NASA has selected the five winning designs in the latest stage of its 3D-printed habitat competition, including a pod inspired by the anatomy of a spider and vertical egg-like container. teams were challenged to come up with a solution that tackled the issues of transporting materials to mars, considering differences in atmosphere and landscape on the red planet. see the winning schemes here.

 

meanwhile, BIG unveiled its proposal for ‘southbank by beulah’ — a competition which will see a new skyscraper built in melbourne, australia. the project has been designed as two interlocking towers, each comprising a series of stacked volumes that contain a variety of different programs. the proposal — dubbed the ‘lanescraper’ — is competing against entries from other high-profile firms, including coop himmelb(l)au, MAD architects, OMA, and UNStudio, with the winner to be announced on august 8, 2018.

born in san sperate, a small village in the southern part of sardinia, artist pinuccio sciola gained wide recognition for his rock sculptures, which have been shown in various exhibitions worldwide, including the venice biennale, and renzo piano’s parco della musica in rome. particularly known for his ‘sound stones’, sciola was able to make rocks ‘sing’ by carving patterned fissures onto them with a circular saw. designboom visited the artist’s sound garden in san sperate to discover how running a smaller rock over a carved piece of stone can transform it from art object to musical instrument.

 

ECAL student dimitri nassisi reimagined the fire hydrant as a multifunctional drinking fountain. styled in blue, the drinking hydrant‘s revision is meant to attract the attention of the community whilst signifying its new uses which include quenching people’s thirst, filling water bottles and hydrating pets.

on the occasion of the floating art 2018 festival,organized by denmark’s vejle art museum, artist asmund havsteen-mikkelsen has created and sunk a 1:1 replica of a corner of le corbusier‘s 1929 villa savoye. titled ‘flooded modernity’, the half-submerged sculpture floats in theejle fjord as a comment on the ‘sinking’ of reason amidst recent sociopolitical events including brexit, donald trump, the cambridge analytica scandal, and the use of social media to manipulate democratic elections.

 

in other news, vans partnered with the van gogh museum in amsterdam on a collection of shoes and apparel inspired by the dutch artist’s masterpieces. the brand and the museum have selected four main bodies of work to be used as themes in the collection, with proceeds dedicated to the preservation of van gogh’s legacy and collection of art.

NASA is on a mission to better understand the complex systems that drive ocean ecology by studying the earth’s seas all the way from space. PACE — short for the plankton, aerosols, cloud, ocean ecosystem mission — will use advanced technologies to measure the diversity of the ocean’s tiny plant-like organisms called phytoplankton to help scientists get a better grip on how climate change is affecting the environment.

 

designboom also featured a harley-davidson 11K, the american company’s first purpose-built v-twin racer, restored to its former glory. the bright orange model is one of harley davidson’s 79 exceedingly rare original racers, with a CV that’s just as colourful.

'earthbox' is a small architecture office in the middle of asunción, paraguay, designed by local studio equipo de arquitectura. the building is made with rammed earth walls, surrounding two trees, and features a vast opening covered with glass. 30-cm thick rammed earth walls hold the weight of the roof, exploiting the structural qualities of this material.

 

elsewhere, international design practice hassell revealed its vision for human habitation on mars, after being listed in NASA’s top 10 for its 3D printing centennial challenge. the approach by hassell and engineers eckersley o’callaghan puts people first — it moves beyond the idea of astronauts as operators, to create a habitat where people can not only survive life on mars but really thrive there.

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