Breaking the mold: Top 10 architectural oddities

For architects, thinking outside the box often goes hand-in-hand with the job description, but sometimes the box doesn't even come into the equation. These occasions can result in some very memorable, innovative and thought-provoking projects, and with this in mind and the end of the year in sight, Gizmag celebrates ten notable architectural oddities.

Although the Guangzhou Circle Mansion bears more than a passing resemblance to something you'd expect to find in Homer Simpson's lunchbox, it is definitely a completed building.

Based in an industrial district of Guangzhou, China, the Circle Mansion was designed by Italian architecture firm A.M. Progetti. It serves as home to the Guangdong Plastic Exchange, and also hosts a number of office units and a hotel. The Guangzhou Circle Mansion rises to a height of 138 m (452 ft) high, and casts a reflection in a nearby river that makes it look like the number 8 a very lucky number in Chinese culture.

Tokyo regularly punches above its weight in the weird architecture stakes, but the S House remains an oddity even by that city's standards. Taking up a footprint of 50 sq m (538 sq ft), the house features a completely transparent glass facade and presumably a very high window cleaner's bill. Impractical? Very, though at least the bathroom and master bedroom are sunk beneath street level and so is less open to passers-by than the photos may suggest.

"I'm trying to present [S-House] as a prototype of architectural space suitable for the age of the network and information," explains architect Yuusuke Karasawa (via Google Translate).

You could make a decent argument for including all of Alex Chinneck's projects in this roundup of odd architecture, but we'll limit ourselves to just one. The British architectural artist recently left visitors to London's Covent Garden scratching their heads with an amazing building that appears to float in mid-air.

Titled Take my lightning but dont steal my thunder, the prefabricated building is primarily made from CNC'd polystyrene, and appears to levitate 10 feet in the air, completely unsupported. A 14 tonne (15.68 US tons) steel framework and a 4 tonne counterweight were used in the project, and Chinneck also had help from a large team of specialists to make his vision become reality. Alas, the installation was only temporary and as of writing is no more.

The JF-Kit House by Spanish collective Elii Architecture draws its inspiration from fitness icon Jane Fonda. The project imagines a future of parasitic architecture that operates off-grid not with solar power or other renewable energy, mind you, but with a good old-fashioned workout.

Elii Architecture envisions such off-the-wall ideas as a hand-cranked email station, an energy-producing dance floor, a hand-cranked kitchen, and a greenhouse that's somehow watered by performing squats. Clearly, it isn't going to be a practical method of living any time soon, though is a definite example of what can happen when architects let their imaginations run wild.

Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a huge penthouse apartment in Lower Manhattan that features a massive 24 m (80 ft) slide, a climbing wall, glass floors, and a private elevator which is perhaps the same thing after all ...

View original post here:
Breaking the mold: Top 10 architectural oddities