Monday, July 15, 2013

The Last House on Holland Island

Holland Island is located in the Chesapeake Bay in Holland Strait, between Bloodsworth Island and Smith Island, six miles west of Wenona, Maryland. The island was once about five miles long and one and a half miles wide, and inhabited by watermen and farmers in a thriving fishing community. But over the decades, rising Bay waters and natural sinking of the land ate away at the island until it was nothing but a blotch of land in the sea. The last house on Holland Island stood defiantly for over century until its collapse in October 2010.


Holland Island was originally settled in the 1600s, taking its name from the first owner of the property Daniel Holland. By 1850, the first community of fishing and farming families developed on the island. By 1910, the island had about 360 residents, making it one of the largest inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. At its peak, the island had 70 homes, several stores, a post office, two-room school with two teachers, a church, and a community center. It had its own baseball team and a doctor. The islanders supported themselves mainly by dredging for oysters, fishing for shad and crabbing. Their fleet of workboats included 41 skipjacks, 10 schooners and 36 bugeyes, some of which were built on the island.


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The last house on Holland Island in October 2009.


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Alex Lashkevich - Arte

Recojo una muestra de las obras de este artista "Alex Lashkevich", si te gustan y quieres ver más pásate por una recopilación en pinterest.














Waverley Residence by Anderson Architecture

Anderson Architecture have completed a family home in Waverley, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.


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From the architects



A run down weatherboard house in Waverley, with a large neighbour immediately to the north, seems an unlikely starting point for contemporary family home featuring exemplar environmental credentials. This however was the brief from the clients who requested a warm and modern 4 bedroom house with a strong connection to the outdoors and minimal reliance on artificial heating, cooling and lighting.


The project was conceived from the outset with sustainability at the core of the design, despite site restrictions which encouraged creative solutions to meet performance goals. Natural materials and finishes feature extensively to balance and harmonise with the technical and mineral elements required by contemporary standards for a completely modern and integrated sustainable design outcome.


Extensive computer modelling was used to confirm principles and develop the passive solar design, resulting in an 8 star certification. This modelling highlighted the limitations imposed by a 3 storey northern neighbour on passive solar potential, and led to a C-Bus controlled active design, featuring operable shading, ventilation, day-lighting and heating/cooling elements regulated by numerous internal and external temperature, rain, light and wind sensors.


A holistic approach integrated elements such as external shading, operable roof, thermal mass/structural walls, exposed concrete floor, natural materials and shade planting into the overall design concept resulting in many items performing multiple tasks to further reduce total material consumption while reinforcing design principles.


Rainwater storage, onsite stormwater detention and near complete site permeability greatly reduced the properties impact on the natural hydrological cycle while supplying the house with much of its water needs. Self sufficiency is enhanced with an inbuilt capacity for grid connected solar PV array and a solar water heating system for domestic water supply and hydronic floor heating.


The end result showcases innovative uses of materials, products and technologies to meet an ambitious design brief and provide an exemplary sustainable residential dwelling, built using a philosophy of passive and active design theory which borrows heavily from both traditional and contemporary technological principles, expanding the potential of existing sites and the future of sustainability in residential architecture.



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Architecture: Anderson Architecture

Photography: Nick Bowers


Tower of Wind in Tokyo

Located just to the southeast of Tokyo's Haneda airport, in the middle of the ocean, is a rather interesting structure. Referred to as the “Tower of Wind” of “Kaze no to” in local language, it consist of a dazzling white circular base with two blue and white stripped oval shaped structures, that look like two sails from the distance.


A surprisingly large number of blogs and online discussion boards believed the structure to be some secret government lair. The truth, however, is very mundane – it is just a ventilation shaft for the Tokyo Bay Aqualine – an undersea tunnel that lies approximately 40 meters below. Tokyo Bay Aqualine is the fourth-longest underwater, 9.6 kilometers long that runs from Yokohama to Chiba under the Tokyo Bay. The tunnel took 31 years to build, cost 11.2 billion dollars, and shaves some 100km off the round the Bay trip to Chiba.


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The attractive monolith houses the tunnel’s intake and exhaust ventilation system and also marks the midway point of the undersea tunnel. Photo credit


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Jay-Z’s 99 Problems Illustrated (44 pics)