Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

Europe’s Biggest Building Opens 16 Years After It Was Designed

De Rotterdam, a massive tower designed by Rotterdam darling Rem Koolhaas, has opened. It is the city’s largest building—a little bit of Manhattan, in Rotterdam. It’s also, in an odd way, a tribute to the original World Trade Center. The analogy you’re going to hear again and again about this building is Lego: It’s a…

​A Brief History of Buildings That Look Like Vaginas

This week, the internet’s collective chortling at a particularly yonic stadium for Qatar’s World Cup may have actually doomed the project to abandonment. But it’s hardly the first—or most overt—anatomical architecture in recent years. In fact, it’s just the latest in a centuries-spanning tradition. https://jezebel.com/qatars-new-world-cup-stadium-will-look-like-a-giant-va-1466640033 Of course, most buildings end up being phallic, simply out…

Auto Aerobics: Hyperrealistic Images of Outrageously Weird Cars

Sure, CGI is responsible for making us all visually cynical. But it’s also enabled projects like this one: a weird—and weirdly poetic—ode to the Pontiac by digital artist Chris LaBrooy. According to U.K.-based LaBrooy, the project was a meditation on a walk through Brooklyn in the late afternoon—though to me, the angle of the light…

45 of the Brightest Cities in the World, Photographed By One Woman

Satellites have given us a huge amounts of information about Earth—including the fact that many of our cities are so blinding lit, they’re visible from space. Those radiant cities are the subject of Lux, a photo essay by photographer Christina Seely. Lux is a taxonomy of light pollution: A look at the three regions of…

What Happens When F1 Car Designers Build Architectural Models

Gizmodo EIC Geoff Manaugh and U.K. architects Smout Allen tapped an unlikely source to help create their new exhibition in London: Williams F1. But, in this case, the engineers at Williams weren’t building the advanced race cars they’re well-known for—they were 3D-printing the parts for an intricate model of an experimental energy storage park. http://bldgblog.gizmodo.com/the-british-exploratory-land-archive-1465483958…

Danish architects Bjarke Ingels Group has won a competition to build a Museum of the Human Body near Montpellier, the French town whose medical school dates back to the 12th century. Ingels compares the design to interlocking fingers—though it seems more intestinal, to us. Construction is due to begin in 2016. [BIG]

10 Glorious Shots of Last Night’s Rocket Launch, Taken By You

The Sequester-delayed satellite-toting rocket, Minotaur 1, soared off into space at around 8pm last night, giving much of the East Coast a brief-but-awesome light show. We asked you to upload your best shots, and there were a few gems to be found by the end of the night. Check five of them out below—we also…

A visitor walks towards Norway’s dramatic Trollstigen (Troll’s Ladder) overlook, designed by Reiulf Ramstad Architects in 2012. The moment was captured by German photographer Ken Schluchtmann, who took home this year’s Arcaid Architectural Photography Award today. [Ken Schluchtmann]

When and Where To Watch Tonight’s Minotaur Rocket Launch

Twenty-nine tiny satellites are tightening their seat belts as they prepare to be launched into space aboard the Minotaur 1 rocket this evening. According to Space.com, the launch will create a “spectacular sight” for a huge swath of the East Coast. Where should you peep it? https://gizmodo.com/first-satellite-built-by-high-school-kids-is-heading-to-1467640783 The Minotaur 1 will be setting off from…

China’s Suspension Giant Is 3,500 Feet Longer Than the Brooklyn Bridge

The Yangtze River is the third longest in the world, and it’s served as a critical artery in the beating heart of China’s economic boom. It’s also incredibly wide at points—which has forced China to become a top contender in the race to build the most advanced long-span bridges in the world. Taizhou Bridge is…

After Two Years of Nuclear Crises, Japan Opens Its Biggest Solar Park

This month, Japanese electronics company Kyocera launched the country’s largest solar plant. The facility can power 22,000 homes—and, maybe more importantly, it poses no risk of melting down, injuring workers, or spewing radioactive water into the Pacific ocean. https://gizmodo.com/fukushima-has-been-leaking-radioactive-water-into-the-p-1440555391 Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant—the facility’s proper name—is located in an inlet at the very…

Photographer Felix Meyer captured this shot of the sun setting behind Dresden’s Centre for Energy Technology, an experimental power plant where researchers focus on the future of sustainable energy—from biomass, to thermal, to photovoltaic. While primarily a research facility, the plant generates electricity for the surrounding campus. [Felix Meyer on Flickr/Creative Commons]

The Grim Secret Behind Qatar’s Lavish New Stadiums: Human Rights Abuse

Don’t hate Zaha Hadid’s new World Cup stadium because it looks like a vagina. Hate it because it’ll likely be built with “modern-day slavery,” according to a new Amnesty International report. https://jezebel.com/qatars-new-world-cup-stadium-will-look-like-a-giant-va-1466640033 The internet was aflame this weekend over new renderings of Al Wakrah Stadium, a 45,000-seat venue destined for the desert outside of Doha.…

Folding Wings Will Let Boeing’s New 777x Squeeze Into Small Airports

Commercial planes have gotten bigger and bigger over the past few decades, but the size of the gate at most airports have stayed the same. To circumvent this little infrastructural disconnect, Boeing’s future 777x jet will have a massive wingspan that folds up upon landing. The 777x is already in the news this week, after…

Philips’ New Logo Is an Awesome 1930s Throwback

75 years after Philips debuted a circular “shield” logo filled with twinkling gold stars, the Dutch electronics giant has brought the design back as a bold monochromatic logomark. The shield has appeared perennially in the company’s 120-odd years of operation, as you can see in our GIF history above, but it fell out of favor…

The Autumn Night Sky Is Embroidered On This Awesome Quilt

Kickstarter is full of dubious ideas, but it’s also home to some truly great ones—like Constellation Quilt, a handmade blanket that charts the night sky in lovely gold and white thread. When the project wrapped up its campaign June, it had reached more than ten times its original $10,000 goal. Constellation Quilts are exactly what…

$1 Billion Iraqi Parliament Will Rise Over Saddam’s Half-Built Mosque

The Architect’s Journal reports that Zaha Hadid will be the architect of Iraq’s future parliament building, confirming rumors that have swirled for months. The supremely expensive building is the London-based architect’s third planned project in the country where she was born. Hadid, you might remember, came in third in a 2012 design competition for the…

12 Temples of American Finance Gone to Waste

In 19th and early 20th century America, fledging banks depended on conveying stability and trust to their customers. That usually meant architecture—and the construction of pint-sized Greek and Roman monuments in towns all over the country. “Money was more local,” explains photographer Michael Vahrenwald, whose series The People’s Trust captures these structures in their present-day…

Why This Magical Lake Changes Color With the Weather

Japanese photographer Kent Shiraishi is the author of a photograph that’s now known to millions as the background wallpaper to OSX Mountain Lion—the counterpart to Windows XP’s rolling green grass fields. But while most of us know Shiraishi’s photo, not as many know the fascinating story behind it. Blue Pond is located in Biei, on…

Will Dallas Build a Giant Protective Shield For Its Death Ray Tower?

For the past two years, Dallas has been locked in a debate over a new class of buildings that have lovingly become known as architectural death rays. In Dallas’s case, it’s a shard of light reflected off a hastily-built condo tower that has killed plants and ruined art at the nearby Nasher Sculpture Center. https://gizmodo.com/a-brief-history-of-buildings-that-melt-things-1247657178…