#the supertall ears were also cute

[batshaped]

early drawings of achilles

[cagestark]

-Defender-

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six

Read here on AO3.

Warnings: homelessness, poor!peter. Adult!Peter. Mean!Avengers. Not Steve Rogers friendly. Also, in this AU I’ve taken it upon myself to change some aspects of Spider-Man (not too many, no worries). Enjoy. 

-

The first time he meets the spider-kid, it is after hours on the eighty-second floor of the main building of Stark Tower.

But the kid is on the wrong side of the glass.

“FRIDAY, run that by me again,” Tony says. He’s in his pajamas—a pair of hastily pulled on pants with not even boxers underneath, donned only when FRI sounded the alarm. The holographic video plays in front of him, but what it shows him makes no sense. It isn’t even possible. “What exactly am I seeing?”

“Fifteen minutes ago sensors on the first floor were triggered, suggesting a human presence. On closer examination, the intruder seems to be scaling the side of the building using grip enhancements that I can’t identify.”

“Okay, but is he doing what I think he’s doing?”

“Do you think he appears to be washing the windows, boss? Because all signs point to such.”

As they speak, the figure (barefoot—barefoot and more than eighty floors above Manhattan) dressed head-to-toe in black including a dark balaclava that obscures their features, pulls a squeegee from where it is secured to a multi-purpose belt around their waist. They wipe the glass clean in long, smooth strokes, flicking the water and soap off behind them. The way they move across the glass gives him goosebumps, makes him shiver with terror and awe.

He takes the elevator down from the Penthouse, passing the Avengers’ floor where the others are sleeping peacefully (God knows he doesn’t want to wake any of them up). There’s no indication that this person is a threat—and if they were a threat, this is hardly a dastardly plan.

The eighty-third floor is dark and quiet. It’s an accounting floor where they work to manage his assets and the company’s assets. He passes cubicles on his left and right, and though he visits this floor maybe once a month or less, he feels at home here. The entire building is home to him, and he knows it the way Steve and Bucky knew their tiny homes in Brooklyn, the way Clint knows the farm his wife maintains.

The south wall is entirely glass. Tony stands back in the shadows to watch as the dark figure crawls from east to west. They become preoccupied when they realize that their bare feet are leaving smudges on the glass, and their floundering is—well, it’s almost cute.

Tony approaches that glass cautiously, unwilling to startle person and send them plummeting to their death. When they pass by, squeegee pressed to the glass, the freeze with their face just inches from Tony’s. The balaclava has goggles on over it to obscure the person’s eyes, but Tony doesn’t need to see those eyes to know they are wide with alarm.

Grabbing a paper and pen from a nearby cubicle, he writes a quick message and presses it to the glass.

MEET ME ON THE ROOF.

They stare at the paper for so long that Tony begins to question their literacy. But then they attach the squeegee back to their belt and lift the bottom half of the balaclava. They reveal a cut, angular jaw and thin lips. Leaning in, they come so close to the glass that Tony thinks they’re going to kiss right where Tony’s mouth is—but instead they heave a silent breath, and in the fog of it, write with one bare finger: NO.

“Are you kidding me, right now?” Tony mutters. He uncaps the pen again, holding it in his teeth, and writes on the other side of the paper. TRESPASSING!

They breathe again, write: BUSY. Then they squeegee over the words and continue on like they aren’t dangling 1200 feet above Manhattan.

“Boss?” FRIDAY says. “I believe I’ve pegged the identity of our intruder. It wasn’t until he wrote on the glass that I was able to get a decent map of his fingerprints; all other readings keep coming back inconclusive. His name is Peter Parker. He was hired by Stark Industries in early August as a member of the maintenance department. Twenty years old, native of Queens, emergency contact is one May Parker, also of Queens—”

“Thank you for solving the mystery, Velma, any ideas on why he’s acting like an oversized microfiber cloth on my building’s glass at the devil’s hour?

“Jinkies, Shaggy, I’m an intelligent digital assistant, not a mind reader.”

“Shaggy? You’re grounded, baby. I’m a Fred guy all the way.”

“If anything, boss, you’re most similar to Daphne. But according to Mr. Parker’s recently opened emails, the maintenance department was mandated just yesterday to wash the windows on the main, north, and south towers. It appears Mr. Parker is getting a head—and unorthodox—start.”

“This maniac works for me?” Tony mutters. He follows along the window while the kid cleans, though he loses him when Parker crosses around the corner of the building and disappears onto the west side. “How the hell is he sticking to the window, FRI?”

“I can’t tell, boss. Diagnostics can’t find anything between his hands and the windows, but whenever he is sticking, the characteristics of his fingerprints change. It appears he grows scopulae.”

“Scopulae? As in, spider hair?” Tony stands at the window for several long minutes, lost in thought. At last, he heads back towards the elevator, shivering in the air conditioning. Instead of asking FRIDAY to take him to the floor Parker is currently cleaning (Floor 69, as of now), he tells her to take him back up to the penthouse. If the kid’s enhanced, then he’s safer on climbing the walls than anyone else Tony knows.

Not to mention, the windows are fucking spotless.

-

Peter is up to his eyes in the HVAC unit of zone 3 in the Stark Tower main building when his ears pick up the sound of the elevator door opening on the other side of the floor. With a building as tall as Stark Tower, heating and cooling takes division of the building into several zones with their own separate units. Zone three is for floors twenty-four through thirty-six—and twenty-four in particular, where the HVAC home base is, is a marketing floor. People here come and go without noticing him, walking briskly and talking on their phones. The elevators open and close all day long, but something about this particular incoming occupant has the office going silent.

The hairs raise all over Peter’s arms and legs. Danger? he wonders. But then he hears the murmuring of voices, a name said over and over in reverence: Mr. Stark. Tony Stark.

Tony Stark. The man who had caught Peter scaling the side of his supertall last night. Emblazoned in Peter’s memory is the image of the man coming out of the darkness on the other side of the glass, wearing nothing but some low-slung pajama pants. And who knew that Tony Stark, forty-plus years old still had the remnants of a six pack? Peter had been distracted for the rest of the night, even almost losing his grip around floor 21. Which wouldn’t have killed him (probably) but would have been very shocking to anyone walking down below on the street.

And now the man is on Peter’s floor? Well. It doesn’t take a genius to know what’s coming.

“Fuck,” Peter mutters. He immediately starts packing away his tools, tucking his hat down lower on his forehead to obscure his brow. His senses activate accidentally and suddenly a wrench is stuck to his hand and he shakes and shakes but for the life of him, it won’t come off—

“Well, hello.”

The wrench goes flying out of Peter’s hand, and Tony Stark barely manages to dodge it as it careens by him, hitting the wall and denting the plaster. They stare at each other, eyes wide, neither of them expecting such a thing to have happened and not being entirely sure how to proceed. The man is even more handsome in the light, eyes like the whiskey he drinks, hair immaculate and threaded with grays around the temples, lips full and curving into a smile. Fuck, Peter has had a crush on this guy since his Uncle Ben took him to a Stark Expo more than a decade ago. Seeing him in the flesh is almost too much to handle.

“Sorry,” Peter mutters, going to pick up the wrench.

“Don’t be. You’d be surprised how often I get that reaction.” He sticks out a hand, and Peter’s got no fucking clue what Tony wants him to do with it until the older man wiggles his fingers. For a business guy by day (and a suited superhero by night), Stark’s hands are calloused and strong. He looks Peter in the eye, gaze soft and unassuming, like he isn’t the most powerful man in the business world, like Peter isn’t some gum he’s tracked in on his shoe.

“I’m sorry for the wall, too,” Peter says. “I’ll fix that.”

“No, you won’t.”

Peter’s shoulders hunch. Of course, he won’t. Stark’s going to fire him. Peter will be back to shelter hopping and picking pockets until he finds another job. At least now he might have some references from coworkers who all seem to have taken to Peter, the youngest of their troop. The quiet woman Sam saves him a seat every lunch hour in the breakroom, and Carlito has started asking his wife to pack him two sandwiches so he can give one to Peter. Everyone has been so nice.

Peter should have known it wouldn’t last.

“You’ll be much too busy, I imagine,” Stark says. He takes the toolbox from Peter, like Peter is some dainty girl who can’t carry her own books to class, or something. Like a gentleman might. Peter is keenly aware of everyone’s gaze on them while the older man escorts him to the elevator. It must look ridiculous: Peter in his dirty work clothes, sneakers taped together, walking beside Tony Stark.

“Are you calling the cops on me?” Peter asks when the elevator door closes. He can tell that it’s moving upwards and not downwards, though—

“Why would I do that?” Stark asks. He’s wearing tinted glasses, and it’s a crime, because he’s so fucking pretty Peter would kill to see his face without them.

“Because of last night.”

Stark’s face smooths out. “I wasn’t sure if we were going to pretend like I didn’t know it was you—but I guess this makes it all a lot easier on my part. No, I’m not calling the cops on you.”

The elevator opens on the most lux penthouse Peter has ever seen: modern decore with glass tables and marble countertops and windows that show Manhattan below them like a toy city that Peter could step out and crush if he so felt like. The wood floors are polished and gleaming under Peter’s disgusting tennis shoes, and he’s never felt more out of place and more at home all at once.

“Thirsty? Hungry? I’ve got leftovers, if you don’t mind my germs. If you do mind my germs, I can order in for you. What do you like? Any food allergies?” Stark’s head pops up from where it had disappeared into the refrigerator. With narrowed eyes, he assesses Peter’s silence.

“Water would be—that’d be cool.”

“Sparkling? Distilled? Alkaline?”

“Uh—tap?”

“Excuse me, tap?” Stark shuts the door with a thud. “Now I am calling the cops. Seriously. You? Sit.”

Peter sits at the stool tucked beneath the island countertop. The marble cools his heated palms when he presses them against it. Despite his words, the man does not make any move to call anyone. He moves a Styrofoam dish to the microwave and heats up something that smells lovely, like marinara and basil. He cracks open a bottle of water and places it in front of Peter. It’s the crispest, most tasteless water he’s ever had. Probably harvested from mountainous glaciers or something.

At last Stark joins him on the other side of the island, sitting the dish of—yes, pasta—between them. He hands Peter a fork. “Dig in, kid,” he says. “I don’t have cooties.”

What the fuck, Peter thinks as he shares pasta with Tony Stark. Unbidden to his mind comes a scene from some Disney movie, when the two dogs share the piece of spaghetti and it makes them kiss. Just the idea of it has Peter staring resolutely at the wall of cabinets, chewing mechanically, hoping his face isn’t as red as it feels.

“Shall we talk shop while we eat?” Stark asks, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

Peter shrugs. He has no idea why he’s here. No idea what shop this man could possibly have to talk about with the likes of him.

“You’ve got mad skills,” he says at last. Stark lays his phone flat on the table and from it comes a holographic projection. Peter watches himself in 3-D scale the side of Stark Tower. Yeah, he looks pretty cool—except for the squeegee. That’s kind of dorky. “How are you doing that?”

“It’s—a long story,” Peter says, rubbing his thumb against the prongs of his fork. Society has made a lot of advancements regarding its treatment of enhanced humans, but there’s still a minority of people who are afraid in their ignorance. It was on the news last week when Peter was killing time in a McDonalds before he could arrive at work to Stark Tower: an enhanced teenager was murdered by some concerned townsfolk who believed she was destroying the crops with her weather-controlling capabilities.

He can feel Stark’s gaze on him. It makes him bristle, makes his shoulders hunch. Peter doesn’t do well with authority—that is, most authority seems to just use and abuse Peter. He’s suddenly keenly aware of how vulnerable he is right now: a twenty-year-old with no family, no friends to come looking for him, in the penthouse of the most powerful man in the world who has perfect blackmail material on him. Peter’s palms start to sweat, and he wipes them on his pants.

“Are you going to hurt me?” Peter asks, voice low and quiet. He can’t look. But he has to know—has to prepare himself.

Stark stands, abruptly. “No—Parker. Peter. Look at me.”

Peter does, his jaw clenched and eyes flat. He might be scared, but he’s no coward. Only, Stark doesn’t look anything like a man who is about to hurt him. His mouth is downturned in the softest expression of tragedy that Peter’s ever seen. “I’ve just realized,” Stark says. “This won’t do. I need Burger King.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Burger King. Don’t you know that I’m an eccentric billionaire, doomed to give in to my every whim? And my whims want a Whopper. Come on. Grab your metaphorical coat—or your literal coat. Should we stop by the maintenance floor?” Stark strolls to a closet and rifles through it, pulling out a long, dark, very expensive looking coat. Peter can almost feel it under his fingers, it must be so soft. “Kid? Are you hearing me?”

“I don’t have a coat.”

“Alright, take one of mine. Let’s go. My stomach waits for no one.”

When Peter tries to step onto the elevator behind Stark without grabbing a coat, the man insists on going back in and finding one for him. The billionaire puts him in a half dozen coats made of the soften Italian wools and genuine cashmeres, before settling on one that’s very similar to Mr. Stark’s, only with a collar that Peter can pulls up around his throat to keep the wind away. It smells clean, but faintly of cologne, like the man has worn it out recently and put it away without washing it. Thank God the coat is thick enough to hide the semi he sports.

They end up hiding in a booth in the back of a Burger King two blocks away, both of them with Whoppers and Large Fries and Cokes. Peter inhales his—an enhanced appetite, not to mention the general lack of food he suffers from on a typical day’s basis—but Tony keeps up, holding his own. He takes out his phone and sits it on the table again, tapping several buttons, and suddenly Peter’s head throbs a little, senses spiking.

“Is that bothering you? I’m using it to scramble anything we say from being overheard by anyone around us, but we can do it the old-fashioned way if we must—you know. Whispering.”

“It’s fine—that’s, that’s amazing.”

Stark blinks. “I—thanks. I made it.”

“I figured—how does it work? Can you tell me?”

And the man humors him. Actually humors him, explaining in laymen’s terms even though he might be surprised at the level of conversation Peter could keep up with. When Peter asks a question, the other man grins showing neat, white teeth that Peter would give anything to run his tongue along.

“You’ve been really nice,” Peter says when their food is gone and cups nothing but ice. It’s an understatement, because this is the nicest anyone has treated Peter in a long, long time, and the way Stark talks and looks at him isn’t condescending or pitying. It’s like he sees Peter as a human. “But why am I here? So, you know. About me. What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Stark says. “It’s not illegal to be enhanced. And while it is illegal to trespass, mostly it’s very unsafe to do it more than a quarter mile above the ground, so I do ask that anymore night time adventures aren’t spent scaling my building.”

“Okay,” Peter agrees. “I just wanted to make it easier for the other guys. They really look out for me. I didn’t want to make them have to work so hard, when I could do it so easily.”

“That’s very generous of you, Peter. May I call you Peter?”

Peter shrugs.

“I’ll take that as a yes—and you can call me Tony, okay kid? I’m not here to call the cops or to fire you. As a matter of fact, I want to offer you a job. Tentatively.”

“You want to promote me?” Peter asks, brow furrowing.

“It’s hardly a promotion. The hours are longer. The pay is—well, under the table. There’s danger too. Potentially mortal peril.

“Tell me, Peter, what do you know about the Avengers?”

[itsasif007-blog]

10 exceedingly strange great buildings from around the globe

New Post has been published on http://liststories.com/10-exceedingly-strange-great-buildings-from-around-the-globe/

10 exceedingly strange great buildings from around the globe

There is no doubt that art and architecture can depict the unusual. And when artistic licence meets the concrete world of construction, the results can be nothing short of mind-boggling. In this account, we take a tour in which we discover a horizontal skyscraper, a circular skyscraper, a robot building, a bizarre towering castle of wood, and the world’s largest bread basket, among other constructions that will expand your mind and even end up on your travel itineraries.

10. Horizontal Skyscraper – Vanke Center (Shenzen, China)

When is a skyscraper a skyscraper in name and shape, but not in behavior and function? When it is a fairly typical looking skyscraper that has been painstakingly constructed to lie on its side! The building logically would look totally typical if you were to turn your head 90 degrees to the side when you examine it, for the building’s position is what makes it weird. Why? Because the structure is an eerie sideways skyscraper, built horizontally along the ground but in the form of a skyscraper. Strange and thought provoking. The brainchild of Steven Holl Architects, the Horizontal Skyscraper – Vanke Center in Shenzhen, China may look normal in shape, in sharp contrast to the oddity of its physical position

Standing on supporting pillars, the building is actually the length of the height of the Empire State Building, while its physical location is stretched along an immaculately landscaped garden with grass, woody plants and pools of water. The construction of the building extended from 2006 to 2009. While bizarre, the building has both ample glass and ample class. It serves its purposes including office and conference centre functions plus apartments and hotel suites, creating both a distinctive place to work and live while providing a modern and iconic place to visit. Considered a winner, the project was recognized with a 2010 Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects, showcased as an example of excellence.

9. The Wooden Skyscraper (Archangelsk, Russia)

A house of cards may not stand well, but a wooden skyscraper? If one is creative enough to think out of the box and crazy enough to construct a monster castle of boards, then one may well be on their way to scraping the heavens with a tower of mere timber. A work of a madman, a convict, and a potential mad genius, albeit one flouting building regulations in a concerning way, the Wooden Skyscraper of Archangelsk in Russia is a towering monstrosity that is best described as a monument to one man’s personal journey to Babel in the sometimes frozen North.

Known as Sutyagin House, the 144-foot building was begun in 1992 by underworld lord Nikolai Petrovich Sutyagin in defiance of both building regulations and architectural challenges. Impressive in stature, massive but clearly rickety upon close inspection, the giant building stood in the face of all imaginable building regulations before its reign of rebellion was brought to a close. Rising spire-like but resembling a skyscraper merged with a supervillain’s castle, the massive wood structure dominated the local region for years before deteriorating during his time in prison. After his release, city authorities finally succeeded in having the structure, which had been built based on inspiration from Japanese and Norwegian wooden structures and intended as a status symbol and as accommodation, to be demolished.

8. Robot Building (Bangkok, Thailand)

Technology and state of the art buildings often go hand in hand, but it is almost unheard of for a full size skyscraper to actually look like a robot. Technologically advanced buildings may boast their advancement with the right materials, shapes, and structural elements, but simply being constructed to look like artificially intelligent, non-living humanoids is a brave mechanical step in a radically novel direction. Built with an array of superficial features added on to a body, torso and head like structure, the high tech United Overseas Bank headquarters in the form of a robot building in Bangkok, Thailand forms a globally unprecedented and exceptionally striking project.

While looking just like a robot might seem laughable as a merging of architectural and technological oddity, the construction also constitutes a spectacular and unique example of creating a building with “robo-morphic” architecture. The idea was to reflect the high-tech nature of the bank through architecture and the work certainly did its job. The half window, half wall bump out eyes, antennae and ears combine nicely with the abdomen, torso and head to make a pretty cute, albeit huge and stationary robot headquarters. And where did Thai architect and genius Sumet Jumsai get his inspiration? He created the vision for the building based on the idea he developed by seeing his son’s toy robot after the Bank of Asia commissioned him to design them a new headquarters building.

7. Genex Tower (Belgrade, Serbia)

Eastern European architecture can gain the look of science fiction constructions, sometimes merging the modern and the castle-like in one building. Strange, awkward-looking in the eyes of some but also undeniably impressive in sheer size, the Genex Tower of Belgrade is an architectural monstrosity dating back to times of great conflict. Looking like a bizarre cross between the CN Tower and the Brandenburg Gate on steroids, the structure is extraordinary for its gate-like shape coupled with its narrowness and sheer height.

Built as the novel and daring planned creation of architect Mihajlo Mitrovic forms a massive arch built with two skyscrapers, the taller reaching a height of 377 feet, further distinguished with a huge yet remarkably incongruous revolving restaurant perched 459 feet above the ground. The restaurant’s circular shape is a prime example of the irregularity and incongruity of the different structural components of the tower’s form and strange spatial layout. The connecting section of the building that creates the arch shape consists of a two story bridge walkway extending between the unified towers. Walking between the two towers is a startling experience, with nothing below for hundreds of feet as you boldly walk the relatively short distance bridging the giant towers.

6. Burj Khalifa (Dubai)

Acclaimed as the tallest building on the planet, the Burj Khalifa is remarkable not only for its sheer size and height at 2,716.5 feet and more than 160 stories. The building holds a multitude of world records, including tallest building in the world, highest occupied floor, most stories of any building globally, highest outdoor observation deck, tallest service elevator, and tallest free-standing structure. (Oh, and there was also that time Tom Cruise climbed up the side.) Constructed of the gigantic building was started in 2004, while the exterior of the building reached completion in 2009 prior to the opening of the structure in 2010.

Built in part to increase tourism revenue, the construction was supported by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum in a bid to create an extraordinarily striking creation that would garner a significantly greater global recognition of Dubai. Containing hundreds of apartment and hotel suites, the building also boasts swimming pools and elevators that include equipment that can reach speeds of 33-feet-per-second. Constructed primarily from reinforced concrete with significant quantities of steel structural elements, the tower has both a stepped appearance and narrow spires that reflect Islamic architectural styles characteristic of Dubai.

5. Goldin Finance Tower (Tianjin, China)

Remarkable for its incredibly ordinariness and simplicity in shape coupled with impossible height and slenderness, the Goldin Finance Tower of Tianjin, China reaches an astonishing height of 1,957 feet but is essentially cube shaped and remarkably spindly. Almost a third of a mile high, the building has been likened to a huge walking stick due to its spindly appearance and supertall design as it nears completion. With 117 stories contained within its vertical rise, the Tianjin central business district landmark is deceptively ordinary in its almost stereotypically skyscraper shape. However, the sheer height of the building combined with its relatively narrow and square base shape in fact accentuates the dramatic appearance of the building, giving it the incredibly striking appearance of a giant square stick.

Unlike more bulbous or spire adorned tall buildings, the Goldin Finance Tower is at its heart a functional building that devotes the bulk of its construction to practical usage thanks to its continuous square shape that rises to great heights without being reduced to narrow spires and vanity constructions. With four prominent corner reinforcements rising vertically, the building contains finely designed, rectangle-shaped window patterns that add to the meticulous and functional look of the building’s construction. Inside, the construction includes sky lobbies and the world’s highest swimming pool, adding more distinctive elements to the already dramatic looking tower.

4. AlDar Headquarters (Abu Dhabi)

Built in Abu Dhabi, the bizarre AlDar Headquarters might shock first time visitors or lead to a false UFO crash report. Why? Because the enormous but beautiful structure is in fact the world’s first circular skyscraper. Towering at 360 feet tall, the building represents unity, stability and rationality as well as infinity and was completed in 2010. The structure resembles a gigantic plate that has been stuck into the desert ground, widened slightly and then packed with office space. The two sides of the building are interspersed with a continuous edge of windows that resembles a band that has been used to join two halves, but further increases the sideways landed UFO appearance of the structure.

Reinforcing beams crisscross the outsides of the building, creating the appearance of a myriad of diamond shape structures on the sides. On a smaller scale, within each diamond like face section, multitudes of diamond like lines define the shapes of multiple window panels grouped together. The result is the convex outer shape the building, which resembles two plates put together in form. While many buildings have been constructed with rounded foundation, the creation of a towering circle that is actually placed to stand upon its side like a UFO or a giant wheel is in fact unprecedented in architectural achievements.

3. Dancing House (Prague, Czech Republic)

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is remarkable, but its lean was certainly not intended and apart from the lean, its architecture is normal. Conversely, the Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic was purposely built in such a manner that it may look at first glance to be in a state of collapse. Started in 1994 and finished in 1996, the structure consists of two leaning figures that represent dancers Fred Astair, depicted by the concrete tower, and Ginger Rogers, intended to be represented by the leaning glass tower that stands on concrete legs. The combination of the two indeed looks just like a man and a women in the moment of embrace while enjoying a graceful and intimate dance.

The result of architectural collaboration between American architect Frank Gehry and Croatian architect Vlado Milunic, who recruited Gehry to work with him in fulfilling the request of Dutch company Nationale Nederlanden to build an iconic headquarters building. The building where the Ginger Rogers structure stands had been destroyed during WWII by Allied bombing, while the structure that represents Astair, which survived largely intact, was the home since childhood of Václav Havel, who later served as Czech president and commissioned a study of the site by Milunic after Milunic shared his vision.

2. Longaberger Headquarters Basket Building (Newark, Ohio)

Is it bigger than a breadbasket? Well, this turn of phrase may be less useful as a generalization of measure when the breadbasket in question is not just over a foot long, but is an entire office building. Not a full skyscraper, but a building so remarkable in scale for what it represents and as a subject, we have to take our hats off to the Longaberger Company Headquarters building in Ohio. Why? Because the entire building is not only constructed as a gigantic bread basket but it actually looks like one, built to include even a textured exterior design that replicates the look of a woven basket.

The building is fully realistic, complete with metal handles weighing nearly 150 tons that are specially heated to keep them in good condition. The 7-story building was able to accommodate 500 employees, with a intricate and remarkable authentic macroscale weaving design. The spaces in between the replicated weaves formed the windows of the remarkably distinctive building. After facing financial challenges, the company, which specializes in baskets, pottery, and other home décor relocated to a “normal” building in 2016, to the disappointment of some and the satisfaction of others who expressed a preference for working in a more practical building.

1. Fake Hills (Beihai, China)

?

The hills may be said to have eyes in horror films, but in Beihai, China, those hills that you see may definitely be filled with human eyes as people go about their business in a bizarre but awesome building complex that has been fashioned in the form of a hilly skyline. The Fake Hills represent a very bold expression of the urban planning concept of harmonizing building form and character with the surrounding environment. Extending lengthwise and paralleling the beach except for one unit at right angles, the fake hills form a silhouette of foothill like appearance that are accompanied by lush gardens interspersed with lower individual buildings in between the structures and the beach.

The main structure is unified and narrow, with a curving outline but having a straight across edge that is intended to contain numerous amenities and access points, allowing people to walk along the width of the laterally compressed hills as they undulate up and down. In December 2016, Beijing based MAD completed the first phase of the project as the fake hills get up and running toward being able to accommodate a rich diversity of uses. The towering hills are intended to reflect the hilly coastal scenery of the southern Chinese port city in which they stand, adding depth and character in a dramatic manifestation of economic development efforts compared to the more mundane form of standard apartments.