Sdtrk: ‘An American in Paris’ by Severed heads

When accumulating info/pics/facts/crap for my world-famous ‘This was the Future’ series, now and again, I’ll run across some neat bit of architectural or design anachronism, but it’s simply too modern to feature as a segment of that series. However, noteworthiness always deserves recognition, which is why they stuck stars to kids’ foreheads back in gradeschool. So here’s a couple of retro-future things that have a wee bit more emphasis on the future than the retro.

First off, the ‘“Oneself” Bathroom for Person who Lives Itself‘. I couldn’t have put it better myself, honestly.

Our world packed sewer, packed barriers. The Oneself project – a bathroom for person who lives itself. For it each wall spare and him necessary each square metre for selfrealization. There is no bathroom, there is simply wall.

And there is no Dana, only Zuul, for that matter. For those of you who don’t speak fractured English, basically it’s the component parts of a bathroom, secretly integrated into the wall of the bedroom. That bog in particular kinda reminds me of Mal Reynolds’ toilet onboard the Serenity. When your business is done, you just slide it back into the wall. Quite efficient!

Next up, the apartment building known as Suite Vollard, located in Curitiba, Brazil. Upon first glance, it seems like a regular, if somewhat chi-chi, resort hotel. But it has a secret feature — all of the 11 apartments of the building rotate. It’s as if someone saw Marina City, and decided to strap engines to its infrastructure.

Does whimsical pipe-organ music play when the flats are in
motion? It had better

From the interior of the Suite Vollard building, no landscape is fixed. With the mere pressing of a button, residents of each of the 11 apartments can have 360º panoramic view of the city.

Each apartment has its own independent engine system, which can be engaged with a remote control. A complete clockwise or counterclockwise 360º turn takes one hour and the system is equipped with a programming timer.

The apartments have 2885 ft and are surrounded by 323 ft of glass balconies that give access to all rooms through the doors, placed at every 90º. The central area of the apartment does not move in which the kitchen, bathrooms, maid bedroom, laundry area, and barbecue grill are located.
text taken from this site

All that, plus a bedroom for the maid, eh? Huh. Well, I suppose that if you’re living in a high-rise penthouse in Brazil that rotates, then having a maid is merely part and parcel.

When I was younger, I thought my ideal situation would be to buy an RV and live in it. I’d simply drive it to the lot of whatever workplace I was at and park it there for an extended period of time, and have a Vespa or a Lambretta to tool about the local roads on. As I grew older, a couple of realisations occured:
1) I began buying more and more space-consuming things
2) Having your home on the same lot as your workplace isn’t really conducive to skiving off work — not that I ever do that sort of thing, you understand
3) Riding a scooter during the Winter is probably not the best idea a person could have
Despite all of that, I might readopt my plan if I could afford one of these — a refitted London double decker bus that you can live in, courtesy of Double Decker Living. How fab is that?

Of course I’d paint a Union Jack on mine somewhere

On the outside it looks like an ordinary London double decker bus. But take a step inside and you will find a kitchen, shower, sitting room and five beds.

A fleet of Leyland Olympian buses that were retired from service two years ago have been given a new lease of life as the latest solution to the capital’s housing crisis.

A company called Double Decker Living has converted eight buses with private sleeping areas upstairs and living space downstairs.

[…] There are solar panels on the roof and recycling bins to make the buses as environmentally friendly as possible.

Kinda reminds me of one of comedian Steven Wright’s hoary Surrealist joke chestnuts: ‘I put my car key in my door lock by mistake, and when I turned it, the whole building started up.’ *pauses for added comic effect* ‘So I took it for a drive. A police officer stopped me and asked, “Where do you live?” I said, “Right here.”‘

And finally, two week-ends ago, Detroit was host once again to the North American International Auto Show; or as we just call it round here in the tri-county area, the Auto show. Every couple of years I try to catch it, as I like wandering round the Volkswagen and the MINI exhibits, even though the last couple of times, I haven’t been able to climb into a MINI, as there are too many damned people milling round. And it’s around that time that I remember why I hate crowds. Anyway, I missed the 2007 one, as I was skint — my paycheque was laughable, due to missing four out of five days because of the grippe — but I would’ve been there in a heartbeat had I known the Aero X by Saab was to be displayed there. Have you seen this thing? It… it is magnificent.

It also transforms into Flight Mode

Now I, much like any aesthete, love the concept of gull-wing car doors. But the Aero X features an entire canopy that lifts open to admit occupants. It also boasts an economically-friendly engine, the ability to go 0 – 60 mpg in 4.9 seconds, and some other bollocks, but I’m looking at those pics, and all I see is ‘sexatronic perspex green-illuminated dashboard’ and ‘opening fecking canopy that’s so awesome it’s awesomn‘. This is the result of European engineering that also develops aircraft in its spare time. Well done, Sweden!

Modern design: it’s not all rubbish!
Well, I think I’ve gotten that out of my system