An ice storage building in Chicago’s Fulton Market District is being redesigned for use as bike component manufacturer SRAM’s headquarters. Up until last October the space was part of ten stories of cold storage for the meat and fish market. After decades of use, the building literally had to be defrosted like an old freezer, with the assistance of large propane heaters to accelerate the melting process. See the Time Lapse Video here.
Read more at ediblegeography.com via Perkins + Will
The tank of Montsouris was constructed in the south of Paris in 1874. At the time it was the biggest tank in the world and to this day, still supplies 1/5 of the Parisian population with water. At the time trouts were used in the reservoir itself to monitor the water quality.
More at MyParisNet.com
ARTWORK OF THE WEEK
The Rainbow: Certain Principles of Light and Shapes Between Forms (2012)
Michael Jones McKean
Michael Jones McKean’s project creates a simple, but phenomenal visual event — a rainbow in the sky. The public artwork produces temporary rainbows above the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, utilizing solely captured rainwater. Throughout the project cycle, collected and recaptured rain water is filtered and stored in water tanks. Within the gallery, a custom designed pump supplies pressurized water to nozzles mounted to the roof of the Bemis Center. At timed intervals, in the morning and early evening, a dense water-wall is projected above the building in which the rainbow emerges.
More at Bemis Centre
A new watering hole called the Molecule Cafe has opened up in New York’s East Village, and it serves only one thing: NYC tap water. The cafe gets the water from the tap, filters it and then sells for $2.50 a bottle. The owner of the cafe says their water is purified of chlorine, fluoride and compound metals to create a “pharmaceutical-grade water”.
From Inhabitat.com
The Science Barge greenhouse is a prototype of sustainable urban farm floating on the Hudson River. The greenhouse grows an abundance of fresh produce including tomatoes, melons, greens, and lettuce with zero net carbon emissions, zero pesticides, and zero runoff.
More at Groundwork Hudson Valley
The Gasometer TauchRevier (scuba-diving centre) is located in the Duisburg-Nord landscape park, in Germany. This building used to collect the gas for a former industrial blast furnace system, it is now used for scuba-diving courses, complete with a shipwreck and an artificial reef.
Read more at Ruhr-Tourismus
Water / light graffiti system by artist Antonin Fourneau and Artlab Digitalarti.
Check out the video on 123 Inspiration
U.S. Geological Survey maps of the shafts and tunnels of the Comstock mines, published in 1881. The different colors used indicate each separate hundred feet of depth.
From the David Rumsey collection in the Harvard University digital map library. Via Venue
40 years ago NASA launched its first Landsat satellite to monitor and document the changes taking place across the planet. To celebrate four decades of earth-gazing, NASA and the US Geographical Society selected and digitally coloured 120 images taken from these satellites, including Yukon Delta, Mississippi River, and Gotland Island, as part of their Earth as Art contest.
From itsnicethat.com
In the 1980’s, Japan introduced these custom manhole covers. Different in each city, the covers reflect a unique aspect of local attractions, festivals, or crafts. Forged in the Nagashima Foundry, wooden carving masters lead the creation of the manhole covers and are saved in an enormous central library.
From tofugu.com
This visual blog presents images and projects related to the WATERSHED+ art program.
WATERSHED+ is a public art program hosted by City of Calgary's department of Utilities and Environment Protection.
WATERSHED+ aims to develop awareness and pleasure in the environment, not by changing water management practice, nor developing a uniform visual language, but rather by creating a climate of opportunity for water initiatives to build an emotional connection between people and the watershed.
WATERSHED+ presents a unique approach to public art by embedding artists and artistic practices within UEP core activities, participating as members on infrastructure design teams, contributing to project design, development of events, community education, etc.
You can visit us at:
watershedplus.ca
This program was devised by Sans façon (Charles Blanc & Tristan Surtees) with a team composed of Matt Baker, Emlyn Firth, Yan Olivares of Yes Architectes, Eric Laurier and Bert van Duin.
