Fields of floating paper hiraganas hang to create colorful screens and passageways in this spectacular work of installation art. Designed by Emmanuelle Moureaux, it is part of a larger 100 Colors series exploring a whole spectrum of intimate and thoughtful spaces.

The opening of the exhibit coincided with Tanabata Day, a Japanese star festival during which people traditionally write down their hopes and dreams on pieces of paper then suspend these from bamboo branches.

The result is a peaceful place made up over of 140,00 paper cutouts, draped from the ceiling to create rainbow passages and aligned to create opportunities for connection as well as isolation throughout the artwork. From some perspectives, the entire spectrum is visible, while in other places, a single color dominates.

A proud chapter in the story of American industry came to a close when an abandoned paper mill in Richmond, VA was re-purposed into loft-style apartments.

Richmond, a city of approximately a quarter-million, is the state capitol of Virginia and the former capitol of the Confederate States of America. Founded in 1737, Richmond has long been a center of economic activity though some of its more traditional industrial pursuits – railroads and tobacco processing, for example – have largely given way to post-industrial profit hubs in the legal, financial and governmental sectors.

Pulp Friction

In 1880, the world’s first cigarette-rolling machine was invented roughly 200 miles west, in Roanoke. One might surmise that this abandoned paper mill, photographed by Joel Handwerk of Lithium Photo, produced rolling paper for the local tobacco firms. Smoke ’em if you got ’em!

That’s just an educated guess, mind you. As the photographer paid a visit to the site long after the mill’s machinery had been removed, actual day-to-day functions at the factory are no longer obvious.

Hard Cover Story

Still, it’s hard to disguise a paper mill. “The overall structures have a layout that is consistent with the manufacturing purpose,” confirms Handwerk, who fortuitously chose to carry out his mission of urbex photo-documentation on a bright, sunny day.

“The upper floors are wide open and feature yellow safety pillars and painted-over window panes,” the photographer adds. Enough natural light does manage to get through, however, while the blacked-out windows provide contrasting shadows and dark backgrounds. Handwerk’s images explode off the monitor screen in a dramatically detailed succession of interior scenic vistas.

The Paper Choice

“The basement level provides access to an area that feels somewhat like catacombs,” mused Handwerk, who presumably escaped the aged structure well before twilight fell  and the graveyard shift punched in. A wise move, to be sure – abandoned buildings hide a host of dangers at any hour of the day or night, and it’s not as if anyone’s overseeing what you step onto, into, or off of.

Other hazards urbex hobbyists need to be cognizant of include slick oily floors, rotted wood staircases, loose or missing railings, exposed nails, toxic black mold, unremediated asbestos, and corrosive spilled and/or leaking chemicals just to name a few. Some of those hazards were less obtrusive when Handwerk conducted his photo shoot as the former factory had already been extensively gutted.

Bound and Determined

Kudos to Handwerk for not revealing the building’s name and exact location in Richmond. Sure, graffiti has its place as both an art form and as a valid means of cultural expression but time and time again, graffiti is accompanied by pointless vandalism and destructive metal salvaging. The damage can’t always be attributed to the graffiti artists directly but all too often it occurs in conjunction with their activities.

“This structure is currently being renovated into apartments,” according to Handwerk, quoted from the time he took and posted these images. Residential loft-style apartments now occupy the renovated remains of this former paper mill.

Book Marked

One clue to the former mill’s identity can be found at the Facebook account of The Paper Company Apartments, located on Hull St in Richmond’s Old Town Manchester district. Check out the brickwork in Handwerk’s photo above, and the wall depicted on the front page of Property Results LLC‘s website for The Paper Company Apartments below.

Note the presence of occasional pale blue and orange-tinted bricks common to both images. Coincidence? Perhaps – or perhaps not. In any case, it’s good to see this rough old relic of industrial Richmond make a successful leap from economic engine to residential retreat, hopefully inspiring further efforts at industrial rehabilitation. And that’s a wrap. (all images © 2017 Joel Handwerk)

These ordinary looking stacks of square paper notes hold hidden surprises inside: each removed sheet reveals more and more of a secret Japanese structure, completely visible once all the pages are pulled.

The Omoshiro (roughly: “fun”) Block uses laser-cutting tech to craft the initial deck with its internal architecture. It is made by Triad, a firm in Japan that mainly makes professional architectural models for design firms.

In tihs case, they have replicated a series of classic buildings from around the country, including the  Kiyomizudera Temple in Kyoto and Asakusa Temple in Tokyo as well as the Tokyo Tower skyscraper.

Each block has 100 sheets or more, each uniquely shaped around the void to create the buildings within — in a way, they catalog their own order of usage, each edge profile reflecting the moment it was pulled. Subtly morphing hues between each layer reinforce the effect.

Currently, the blocks can only be bought in-store at Tokyu Hands in Osaka, along with other excavation-themed products and creations (like the book temple shown above).

In a culture without tipping, one Japanese waiter began to realize that customers were expressing their gratitude in a subtle (and in some cases even unintentional) way, by folding the sleeves in which their chopsticks came wrapped.

In 2012, Yuki Tatsumi began to collect these into a set he would come to display and call Japanese Tip. He started at the establishment in which he worked, then branched out to other restaurants around Japan to gather over 10,000 examples of all kinds.

Finally, half a decade later, he staged an exhibition of his collection in Tokyo. The variety is remarkable, from complex origami-style works to shredded and otherwise deformed sleeves.

The results show various degrees of conscious and subconscious effort by patrons. Meanwhile, the variety of materials, colors and designs from different sleeves also lends complexity to the collection.

“Japanese Tip is a project between restaurants and customers,” says Tatsumi of the project, “to communicate the ‘appreciation for food’ and ‘appreciation of the service’ by using the most common material used at any Japanese restaurant.

The built environment becomes the backdrop from all kinds of imaginative (if improbable) scenes when this London photographer adds a single layer to each of his images: a black piece of cut paper.

Rich McCor, also known as “paperboyo,” transforms landmark architecture and urban design elements, sometimes turning them into other structures (like roller coasters) or something else entirely (the fire under a rocket ship).

These interventions often transform the scale of their subjects, reducing them for human use as, say, a stand for a telescope or a prop for a gymnast.

In each frame, the hand also adds another dimension, for a net effect of three different scales — the background, cutout and photographer.

More broadly, these images suggest work our own imagination can do while traveling — patterns that can be revealed by squinting our eyes and thinking just a bit outside the box about familiar structures.

Fans can follow McCor’s adventures in Around the World in Cut-Outs.