford Adamson and Barbara Steinberg – who work in different painting styles. Adamson, the figure takes center stage. His work positions the body free of setting and narrative. Steinberg, in contrast, paints with bold abstract form and color. Both artists have exhibited extensively in the United Kingdom and have previously appeared at Signal Gallery.

Signal Gallery
96a Curtain Road
London, EC2 3AA
Nearest Tube: Old Street

Read our article on Felix’s jump HERE.