tingilinde

a printed home

Habitat for Humanity tries a printed home.

now if concrete could be "greener" .. although I don't know how this compares with a conventional house.

 

 

what do you do with a huge supply of lego bricks?

And it's your job to build..

 

the return of the drive-in restaurant?

Many have predicted it including Musk (who wanted waitresses on roller skates)

But someone is trying it.

 

emergency design

Covid led to emergency design trials.  Some will stick, some won't.  Comments in The New York Times.

It's too bad we aren't seeing rapid design change for the more dangerous crises of global warming.

 

 

on mazes

One of those curious New Yorker pieces.

snip

...

Fisher didn’t yet have official stationery, or even a typewriter, so he submitted his proposal as a handwritten letter. His design was circular: a brick path, set in a lawn, that formed seven concentric rings winding toward a sundial in the center. At first glance, it seemed to replicate the traditional Christian pavement labyrinth, the most famous example of which is found in the nave of Chartres Cathedral. Medieval labyrinths of this kind aren’t puzzles; there is only a single path, arranged in a snaking pattern of concentric folds, and to process along it to the center is to participate in a physical allegory of the soul’s progress through life and toward salvation. But at Greys Court a maze walker—or aspirant, to use the technical term—encounters a junction within seconds and has to make a choice. Fisher cunningly combined the appearance of the old Christian labyrinth with the function of the puzzle maze, whose solution, taking its cue from Runcie’s metaphor, involves turning away from the center initially, to journey around the entire periphery.

...

underground architecture

Metro stations built during the Soviet era.

 

phoenix and heat

four filters

If you're thinking about a cheap homemade air filtration system for home or school, Greg points out a simple four filter design.

 

 

simple homemade air cleaners

Simple, cheap and ugly - but perhaps useful.

 

 

a new type of chain-mail fabric

Very cool - a chain-mail fabric that can be made to stiffen.

snip

...

The mechanical properties of chain mail have been revisited. The findings reveal that, under confining pressure, chain-mail-inspired materials can switch from pliable to stiff structures that have outstanding load-bearing capacities.

...