Skinniest House in the World

There are skinny houses. And then there is Jakub Szczęsny's Keret House, which could make Calista Flockhart look like a fatty. At its most generous, the proposed place, in Warsaw, Poland, will clock in at 4 feet wide. At its narrowest, it'll be just 28 inches wide -- thinner than the average doorway. And we complain about our sardine can in New York...

The house (officially an "art installation," because it doesn't meet Polish building code) is slated to fill a crack between a pair of buildings in Warsaw's Wola district. When construction's finished in December, it'll be the thinnest house in Warsaw and possibly the whole world. We did aquick Google search and couldn't find anything leaner.

Szczęsny designed the house to be a work space and home for Israeli writer Etgar Keret. It'll also be a "studio for invited guests -- young creators and intellectualists from all over the world." If, that is, they're willing to drop half their body weight to fit inside.

ArchDaily.com

Kidding, kidding. In all seriousness, though, the house is a pretty remarkable feat of architecture. If everything goes according to plan, Szczęsny will manage to squeeze in designated rooms for sleeping, eating, and working. The place will have off-grid plumbing inspired by boat sewage technology and electricity lifted from a neighbor. To save space, the entry stairs will fold up at the press of a button and become part of the first floor.

Aesthetically, the Keret House isn't gonna win any beauty contests. It's been compared to everything from a pregnancy test to a sanitary napkin. (Our vote is for "pregnancy test.") Our biggest concern, though, is that it's hardly got any windows. How's it going to "produce creative work conditions," as ArchDaily reports, and "become a significant platform for world intellectual exchange," if it feels like a sensory deprivation chamber? Won't Keret go insane? But maybe that's the point. It's not like he'd be the first artist to benefit from going crazy.

ArchDaily.com

by Suzanne Labarre
provided by

Measure Accurately with your Fingers!

In older times, body parts like the arms, fingers and the hands were originally used as measuring devices.  But as people searched for new ways of translating accurate and precise measurements for building and construction, the measuring techniques of using body parts were later replaced by mechanical tools as this proved to be more accurate than the former.  Now, as technology becomes more advanced than before, it seems that we shall see the return of the old technique of measuring with our bodies but more accurately with the help of this measuring device...

Designers Choi Hyong-Suk, Jung Ji-hye & Yoo-Jin Park call this device the "Smart Finger".  It's basically a device consisting of two parts which can be inserted into two of your fingers.
The device works by sending out signals from one part of the device to the other.  The time travelled by the signal is then translated to a unit of length and showed on its LED display.
Because of the silicon on the finger slots, the device is flexible enough to fit any finger thickness.

Now, with the help of the "Smart Finger", you can now measure accurately using just your two fingers!


from The Resident Architect.com