A cool robot to have with you on a snowy day when you have to fight a pirate who is trying to steal your cyber-treasures.

Of course, we know it's great to ride on giant monsters.

What is this? I have no idea. A headless bug? A nanobot under the microscope?

William B. Hand [artist website]

That rocket launcher makes me feel all Aliens inside. Or maybe it makes me feel all Alternate-Rose-with-mega-gun from the most recent episode of Doctor Who.

Here is Bertie's evil twin Dirty Bertie. He's a little bit Dalek, a little bit KMFDM.

I frakkin love this gear that comes with the Dirty Bertie toy. What the hell? Is it a severed head and a murdered teddy bear? Oh, maybe they're just zombie heads.

You can buy Bertie and Dirty Bertie, though be warned that each one is made individually so they aren't available for mass-produced toy prices. They're works of art!

WWR Bertie at Sideshow [Ashley Wood Blog]

Jimmy Stamp, writer behind amazing architecture blog Life Without Buildings, says he saw the installation in Berlin many years ago and has been haunted by it since. He has a great post up today about it, and some of the other installations by Elmgreen and Dragset. Here's another of their oddities, a crumbling administration building. Stamp writes, "Their pieces give the impression that they belong in the Ancient Civilizations Wing of some far-future museum."

Photograph of the crumbling Adminstration office courtesy of Galleri Nicolai Wallner. All other photographs courtesy of Life Without Buildings and Le Territoire des Sens.

A Floating Room and Broken Architecture [Life Without Buildings]

Ferguson writes:

Accounts vary on the origins of this complex, and indeed, as to whether it was meant to be a hotel development or a housing development. Apparently, it was constructed in the 1960s and included/was to include a dam to protect it against sea surges, floors and stairs made of marble and a small amusement park. The site was commissioned by the government and local firms and there is no named architect. Local papers at the time reported that there were numerous accidents during construction which caused the death of some workers. As news of these accidents spread, no one wanted to go there, even to visit, and the project was subsequently abandoned. The ghosts of those who died in vain are said to still linger there, unremembered and unable to pass on. The complex was left in its unfinished state because no amount of redevelopment will bring people to the area due to superstitions about ghosts, and it can’t be demolished because destroying the homes of spirits and lost souls is taboo in Asian culture.

This is just one of several strange housing developments profiled in a recent post by Tomorrow Museum's Joanne McNeil. Check out the whole set of bizarre residential areas — not all of which have been abandoned.

San Zhr Photos [File Magazine via Tomorrow Museum]

According to Inhabitat:

Salinity gradient solar ponds, water purification tanks, and water filtering processes will all be integrated into the designated “water islands” of the chain. The other two island designs will be for tourists and solar energy production, providing self sufficient power as well as creating revenue.

Here is a more detailed schematic:

The design was shortlisted for Architectural Association’s Environmental Tectonics 2007 competition because the design attempts to solve political and cultural issues using design techniques.

Innovative Watertechture in the Dead Sea [via Inhabitat]

Here's how it works: When you press each key, it cycles through three colors. You press the color you want. When you've got your color pattern set, all the lights flash green and the door opens. Obviously, if you want to be safe, you'll want to figure out a way to shield the keypad while you're unlocking it (this is a good idea with number-based keypads too).

You can go through all the steps to make this lock, from circuit boards to LEDs, or you can buy a pre-made keypad here. You'll still have to program it, though!

How to Make an RGB combination door lock [via Hackaday]

As you might expect, creating distinctive backdrops for TV is very different from art in other contexts. Jensen says:

Art directing evening news broadcasts in the 80's-90's made me focus on clean, readable, and stylish graphic design. Each [60 Minutes] story begins with a studio introduction in front of artwork—in a 'magazine'. The executive producer and director gave me incredible freedom. Time was the biggest challenge. Three illustrations a week, was quite a lot of work. In seven seasons I probably made about 650 to 700 illustrations. Another challenge is that unlike an illustration in a magazine, you couldn't linger on it. On average the work I did was gone in thirty to forty-five seconds. Perhaps that's not a constraint in execution, but in satisfaction it certainly is!

A number of classic SF artists have influenced Jensen, including Paul Lehr and Richard Powers, whose work, he says:

is fundamental to my appreciation of SF art. I respond to surrealism and ambiguity...Another artist from the same era I really liked is John Schoenherr. His compositions are masterful. Michael Whelan was the artist of another generation that next most influenced my work. He has an uncanny knack for composing an image that feels true to the book in a specifically narrative way. I remember seeing his "Foundation trilogy" paintings in a Boskone artshow, this is before the paintings were published, and I just knew that they were for those books.

(For more on Jensen's thoughts about book design, check out this cool MindMeld feature from the always lively SF Signal.)

From 1984 to around 2000, Jensen used acrylics on illustration board, with occasional forays into oils and mixed media. But Jensen’s work in television news eventually led him to computers:

Over time, I started using the computer for my book cover sketches. I worked with tight comps in acrylics but learned that digital sketches could be much more efficient for pre-visualization. On a few occasions, I used digital images in parts of my final work. The covers for Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age and Snowcrash were both mixed media. Each had portions rendered digitally, which I photographed and collaged into the final illustration.

Jensen is still ambivalent about the use of computers for art:

There are some really wonderful aspects to digital media in making an image but, I still have a high regard for the 'object', the physicality of a painting. Hanging digital prints in an art show has always left me unsatisfied.

Despite, or perhaps because of, that ambivalence, Jensen has often been associated with cutting edge SF, especially as he does very little fantasy art:

Through the 90's I think my work was often associated with cyberpunk themes and I really enjoyed that. I've often found myself working with visual elements that touch on AI, virtual reality, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, technology of that sort.

That said, his latest project, which he calls “alien menagerie” (see the gallery) is often as fantastical as SF-nal. Interestingly, these paintings mark a “return to traditional media” for Jensen. A single painting from this series, displayed at the Microvisions 2 show at the Society of Illustrators, made it into the best-of art anthology Spectrum 15, to be published this fall.

Bruce Jensen [official website]

Everybody worships Syd (Blade Runner) Mead, or Ralph McQuarrie, who gave the original Star Wars trilogy much of its eyepopping vastness. But some of the designers and artists working today are doing work that's every bit as mindblowing and sensational. (We had a list of about 20 designers we wanted to feature in this post, and had to end up whittling it down. But maybe we'll feature some of the others soon.) A million, million thanks to Lauren Davis for the incredible research help.

Warren Manser (A.I., Spider-Man, Army Of Darkness, Serenity, Speed Racer)

James Clyne (A.I., Minority Report, Galaxy Quest, X-Men 3, Titan A.E., The Fountain, Transformers, Star Trek, Avatar, Battle Angel)

Miles Teves (Men In Black, Terminator III and IV, Iron Man, Outlander)

Nathan Crowley (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Mystery Men, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight)

Guy Hendrix Dyas (Indiana Jones IV, Superman Returns, Galaxy Quest, X-2: X-Men United, Brave New World)

Ryan Church (Star Wars Episode II and III, Avatar, Outlander, Star Trek, John Carter Of Mars)

Alex McDowell (Minority Report, Watchmen)

Jeannine C. Oppewall (Cat People, Pleasantville, The Happening, Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Richard Hudolin (Battlestar Galactica, Stargate: SG-1, Doctor Who)

Daren Dochterman (X-Men 3, Chronicles Of Riddick, Sky High, Get Smart, Dragonball, The Day The Earth Stood Still, Creature From The Black Lagoon)

[Marie Claire Maison via Apartment Therapy]

You can see a bunch more designs at the Atomic Tarantula website. I have the "damn dirty apes" tee and have gotten a lot of compliments on it!

Atomic Tarantula [official site]

Here the cabinets are all open.

Here you can see the entertainment center.

And here are two longer views.

Here's the layout.

Triptyque via Archinect

Harvard design grad students Kiduck Kim and Christian Stayner explain how this would work:

Housing plats and roads are marked by solar-powered lighting poles. Individual dwellings bob, tethered with RV-type umbilical cords through which potable water, electricity, sew-age, and telephone connections continue uninterrupted. When the water subsides, depositing the city in a new arrangement.

Sure, it's Utopian, but I need Utopianism on Monday. Really, I do.

Floating in a Sinking City [Harvard via Inhabitat]

Even better, the storyline is sly and clever, with four parts that come together with increasing complexity and strangeness. Fittingly, A.L.I.E.E.E.N. was nominated for an Eisner Award—just another in a long list of amazing imaginative leaps by Trondheim. He often shares these honors with Joann Sfar, co-creator with Trondheim of the famed Dungeon series. If A.L.I.E.E.E.N. is willfully perverse (check out the awesome online game for the book), then Dungeon is the Citizen Kane of epic fantasy comics—hilarious, touching, deep, and illustrated with genius-level precision.

Sfar, with another French star, Emmanuel Gilbert, is also responsible for the playful science fiction series Sardine in Outer Space. Where A.L.I.E.E.E.N. could be described as a children's book for adults, Sardine is joyously for kids, even warning on the inside cover flap that no grown-ups are allowed, "unless they're pirates or space adventurers." From Doc Krok to Supermuscleman, Sardine includes a host of marvelous villains, each one made simultaneously real and exaggerated by Sfar's artwork. Everything from slapstick outer space pirate action to cosmic squid is choreographed in vibrant color and with an exuberant energy.

Together, as dual artists and writers, Sfar and Trondheim represent one of the best double-threats in comics. In terms of what each brings to their collaborations, Trondheim said in a Comics Journal interview,

It's very hard to say. Joann brings with him a strong cultural foundation, his knowledge of philosophy. I bring structure. The jokes and nonsense, that's both of us. Often we find ourselves being told: 'that gag, that's Lewis,' even if it was really Joann. Or 'that serious reflective moment, that's Joann,' and it turns out it was me. Since our goal is to systematically surprise each other, we've also become good at putting ourselves in each other's place, to think like each other.

[This] effortless homage to Jim Woodring's horrifying, alien landscapes was already gorgeous and awful before he added a new element: the poop joke. My inner intellectual, sated, was joined by my uncontrollably giggling inner five-year old. A winning combination.

Brill also points out:

[Sfar] can do anything....[his] loose, assured line and vibrant watercoloring on Klezmer won my heart the moment I picked it up. And with works as profound and diverse as The Rabbi's Cat, Sardine in Outer Space, and Vampire Loves, [he] proves again and again that he's...a force of nature.

Check out First Second for various Trondheim-Sfar galleries.

Jones says that he tries to make scary images full of evil, but they always turn out cute. That roaring monster on top of the train is toothily adorable. I wish he'd color it in so we could see this train-stealing beast in all its glory!

See more Ryan Jones art on his blog.

Academy of Art University Spring Show [The Art Department]

Pictured here is a concept for an airplane that he designed for Japan Airlines. Dark Roasted Blend has a great gallery of these and more images by the 80-year old futurist. Images by Colani.de

Extravagant designs by Luigi Colani [Dark Roasted Blend]

There are dozens of pens and pencils jammed inside that finger. I love how these tools used by fingers, when stuffed inside the finger itself, look like creepy blood and guts and bone. Hawkinson often turns body parts inside-out in his work. You can check out more of it at Ace Gallery.

Severed Fingers and Giant Babies [via Bioephemera]

How would this work? Otegu explains:

The outer skin of the structure absorbs sunlight through an organic photovoltaic skin and transfers it to the nano-fibers inside the nano-wires which then is sent to storage units at the end of each panel. Each turbine on the panel generates energy by chemical reactions on each end where it makes contact with the structure. Polarized organisms are responsible for this process on every turbine's turn.

The inner skin of each turbine works as a filter absorbing CO2 from the environment as wind passes through it.

The fact of using nano-bioengineering and nano-manufacturing as means of production is to achieve an efficient zero emission material which uses the right kind and amount of material where needed.

These micro organisms have not been genetically altered; they work as a trained colony where each member has a specific task in this symbiotic process. For example, an ant or a bee colony, where the queen knows what has to be done and distributes the tasks between the members.

Nano-Vent Skin [via Dezeen]

Maybe Sir Lube of Can-A-Lot's pretty robot princess is Daisy, a delicate damsel bot made of a a tea ball, a cookie cutter, a pewter flower vase, a vintage radio knob, and a spring-loaded daisy.

Other characters in the series include Buzz, who is made of a vintage test box, a screen door handle, and a saw blade, and Schauer, who has a lawn sprinkler for a head and dual window cranks for arms.

For the full series, check out the Lockwasher Flickr photo set. Images by Paul Loughridge

Lockwasher Design main page via Neatorama

From a distance, they look like paw prints from a giant robotic animal. This idea won first place at the International Design Awards, and officials in the city of Glasgow are planning a pilot project soon.

ZM Architecture main page via Inhabitat

The waste in the building comes from two different nuclear reactors. Under local law, it must be stored for 100 years. William Verstraeten, the artist who designed the facility, views his piece as a commentary on metaphorphosis. Open for tours, the building also contains four symbolic paintings. According to World Nuclear News:

The theme of decay is extended to the inside of the facility, where four large pictures hang. They all feature the same local natural scene, but occur in a sequence in which base colours are removed one by one. The final two-tone image is printed on gold leaf, to introduce the idea that the waste has more value after its radioactivity has decayed.

The University of London grad won a $20,000 grant from the Design Museum in 2006 and spent that money to set up a design studio and delve into different ways to express death. Aside from the bird feeder, there's a ceramic urn that disintegrates over the course of three years and pencils made from the carbon in human remains. Jarvis lives in London, but her artifacts of death have been traveling all over the world, from the Paul Smith store in Milan to Funeria in the US.

Nadine Jarvis main page via NotCot

Here is an even earlier image, of the corridor being constructed.

If you want to see more from Mojo, check out his blog.

Fitzsimons and his crew completely gutted the old auto and replaced its innards with fancy fixtures.

I'm taking this on my next camping trip. Images by Mobitat

Mobitat main page via

The lovers seat provides a private make-out chamber for tentacled aliens who don't want to freak out passersby when they kiss. Carbonell pasted recycled paper onto iron frames covered with textured chicken wire to create this effect.

Nacho Carbonell main page via Dezeen

Baas is known for making neat pieces of furniture by repurposing different materials like clay, waste from giant furniture plants, and IKEA stools. The only drawback of these alien creatures is that you can't always tell, at a glance, what function they're supposed to serve. Until it's too late, that is. Images by Mike Goldwater

Maarten Baas main page via Dezeen

Hayon, a Spanish designer best known for his flamboyant furniture and funny little ceramic teddy bears, created this prototype for Milan Design Week. The top may look sort of like a toilet bowl, but it's really the lap of luxury. And presumably the plane flies low enough, and slow enough, that you won't actually suffocate up there. Says Hayon:

The installation's spectacular atmosphere, created by the use of reflectors, is reminiscent of a scene from an old Hollywood movie. At the heart of the aircraft is a circular lounge. I can imagine this thing flying, with a couple of lovers on board sipping champagne, the atmosphere charged with positive energy and emotions during their flight. Jet Set is a sitting room cum aeroplane.

The Chronotebook allows you to plot your day as a series of tasks that radiate outward from a circle that's sort of like an analog clock. Each set of pages start with two circles representing AM and PM, and users are invited to draw in their events as they see fit. As somebody who fetishizes office supplies and do-to lists, I'm curious to know whether having a cyclic time day planner makes a difference.

Muji Awards [via Coolhunting]

Don Davis, who painted this piece, has worked at NASA for years, and he's responsible for concept art on everything ranging from these space colonies, to the Voyager program. He's worked at the Ames Research Center, which is the mecca for speculative science fiction/faction at NASA, located in California. When he wasn't working on art like this, he was also collaborating with Carl Sagan, and contributed to Cosmos, for which he won an Emmy. You can check out more of Don's retro-futurist paintings at his website, where he also has an impressive number of Burning Man trip reports as well.

Here you can see all the configurations: bar, table, and desk.

Personally, I think SpareSpace is more likely to represent the future of office space than the Japanese desk. Why? Because the economies of future nations will be so intertwined that it will be impossible for a corporate worker to remain situated in one static place all the time. Better to have a workspace that can come with you on your journeys. Especially once we invent teleportation. Images by Sabina Theijs

Jack Brandsma main page via Dezeen

Available commercially in 1968, Maneval's houses came in white, green, and brown—colors that would blend easily into the landscape. Only thirty were ever produced, several of which were used to house visitors to a vacation spot in the Pyrenees. From the outside, the Bubble House looked like nothing so much as a downscale version of Monsanto's House of the Future, which was on display at Disneyland from 1957-1967; indeed, its petite size may have been drawback. Of course, when I imagine a plastic house, all I can think of is the delightful atmosphere inside a porta-potty. Look at more pictures here and here.

Can you let us know what other scifi projects you've worked on? How did you get started?

My education was at the Art Center College of Design in Product Design (Pasadena, California). Upon graduation I started a design Consultancy with Scott Robertson and we went down many different paths creatively. One of which was products for the disabled. Now, although this was a very satisfying experience, I still yearned for the world of entertainment. So, I will cut to the chase with some of the first experiences. I worked with Rhythm and Hues on many "pitch" projects and a number of films, X-Men and Chronicles of Narnia to name some. A fantastic break, however,was working for James Cameron on Avatar. Started off as a few months and went on forover 2 years. Amazing experience. That then rolled into Cloverfield and Watchmen and currently Star Trek.

How were you approached to work on Cloverfield?

It is kinda funny. While I was in the last few months of Avatar, I received an email from someone who has seen my educational DVDs with the Gnomon Workshop and they liked the way I worked. They said that they were working on a monster movie and would like to see if I could be involved. As mentioned, I was in the last moments of Avatar and overwhelmed with work. Sadly, I did not even respond to the email. Then I got another. Again, I was terrible at responding to them (think of how long it took me to get to answering these questions). Eventually, Gnomon called me up and said this guy is trying to get in touch with you, can you please deal with it. So, I thought, "who is this guy, and what does he want"?. I went online and googled J.J. Abrams and could not have kicked myself harder. Not just for being so bad at responding to the emails, but to be so clueless. Anyhow, it all worked out.

How many iterations did the monster go through? Were there different versions with it walking upright, etc? Were you told specifically to avoid any Godzilla-esque designs?

If an iteration was a sketch, then maybe 50 or so. I really did not have the time to invest in this as I had wanted to, because I was still wrapping up Avatar. So. weekends and evenings were all that was available. With that, I had to be very efficient with my time and the process of development I chose. There were many different versions that we explored as we were all looking for what it could be. There were tentacles, there were fewer limbs, more limbs, no limbs... big, broad strokes in search of Clover. I am not recalling being told to NOT do Godzilla like designs, it was more implicit. Since it was not a Godzilla movie, it would have been a huge mistake to do things like it. However, it still needed to be huge, have a head full of teeth, arms and legs, and, because of it coming out of the water, I felt it needed a tail to justify an aquatic potential origin or existence.

Did you also design the smaller parasite creatures?

Yes. But, not without major help from the talents of Tully Summers. A fantastic creature designer and sculptor. We worked together on Avatar and many a project in the past.

What inspired your design? What sources did you draw from?

Well, once we had a direction the inspirations were definitely aquatic. Especially with the head. There is a very complex skeletal structure in there for eating, but you don't see it at all in the movie or toy. Clover also has a complex breathing system and more than one way to eat. But, again, it is hardly obvious in the film nor toy. Honestly, the biggest inspiration is less about one or two other animals, but rather inspired by biological plausibility in general (ignoring the fact that something that big could never live on land). Sometime the cart has to lead the horse and you make it cool first then justify it later, but I always try to give the creatures I design a "good reason" to be. As for the parasite, I knew that I wanted something thin and vertical and light. Kinda like a flea.

What's a favorite of creature of yours, that you didn't design, in another film or tv show?

A favorite still is Alien. HR Giger is one of the few people out there that did something really new and fresh. Granted, it still had to be a man in a rubber suit for all sorts of other reasons, but Giger has such a unique style, that he even made those challenging parameters work. It would be incredible to one day achieve such a unique style that does become iconic. I can only try.

Was the scale of the creature always the same?

Not sure really. I know that often times the scale changes to suit the particular moment or narrative, but I think Clover was around 250 feet?

The monster looks ungainly and J.J. Abrams has said in the press notes that it's a "baby". Was that also part of the design? For it to look a bit clumsy?

I would have preferred that it be even clumsier. But then it can get comical. Yes, it was the intention that it is a baby and it is not only developing its strength, but also its land legs. The proportions are intended to feel a little like a new born deer or horse. Long, thin and slightly awkward.

How involved were you with the final, CGI version of the creature?

Very and not at all. Phil Tippett's group has way more knowledge in the realm of bringing this stuff to life that I ever will, so they would have no use for me. The "very" part is that the sculpture that I did in "Z-Brush" is essentially what they used. There is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done when you hand over a digital model, but the sculpture part of it usually remains intact.

Have you seen the finished film? If so, what did you think about it?

I have. A couple of times at Paramount and once at the Mann's Chinese Theater with friends. I was real impressed actually. I had no idea how they were going to pull the whole thing off and it was defiantly risky. But, I was engaged from start to finish. Sure it is a little difficult to be completely objective as I was aware of how it was made, what was to happen next, etc. But what was telling for me was that my palms were sweaty from the experience. And I did not throw up from it.

Do you think there will be a sequel for sure? We know they've said that they are working on one.

I am only speculating here, but I do think so. There are so many other movies that have sequels that make you wonder why. So, if a motivation to make a movie is based on the box office success, then it seems very probable. I have asked, and I still don't know yet. Regardless, I am designing Clover 2 in my head.

You can check out Neville's impressive portfolio of work at his website.

Dying humans can etch their last words directly onto the urn or stick memorabilia into the slit at the top after they pre-purchase a pod. Then their relatives can throw them in the ocean, where the pod will eventually dissipate and their bone powder will sink to the bottom and stay there. And we don't have to worry about space. Image by Lots Design

Lots Design via Yanko Design

Designed by Australian John Doyle, the shacks would be deployed to disaster zones in trucks, snapped together, and then covered in a massive, inflatable, weatherproof shell.

Green park? Check. Bicyclists zooming everywhere? Check. Disastrous earthquake devastates everything and takes out all services except high-speed internet? Check. Yep, it's San Francisco.

Here's what you get inside one.

John Doyle's Plans [New York Hurricane Relief]

io9's Geoff Manaugh has a post about another plan for disaster relief that involves giant floating suburban blimps.

Tufte says:

Rocket Science is ~32 feet (10 meters) high and ~72 feet (22 meters) long, and is constructed from ~48,000 pounds (22,000 kilograms) of rusting scrap steel . . . The RS symmetry about a central axis combined with the crew headquarters in a capsule at the top is likely the best design for space vehicles (Apollo, and the new post-Shuttle generation of space vehicles carrying humans—Constellation, Ares, Orion). Such symmetry is contrary to the design of the current Shuttle (with its pretend airplane) that has contributed to its chronic difficulties. Better also to place the crew at the top end of the rocket, in front of the launch debris-shower in an unromantic capsule (no landings by astronaut commanders) as is the case for Apollo and the forthcoming Orion/Ares. Thus, RS has the symmetric architecture for the vehicles of the future but RS is crudely assembled, amateur rocket science.