THING OF THE WEEK
TOPSY… When it comes to property, an upside-down house might seem counterintuitive. In terms of leisure, it’s a discombobulatory event. The Upside-Down House is coming to the Trafford Centre on 5 October and is a hybrid of street art and illusion. Visitors are encouraged to walk on the ceiling and go down the upstairs. Maybe this will be the property of the future, certainly not the craziest idea we’ve ever heard.
PET PEEVES… Everybody has them, but in the standard passive-aggressive British style, nobody mentions them. Well, apart from the team at design firm Planit-IE who created a this illustration you can stick up in your shared office kitchen without saying a word. Some pet peeves for its Altrincham HQ include the universally-hated nudist toilet roll, the fridge-dwelling forgotten foods, and the missed mugs at the end of the day. Anymore for anymore? Drop them in our comments, it could be a great way to finally tell your coworkers.
ODDSPOT… When it comes to holidays or trips nowadays, hotels are blasé and AirBnb is so 2016. What you really want is to stay in a station master’s room or in a treehouse, and thanks to website QuirkyAccom.com you can have your real holiday needs met. There are some truly magical and oddball options available in the North West, but THING’s personal favourite is the canal boat on Manchester’s waterways.
STOREY… With gender balance still way below equal in most architecture firms, it’s great to hear of schemes across the world where women have dominated the delivery. Africa’s tallest building has been designed by nine women in an 11 person team. The Leonardo, when completed, will stand at 55-storeys in Johannesburg. One of THING’s favourite aspects of this story is that the team were so busy just getting on with the job, they didn’t realise how female-dominated the project was until a photo of them all together brought it home late in the design process.