The Architizer blog (via Fast Company) brings us a fascinating exhibit by theater set designer Johanna Mårtensson. To demonstrate the fragility of the man-made world, she constructed a city out of bread and then snapped a photo every day for six months to document the decay (warning: if you haven't eaten breakfast yet you may want to skip the last two photos).
For her efforts, Mårtensson recently won a Platinum A' Design Award. In her submission, she described her inspiration for the project:
"I was inspired by an article about how well the earth would do without us. Within 500 years all buildings would be half-fallen or fallen, perfect homes for animals and plants. The forrest would soon grow in cities. Buildings as well as pollutions would be taken care of by bacterias and micro-organisms. If a UFO came here in a couple of hundred thousand years, they would not see many signs of that gang of primates that once thought they were the lords of the planet."
Check out Mårtensson's decaying city:
Related Stories
| Mar 26, 2013
Will Google Glass revolutionize the construction process?
An Australian architect is exploring the benefits of augmented reality in the design and construction process.
| Mar 24, 2013
World's tallest data center opens in New York
Sabey Data Center Properties last week celebrated the completion of the first phase of an adaptive reuse project that will transform the 32-story Verizon Building in Manhattan into a data center facility. When the project is completed, it will be the world's tallest data center.
| Mar 22, 2013
8 cool cultural projects in the works
A soaring opera center in Hong Kong and a multi-tower music center in Calgary are among the latest cultural projects.
| Mar 22, 2013
Earn $500 as a DOE proposal reviewer
The DOE'S Building Technologies Office this morning put out a call to the AEC industry for expert reviewers for its new energy-efficiency initiative for small commercial buildings, which make up more than 90% of the commercial building stock.
| Mar 21, 2013
Best Firms to Work For: Enermodal Engineering is green to the core
At Enermodal Engineering, there’s only one kind of building—a sustainable one.
| Mar 21, 2013
Are charter schools killing private schools?
A recent post on Atlantic Cities highlights research by the U.S. Census Bureau's Stephanie Ewert that shows a correlation between the growth of charter schools and the decline in private school enrollment.
| Mar 20, 2013
Folding glass walls revitalize student center
Single-glazed storefronts in the student center at California’s West Valley College were replaced with aluminum-framed, thermally broken windows from NanaWall in a bronze finish that emulates the look of the original building.
| Mar 20, 2013
Architecture Billings Index up again in February
The American Institute of Architects reported the February ABI score was 54.9, up slightly from a mark of 54.2 in January. This score reflects a strong increase in demand for design services.
| Mar 18, 2013
Toyo Ito named 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize recipient
Toyo Ito, a 71 year old architect whose architectural practice is based in Tokyo, Japan, will be the recipient of the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
