Via b3designers

Amazing what green can do to such a deathly place. This guy‘s energy bill must off the charts, though.

Via Abduzeedo

What if some distant uncle (who moved to Katravozh in his hippie years and made a fortune breeding lamas) one day decided to mention you in his will and you would have the fortunate thing happen to you of inheriting an old warehouse?

These images having been sitting in some forgotten folder for a while now and I thought the last few minutes of a busy week (before finally shutting down my work pc and going home) would do great to push ‘em online. Having recently started the renovation thing myself I could see nice things happening in these vast spaces.

The Teshima Art Museum, photographed by Iwan Baan. White curved concrete with very little inside it.

Update: Some very interesting production shots of the museum on Antje Verena’s Flickr stream.

Uniting the creative visions of artist Rei Naito and architect Ryue Nishizawa, Teshima Art Museum stands on a hill on the island of Teshima overlooking the Inland Sea. Shaped like a drop of water, the museum lies in a corner of the spacious grounds surrounded by once-fallow rice terraces that have been restored with help from local residents.

Structurally, the building consists of a concrete shell, devoid of pillars, coving a space 40 by 60 meters. On the ceiling 4.5 meters above, two oval openings allow the air, sounds, and light of the world outside into this organic space where nature and architecture seem intimately interconnected. Inside one finds an ever-flowing fountains and an ambiance that changes from hour to hour and season to season, revealing countless appearances as time passes.

Found via Designspiration

Ouff, stunning set by Mauro Marzo featured on Behance today. I must say this is by far his best work. Hopefully he produces more like it in the future.

Amazing piece of architecture by William O’Brien Jr. Must be a pain to heat the place, though. But yes, I would most definitely buy a house like this. Planning on robbing a bank soon…

via Wanken

Great set of images by Ramsus Norlander. More (even greater) pictures to be found on his portfolio site but he has cleverly decided to block all saving of images. Good for the copyright, but not so good for the sharing.

Via But Does It Float

I’m a huge fan of windmills and wind turbines. They beautify the skyline like nothing else. Windmills of this size must be breathtaking and I most definitely would visit them as if it were the Eiffel Tower (what’s the Eiffel Tower next to something this beautiful, right?).

These stunning images were created by On Office, an architecture collective who have clearly found an appealing way to communicate their work and ideas. Pitching projects to people who want to see results immediately can be a frustrating process. Before facing a technical implementation team who will want to know how your masterpiece idea can become reality, you’ll probably have to face an enthusiastic board of directors who only think of the end product and how their immediate peer group will associate their names with wow, that’s awesome the things you guys are doing over at …. That’s why in a first phase you really have to be able to trigger the emotional layer and get your audience jumping up and down because they are going to be owners of something fantastic. What better way to do this than present images like these which get the imagination flowing.

And also, did I mention wind turbines are awesome?!

I was watching the news this morning and saw the images of Burj Dubai (Burj Khalifa) being officially opened with fireworks and everything. It mostly struck me because my future brother in law is working for the company involved with the construction of this massive design (828m !!!). Googling the building told me there is a competitor in the race for ‘the tallest building’ which most likely would set a world record to be held for quite a while. The Nakheel Tower (Al Burj) has currently been put on hold because of financial troubles but when built it would reach a height of >1000m, the exact height depending on the source.

These buildings always remind me of the numerous illustrations of the biblical ‘Tower of Babel‘ legend where people try to ‘reach the clouds’ but are stopped by the god(s) because their tower symbolizes humanity’s vanity. Doesn’t seem to be much of a problem here, although the financial crisis stopping Nakheel Tower of being built might be a godly poker hand?

PS: The official website is worth a visit, too. Although I’ve tried to visit this morning and their server seemed to be down.

The Expo brought a wave of amazing design both in architecture as in the marketing campaign surrounding it. You can easily find tons of pictures of all the pavilions that were built around the atomium especially for this fair. One of the reasons I started looking into this topic is because I’ll be getting married in the church which was built for the exposition. It was later moved just outside of Brussels but still in use and beautiful.

Harder to find are the amazing prints that were produced. Here’s a selection of prints which I think capture great the vibe of innovation and ‘a new era’ people must have experienced in Europe those days.

PS: also, have a look at this great website which digitalized the Viewmaster sets which were made of the Expo.