Upside Down House Whimsically Fallen from the Sky

French artist Jean-François Fourtou loves to play with the ideas of perspective and childhood worlds of imagination and magic. In his past work, Mes Maisons (My Houses), he experimented with viewers' perceptions of scale by placing his subjects in disproportionately large or small living spaces. This time around, Fourtou plopped an upside down house right in the center of his property in Morocco, disorienting his viewers and creating a bewildering experience of "home."
Tombée du Ciel (Fallen from the Sky) is an architectural structure inspired by Fourtou's grandparents' home in France. Imagine living in this topsy-turvy world, where the bathtub is on the ceiling and you can effortlessly climb into the house through the second story window. Fourtou's work reflects remnants of his own childhood memories, and just like the nature of most memories, this installation is twisted and turned and spun around until it's just a fraction of reality.
If you are fascinated with upside down architecture, you'll also enjoy this interesting design by Polish architects Irek Glowacki and Marek Rozanski.

Jean-François Fourtou on Aeroplastics Gallery
via [CollabCubed]

The view from The Shard viewing platform opens

The tallest building in Western Europe at 1016ft (309.6m) in height, the Shard skyscraper in London Bridge was inaugurated on 5th July.
Starting from 6th July the first batch of tickets is released for its viewing platform, the View from The Shard.

The View from The Shard observation area will be housed in the 68th-72nd floors of the skyscraper some 800ft (244m) above the capital. From that vantage point, guests will be able to see up to 40 miles (64km) away.

The viewing platforms are accessed by two high-speed ‘kaleidoscopic’ lifts that ascend to the building’s 68th level in 30 seconds. From that point, visitors are invited to the triple-height, glass-fronted Level 69 where the surrounding cityscape is fully exposed. The highest point accessible to The View from The Shard visitors is on Level 72 where it will be possible to look upwards and see the few remaining floors taper out of sight as the separate panels of the building converge at its tip.

 The View from The Shard will be almost twice as high as any other viewing point in London and its developers expect it to become a major tourist attraction. To mitigate overcrowding it will be necessary for visitors to pre-book a defined arrival time and date in order to access the viewing area. Although information on exact capacity hasn’t yet been confirmed, organisers have stated that the system will ensure a “crowd- and queue-free premium experience”. Over 17,500 people had already registered to secure tickets in advance of their release today.
Costing £24.95 for adults and £18.95 for children, tickets are now available through The View from The Shard website or via the box office hotline 0844 499 7111 which, unlike web bookings, applies a handling fee to all purchases. The View from The Shard will be open to the public from February 1, 2013.

Carbuncle Cup 2012

The UK’s leading architecture newspaper BD invites the public to put forward their worst new building for this year’s Carbuncle Cup.

Nominations are already pouring in from disgruntled architects and local residents. The list includes several high profile schemes including the renovation of the Cutty Sark and one of Prince Charles’ pet projects.

But the hot favourite is one of the most controversial projects of the 2012 Olympics - the ArcellorMittal Orbit tower by artist Anish Kapoor and engineer Cecil Balmond.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit, London:

Each week, one nominated building will be published on Bdonline - visit www.bdonline.co.uk/carbunclecup to see them all.

The nominations that receive the most support in the comments section will automatically make the shortlist which will be revealed on July 20th. A final winner will be chosen by public vote and a jury of built environment specialists led by BD’s executive editor Ellis Woodman.

“BD’s annual Carbuncle Cup offers the British public the chance to voice their distress at shoddy architecture, venal development and feckless planning,” said Woodman.

“The ever-growing support that the prize receives suggests the UK still has a long way to go before the quality of its built environment meets its citizens’ aspirations. Until that happy day, the Carbuncle Cup will be there to name and shame the worst offenders.”

Any building completed within the past 12 months or due for completion by the 2012 Olympics is eligible and anyone can nominate by sending in a short paragraph about the building to bdonline@ubm.com . The deadline for nominations is Friday July 13th.


Carbuncle Cup 2012 nominations

Jubilee Pantone Queen Palette

For Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee, celebrating 60 years of her reign over England, advertising agency Leo Burnett London and Pantone have developed a numbered shade guide to her majesty's most memorable choices of color for her stately ensembles. the creative companies have collaborated in order to assemble a limited edition pigment manual picturing the Queen's six decades on the british throne. Leatrice Eiseman, the executive director of the pantone colour institute reflects upon her majesty's notable shade selections, including 'pantone 13-0755 primrose yellow' of Queen Elizabeth II's outfit worn in april of 2011 to the wedding of her grandson, prince William to Kate Middleton or 'pantone 13-4411 crystal blue' for which Eiseman notes,
'blue is a colour staple in the queen's wardrobe, it's a colour that communicates constancy and it is also symbolic of her devotion to the british people.
blues traditionally have calming properties and she is often seen wearing them during difficult times...'.
The small, queen-shaped book contains sixty years of queen elizabeth II's most memorable wardrobe shades, printed by precision imaging using HP indigo technology and is comprised of sixty separate images picturing varying pigments. beginning with color choices dating back to the queen's coronation, each of the individual shade references include the date and location of that particular ensemble. images of Her Majesties wardrobe selections were matched by Pantone's emulation system, achieving exact color matching from the pantone shade range.

 [via] core77

Real Juice Boxes

To show that Camp’s fruit juice is all natural, Brazilian creative agency AGE Isobar grew fruits into box shapes—to create ‘real juice boxes’.

The agency made ‘molds’ in the shape of juice packs for the fruits, and hung the molds on the trees of the farms in Paranapanema, São Paulo, Brazil.

When the fruits grew and ripened on the tree, the fruits became the shape of a Camp juice box.

Don’t you think that fruits should come in these shapes for easier storage?

Watch the fascinating video below, to see how the fruit ‘juice boxes’ were 

grown, cut open and eaten: 

 

 via ageisobar