For over a decade, WebUrbanist has featured a wide range of innovative and inspiring urban art and design projects from around the world. The website has attracted more than 500,000 subscribers and been visited over 100,000,000 times since it was launched in 2007. And while WU will remain online, we are not currently planning to publish new pieces going forward. We greatly appreciate your readership and hope you will continue to explore the site and enjoy the thousands of articles in its archives.

The main page of WebUrbanist features a curated series of resource-rich articles covering some of the site’s most popular and timeless themes — these are intended to be a jumping-off point for diving deeper into topics of interest. Or seek out specific subjects like adaptive reuse, vertical farming, cargo container architecture and space-saving design using the search box.

Kurt Kohlstedt, the founder of WebUrbanist, is currently focused on his work as a writer, editor and digital director at 99% Invisible, a radio show and website about design. With over 500,000,000 downloads to date, 99pi is one of the most popular podcasts in the world. These media projects have a lot in common, so fans of WU are encouraged to check out more articles on 99pi and subscribe to the show.

Kurt was a big fan of 99pi long before joining the show in 2015 and has since become a regular voice on the podcast. He has gone on tour with the show, given talks and participated in panels on subjects ranging from how the invention of Kindergarten fundamentally shaped Modern art and design to the improbable rise of tree-covered skyscrapers.

In 2020, currently co-authored a National Bestselling book with 99pi host Roman Mars: The 99% Invisible City:A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design. You can also follow Kurt for semi-regular tweets about design, cities, urbanism and synanthropes.  From the start, WebUrbanist was about making urban architecture, art and design more accessible and engaging to all kinds of people. As you continue to explore the world around you: stay curious, fellow urbanists.

Classical meets modern in a surreal mashup splashed all over the walls of the Thomas cafe in the Netherlands, the work of a duo of artists known as Studio Giftig. Highly in demand for their colorful, oversized works of art, Niels van Swaemen and Káspar van Leek were invited to transform the kind of space most muralists only dream of working in, wrapping their imagery around baroque molding and up onto the ceiling.

Entitled “A Surreal Perception,” the monumental piece pairs black and white portraits of stone statues with floating whales, neon sunglasses, crowned monkeys riding cranes and more, all set on a pale pink backdrop. Much of the work was completed using spray cans, which helped them get into the nooks and crannies of the molding.

The result is a bar, restaurant and event space that’s truly unforgettable. You can check out more images of these vivid interiors at the Thomas’ Facebook page, and follow Studio Giftig’s latest works on Instagram.

Acquiring a KFC franchise doesn’t appear to be that difficult. Appearances may deceive, however, as do these dozen absolutely unauthorized KFC wannabes.

OFC: Change We Can’t Believe In

(images via: The China Times, CoCoas.net and ViralSlam)

Tea Party types might have stuck with KFC (Kenya Fried Chicken) but the Chinese student-entrepreneurs behind OFC were less concerned with birth certificates, not to mention other legalities. Located near Beijing Aerospace City College, OFC sought to trump a mere Kentucky Colonel by evoking the head honcho, the Commander in Chief, the Big O himself. Speaking of legal issues, it seems KFC won a small victory by forcing the shop to change its name to UFO. Yeah, that really helped.

Kennedy Fried Chicken: KFC + JFK

(images via: Jessica Port, Deephouse Page and Jason Klamm)

From one president to another, it’s a coop d’etat! Kennedy Fried Chicken was founded in 1975 by Afghan immigrant Taeb Zia, who named his restaurant after JFK “because Afghans are fond of the former president.” The first store opened in New York City’s Flatbush neighborhood and these days most of the roughly 1,000 outlets are owned by Afghan-Americans. Kennedy Fried Chicken‘s unusually loose control over its franchisees has occasionally brought the chain into conflict with KFC, usually when the owners paint their stores with red & white paint and employ “KFC” on their signage.

FCK’n Good Chicken!

Located in Haiyuan, north-central China’s Ningxia province, FCK “Tea and Hamburger” means no offense in their ongoing effort to serve Fried Chicken Kentucky-style, along with tea and hamburgers (also presumably Kentucky-style). Full props to English teacher Alison Lentz for discovering the joy of FCK and photo-documenting its graffiti-scarred existence on her blog.

SFC: “Exclusive To Iceland”

(image via: MaltaSupermarket)

“I gave my love a bucket, that had no bones…” There ain’t nowhere you can hide when a peeved Colonel’s on your tail, and that includes Iceland (the nation or the British supermarket). SFC‘s Take Home Boneless Bucket above doesn’t display a Viking-ized version of Harlan Sanders, which is unfortunate, because that would be awesome! It does allude to KFC via the branding copy, however, offering buyers “Original pieces of Tasty reformed Succulent Crispy Chicken… coated with a Southern Fried style coating made to Our Secret Recipe of Herbs & Spices”. Tasty reformed chicken, huh? Sounds scrumptious.

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Kickin The Bucket 12 Outrageous Fake Kfc Restaurants

If you thought the grainy satellite images of naked sunbathers from Google Earth were a borderline invasion of privacy, Google Street View takes things to a whole new level. This remarkable feature allows users to take virtual 360-degree panaromic walk-through tours of a city – starting with San Francisco, of course. However, it has already captured people in a number of compromising situations, from scantily-clad sunbathers and unfortunate individuals going into and out of sex stores to apparent home break-ins.

On one level, this tool is obviously nifty. You could easy imagine wandering the virtual streets of San Francisco for hours. Still, your attitude might change pretty quickly if the scary-looking Google Street View Van caught you with your pants down (yes, literally – but the image has been taken down) or embarrassed others we knew. Already someone is asking Google to take down an image of her house cat – if Google complies, what could it mean but the end of this tool?

Meanwhile, you can vote on a continually-updated collection of the hottest, strangest and silliest Google Street View shots. Wired has set up a Digg/Reddit-like system for users to submit and rate the best images. If that doesn’t bring out any number of complaints from unintentional ‘Street View community members’ it’s hard to say what will! Meanwhile, here is their goofy tutorial for those of you who haven’t started exploring Google Street View yet.