Master Plan, LOOP City

LOOP City is a master plan for the suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark centered around an expansive new light rail system that instead of just being a way for people to get around. Conceived by BIG Architects, the transportation loop will feature an undulating rail line with peaks at each station. In addition to acting as "an artery of true urbanity, pumping life into the heart of the suburbs," the project will also incorporate strategies for energy efficiency, waste management, and water treatment.

Read More......

Beautiful Residence with a Judd Lysenko Marshall Architects in Australia

Here is a home which manages to combine playfulness with soberness. Designed by Judd Lysenko Marshall Architects, and comes with a highly original architecture. Here is a fun version of the brief of the project from the architects: ” No, they said. Make it Saint Kilda.And, make it light. Make it bright. Make it tight. Add all of the green stuff too, please. And, we want it beachy. Maybe like a boat? And it better be fun. Serious fun.Hmn. How about spotted gum? Or even better, spotty gum…” Not always easy being an architect? Well, in this case we think the team did a great job in meeting the client’ expectations. This building is unique, colorful, alive, and perfect for a family home with kids. Moreover, sustainability is a strong feature of this place, as the house is equipped with solar panels, natural ventilation systems and wide windows of unusual shapes for filling the interiors with natural light.

Read More......

A Summer House with Nature

We don’t know about you but we have always loved homes that are surrounded by trees and vegetation. There is something so relaxing about them. Okay, maybe they don’t have those spectacular views or the always-play-on mood you associate with beach houses but they are just so connected with nature. And this home rendered out(computer generated) by Garciarchitek is a glowing example of what we are trying to point out here.

Read More......

Rotating House by Rolf disch

Rolf Disch has designed a new house with a solar-collecting array on top that follows the Sun all day long, but the real feat of engineering comes from the structure itself. The entire house rotates on a central axle. The front of the house is composed of triple-glazed glass to point toward that glowing ball of gas in the sky during the winter, while a heavily insulated backside rotates around to keep the heat at bay during those warm summer months.
And that balcony you see at the top? That isn’t a simple railing system; those are solar vacuum tubes for heating water and moving it throughout the house. This house is so energy efficient it actually generates more energy than it needs. And I thought the five-star energy rating for my new home was a big deal.

Read More......

Modern Treehouses for Children

Treehouses are more popular than ever, as play spaces for children but also as luxury hotel (and even house) designs for adults. Some of the most fantastic plans and ideas can be traced to specialist designers and builders - and pictures of their work can provide some of the best inspiration (as well as an informal visual guide) for do-it-yourself recreational, residential and commercial tree buildings.
Blue Forest is one such company, but far from the only one. Their specialty seems to lie somewhere between playful little fantasy structures and big educational spaces for children engaged in wildlife observation, forest ecology and related nature-oriented pursuits.
The trick is to find a balance between safe and fun - railings are a must, as are sturdy supports, but whimsy and asymmetry help make these places feel more organic and engaging for younger visitors in particular.
Some take on the character of a playground, with ropes, ladders and low elevations - or are more like the traditional club-house spaces we associated with 'tree houses' from our childhood.
Some are like mansions, fortresses or castles - just set up on stilts instead of sitting on the ground.
Still others (were it not for the color in the pictures) seem timeless or like they could have been constructed in the Middle Ages - until you reach their incredible contemporary interiors at least.
On the inside, Blue Forest tends to go for a combination of styles - modern simplicity with rustic natural wood-panel walls and floors with straw-infill wooden ceiling structures that feel like something between a rustic tropical resort hotel and modern rural house or home.

Read More......

Crystal Ice House by Greg Holm dan Mathew Radune

What happens when you take one of over 20,000 abandoned homes in Detroit and call attention to it in the middle of winter … by pouring gallon after gallon of water over the roof until it is covered from top to bottom – windows, walls, plants and all – with ice?
For one thing, the resulting crystals are incredible – unique frozen snowflakes, but super-sized and surrounding every square inch of this installation art project. Moreover, making this structure melt-proof during the day is tougher than you might imagine. Cross-breezes, continuously-added liquid and other cooling strategies were employed to keep the ‘icing’ on this project.
Aesthetics aside, however, this ‘remodel’ is of course designed to remind people of just how many homes are left to rot in our current economic crisis as well as in general within the city limits of hard-up towns like this poster-child Michigan city.
A collaborative project by photographer Greg Holm and Mathew Radune, this Ice House structure – already bound for destruction – will be demolished after the architectural installation is complete and the proceeds as well as the property itself will go to deserving local family for reuse and, ultimately, the reconstruction of a replacement home.

Read More......

PricewaterhouseCoopers Office Building in London

London’s Thames will feature one extra attraction: the new PricewaterhouseCoopers office building rated “outstanding” by BREEAM, the most widely used “environmental assessment method for buildings”. This means we are dealing with a modern, sustainable office building, first of its kind in the world of Economy giants. Its final rating took in consideration a few factors, such as use of recycled materials, water and energy consumption, natural lighting and fresh air. Placement was also an important aspect. It seems that more and more corporations these days go for green buildings which is appreciable.

Read More......

Spanish Villa Architecture by Marcel Wanders

ARCHITECTURE based in Los Angeles and Switzerland led by founding partners Sebastian Knorr, Heiko Ostmann and Moritz Knorr have won numerous international awards, including the "NEXT" L. A. AIA Award and the American Institute of Architects Honor Design Award. Their collaboration with the Marcel Wanders Studio resulted in Casa Son Vida 1 on the Spanish island of Mallorca that seems to be the perfect combination of architecture and interior design. Casa Son Vida 1 located near Palma in the exclusive Son Vida community is the first of six planned villas on the island, Casa Son.

Read More......

Pyramid tent House

The juxtaposition of such lifestyle extremes – fixed-space suburban living and nomadic world-travel dwelling – makes for a fascinating conceptual challenge. It was, in fact, similarly neighboring opposites that gave rise to the idea in the mid of design student living on a lovely nature-filled campus but surrounded by suburbia on all sides.
John Paananen took it upon himself to discover what would happen if he were to make over one of the most mobile kinds of traditional buildings – the tipi, with inspiration from its yurt, tent and igloo cousins – turning it into a stationary home with all of the creature comforts to be found in contemporary suburbs.
Instead of a portable and organically-evolved design, he chose to force-fit the general shape and style of a conventional nomadic dwelling into the space and settings. Rather than put the emphasis on easy construction (and deconstruction) for living on the move, the construction methods and materials follow those of a typical suburban house – complete with a wood frame and artificial siding (no poles and soft materials one would expect).
The results? a translucent-skinned, semi-solid structure that lacks the mobility of a historic yurt, tent or tipi – almost a parody of (or at least a commentary on) the static nature of modern dwellings. Furnished in clean and casual style, the interior gives a strange not to nature via a forest printed in photo-realistic fashion on the wall. So is this art, architecture or something else? That only you can judge – but it sure looks more comfortable than what most people take camping. Still, if you are looking for one on sale look elsewhere: this one-off design was anything but cheap and easy to buy parts for and assemble – which, in a way, is part of the point.

Read More......

Casa Son Vida - Round and Square Shapes

Casa Son Vida is a luxury villa on the Island of Mallorca, approximately 15 minutes outside Palma de Mallorca. The villa’s design is an example of design poetry in motion. The 800 square meter luxury villa is remodeled into something extraordinary Mediterranean house that was constructed in 60s. Its design marks an arrival of a new architecture’s generation to the island. Round and square shapes, futuristic blobs combined with antiques result in a mix of traditional and modern references throughout the villa, with the play of reliefs and contrasting surfaces creating an unusual atmosphere. This amazing design one of those that should be remembered.

Read More......

Comfort a home from a Surrounding

You may have the best of surroundings but comfort is the defining perimeter which makes a place called home. These images reveal an ideal comfortable home made to relieve you of the daily work stress. What makes it so special are the contrasting ceiling heights for instance the low ceiling in the living room and the high one in the kitchen. Double story windows have been used to ensure maximum light entry into the house which makes the surrounding radiant. It may not be a great idea for a town where there are space constraints but in a country side where the space is all yours, such uneven ceiling patterns and double story windows could make a great architecture idea.

Read More......

Sky Scraper To Have Wind Turbines

Even though more and more sustainable projects are being built lately, we didn’t see this coming: you are looking at the world’s first sky-scraper to have wind turbines. Nicknamed “The Razor”, this incredible structure is located in London and measures 148 meters. The official name of the project is “Strata SE! Tower”, a building equipped with three wind turbines, that will ensure 8% of the structure’s total energy consumption.Here are some words from the official website: “Strata SE1 comprises a £113.5 million investment in the area by Brookfield Europe and will provide 408 high quality apartments in two prestigious architecturally distinguished buildings, the Tower and the Pavilion, both with space for shops and restaurants below.

Read More......

Preschool Project from Debbas China Architecture

From Debbas Architecture, this large scale project is located in China. in a city called Dalian and it is not your usual kindergarten building. Here in Europe we are used to small constructions for kids, some of them with a typical architecture and drawings or cartoon graphics imprinted on the walls. However, keeping in mind that this preschool project is located in China, its large scale comes as no surprise with the overgrowing population of this country. The interconnected site has a very interesting architecture as the individual buildings have an unusual oval shape and really stand out. Each of them has to levels, one meant for sleeping and the other one for the rest of the daily activities. What do you thing of this design? Could you tell it is actually a kindergarten building?

Read More......