Bund Tourist Tunnel - The Most Impressive Bund Sightseeing Tunnel in Shanghai

Tourist Tunnel is perhaps the most interesting activities that can be found all over Shanghai. Its psychedelic light show will make you groan, but this is exactly what makes it so funny. Kids love it, adults quite puzzled his strangeness. Nevertheless, it remains the great way to get across the river from the Podung side to the Bund. The good thing is that it is very convenient, the entrance is right by the bund and it leaves you just a block away from the oriental pearl tower. The entrance can be a little difficult to find. On the West bank of the river at the northern end of the Bund, you will see a sign for him over the stairs that go under the street. On the eastern side of the river, you will find the tourist tunnel entrance in front of the entrance door to the convention center hotel (Riverside building shaped as a globe).
The two trip ticket is a lot cheaper than a one way. The ride goes slowly so you don't need to even sit down. The accompanying light show is part Disney, part psychedelic, complete with flashing strobes, blowing tinsel, and swirling hallucinogenic images projected on the concrete walls. The five-minute ride will make your head spin.

Wooden Large Hadron Collider by N.Polissky

Nikolay Polissky is the only land-artist in modern Russian Art. Starting 2000th he was creating most his works in the settlement Nikola Lenivets, Russia, four hours from Moscow. His art may be called Utopian, both in art and social sense. And moreover, this Utopia is materialized Utopia. In social determination, Polissky succeeded in reviving and depicting a semi-abandoned village, with help of Art turning it into a real cultural center (an international festival of landscape architecture “ArchStoyanie” has been passing here since 2003) and making its inhabitants real participants of a constructive process.

"Large Hadron Collider" is a work from a new project, made-up by Nikolay Polissky. Now the unpuddled mirror of people's conscience must reflect not classic inheritance of the World Architecture, but the latest scientific achievements. Strictly speaking, there was a work of this kind by Polissky – “Baykonur”, 2005: a huge installation consisting of models of rockets and launching systems entwined of twig. First exhibited in the yard of the Tretyakov’s gallery during the First Moscow Biennale of Modern Art, this installation was then transferred to Nikola Lenivets, where later it was burnt in the course of traditional Shrovetide fest. It was already there when science could have been read through prism of ritual and magic. Flame made the interlink between space rockets and their twigged copies. And the outflow to extraterrestrial space turned into burning bringing to memory funeral pyres that provide the dead to pass to the afterworld.

The "Hadron Collider" by Polissky and his co-authors, first of all interests with that half-mystical aureole mantling modern science. Contemporary scientists for Polissky are kind of oracles, privy to secrets of universe hidden for ordinary people, and maybe even capable to influence forces ruling the world. And that is not that far from truth: few of us can really explain how the Large Hadron Collider is constructed and what purposes it serves. Scientific world view, same as magical or religious world view may only be taken for granted. The "Large Hadron Collider" by Polissky and co-authors is a simulated implementation of that very machine, from which God may emerge.

Large Hadron Collider by N.Polissky from Ivan Polissky on Vimeo.

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Furniture in a Box: home and office collection

I-TRUNK. The pocket office

Trunk in wood and leather, jewelry in nickeled massive brass.

SOPRANO. Music maestro

The Soprano Music Trunk. Genuinely not sure how to describe this one. It’s a leather covered trunk in which you can store your music CDs or whatever else you fancy, and which contains a full blown B&O stereo system.

MOVIE TRUNK

The Pinel Pinel's Movie trunk is a fold out home theatre system. It includes highly acclaimed Bang & Olufsen Beolab 6000 subwoofer, two Beolab 3 speakers, BeoVision 6-26 television, and the DVD1 DVD/CD player. This fold out home theatre system is covered in an assortment of 51 vibrant leathers with nickel plated brass hardware and 3 drawers to store 48 DVD’s.

Pic Nic Trunk

The Pic Nic Trunk. Rather mythically subtitled "Trunk Of Happiness," this should please anybody out there on a quest for the ultimate picnic hamper. Whilst it may not be the solution to all your problems, it certainly won't hamper a good picnic. Once again, this product is available in a choice of 51 colours and is of wood and leather structure with brass detail. This particular trunk includes "11 drawers in which all the must-have accessories for a champagne picnic has been placed." A compartmentalists dream and surely a must for those in the upper echelons of society who like to shoot, eat and leave.

Kibako - "The Green Trunk."

The company which provides the option of bespoke crocodile as standard show their nature-loving side once more with the Kibako. Structurally as above, this particular product lets the green fingered folk out there get their trunk on. With two drawers which function as collecting trays, Osram 80w horticultural light and a selection of bonzai maintenance tools, you'll be good to grow in no time.

  BABY TRUNK

I-CASE

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Steampunk phone by Arthur Schmitt

This steampunk phone is a conceptual prototype by designer Arthur Schmitt, and it tickles all the right spots from a design standpoint.  It's got a heavy wire cover over the earpiece, gauges, visible screws, a rugged brown scheme, a spinning number-counter — oh, how we could go on. Best of all, it uses punch cards and binary phone numbers to control your phone's features and make calls, so getting someone on the line is charmingly unwieldy. Schmitt designed the Steampunk Phone for European cell provider o2, as part of a study on whether or not non-traditional cell phones could be marketed to more unusual focus groups: in this case, role-playing gamers.

  

source: tart2000

Foldaway Rooms

No room at home to work? No room for a kitchen? No room for mother-in-law to stay?

No problem, thanks to the slightly odd, very Japanese and super space efficient creations of Architect Toshihiko Suzuki and his ‘Architectural Furniture’.

His three designs, a foldaway guest room, mobile kitchen and office offer a neat solution to limited space, or as the website suggests in charming Engrish: “We positions the infill as an immediate adaptive method to fit changes”. But of course. Confused? Watch the video:

source Treehugger

New Art by Henk Hofstra's - "Art-Eggcident" in Leeuwarden

Dutch artist Henk Hofstra (who's Blue Road we featured in November of last year) is back with a new environmental art project called ‘Art Eggcident’ in Leeuwarden, a city in the north of the Netherlands.
Yesterday, several large eggs (each 100 feet wide) were spread on th Zaailand, one of the largest city squares in the Netherlands.

‘The eggs’ will remain in Leeuwarden for the next six months.

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The 6 spectacular futuristic Cars

Milner AirCar

Just like the flying AMC Matador in the Man With the Golden Gun, in which the villainous Scaramanga escapes from Bond, the Milner AirCar has wings that fold out at the touch of a button - handy if you see a traffic jam building ahead or you're running late for work. In normal use, these wings tuck up beside the car to allow it to drive on public roads, while the interior has full instrumentation for air and road use. You can take along passengers, too, as the AirCar has four doors and five seats. Power comes from two propeller engines that produce up to 296bhp, while a conventional engine for road use produces 39bhp and gives it a ground speed of 85mph.

The AirCar is designed by Milner Motors, who reckon the prototype you see here could be ready in production form by 2010, at a cost of $450,000.

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Rinspeed sQuba

This extraordinary Concept Car created by the famous Swiss Rinspeed Design Company could have come straight out of a James Bond film. Its ability not just to drive along the road – and that on autopilot at the press of a button – but also to continue along its route through water, diving to depths of ten meters, breaks the bounds of the imagination of many people when they think of a car. Its unique bodywork, designed to echo that of the Lotus Elise cult sports car, is being complemented by a whole new world of colorful experience.

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Aptera

The Aptera was designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle, and later as an extended range electric vehicle. After building the proof-of-concept Mk-0, we hired the automotive design firm, 'eleven', to help us further develop the concept vehicle. The 'eleven' team, led by Jason Hill and Nathan Armstrong, made great strides in the development of the Aptera's body styling, interior design, and structural engineering. Meanwhile, we refined the Aptera's shape to maximize efficiency using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), developed and built advanced suspension and drivetrain components, and integrated a strong yet lightweight composite shell. Our entire process has been developed in-house exclusively by Aptera for the Aptera Typ-1. Our structural elements have undergone countless revisions of FEA (Finite Element Analysis) to be lightweight, robust, and manufacturable.

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Ford SYNus

The SYNUS is a concept car Ford Motor Company produced under the Ford brand and created by the Spanish designer Jose Parisb (exterior design) and Joe Baker (interior).

The SYNUS shares its powertrain design with the Ford Mondeo. The SYNUS' engine is a diesel powered, 16 valve, turbocharged, 2.0L DOHC 4-cylinder Duratorq TDCi Diesel engine that produces 134 horsepower (100 kW). The SYNUS has a five-speed manual transmission. Its wheels are 18 inches (457 mm) in diameter. It has an IEEE 802.11g compliant wireless LAN hub. The SYNUS débuted at the 2005 North American International Auto Show.

The SYNUS' unique features mimic the modern obsession with safety. The synus has a bullet resistant frame with bulletproof glass windows. Also, it has no rear window, but a large LCD monitor filling the back. Ford claims they built it inspired by bank vaults and that is reflected in its designed, the doors open with a vault-like wheel. Also, when in "lockdown mode" steel shutters close around the front windshield.

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BMW M1 Hommage

It was thirty years ago that BMW first introduced the BMW M1 super car to the world. Now, to celebrate it’s thirty year anniversary, BMW thought it would be fun to tease us all with this updated “concept” version of the original Bavarian bombshell. Originally designed by Paul Bracq and later by famed Italian design house Giugiaro, this BMW M1 Hommage takes a clearly aggressive pose, with retro features mixing it up with very modern elements. From the louvered rear window, to the 80’s style badging on the rear and the conspicuous (for Germans) wheel design, the 80’s are definitely in at BMW’s studios and this latest version if the M1 just might raise enough eyebrows to go into production before the 80s are officially passe.

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Toyota Hi-CT concept

The Hi-CT aims to offer a new "coolness" and new ways to have fun as a departure from conventional vehicles-an edgy, urban vehicle inspired by the thinking and lifestyles of youth.
* Offers a new kind of automotive "cool" and sense of enjoyment.
* Has a new look unconstrained by conventional vehicle size (length 3,330mm x width 1,695mm x height 1,780mm).
* Adopts plug-in hybrid technology, which allows it to charge from an external power source and gives it a greater driving range when running on its battery-powered motor; by placing the battery under the floor, achieves a highly efficient cabin with a higher driver position.
* Comes with an AC100V accessory socket that enables stored electricity-made possible by plug-in hybrid technology-to be used for a variety of applications.
* Features a removable rear trunk and a deck where surfboards, bicycles and other equipment can be loaded.

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