Show HN: Brutalist Concrete Laptop Stand (2024)

This man poured concrete around a power strip, chemically aged copper with ammonia, rusted rebar with peroxide, faked a damaged cable for vibes, and vibrated out the air bubbles with a dildo. This is the most unhinged and delightful Show HN I've ever seen.

So many naysayers. I love it! So what if it doesn’t come from the Brut region of France and thus it’s just sparkling cement, it looks great and is clearly a labor of love.

Oh man... I've never worked with concrete, but I would love to make a desk stand that looked like a little montréal métro station. They're all rather brutalist, and have flat tops haha

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Station_Radisson_Met...

Nice!

I've always wanted to build a computer like the iMac G4, with the half sphere, the arm and the monitor. In my street there was a pebble/rock (the size of a rugby ball, pretty smooth surface) laying around near a tree, and I thought of taking it with me as the base for this computer. It's beautiful stone. I should have grabbed it, because now it's gone.

But it required a lot of grinding and sanding to make it ready. I think pouring concrete is a better option for my idea.

Thanks for the inspiration!

I wonder what the practical limit is on how thin and light you can make concrete for non-structural items? I can see someone selling concrete mugs on Etsy, for example. Maybe with clever use of fillers and thin walls you could have a version of this you could actually lift. It looks great, especially in contrast to a white IKEA-style office.

Re: decay, I regret not taking more photos of the final days of the RBS "Ziggurat": https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/stark-ph... ; at the end it had plants growing from much of the upper levels, making it look extremely Horizon Zero Dawn.

If you like brutalism, you might also enjoy the Quake Brutalist Map Jam 3, which released last month: https://www.slipseer.com/index.php?resources/quake-brutalist...

My favorite map is ‘One Need Not Be a House’ by Robert Yang, which was inspired by Louis Kahn's "brick brutalism" masterpieces in Bangladesh and India, as well as contemporary level design like The Silent Cartographer. The artist writes about their process on their blog post, https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2026/01/one-need-not-be...

The map jam is standalone and uses custom assets so you don’t need a copy of Quake to enjoy it. Check the website for the ‘standalone’ variant.

Sorry for derailing! Cool laptop stand!

This is awesome, one of my friends actually wanted to make a laptop top and bottom case from concrete. Thin enough it could even work but would still be heavy. Definitely very stylish. Related: this design studio in Hungary creates a lot of concrete products, including designer bags. https://www.stylemagazin.hu/kiemelt-hir/A-het-designere-Ivan...

Related: Anyone know where to get that kind of keyboard in the photo? Specifically, where the number pad and arrow keys are on the left?

I've been looking and looking, but the best I can find is using a narrow keyboard with a separate number-pad only keyboard on the left. I'm in the US.

(It's better for your right shoulder to keep the mouse closer to your body like in the picture.)

This is pretty cool looking, I like it, it must be really heavy though.

> For a medium-sized piece like this, a vibrating dildo is actually the best thing to use. Just think of it like any other power tool.For a medium-sized piece like this, a vibrating dildo is actually the best thing to use. Just think of it like any other power tool.

I used work on foundations for warehouses, huge concrete blocks as anchor points and this is exactly how we got the bubbles out, we had a huge metal vibrator they call them high-frequency concrete pokers.

This looks pretty funny paired with a sleek fancy MacBook though.

You need a proper Soviet-esque workstation of a laptop to sit on that concrete block - go get yourself a nice, chunky ThinkPad T530.

if we give it a little more polish, colder/greyer tones and "newness," it would fit very nicely for a Control fan :)

EDIT: https://store.steampowered.com/app/870780/Control_Ultimate_E...

I'm not an art theorist but I think the decay makes it something other than brutalist IMO

Before I was scrolling down the web, I was thinking that this guy went to any construction site and just took any good looking rubbles.

This is dope af. I love concrete (was just gifted a book about concrete buildings for my birthday last week). I see things like this and remind myself that I have free will.

Thanks for the inspiration.

@dang, I'm not sure what's changed with the Show HN lately, but it's been much more lovely to read. Thank you for whatever changes which were made.

This is cool. It's not for everyone and probably very heavy.

But I love the hacker feel of it.

Looks amazing, I love it. Nice work!

It can't be a good idea to condition yourself to be comfortable around an exposed wire that's near to a real power socket.

I certainly haven't heard of that technique to get rid of bubbles in the cement.

This is beautiful. Definitely beats the minimalist "cardboard box" stand. Bravo. I wouldn't want to move it though.

I asked for a monitor stand at work, back in the day. No money! So I went to the loading dock, found a wooden pallet for the little AC units we installed in racks, put that on my desk. Voila - monitor stand.

The contrast between raw industrial material and polished tech is what makes it work. There's something satisfying about building things purely for yourself with no product roadmap attached, the "dildo for air bubbles" detail alone proves this wasn't designed by committee

Really solid laptop stand!

How much does it weigh?

If you want to get a feel of what brutalist architecture is like up close, go to the Barbican in london if you can.

Its quite surreal. Very much in-your-face concrete exposure. Yet, to walk and experience it with your eyes is a study of contrasts: a giant, comparitively modern, greenhouse, has a glass roof open to the sky and yet many floors have no light or windows at all. And in the outdoor spaces, like the fountain/canal running through the complex the concrete will sort of be in the background and lets you focus on everything else: the water, the swans and the people around.

Juxtapose that to low hanging exposed concrete roofs and walls in closed passages could make one feel constrained/claustrophobic/yearning for light.

This is the kind of content that I come to HN for. Well done, OP. I love the product and inspiration.

Isn't the ornamental 'urban decay' detail kinda the opposite of the utilitarian and functional style of brutalism?

Is that surface concrete? Will it scratch the laptop?

I love it! I just wish I could enlarge the photos! EDIT: ah, it works to right-click open image in new tab.

Cool project, but not brutalist

Chalk it up to far too many hours in the Sci Li but I quite like this.

This is pretty cool. How much does this weigh?

this is really cool, what a great Show HN. i will try to make one this weekend :)

Use a Keychron concrete keyboard with it .

There are some subtly weak desks out there, quite a few actually, where placing this on top could be brutal.

Looks awesome! I like raw concrete. Plays well with the tech around it.

And while at it… Why not a concrete laptop case?

A really complicated way to scratch your shiny expensive Apple device

For a larger piece, I used a massage gun and walked around the mold hitting the sides with it. Worked out

This is so weird. I love it. Thanks for sharing!

I read every comment. What HN can be at its best.

It's too much concrete for me, but hey, not every day you see an original and unique piece like this!

Literally just looks like some trash sitting on their desk. Well done if that's the goal?

Can't say I'm heavy into brutalist architecture and then sit on an Ikea chair

OK I thought this was a late April Fools until I kept scrolling.

I don't like it but I like that you did it.

love the brutalist vibe of this. concrete is such an underrated material for desk setups. It looks way more premium than the plastic xD

The most obvious issue here is that there needs to be a mat on the top to avoid scratching the bottom of the laptop.

This is sick but sad that it has to live in that open office cubicle world :[

work of art!

Looks like a rat hideout.

They'll never steal it gg

Summarily ruined yet again by massive British sockets requiring removing 25% of the volume.

Brits build their homes around the sockets, not the other way around.

It's hideous.

post-apocalyptic vibes

Also known as an inertial mass dampener for your sit-stand desk.

I appreciate++ the design except for the too-perfect rebar and the exposed wire directly _in_ the concrete. Pros would use a conduit methinks.

ok, it's stable (at least from the photos), but I would prefer a more lightweight approach

That's one way to prevent people from taking your desk at work

I'm waiting for the man to make a laptop case out of concrete. That will be truly brutalist!

I love this! The pure weight of it is amazing, and distinctly makes a statement. Its a fun concept one could play with if they were making their own!

I think a "clean" and "contemporary" version of this would look amazing as well:

Along the lines of: https://www.modustrialmaker.com/blog/2018/8/14/making-an-imp...

Maybe with: (for weight) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_concrete (there are plenty of DIY versions of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4_GxPHwqkA

I imagine its good on heat disipation...

looks like trash. congratulations man

Such a heavy stand might serve as a nice heat sink too, I would think. Doesn't have fins, but it could radiate evenly, and not even get that hot.

You just need to cover it with graffitis to fully depict the experience of the poor souls living in brutalist buildings.

I love concrete as a medium but that's got to be heavy af and I would manage to smack my elbow on it all the time as well as smash my coffee mug on it.

Is it just me or can you all hear the sound of the metal/aluminum scratching against the concrete?

Loved the brutalist movie, this actually seems quite nice assthetically.

When I first look at this I think "hey it would be nicer if it wasn't falling apart", but you could argue that's kind of the point. Well done

More Industrial interior design than brutalist architecture

I don't like it, from a pure brutalistic view point this obviously doesn't make any sense, it isn't practical and it doesn't make any effort to create a shape that is esthetically pleasing. The urban decay is even more outrageous, the whole appeal of urban decay is that it is "real", it's the thinking about all of people that went through the same structure throughout the years. Of cause it doesn't mean you can't make art about or featuring urban decay, but you have to be smart about it.

Should have stolen a broken piece of concrete off a street and repurpose it to be a laptop stand. At least that would be authentic, and contributing to urban decay at his location.

Now I need to make a concrete laptop

I've always loved this style of architecture. People think commie blocks are ugly but I've always appreciated their simple utilitarianism

go visit any major “third world” country city … probably see those everywhere.

my annoying ass coworker has one of these, he keeps trying to migrate us to raw sql and C

I'm about 75% confident this content is AI generated. Just intuition , no tools used. And I'm assuming our audience is autistic enough to put in the effort to build this. Composition, shadows & lighting seems synthetic.

Kudos to the creativity and no offense to the author. Partly running off a-priori risk model for internet content.

Curious to see if my prediction holds up.

This is quite tasteless… a betrayal of brutalist honesty. And the dildo thing is plainly disgusting. Let’s all be gentlemen and keep that sort of thing off the Net.

Well, from the look of it, to touch the thing wrong must be its own punishment, which is brutalism indeed. It insists on itself far too loudly, though, in what I would call a pseudapocalypticist or "Falloutpunk" manner. Too bad. There's nothing much wrong with it for its own sake, other than the ergonomy, but it sticks out from its environment like a sore thumb, adding nothing of value save the demand its presence be flattered and celebrated for its own sake - you know what? I take it back; you've not only recapitulated the brutalist concept, but apotheosized it. Congratulations on a successful work! It must have been a blast to build, which is where the real joy always is to be found of course, and I look forward to seeing which school of design you satirize next.

(Did you really immure a power strip in cement? The MOVs in those are wearing items, you know, and can though rarely do fail short circuit...)

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I guess "I poured some concrete into a mold and put a power outlet in it" wouldn't be as eye catching of a title.

This is one of those things where someone does something incredibly simple, but dresses it up in pretty language and even some totally irrelevant chemistry equations (because they r so smrt) to make it look like more than it is. Which LLM did you paste the equation from?

And of course those who also have no idea how anything is made are unbelievably impressed. You can tell by the amount of exclamation points in all of the toxically positive reactions. Good work in that respect!

But hey, I guess it's not another vibe coded project with an LLM writeup. Progress.