Nail guns can be handy but also bulky and awkward, not to mention: limited by the presence of batteries or electrical outlets. A new tool for the kit comes from product designer Michael David Young: the automatic nail-dispensing hammer.

Strips of nails are loaded into the device, a tap sets the nail in place and readies it to be hammered home, speeding up the process while also reducing the risk of injury.

After years of drawing and testing, explains Young, “I finally got it to work after many many prototypes, got my provisional patent and shipped it around to the big tool companies.” He says major brands have expressed interest in his creation.

Beyond this single application, Young’s process shows the potential for rapid prototyping using digital design tools and 3D printers — versions can be modeled, printed, tested, scrapped and iterated upon in succession all for little upfront cost.

Spinning structures is not new territory, but shifting units around vertically as well as in horizontal circles is a fresh dimension of novelty with a likewise refreshed sense of purpose – to make housing truly fair for everyone, giving each person some time at (and views from) the top.

Every since the elevator shifted the top floors from being least to most desirable in cities, real estate prices have reflected the relative values of these spaces. With this alternative arrangement proposed by designer Shin Kuo, each unit would take turns being on top as well as facing each different direction.

A lot of engineering is required to make such a thing work, from detachable infrastructural connections to prescribed times and safety locks for rotation (please keep limbs inside your home!).

Part of what makes the solution so intriguing is that it conceives of architecture like a product of industrial design – something that can be fundamentally improved upon through rethinking even our most basic assumptions.

Still, at least one big question remains: given the upfront and ongoing costs of making this whole thing work, who will ultimately be able to live in such a structure, which presents itself with such an egalitarian purpose? It may simply be ahead of its time – if more modular modes of plug-and-play dwelling become the norm, such infrastructure may also come to be more commonplaces (and come down in cost).

Sufficiently advanced science has been said to look like magic, like this subterranean cycle storage system – except in this case images and videos give you a peak at the secret workings below the surface.

On the space-starved streets of Tokyo, every bit of spare square footage counts, making the city’s investment in this complex-seeming solution a sensible way to tackle bike storage and theft.

Users simply walk their bike up, input a card or code, and let the machinery do the rest. The bikes are then taken underground, sorted and stored in a cylindrical shaft until needed, then available at a moment’s notice – bikers can be back on their rides faster than a valet at a fancy hotel could bring a car around.

The Eco Cycle Anti-Seismic Underground Bicycle Park was designed and built by the engineers of Giken Seisakusho and can store up to 800 bicycles at a time. Its creators have also developed similar system designs that would work the same way but with cars – while these have yet to be deployed, they promise even more thorough and efficient use of otherwise-wasted underground space. Imagine a (near) future in which we rarely go underground yet all of our vehicles are stored there, just waiting to wind their ways automatically back up to us on demand.

The real wonder is not that it already exists in Japan, however, but that it has not been imported to other countries. There could be issues with water tables in certain cities, but the solution could also potentially be adapted to spaces like abandoned subway stations that already exist in others.

Buildings are forever in tension, being static objects in a dynamic world – light conditions in particular shift predictably yet variably throughout the day, week, season and year, in turn demanding an adaptive response.

Thus the Penumbra system by Tyler Short, “designed to offer a kinetic and mechanical solution to a problem that would otherwise be nearly impossible to solve with static architectural components: providing shading across a building facade for both low evening sun and high afternoon sun conditions.”

The constituent parts can shift side to side while in their vertical orientation, then turn on a proverbial dime to form a horizontal shading solution, all creating a way to deflect (and let in) light while maintaining control over views.

More from the designer: “Our solution was a series of vertical shading louvers, that can independently pivot to maximize solar protection, and when the sun reaches an altitude in which vertical louvers would be ineffective, completely rotate upwards to act as a horizontal shading element and light shelf. All of the mechanical components and gear ratios were fully resolved, and the result is a hand or computer-operated system that creates a beautiful undulating form across the facade.”

Whether the building is a bare-bones warehouse or five-star hotel, demolition is an equally messy business – but perhaps it does not have to be. What if demolition teams could precisely separate the component parts of the concrete forming the walls, floors and ceilings of a structure?

ERO is an award-winning robotic solution that strips concrete on-site and step-by-step, saving time, energy and copious amounts of water (used to reduce airborne particulates) in the deconstruction process. It parses the pieces back into cement, aggregate and water as it goes, literally erasing a building rather than demolishing it.

The robot scans sections and identifies the best ways to break them down into constituent parts for reuse or recycling. This approach switches the literal sledgehammer with a proverbial scalpel – the latter taking the form of a concentrated high-pressure water jet that cracks the concrete and allows it to be more carefully removed.

In the end, the graywater is reused, the particulates turned into aggregate for fresh construction applications and the rebar cleaned and sorted as well. This systematic recycling saves materials not just for future uses but also reduces waste along the way by mitigating the need to actively blanket the building demo site with water and saves time in terms of sorting through the rubble.

From the  2013 International Design Excellence Award (IDEA) awards page: “The challenge with this project was to separate materials concurrent with deconstruction. Concrete is usually reinforced with a metal mesh inside. Common techniques involve using brute force to pulverize the concrete, which creates a mixed mound of waste material that needs to be separated before it can be reused or sold as second-grade metal or as a filling material. In order to overcome later separation and ease the transport of materials, the process had to start with separation on the spot. It was a challenge to switch from brutal pulverizing to smart deconstruction.”