bookofjoe

What is this?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Hint: bigger than a bread box.

Another: not underwater.

Bonus question: where is it?

How The World's Tallest Statue Was Built

Wrote James Coleman in Scope of Work:

I recently became aware of the Statue of Unity in Gujarat, India.

Completed in 2018, it is the world's largest statue, standing at 182 meters tall (excluding its 58 m base).

This is more than quadruple the size of the Statue of Liberty (42 m) and 50 m taller than the previous record holder, the Spring Temple Buddha in Henan, China (128 m).

The Statue of Unity honors Vallabhbhai Patel, the first Deputy Prime Minister of India and an important leader in the nation’s independence efforts.

This video gives a good overview of the statue's construction. It is basically a skyscraper shaped like a person, featuring two massive cores made from 210,000 m3 of concrete and a skeleton made from 27,000 metric tons of steel. The monument is so tall that it has two tuned mass dampers (which you can see in this video) to help mitigate wind and seismic activity in the area.

Indian sculptor Ram V Sutar meticulously crafted a 10 m reference design, which was 3D scanned and cast into 12,000 bronze panels by Chinese firm Jiangxi Tongqing Metal Handicrafts (whose foundry you can see here). This sourcing choice was not without controversy, as the monument was in part created to support a "Make In India" campaign.

The statue is made of melted-down old farm equipment.

Emergency Folding Red Nose

Wrote SwissMiss: "This emergency folding red nose made me laugh. Designed by no other than Sir Jony Ive."

From Wallpaper:

For Red Nose Day 2023, Sir Jony Ive and his LoveFrom team created the Comic Relief red nose, for the first time in folding form, offering 'a little moment of joy'

Led by Sir Jony Ive, creative studio LoveFrom has unveiled the new Red Nose Day 2023 design, in aid of biennial UK fundraising event Comic Relief.

The design uses recyclable materials and is built with ease of transport in mind — folding out from a flat crescent shape into a paper sphere when used.

LoveFrom was founded in 2019, and revealed its LoveFrom.com website in 2021, following Ive's three decades of design at Apple.

 

The team includes designer Marc Newson, art director Peter Saville, and former Apple designers Chris Wilson and Antonio Cavedoni, all of whom worked on the Red Nose Day 2023 design.

 

"This new and seemingly simple red nose has been a fabulously complex little object to design and make, and has involved our entire team," commented Ive. "We hope it brings a little moment of joy to anyone who wears one."

 

 

Created almost entirely (95%) from plant-based materials, the nose folds out from two plastic crescents, and into a paper honeycomb sphere that clips onto the wearer's nose.

 

Being able to fold flat, the piece overtakes previous designs, which have historically been made from moulded plastic or foam (2021 saw the first plant-based design), in terms of efficiency. 

 

Comic Relief was founded in 1985 by Richard Curtis and Jane Tewson, as an opportunity to fundraise through comedy, with the first Red Nose Day taking place in 1988.

The campaign has since become a biennial occurrence, and Red Nose Day 2023 takes place on 17 March 2023.

Money raised will support causes to prevent homelessness and food poverty, as well as mental health charities.

£2.50.