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Sure, you may not realize it when they’re in battle, but AT-AT’s are actually the ultimate party mobile. That’s why having one as your liquor cabinet makes so much sense.
Feast your eyes on this lovely hand-carved wooden case mod called Erecura from Espie-Whitburn design.
This hand carved computer case is based on the Celtic Goddess Erecura – Goddess of the Earth. Each panel has been detailed using a modern interpretation of Celtic knotwork. This is more than a functioning computer, it is a work of Art that is truely unique.
It’s for sale for $1900. I wonder if they have a smaller one that would keep the cat hair out of my Mac Mini. Link
Sculptor Cha Jong-Rye carves every piece of her woodworked landscapes by hand, ensuring they fit together perfectly to create finished pieces that look like crumpled fabric, alien mountain ranges, or topographic swirls of tiny spheres. I don’t even know how to calculate how long one of these might take to produce. See lots more of Cha Jong-Rye’s sculptures on Flavorwire. Link
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When gasoline was rationed or nonexistent during World War II, many cars were converted to run on firewood. The trend is making a comeback of sorts as gas prices rise higher and higher. See some of these cars and find out how it’s done at Low-Tech Magazine. Link -via the Presurfer
Photo: Geoffrey Cottenceau
When a sawmill did that to timber, you get lumber. But what happens when an artist made the object you see above from polystyrene and resin? Art, my friend, that is art. Behold, "Billon" by Vincent Kohler: Link – via Core 77
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Photo: Jodie Smith
Australia’s ABC News Onlin reporter Karen Barlow (Twitter @kjbar) went aboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis on a journey to Antarctica when she came across this bit of oddity: a piece of wood sitting atop a floating iceberg.
I’ve heard the Southern Ocean attracts a hardy individual but a block of wood on an iceberg is ridiculous.
This lonely piece of timber was spotted on the top of a small berg at 66 degrees south, just north of Commonwealth Bay.
Wildlife watchers near Aurora Australis’ bridge first thought it was a relaxing seal but it was soon apparent it was rectangular in shape.
How it got to such a prominent position, instead of just floating around, is anyone’s guess.
So, how do you think it got there? Link
The oldest fully wooden churches in the world are also architectural wonders. These are “multi-story, multi-cupola, single-block masterpieces.” Built 300 years ago on the Russian Kizhi island, they are called the Church of the Transfiguration and the Church of the Intercession. Read about them and see lots more pictures at Kuriositas. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Jordi Joan Fabrega)
The current tallest wooden building in the world is nine stories. The planned LifeCycle Tower will be 30 stories tall! The totally green project in Dornbirn, Austria is a project of the CREE (Creative Renewable Energy and Efficiency) Group.
Materials used to build the structure would include reinforced concrete (for the foundation), composite slab (wood/concrete), and timber wood. The floor will be made of a hybrid glulam (glued-laminated) beams and reinforced concrete. The building would include photovoltaic panels on the outer facade to generate electricity along with a “green wall” (aka “vertical garden”). The building will further protect the environment and public health through use of local resources, reduced routes of transport, use of sustainable materials, and significantly improved CO2 balance. Highly pre-fabricated construction will further reduce air pollution as well as construction site waste. In accordance with Passivhaus standards, construction of the LifeCylce Tower will reduce carbon emissions by 90% when compared to conventional construction.
The LifeCycle Tower will have plenty of other environment features, which you can read about at InventorSpot. Link
Won’t the future be grand? This snippet from 1934 talks about how science will break us free from our diet restraints, allowing us to feast on piles of wood. It’s refreshing how optimistic and full of wonder visions of the future used to be.
MANY lower animals have thrived indefinitely on a diet of wood fiber, but in man’s digestive organs, it serves as roughage (“spinach” to you). Yet chemistry has been successful in producing from it – sugar, alcohol, etc.; and a German, Professor Karl Schwalbe, has made beechwood digestible with lactic acid, as in the numerous stomachs of some animals. We may look to the day when the householder will “dunk” his morning paper, page by page, as he reads it, and thus use it for toast.
Via ModernMechanix
Dutch designer Mieke Meijer compresses and bonds old newspapers so that the print is still legible, but the resulting product has the grain and feel of original wood:
Every day, piles of newspapers are discarded and recycled into new paper. Mieke Meijer has come up with a solution to use this surplus of paper into a renewed material. When a NewspaperWood log is cut, the layers of paper appear like lines of a wood grain or the rings of a tree and therefore resembles the asethetic of real wood. The material can be cut, milled and sanded and generally treated like any other type of wood.
Link via Make | Designer’s Website | Photo: Atelier 29
John Jacobsmeyer has been one of those artists that just slips through the radar cracks (if I may use a mixed metaphor) and his recent wood-themed series is worth a look for its brilliant treatment of industrial wood. Notice how JJ puts this timber into different roles, sometimes the backdrop, sometimes the focus, always the theme.
His photo series, A Piney New World is a nice jump from this:
…which was his previous best, IMHO. And still, behold that wood paneling. (The top painting is called Painter’s Lounge. The bottom one is Bele and Lochi Tie the Knot.) Get it? Knot?
Artist Elisa Strozyk took discarded wood veneer, sliced it into tiny triangles, and repurposed it into an upholstery replacement. The end result looks like a pixelated image which can be used to cover chairs, couches, and tables. More at the link.
Link via Make | Official Website | Photo: Elisa Strozyk
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Dutch artist and inventor Joost Conijn refitted his Citroën with wooden panels and installed a wood-burning boiler for propulsion. He then traveled around Eastern Europe, documenting people’s reactions to his odd car.
I’m just a bit skeptical because the engine in the video doesn’t sound like steam engine and the car moves at a pretty phenomenal rate of speed for a steam engine. But I have read that during World War II, some cars in Sweden were converted to wood-burning engines due to a scarcity of oil, so a functional steam engine modern car should be hypothetically possible.
What do you think? Is this real or a hoax?
Link via Make | YouTube Video | Artist’s Website (Google Translator Version)
The Japanese woodworking firm Sada-Kenbi has built a wooden, functional, street-legal sports car. It can reach speeds of up to 80 kph and costs $44,000 USD. The car has stylish gull wing doors and a stereo. More pictures and a video at the link.
Link via The Presurfer | Company Site (in Japanese) | Photo: SPGRA
Although this wood sculpture looks basic enough, it’s actually quite remarkable. You see, artist Ron van der Ende creates works like this out of found wood – and makes bas relief sculptures. So while you’re correct in deducing the width and height, the depth is only a few centimeters.
Inspired by working in his father’s woodshop as a young man, Ron went to art school where he studied painting. Dissatisfied and longing for working with wood again, he opted for sculpting, and soon found a knack for off-beat bas relief.
I collect old doors and stuff. Old painted wood that I find in the street. I take it apart and skin it to obtain a 3mm thick veneer with the old paint layers still intact. I construct bas-reliefs that I cover with these veneers much like a constructed mosaic. I do not paint them!
This one took me a while just to figure out what I was looking at!
Link to Interview on diskursdisko. Ron’s website. via The Donut Project.
Prague-based Russian designer Vadim Kibardin created the Deep Forest Lounge Chair out of 374 wooden dowels, carefully molded to seat a person comfortably. Each is custom-made and priced at $6,584. More pictures at the link.
In the late 18th century, Carl Schildbach was manager of a German estate famous for its ornamental park. He had no formal academic or scientific training, but at the request of his employer began compiling a reference collection of the natural history of each type of tree and shrub in the estate, eventually totalling 546 items…
“The format… was that of a box or casket, the raw materials for which were provided by the specimen itself, made up in the form of a book – varying in size from folio to duodecimo – with the ‘front cover’ forming a sliding lid…
For the left side of the ‘volume’ mature wood was selected and for the right side sapwood, while the fore-edge was made from heartwood; the top surface incorporated cross-sections from branches of various ages while the bottom surface showed a section through the trunk…
While the box itself served to illustrate the characteristics of the timber, the interior was reserved for an exposition of the whole natural history of the plant… a complete seedling is included to one side, with its roots, seminal capsule and first pair of leaves. In the centre of the box the tip of a branch displays buds and leaves in various stages of development…blossoms are shown varying from full blooms to faded flowers, while fruits are similarly represented at every stage in their development… Examples of associated parasites and lichens are included…”
The empress Catherine tried to purchase Schildbach’s collection, but he deeded it to his master, Landgrave Wilhelm IX; it now resides in the Naturalienkabinett in Kassel, where it is still used as reference material. Schildbach inspired several imitators, including Candid Huber, a Benedictine monk, whose collection survives in the Bavarian Burgmuseum. Peter the Great eventually acquired a collection for his Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, and another resides in the Musee National des Techniques of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris.
The cited text above is excerpted from Chapter IV (“Museums and the Natural World”) in Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, by Arthur MacGregor (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, 2007) – a comprehensive history of cabinets of curiosities, museums, and specialized collections.
Small-format photos of Schildbach’s collection are available at the webpage of the Naturkundemuseum in the Ottoneum at Kassel. The embedded photo is from a similar Holzbuch in a collection at the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe. Other examples may be seen here and here. The creation of such “wooden books” seems to have been primarily a European endeavor; a related project by Romeyn B. Hough collecting North American woods in book form (using thin sections of wood attached to cardboard within a conventional book binding) was produced at the turn of the last century.
Branch Bangle by Anthony Roussel, Photo: Rob Popper
Artist and designer Anthony Roussel creates intricate jewelry from materials not usually associated with adornments – wood! This one above is a birch wood bangle – you can see more at his website: Link – via a+.29
Italians scientists have developed a new artificial bone made from wood should be an improvement over the plastic and metal that are now used for implants. Derived from organic material, the new bone substitute will promote faster healing.
To create the bone substitute, the scientists start with a block of wood — red oak, rattan and sipo work best — and heat it until all that remains is pure carbon, which is basically charcoal.
The scientists then spray calcium over the carbon, creating calcium carbide. Additional chemical and physical steps convert the calcium carbide into carbonated hydroxyapatite, which can then be implanted and serves as the artificial bone.
‘Scuse me while I pick up my jaw from the floor. That is a fully functional wooden Vespa, named "Vespa Daniela," made by Portuguese carpenter Carlos Alberto. Gawk here: Link – via Blog on a Toothpick
Kelly Ferrell uses a laser to cut these adorable mammoths, there are also t-rexes, butterflies and more. They seem quite hard to put together once you get them, but the result is quite worth it and is certain to attract attention from anyone who sees them.
Link Via Boing Boing
Mars Rover was rovin’ along the Red Planet where it snapped a picture of what looks like … a log of wood? The photo immediately a conspiracy theory rush in the blogosphere:
The unusual image was featured in a NASA press release in 2004, although the space agency made no mention of the timber-like object captured on the spacecraft’s 115th day on Mars.
But one website insists it is a leaked image that ‘could get someone killed.’ A writer from TheCrit.com said NASA’s claims Mars was a desert world were ‘lies’ and that ‘there are vast forests on Mars, ones that are kept from the public.’
They go on to speculate the ‘wood’ was brought to its present position by a flood of water that must have happened within 40 years ‘because the wood is intact.’
This fantastic discovery, of course, is in a long list of strange objects (humanoid, skull, doorway, cave) already found.
