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Weird Buildings (Odd Forms / Features; Novelty Architecture)

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
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A thread for buildings, old or new, that make you go "Wow!" So for starters:

Tickets for the Shard sell despite steep prices
[Video: Project architect William Matthews shows the BBC's Sonja Jessup round the viewing platform]

High entry prices have not deterred tourists wanting to see London from the top of the Shard, the UK's tallest building, when it opens to visitors.
From 1 February visitors will get a panoramic view of the capital from the building next to London Bridge station.
The viewing platform is sited 243m (800ft) up on the Shard which is 310m (1,016ft) tall.
The first two days have sold out despite ticket prices of £24.95 for adults and £18.95 for children.

Two lifts will take visitors to level 68 before the final viewing platform on the 72nd floor which is partly open to the elements.
Visitors will be able to look through special telescopes known as Tell: scopes.
These show not only a live "as it is" image but, at the push of a button what a clear-day view would be as well as a sunset view and a night view. 8)

Tickets are pre-booked although there will be some facility for walk-up visitors.
The Shard is part of a £2bn redevelopment of the London Bridge area.
The triangular-shaped building has 600,000sq ft of offices, three floors of restaurants and a 200-room Shangri-La hotel which is due to open this summer.
There are also 10 luxury apartments which are expected to be priced as high as £50m each. :shock:

Chief executive of The View from the Shard Andy Nyberg said: "This is the only place you can see the whole of London at once and, as such, is a natural starting point for exploring the UK's capital."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20970513
 
I'm terrible with heights :cry:

I'd LOVE to climb the Shard, but I just can't do it. The big wheel on Brighton seafront ("Brighton Eye" :roll: ) is about my limit.
 
CarlosTheDJ said:
I'm terrible with heights :cry:

I'd LOVE to climb the Shard, but I just can't do it. The big wheel on Brighton seafront ("Brighton Eye" :roll: ) is about my limit.
Most people are afraid of falling, rather than of height itself.
When I was in the Coastguard we often had to go out on the cliffs, but I hated getting near a cliff edge. And yet, in a harness, and on a strong rope, I would happily abseil down that cliff!

If you're afraid of heights, you'd never fly (and some people, like footballer Dennis Bergkamp, won't fly). But I think you'd be safer in a building like the Shard - unless some cretin flies a plane into it! :shock:
 
rynner2 said:
CarlosTheDJ said:
I'm terrible with heights :cry:

I'd LOVE to climb the Shard, but I just can't do it. The big wheel on Brighton seafront ("Brighton Eye" :roll: ) is about my limit.
Most people are afraid of falling, rather than of height itself.
When I was in the Coastguard we often had to go out on the cliffs, but I hated getting near a cliff edge. And yet, in a harness, and on a strong rope, I would happily abseil down that cliff!

If you're afraid of heights, you'd never fly (and some people, like footballer Dennis Bergkamp, won't fly). But I think you'd be safer in a building like the Shard - unless some cretin flies a plane into it! :shock:

I'm completely fine with flying, and with cliffs, hills, mountains etc.

It's man-made things I don' trust! Completely irrational I know, as my brain seems to accept planes with no issues :lol:
 
I don't know if it counts as a building, but the millau viaduct get my vote for on of the best. That would give me vertigo.
 
ChrisBoardman said:
I don't know if it counts as a building, but the millau viaduct get my vote for on of the best. That would give me vertigo.

Millau Viaduct

..it is the tallest bridge in the world with one mast's summit at 343.0 metres (1,125 ft) above the base of the structure.[3][4] It is the 12th highest bridge deck in the world, being 270 metres (890 ft)[1] between the road deck and the ground below.[5] The viaduct is part of the A75-A71 autoroute axis from Paris to Montpellier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct
 
EgyptianHouse-Plymouth.jpg

(Edit: Photo added for illustration.)

A long and interesting article about a club in Plymouth - I never heard of it before.
"The hall, known as The Egyptian House when it was first built in 1823 to the designs of John Foulston, who for a quarter of a century was Plymouth's most renowned architect, is Grade I Listed."
For good measure it has a couple of ghosts as well!
Inside Plymouth's quirkiest building as it gets a major overhaul
By Sarah_Herald | Posted: November 03, 2016

Video. And photos.

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/mee...back-to-life/story-29866752-detail/story.html

There is also an Egyptian House in Penzance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_House,_Penzance
It seems that John Foulston also designed this. No ghosts mentioned here, however!
 
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Becoming less remarkable.

The tallest building in the Czech capital Prague will be without its landmark babies for the first time in sixteen years.

Then ten fibreglass babies, which went some way to improve the public's perception of the Zizkov TV tower - once dubbed the second ugliest building in the world - are now well into their teens and are being removed for cleaning and structural checks, Radio Prague reports.

They were added by Czech artist David Cerny in the year 2000, and have become - until now - permanent exhibits on the 216m (708 ft) tower, once known to locals as "Jakes' Finger" after Milos Jakes, the final leader of communist Czechoslovakia.

Built toward the end of the communist regime, Zizkov Tower was seen by many as an unwelcome reminder of the old government, the Prague.tv website says.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-41502954
 
Becoming less remarkable.
The tallest building in the Czech capital Prague will be without its landmark babies for the first time in sixteen years. ...

Update, FYI:

For cleaning and structural checks, these Babies were removed from the tower in the fall of 2017. After examination of the condition of the sculptures was made a decision to replace them with identical duplicates. In March 2019 were installed the duplicates of the "Babies" on their original positions. The original Babies were returned to David Černý.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Žižkov_Television_Tower
 
^^ That's a tremendous clip. I used to live just down the road from there, and rumour had always had it that one of those houses used to stand just off the main road - it's been mentioned in relation to PC Godfrey's UFO sighting, among other things. Mr Chisnall is a poster-boy for Northern taciturnity, isn't he? If he was the best spokesman they could find, it's no wonder they couldn't shift many of the things. It's also clear this is an era before PR teams were really a thing - that open admission that the house doesn't meet fire regulations must have doomed any remote chance of success the thing had.
 
An interesting home. I wonder if the design will take off? Vid at link.

Kurt Hughes, a talented naval architect, built this delightful lunar lander home on the banks of the Columbia River in Central Washington State. He was inspired by his daughter's experience in a space camp at Seattle's Museum of Flight.
"I wanted to build a fishing shack, even though I don't go fishing," he says.

From the video description:
Relying on boat-building methods, Hughes avoided nail framing and created his own carbon-fiber structural insulated panels (SIPs) using his pioneering "Ziploc Space Bags": a vacuum bagged plywood, epoxy mix light enough to be transported from his Seattle backyard to his riverfront resort on the back of his pickup truck.

Hughes believes his ultra-light tiny home – the 250-square-foot structure weighs just 3,000 pounds – can, and should, be replicated, especially for those building tiny homes on wheels where weight is paramount. He's working on a manual to show others how to create their own SIP panels. ...

https://boingboing.net/2020/08/20/man-lives-in-lunar-lander-on-r.html
 
(Transplanted from the Tardigrades thread)

Regarding the Tsui Tardigrade house: I lived in Berkeley when it went up. People called it the Sea Monster House then. Some people still might. My own first encounter with that house was a massive startle when I rode my bike onto the block of Mathews street it's on, caught sight of that Cthulhu-looking stucco mass for the first time, and crashed my bike in shock. For a split second I was sure it was a monster that was gonna eat me--and I was 30 at the time.
 
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(Probably more along the lines of the Remarkable Buildings thread, but here goes.)

Tardigrade House, the safest building in the world:
https://www.dailycal.org/2013/06/21/inside-the-worlds-safest-house/
"From the street, the water bug likeness is uncanny. Amid a blanket of dense and colorful foliage, the rough-hewn exterior soars upward. Walls are striped with wrinkles and pockmarked with dinosaurian ridges.
[. . .]
"Tssui paid careful attention to sourcing the best building materials. The house’s structure is made of Rastra, a special concrete infused with compressed, recycled coffee cups. Rastra’s benefits are numerous, including fire resistance, flooding resistance, mildew resistance, termite resistance and noise reduction."
Tardigrade house.jpg Photo from the Daily Clog, June 21, 2013
 
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