Set back from a cliff overlooking the water, the old barn structure consisted of two parts: a taller volume with gabled ends, and a wide addition off one side with a sloping shed-style roofline. No doors, windows, or actual roofs remained – just holes where they used to be. Aiming to keep as much of the concrete structure in place as possible to preserve its aged and weathered character, the architects decided to insert a lightweight two-story timber structure into the original volume, mimicking its shape.

Preserving the crumbling concrete required some creativity. The old barn was made of thick and stable mass concrete, but most of its walls lacked foundations, and some were very fragile. They decided to retain only the perimeter walls, leaving them in a ruined state peppered with lichen and patchwork patterns of local pebbles. They also stabilized the existing structure and lined the barn floor with a reinforced concrete raft to ensure the home wouldn’t continue to deteriorate after the renovations were complete.

New openings were created sparingly to avoid compromising the structural integrity of the old concrete shell. One was added to let more light into the kitchen, and another adds a separate entrance to the art studio so the homeowners can move large artworks in and out. Both the new openings and the original ones were diamond-cut to a smooth surface that contrasts with the roughness of the outer facade. On the ground floor, Studio Bua placed a kitchen and dining space adjacent to the studio, giving them all a floor of polished concrete.

The client, an artist, had previous experience staining plywood and wanted to experiment with adding light washes of color to the birch walls. She and the architects collaborated on a palette inspired by the colors of the meadow as they shift from green in spring to yellow in winter and purple in late summer. On the second floor, the white stained pine boards and plywood surfaces are left in their natural color to complement the darkness of the concrete and stone. A plywood staircase leads from the ground floor dining room to a mezzanine sitting room overlooking a double-height space, with both rooms taking advantage of the massive amount of daylight emanating from a fully-glazed end facade.

Outside, the walled garden might just be the coolest part of this old-meets-modern renovation. Protected from both strong winds and hungry wildlife, the garden preserves the framed views of the original windows and doors, now open to the air, and uses the remains of the original interior walls as row dividers.

The architects also chose a number of materials that are uniquely Icelandic in character. They explain that “the cladding of the new volume is corrugated Aluzinc – a reflective material that takes the color of the sky and meadow around the house, changing with the seasons and weather embodying the lightness of the inserted volume. This allowed us to extend to a second story without overpowering the concrete barn. From our experience working in harsh climates, this rather industrial material is one of the few cladding options that can withstand the extremes of weather.”

“The corrugation is also a reference to a local building tradition. From the early 20th century corrugated steel has been used diffusely in Iceland in rural and urban settings for all typologies. Most dwellings and farm buildings in the area are partly or completely clad in this material.”

The post Dilapidated Barn Ruins Transformed into a Remote Artist’s Studio in Iceland first appeared on Dornob.

Burton, who stumbles upon most of these places in his travels, can’t offer any answers, though he does circle back around to his subjects occasionally only to find that they’ve since perished without a trace, seemingly erasing their entire existence. One is a wooden farmhouse set beside two trees, surrounded on all sides by lush green crops. “The Substation Fire here in Oregon burnt this abandoned house and 70,000 acres of land just a month after I took this photo,” he tells Monster Children.

The Portland, Oregon-based photographer has been photographing abandoned places since 2011. For “Thin Places,” each property was shot with a drone to fully capture just how isolated they are. Burton says it’s the liminality of the spaces that draws him in. They exist somewhere between past and present, perhaps even somewhere between this realm and another.

“There is a Celtic concept regarding places that feel strangely magnetic,” Burton says. “It is said heaven and Earth are only three feet apart but in Thin Places that distance is even shorter. Abandoned houses are a perfect example of this phenomenon. These places are at the intersection of archeology and fantasy, and you can visit these sites but can never get the full story. So curiosity keeps bringing me back. What makes people leave, and what keeps things standing? How much of a life gets left along with it?”

Burton’s own childhood on a farm in rural Oregon informs much of his subject matter. A thread of wistful Americana runs through his body of work, whether he’s photographing homes that look like archaeological studies in danger of collapse or portraits set in foggy forests. Most of his imagery starts with road trips through the sparsely populated countryside, where he and his friends often enter empty-looking buildings and sort through the belongings left behind by whoever last lived there. Burton likes to immerse himself in each setting before he shoots, taking in its emotional essence and using that feeling to set up the photos.

Burton’s parents put a disposable camera in his hands when he was just six years old, but he began taking photography seriously at the age of sixteen, when he acquired his first digital SLR camera. An early focus in conceptual photography has shifted over time to be more documentary in nature. “I guess my style lately has been a mix of Children of the Corn with vaguely “Post Nuclear Fallout Exploration,’” Burton told My Modern Met in 2017. “I’m so obsessed with adding ambiguity to my work now, if I can come up with more than one storyline behind the image, I’ve succeeded.”

Burton will soon travel to Appalachia for a new photo series. Keep up with his evocative work by following along on Instagram @burtoo.

The post Thin Places: Photo Series Captures the Poetry of Isolated Abandoned Homes first appeared on Dornob.

The library is perhaps the best example of this creative design strategy. Now known as “Library in Ruins,” the space, located in Sunyao Old Village, features a new concrete form that was shaped inside the pre-existing walls, effectively reproducing the construction of the other, older buildings in the area. It also perfectly echoes many of the most distinctive features of the other buildings in the designers’ “Miniature” series.

Originally, the firm was commissioned to design one large building to house all of the municipality’s cultural amenities (like a library, cultural center, etc). However, because Xiuwu County is spread out between various far-flung villages, it’s difficult for residents to travel to a single, isolated location. The solution? Create multiple buildings with separate functions and distribute them throughout various, easily accessible locations – so people in all villages can utilize and enjoy them.

Thus the Miniature series was born. The library is just the newest of the bunch, but it’s certainly no less impressive than its forebears. Located in a previously abandoned village, it was constructed using the literal bare bones of a decaying house, cleverly incorporating the firm’s signature concrete forms into the existing structure to create something new and so much more than the sum of its parts.

As Atelier Xi explains, they created the library with “a new method to allow a new structure to grow from the old ruins.” This design strategy resulted in a space that offers the perfect blend of classic and contemporary: a new space allowed to breathe its own life while echoing many of the old building’s original distinctive features.

The firm wanted to “[allow] the new building to become a spatial device where people enter the ruins, jump over the old houses, and gaze into the village, the fields, and the mountains in the distance.” And with this amazing new library, they’ve certainly succeeded. The outside of the library perfectly complements the surrounding landscape, fluidly echoing the surrounding trees and rocky, curved terrain that are visible from its interior. This is yet another distinctive feature of buildings in the firm’s Miniature series and can be seen in the Peach Hut community pavilion, a nearby building whose structure perfectly mimics the shapes of the surrounding peach trees.

The interior also follows the same mirroring of the local landscape’s distinctive features. As Atelier Xi says, “The facade and internal spaces unfold in a topographic approach.” A new entrance created by transforming the old; an original wall that guides visitors to a new gravel garden with views of nearby cave dwellings; curving concrete surfaces within that create both drama and functional, usable space; and small cut-outs that reveal the surrounding landscape all combine to create the perfect new addition to the firm’s ongoing work.

The post Rising from the Ruins, This Rural Chinese Library by Atelier Xi Cleverly Combines the Old and New first appeared on Dornob.

In their installation “The Wild Within,” Canadian-Dutch artist/photographer Ryan Koopmans and Swedish digital artist/photographer Alice Wexell take this type of creative reimagining to the next level by blending past and present through a combination of the digital and the physical, breathing exciting new life into abandoned Soviet-era architecture.

The project began when the creative duo visited the Georgian town of Tskaltubo, taking photographs over a period of several years of the many ruins that exist throughout the area. Inspired by the broken-down, shattered remains that now stand in place of luxury and splendor, the pair collaborated to create a new vision: “a surreal collision between past and future.”

The deserted buildings, left in various states of disrepair and decay, provided the perfect backdrop for the two artists. Using their combined experience in the digital art world, the pair juxtaposed the bright greens of nature with the stark yet austere remains of buildings that haven’t seen life since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The city of Tskaltubo was once a bustling destination known for its healing waters and luxurious health spas. The buildings now left to rot and corrode were once vast, glorious peons representing the larger wealth and influence of the Soviet Union at the height of its power. Abandoned since the 1980s, they have been left to decay and collapse — a somewhat apt, if not cruel, metaphor.

Thanks to Koopmans and Wexell, these spaces are being renewed through the magic of modern technology. By creating animated images of lush vegetation and bright flowers and cleverly integrating them into the existing architecture, the pair have made something new and beautiful. The photos literally come to life, transforming into videos that are haunting, surreal, and a stark reminder of how manmade structures can be abandoned yet given new life through their return to nature.

The project is ambitious but prescient, as some of the sites have since been demolished in real life. But the nostalgia-inducing video series will continue to exist as a testament of the beauty that can be found even in the ruins of former grandeur. Koopmans hopes the works will create “a sense of surreal tranquility while referencing the themes of urban exploration, architectural history, and the resurgence of nature.” This video series certainly does just that, as it poignantly reflects how nature reclaims what is hers long after man has abandoned it.

Seeing the breeze gently flow through the greenery and weave its way through the once splendid and magnificent architecture is a bittersweet experience. Yet it reminds us once again of the power of design and its ability to transform our surroundings, sometimes even recapturing what has been abandoned or lost.

The post The Wild Within: Digital Artists Help Nature Reclaim Abandoned Soviet Architecture first appeared on Dornob.

The lake was emptied to perform maintenance for the systems of a nearby power plant, allowing visitors a chance to see a piece of forgotten history. Located at the juncture of Italy, Austria, and Switzerland, the sunken village of Curon in the South Tyrol area was purposely flooded in 1950 to create a lake to provide hydroelectric power for the surrounding territory.

South Tyrol was annexed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, turning the region’s native German speakers into Italians overnight. The government of dictator Benito Mussolini immediately started plans to produce more energy in the area by merging two natural basins in the Resia Pass, wiping out Curon, and installing a hydro-electric power facility. World War II delayed those blueprints, buying the 150 families in the town a little more time.

But despite resistance from the city’s roughly 1,000 inhabitants, the project to submerge the town moved forward some five years after the war ended. With most of the villagers speaking only German, they were confused by the Italian communications relating to the plans and were only offered small sums of money to move to the neighboring town of Curon Ventosa. In the end, more than half the residents left the area entirely.

Today, all that remains of the life that existed there over the past centuries are some hollowed-out cellars, stone steps, and debris like rusted gates and pipes. The most striking feature is the beautiful bell tower dating back to 1357, the top of which has always been visible above the surface of Lake Resia. In fact, when the water freezes over in winter, tourists come from all over to walk up and touch the medieval structure. The tower is so iconic for the area that it was even chosen as the centerpiece for the Curon Ventosa coat of arms.

The unsettling story of the underwater town was the inspiration for a 2018 novel by Italian author Marco Balzano entitled Resto Qui, in which he states that the drowned city represents “a problematic memory that spreads from that tiny village to the rest of Italy, taking us back to difficult times.” And in 2020, Netflix released the supernatural drama series Curon, based on the same eerie setting.

With the last residents walking the streets more than seven decades ago, there are few left who remember life in the village, even among the 2,500 inhabitants of nearby Curon Ventosa. Those who visit the ruins mostly come out of curiosity rather than any personal attachment.

Unfortunately, this peek into the past did not last long. The power company started releasing water back into the valley in mid-May, and the entire lake was refilled within a couple weeks. Once again, the rising bell tower stands as the only sign that the lake is home to more secrets below.

The post Medieval City Revealed Beneath the Waters of Italy’s Lake Resia first appeared on Dornob.

Today, the castle also known as “La Tossa” has reclaimed its position as the “salta de la donzella,” or the “maiden’s leap,” the highest point in the vicinity. Architect Meritxell Inaraja stabilized the ruins and transformed them into a lookout providing the public with the same views once enjoyed only by royalty and nobles. Given the castle’s historic and cultural value, Inaraja took a delicate approach, preserving the experience of the original medieval architecture while also making it safe to climb.

Before starting on the renovation, Inaraja carried out a historical study that revealed the existence of a slab roof on the structure’s first floor. Based on the layout of similar buildings from the same time period, she determined that the original staircase ran along the now-collapsed western wall. The interior was divided into two floors and a basement, with the entrance on the eastern facade, which is itself about 33 feet tall (10 meters). It’s no wonder this building was used as a fortress, given that the walls are six feet thick.

“The restoration proposal is based on these historical findings and the available information about the tower’s original construction,” Inaraja says. “The project proposes reinforcement of the existing walls and the construction of specific elements referencing historical details, which will allow us to climb to the highest part of the tower, offering a view of the region and the other frontier castles.”

With its original roof missing, the upper levels are now open air, turning the ruins into a sort of pavilion. Instead of enclosing the building, Inaraja maintained this openness, inserting a new floor and a staircase with several viewing platforms that go all the way up to the highest point of the remaining walls. Visitors can gaze out the original arched windows, taking in the landscape from all sides.

Inaraja adds that “the level corresponding to the original roof is reached by the stairs that consist of the west wall and recovers the idea of a possible original staircase located within the thickness of the walls, as is typical of many towers of this time. The sloping shape of the staircase also makes it possible to respect the unfinished appearance and the memory of the ruins. The same idea of uniting function and historical explanation is used in the construction of a small section of slab corresponding to the original level of the main floor of the tower as a balcony-viewpoint from the opening of the north sector, possibly the original access to the tower from the outside.”

With smooth modern materials that match the color and texture of the original irregular stone, Inaraja’s additions complement the original structure without trying to update it or achieve a faux-historical effect that matches. The result pays respect to the Castello’s historical importance and restores it as a functional landmark, drawing tourists from all over to the area.

The post Crumbling Italian Castle Transformed Into a Modern Lookout Tower first appeared on Dornob.

New Brussels-based creative practice Cobra Studios has based its whole postmodern aesthetic on these contrasts. Their debut furniture collection, “SOLIDS,” takes inspiration from the look of Roman architectural ruins, reimagining them through a filter of bright colors, minimalist shapes, and sculptural functionality.

Founders Kenny December and Hugues Delaunay traveled to Rome to study the city’s magnificent ruins before working on the collection. Delaunay in particular has been fascinated by them since childhood, and what interests him most is the way these relics of another era of humanity have remained the same while the modern city sprouted up around them.

In “SOLIDS,” the columns and crumbling walls of monuments like the Roman Forum are simplified into pure resin cylinders, spheres, rectangles, and discs resembling hard candy. Varying in size and translucence, these shapes pierce through sheets of frosted acrylic. The designers wanted them to have a certain brevity and playfulness despite the rather serious source of their inspiration.

They explain that “the mix of heavy, solid legs and a thin, soft top evokes a feeling of comfort and clemency. The supporting elements are so present that they pierce through the table tops, marking the presence of what lays underneath. Their presence organizes the tables. The top that used to be an element of priority, becomes merely a connecting piece. This ancillary function is emphasized by the matte, chalk finish.”

“The designs seek for contrast. The supports are heavy, yet transparent. Colorful yet cold. Hard, yet so soft. The distinct volumes can function as singular elements, but they decided to stay connected. The intersecting and contrasting pieces, free-standing, will hit their mark in any interior.”

The “SOLIDS” collection consists of coffee tables, side tables, dinner tables, and complementary lamps, with names like “Cicero,” “Priape,” “Santa Maria Dei Clarici,” and “Otho” after Roman churches, gods, and generals, all in shapes that “affirm the graphic design.” The floor lamp features a cylindrical glass shade supported by a thin three-legged stand, casting a green light on each of the tables.

Cobra Studios was born when architect December and scenographic designer Delaunay needed a new dining table for their apartment, and subsequently decided to make the perfect one themselves. Bringing their diverse skills and talents together, the duo experimented with materials and shapes to find their own defining aesthetic and identity.

“Hard shapes need to collide with soft touches. The pieces need to be minimalistic yet very decorative. Every piece needs to withstand time and art movements. Cobra Studios tends towards creating a world of its own, a certain form of light living, naïve but such fun.”

The designers also told Wallpaper that they’re playing with natural materials like terracotta and stone for their next collection, so we may see an interesting pivot from the synthetics of “SOLIDS.” Whatever they come up with, there’s no doubt it will be fresh and creative.

The post Geometric Glass Furniture Inspired by Roman Ruins first appeared on Dornob.

“If you were to reconstruct the house, you’d cover up some of the most interesting parts,” says architectural conservator Matt Webster, a Menokin Foundation Advisory Council Member. “With glass, we can actually see how an 18th-century building comes together.”

The foundation sees this approach as “revolutionary,” connecting the past to the future in “relevant, daring ways.” The Neo-Palladian home, which stands on a 500-acre property, is one of the best-documented 18th-century houses in America. The conservationists had an original presentation drawing dating to 1769, an extensive Historic American Building Survey from 1940 including photography and 20 sheets of drawings, and a number of research reports and historic images to go off while completing the project.

About 80 percent of the mansion’s original materials have survived, including its sandstone exterior and 1,000-plus pieces of intact interior woodwork, but it did start to deteriorate a bit during the 20th century when it fell into a period of neglect. In the 1960s, a tree fell on the house, destroying half of it. The house was pretty much totally in ruins by the time the Menokin Foundation received it in 1995, at which point they covered it with a steel canopy. Their experts have spent the last 18 years developing a plan to save it and make it available to scholars, preservationists, and enthusiasts for continued learning and inspiration.

In June 2020, construction began on the new glass portion, which is expected to be completed in 2023.

The project’s official website explains that “The Glass House Project, the only initiative of its kind in the world, will preserve the remaining portions of the 1769 house and replace missing walls, floors, and sections of the roof with glass. The glass serves not merely as a protective covering for the fragile original structure, but as part of an integral whole that brings the house back to life. The use of glass as a structural element, blending seamlessly with the 18th-century stone, brick, and timber is a tour de force of design and engineering. This fusion of technology and mission embodies the Menokin Foundation’s commitment to innovation in design and historic interpretation.”

“While traditional restoration methods cover evidence of the human story that historic structures present, the transparent design of the Glass House Project emphasizes the deconstructed architectural elements of the building and provides a literal window into the lives of those who built, lived, and worked at Menokin. Fingerprints are visible in the handmade bricks, marks of hand tools are etched on the timbers, and the successes and failures of the builders are revealed.”

“Views of the surrounding landscape through the glass walls will continually connect visitors to the pristine natural environment and the traces of the tobacco plantation where generations of enslaved laborers once worked. This interplay of interior and exterior, historic past and modern-day design, allows a layered and complex look not only at the house but also the people who lived on the site over the centuries — the Rappahannock, the English settlers and the Lee family, and the people who were enslaved at Menokin.”

The preservationists see this last part as a crucial element in telling the tale of Menokin. The home’s importance lies not only in its past but in its ability to connect historical injustice with contemporary issues, telling the stories of the plantation’s enslaved laborers and the Rappahannock people, who lived on the land for centuries and gave “Menokin” its name.

Part of the project will include a new pavilion made of translucent agricultural fabric built above the archaeological footprint of an 18th-century field slave dwelling, which will glow at night in memorial to those enslaved residents who literally built and maintained the property, making it what it was and what it remains today.

The post Glass House Project: Ruins Preserved With Transparent Addition first appeared on Dornob.

Some critics say they contribute to a gulf between client expectations and what architects are able to deliver, and frankly, it’s hard to argue with that. Over the last decade, we’ve seen some pretty outrageous visions of vertical greenery that skyscrapers probably can’t actually support, ultramodern residences spliced into remote cliffs, and other concepts that are unlikely to ever be built as they’re pictured in initial renderings.

But in the process of making such ideas workable, there’s often middle ground to be found. When there’s plenty of money available for the project, things that seem improbable sometimes manage to materialize, and smaller details can always be easily modified. Other times, even renderings that look so spectacular they can’t possibly become reality defy all expectations. But perhaps the best creative architectural renderings of all break out of contemporary constraints to hurtle us into a more interesting future.

Polish architect and designer Bartosz Domiczek has built an impressive portfolio brimming with these kinds of buildings, some more futuristic than others. While those straddling massive waterfalls (or designed for other planets altogether) are more conceptual, some are fully ready to go, despite being very different from most architecture seen in cities today.

“Henge Hill” is one of those creations. It takes the footprint of an old farm storage building set upon picturesque olive slopes in an unnamed Mediterranean region and crafts the remaining “ruins” into a protective shell, which is itself “restored and anchors the new suites of rooms deep in genius loci.”

These types of adaptive reuse projects can be pretty striking in rural areas, and they’re only growing more common. Real-life examples like renovated stone ruins in Portugal by N2X Aarquitectos and on the Azores island of Pico by SAMI Architects keep some of the original dilapidated structures intact, nestling modern architectural elements within them to retain a contrast between old and new. But “Henge Hill” takes this idea a few steps further in a few different ways.

First, there’s the rounded shape. Within the original ruins, rooms are arranged around a central courtyard that opens to the sky. The outermost ring of the home is left open to the outdoors, as well, creating a semicircle of indoor-outdoor space looking out across the landscape.

Then there’s the way this circle merges with a second one that’s built just slightly higher up on the terraced landscape. Impressively, this swimming pool is as large as the entire home. Inside, the decor is bright, livable, and accented by all sorts of interesting textures, like the brick floors set into hexagonal shapes seen throughout.

This dwelling has plenty of futuristic flair to it without feeling like an impossibility — and it makes us wonder why there aren’t a whole lot more round homes out there.

If you’d like to see more home concepts in a similar vein, check out Domiczek’s “Northern Wisps” cabin, “Hoodoo House,” which was built among natural rock formations, and “The Outpost,” a tropical home that looks primed to survive whatever challenge climate change might throw at it.

The post Henge Hill: Circular Home Contained Within a Shell of Ruins first appeared on Dornob.

Now, with his new interdisciplinary lab Studio Studio Studio, Tresoldi takes his distinctive creations in a somewhat new direction. While “Gharfa” is another building made of mesh, it’s partially filled with opaque materials, giving it a new sense of presence and immediacy. Located in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, the experimental pavilion installation is part of the temporary creative project “Diriyah Oasis,” designed and curated by Dubai-based studio Designlab Experience.

Tresodi collaborated with designer Alberonero, musician Max Magaldi, and green designer Matteo Foschi of Odd Garden Studio to create a space where visitors could “meet, rest, and meditate.” Inside the wire mesh structures, visitors find tranquil, otherworldly spaces augmented by greenery, sculptural elements, and soft music. The partial infill of cork defines paths and spaces for them to follow.

One of Tresoldi’s Instagram posts on the installation reads: “Gharfa stages the intimate relationship between man, landscape, and architecture through the reinterpretation of the human relationship with cultural archetypes. Visitors experience a theatrical world where technique, reality, and illusion are all intertwined. Inspired by local ruins, the installation presents itself as a complex sculpture in which Edoardo Tresoldi’s Absent Matter is combined with cork to outline and carve out intimate spaces and narrow paths, inviting the visitor to come in and discover it all.”

The architects add that “by creating a multi-disciplinary environment through the interplay of digital and analog, anthropic and natural, geometric and organic, Gharfa shapes an expressive experience that first shatters and then restores the thin line between collective imagination, individual imagery, and narrative fiction. The result is a narrative of different surfaces, which in turn become a stage for personal perceptions, while highlighting the structure’s backstage anatomy. Each element of Gharfa has a life of its own but was thought and conceived as part of an orchestral composition that interprets cultural contaminations as a reference point for future artistic languages.”

“Diriyah Oasis” is an open-air family entertainment district in Riyadh aiming to establish the city as a cultural hub. The “Gharfa” installation is set near the At-Turaif district, a UNESCO World Heritage Site hosting museums and cultural institutions.

Tresoldi calls his mesh concept “Absent Matter,” which he calls “the representation of a mental projection, filter, and shape through which places, instants, and beings are narrated… It triggers uninterrupted dialogues with space and history, and projects the object’s substance into an unknown temporal dimension: what has disappeared, or never existed, lives again in a different time. The language of transparency weaves the non-existent, transforms the denial of matter into a three-dimensional entity, and reveals the result of a void, therefore the abstraction of reality and its timeless visual identity.”

Check out one of the artist’s previous works, a suspended “Aura” of mesh installed within the Bon Marché department store in Paris.

The post Gharfa: A Ghostly Mesh Pavilion in Riyadh by Eduardo Tresoldi first appeared on Dornob.

Though he’s been posting digital art to his Instagram for years now, Hodas’ “Pop Culture Dystopia” series only just began in 2017. The collection’s visually striking images bring an eerie new look to friendly faces like those of Mickey Mouse and Spongebob Squarepants, prominently displaying them in desolate settings that have otherwise been completely reclaimed by nature.

As thought-provoking as the images may be, Hodas never explicitly set out to create a standalone collection. His art began as a way to learn how to paint textures using Substance Painter and to see how far he could push the Displacement mapping features within Octane Render. He also worked with other programs in creating the 3D renderings, including Cinema 4D, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, ZBrush, Substance Designer, 3D Coat, and World Machine.

Considering the high praise his works have been harnessing lately, it’s safe to say alll that practice has certainly paid dividends.

In addition to the nature-centered “Pop Culture Dystopia” renderings, Hodas has also set a few pop culture icons inside a virtual museum (also brought to life using digital magic). Each “museum” display includes skulls of icons like Goofy, Tweety, and Spongebob. Neatly displayed on pedestals, the skulls are accented with placards identifying the prominent characteristics of each now-ancient remnant of yesteryear.

Which one of Hodas’ post-apocalyptic masterpieces is your favorite?

The post Filip Hodas’ 3D Renderings Paint Pop Culture Icons as Ancient Ruins first appeared on Dornob.

Reportedly making the top of the mesa their home for around 600 years, scientists can’t explain why the Pueblo abandoned the flat land in favor of the cliff dwellings, which were impressively built and nearly impossible to access. Of course, that could have been the entire point, with one theory suggesting that the tribe moved into the hillside as a defensive move, as it provided a good lookout from which to spot rival tribes. Another theory is that the cliff overhangs offered protection from the elements during what could have been an extremely hot or cold time period.

Considering today’s weather patterns in the area, snow likely accumulated heavily during the winter in the Mesa Verde of old. But regardless of the reasons why the moved, it’s clear the Pueblos migrated from the mesa to the cliff dwellings around the year 1190. From that point on, the tribe was broken into villages around a massive canyon, with houses and meeting areas meticulously sculpted into nearly inaccessible caverns. The dwellings ranged in size from small storage areas to massive complexes with up to 150 rooms.

Today, a visit to Mesa Verde National Park provides you with the remnants of around 600 ruins scattered throughout the region, many of which are remarkably preserved.

Discovered in 1888 by cowboys Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason while out looking for errant cattle, Cliff Palace, the largest of the cliff dwellings, was still loaded with baskets, sandals, necklaces, spears, knives, mugs, and other artifacts. Although there is evidence that perhaps some of the dwellings had been previously discovered, the area was largely untouched, as if frozen in time from centuries before. A harvest of corn even sat preserved in a nearby storage area, indicating that the Pueblo may have left in a hurry.

Besides the artifacts themselves, the story of Pueblo design lives on in the sandstone. Wooden beams made from felled trees and lowered over the cliff hangings offered central support to many of the structures. Anchored with sandstone and mortar, walls and towers were erected to create rooms. Mortar was made using local soil, water, and ash. Chinking, a mixture made from small bits of stones, was also added to enhance the strength of the dwellings.

Large pits in the ground called kivas were contoured into the design and covered with criss-crossed timber roofing. The Pueblo used ladders to climb in and out of these pits, which were used as religious spaces and meeting areas during the long winter days. Most impressively, all of this construction took place with rudimentary tools, mostly sharp rocks collected from nearby riverbeds.

Outside of the dwellings, the tribe continued to grow and harvest crops on the mesa above, requiring individuals to scale up the rock face with little more than toe and finger holes carved out of the nearly-vertical surfaces. Tools equivalent to basic sticks left clues about how the people managed to till the soil and grow crops.

After nearly a century of development, the Pueblo people began to leave the region, electing to join other tribes in what is now New Mexico and Arizona. By the late 1200s, the region was totally abandoned.

At the very least, we can all be thankful that the ruins and evidence of their people’s innovative building techniques still stand today. 

All photos courtesy of the National Park Service

The post Pueblo Cliff Dwellers: The Original Architects first appeared on Dornob.

In The Imaginary Museum, Veillon captures the bittersweet nature of the fading hand-painted murals he finds on many of his explorations. There’s something particularly fascinating about this deteriorating art. Just like forgotten belongings of former residents can feel like ghostly reminders of lives once lived and make us wonder what happened to their owners, frescoes illustrate the fact that people once cared about these structures enough to dedicate time, resources, and skill to making them beautiful.

The abandonment of such grandiose, lovingly customized spaces often carries a connotation of changing fortunes. After all, old country estates in Europe are most commonly abandoned because their owners can’t afford the upkeep — particularly when they’re inherited by younger, less monied generations. Sadly, this often means the places are either left to crumble into ruin or demolished altogether.

Photographers like Veillon help preserve their memories, along with a certain sadness over what can feel like the end of an era. The murals, he says, are symbols of a golden age that has now passed, when art was more valuable than time or money.

“As far as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by abandoned places, so there’s no surprise that after a few childhood explorations, I decided to take a camera with me to bring back memories of my trips,” he says.

“I started giving more and more importance to the place I was shooting to get the satisfaction of perfectly capturing the spirit of the spot I was visiting. It has been nearly three years now that I travel around Europe to find and capture these amazing locations. From communists relics in Bulgaria or Hungary to the incredible villas and palaces in Italy passing by the tremendous factories and power plants in France or Belgium, I try to grasp the aesthetic beauty that emerges from the chaos of decay.”

“I love when nature takes over human constructions, which creates a unique and unreal atmosphere. It puts in perspective our presence on Earth and reminds us that we are only passers-by. For me, it’s like traveling in time. Every room is special and has its own history.”

So how does Veillon find all of these amazing places? According to him, it’s far from just a matter of luck. The bulk of the time he spends on each project is actually preparation and research, networking with other photographers and combing through books about abandoned places to create lists of promising locations. He also works hard to conceal identifying details about these places to protect them from would-be vandals and thieves.

See all of Romain Veillon’s gorgeous photos of abandoned places on his website and Instagram profile.

The post Grandiose Decay: Photographer Documents Murals in Abandoned Places first appeared on Dornob.

But every now and then, you’ll spot something odd: a line of fresh laundry hung out to dry. A clean newish car parked right in the hallway. A pair of shoes set carefully beside a rotting chair. The face you spy in a window won’t be that of a ghost, necessarily, but rather that of a resident. Decades after these buildings were offered as temporary shelters to Georgians fleeing the war in nearby Abkhazia, hundreds of families remain, even as their homes break down around them.

Once, these “sanatoriums” were pristine health destinations for travelers from all over the former USSR, who were obliged to visit them annually in order to “sustain a healthy and productive workforce,” according to Koopmans. Built in the 1920s, the facilities took advantage of the therapeutic radon-carbonate mineral spring water found in the town, which was said to heal a host of illnesses. Consisting of 22 different buildings, the ornate sanatoriums peaked in popularity between the 60s and 80s, drawing in hundreds of thousands of visitors including Joseph Stalin himself. He even had his own personal bath house at one of the spas, with a relief sculpture depicting his welcome by the masses.

But with the break-up of the Soviet Union came dramatic changes in the small nation of Georgia, which sits along the Black Sea with Russia on one side and Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on the other. The buildings fell into disrepair, and the desperate residents of Tskaltubo tore up its floors for firewood and salvaged its metal as scrap. Georgians fleeing the conflict in Abhkazia took up residence in 1992 with the permission of the government, and most simply never left. While some of the buildings have since been sold for redevelopment, others appear frozen in time — but life goes on inside them nonetheless.

Setting out to capture the beauty of the ruins, Koopmans didn’t realize the buildings were inhabited until he saw the residents firsthand. Born in Amsterdam and raised in Vancouver, Canada, he takes interest in “surreal structures in our world’s megacities and urban landscapes,” focusing on their geometry, patterns, and saturation in his work.

This particular photography project took a fascinating turn when he met and profiled some of the sanatorium’s 800-odd residents with the help of a translator. For example, an 82-year-old man named Radisha moved in with twelve members of his family after walking over 100 kilometers by foot with a bullet wound in his leg.

Taking a full five years to complete, Koopmans’ in-depth documentation of the area and its residents includes hundreds of photographs, a short film, and a few tidbits that might have otherwise been lost to history as the tides of change creep ever closer to the Soviet-era spas.

“There are plans to redevelop the town and invest millions of dollars into the reconstruction and renovation of some spa buildings,” he explains. “The displaced people from Abkhazia have been told that they will be moved into new homes, however this transformation has been slow. Much of the original architecture in Tskaltubo will be removed, along with the artifacts, objects, and decorations which remain.”

The post The Forgotten Residents of Georgia’s Abandoned Soviet-Era Spas first appeared on Dornob.

This design venture challenged the firm from its onset. One side of the lavish and modern duplex apartment has a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea and ruins of ancient Rome. The opposite side looks out on the vivacious, vibrantly colored streets of Beirut. For obvious reasons, the clients insisted that neither view could be compromised.

Nisrine Nasr, co-founder and interior designer at Askdeco, clarifies the situation. “One Oak 3&4 B2 is a modern family duplex owned by a young couple with a baby. When we first met with the client, their vision was of an industrial-style home, but over the course of the project, that idea collaboratively evolved into a vision of a more refined and livable space.” In addition, she explains: “The client adores a world of colors, cultures, and textures, so the task at hand was to harmonize all of those influences within a single living space.”

Understanding the Clients’ Vision

One of the homeowners is a world traveling art collector with an acute appreciation for unique furniture, and they both wanted that passion incorporated into their seaside apartment. With constant communication and adaptation, Askdeco found the ideal balance of Arabesque, Grecian, and Moroccan patterns, colors, and influences to bring that vision to life.

According to Nasr, the majority of Askdeco’s clients want décor that brings the house together and makes it flow, creating a sense of cohesion from room to room. In this case, the opposite effect was desired. “This particular client wanted to incorporate many different styles of furniture and accessories from different countries, which results in different themes and feels to each room.”

The 7,534-plus-square-foot space at One Oak 3&4 B2 is separated into two very different environments. The upper level is designed for receptions and social events, with ample space for mingling and enjoying drinks a good distance from the bedrooms and other intimate areas reserved for family. Yes, this section of the seaside apartment is all about fun, complete with a full bar, cigar lounge, and game room (which itself boasts a top-of-the-line Toulet billiard table and foosball table).

The lower level is a strikingly different world. An intricate cage-inspired spiral staircase leads to the home’s bedrooms, an ultramodern fully loaded kitchen, and a dramatic bathroom starring a striking Palazzani glass bathtub and a freestanding Fantini bathtub mixer.

Finishing Touches

Outstanding design deserves only the best accoutrements. The soft white walls and Carrara marble flooring throughout the seaside apartment offer a definitive canvas to let every colorful painting and accessory shine in their respective lights. Furniture from top designers mingles with vibrant Mediterranean influences and paintings by T.P. Hardisty, Hussein Madi, and Joan Miró, simultaneously nodding to pop culture via the inclusion of pieces like a living room jukebox. The open, stark white kitchen is accented with bright Mediterranean hues of blue and yellow. Overall, One Oak 3&4 B2 makes for a welcoming home that combines luxury and warmth with all the distinctive tastes of its owners.

The post Askdeco’s Seaside Apartment in Beirut is an Exercise in Organized Eclecticism first appeared on Dornob.

Casa Montaña by Baragaño Architects is a great example. Looking at it beside the crumbling buildings of a former granary complex in the coastal region of Asturias, you note the contrast between old and new — but it’s not at all jarring. The new home doesn’t seem out of place, nor does it look shoddily built. The natural materials on its facade complement those of the preexisting structures. It’s solid and warm, with an amber glow emanating from its windows. And yet, it was assembled in a mere five hours. That’s right, hours. Not days or weeks.

Built as a second home for a British landscaper and his family, Casa Montaña is a two-story structure comprised of a striking asymmetrical gabled roof and four basic cubic modules. Before being transported to building site across the Cantabrian mountain range, these components took about four months to complete in a factory. All told, the project cost just £137,952 (about $192,560 USD), even though money wasn’t the main motivation for making use of modern prefab technology.

Actively conceived of with the help of the client’s input, the design aimed to show “absolute respect” for its rural environment from the very beginning, according to the architects. The home’s shape, scale, and materials were all influenced by the surroundings for a harmonic result. Galvanized steel sheets act as the core for each module, all of them covered in vertical wooden slats that will weather and age over time to just slightly blur the distinction between new and old. Welders joined all of the modules together onsite, and a local craftsman completed the black slate tile cladding.

Among the benefits of prefabrication, according to Baragaño Architects, are lower costs and lead times, the reduction of risks like worker injuries or damaged materials on the job site, a wide variety of options for materials and finishes, and highly adaptable designs. The use of materials is also highly optimized, often incorporating reclaimed elements and allowing waste materials to be reduced and recycled. Impact on the site and neighbors is far less than that of a standard construction would be, both structural safety and precision can be ensured, and accessible floor plans and elevators can be added in later if desired.

The architects add that “the modular construction system manufacturing assembly line not only seeks to optimize energy resources, human and material, but also to optimize in benefit of customization and adaptation of the building.”

The post Built in 5 Hours, This Prefab Home Sits Among Stone Ruins in Spain first appeared on Dornob.