Posts Tagged ‘design’

Treehotel Opens For Big Kids

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

treehotel 1

Building tree houses was great fun as a kid which is why the opening of the Treehotel in Sweden will appeal to every kid that ever stole their Dad’s hammer to nail planks of wood into the branches of the family tree. The higher up the better.

The unique Treehotel comprises four-architect designed modules, each very different, that hang suspended high up in the trees in a forest outside the town of Harads.

Above you can see the Mirrorcube, a stunningly effective piece of design that disguises its presence in the woods by reflecting the surrounding trees, sky and wildlife from every surface.

There are great shots of it  - and some others – after the jump.

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‘Inception’ Movie Inspires Bridge City

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

bridge cityTrolls are not the only ones who live under bridges apparently, at least according to designers at Canadian architects, JA Studio Inc.

As part of an international competition called Zero Emissions, the studio has put forward building a city development underneath a valley-spanning bridge in Italy that is about to be decommissioned. The futuristic design looks like those curling streets from the head-spinning movie Inception and, judging by just how far out this design idea is, it may remain just a pipe dream.

The project, called Solar Park South, aims to utilise the already reinforced structure to create a residential development that would span from the valley floor to the underneath of the bridge.

The designers said:

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Chicago’s Decarbonization Plan Scoops Award

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

chicagos decarbonization plan

A massive plan to drastically cut the carbon emissions in downtown Chicago has scooped a prestigious award from Architect Magazine.

The fourth Annual R&D Award was given to the Chicago Central Area Decarbonization Plan by well-known Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, which presented a large-scale and hugely ambitious plant to retrofit existing buildings to achieve a 25% cut in emissions below the 1990 level.

The ‘Plan’ involves eight key strategies, starting with one called Buildings, “which investigates how existing structures can be upgraded to improve energy efficiency, increase the value of aging building stock and tap into the potential to transfer excess energy loads back to the grid, all while offsetting the need for new construction.

Other strategies include Urban Matrix, which envisions increasing the residential density of the Loop by enhancing amenities, Smart Infrastructure which tackles how energy can be generated, stored, distributed and shared and Mobility, which assesses transit and connectivity.

Some of the key changes presented include:

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The Meat House: Home of The Future?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

When people talk about modern architecture you tend to think clean lines, curves, steel and glass. You do not tend to think meat. Hold on to your set square.

Cutting edge, and award-winning architect, Mitchell Joachim does though. Based at Brooklyn’s non-profit Terreform ONE practice, Joachim and his team are experimenting with ways to grow homes from a petri dish.

You may already have come across his Fab Tree Hab, which thankfully, uses trees and plants. See a photo after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »


Chicago Architecture Calling All The Ladies

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

chicago waterfront Chicago is an architectural marvel and home to many of the most influential architects.

From Frank Lloyd Wright to Mies to Gehry to Piano to Ando etc. etc. etc. That’s not even taking in some of the heavy-hitting design firms.

But where are the ladies? Exactly.

The Women In Architecture Fund believe it’s time that female architects get a chance to contribute to Chicago’s architectural mix and so have devised a competition to find the best building design for a water front plot.

As they put it:

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Who Will Win The Expo 2010 Awards?

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

seed-cathedral

We’ve seen some stunning pavilions at the Shanghai Expo 2010 event: the Saudi’s desert oasis, the U.K.’s bizarre yet thrilling Seed Cathedral (see video footage of it after the jump) and, sadly, the most bland and boring pavilion of them all, the U.S. one which has been labelled by some ‘The Shopping Mall’.

Cruel, but true.

Still, one man’s mall is another’s Taj Mahal and you can now voice your opinion via the Expo 2010 Awards, being run by Exhibitor magazine.

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Norway Tops Green Building League – Again

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

norways tallest wooden building

There’s very few things – except maybe crude oil and coal – that can’t have the word ‘green’ shoved in front of it these days, in order to make it more eco-friendly. Many, sadly, are inaccurate and others are fads.

But when it comes to buildings, green building has become the new wave of construction. And right now, Norway is king of green building for the second year running, according to – take a deep breath now – the 2009 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Global Zero Carbon Capacity Index. Phew.

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The New San Francisco Mint

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

mint 1

The HOK design team certainly like to think so. This is how the winning team envision the revamp of one of the San Francisco’s most treasured historical buildings, the Mint, built in 1874 and survivor of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.

It’s now looking at a future as a new  museum and visitor centre for the city.

As you can see, maintaining the character of the original is paramount and the covered courtyard is a clever approach to opening up the inner space to the outside, while showing off the original stonework – much of which will have to rescued from ‘modernisation’ over the years.

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‘Cargotecture’ At Its Best: The View Tube Café

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

view tube 1

Overlooking the site of the London 2012 Olympics, the new View Tube café is not what you’d normally expect from your local coffee shop. In fact, there are probably very few coffee shops built from old shipping containers and, if there are, they probably don’t look quite as cool as this one. We like cargotecture for a number of reasons and you can find a number of excellent and innovative examples in our previous blog ‘Thinking Outside The Container’.

This is ‘cargotecture’ at its best and it’s the 40th structure built from old shipping containers at London’s Container City. Read the rest of this entry »


Saudis Build Floating Oasis In Shanghai

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

saudi arabian pavilion

It may not be the biggest pavilion at the Shanghai Expo 2010 event but the Arabian City is the most expensive.

This is the Saudi Arabian pavilion, loosely described as a ‘silk road treasure boat’ or more simply the ‘Moon Boat’, which cost a whopping $146 million to construct.

You can definitely see the oasis-style theme to the place which sits amid a ‘happy desert’ with the top deck planted with a hanging garden, complete with water pools and featuring full-grown date palm trees.

There are even tents erected on top to give visitors a chance to experience a little bit of desert life, just without the scorpions.

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