Practical, Environmentally-Friendly and Wacky Urban Inventions

• October 14th 2011

by Shilpi Paul

In this week’s departure from all things DC real estate-related, UrbanTurf takes a look at the 24 intriguing urban inventions highlighted in New York Magazine’s Home Design issue, which hit newsstands (and mailboxes) this week. The inventions, found all over the globe, range from a ski slope on a garbage dump to a bendable bike-rack. Below, UrbanTurf picked out three that we felt were particularly interesting.

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Inspired Reimagining

Artists and architects throughout Detroit are giving dilapidated homes in the Motor City a second, more colorful life. Mitch Cope and his wife Gina Reichert, along with others, founded Design 99, a firm that buys crumbling homes and transforms them into art studios, exhibition spaces and off-the-grid affordable housing.

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Exhibitionist Fantasy

Ever feel lonely on the toilet? With conceptual artist’s Monica Bonvicini’s “Don’t Miss a Sec,” a public toilet outfitted with one-way mirrors, you don’t have to miss a moment of city life while you are indisposed. First exhibited outside London’s Tate Gallery, the working toilet made a stop in Basel, Switzerland and has also been used in the Millbank section of London. In Bonvinici’s original sketch, the walls were completely transparent.

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Eco-friendly Lumination

Ontario-based Hybridyne-RHS Inc. has developed a self-sustaining lamppost. The PortaDyne-Lite is a street light that doesn’t require electricity or underground maintenance. The battery gathers enough power from solar panels and a wind turbine to illuminate the streets at night.

Photos courtesy of New York Magazine.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/practical_environmentally_friendly_and_wacky_urban_inventions/4349.