Initial plans to develop a lane-spanning bus in China were met with great enthusiasm but some skepticism, the latter of which is now being addressed via a real-life, full-sized prototype.

The idea is simple: a bus that arches over traffic is neither hinders nor is hindered by other vehicles on the road. Its mass and reduced need to start and stop also make the bus more sustainable than most transit options in terms of energy efficiency as well.

The mega-vehicle is spacious and vast, 72 feet long, 25 feet wide and 16 feet tall. With seven feet of clearance, leaves plenty of room below for ordinary road vehicles.

The bus runs on specialized tracks on either side of two-lane traffic roadways and can carry up to 300 passengers at top speeds of up to 60 miles per hour.

Since the concept has been demonstrated, countries including Brazil, France, India and Indonesia have expressed interest in the TEB-1 system, hoping to deploy it on their own congested urban roadways.

A new space hotel room will be the first addition to the International Space Station in years, part of a test to see whether inflatable rooms can serve as more compact and space architecture on demand, unlike rigid frame space hotel concepts.

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) developed by an aerospace company in Las Vegas is comprised primarily of a light and flexible fabric that unfolds when inflated, creating a bubble-shaped room. The eventual plan: use this as a prototype for space tourism, creating housing when and where it is needed both attached to and beyond the ISS.

Launched into orbit with help from SpaceX, the module is lighter and more compact, thus more cost- and fuel-efficient to ship, and, when not in use: it can also fold back down for storage. A testing period over the next few years will help researching astronauts evaluate its performance, including its ability to withstand micro-meteoroid impacts, radiation and temperature fluctuations.

A clever team of architects in Oslo, Norway, mocks up full-size blueprints using a shared flat concrete courtyard behind their office, allowing colleagues and clients alike to test-drive designs in person during the schematic and design development process.

Vardehaugen Arkitekter has used white tape to draft everything from houses and cabins to offices and pavilions, sharing the results on Instagram with enthusiastic fans and followers.

Like their architecture in general, the white-on-dark drawings are minimalist (in terms of designs and colors) but effective, using standard blueprinting conventions legible to professionals and laypeople alike.

The movie Dogville comes to mind, its props simple and its rooms mapped out on the floor, defined by invisible walls and doors left largely to the viewer’s imagination and extrapolation of a basic barebones blueprint.

If you have ever wondered how and where the Department Homeland Security evaluates drones for real-world applications, this Freedom of Information Act request reveals some of the secrets behind the operations taking place at one of these rather mysterious locations. Not to be confused with its video game namesake, tracing back to Grand Theft Auto’s own digital Liberty City, this real-world test site is fascinating to learn about remotely but not somewhere you want to have an actual vehicular adventure.

For years, the government has been testing drones for everything from monitoring infrastructure and special events to patrolling harbors and supporting first responders. Run by Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS), Liberty City and sites like it let local, regional and national governments deploy different models of drone and decide which best suit their needs. Like Gravesend in the UK (pictured above), officers and troops are also called in on the ground to interact in these remarkably complete but staged environments.

Variegated urban terrains help those overseeing the tests determine a drone’s ability to identify key objects and individuals in the built environment, distinguish assailants and perpetrators in complex situations and track persons through challenging architectural landscapes. Simulations revolve around everything from ordinary robberies to hostage situations and terrorist attacks. The goal, ultimately, is to figure out what (completely or partially) autonomous vehicle technologies will work both generally and around specific purposes, for applications ranging from emergency search-and-rescue to broader everyday surveillance. While the work they are doing in these places is not classified as such, it is still highly secretive and much of it still remains undisclosed after years of inquiry.

Submitted via MuckRock, the FOIA request behind the details featured here sheds light on the reasons and methods behind these processes and places. Per Shawn Musgrave, “The broad objective of RAPS is to determine whether drones can play a practical role in a broad range of public safety deployments. Such applications include law enforcement, firefighting, disaster response, and search-and-rescue. The RAPS testing program evaluates each drone model for ease of operation, durability and performance in simulated scenarios. Reviewers compile their findings into a database for first responders nationwide to use when weighing a drone purchase.”