Via Web Curios, we had a lot of full building our own thassolocracy in the lagoon cell-by-cell with this aesthetically intriguing and genuinely calming diversion with animated, embellished utopia-builder, replete with architectural conventions to discover, for instance a tower composed of alternating red and white blocks will turn into a lighthouse. Copying the link and pasting it later will let you continue your civil engineering work in progress. Give it a try and share your creations with us.
Saturday 4 December 2021
Thursday 25 November 2021
7x7
brickover: iconic album covers recreated in LEGO from Pasa Bon’s curious links
sand castles: an innovative intervention to counter desertification
all about photos: arresting, colourful best-in-show exhibits from the AAP annual competition—via Kottkeno one listens to cassandra: rediscovering a 1997 article on what could go wrong in the twenty-first century that’s eerily prescient
parks & rec: a huge collection of vintage outdoor living catalogues and magazines—via the morning news
what—it’s not magaggie’s birthday: an unauthorised Simpson’s cookbook
spin-cycle: a gorgeous, inviting laundrette outfitted by Yinka Ilori and LEGO
Saturday 6 November 2021
9x9
the audience effect: fellow blogger and internet caretaker Duck Soup passes a million page-views
ะณัะฐัะธัะบะธ ะดะธะทะฐัะฝ: celebrating the works of three pioneering Serbian graphic designers and topographers
mountain view: a prop gravesite used for film and television, interred and disinterred thousands of times, in a very real cemetery
subject matter expert: the street photography of Eric Kogan—via the morning newsutter rubbish: traumatising photographs of the garbage, sometimes neatly knolled, that humans produce
the briefing: a definitive guide to COP 26
greased falcon: a fan-channel dedicated to Star Wars! The Musical (2008)
time in a bottle: hackers are amassing encrypted data in the hopes that within a few years, quantum computers will be able to unlock it—via Slashdot
return to comfort town: more on brilliant housing development in Kyiv inspired by building blocks—see previously
Wednesday 22 September 2021
7x7
ppe: an enigmatic update to COVID guidelines
i don’t want to live on this planet anymore: a supercut of Futurama gags that have endured
norm macdonald has a show: an appreciation of the comedian’s (†) early standup
ernie and the emperors: a Giant Crab discography (1969)
grandmaster: the mental and physical tolls of chess
appareil: gorgeous French brick patterns from a 1878 catalogue
tireless research: Ruben Bolling showcases great scientists of the twenty-first century
Saturday 17 July 2021
kristinehamn
Tuesday 6 July 2021
7x7
snuck out in the middle of the night: The Onion forecasted the West’s hasty departure from Afghanistan a decade ago
fjรถgurra daga vinnuviku: a pilot experiment reducing what’s defined as full-time a stupendous success in Iceland
nine seasons: geniuses from the Hood Internet (see previously) remixed the Seinfeld theme with a hit song from every year it airedcarriage shift: a LEGO typewriter inspired by the model of the toy’s creator
subrident: a story told with some edifying vocabulary words
15-minute cities: natural language map queries
low-level pokemon, normally easily defeated, stuck guarding locations, perhaps indefinitely: augmented reality sites abandoned at Bagram Airbase
Thursday 6 May 2021
mary celeste
Spotted first by Present /&/ Correct, we quite enjoyed contemplating these compositions by artist Jan van Schaik in his Lost Tablets series which explores the vacillation between the familiar and grounded feeling of children’s toy blocks and the untethered nature of architectural vernacular. The cut-up grammar of building elements out of place, to-be-placed reminded us of these model frames sculptures yet unsprued. The pictured piece is called the Sea Bird, all named for ships found abandoned and adrift. More at the links above.
Monday 11 January 2021
logic gates
Via Pasa Bon! we are presented with an educational toy in the form of a mechanical computer invented and marketed in 1965 by John “Jack” Thomas Godfrey called the Digi-Comp II that used marbles rolling down an incline through customisable, programmable interventions, like a pinball game (Flipperkast) or pachinko to teach coding. These basic calculations were accomplished—less kinetically—on the predecessor game with gears and latch circuits as a demonstration of binary logic. Much more to explore at the link up top including a giant model and a Lego version of the visual calculator.
Saturday 9 January 2021
7x7
zip-tie guy: as bad as this act of terrorism was, the Ku Klux Coup (see previously) could have turned out much worse
election, objection, ambition, sedition: another pitch-perfect Randy Rainbow political parody
regrets only: Trump’s final missive confirming he would not be attending Joe Biden’s inauguration—cornerstone to a peaceful transition of power—is interpreted as another way of casting aspersions on a legitimate election and gets his account suspended from Twitter—permanentlyprivilege check: race and the cos-play veneer of the invasion combined with remorse over more heavy-handed tactics over the summer allowed them to organise and launch their raid unchecked—see previously
us capitol police: encomnia for officer killed protecting senators and congress members from the Blue Lives Matter crowd
jericho march: more Cos-Play with Evangelical Christians (previously) rallying in D.C. blowing shofars
no pension, no secret security detail, no travel allowance, no chance to hold high office again: a second impeachment has consequences even a few days out and Congress is moving swiftly to make it happen, nearly as fast as Mr Rainbow above or Lego
Saturday 19 December 2020
7x7
guardians of the galaxy: Space Force (previously) service members receive a new title
deluxe apartment in the sky: artist granted viewing of exclusive properties on Billionaires’ Row in Manhattan
lp: a playlist of James Baldwin’s record collection
๐: the Great Wave off Kanagawa in Lego form
lassen sie mich also sagen, dass dies ernst ist—bitte nehmen sie das auch ernst: Angela Merkel’s March address and appeal on coronavirus lauded as Speech of the Year
heat gap: climatic gentrification across city districts leads to worse outcomes for the poorest residents
Tuesday 17 November 2020
6x6
for ages eighteen plus: adult content next door
cph-รธ1: Copenhagen harbour floating parkipelago gets its first module
dapper duds: older dogs dressed as senior human citizens to encourage adoption
holes and slices: the Swiss cheese model risk management and loss prevention
coandฤ effect: a drone stays aloft by taking advantage of the fluid dynamic tendency to stay attached to a convex surface—a principle used in hovercraft, the Avrocar, NOTARs, windshield cleaners, mitral regurgitators and ventilators
for ages six and up: small bricks present a choking hazard
Monday 31 August 2020
toy cabin construction
Among many other events of great pith and circumstance that share this anniversary, as our faithful chronicler informs, John Lloyd Wright—son of the famed architect—was issued a patent (see also) for what would become Lincoln Logs on this day in 1920. The inspiration for the interlocking design was based the beams of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, created by his father, to sustain an earthquake—which it did in 1923 Great Kanto seismic event (1 September) that levelled much of the city.
Sunday 3 May 2020
once upon a virus
Though much like Fox News in the United States, the state-owned Xinhua news agency has been accused of being an instrument of propaganda in the past, but this particular timeline of the Corona Virus pandemic as told, schooled in the medium of Lego with the air of a fairy tale, does not require much spin or hyperbole—especially compared with Trump’s constant, increasingly desperate and far-fetched claims that it came from a laboratory in Wuhan, fatally inadequate countermeasures on the part of the American federal government that have collapsed into riot and terrorism or his suggestion that the disease might be treated by ingesting bleach and other under the kitchen counter cleaning materials.
Sunday 5 April 2020
crinkle crankle
Despite their far older heritage, first attested to Dutch engineers that helped drain marshlands in The Fens in the 1600s—whom referred to the retaining walls as slangenmuur, snake walls—it was not until the eighteenth century that the vernacular brick architecture (see previously) received this common designation, which sounds fairly Dutch itself too for its reduplicative derivation.
For all the apparent fussiness and ornamentation of the construction, this serpentine arrangement is a highly economical one since long expanses can be covered using a single layer of bricks, whereas one that proceeded in a straight line without any curving buttresses would be far weaker and easily topple. As garden enclosures, most crinkle crankle walls were aligned east-west in order to capture the rising and setting sun (see also) for home orchards. Learn more with TYWKIWDBI at the link above.
catagories: ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ณ๐ฑ, ๐, ๐งฑ, architecture
Monday 9 March 2020
n&b block
Previously we’ve explored Nintendo’s business enterprises prior to video games but didn’t know about their foray into toy building blocks to compete with LEGO bricks until encountering this range of construction sets. Designed to be compatible and complementary with the Danish original, N&B blocks (courtesy of Present / & / Correct, produced from 1968 to 1972) though unlicensed were not a simple counterfeit and offered several unique kits and accessories.
catagories: ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐, ๐งฑ, 1968, sport and games
Monday 2 March 2020
k-briq
catagories: ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ณ๓ ฃ๓ ด๓ ฟ, ๐, ๐งฑ, architecture
Saturday 4 January 2020
opus isodomum
Our gratitude once again to Present /&/ Correct for expanding our brick-and-mortar (see also) repertoire with this mediative volume by Melissa Price that looks at some of the chief stylistic and structural organising and coordinating principles behind this construction method, brick-bonding.
The most common types being Flemish, Monk, and Sussex it follows the notion that courses (the horizontal layers) should not be uniform straight across and changes the orientation of the masonry according to a set pattern for better load-bearing and aesthetic qualities. From the builder’s perspective, the brick has six positions depending how they’re turned and facing edge: stretcher, shiner, header, rowlock, soldier and sailor, which in tied and trusted patterns strengthen the ties with rows above and below.
catagories: ๐, ๐งฑ, architecture
Wednesday 13 February 2019
course and wythe
One of the more viable indigenous, constructed scripts (see also here and here), the Atlas of Endangered Alphabets profiles the Mandombe system of writing, revealed to its author by a venerated Congolese religious leader in a dream, recognising the sacred serpentine turns along the familiar backdrop of a brick wall.
Inspired, glyphs were developed whose pronunciation and inflection was determined on direction and orientation and is suited for the national languages of the country, with more efforts underway to transcribe neighbouring languages into Mandombe, and is taught in parochial schools affiliated with the church that conceived it in the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola as well as in France and Belgium.
Thursday 1 November 2018
opus latericium
Material science students in Cape Town have developed a process that forms a durable, pliable building substance out of urea, sand and a strain of bacteria that metabolises urine into calcium carbonate that cements the loose sand to fit a given mould.
Not only would construction sites draw in and sequester atmospheric carbon during the growing phase, reinforcing the sands with limestone matrices, the reaction that produces the bricks, pillars and cobblestones happens at ambient temperature and doesn’t need to be fired in a kiln—another potentially huge benefit as the cement and concrete industry contributes a huge volume of greenhouse gases.
catagories: ๐, ๐, ๐งฑ, architecture, environment
Friday 31 August 2018
type 57
Last week, we were taken for a test drive in a porcelain Bugatti called L’Or Blanc (White Gold) and now we are given a demonstration of another fully-functional Bugatti model—a Chiron supercar—that was almost entirely built from LEGO Technics pieces, over a million assembled by hand.
The car is a legacy brand first founded by Ettore Bugatti in the city of Molsheim in 1909 that produced a line of high performance luxury and racing automobiles through the 1950s when the company went bankrupt and the factory acquisitioned for the aviation industry. Bugatti saw a comeback in the 1990s when the name and distinctive chassis style saw a revival, with Volkswagen engineering the Chiron, two-seated sports car, which was revealed for the first time at the Geneva Motor Show in 2016. See footage of both cars in action at the links above.