Archinect - News

This company lets you build your dream A-frame for less than $2k

2019-06-10T13:52:00-04:00

All the blueprints and material specifications needed to put it together are included in a cardboard box. They come both on a flash drive in PDF format and printed on 36-by-24-inch sheets. The company says that the package also includes reading materials about the house, discount codes to build some of the stuff you need at providers all around the United States, as well as a door knob, a hammer, and a hat with the company logo.

A company that once sold designer trailer homes switched gears after a stalled venture to focus their attention on helping homeowners design their ideal A-frame cabin. For how much you ask? $1,950. As ideal as that sounds, one may be waiting for the catch. However, when Everywhere Inc.'s co-founder Brand Winnie left his tech job in Silicon Valley, he and his wife created Ayfraym. According to Winnie, the inspiration for creating Ayfraym came from his childhood upbringing.

Ayfraym. Image © Everywhere Inc.

"Growing up as a kid, I would always travel to our cabin that my grandpa Fred built in the ’70s,” Winnie says. “It’s up near the Tetons on the border of Idaho and Wyoming, and it’s one of my favorite places on Earth. The cabin my grandfather built was the base camp for all things adventure in the region, and it’s created some of my best memories."

If a family wanted to build a cabin similar to Ayfraym, they would have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to plan out the project in a...

Seven ways residents in China are fighting pollution with their own inventions

2013-11-19T20:18:00-05:00

The latest market opportunity for entrepreneurs in China? Polluted air. For nearly as long as pollution has been a salient, public issue in the country, foreigners and locals have been devising ways to help residents avoid the worst of smog—and in some cases make a little money in the process. Here are some of the most notable ones.

The Interventionist's Toolkit: Project, Map, Occupy

2012-03-27T13:53:00-04:00

With Nuit Blanche New York absorbed — even if temporarily — into the rebranding of the Lower East Side, it's instructive to recall an earlier era and another light projection. I'm thinking of the November 1984 projection by artist Krzysztof Wodiczko of Ronald Reagan’s hand onto the elevation of the AT&T Long Lines Building just before the election that made Reagan a two-term president. This past November Wodiczko's act of spectacle and protest would inspire Occupy Wall Street's "Bat Signal."

In the latest installment of her ongoing series on Places, Mimi Zeiger surveys some of the events and exhibitions organized in New York City last year and inspired by Occupy Wall Street. Along the way she analyzes the unfolding dynamic between the grassroots tactics of activist artists and designers and the institutional strategies of the city's cultural leaders.