Haikyo

The world of Haikyo, or modern ruins, is a facinating one.

As a child I remember playing in an abandoned milk processing factory where the blue tin foil milk bottle lids lined the floor up to my knees in some places. The place (in the industrial area of Mackay Nth QLD in the 80s) was creepy and exciting. The industrial scale and rusting plant equipment was a source of facination and to this day the memory of the building is vivid.

The idea of exploring Haikyo and recording them before they disappear into the ocean of redevelopment is a great one...particularly in Japan where there seems to be a endless source of amazing modern ruins. Here is a link to one site on the subject http://www.michaeljohngrist.com/ruins-gallery/ there are many more sites around and a bunch of books printed in Japan. Pictured above is the soon to be removed Nakagin Capsule Hotel in Shimbashi.

Time for some Haikyo hunting to take place in Brisbane! More to follow soon.

Not Ghost Bumpers...

This 'corner fin' on a Highgate Hill house is Brisbane has made me rethink the SE Asian ghost bumper connection to the Qlder style house.
This corner fin was attached to a mediterranean style villa (next to Torbreck) and establishes a direct connection to the contemporaneous Qlders in the area (West End/Highgate Hill). This would indicate that the origin of the Qlder corner fin is Western (classical?) rather than Eastern.
So...are SE Asian ghost bumpers and the Qlder corner fins just coincidental or is there a connection after all??
(To be continued...)

Ghost bumpers, bricks and stickers!

More added at inversionary.com!

Not a Whirligig

It turns out the things that I always knew as whirligigs or whirlibirds are just 'roof extractors'...wikipedia says so, so it must be true...

Links

The 'links' have been newly updated (thanks to Doug!) with a full array of Brisbane and greater QLD architectural offices.

http://www.inversionary.com/links.html

PC Aluminium Tube

Light refraction down tubes of 16mm chromated and powder coated aluminium.

Bunker

Original 1940s green roof...built to last!

Precast Concrete Factory

Precast Concrete factory at Wacol. Hollow core precast slabs cut to length as ordered. 4 beds 140m2 each, 6 beds possible in 24 hours. The only plant doing this in Qld.

Myanmar and Japan Drains

Chain drain at a pavillion in the Imperial Palace compound in Tokyo. Amazing in the rain.

Crocodile retaining wall drain at Mingun near Mandalay in Myanmar.

William Jolly Bridge with Plaster Teeth from Reverse Garbage

A string of photos while playing with the new camera. The plaster teeth came from Reverse Garbage in West End. This is from the drive back. The teeth ended up in a prep class room and inspired a dentist waiting area.

Ghost Bumpers

A good friend once called similar corner fins on Thai houses 'ghost bumpers' as they are designed to ward off evil spirits. These fins are common on Queenslander houses in inner city Brisbane. I can't help but think there is a connection to SE Asian architecture here. Were these fins designed in the image of the ones seen in Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and so on?? Maybe its just coincidental and they were put there because they look good...

I read that there are different versions of these that appear in different suburbs throughout Brisbane. This image was taken in Red Hill, I'll find some more and start comparing them to find out if this is correct.

4 Lights

The kids were playing with a box early one morning last winter and this is the effect of four lights in the hall and bathroom filtering through one of holes in it.
I really love this effect...something to use in the future.

Ipswich Rail Museum

More here: http://www.inversionary.com/dop.html

Ghosts in the Architecture

A few years back while researching the founding of Mandalay under King Mindon of Myanmar (early 1800's), I came across a reference regarding the foundations of the palace at Mandalay.

The story went that four pregnant women were murdered and buried at the four compass point entrances of the inner palace. The foetuses along with their scorned mothers were then expected to rise again as angry ghosts that would protect these entrances from those that were not permitted access. And this was a common practice by all accounts. Why these wronged spirits would want to help out those that wronged them is beyond me...

Apparently the practice had been banned by the good King Mindon but all soureces said that this did occur at Mandalay even though the Buddhist king renounced the practice. There was some skepticism in the sources too that said something about the King just looking good by outlawing the practice although noone in the their right mind during the late days of the court of the Burmese Kings would live somewhere without ghosts 'built in' to the architecture.

King Mindon's son Thibaw did a bit of work adding ghosts to the palace compound after Mindon's death. More on that grusome tale another time...

Ashgrovian Queenslander at Night

Lattice, tulip, tip of the Southern Cross and downpipe.

Side windows.

Through the back doors...

Just got my new (second hand) Leica D-Lux 3 in the mail today and had to try out 'Starry Sky' scene mode.

Gilseal "300" Infra-Red Lamp

Aluminium and bakelite general x-ray product. Used to warm deep, deep tissue. This one is broken...$2 from the Red Hill Op Shop. Still a nice thing though...even if my wife thinks it will irradiate the kids!