High Anxiety: Rooftop Excavators Tear Down from Up Top

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Steve

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture & Design & Urbanism. ]

Rooftop excavators? On my multistory highrise building? It’s more likely than you think, especially in China where painting one’s self into a corner is no longer just for painters anymore. The difference here is, the corner in question could be several hundred feet above the ground.

Demolition, Man

(image via: ChinaSMACK)

Hydraulic excavators are often used in Chinese demolition projects to quickly bring down roofs. This can be somewhat problematic when the roof – and the building beneath it – just happens to be supporting the multi-ton excavator being used to do the demolition.

(images via: Ynet.com, Skyscraper City and QQ.com)

Consider also that high-rise roofs aren’t designed to support great concentrations of weight, and the roofs doing the supporting belong to buildings being knocked down because (generally) they’re having trouble staying up.

(images via: RobertG69 and Dog Brothers Forum)

The situation is even more problematic in China, where a combination of lax workplace safety laws and shoddy construction has given rise to a world where buildings are slapped together, sold, condemned and torn down – often within just a few short years. Sometimes the buildings don’t wait for the demolition men: what goes up too quickly, often comes down even quicker.

Don’t Claw Us, We’ll Claw You

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Here’s a lone excavator hard at work on top of the 12-story Shanxi Science and Technology Hotel in the Chinese city of Taiyuan. The slender, triangular building has a very limited amount of roof space in which the excavator’s driver can manoeuvre, yet manoeuvre he must if the building is going to be eaten away down to ground level.

(images via: ChinaSMACK)

Click here to watch a short video from CNS News that shows the rooftop excavation project from various angles, including from the roof itself. It’s in Chinese but as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words!

(images via: Sina Weibo and NetEase)

One assumes that the excavator claws a certain amount of material from one side of the roof, and then drives over to the reduced area and does the same to the place he just left, over and over again.

(images via: AcidCow)

Alternatively, a ground-based crane might just pick up the excavator and plop it down (not too hard!) on another portion of the roof. It’s not rocket science, though working atop an unsteady platform honeycombed with rooms and open areas may still end up with the worker flying through space.

Knocked Up, Sold Off, Knocked Down

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Readers surely must be asking, “why not just dynamite the building such that it collapses in on itself?” Ask any expert, controlled demolition is a precise and delicate operation which, if unsuccessful, cold result in extensive collateral damage to surrounding buildings and nearby construction workers – not to mention TONS of dust to sweep up. Believe it or not, in China at least, demolition via rooftop excavator is the safer, cleaner, and above all cheaper option.

(images via: Daily Mail UK and Sweet Cherry Cake)

The 18-story residential apartment building depicted here in mid-demolition a few weeks ago was built in the city of Taizhou, located in eastern China’s Zheijiang Province… in January of 2011! Yes indeed, the highrise didn’t even last one full year before the ground beneath it began settling unevenly, eventually causing the building (and several others nearby) to be deemed unsafe.

(images via: Sweet Cherry Cake)

Consider the plight of a Mr. Zhan, who bought a unit on the building’s 16th floor yet had to move out just 17 hours after moving in when a structural support pillar cracked. “I heard loud banging sounds like an explosion,” explained Zhan to reporters from China Daily, “it was really scary. I bought my unit because of the beautiful ocean view. It’s such a pity I can’t live in it.” Hope you’ve got Collapsing Building Insurance, Zhan.

Deconstruction Wizards of Oz

(images via: Riotact)

Rooftop excavation is not exclusive to China, it seems, as these images from several demolition projects in Australia indicate. The above scene from earlier this year showed demolition underway in central Canberra.

(images via: Riotact and Brisbane Times)

Unlike similar building demolitions in China, however, the Aussies use smaller excavators on lower buildings which are wrapped in protective covers to corral debris.

Rooftop Excavators, How Do They Work?

(images via: 2DayBlog and AcidCow)

You might be wondering how these huge hydraulic excavators get up to their precarious perches in the first place. Giant helicopters? The service elevator? Disassembled, brought to the roof and reassembled? Maybe each highrise was built with an excavator entombed on the roof in anticipation of its eventual demolition, or perhaps the excavators simply climb up the balconies, floor by floor.

(image via: ClubSNAP)

Actually, if the building isn’t too high the excavators can be lifted to the top by much larger, ground-based construction cranes as shown above. The ground-based cranes are designed to lift, not dig, so using them to reduce the heights of condemned buildings is not a viable option.

(images via: Crushing Machine and AcidCow)

Once in place up on the roof, it’s dig, dig and dig some more… which leads to the next question: where does all the excavated dirt and debris go, especially in a crowded urban environment like that of Datong City in China’s Shanxi province? Either it’s going down the central elevator shaft, or (more likely) dumped over the side.

(image via: AcidCow)

A word of advice: if you wake up one morning, look out your window and see an excavator of the roof of the neighboring building, be sure to wear your hard hat before walking out your front door. Better yet, call in sick and don’t go out at all lest a rooftop excavator turn you into an ex-person.

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Look of the Week: No Comment

Posted on January 5, 2012 by jeni

I mean… there’s not much to say. The minute model Kelly got dressed in these threads we were all speechless — us and the construction workers in the room where we shot this look.

Since winter is finally here rearing its ugly head and temperatures have dropped to unreasonable lows, try heating things up with this look. We can’t promise you Kelly’s swag (which is on a hundred thousand trillion), but it never hurts to try.

Under this look, model Kelly is wearing intimates by Betsey Johnson and Intimates Boutique. On top, we paired together The Loose String Sweater and The Leopard Kimono, both by UNIF. She’s wearing Blank Denim’s Tangerine Ankle Skinny Jeans and compliments the look with designer Alexander Wang’s Cat Eye Sunglasses (a Karmaloop favorite), Sam Edelman’s Vixen Shoe in black, and jewels by Wildfox and NEIVZ.

Model: Kelly Karloff
Photographer: Mari Nishimura
Stylist: Jeni Ni

Road Work: 10 Pointed Examples Of Traffic Cone Art

Posted on November 27, 2011 by Steve

[ By Steve in Gadgets & Geek Art & Urban & Street Art & Various Uncategorized. ]

When it comes to ubiquitous utility in the service of street safety, orange traffic cones stand alone… except when they stand together and someone deigns to call the result Art. Traffic cone art goes far beyond what the designers of these plastic pyramids planned on but you’ve gotta admit, cones alone or in an artistic assemblage succeed equally in attracting our attention.

Traffic Cone Lamp

(images via: W. Holman Design and Instructables)

Yours truly actually had a Traffic Cone Lamp, handed down to me by my child-of-the-sixties cousin. Used with a 40-watt incandescent light bulb (not recommended, by the way), the Tangerine Triangle cast a warm glow eerily complementary to the complex chords of progressive rock… ah, misspent youth!

(image via: W. Holman Design)

It’s a cone, it’s a lamp, but is it art? Who knows, who cares, who can be troubled with materialistic labels, man, when it’s always sunset (or sunrise) in your happy place.

Traffic Cone Art Camp at Burning Man

(images via: Forensic Genealogy and Mister W)

The Traffic Cone Art Camp on the Playa appeared at Burning Man in 2002, 2004, 2005 and perhaps more. Some call the cone-encrusted dome a Traffic Cone Urchin but c’mon… sea urchins in the middle of the Nevada desert?

(image via: Buzznet)

See that glow? Looks (and smells) like they used incandescent light bulbs. Now remember y’all, Burning Man is an eco-friendly festival that encourages players to play nice on the playa. That means LNT of your visit, leave no MOOP and take comfort in knowing what happens at BRC, stays at BRC.

Yianni Nomiko’s Classical City Cones

(images via: Art Forms
by Yianni Nomiko and Venice Clay Artists)

Scenes of city life play out on and around a series of orange traffic cones, an oddly ideal medium if there ever was. Yianni Nomiko gives us these… dare I say “iconic” vistas using little more than some blackout paint and a considerable dose of creative imagination.

(image via: Art Forms by Yianni Nomiko)

They may be 2,500 years removed in time, but Nomiko’s unique creations uncannily resemble the renowned Red-figure Vases of Classical Greece. Must we wait a further two and a half millenia for the former to eclipse the value of the latter?

Candy Corn Cones

(images via: Diabetik and Laughing Squid)

Does naming oneself “Diabetik” for artistic pursuits somehow conflict with creating traffic cones that look like Candy Corn? Perhaps, but just imagine the sugar shock drivers in the Washington DC metro area sustained when they encountered his work around Halloween of 2009.

(image via: Diabetik)

Candy corn traffic cones… a tasteful concept to be sure. In related news, kids building city scenes from LEGO are decorating their urban brick blocks with actual Candy Corn candies acting as traffic cones.

King Cone

(images via: Kay and Kevin Rolfes, BizarreRecords and Cxune)

This art cone car is a larger than life example of car cone art, or vice versa. Emblazoned with “COH” for “City Of Houston”, the so-called “King Cone” was Emily Sloan’s entry in the 2008 Houston Art Car Parade. I’d say it stopped traffic but that would be redundant.

(image via: Emily Sloan)

Sloan describes her comical, er, conical creation as being “a monument to the traffic cone.” Actually it’s a monument AND a traffic cone, an inanimate testament to the old adage that everything’s bigger in Texas.

Teddy Cruz’s “Cultural Traffic”

(images via: MAXXI and Byus71)

Guatemala-born architect Teddy Cruz has crossed the street, figuratively speaking, once or twice to indulge in non-architectural artistic pursuits, and perhaps the most notable of these are his curious traffic cone constructions. Cruz uses his art to comment on issues pertaining to the southern U.S. border and the human cost it exacts. The spiny donut of traffic cones above is titled “Cultural Traffic: from the Global Border to the Border Neighbourhood.”

(image via: Kunst-Stoff)

Cruz also offers us another way of looking at traffic cones: from the inside out. His “Cone Room” combines a warm and welcoming, softly glowing orange interior with a sharp, pointed, exclusionary exterior.

‘On The Road’ Breakfast Set

(images via: Lushlee and Coroflot)

So you’re getting your three squares, good for you! Take time out for a triangle, courtesy of Pierre Lescop and his whimsical “On The Road” ceramic breakfast set. You’re not likely to see it at the local drive-thru but that’s fine: this is one cone you want to encounter before you hit the road, not after.

(image via: Pierrelescop.com)

“On The Road” is made entirely of white and orange ceramic with different solid color sections forming an espresso cup, juice glass, tea cup, bowl and plate. Basically it’s all you need for the preparation of a full breakfast. When washed and dried, the segments reassemble into a remarkably space-saving configuration.

The Cone Construction

(images via: BIG Art and Daily Life)

Lilian Bourgeat likes to scale up everyday objects and what could be more “everyday” than the humble orange traffic cone? “Le cône de chantier” (The Cone Construction) sat around the campus of the INSA de Lyon, Frances foremost school of engineering, in the summer of 2010.

(image via: Paris Côte d’Azur)

One wonders how many standard-size traffic cones could be cast if Bourgeat’s cone of cones was melted down? Put another way, how many standard-size traffic cones would have to be melted down to create a duplicate to Bourgeat’s cone of cones? Let’s leave that nugget with the engineering students at the INSA de Lyon, who think they’re so smart.

The Duke’s Hat

(images via: Ed O’Keeffe Photography, SeeGlasgow.com and Weird Green Place)

Visit the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art and check out the bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington by Carlo Marochetti just outside on Queen Street… yes, that IS an orange traffic cone the Iron Duke’s sporting so casually. It may not be capital-A Art but it’s now an app: Glasgow Cone Challenge, the downloadable “mobile game which challenges players to score points by throwing traffic cones onto the Duke of Wellington’s head.”

(image via: Marco Ferrari/Panoramio)

What began as a (likely drunken) prank back in 1980 has gradually grown into a tradition though it’s rare the Duke’s horse is similarly honored. Glasgow police no longer bother removing the cones though they have issued a plea for citizens to refrain from placing them there – both for their own protection and for that of the A-listed, 160-year-old statue. What the heck, guv’ner, it’s better than pigeons wot?

Paprika Shakes it Up

(images via: V2.com)

Thinking of adding some spice to your art? Start with Paprika, who is/are responsible for the above massive accumulation of traffic cones displayed at the World Summit and Congress of Architecture at the Design Expo in Taipei. We’re not sure exactly how many traffic cones Paprika “co-opted” for use in their display but suffice to say, road construction in Taipei pretty much ground to a halt during the Expo.

(image via: CartoonStock)

Traffic cones are almost omnipresent in today’s constantly changing urban environment and although they may show slight variations in design, they remain one of the most universal cogs in our engine of construction, demolition and reconstruction. No surprise, therefore, that traffic cones have emerged as an evocative way to express modern themes of progress, alienation and urban culture. Now if only they came upside-down, with ice cream on top.

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[ By Steve in Gadgets & Geek Art & Urban & Street Art & Various Uncategorized. ]

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Generic Surplus x Obey: The Plimsol Sneaker

Posted on March 30, 2011 by andrew

Featuring deck and boat shoe influences, mesh canvas construction and rugged metal eyelets with work boot laces, the new Plimsol is on that "gotta-see-to-believe" type shit.

Then & Now: The Stunning Speed of Urban Development

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Steph

[ By Steph in Architecture & Design, Travel & Places, Urban Images, Urban Videos, Urbanism. ]

Twenty-one years ago, Dubai was a desert. It sprang up seemingly from nothing into the lively and technologically advanced world-class city that it is today. This is just one example of the dramatic speeds with which cities can change, sometimes rendering their skylines virtually unrecognizable within decades.

Shanghai, China – 1990 and 2010

(images via: imgur)

Given the dramatic, jaw-dropping difference between these two images, you might be tempted to think that the top one was taken sometime in the middle of the 20th century. You’d be wrong. That image is from 1990. Shanghai is a stunning example of just how fast cities can rise up into bustling modern metropolises.

Dubai – 1990, 2003, 2007

(images via: abdolian)

These three photographs depict the same street in Dubai, progressing from a few lone buildings in the desert to the jam-packed, seemingly perpetually-under-construction ode to excess that it is today. As a matter of fact, that most recent photo was taken in 2007, and the street has undoubtedly changed even more now. Imagine what it would look like if the recession hadn’t slowed down the frantic pace of development!

Bangkok, Thailand – 1988 and 2007

(images via: forum.skyscraperpage.com)

In 19 years, the view of the skyline from this end of Bangkok’s Lumpini Park underwent quite a transformation, blossoming with high-rises even while the greenery in the foreground stayed mostly the same.

Panama City, Panama – 1930 and 2009

(images via: skyscraper city, brian gratwicke)

Panama City is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the world, and these two photographs show a sharp contrast between two eras. The city sprouts from a quiet village into one of the fastest-growing urban areas in Central America.

London, England – 1970s and 2006

(images via: skyscraper city)

London has gained a number of high-profile, flashy modern buildings in the years that have passed since the 1970s. These four images depicting the banks of the Thames then and now, and a few glittering examples of modern architecture stand out, including City Hall and 30 St. Mary Axe (known as ‘the gherkin’), both by architecture firm Foster and Partners.

Tokyo, Japan – 1960s and 2010

(images via: japan sugoi)

The rapid rise of Tokyo is certainly evident when comparing two images of Tokyo Tower, one taken soon after the tower was built in 1958 and the other captured in 2010. Once nestled into a landscape of traditional Japanese buildings and trees, the tower remains an eye-catching landmark, but its surroundings couldn’t be more different. Below that, an incredible time-lapse video shows the evolution of the Shinjuku district over 35 years.

Sao Paulo, Brazil – 1954 and 2008

Urban Age :: São Paulo Film from OutrosFilmes on Vimeo.

Even in 1954, you could get a feel for just how large of a city Sao Paulo would one day become – as in, largest-city-in-the-southern hemisphere huge. It’s also the world’s 7th largest metropolitan area, with nearly 20 million inhabitants. These two videos capture the realities of the city in two very different eras.

Atlanta, Georgia – 1964 and 2004

(images via: atlanta time machine)

The view of Atlanta from the North Avenue bridge over the interstate has evolved dramatically since 1964, as downtown development has spread further and further out from the epicenter of the city. This southern city is notorious for its urban sprawl, partially due to the fact that it has no geographic boundaries like waterways or mountains to keep the city’s size in check.

Las Vegas, Nevada – 1954 and 2009

(images via: photosfan)

It didn’t happen quite as quickly, but the changes in Las Vegas – evident here on the Las Vegas Strip – are almost as mind-boggling as those in Dubai. The gambling mecca of the Nevada desert went from a mere stopover on the pioneer trail in the 19th century to a popular gambling destination in the 1930s before shooting up into the neon metropolis it is today.

Paris, France – 1900, 1960 and 2006

(images via: oddee, skyscraper city)

Paris is the kind of classic city where you don’t expect to see Shanghai-style, blink-of-an-eye changes. As it is in many historic districts around the world, in over a century, little has changed in the top Paris images other than the growth of trees. That’s not true everywhere in the city, however. The bottom two images show the same view of the business district of the city in 1960 and 2006 (with a rendering of the controversial as-yet-unbuilt Phare Tower, the tallest building), with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

New York, New York – 1954, 1985, 2009

(images via: eralsoto, wikimedia commons)

Wouldn’t you think that the Midtown Manhattan skyline would have changed more than this over six decades? In 1954, many of the buildings that still define the skyline today were already in place. While it’s clear that many buildings sprouted up by the time the second photo was taken in 1985, it’s not a dramatic change, and even less so between then and 2009.

Shenzhen, China

(images via: skyscraper city)

The fastest-growing city in China (and possibly the world) was nothing but a tiny fishing village as recently as the 1979. An influx of foreign investment spurred growth so rapid, the city seemed to change every single day. Today it’s a boomtown with 12 million residents. See the whole 25-year progression at Skyscraper City.

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Then & Now: The Stunning Speed of Urban Development

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Steph

[ By Steph in Architecture & Design, Travel & Places, Urban Images, Urban Videos, Urbanism. ]

Shanghai, China – 1990 and 2010

(images via: imgur)

Dubai – 1990, 2003, 2007

(images via: abdolian)

Bangkok, Thailand – 1988 and 2007

(images via: forum.skyscraperpage.com)

Panama City, Panama – 1930 and 2009

(images via: skyscraper city, brian gratwicke)

London, England – 1970s and 2006

(images via: skyscraper city)

Tokyo, Japan – 1960s and 2010

(images via: japan sugoi)

Sao Paulo, Brazil – 1954 and 2008

Urban Age :: São Paulo Film from OutrosFilmes on Vimeo.

Atlanta, Georgia – 1964 and 2004

(images via: atlanta time machine)

Las Vegas, Nevada – 1954 and 2009

(images via: photosfan)

Paris, France – 1900, 1960 and 2006

(images via: oddee, skyscraper city)

New York, New York – 1954, 1985, 2009

(images via: eralsoto, wikimedia commons)

Shenzhen, China

(images via: skyscraper city)

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Saint Alfred x Reebok – Visual Construction

Posted on November 17, 2009 by A.Okay Official

These images provided inspiration and reference in building our concept for the Saint Alfred x Reebok Pump20

Saint Alfred x Reebok

“Pump20″

Release Date: 11.20.09

OPENING RECEPTION: Weapons of Mass Construction 12/5/2008

Posted on November 11, 2008 by A.Okay Official

Weapons of Mass Construction

East Coast meets Midwest in this friendship forged out of admiration and respect for each others craftsmanship, character development and use of materials. Matthew Ryan Sharp and Project Detonate decided to to exhibit new and existing works in this 2 man show tackling issues of addiction, obsession, robbery, heartache and mischief. Continue reading →