A r c h i m a f i a

" this eye-catching ad for a new line of cast-iron cookware designed by Mario Batali. The stack of pots and lids, whose color was pretty close to Frank Lloyd Wright's favorite, "Cherokee red," had an architectural appearance, except that the pile looked unstable. Obviously, buildings should look rock-solid. Or should they?"
check out slides show of the jenga effect of architecture!
image and passage from Slate

"A new way of processing rice husks for use in concrete could lead to a boom in green construction.

"Media architecture collective Urban Alliance has recently finished the Moodwall: a 24 meter long interactive light installation in Amsterdam.The Moodwall is situated in a pedestrian tunnel and interacts with people passing by, improving the atmosphere in the tunnel and making people happy and feel less unsafe."
"The interactive urban wallpaper is built out of about 2500 leds behind a ribbed semi-transparent wall. The curves in the wall make it less suitable for grafitti and improve the visibility of the content for the side.
The resolution is horizontally stretched so the images of the screen are better for the side so people are stimulated to watch the screen from outside the tunnel. This prevents the tunnel to become a hang-out spot..." to find out more...
images and passage from archdaily

Quite impressed by this young fashion designer, Nahum Villasana, which show strong silhouettes of his menwear that emphasizing the volume and shape.

"Underwear is something we all wear every day. Mostly, underwear is worn next to the skin and under the outer garments. But besides knickers, tanks tops, boxer shorts and bras, we can also include stockings, leggings and socks.
The good news is that there’s a broad choice of eco underwear labels out there. They come in all shapes, fabrics, colors and styles. We’ve broken things down into five interesting and dominating eco-undie-styles: the Statement Pants, the Recessionista Look, the Romantics, the Skin Friendly Basics, the and the American Apparel Legging Club..."

"While many of us are just wondering about a world where renewable energy will rule every sphere of life, Romania-based Shepeleff Stephen, is working on ways to make it as fresh as possible. An engineering student at the Transylvania University of Brasov, Stephen is envisioning a world where solar energy will make each and every gadget green. The designer has developed Bluetooth headphones, called the Q-SOUND, which charge themselves using the energy of the sun...All the outer pieces of headphones have a satin silver finish, since they’re developed from flexible plastic and all the inner pieces offer more color because they’re made from rubber-based materials. This contrast is made purposely designed to provide a visual accent on the solar cells and to confer a light look on the design..." to find out more...

[Image: "People wear surgical masks as a precaution against infection inside a subway in Mexico City, Friday, April 24, 2009." Photo by AP Photo/Marco Ugarte].
1) In his under-appreciated novel Super-Cannes, easily amongst his best, J.G. Ballard explored the psychological, sexual, and even epidemiological implications of landscape design. This is "the secret life of the business park," Ballard writes....
2) You go to the Salone del Mobile next year in Milan and discover that I've somehow released a new line of furniture. Each piece varies just slightly from the rest, in that their measurements have been dictated not by human comfort, international rates of shipment, or even by industrial timber specifications, but by the distances medically necessary to maintain between yourself and others in order to avoid respiratory infections...
3) The recent outbreak of swine flu in and around Mexico City and the U.S. border region, is "suspected of killing at least 60 people," the BBC reports. In fact, the outbreak "has the potential to become a pandemic," according to Margaret Chan, current director of the World Health Organization...
4) This brings to mind Marina Nicollier's final thesis project at Rice University, wherein she explored the medical effects of architectural design. Part of her project dealt with the history of sanitarium architecture and, from there, the health implications of modern architecture...
5) The medical aspects of utopia seem under-explored in contemporary urban literature. Here, utopia could be retheorized as the city where no one gets sick. Through microbe-resistant building materials and a precisely measured anti-contagious spatiality, perhaps, your metropolis might even cure you...
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find out the 10 Thoughts!
passage from http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

"Our friends at LA and Athens based design collaborative Drifting City are proud to announce that Dreamgrove, its web page and interactive garden project, has been nominated for Best NetArt Site in the 13th Annual Webby Awards.

"...In the Pinker globalandskape, boundaries between working and living environments are blurring. Some Pinkers work at home while others want their office to feel as comfortable and cosy as their home. As the experience changes, the products used this worlds, once seperate but now merging, must evolve towards something resolutely modern."

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves.This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of '405'. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.More info, background and info on future releases can be at facebook.com/pages/World-Builder/73936485659 Become a fan and keep in touch.

Really love this video, if architect's dream is just as beautiful and romantic as this...

source from youtube and facebook-World-Builder

"There are certain items any green mom will tell you are absolutely necessary for a nursery. These include flat-pack furniture, wooden toys, flushable diapers and no-VOC paints. Yet these lists (and I’ve reviewed a few), always seem to neglect one obvious green inclusion – plants. Not only do plants add visual greenery to any room, they are great weapons in the fight against ‘sick building syndrome...
Plants can “scrub significant amounts of harmful gases out of the air, through the everyday processes of photosynthesis,” according to Extension Horticulturalist, Deborah L. Brown’s online article. Some of these harmful pollutants are also absorbed through the plant’s leaves and rendered harmless in the soil. But the key is allowing the plant and the soil it is potted in to work in tandem by removing any leafy growth close to the base as “micro-organisms in the soil become more adept at using trace amounts of these [once-harmful] materials as a food source..." to find out more...
passage & image from inhabitots

Think you must be came across some of the world unusual architecture. There is an Architecture blog that dedicated to collect all the strangest, most unusual, weird and crazy buildings of our world in one big and easy to use list. Check it out!

The Cubic Houses in Rotterdam, Netherlands (shown above) is always one of my favourite from the list of world unusual architecture. The original idea of these cubic houses came about in the 1970s. The concept behind these houses is that Piet Blom tries to create a forest by each cube representing an abstract tree; therefore the whole village becomes a forest. The cubes contain the living areas, which are split into three levels. The triangle-shaped lower level contains the living area. The middle level contains the sleeping area and a bathroom, while the top level, also in a triangular shape, is used as either an extra bedroom or a living space.
image from http://www.worldarchitecture.org/