Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

I Didn’t Know Garage Doors Could Be This Cool

San Francisco, as everyone who lives there knows, is a city desperate for more space. But making due with a small lot can sometimes lead to amazing things—like this 1,900-square-foot home designed by Craig Steely. The one-year-old house is built atop a 24 foot by 24 foot concrete garage, perched above San Francisco’s Dolores Park.…

Quirky’s New A/C Unit Smartens Up Your Dumbest Energy Hog

This is Aros, a Wi-Fi connected air conditioner aimed at energy-conscious consumers that Quirky and GE are launching today. It’s by far the biggest and most complicated product that Quirky has ever built, and it aims to help solve truly endemic problem: The window a/c unit, which has remained pretty much unchanged since the 1970s.…

How NYC’s Newest Neighborhood Will Float Above an Active Train Yard

In Manhattan this spring, crews are ramping up work on Hudson Yards, the largest private development in US history. But what’s fascinating about this new mega-development aren’t just its buildings. It’s the fact that they will float above an existing train depot on a massive artificial foundation. We got an early look at how it’s…

Apple Just Patented a System That Could Put Siri In Charge of Your Home

While we were all focused on sensors that fit on our wrists, Apple was quietly winning 38 patents for a system of sensors as big as a house. The patents describe a system that would let Siri do her job throughout your home, from reminding you to take your meds to turning out your lights.…

China’s Ambitious Plan to Move 100 Million People From Farms to Cities

This week, Chinese authorities published the results of a long-delayed blueprint for how it will grow its cities—and its economy—by 2020. The plan is sweeping, ambitious, and dense, and it gives us a glimpse of China’s future. The crux of the plan? Move 100 million people—mainly, rural farmers—into cities by 2020. To accommodate them, China…

Japanese architect Shigeru Ban is taking a very, uh, literal approach to his $23.5 million Mount Fuji World Heritage Center. The building’s wooden lattice is designed to look like the volcano’s inverse—reflecting its silhouette in pool that will surround the building when it’s finished in 2016. [DesignBoom]

These 10,000-Year-Old Instruments Are Playing Their First Modern Gig

Roughly ten millennia ago, musicians didn’t lug amps or guitars around to their shows—they lugged lithophones, or instruments made of resonant rocks. The oldest lithophones ever found will be played in their first public concert next week in Paris. Sadly, it’ll also be their last. The stone instruments, which date from between 2500 and 8000…

How the Persian Gulf Is Quietly Building a Railroad Empire

Here in the U.S., the arrival of a new tunnel boring machine is huge news, warranting naming ceremonies and Twitter accounts. Meanwhile, in Doha, officials have quietly signed a contract to buy fifteen boring machines to build a sprawling new subway system. And that’s nothing compared to the massive transit network being built to connect…

Inside the Homes That 11 Great Architects Designed For Themselves

Building a home for yourself could either be a nightmare or a dream: You have free reign, but you also must live with your mistakes or second-guesses forever. That hasn’t stopped many architects from overseeing the designs of their own spaces—and lucky for us, sometimes they let photographers inside. The public has long been fascinated…

The Saga of NiceBooby.Net and NBC’s Hilarious Shadow-URL Empire

Maybe one night, as you scuttled darkly across the fringes of the internet, you came across a site like CocoaJuggs.net. Or LuvInaBarnyard.org. Maybe even PrisonMate.net. But when you clicked, you were met not with the lurid promises of the URL, but rather by the smiling faces of SNL cast members. Had you discovered a wormhole…

The 1960s NYC Guidebook That the Czech Secret Police Almost Destroyed

Back in 1963, two Czech travelers drew an incredible illustrated guidebook based on their first trip to Mad Men-era New York City. Soon after, the Czech police destroyed every last copy, and the book was lost forever. Or so they thought. The Guggenheim, Times Square, Eero Saarinen’s WTA terminal: Zdenek Mahler and Vladimir Fuka drew…

Distract Yourself From Winter With the Most Amazing Pools on Earth

As winter tightens its cold, brittle fingers around our hearts one last time, Sploid has taken to meditating on incredible pools as a means of survival. Below, find some of the most luxurious, elegant, and downright outlandish designs around.

Architect Repays Fickle Utah Customers With Anonymous Concrete Bunker

Are you happy now, Park City? After a planned addition to the Kimball Art Center sparked public outrage over the design—an awesome, spiraling log cabin from space—the architects behind the proposal, Bjarke Ingels Group, have unveiled an austere new design. BIG’s original design for the addition was chosen by museum administrators all the way back…

California Salmon Will Get a Free Ride to the Ocean—In Tanker Trucks

If the salmon won’t come to the ocean, then the ocean will come to the salmon. Well, not quite: Tanker trucks will take them there. Such are the extreme measures in California this spring, as drought forces major salmon hatcheries to funnel their fish into tanker trucks and ride them straight to the Pacific. The…

Can You Guess the Internet’s Most Popular Sites Without Text or Images?

Would you know Reddit or Twitter if you were only looking at their layouts? You might not think so—but you’d be surprised how well you know the structure of your most-used sites. Now, you can take a test to find out. Dedesign the Web is a fun lil’ quiz built by Chicago digital design outfit…

The UN’s Map of Drone Strikes Was Built By Architects

It’s rare to see architects working on security and human rights issues—but that’s exactly what’s happening right now, as a group of designers collaborate with the UN to document drone strikes in the Middle East. Think of it as forensic architecture. In fact, that’s the name of one group behind a new report put out…

An Early Look at Ikea’s Light, Cheap, and Portable 2014 Collection

Ikea is already the gold standard for furniture that moves well, but this year its designers are pushing the art of nomadism even further. Images of Ikea’s new PS collection have arrived, and its name—On the Move—says it all. Just a few weeks ago, Ikea announced the untimely demise of its super-popular Expedit shelving system,…

This Table Charges Your Devices By Mimicking Photosynthesis

It’s rare to find a designer who also knows their way around an electrical diagram, but Marjan van Aubel is one of them. The energy-minded designer is back with a new piece, Current Table, which uses dye solar cells to absorb energy and charge your devices. Van Aubel worked with a company called Solaronix on…

NYC Is Falling Apart, and That’s OK

How old would you say the average piece of NYC subway is? 50 years? 60? You sweet, naive fool. No, the average subway is a nonagenarian. A new report on NYC’s infrastructure is out, and it is not good. But should we be panicking? All this and (way) more is detailed in the latest report…

Take a Tour Through the Mother of All Airports

In a city of controversial historic buildings, Berlin’s massive Tempelhof Airport is one of the most embattled. This aging, elegant behemoth served as a hub for the Nazis and, later, for the Berlin Air Lift. Now, it’s the focus of major development plans—and PBS just got a look inside. In a new video we get…