If You Suffer Acrophobia, Don't Look at This

Photoshop whiners of the world: Stop saying words! This is not a photomontage. These two doors and the stair are very real, suspended many feet up on the concrete walls of the Congress Hall in Biel, Switzerland.

Of course, those doors and the stairs weren't in the original plans. The original architects weren't as crazy as Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann, the artists who built this vertigo inducing piece. [Dark Roasted Blend]. LINK: Gizmodo

Los Pozas Surreallist Follies

The surreal folly gardens at Xilitla were created by Edward James, an eccentric British millionaire and patron of the arts. Set into 80 acres of jungle, he and his builders spent 25 years and millions of dollars creating a nature inspired fantasy in concrete. LINK

MythBusters: Air Cylinder Rocket

MythBusters crew prove that an air cylinder will shoot though a concrete wall when the regulator stem is sheared off. LINK, Via: Youtube

See-Through, Light-Transmitting … Concrete?!

Concrete has a sometimes-bad reputation as a harsh, rigid, cold-to-the-touch and straight-edged material. Litracon is doing a great deal to change that image of concrete through a score of creative and sustainable applications for their patented light-transmitting concrete.

Filled with optical fibers that run from one end of a poured piece of concrete to the other, these prefabricated blocks and panels effectively transmit light from one side to the other. Colors and light remain remarkably consistent from end to end, but with a natural variation from the pouring process that actually softens the effects considerable.

The fibers can transmit light to over 50 feet and, as they occupy only a small percentage of the total concrete block or panel, they do not significantly effect the structural capabilities of the poured pieces.

One could imagine all kinds of artistic as well as functional applications for this new-and-improved form of concrete. Daylighting possibilities abound and all with potentially much lower heat loss and cost and with greater durability. LINK

Concrete Thoughts

Joan Perry of Walk this way... takes pictures of sidewalk graffiti. She has been walking the streets of Charleston, South Carolina with her camera for twenty years.

Finally paying attention what was underfoot she's found a treasure trove of inscriptions in the sidewalk from humorous to profound. LINK