“Wherever I go, bees come,” says Matt Somerville. A carpenter by trade, Somerville is also a committed conservationist, having spent the last 14 years building and installing approximately 800 homes for the dwindling insect populations around the English countryside. “The Hive Architect,” a film directed by Max Weston and released by the outdoor clothing brand […]
West of Naples, along the Tyrrhenian coast, sits the storied Lake Avernus. Situated in a volcanic crater, its Latin name is synonymous with hell or the underworld, and to the ancient Romans, it was considered the portal to Hades. Dante Alighieri echoed the belief in his seminal Inferno. More recently, Anish Kapoor set out to […]
Known for their innovative music videos and dance-worthy tracks, OK Go knows the power of great visuals. Coordination is often the name of the game, from the viral treadmills in “Here It Goes Again” to 64 synced and choreographed smartphones in “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill.” For their latest release, “Impulse Purchase,” the group turned […]
In 1903, on a farm in southeastern Norway, a once-in-a-lifetime discovery emerged from within a large yet unassuming mound in a field. When the spot was excavated in 1904, the mound revealed an entire Viking longship that had been interred in its entirety as a burial containing the remains of two women, several animals, and […]
Through the study of time-honored craft techniques, Taiwanese artist Cheng-Tsung Feng envisions contemporary installations that connect us not only to the past but also to nature and our present surroundings. Working across sculpture, installation, craft, and design, the artist draws on what he describes as “ancient and gradually forgotten oriental culture,” translating traditional motifs and […]
Kowloon Walled City, considered the densest settlement on the planet, was demolished in the mid-1990s. At its height in the ’80s, it was home to around 33,000 people—a government survey provided some idea of the local population—but estimates are often closer to 50,000. And that’s all within an overall footprint of 2.6 hectares, or just […]
If you’ve ever wondered what to do with some of your old LEGO lying around, have you thought about wearing them? Based in Berlin, Studio GOGO is a woman-owned jewelry design company that celebrates the everyday joys of playful minimalism and color. Their line of plastic brick-inspired rings is accompanied by a small handful of […]
Wedged between two fairly conventional residential buildings in Bucharest is an unexpected gem of a cafe. “The Chapel,” a single-story, contemporary structure with a steep triangle roof line and sleek fixtures, is extremely narrow—a characteristic it celebrates through proportion, materials, and a lot of windows. Designed by Ștefan Păvăluță, founder and principal architect of Romanian […]
Those tedious email exchanges and endless Zoom calls don’t have to be boring. Thanks to Dirk McGirk, every work task can double as a mini cocktail party—just don’t get too dishy. The designer was inspired by a font resembling tiny cubes of Swiss to create a “mechanical cheese board,” a collection of 104 keycaps shaped […]
From the now-defunct Longaberger basket company’s iconic Ohio headquarters to the distinctive Casa de Penedo — Portuguese for “boulder house” — the world has no shortage of quirky, fanciful, and just plain strange structures. Forthcoming from Hoxton Mini Press with text by Imogen Fortes, Weird Buildings celebrates more than 100 norm-busting buildings ranging from the […]