Apart from the breathtaking Iguazu Falls, one of the most important tourist attractions in the Iguazu area is the House of Plastic Bottles, built out of plastic bottles and other recyclable materials.

Alfredo Alberto Santa Cruz got the idea of building a house from plastic bottles while he was creating a playhouse for his little daughter. After he finished it, he noticed the plastic the structure was pretty sturdy and realized he was on to something. That’s when he decided to build a one-bedroom cottage out of plastic bottles, for him and his family.

Mr. Santa Cruz’s bottle house features a bed, chairs, shelves and even a fake hanging plant, all made out of PET bottles. Practically everything inside the house is recyclable, apart from the wood framing and a few metal bolts. The walls are made from 2-liter plastic bottles, while the roof consists of hundreds of tetrapak cartons (the boxes you drink juice from). Alfredo has flattened them into shingles and turn them aluminum side up, to reflect the sun and keep the place cool. They would only last for 4-5 years, due to rains, but he covered them up with a layer of plastic, cut from bottles and says this combo could last even 20 years.

I’ve seen glass bottle houses before, even a temple built out of glass bottles, but this is my first plastic bottle house.


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala


Photo credits: Xinhua/Martin Zabala

I chose to name this post “the other upside-down house” because I wrote about a very similar house when I started this site.
Built in 2008, for an art exhibition, the “other upside down house” is located on Usedom, an island in northern Germany. It was financed and constructed by Polish partners Klausdiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk, who just wanted to make something different. Only, I wonder if they know a practically identical house already exists in their native country of Poland.
The builders said they were inspired by similar structures in America and Spain, that were upside down on the outside, but normal on the inside. Visitors of the “other upside-down house” said the weird interior make them feel dizzy and disoriented.
Although the house is perfectly safe, nobody is living in it right now.

Photos by Hemmy














sumber : http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-other-upside-down-house.html

Cut from a single piece of wood, the Desile Folding Chair is an environmentalist’s dream. The ultimate folding chair emerges from the simplicity of a drawing and the sustainability of bamboo and recycled PET. Whether it’s folded as a wall hanging or open as an extra seat, its good looks and simple design add interest to any space

sumber :  http://www.incrediblethings.com/art-design/desile-folding-chair/

Using an artform known as “marquetry”, Rob Milam creates beautiful paintings with wood veneer.
Marquetry is defined as the composition of an image using natural wood veneer, cut into pieces and glued on a substrate, sort of like a puzzle. Every one of Rob Milam’s marquetry paintings start with a photograph. He uses Photoshop to create a black-and-white image showing the dark and light values and uses anywhere from four to sixteen different wood veneers to recreate it.
Every species of wood has a distinctive grain pattern and colors range from creamy white (holy and English sycamore), to dark brown (Brazilian rosewood) and even black (bog oak). Though he usually uses only naturally colored wood, Rob Milam sometimes makes use of artificially colored blue and green veneer, for replicating the eye’s iris.
The pieces of wood veneer are cut into pieces by the artist himself, using chisels, knives and saws.










 

Sumber : http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/the-wood-veneer-paintings-of-rob-milam.html

If you’ve had enough of those boring calendars featuring gorgeous women, cute puppies, or peaceful settings, the Son of Road Kill Calendar 2011 is just the thing for you

The wacky idea for a road kill calendar belongs to 58-year-old Kevin Beresford, an English courier always on the lookout for an original calendar idea. His job has him driving around the country all the time, so he has seen his share of animal carcasses, lying on the side of the road, and he thought he’d give his idea for a road kill calendar a shot. he started taking photos of squashed squirrels, dead dogs, stiff birds and battered badgers, made a selection of the 12 best ones and launched his calendar

Believe it or not, Kevin Beresford’s road kill calendar was a huge hit. He has already sold hundreds of them already and is struggling to keep up with incoming orders. Asked about his crazy idea, Kevin said it’s dedicated to “all the courageous critters that never quite made it across the road in time.”









Photos by Geoffrey Robinson/REX FEATURES

sumber : http://www.odditycentral.com/funny/son-of-road-kill-calendar-2011.html

British artist Keira Rathbone uses typewriters, instead of brushes and pencils, to create amazing portraits and drawings.
27-year-old Keira Rathbone, from London, first started experimenting with typewriter art, when she was in university. She baought an old typewriter, from a flee market, in the hope that she would soon use it to write something. By the middle of her first year at the university, she hadn’t come up with anything to put down on paper, so she decided to use it as a drawing tool. The first results were promising, and young Keira quickly realized she would be exploring this new art form much further.
Fast forward to present day and Keira Rathbone is an established artist with her very own niche, praised by the entire artworld. She now has an arsenal of 30 typewriters which she has used to create unique portraits of Barrack Obama, Kate Moss, Marylin Monroe, and others.
Keira Rathbone says she simply turns the roller to move the sheet of paper, and uses different characters to create the shapes she wants. It might sound easy enough, but creating detailed artworks from simple letters, numbers and punctuation is definitely not the easiest thing to do.