Woman Quits Job To Build Sustainable Bamboo Homes In Bali

Elora Hardy left a successful career in the NY fashion scene to build bamboo houses in Indonesia. The Bali resident and her team have spent the last 5 years revolutionizing bamboo construction in the belief that it is an underused but ideal renewable resource. Hardy uses boron, which occurs naturally in nature, to treat the bamboo and make it indigestible to insects.

Hardy was inspired by her father, who “chose bamboo for all of the buildings on campus, because he saw it as a promise,” she explains in her TED talk. “It’s a promise to the kids. It’s one sustainable material that they will not run out of. And when I first saw these structures under construction about six years ago, I just thought, this makes perfect sense…Why hasn’t this happened sooner, and what can we do with it next?”

Bamboo has the compressive force of concrete, the strength-to-weight ratio of steel, and is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Damage from insects and moisture are its primary weaknesses, but if treated, bamboo structures can last a lifetime.

A Spectacular 36,000 Sq Ft Mural Decorates This Newly-Opened Market Hall In Rotterdam

A new market hall has opened its doors in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and it’s turning quite a few heads. The enormous Markthal Rotterdam, a curiously elongated horseshoe of a building, has a 36,000 square foot mural covering its rounded ceiling.

The enormous mural, by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam, is titled “Cornucopia.” It features brightly colored fruits, vegetables, and other market goods ascending into the sky like the ceiling mural of a cathedral.


The building, designed by architecture office MVRDV and developer Provast, features an open food market with 100 fresh produce units, 15 food shops and 8 restaurants. There are also 228 apartments with 1,200 parking spaces, making the entire structure somewhat of a self-contained living space. The Markthal expects between 4.5 and 7 million visitors a year.


Image credits: Ossip van Duivenbode

The most incredible rooftop swimming pools in the world

THERE'S nothing quite like the feeling of being on top of the world, with a city beneath you. Here's a guide to the best hotel rooftop pools from Barcelona to India. Dive in.



MARINA BAY SANDS

Agora Tower

Taipei just broke ground on a twisting skyscraper that is wrapped with a jungle of vertical gardens! Designed by Vincent Callebaut Architecture, the 42,355-square-meter (455,000-square-foot) Agora Tower will have an orchard, a vegetable garden, space for aromatic and medicinal plants, and a compost and rainwater capture system - and that's just the beginning.

Designed to mimic two encircling hands and the helical structure of DNA, the towers are organized a central core that allows for what the design team call a “hyper-abundance of suspended gardens.” These will spill over with edible and decorative plants, enabling residents of 40 luxury apartments to harvest a great deal of their own food (except for protein.) Plus, the rainwater capture system alleviates pressure on the municipal water supply and gives the complex even greater independence.

Each 540 square meter apartment will have an interior green wall as well, ensuring optimum air quality and a great green aesthetics. A circular light funnel will push daylighting right down to the basement of the building, a solar roof will provide energy, and low E glass will mitigate excess solar gain and prevent thermal loss. Complete with nanotechnology and a host of other high-tech features, this one-of-a-kind tower may well be the greenest of its kind when it is completed circa 2016.

The Secret Apartment At The Top Of The Eiffel Tower

Opened in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is an iconic building, recognized throughout the world. For many people it was an impressive news that the Tower contains a secret apartment within its highest level. Owned by Gustav Eiffel, the engineer who designed the tower, this apartment was fully decorated and frequently used for social gatherings with individuals, including Thomas Edison.

What many people don’t know about the tower is that the highest levels—which after several decades are now open to the public—play host to a private apartment built specifically for Gustav Eiffel, the engineer who designed the tower. Unlike the complex iron-weaved tower in which it lies, it was furnished in a simple manner and contained all the trappings of a modest 19th-century Parisian home, including carpets, wallpaper, cabinets, and a small bedroom. Despite this, the apartment was the envy of much of the city; indeed, Eiffel reportedly received several substantial offers for a single night in the apartment. Needless to say, such was his attachment to this highly coveted private space that he turned them all down.

Architectural Innovations - Egg shaped office building in Mumbai, India

The new “Cybertecture Egg” has been designed to be build with innovative technologies in Mumbai, India.

The 32,000 square meter building was designed by James Law Cybertecture International, a firm based in Hong Kong, UAE and India that has coined the term “cybertecture” to mean a meeting of architecture, technology and innovative engineering to sculpt the urban environment. Newest system enables electronically monitoring workers’ health: vital signs and statistics such as blood pressure are accessible to workers electronically in restrooms, and the stats can be signaled to doctors if deemed necessary.

The building’s design attempts to decrease energy demands through passive solar design, the construction of an elevated garden to help cool the building (through a process called thermolysis), the implementation of photovoltaic panels and wind turbines on the roof, and infrastructure to recycle gray water for landscaping.

The building was commissioned by Vijay Associates (Wadhwa Developers), and features special features even beyond those already described. Workers, for example, will be able to customize their favorite “view” to enjoy the virtual scenery of their choice. Also, because of the unusual shape and positioning of the building, the interior features up to 30-meter spans of floor space that lack obtrusive columns.
The Egg clearly boasts an unusual and innovative design, and that is the ethos that defines the work of the James Law Cybertecture firm: whether you like their designs or not, their aesthetic is plowing into the 21st century with all technology on hand and a healthy appetite for creativity.

Ombre Style Interior

Ombre Style is a common trend in the fashion industry, which in recent times, has invaded into the interior designing. Transition from the light to the darker color to each other is the main feature of Ombre style. Ombre interior also includes painted furniture, textiles, decorations reflected Ombre Style. Ombre effect can also be obtained through the mosaic tiles.
If you are ready for a completely different and bold experiments, just try Ombre!