*Here is some amazing work from Laurent, which we recently stumbled upon on CGHub’s website. To check out more hit the blog link above.

STEAMPUNK

HARVEST

DREAMSCAPE

*So I found this amazing bike in Cycle World magazine today while waiting for my breakfast at a coffee shop. I couldn’t resist posting it for all the sci-fi, conceptual designers, Tron lovers and motorcycle enthusiast.

Copied directly from Cycle World Magazine:
If you’re a motorcyclist and saw either the original Tron (1982) or the more recent Tron: Legacy (2010) movies, you can’t help but want to get on a Light Cycle and show the “programs” how to ride. You’ll never live your life on a circuit board, but if you want to do your best impersonation of star protagonist Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), Evolve Motorcycles (www.evolvemotorcycles.com) can put you on its electric-powered Xenon light bike—for a mere $55,000.

The New York-based company claims that the Xenon has a range up to 100 miles and can achieve a top speed of 70 mph. A 40,000-watt motor is powered by either a 60 or 120ah LiFe PO4 battery pack and packaged in a fiberglass chassis built by Parker Brothers Custom Choppers. The Xenon rides on 32-inch hubless wheels and is trimmed with LED light tape to ensure that no one misses your entrance.

The original bike from the movie looks like this – just in case you haven’t watched this film.

Image credit

*Some really beautiful work!

Title: We Found the Gates of Hell

Title: Plane of Gathering

Title: The Blue Mountain – Thorins Hall

Title: Gothmog – Lord of the Valaraukar

Title: Extreme Landing

About the Firm:
10 is an international studio of architects and designers, with office in Hong Kong, Edinburgh, Shanghai and Denver. We have worked together for almost 20 years, designing and delivering award winning places and buildings across the world including, Europe, US, the Middle East, India, SE Asia and China. Our collective international perspective and our commitment to collaboration and research is what differentiates us.

About the Proposal:
The project is an examination of the relationship between a pristine rural landscape and the advancing forces of a rapidly growing city. Galaxy Yabao Hi-Tech Enterprises Headquarter Park is close to the central zone of Futian District, Shenzhen China. The Gross site area is about 65 ha; and the GFA is over 1,050,000 sqm, consisting of 18 high-rise towers ranging from 100-300 meters tall, a 5 star hotel, 3service apartment towers, 3 residential towers, a shopping mall and a 32 ha park. Tony Huang of the privately owned real estate Shenzhen based developer, Galaxy Group, says, “The vision for the project is to cultivate a hi-tech headquarter park where people can lead a well-balanced life, working and living in a tranquil yet innovative environment . This mix-used complex is designed for a multifaceted community, which includes living, working, shopping recreation, and tourism. The site is very unique with superb first world infrastructure in a beautiful parkland setting around two natural lakes.”

The main design concept was to try and integrate the complex into the natural landscape. The buildings define a strong urban edge on the southwestern edge of the site and begin to dissolve into nature as they move northeast across the site towards the lake. A series of balconies pulls off the tower facades to allow for vegetation to grow up the sides of the buildings. A series of algae tubes mounted on the western facades also brings a natural diffuse green texture into the complex. External linear screens further diffuse the edge of the towers and shelter the buildings from the heat of the summer sun. Each tower has a rooftop garden to help reduce heat island effect. The architecture is defined by two landmark towers. The first is a 300 meter tower that sits at the edge of a small stream running across the site. The tower twists up out of the stream taking inspiration from the fluidity of the water running across the site. A second iconic element is the shopping mall, which is located at the intersection of two freeways. To react to the freeway edge, a 220 meter tower is pulled laterally along the freeway, melding the tower and shopping mall into an iconic element that reaches 400 meters in length. The internal edge of the shopping mall terraces into a series of green garden spaces.

Beyond the formal inspirations that try to blur or bridge the architecture back into a natural context, a series of sustainable ideas is embedded into the project that activates the buildings. The design is an examination of the concept of moving “beyond neutrality” on a large scale. The buildings are designed with façades that neutralize air pollution 24 hours a day, an algae system that produces oxygen, organic fertilizer, and cleans grey water, and a series of subterranean chambers that naturally cools outside air and pushes it into a series of outdoor courtyards. The buildings take full advantage of technologies that help shape the temperature and air quality of their micro-climate. The project has already started construction in October 2011.

Design Partner: Ted Givens
Managing Partner: David Pringle
Architectural Team: Maciej Setniewski, Peby Pratama, Tatsu Hayashi, Abraham Fung, Emre Icdem, Jon Martin, Ru Chen, Shane Dale
Landscape Team: Ewa Koter, Ting Fung Chan
Masterplan Area: 62 ha
GFA: 1,050,000 sqm
Function: Retail, Office, Serviced Apartments, 5-Star Hotel, a Park
Construction commencement: October 2011

Proposal: Smart Cars Exhibition
Using parametric manipulation processes, the focus of this project was to generate a form catalog of different forms and variations of them to be used as a tectonic reference to inform the architecture of the project. The final result is achieved by analyzing these forms and borrowing some elements that best represent different needs of the program. By combining certain formal qualities, it shapes a synthesized form that connects the building with its surrounding and hybridizes its program elements. The building features an exhibition for Smart cars, a hotel and a gym.

Process:Form Catalog

About the Designer:
Philip Straub is located in Seattle, Washington. He has been creating art for the gaming, publishing, and film industry for over 17 years. He is the creator and author of Utherworlds and co-author of D’artiste Digital Painting. He currently works at Warner Brothers Game in Seattle as an art director. Check out his website listed above for more information. The work presented below is a selection of some of his concept art and final illustrations. Enjoy!

About the Designer:
Specialized as a freelance artist in 3d graphics and animations since 1997. During the years he has worked in a wide range of areas such as:
– special fx and animation for tv-commercials
– trailers
– illustrations for advertising and package design
– visualisation of industrial design
– visualisation of fair-booth and architecture

Project Info:
PLEXUS Production Opener
Concept, design, direction, animation, shading, and compositing
Music and Sound Design: Mothersmilk

Project Info:
SOFTIMAGE|XSI 7 keyvisual design
SOFTIMAGE

About the Designer/Architect/Author/Psychoanalyst:
MARGOT KRASOJEVIĆ. Born 1975 in London. Received a BA(Hons), A.A.Dip(HONS)l; M.Arch(Distinction) and Ph.D, U.C.L. Worked at the office of Zaha Hadid, Nox, ran architecture design units and advanced digital design studios at The Bartlett school of architecture, Greenwich University, Washington University, St. Louis, Sheffield University and Tongji University, Shanghai, Numerous Lectures in USA, Australia and Europe. In 1998 founded the London, Beijing based “Decodeine” digital design and research laboratory. Currently working as an architect, digital designer, university lecturer and psychoanalyst.

Proposal: Dichroic Illusion Stations

The project is for the design of 2 cable car stations along the edge of the Gobi desert, starting from Ordos city the trail leads into the deserts sand dunes, a major tourist attraction. The form optimises the use of dichroic and holographic film in glass cladding, which helps to adapt to the specific site conditions and their extreme temperatures and reflectivity, while articulating a coherent overall formal architectural language. Two contrasting elements ‘Reflecting sky & Shadow’ generate each station’s design criteria, influencing a series of reflected and projected spatial experiences both physical and projected light displays. A lightweight organic roof structure floats on top of a concrete plinth. The artificial landscape functions as a relief in which various movements and circulations are inscribed. The Roof Shell’s fluid shapes and organic contours mimic the nature of the ever changing sand dunes, like it’s environment the structure is never seen in the same way twice. It shimmers and abstracts as well as camouflages itself within it’s context, it’s presence and characteristic always determined by the natural sunlight and it’s intensity. New production methods like CNC milling and thermoforming guarantee a very precise and automatic translation of the computer generated design into the built structure. The resulting aesthetics might be reminiscent of streamlined Industrial Design pieces (Car Bodies, Aeroplane Wings, Yachts etc.). Each station has its context, its topography, its projected light spaces, its movements. The track’s inclination and ratios are dominant technical parameters. A high degree of flexibility enables the shell structures to adjust to these various parameters while still responding directly to the natural light levels which have determined its form. The concept of lightness is explored. Large cantilevers and small touch down areas underline a floating appearance of the dichroic illusion stations.

The form allows for air to circulate and cool the interior, the plinth prevents conduction of heat from the immediate environment. The structure is lifted from the ground permitting a breeze to move through the pre-cast concrete primary structure. The structure accommodates different types of cladding modules, which can be replaced according to season, during the winter months the Siberian winds form sheets of ice, the photovoltaic polychrystalline panels keep the stations from freezing allowing for the winds to carry through it not only sand but prevent ice from settling within the structure. The structure acts as an atrium, perforated temporary louvres shelter from the sand and direct sun whilst the Thermoplus energy high yield glass acts as an all season insulating glass, providing thermal insulation against both cold and excessive heat.

Whilst the overall form allows for the prevailing Siberian winter winds to glide over it it is important to test materials within a formal constraint in order to understand the materials affects on light reflection and refraction particularly when working with the environment and sustainability. The form has developed using a computer software which uses the dynamics and physics of a specific environment such as the Ordos desert in order to understand through simulation and caustics how light is scattered and can be controlled in turn predicting how exactly the form can influence and respond to it’s environment. An important mechanical test rather than purely a formal gesture.

Type: Cable Car stations
Location: Ordos Shi, Kubuqi desert, Inner Mongolia Peoples Republic of China
Client: Mr Feng Gao , Ordos Shi City Dongsheng district with China Film House, Beijing
Building status: Ongoing building work
Site type: Rural

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About the Project: Funland

“The sun means nothing to us as we toil in our endless city beneath the wasted crusted of the earth. We dig toward the core forever. Here in the distant future nothing remains of your civilisation except the hallowed Trocadero Centre. It reigns with iron fists resculpting the world at will, its fecund imagination made flesh at the merest thought. Over aeons the Trocadero mutated into the spider-city Funland and set sail across the seas of the dread Canal Dwellers. Whilst the Printerhead Wasps are fervently building, and the Catvatars are doing whatever it is Catvatars do, the spider-city Funland has almost arrived at the decaying House of Fish…”