Finland, which shares 800 miles of its eastern border with Russia, is not keen to be the next Ukraine. Luckily, the Scandinavian nation already has a system of 5,000 bomb shelters beneath Helsinki that could shelter the city’s entire population, along with an additional 50,000 bunkers across the country.

The bunkers were mandated by Finland’s Rescue Act, which requires any currently used buildings with a floor area of at least 12,900 square feet to include bunkers. Helsinki began excavating its tunnels in the 1960s for utilities like electricity and plumbing and soon realized they could continue digging for larger spaces to shelter the population in an emergency.

At least 85 percent of these shelters are operated privately and used to serve other functions during peacetime. That means many underground spaces are currently inhabited by churches, skate parks, shopping centers, theaters, parking garages, swimming pools, and even a hockey rink.

Helsinki’s 200-mile network of nuclear bunkers is mostly connected, so the city’s residents can simply go underground and comfortably walk, shop, socialize, and play sports no matter what the weather looks like above the surface. These subterranean spaces can be quite beautiful, especially when the raw rock walls are still visible. Standout spaces include the Amos Rex Art Museum and the Temppeliaukio Church, designed by architects and brothers Timo and Tuomo Suomalainen.

Built throughout the Cold War era, the bunkers are located about 60 feet underground. They’re blast-proof, gas-proof, and able to withstand radiation and chemical attacks. Their current occupation by alternative uses won’t stop them from functioning as needed in an emergency. In fact, it would take just 72 hours to get them ready to accommodate thousands of occupants.

“We have to take care of the citizens, that’s the main reason we have this system,” says Tomi Rask, an instructor with Helsinki’s Civil Defense Department.

Previously part of Sweden, Finland was seized by The Russian Empire in 1809 and remained under its control for about a century. When the Russian Revolution led to the formation of the Soviet Union in 1917, Finland declared its independence. A brief civil war fractured the country between the Soviet-aligned Red faction and the Western-aligned White faction. During World War II, the Soviets invaded Finland twice, and though the outnumbered Finns were able to hold back the Soviet troops, Finland was forced to sign peace treaties twice that resulted in a loss of land along its eastern border.

In the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Finland has chosen not to join any international alliances in order to appease Russia’s security concerns. The country built its bunkers and made conscription mandatory for men in order to stay prepared for possible invasion. But as officials and citizens alike watch the current events unfolding in Ukraine, support for joining NATO has skyrocketed from about 30 percent before the Russia-Ukraine war to more than 70 percent in the weeks following the February invasion.

Joining NATO would grant Finland the protection of the Western Military Alliance, expand NATO’s influence in the Arctic, and strengthen NATO itself. But it would also more than double Russia’s land border with NATO nations, potentially increasing the tensions in the Baltic Sea region. Russia has already threatened “serious military and political consequences” if Finland and Sweden join NATO. One potential response would be placing nuclear weapons in the Baltics.

The post If Tensions with Russia Escalate, Finland’s Awesome Underground Spaces Will Act as Nuclear Bunkers first appeared on Dornob.

The Playground

Designed by architectural firm architensions, “The Playground” is a conglomeration of arched towers, connecting frames, mirrored walls, and ground-level benches and piazzas. The colorful towers reach up 56 feet into the air, creating much-needed shade for festival-goers. Architects Alessandro Orsini and Nick Roseboro, from Italy and Brooklyn, respectively, intended for their art to create connections.

Says Orsini, “It’s a place to gather and a place where we hope that our differences will be at ease.”

Buoyed

In this installation, three 36-foot-tall buoys appear to float over a grassy surface, each incorporating a whimsical mix of design elements. “I needed to build something optimistic,” explains Dutch designer Kiki Van Eijk, adding that “My buoys are joyful totems that metaphorically prevent you from sinking when we come together.” The blue buoy is topped by a Dutch-style windmill, the white one has a neck like Seattle’s space needle and sports a pair of butterfly wings, and the green buoy is capped with a mosque-like dome and mini palm tree.

Circular Dimensions x Microscape

Exploring the significance of water in the desert, Coachella Valley-native artist Christopher Cichocki used 25,000 feet of PVC pipe to create a 50-foot-tall shell-shaped pavilion with three tunnel walkways. Inside the walkways, highly magnified images of barnacles, salt, water, and algae cover the walls, while a soundscape of original musical compositions fills the ears of visitors.

“My art calls attention to the natural world and industrial mutation. This I want to reflect upon the permanence of change and transience, where visual and aural elements transform between levels of perception,” Cichocki says. “Are we looking through the microscope or the telescope? I find these elemental perceptions become indistinguishable at times.”

Cocoon (B.K.F.+H300)

The designers at the Argentinian firm Estudio Normal used their installation to honor the iconic B.K.F. Chair that was initially conceived in Buenos Aires in 1938 by designers Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy. Over time, the origin story of the now ubiquitous sling-back chair has been obscured. “For us, it’s very important because it’s going back to the place where everything happened and the chair became very popular,” says Estudio Normal’s Martin Huberman. “But at the same time, it got copied and the original names behind it vanished, which were two Argentinian architects and one from Catalonia, Spain.” The studio combined 400 reproductions of the B.K.F. chair to create a nine-story white cocoon to be appreciated in 360 degrees.

Mutts

When brainstorming ideas for her art, Romanian architect Oana Stănescu pondered on the unconditional love and support of her dog, Perry. She constructed three dog outlines in primary colored steel, the tallest of which stands 18 feet high. The insides are stuffed full of indigenous greenery in a celebration of nature.

La Guardiana

A 30-foot-tall statue of a woman topped with horns and a club in her hands towered over Coachella as a guardian looking out for the world’s refugee populations. The sculpture, created by LosDos (husband-and-wife Ramon and Christian Cardenas), was based on previous artwork made in collaboration with the band Rage Against the Machine.

“We definitely want to send a message of solidarity for the refugee and migrant communities with what’s happening every day and all around the world due to many different things,” says Ramon Cardenas.

Spectra

“Spectra” by UK-based design studio NEWSUBSTANCE has been in place at the Coachella festival since 2018. By day, the visitors can climb the spiral tower’s seven stories to get a different colored view of the event from every floor. By night, LED lights illuminate the structure, leading guest up to the top for a full bird’s-eye view.

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In an interview with Business Insider, North Miami Beach commissioner Michael Joseph said the plan would alleviate a lot of traffic, and that commuters and visitors alike would benefit from a tunnel connecting the city center to the beach. The cost per mile would be “a fraction of what is seen in other types of mass transit projects proposed in South Florida, while the construction would not be disruptive to the local economy.”

If you’re wondering how, exactly, this would work, look to the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop as an example. Part of The Boring Company’s plan for an eventual 29-mile tunnel system which will connect Teslas to more than 50 stations across Las Vegas, this 1.7-mile tunnel network opened in April 2021 and has three stops. Built in about one year using the Godot Tunnel Boring Machine at a cost of $47 million, the tunnel is able to ferry thousands of visitors around the Las Vegas Convention Center area, reducing a 45-minute walk to about two minutes. The company says it will eventually enable large conventions with upwards of 100,000 attendees to occur without road closures or disruptions to street traffic. Even better, the trip is free for convention center visitors.

The Boring Company’s renderings for such tunnel projects once included 16-passenger public transit vehicles, but now, they’ve been replaced by Tesla Model 3 cars holding up to five people at a time. And while the company previously said the vehicles could go up to 155 miles per hour, the cars within the Las Vegas loop are only going about 50. The point seems to be using existing technology to make a difference now, with Musk claiming that incremental advances in technology could allow different types of vehicles or connections to subterranean Hyperloop rail systems. But Musk has a penchant for making big announcements and then changing his mind, so it’s unclear exactly how this project will evolve.

Skeptics have called these tunnels little more than brief Tesla test drives, and a bid to sell more of Musk’s cars. The tunnel proposals for various cities have also drawn a lot of criticism and controversy. Projects in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore seem to have faltered, and The Boring Company website no longer even mentions them. Civil engineering experts and tunneling industry veterans call into question Musk’s claims that his company can bore tunnels faster and cheaper than ever before. In Los Angeles in particular, the Boring Company dug a tunnel 40 feet beneath a low-income part of the county without even informing the local community.

In Florida, where the water table is much higher than average, one has to wonder just how safe the tunnels will be from flooding. It seems like there are a lot of kinks to be worked out in these plans, but as usual, Musk is simply boring straight ahead with his plans, apparently planning to figure it out as he goes.

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“I come in here to think, I come in here to create, I come in here to feel inspired in the vagina tunnel,” Delevingne says. “I’m going to show you where this lovely labia leads – see you there!” She then emerges from a pink washing machine on the other side, declaring herself “rebirthed and cleansed.” The tunnel itself features padded walls, feathery curtains in the shape of labia, a dangling ornament resembling a clitoris, and even a golden piercing.

The vagina tunnel is just the loudest, weirdest thing in Delevingne’s eye-popping abode. Architectural Digest describes it as “Saint-Tropez meets Coney Island meets Cotswolds cottage meets Monte Carlo meets butch leather bar,” and that only scratches the surface of just how kooky and eclectic it really is. Designed with the help of architect Nicoló Bini of LINE Architecture, Delevingne’s home reflects a love of nature in the form of outlandish heron-patterned wallpaper, a snake carpet in the billiards room, a leopard carpet on the stairs, bird sculptures by Mexican artist Sergio Bustamante, and an abundance of houseplants and dried greenery.

It’s also a bit cheeky, like the model/actress herself, and the vagina tunnel clearly reflects that vibe. Delevingne wanted the house to feel like “an indoor/outdoor playground by way of Alice in Wonderland.” She incorporated a ball pit, a costume room for dress-up parties, a wall of weird hats, and two trampolines into the design, along with what Delevingne calls her secret “pink pussy palace” featuring serpentine seating, a fringed swing, a mirrored ceiling, and a stripper pole.

“My work requires me to put on many different hats and costumes. I love slipping into these various characters, so I wanted my home to reflect lots of different themes and moods,” she says. “If I’m having a bad day, I just hop in the ball bit. You can’t really cry in a ball pit.”

The vagina tunnel may not be to everyone’s taste, but how about a David Bowie-themed bathroom, a David Lynch-inspired poker room, or a Chemical X sculpture made of thousands of ecstasy pills suspended in acrylic? Just kidding, those things probably aren’t for everyone, either, nor should they be. The house reflects the highly specific personal style of this gender fluid pansexual iconoclast, and it’s a great example of how interior design could be a lot less boring if we all just let loose a little bit and embraced the things that make us unique. Maybe that doesn’t mean installing a vagina tunnel of your own (unless you’re into that), but it’s fun to think about what your version of that outrageous madcap no-holds-barred feature might be.

The post Inside Cara Delevingne’s Vagina Tunnel – and the Rest of Her Wacky LA Home first appeared on Dornob.

At the Mercado Libre Office in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a collaboration between architects and designers has produced some of the coolest tunnel-style stairs you’ve ever seen. BMA Arquitectos, Studio Elia Irastorza, and Methanoia came together to produce a working area for the company that would “boost and inspire talent and creativity,” embodying the booming Latin American e-commerce brand’s young, innovative, and distinctive style.

For the designers, that meant imagining stairs as a social space, and using them as a series of connections between floors that would allow employees to navigate the building “in a more unpredictable and personal way.” Key to the flow of the space is a principle of freedom of movement, offering users a choice of two or more different ways to move up or down within the building.

Multiple circular “tunnels” of stairs pierce each level at various points across the floor plan, each one lined entirely in medium-toned wood that contrasts with the starker, more industrial elements of the building.

The designers say they were aiming for a material palette that communicated comfort and warmth, not only from the wood, but also from living plants, lots of natural daylight streaming through massive glass windows, and oversized art pieces like sculptures and murals. They also identified multiple “areas of influence” where employees from different departments can congregate and socialize.

The architects add that the “multifunctional, fluid, and adaptable space was developed as an area that nurtures teamwork and leaves room for personal growth. It understands the office as a whole, instead of [dividing it into] separate floors, with the key instruments for integrating all of the different areas of the project [being] the ‘social stairs.’ These links are the protagonists, creating several connection points between each level. [From them,] a new type of communication arises, allowing the users to experience the office as one whole democratic space that encourages the exchange of ideas, and a dynamic workspace. Instead of [implementing] a traditional and static method of circulation, this new system embraces a non-linear movement. Since there are two links in each floor, one can walk around the nine office floors through a different path each time.”

“The core of the project resides on the sixth floor, where the stairs evolve into terraces that can even turn into a grand amphitheater. This space houses the main public area and the reception. Throughout the project, artistic interventions that fuse with the architecture through different materials and textures appear, creating a richer [sensory] experience. The other central concept introduced in the project was the use of vegetation in strategic points. Vertical divisions made of green walls and virtually enclosed spots allow certain areas of the plan to become more private and quiet for spontaneous meetings.”

The result takes what could have been an overwhelmingly large, cold, and impersonal office facility and injects it with friendliness and personality — two things a lot more workspaces could use in greater doses.

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The scale of these tunnels is immense. They allow cast members to pop up only within the areas they’re supposed to be in — so you’ll never see a cowboy from Frontierland in Tomorrowland, for instance — and house such things as costumes, security systems, and computers. They’re also where all the holiday decor sits ready and waiting to be incorporated into the parks almost a year in advance.

Disney World and Disneyland winter holiday decorations start going up during the first two weeks of November, with the parks’ “elves” adding more and more pieces overnight as the month goes on. When spread throughout the park, it’s not as apparent just how much of it there really is. But have you ever wondered what it looks like when it’s coming out of storage and being prepped to be brought up into the streets of the park?

Disney recently released a new video giving us a behind-the-scenes look at how the Disneyland Resort “decks the halls” each year, along with a few fun facts. Some standouts include:

“The exterior of Main Street, U.S.A., features approximately 220 garlands that measure more than four miles long, with approximately 80 wreaths and 120 bows bringing the season to life on this charming street. It takes nearly three dozen cast members 35 days to install the glittering façade of “It’s a Small World” and nearly 18 days to decorate the holiday attraction’s dazzling interior. The Disneyland Christmas tree stands 60-feet tall on Main Street, U.S.A. and features 1,500 Victorian-inspired ornaments with 100 oversized faux candles.”

“Sleeping Beauty’s Winter Castle shimmers during the day and is illuminated each night with more than 126,000 twinkling LED lights, sparkling “icicles,” and shimmering snow-capped turrets. A 50-foot Christmas tree adorns Carthay Circle to help guests get in the holiday spirit. The tree and surrounding buildings are decorated with vintage-style ornaments in keeping with the theme of Buena Vista Street, inspired by Los Angeles as it appeared when Walt Disney arrived in the 1920s.”

In the video, a Disney cast member explains that the park has almost 80,000 ornaments in its “Main Street package” alone, with different types of decor going to other areas of the park, too. They stay up until the holiday season is over, and usually start coming down around January 5th.

The “utilidors” themselves are also pretty fascinating. One interesting fact about this hidden part of the parks is that they aren’t actually subterranean at all. They’re built at ground level, while the parks that guests enjoy are built on top of them. The entrances and exits are hidden in plain sight. They also contain things like employee cafeterias, special salons where cast members have their hair trimmed and styled to stay within park guidelines, and the kitchens where much of the parks’ food is cooked.

If you’re curious to see all of this for yourself, you can book a “Keys to the Kingdom” tour for a glimpse behind the curtain. Alternatively, you can check out Disneyland’s official guide to all its decor on its website.

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In Tilburg, a city in the southwestern part of the Netherlands, Civic Architects pulled out all the stops to animate the underside of one overpass linking the city center with a once neglected, now redeveloped part of town known as De Spoorzone. Officially called the Willem II Passage (an extension of Willem II Street), it serves as a safe and convenient cultural space and point of connection.

Just behind the passage’s structural concrete walls rests an inner façade chalk full of familiar elements — all of them presented at familiar scales but comprised of unfamiliar materials. Civic Architects consulted Van Tetterode Glass Studio and Philips Lighting about the 30,000 LEDs they ended up morphing into an interactive wall, all of them enclosed behind a glassy bond of sculptural bricks for a crystalline appearance. Programmed with an algorithm that’s responsive to pedestrian movement, time of day, and weather, the wall transforms into a living surface of diffused light without warning, accompanying people as they go by.

The passage serves as an inviting link between two areas — one that people do not fear passing through. The architects opted for glass bricks instead of a more high-tech material because they wanted to bring a human scale to the underside of an otherwise oversized piece of infrastructure. The bricks have an almost natural look to them, despite their having been stacked in an overtly purposeful pattern. The result is a continuous visual connection between the passage and Tilburg’s other architectural wonders, particularly the ones on Willem II Street. People have become so comfortable with the passage that they’ve even started using it for cultural activities and events.

For years, much has been written about unwelcoming urban spaces and their lack of safety. How urban planning and design have failed vulnerable users of the city like minors, the elderly, and the disabled. How smaller conveniences that tend to make a place more user-friendly often get forgetten. Bus stops are too far from each other, parks and plazas don’t have enough seating, and the underbellies of bridges are far too dark. All of these things are all examples of how urban design can end up being a major obstacle to a city’s inhabitants.

Luckily enough, the Willem II Passage is far from being any kind of obstacle. Unless people are in a hurry, there is no reason to hurry when walking through it. They may even find enough time to have a little dance, with the train rattling above and the high-tech wall around them mimicking their every move.

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You might remember the last time we covered this gorgeous subterranean inside out abode high up in the Swiss Alps, but before it was available for rent … and fully revealed with an ingenious secret entrance passage.

No one would suspect this old neighboring stone-and-wood barn structure  would provide the concealed entry such a cool and contemporary home set back from the road, half-hidden in a hollowed-out crater on the hill.

Plans, sections and 3D diagrams from the designers show how the core structure is tucked into the hillside, while an earth-carved tunnel connects to the main understated entryway.

Meanwhile, fresh photographs show off its performance in various seasons and lighting conditions – a warm recessed little retreat tucked cozily under the snow and glowing bright at night.

The Villa Vals is a part-time rental, too, so if you are shooting to stay far away from the rest of the world, you could do worse than a quiet town in the remote mountains of southern Europe.

“The villa is reached via an old, Graubünder-stable, which offers room for bikes on the top floor, a ping-pong table, skis, gardening tools and terrace furniture. An underground tunnel with skylights connects the ground floor of the shed with the actual villa.”

“The house, which is situated six meters above the stables and is approximately 160 m² in size, is completely dug out of the mountainside. It is located directly next to the famous Therme Vals, designed by Peter Zumthor. It offers room for ten people (with a maximum of 12, in case at least 4 of which are children). A big glass façade opens out onto the terrace (60 m²) and offers spectacular views on green alp meadows, snow-coverd hillsides and mountaintops.”

“A spring of crystal-clear ‘Valserwasser’ originates on the terrace. The house consists of six rooms and a plot of 1.300 m² of private land. The living room, open kitchen and library annex bedroom with private bathroom are all situated overlooking the terrace. On the first floor there are three spacious bedrooms.”

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The so-called tunnel house art installation was, as many good works of architectural art are, born as much of circumstance as of creativity. A pair of people saw that the building was going to be demolished and took it upon themselves to make something spectacular out of the structure in its final days.

Using pieces from the to-be-destroyed house itself, these artists crafted a tunnel that pierces through the home and takes visitors into a broad vortex then expels them through a small hole in back. The impact on the street is surreal – the house seems to be imploding, sucking into itself.

While it could only last so long, the tunnel house drew a great deal of attention from the art world – and of course from interested passers by. The real remaining question, never to be answer, is: what would it be like to live inside such a strange house?

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