Schlagwort-Archive: Adaptive Reuse

Waste Not: 1890s Urinal Turned into a Sandwich Shop

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 2

Sit at a counter embedded into a wall of urinals and enjoy a nice sandwich at Attendant, an eatery in London built in a former men’s bathroom. While it’s virtually unrecognizable after an extensive $150,000 renovation, it’s hard to imagine how the owners were able to look into the trash-strewn pit of a subterranean restroom and think about food.

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 5

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 3

The Attendant restroom had been abandoned for more than fifty years before its two-year transformation. It now serves sandwiches, soup, breakfast, cakes and espresso drinks, with many ingredients plucked from the New Covent Garden Marketplace just down the street.

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 1

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 6

Attendant Urinal Restaurant 4

Partners Peter Tomlinson and Ben Russell removed 12 layers of paint dating back over a century from the ornate wrought iron entrance and removed a wall that separated the urinals from the attendant’s space. The urinals were polished, a counter was added and a kitchen was built. Green seating matches the original Victorian floor tiles.

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Abandoned No More: New Lives for 13 Disused Spaces

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[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

While many abandoned places are ultimately demolished (and sometimes temporarily serve as settings for unexpected art installations), some get a second chance at life with restoration projects that transform them for new purposes. These 13 abandoned places, including zoos, bath houses, military compounds, railways and factories, now serve as libraries, galleries, offices, arts centers and private homes.

Contemporary Library in a Turkish Bath House

(images via: archdaily)

A beautiful rounded wooden library reminiscent of a seashell has been temporarily installed inside a once-abandoned Turkish bathhouse in Bulgaria. the ICONITemporary Library by Studio 8 1/2 contains nothing but books about contemporary art, with comfortable places to lounge, flip through the pages and gaze at the 16th century architecture.

Abandoned Walmart Turned America’s Largest Library

(images via: mcallenlibrary.net)

Empty retail stores can be quite an eyesore, sitting vacant for months or even years. One such building has been completely transformed from a vacant Walmart in McAllen, Texas, to America’s largest library. Measuring 124,500 square feet, the single-floor library was painted in bright colors and renovated to include glass-enclosed spaces.

Zoo Turned Graffiti Gallery

(images via: street art museum)

An old zoo in Torino, Italy has become the Street Art Museum, with the former animal enclosures painted with often-surreal scenes. It’s part of the Border Land Project, an urban regeneration initiative that helps utilize and raise awareness about neglected spaces.

Gentlemen’s Club Turned Stylish Home

(images via: yatzer)

The Harmony Club was built in 1909, and operated as a social club for the Jewish community in Selma, Alabama, including a restaurant, a ballroom and an exclusive men’s lounge. It was turned into headquarters for the Elks Club in the 1930s, and boarded up in the ’60s. Today, it’s a luxurious home that retains many of the historical details, making it truly one-of-a-kind. See more photos at Yatzer.

Stable to Family Home

(images via: enpundit)

Architecture firm Abaton took a crumbling, centuries-old stone barn in the Spanish province of Caceres and rehabilitated it into a beautiful family home, with the haylofts becoming bedrooms. The large doors – two stories tall, in one case – were glassed in to create massive windows.

Catholic Chapel to Modern Home

(images via:  zecc architects)

An abandoned Catholic church is now a spacious, modern residence in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Zecc Architects carefully preserved the dramatic aspects of the church’s architecture with soaring ceilings, stained glass windows and even a dining table made from the preserved pews.

Taiwanese Military Barracks to Rainbow Village

(images via: riowang)

The local council in Taichung, Taiwan had decided to demolish the remains of an abandoned 1940s military encampment on the outskirts of its suburban community, but an elderly resident named Huang Yunfu had another idea. He covered the entire site in colorful pairings, turning it into an outdoor gallery. It’s now called ‘Rainbow Village.’

Beret Factory to Multimedia Center

(images via: inhabitat)

Would you guess that this incredibly modern-looking facility was once an abandoned beret factory? A riverside site that was recently little more than an industrial wasteland on the edge of the Pyrenees mountains in France is now a two-story multimedia center built on the original stone foundation with skylights and green terraces.

Garage to Madrid Hub Offices

(images via: fast co design)

Madrid architects Churtichaga + Quadra + Salcedo (CH +QS) turned an abandoned garage in the center of the city into a timeshare office, preserving the industrial character of the place while adding comfortable semi-private nooks, including an informal living room made of wood crates.

Silo to Climbing Gym

(images via: inhabitat)

After losing a competition to transform an abandoned sewage treatment silo in Amsterdam into a climbing gym, NL Architects may get a second chance. Developers in the area think that a third abandoned silo could be ideal for the project. The ‘Siloo O’ concept would create a world-class climbing and mountaineering facility that could become a major tourist attraction for climbers around the world.

Warehouse to Advertising Firm Headquarters

(images via: wk.com)

Ad firm Wieden + Kennedy turned an old warehouse in Portland, Oregon into its new world headquarters, holding several hundred employees. Portland architecture firm Allied Works gave the building a new concrete interior and new stories, preserving some of the original timber.

Steel Factory to Arts Center

(images via: artsquest.org)

Once the largest steel-producing facility in America, the old Bethlehem Steel building in Pennsylvania closed its doors in 1995 and remained abandoned for more than a decade. Spillman Farmer Architects converted the 68,000-square-foot space into the ArtsQuest Center, an art campus where the industrial aspects of the building are accented by the warmth of native Pennsylvania ash wood.

Railroad to Recreational Promenade

(images via: archdaily)

A retired railway between the towns of Albisola Superiore and Celle Ligure on the coast of Italy left a large stretch of the shoreline unused. 3S Studio and Voarino Cairo Voarino transformed the old promenade into a walking path using low-impact materials for a small environmental footprint.

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Remembered Spaces: Abandoned Buildings Transformed Into Art

When buildings are abandoned, they are often demolished and their parts sent to a landfill. One artist dismantles them piece by piece and preserves them in art. 6 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

Abandoned Walmart is Now America’s Largest Library

A sprawling abandoned Walmart in McAllen, Texas has been transformed into the nation's largest public library, with self-check-out kiosks and an art gallery. 20 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

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[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

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Rebuilding Infrastructure: Viaduct turned Holiday Home

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Construction on the highway from Salerno to Reggio Calabria in Southern Italy began int he 1960s – and it’s still not finished. A stretch that has been abandoned for decades includes a viaduct with incredible wasted views of the mountainous countryside and the sea. The winners of a design competition to repurpose that viaduct have transformed it into a stunning vertical village of vacation homes.

French firms OFF Architecture, PR Architect and Samuel Nageotte took first place in the Solar Park South international design competition with ‘Solar Highway’, a concept that uses the massive pylons of the bridge as the basis of a sort of high-rise vacation complex in reverse – running from the horizontal surface of the bridge down to ground level.

The project was designed to use a low quantity of construction materials, encasing the existing support system using a ‘pile and deck’ technique to stack residential and commercial spaces on top of each other without disturbing the site. The vacation homes are aimed at Northern European snowbirds looking to enjoy Southern Italy’s warm, sunny weather in the winter.

The upper part of the bridge will become a pedestrian promenade, with lower decks offering roadways into neighboring towns – a feature that local residents, who have long been cut off by the delays on the highway, will no doubt appreciate. In between the houses, restaurants and shops will be recreational spaces like golfing greens. In addition, as Inhabitat points out, nearby Mt. Etna could provide the whole complex with geothermal power.

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Adaptive Reuse: 15 Creative House & Home Conversions

Billboards, fire towers, pig barns and factories are converted into stunning modern homes that preserve the history of the original structures. 14 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

Grass-Covered Bridge in Amsterdam Doubles as Public Park

This proposal for a pedestrian bridge in Amsterdam doubles as a public park with wildlife, recreation, a cafe and even a sloped roof for sledding in winter. 1 Comment - Click Here to Read More »»

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Abandoned Walmart is Now America’s Largest Library

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There are thousands of abandoned big box stores sitting empty all over America, including hundreds of former Walmart stores. With each store taking up enough space for 2.5 football fields, Walmart’s use of more than 698 million square feet of land in the U.S. is one of its biggest environmental impacts. But at least one of those buildings has been transformed into something arguably much more useful: the nation’s largest library.

Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle transformed an abandoned Walmart in McAllen, Texas, into a 124,500-square-foot public library, the largest single-floor public library in the United States.

The design won the International Interior Design Association’s 2012 Library Interior Design Competition. MSR stripped out the old ceiling and walls of the building, gave the perimeter walls and bare warehouse ceiling a coat of white paint, and set to work adding glass-enclosed spaces, bright architectural details and row after row of books.

The library even has an acoustically separated lounge for teens as well as 6 teen computer labs, 16 public meeting spaces, 14 public study rooms, 64 computer labs, 10 children’s computer labs and 2 genealogy computer labs. Other new features include self check-out units, an auditorium, an art gallery, a used bookstore and a cafe.

While you can still see hints of what the library once was in its sprawling shape and industrial ceilings, it seems like an entirely new space. According to PSFK, the library saw new user registration rise by 23% within the first month following the new library’s opening.

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7 (More) Abandoned Wonders of America: From Deserted Breweries to Famous Auto Factories

Much of America's little-remembered history can be found in largely unknown structures scattered across the United States, some of which are silently falling apart. 67 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

Volumes of Vertigo: Crazy Sideways-Library-Shaped Cafe

You might feel a little dizzy when you walk into this Manhattan cafe, designed to look like a library that has been tipped on its side. 1 Comment - Click Here to Read More »»

Rustic Ruins to Modern Residences: 3 Barn Renovations

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Aging barns are often left to simply deteriorate, the stone crumbling, weathered wooden siding falling to the ground.  But in their dramatic A-frame silhouettes and wide-open simplicity, some architects see the potential for a transformation into a modern, livable residential space. These three barn renovations rescued or recalled structures that were near complete destruction, preserving their history while giving them a greater purpose.

Wood-Slatted Barn Home by Kwint Architecten


The simple shape and wide, swinging doors of this stunning modern home are the only signal of what once stood in its place: an aging barn in Eelde, The Netherlands. Dutch architecture practice Kwint Architecten integrated the remains of an existing structure into a new home with a traditional gabled roof. The exterior is covered in wooden slats that provide privacy, shade and air circulation to a transitory space between the outside walls and the home’s interior.

These slatted walls open wide to allow sunlight to stream into the home. The combination of these elements blurs the lines between indoors and out, allowing full appreciation of the tranquil rural setting.

300-Year-Old Barn to Modern Residence by RRA Architects

 

A stunning 300-year-old stone barn in Hereford, United Kingdom is now a modern home with prefabricated interior spaces, a wooden addition and the integration of large glass windows to bring in more daylight. The Hillcott Barn by RRA Architects boasts an interior made of individual prefab pods which were constructed off-site and simply lowered into place in each room via crane. This method of construction not only saved the owners money, but helps preserve the original stone structure. The roof was also modified to improve ventilation and add more daylighting, and the barn door openings were fitted with large glass windows.

Italian Alps Barn Becomes Solar-Powered Retreat by EXiT Architetti Associati

In the Italian Alps, a rustic barn that is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site was carefully altered by EXiT Architetti Associati to transform it into a home while maintaining the historic integrity of the structure. Each beam and board of the barn was taken apart, cleaned and reassembled around a new metal frame, and solar panels were integrated into the roof. While the exterior looks much the same as it did before the renovation, the interior has been opened up with an airy modern floor plan and the addition of painted white walls and black steel beams.

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Creative Coverage: New Roof Preserves Archaeological Ruins

A 1500-year-old abbey constantly threatened by stones falling from an abutting cliffside is now protected by a beautiful, modern suspended roof. Click Here to Read More »»

Water Villas: 3 Modern House Boats in Urban Settings

Urban house boats are the best of both worlds, providing a private getaway with views of the water yet docked just steps from the excitement of the city. 5 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

Underground Art: The Repurposed Oil Tanks at Tate Modern

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

Once a power station, now a repository for some of the world’s most innovative art: the expansion of the Tate Modern art museum in London is repurposing industrial infrastructure in surprising ways. And while the bulk of it is still under construction, set to open in 2016, the museum has opened the doors to the first phase. Herzog & de Meuron has transformed the enormous oil tanks of the power station into underground galleries.

Measuring nearly 100 feet across and 23 feet in height, the oil tanks have been unused since the power station was decommissioned. Now, they function as a stark, rough venue for live performance art, which is often interactive in nature and resists the commodification of the art world in that it can’t be bought off its wall or pedestal and moved into a permanent collection.

The tanks represent just a small part of the renovation, which will expand the Tate’s exhibition space by nearly 70%. The other elements, including above-ground construction and addition concrete and steel underground spaces, will open in 2016. Herzog & de Meuron, along with the Tate Modern, have expressed a desire to fuse the extension with the power station’s past and history.

“The Tanks and Transformers galleries are the opposite of the white box gallery, spaces where you are aware that you are underground, rich with texture and history, and uncompromisingly direct and raw, providing the viewer, artist and curator with new and different contexts and experiences completing the variety of spaces for art in the Tate Modern Project,” say the architects.

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Urban Reuse Goes Underground: Subterranean Community Park

A long-abandoned underground space may soon be turned into a subterranean version of the High Line park, complete with high-tech sunlight harvesting. 5 Comments - Click Here to Read More »»

Stacking in Style: New Trend Puts Houses on Houses

These three structures couldn't be more different in all ways except one: they all look like individual houses piled on top of each other into vertical towers. Click Here to Read More »»

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Modular Madness: 23 Diverse Deployments of Cargo Containers

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]

Portable, durable, stackable and readily available all over the world, shipping containers are the ideal building blocks for smart structures of practically every variety. Some require just a little bit of renovation to transform into tiny houses or mobile offices, and others are barely recognizable. Often left with their exteriors as-is to pay tribute to their industrial origins, shipping containers can be used to form exterior walls and integrated into other types of building materials. Here are 23 examples of shipping container architecture in the form of homes, schools, offices, retail stores, hotels and restaurants.

Homes

Two-Tree House by Golany Architects (image via: treehugger)

Project ARQtainer (images via: arqtainer.cl)

Decameron/Marcio Kogan (images via: archdaily)

Colorado Home by Studio H:T (images via: archdaily)

Dark and tightly enclosed, shipping containers may not seem like a fitting material for a comfortable home, but architects and home builders are transforming them in a variety of surprising ways. Take Golany Architects’ Two-Tree House, in which a shipping container was integrated into a design that accommodates two large existing Jerusalem pines on the building site. Aside from the shape, you’d never guess that the basis of the home is a shipping crate, especially since it has been covered in warm and welcoming timber cladding.

Five bright yellow steel shipping containers were combined into a large and light-filled home in Santiago, Chile. Project ARQtainer is an earthquake-resistant, low-cost home that makes use of the strength, durability, stackability, modular form and ready availability of shipping containers. Another shipping container home in Sao Paulo, Brazil by Marcio Kogan employs the stackability to fit a spacious home into a small plot of land, painting each one a bright shade.

And in Nederland, Colorado, an unusual home by Studio H:T places two shipping containers on either side of a taller volume for 1,517 total square feet and an exterior that blends nicely into the landscape.

Schools

Vissershok School (image via: archdaily)

Morpeth School (images via: container city)

Dunraven Sports Hall (image via: archdaily)

Fawood Children’s Center (images via: arcspace)

With cramped budgets, rapidly deteriorating structures and growing populations but little space to expand, many schools across the globe turn to low-cost, portable structures. But the prefabricated classrooms typically used by school systems are often lacking in the design department. Shipping containers offer an ideal alternative. For example, the Vissershok Primary School in South Africa has a container classroom that hosts 25 students, adding a secondary roof for cooling and integrating an attached play area. The Morpeth School in London is very similar, but with multiple stacked containers.

Three walls of stacked shipping containers come together with a fourth translucent polycarbonate wall to create an eye-catching, bright and low-cost sports hall for the students of Dunraven secondary school in London. Interior cutaways on the containers turn them into balconies, while exterior cutaways let in sunshine.

At the Fawood Children’s Center in London, shipping containers are connected with walkways and stairs for a large complex with a nursery, adult education center and offices.

Retail

PUMA City (images via: archdaily)

DeKalb Market (images via: architizer)

Stockbox (images via: design boom)

Re:START Mall (images via: inhabitat)

Whether mobile or stationary, shipping containers are also a great starting point for retail stores small and large. PUMA City is an excellent example of creative deployment of these crates. Architecture office LOT-EK stacked 24 containers to create a 3-story store with a bar/lounge area and 2 decks – and best of all, it’s easily disassembled so the store can travel around the world.

Brooklyn’s DeKalb Market is made from 22 salvaged shipping containers, bringing local entrepreneurs together into an outdoor market with shops, restaurants and cafes. Most of the containers have been left in their original state on the outside, paying tribute to the history of the commercial port location.

Shipping containers are also a smart way to bring small markets into urban food deserts, where convenience stores are often the only source of food. Stockbox offers essential grocery items and fresh produce, and can easily be set up in the parking lot of an existing business.

In New Zealand, shipping containers enabled rapid construction of a mall after many structures were destroyed in a devastating earthquake. The pedestrian shopping mall consists of stacked, brightly colored crates holding 27 stores.

Office/Commercial

Cargo/group8 (images via: archdaily)

Platoon by Kunsthalle Graft (images via: archdaily)

Lafayette Street Offices (images via: container city)

Off-Grid SPACE office (image via: designboom)

16 recycled shipping containers create individual private offices within a large white space in the Geneva headquarters of design collective group8. The rustic, industrial nature of the crates contrasts with their glossy modern surroundings. For PLATOON KUNSTHALLE in South Korea, 28 crates were stacked to create the exterior walls of a large communicate platform for subcultural creative fields, and many of the crates were given an entirely transparent wall to combat the dark, enclosed environment.

Bright red shipping containers contrast with brick historical buildings on Lafayette Street in New York City. Designed by Urban Space Management, this concept was proposed to add office space to the block, but it’s not clear whether it will ever actually be built.

On a smaller scale, Houston-based architecture practice Metalab demonstrates how individual shipping containers can serve as mobile, off-grid offices. ‘SPACE’ (solar powered adaptive containers for everyone) is a prototypical adaptation featuring a fold-out solar rack system with 20 solar panels on the roof.

Hotels

Travelodge Travelpod (images via: travelodge)

Travelodge Shipping Container Hotel (images via: world architecture news)

Luxury Hotel in China (images via: inhabitat)

25hours Hotel in Berlin (images via: dezeen)

While Travelodge’s ‘Travelpod’ hotel room concept wasn’t actually made from a recycled shipping container, it certainly could be – and promotes some intriguing ideas for rentable traveling spaces that can be carried on trucks and ships or placed on location at festivals. But the hotel chain did employ shipping crates for its hotel in Uxbridge, England. The completed design is made from 86 prefabricated shipping crates, which were retrofitted into bedrooms and bolted into a steel frame. This means that when the hotel needs to be remodeled, switching out the rooms will be fast and easy.

Set to open in August 2012, China’s five-star Xiang Xiang Xiang Pray House Hotel is made entirely from shipping containers. It doesn’t look like much on the outside, but each of the individual containers has been fitted with a luxurious blend of traditional Chinese and modern decor.

In Berlin, several weathered shipping crates were worked into the design of the 25hours Hotel. Stephen Williams Associates designed the hotel to capture the feel of a shipping warehouse with guest rooms as intimate as ship cabins. In this sense, the crates are used to impart a certain ambiance in fitting with a theme. In fact, the designers boast, “The ‘Hafen Sauna’ is on the rooftop built within a rusty container with panoramic views over the industrial harbor. It is the furthest from wellness that one could imagine.”

Restaurants

Wahacas (images via: dezeen)

Del Popolo (images via: inhabitat)

Starbucks Seattle (images via: smart planet)

8 stacked shipping crates in relaxing pastel colors draw hungry passersby into the new Wahaca mexican restaurant at the Southbank Center in London. The crates create a two-story structure with a central glass atrium and a cantilevered top story that provides a view of the Thames River.

Another restaurant, Del Popolo, uses the compact portability of a shipping container to take its pizza on the go. The traveling restaurant has a glass wall so diners can watch as their pizza emerges with cheese bubbling from a traditional 8,000-pound wood-fired oven.

Even larger chains like Starbucks are taking advantage of the shipping container craze. The coffee giant just opened a new location outside of Seattle that’s made from four crates. The small size may disappoint coffeehouse loungers armed with laptops, however: it’s walk-up or drive-through only.

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18 Super Shipping Container Schools, Youth Centers and Hotels

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13 Crazy Air, Sea & Land Vehicle-to-House Conversions

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

When airplanes have made their last flight, ships are no longer seaworthy and school buses are finished ferrying children to and fro, where do they go to die? Many end up in object graveyards, but some get reincarnated into strange and amazing residences. These 13 converted homes make use of a surprising array of decommissioned vehicles including rail cars, subway carriages, horse boxes and 727s.

Plane Crazy Addition to Apartment in Russia

(images via: english russia)

Sticking out of the side of what looks like a dilapidated Soviet apartment building is a bit of an unusual sight: the front end of a plane. This bizarre airplane conversion seems to be simply adding some space to a unit inside. It’s certainly a creative use of a decommissioned plane.

Converted Rail Car Home in Portland, Oregon

(images via: apartment therapy)

This 1949 Portland sleeper car may not be housing passengers as they cross the Northwest by rail any longer, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer useful. It’s been converted into a sleek and modern home complete with a bedroom, living room, electric kitchen, DSL and an incinerator toilet. It’s surprisingly roomy at 807 square feet with 10-foot ceilings and went up for sale at $225,000 in 2009.

School Bus Conversion by Von Slatt

(images via: vonslatt)

Steampunk enthusiast Jake Von Slatt completely transformed an old 75-seater yellow school bus into a beautiful rolling home with a vintage feel. Von Slatt used mostly recycled and salvaged materials to renovate the 35-foot bus, which includes a salon, kitchen, bathroom, bunk room and master bedroom.

Plane Suite at Hotel Costa Verde, Costa Rica

(images via: costa verde)

At the Costa Verde hotel in lush tropical Costa Rica, you can experience the luxury of a multi-million-dollar private jet – for the night – without ever taking off. The hotel’s 727 suite consists of a vintage 1965 Boeing airframe once used by South Africa Air, which has been converted to include two bedrooms. Perched on a 50-foot pedestal, the suite has the kind of views that will almost make you feel like you’re flying, after all.

London Tube Carriages

(images via: london underground, village underground)

Perched atop more conventional buildings in the Shoreditch area of London are a few disused Tube carriages that have been converted to offices and studio space as part of a community called Village Underground. The carriages, which are still covered in graffiti, have become an area landmark.

Boeing 727 House in Mississippi

(images via: superuse)

Yet another Boeing 727 has landed in an unexpected place: lakeside in small-town Mississippi. Jo Ann Ussery bought the decommissioned plane when ice-laden trees flattened her conventional wooden house, and spent $24,000 renovating it into her dream home. The tail is anchored in 18 inches of concrete and the nose sticks out over the lake. Inside are three bedrooms, a living/dining room, a fully-equipped kitchen, a laundry area and a master bathroom with a Jacuzzi in the old cockpit.

Steampunk Submarine Room

(images via: geeky gadgets)

Unfortunately, this steampunk wonder was not crafted from a real submarine – but by the looks of it, it might as well have been. Homeowner Wayne Eyre turned his den into a ‘Steampunk Submarine Room’ designed to look like a real submarine complete with ‘plutonium leaking’ torpedoes

Converted Horse Box

(images via: into the hermitage)

A wooden ‘horse box’, as they call them in the UK, served as a quirky handmade home on wheels for a nomadic couple traveling through England and Scotland. The travelers gave the Bedford TK horse box beautiful reclaimed church windows and a dutch door, with the inside meticulously organized in order to fit as much function into the tiny space as possible. Construction of the room came at no small cost – about $72,000 USD.

Green Cedar Bus

(images via: deorwoodworking)

How adorable is the Green Cedar Bus, a school bus that’s been converted into a highly detailed and customized home? The old Bluebird bus has the same level of craftsmanship that you’d expect to see in a more conventional home, including hand-carved wood trim on the rooftop expansions, stained glass windows, mosaic countertops and wood flooring.

Cute Sheep Wagon Homes

(images via: idaho sheep camp)

Want to live out the classic computer game Oregon Trail in real life? Okay, maybe that doesn’t sound so appealing, given the dysentery and all. But hey, living in a covered wagon could actually be a pretty fun novelty. A company in Idaho converts sheep wagons into canvas-covered homes that come with memory foam mattresses, 110-volt outlets for gadgets, pull-out dining tables and even antique wood stoves.

Docked Ship in Dixie, Florida

(images via: micki p)

Raised on a wooden platform to give it a view of the ocean, this boat in Dixie, Florida was originally built to be used on the water, but never did make it in. As it was being built, the man who owned the land it sat on decided he wanted to turn it into a home. It’s become a point of interest on Horseshoe Beach, and also serves as a perch for osprey and other birds.

727 Airplane Home in Oregon

(images via: inhabitat)

When these images first went around the internet, removed of their context, many people wondered what the story could possibly be about this plane, seemingly plopped down in the woods in the middle of nowhere with no explanation as to how it could have gotten there. The plane is, in fact, Oregonian man Bruce Campbell’s dream home, and to get it to his rural property, he disassembled it, trucked it in and then put it back together. Rather than totally transforming the inside, as many other plane-to-home owners do, Campbell (not that Bruce Campbell, FYI) kept as many of the original components as possible.

Ship Residence, Put-in-Bay, Ohio

(images via: wikimedia commons)

The way this boat is set on the edge of a lake, it almost seems like it could have been swept up there by high water during a storm. In fact, it was carefully placed on Ohio’s South Bass Island in Lake Erie using a number of cranes by a couple who couldn’t bear to see the magnificent residence inside the boat scrapped when it was decommissioned in 1986. Built by Henry Ford for his grandson, the Benson Ford boat features walnut-paneled state rooms, a galley, dining room and passenger lounge.

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Dumpster Drinking! Skips Turned into Miniature Bars

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

What is trash, really, but materials that certain people decide are no longer useful? Scraps of wood, broken furniture and other piece of so-called junk sitting in a dumpster might seem destined to rot in a landfill, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Dutch designers Rikkert Paauw and Jet van Zwieten of Foundation Projects not only transform that trash into useful building materials – they make the dumpsters themselves the basis of miniature bars and cafes.

The designers transport the dumpsters to urban locations and then fill them with materials that are either sourced from the streets or other dumpsters nearby, or donated by local residents. Using the dumpsters as foundations, they build quirky structures that become community meeting places.

The pair carried out the project at the Vienna Design Week in 2010, the Milan Public Design Festival in 2011 and in their hometown of Utrecht in April 2012, yielding entirely different results each time. One of those structures became a bar called Straatlokaal, which offered breakfast debates, music and speakers from various local districts. The story behind some of the donated materials, like those that came from a renovation or vacant land, was projected onto the buildings at night.

“People from all walks of life will find their way to the project. People that hang out on the streets, but also architects, residents that come to donate materials and people interested in design. One of Foundation’s main goals is to bring people together and inspire dialogue between persons from different backgrounds. Until now, that is exactly what has happened at all previous projects and that is why we will just carry on.”

This is just the latest example of innovative dumpster reuse. A project called TrashCam turned dumpsters into pinhole cameras that were used to capture urban scenes. ‘Skip Conversions’ by Oliver Bishop transformed them into swimming pools, skateboard ramps, gardens and public toilets.

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Fire-Inspired: 14 Converted & New Lookout Tower Homes

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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

Look out! These 14 tall and narrow houses rise up above the landscape to enable incredible panoramic views of rustic nature preserves, lakes and city skylines. Some are converted from old fire towers, lookout towers (and even water towers) while others are just inspired by their shapes. These tower homes range from restored 15th century guard towers in Italy to blocky, modern concrete construction in Chile.

Timber-Frame Fire Tower in Montana

(images via: timber home living)

This incredible 35-foot-high, single-room wooden house on a mountaintop in western Montana takes its inspiration from fire towers, with rustic wood beam construction and unbelievable views. The 30-inch Douglas Fir timbers are reinforced with steel brackets and X-cross beams to withstand strong winds, and the wood was stained gray to help it blend into the landscape. Mike Koness, owner of building company Centennial Timber Frames, says “It turned out to be a pretty sweet little fort.”

80-Foot-Tall Modern Tower House & Office

(images via: marlon blackwell)

Poking up above the tree canopy, this modern tower home doesn’t exactly try to blend in – it’s a striking statement with a 360-degree view and a rooftop deck that’s open to the sky. Architect Marlon Blackwell screened off the 50-foot-long staircase that leads up to the living and working space above so that it gets sunlight and air.

Poland Fire Tower House

(images via: wikipedia)

Very little information is available, but this spiraling blue fire tower in Poland is purported to be a home. That would be one very long walk to a very small living space, especially when it’s raining, but the views are probably worth it.

15th Century Watchtower in Grosseto, Italy

(images via: invitation to tuscany)

Once a lookout tower for soldiers patrolling the shore for pirates, this stunning 15th century structure is now a spacious vacation rental. Located in Grosseto, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea, the complex once consisted of barracks, an oven house, a chapel, a well and a sentry box and was reachable only by mule. Now, it’s filled with multiple bedrooms and a living/dining room with high-beamed ceilings. The well was even converted into a Jacuzzi.

Water Tower House, Germany

(images via: funzu)

A pair of British designers turned a disused, 68-foot-tall industrial water tower in East Germany into a stunning residence. The design takes advantage of the adjacent nature reserve with 360-degree windows in what was once the tank.

Concrete Tower House, Chile

(images via: trendir)

This is probably unlike any lookout tower you’ve ever seen, but its narrow, vertical shape still calls traditional towers to mind. Architects Maurizio Pezo and Sofia von Elrichshausen gave the Cien House in Concepcion, Chile a podium base topped with a tower structure that allows the inhabitants to view the city skyline.

Munstead Water Tower House by Elspeth Beard

(images via: elspeth beard)

A red brick 1898 water tower that was built to supply water to surrounding houses in Munstead, England is now a six-level home. Architect Elspeth Beard purchased the empty, disused tower in 1989 and converted it to include a living room, kitchen and dining room and bedroom. The transformation of this 130-foot structure gave the interior a new use while preserving the historic exterior.

Round Tower House by De Matos Ryan

(images via: de matos ryan)

Decades of neglect, not to mention a fire, nearly reduced this beautiful tower in Gloucester, England to a pile of rubble. Architects De Matos Ryan not only preserved the tower, which is a listed history site, but built an underground addition that expands the living space in a seamless blend of traditional and modern styles. From above, the tower looks as it always has, but hidden just over the hill is a reflecting pool and sunken courtyard leading into the home.

Wintergreen Cabin

(images via: contemporist)

It may not be elevated like most other tower-inspired houses, but the Wintergreen Cabin by Balance Associates, located in the Methow Valley of Washington State, was a look that clearly takes after the types of lookout towers that are often present in preserves and other wild areas.

4X4 House, Kobe City, Japan

(images via: architizer)

Perhaps Tadao Ando’s iconic 4×4 house in Kobe City, Japan, wasn’t directly inspired by lookout towers – but it might as well have been. Functionally, this concrete home designed to pack a lot of living space onto a tiny footprint offers the same advantages, with huge glass windows that look out onto the streets.

Water Tower Turned House

(images via: dornob)

This water tower wasn’t converted to look like a house after the fact – it was built that way from the beginning, in a bid to be a little more visually interesting for its rural neighbors. But then its usefulness as an actual water tower declined, and it became a house after all.

Lookout Cabin, Austria by Baumraum

(images via: baumraum)

Known for its spectacular modern tree houses, Baumraum created this free-standing wooden home inspired by lookout towers. The house, which enjoys views of Lake Millstat in Seeboden, Austria, was built on stilts and includes a solid glass wall as well as two terraces.

Rustic Modern Water Tower House, Antwerp, Belgium

(images via: jo crepain)

Architect Jo Crepain explains this conversion: “For a long time the owner was in love with an old water tower and the little park around it, outside of Antwerp. Although it was by no means possible to live in the old tower, since it was just a skeleton, with a huge barrel on top, he started dreaming of building it into a house. And six years later, together with his architect, he made a dream come through.”

Water Tower Turned Green Student Housing

(images via: architecture review)

An ugly old water tower in Jaegersberg, Denmark got a new life as student housing after a renovation by Dorte Mandrup Arkitekter ApS. The firm won a competition to transform the old structure, extending the space with geometric protrusions that push out from the main column of the tower.

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