If you happen to live in one of the countries¹ in which Pixar has chosen to release their latest movie before now, then you might already have seen their latest 3D rendered movie, Up; in which the protagonist’s home is the last remaining property that stands in the way of enormous modern building developments.²

Unlike in Up however, the real life properties that find themselves in this situation don’t just float away, and their refusal to be moved has earned them the moniker of Nail Houses.

Edith Macefield moved into her home in Seattle in 1966, and in recent years turned down many increasingly large offers from developers looking to build on her land. In the end the developers decided to build the complex anyway, leaving her home boxed in on three sides. In the Street View images we can see the construction underway all around her little home, with her distinctive blue car parked outside visible even from satellite.

Edith sadly died in June last year, but since then her home was actually used as part of a publicity stunt promoting Pixar’s movie, and remains for the moment, as a reminder of what can be achieved by refusing to be steamrolled.

In Washington D.C., a Mr. Austin Spriggs reportedly turned down an offer of 3 million dollars for his property as it was directly in the way of a massive new development. Mr. Spriggs was apparently seeking a loan to open up a pizza restaurant on the premises, but when the Street View car passed, this was clearly still some way from becoming a reality.

It turns out that there are people all over the place who have decided, for the sake of pride, morals, or plain stubbornness, to remain in their homes no matter what. Here’s the home of a man who lives in the car park of the St. Alexius hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota. I wonder if he gets free parking?

Not even the biggest of companies can always get their own way either. At Microsoft’s Redmond West campus there’s one solitary private property, which was apparently left alone under the agreement that the house could stay there until the present owners died.

The phenomenon of “homeowner holdout” isn’t just constrained to private homes either. At Tokyo’s Narita Airport, the proposed layout of the tarmac was completely ruined by several farmers, who steadfastly refused to sell their land to the airport. You can see how the runways weave around the various farms that get in their way, as well as being split into tiny, useless segments by other bits of farmland.

I’m sure that this post only scratches the surface of this topic, so do you know of any nail houses in your area, and what’s the story behind them?

Wikipedia has more info on Nail Houses, and we wrote a story in 2006 about The Man Who Lives in the Middle of the M62. Thanks to Boing Boing and Deputy Dog.

There aren’t many sights that puzzle us here at Google Sightseeing, but this one has us stumped. In a remote desert area of Gansu province in northern China is this mysterious maze-like pattern.

The “streets” are about 20 metres wide, and the pattern occupies a rectangle measuring about 1km x 1.8km, aligned north to south and so sharply defined that it almost appears superimposed on the image. If you zoom in, though, you can see that the lines really are there on the ground.

Exploring the surrounding area, things get weirder. A short distance to the west are what appear to be a series of runways in various states of repair. But where are the support buildings and access roads?

At the northern end of one runway, there seem to be bomb craters. Could these be fake runways built as aerial bombardment targets? These mysterious blue-roofed buildings also seem to have been blown up.

Further west again, what’s this? Another big maze rectangle, this one looking old and faded. And just beyond… a circular arrangement of vehicles, planes and… other stuff, laid out over a 12-pointed star pattern. Another target? The plot thickens!

Frankly, we could fill a week’s worth of postings with the odd stuff on display around here. What are all these suspiciously regular shapes filling dry river beds, with signs of excavation and vehicle tracks? Could they be giant sandbags being filled and then carted off for construction work? If so there are thousands of them!

If any readers have any theories (or if anyone in the Chinese military happens to be reading!) then we’d love to know. One thing we do know, thanks to Google Earth’s historic imagery feature, is when the “maze” in our first photo was built. A photo dated April 14 2005 shows it partially completed, but by May 30 it was all finished.

Thanks to Garret.

Here in Beijing amidst multitudes of concrete high-rise office buildings, stands the ultra-modern Beijing-South Railway Station. The building was only completed in August of 2008, but is now visible on Google Maps thanks to this month’s image update, which includes satellite imagery taken just over a month ago.

Beijing-South is the Chinese capital’s hub for high-speed rail travel, and is Asia’s largest train station.

Upon its completion, the Beijing-South became the third passenger rail terminal in central Beijing, focusing on long-range inter-city travel. It replaced the comparatively minuscule Yongdingmen Station, which until 2006 had operated continuously for over a century.

Resembling an airport more than a traditional passenger railway station, the new Beijing-South Station boasts 24 platforms with the ability to send 30,000 passengers per-hour¹ zipping off to their destinations. The massive oval-shaped structure encompasses 320,000 square metres² with a waiting area that can accommodate over 10,000 passengers.

Designed to incorporate natural light as well as be environmentally-friendly, Beijing-South Station is a model of energy efficiency. Its central glass roof holds 3,246 solar panels that generate nearly all the building’s electricity!

The station was designed in a joint venture between Tianjin Design Institute and architect Terry Farrel, creator of such notable works as the Peak Tower in Hong Kong, and for you James Bond fans, the SIS building³ on the banks of the River Thames, London.

Requiring 60,000 tonnes of steel and 490,000 cubic metres of concrete to build, the Beijing South Railway Station took a workforce of 4,000 less than 3 years to construct. Looking at Google Earth historical imagery from August 2005 and April 2007 gives a great perspective to the massive scale of this project.

For some great pictures of the interior of the railway station, check out this blog.

Thanks to the Google LatLong Blog.

Halfway up a Burmese mountain we find a large, blue, mysterious building, that appears to have been built right into the side of the mountain. What could such a building be designed to house, and why would it need to be semi-submerged? One suggestion is that this is a top secret nuclear reactor, created with the help of North Korea.

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Burmese defectors that a nuclear reactor was being constructed near Naung Laing, which happens to be just 3 miles SE of this location.

The suspicious building appears to have large power cable connections, and there could well be security checkpoints on the surrounding roads, so perhaps the Burmese do have something to hide here?

Of course, none of this actually means there’s anything exciting going on at the building, it could still be an innocent sports hall.

So, is anyone convinced that we’ve got a nuclear bunker? What other things can you spot that might prove that it is a secret reactor or bomb factory?

Thanks to Arms Control Wonk, ISIS, Ogle Earth

It’s Volcano Week 4 here at GSS. Volcanoes, about a week. You know the drill!

Japan’s Mount Fuji (Fuji-san) is one of the most iconic and best recognised of any of Earth’s volcano, and when GSS first launched we received many suggestions that we post it. Unfortunately Google’s imagery was fairly low resolution at the time.¹

Thankfully the current imagery is vastly improved, and with its famous snow-capped peak, the view of Mount Fuji from up here is absolutely stunning.

At 3,776 metres, Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain by a good margin, and given how beautiful it is from ground-level, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Fuji is widely regarded with great national pride, and has so often been a subject of Japanese art.

Although it hasn’t erupted since 1708, Mount Fuji is considered “active”², albeit with a low risk of eruption. For the sake of any occupants of all the buildings perched around the crater, I hope the volcanologists are right.

These buildings aren’t permanently occupied however, as they mostly exist to service the needs of the 200,000 people who climb Mount Fuji every year. Paved roads run to 2300 metres, from where the summit can be reached in 5 to 7 hours.

As I write this Wikipedia is having technical issues, but they do have a page about Mount Fuji. If you’re interested in climbing it yourself, Japan Guide has the full breakdown of how to go about it.

Thanks to (deep breath) Adam, hito, Ben, Jacek Fedorynski, Anne Mathews, Caius Toneriko, Jared, Eric, Ron Vogel, Roy Tanaka, Chris Palmieri, Planck, Ramsey Callaway, Matt Van Pelt, Corey, Colin Allen, TSG, Eitan Nudel, Fero GUNIC, Adrian Ward, Boniface, numlok, Tom Grusendorf, ian, Jerry Mills, Manuel Fernandez, Phillip Lockwood-Holmes, Dan, Turtleknee, TomG and Alfred.