Set in a traditional Beijing hutong, this cozy futuristic house has a shape-changing layout and employs construction techniques available for download on WikiHouse, an open-source architecture platform.

Dot Architects developed the Baitasi House to accommodate the changing roles of living spaces, which many now also use as home offices, as well as the spatial limitations of urban housing. Per the designers, “the boundary between home and society is blurred by the rise of the sharing economy, nomad workers and technology.”

Though there is some outdoor space as well, the footprint of the home itself is just over 300 feet, making it tiny even by most city-dwelling standards. The existing structure was stripped of its sagging roof and interior partitions then retrofitted with a modular system of moving walls and folding furniture.

Beds fold up and partition units set on tracks can be moved around to create bedrooms and work spaces. Other smart controls let users manipulate lighting, curtains and appliances.

Despite all this technology, the place remains warm and inviting — it has a Modern look but not the coldness that can come with high-tech aesthetics. The more futuristic-looking extension, though, is materially differentiated with the original wood structure.

Templates from the open-source WikiHouse system were downloaded to help fabricate slotted wood components using computer-driven milling machines. This allowed the architects to keep costs down, save on construction speed and reduce noise from conventional on-site assembly.

In the end, the house manages to look contemporary but also to fit into the historic character, winding alleys and quiet life of an old hutong.

“Compared to many futuristic designs, this tiny house is nothing close to futuristic at first look,” say the architects, but “its humble appearance” conceals a “user-adaptive interior [that] may reflect something about the future in the ancient capital.

When the architect of this remarkable remodel was hired to create a new home for his clients, a derelict building on the site caught his eye and turned out to be the focal point of a marvelous design project.

Estudio Castillo Oli (images by Angel Baltanas) balances old and new in this hybrid project, inserting a contemporary dwelling into a stone-and-brick shell on the site.

Part of the existing structural remnants were retrofit with modern windows and a roof to create interior spaces for the home while the rest were left up as a kind of fence for a semi-private exterior courtyard.

New ceramic tiles and timber framing matches the existing context while steel and glass add a modern touch. A glass wall between inside and outside spaces reduces the sense of separation between them.

Inside, new walls are pulled back from window openings to reveal the old structure. Glass and trim likewise give space to old openings, preserving what was there. The net result is a gorgeous, rich and complex mixture of aged elements and new, creating something with a sense of time but also fit for modern living.

Take your pick between a pair of once-abandoned silos: one lets you explore nearly 100 vertical feet of underwater space with hidden caverns, while the other suspends you in virtual free fall, riding air currents in a cylindrical wind tunnel.

While those two primary volumes form the core experience of this conversion project, a series of shipping containers (stacked ten stories high) surrounding these structures will provide support and circulation spaces. Warsaw studio Moko Architects aims to start construction in just over one year on this ambitious project, set in the city’s industrial district.

The modified cargo containers additions are designed to contain offices, shops, a cafe and hostel as well training rooms or sports outfitters for visitors. These stacked  attachments will be form a dynamic array and be connected via staircases spanning between the central cylinders. As they slip past one another in space, outdoors decks are formed organically as well on various roof levels within the vertical design configuration.

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Many works of amazing literary art have been printed on typewriters in times past, but this re-purposing concept takes an old machine beyond words and into the realm of colorful painting.

Tyree Callahan has recycled* (or upcycled, perhaps) a classic 1937 Underwood typewriter by replacing letters with sponges soaked across the spectrum with bright yellows, reds, blues and combinations thereof.

Based in the Seattle area of Washington, the artist writes of his environs: “I’m constantly amazed at the play of light through our moist air and over the varied landscape of the Pacific Northwest. I especially enjoy early morning light–that short interval of time just before the last of the fog burns off–and evening light, especially on humid evenings, when the atmosphere itself is aglow with evening’s hues. We live in an environment that can produce both vivid and somber landscapes, often both within an hour’s time.”

There is something so satisfying about the click-clack sounds of a traditional typewriter, translating the mechanical motions of your fingers into physical results on the page in front of you – but imagine making those impressions in vivid colors instead of black on white. Sounds relaxing, hopefully literally. (Editor’s Note: after a resurgence of traffic to this piece, a reader has just written in to inform us that this is a conceptual prototype and not a working model; the artist initially left this fact ambiguous as part of the project. We have chosen to leave the surprise until the end in the interest of preserving the artistic intent. Also: his chromatic works are nonetheless impressive, though, and a functional version is feasible, regardless, so we hope you have enjoyed this as a pre-proof of concept and multi-layered project!).