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.

As any experienced urbanist can tell you, city life is rarely dull and this year has proven no exception – from traffic-topping articles to staff-picked stories, here are WebUrbanist’s must-read highlights of 2013. Skim below and skip ahead as desired, but be sure to click the blue links inline along the way for full article access. Share your favorites with family and friends … and thank you, as always, for reading!

Starting with the world of architectural anomalies of the West, a London skyscraper became a global sensation when its curved glass surface began starting fires in neighboring structures. Many readers were also amazed to discover faux facades hiding everything from train tunnels to power stations in plain sight in cities including New York, Toronto and Paris. Speaking of NYC and secrets, don’t forget this temporary abandoned water tower-turned-speakeasy on a Brooklyn rooftop.

Meanwhile, in the East, we witnessed a Tokyo company add a top-down twist to building demolition in Japan. Nearby China, in turn, presented designs for an incredible car-free city whilst simultaneously making the news for an array of deserted urban endeavors, including a surreal smaller-scale replica of Paris.

In the realm of futurism and fantasy, this year included a Russian space hotel design and artists making floor plans from famous American television shows. But fact can be stranger than fiction, as many commented on how much this dark tower in South Africa resembled the setting of a dystopian film. And in a bid to push urbanism beyond the borders of continents and countries altogether, one entrepreneur floated the idea of an entire high-tech offshore city. In turn, IKEA is also stretching the boundaries of architectural interventions with its portable $1000 flat-pack refugee shelter.

Our ongoing 7 Wonders Series is a long-standing fan favorite and well worth browsing for travelers and urban explorers. Many of these collections showcased abandoned places around the world, including top-secret buildings and underwater wonders; some were classed by broad type, including military, residential, commercial and industrial architecture, while others were organized by region, like Antarctica and New Zealand. Still others were even more specific, including sets of abandoned ski resorts, swimming pools, bookmobiles and unfinished nuclear power plants.

Shifting back to contemporary creations and cutting-edge design, we have seen some great innovations when it comes to modular rooms and convertible furniture, including an apartment where everything its occupant needs is hidden in floors, walls and ceilings. For those with a bit more space (and money) and an eye for luxury, there are also secret in-floor swimming pools that hide right under your feet – perhaps a reasonable place to deploy your fold-up suitcase kayak, too. Almost everyone, it would seem, loves a helpful space-saving design or a mysterious secret room, hidden passage or trap door.

In the arts, we saw everything from invisible-ink graffiti and hyper-realistic artworks to the world’s most-vandalized landmarks and ancient Greek statues turned into modern-day hipsters. In technology, we looked back at idiotic inventions from times past and forward to futuristic materials that actually exist today. And at the increasingly interesting intersection of art and technology, we found graffiti artists tagging low-tech cellophane as well as the most powerful man-made tornado in a museum.

WebUrbanist has managed a few milestones itself this year, with over 10 million visitors in 2013 alone (60 million+ total to date) and over 20,000,000 article views, also breaking a single-day record with nearly 500,000 pages viewed in one 24-hour period this fall. The site has topped 10,000 followers on Twitter and is nearing 50,000 fans on Facebook; those with a preference for  Google+ can now add WebUrbanist to your circles there as well. We are (as always) working on some new directions and innovations of our own, with more surprises to come in the new year. Meanwhile, it may sound cliche but it bears repeating: you readers, fans and friends of the site who share our articles and support our team … you make all of this possible, and you have our sincerest thanks and best wishes for 2014.

Five years ago, who would have thought that what started as an offbeat visual culture weblog would turn into a full-fledged (but still and always free) cosmopolitan online magazine? After just half of a decade, WebUrbanist now has over five hundred thousand feed and email subscribers, not to mention over a million monthly visitors.

The constant curiosity of authors (including Delana, Marc, Stephanie and Steve,, with Kurt as executive editor) and ongoing diligence of developers (Jeff and Mike) has been crucial, of course. Still, at the end of the day, it would all come to nothing without you, the readers, RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and Pinterest friends supporting these efforts. Your ongoing help sharing our stories with friends via email, blog posts, StumbleUpon and Reddit has been essential in building WebUrbanist’s audience and is much appreciated.

Much has happened over this long-yet-short period of time, including multiple major redesigns of the publication, from the underlying code to numerous iterations its layout and logo. We hope this ongoing evolution seems fitting, though, since the core topics we cover – architecture, art, design, travel and technology – all revolve around creative exploration, iteration and (re)invention.

For anyone new to the site – or at least its latest redesign – we recently re-categorized every single article in the archives. Each individual past post can now be found under exactly one of five main sections (per the paragraph above) as well as one of twenty-five subcategories , linked in various ways on every page, including via a new drop-down menu on the sidebar. We hope this helps make the ever-larger annals more accessible to new and existing readers alike. Thanks again for your patronage – now onto the next five years!

New Zealand native Linda Radosinska takes her photography to the streets in Exit Through the Thrift Shop, a stunning series of Banksy-inspired images. Carefully staged in parks, stores, alleys and more, these shots add depth and dimension to the work of that most infamous of English graffiti artists. Linda reflects on this project and what comes next in the following interview with WebUrbanist:

1) What was your moment of inspiration for this project?

It was around October of 2010 and I had been trying to think of an idea for a new project for a few weeks. I went out walking one day and I remember wondering to myself what it would look like if I brought a few of Banksy’s stencils to life with real people and things. Over the course of the next few months, it just sort of grew from there.

2) As a photographer, what was it about this project that was engaging enough to put great time and effort into staging each shot?

Being such a big fan of Banksy’s work, I was really excited and inspired by whole idea of it; the images I could see in my head were the most exciting part for me, I sort of used that as a goal post to work towards and it really challenged me to do my best. I also felt like I had a responsibility to treat his work respectfully instead of just hacking together uninspired photos of people in costumes, so that really pushed me both technically and creatively to try my hardest and produce these images to the highest standard that I could.

3) Do you feel like doing this project has enhanced your understanding of Banksy’s work, and if so: how?

I’m not sure if it’s enhanced my understanding of Banksy’s work, but it has certainly given me an even greater appreciation of his skills as an artist. His ability to create powerful images that comment on complex issues with nothing more than a can of spray paint and bit of cardboard is pretty amazing if you really stop to think about it.

4) Banksy calls you with verification he is who he claims to be. What one question do you ask him?

I would ask if I could see something he’s working on at the moment, I’ve never seen a real Banksy piece in the flesh before, so that would be pretty special for me. I’d also tell him I was a huge fan of his work and thank him for creating so many amazing pieces for us all to enjoy.

5) Banksy shows up the night before your solo show, breaks in and creatively alters your work inside the gallery and how would you feel about it?

I would be really excited about it … unless it was like what he did to Paris Hilton’s album cover.

6) The subject of this project is raw, untamed, site-specific graffiti – your mode of capturing it could be considered in contrast: controlled, framed, and location-independent. Did this occur to you in the process and, if so, do you have any thoughts on the differences between your work and your subject matter, or the relationship of street art and photography in general?

I don’t know if I would consider Banksy’s pieces to be raw and untamed; a great deal of thought has been put into the concept for each piece and its execution, right down to the realistic lighting and shadows. You could probably say that brainless tagging is raw and untamed, but Banksy’s work feels careful and deliberate, he does colour within the lines after all. So, in that respect I don’t feel like the process of creating street art of this nature is very different to the way that I approached photographing this particular project.

7) What are you working on now (or: are you planning to work on soon), and to what extent has this project reshaped your approach to photography in general (or choice of subjects specifically)?

My next project is going to be completely different to this one; I will be shooting a story, which I am in the process of writing at the moment, and it will be presented as a book when it is complete. I’ll probably have another small exhibition when it’s all finished, just to introduce people to the work and display a few of the final images. It’s going to give me the chance to get some more landscape photography back into my work, and try some new things. Unfortunately, I will need to do some fundraising before I can start shooting anything though, because it’s probably going to cost me quite a bit to produce.

The ‘Exit’ project has had a pretty significant effect on my photography; not only has it made me a better photographer and retoucher, but it has made me strive to say more with my images. It’s shown me that your best work comes when you really stretch yourself to try and create work that challenges and inspires you. It’s kind of blown the lid off any limits I had of what I thought I could do with photography.

Visit Linda’s website for more of her wonderful work from this series and to watch for future updates!

(Above Designs, Clockwise from Upper Left via:  Pinoy Athena, iKnod, Mukhtar & Bloc)

Much of what we feature on WebUrbanist is the culmination of an artistic or designer process, but it is worth seeing that sometimes pieces of the process itself is as creative, compelling and eye-catching  as the final product. Webist Publishing (WebUrbanist & WebEcoist) is currently engaged in a remarkable design contest, of which the end result will be brand new logos for both sites!

As exciting as this is, the various submissions to 99designs (like the simple-but-evolved series of designs by sixsixsix above) are equally or more so – they show an extremely impressive range of unique logo design work – even if only one can win in the end. See some of the best below and if you like their work, remember: you too can run a 99designs competition for a logo or other designer needs (and crowd-sourcing is so chic!).

One approach has been to create a separate-but-integrated iconography – identity through a symbol that is either directly or indirectly tied into the text of the design. In some instances, the more graphic-oriented portions are similar in scale and tone but different in color, details and other features while being similar in overall font and style – straight versus curved, rectilinear versus circular and so forth. The first pair above was produced by jminig and the second set was created by bobot.

The kinds of designs discussed in the previous paragraph raise an important core question about iconography, symbols and text. Some designers tackled potential approaches head on with variants of each type – such as the above design sets by adbas in which the more graphic portions are either explicitly isolated or entirely integrated as letters.

Some ideas showed a particularly artistic approach, combined with a creative use of negative space. While they may be a bit too casual in some cases for these particular sites, they illustrate a great variety of design personalities in practice. In order, the above were designed by DemonAce, Pistacho and Asiku.

One of the most ingenious proposals using negative space (as well as positive) has been presented in two forms by KingFelix – a more horizontal continuous-text version and a stacked-on-top variant. One of the neatest aspects of this particular design is the way it uses similar overall strategies but differing details to define the logos through similarity as well as difference.

There are many ways that designs can evolve over time, as some of the aforementioned designs have already illustrated. In some cases, the process is not necessarily linear from ‘worse’ to ‘better’ per say – meaning: both the first and final product can be engaging in different ways, sometimes through simplicity on the one side and complexity on the other. JawsofSteel created these in sequence, but each is worthy of praise in its own right.

Last but certainly not least is the work of Marius Jivoin – the same talented individual who created the unique logo design you see on Gaijtz. His work manages to be a great combination of creative and professional – it is not overly artsy, but is also not stuck in the overly-corporate mode typical of many logo designers (who are, to be fair, used to working on more corporate projects).