Remember when we used to plot the construction of our own treehouse with wooden planks, ropes and leaves? Not anymore it seems... Swedish firm Tham & Videgard Hansson Arkitekter designed a fancy new TreeHouse that minimizes its visual impact on Nature. It's an interesting concept though i'm positive it ruins the idea and the magic behind the point of having such a construction. On the other perspective, it also creates an all new dimension of illusion to rejoice upon. Check Tham & Videgard Hansson Arkitekter for more information.

He is one of the most liberal and progressive congressmen in the U.S. today. He has a true passion for preserving the environment and advocates cycling quite strongly by trying to create proper infrastructures, passing bills (and by riding his bike to work everyday dressed in an expensive suit, a bow tie and a colourful pin of a bicycle).

video taken from Street Films

Eco-enthusiasts will soon have a new eco-paradise island to escape to! Bonaire, a part of the Netherlands Antilles, will be the first island in the Caribbean with a 100% sustainable energy supply. In 2007 the local government of Bonaire, who prides on its island’s beauty and natural preservation, agreed to this ambitious project of trashing its fossil fuel energy dependence and developing an energy system comprised of an 11MW wind farm, 14MW biodiesel plant, and a 3.5MW backup battery. Ecopower Bonaire BV, a consortium of Dutch-German companies, Evelop, Enercon, and local Bonaire Water and Energy Company, is spearheading this project that is expected to finish at the end of 2009.

The project developers first installed a pilot 330kW wind turbine, whose current energy production exceeds any of their initial expectations. As a result, 12 more 0.9MW wind turbines will be installed on the north coast of the island, where wind and surf conditions are most ideal. This wind farm alone can meet the energy demands of the island’s 15,000 permanent residents! Still, five bio-diesel generators are under construction for added stability, and developers expect the switchover from conventional fuels to bio-fuels within 3 years of operation.
Like its neighboring islands such as Aruba and Curacao, Bonaire’s economy is heavily reliant on tourism. Bonaire has strategically developed its land span of 111 sq. miles and the surrounding coral reed for tourism and eco-tourism, making it a top ranked Caribbean destination for scuba diving and witnessing wildlife. The island’s north side is also home to an array of flamingos, a donkey sanctuary and an ecological preserve. With beautiful beaches, great snorkelling, and 100% sustainable energy supply, what more could an eco-enthusiast ask for on her eco-holiday?

As seen in inhabitat

Forget about wandering through an art gallery and wondering if you’re the only one who has no idea what anything means. Hannes Broecker has brilliantly invited the cultural elite to grab a glass at an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, and drink away the art.

Regardless of what we do or do not understand about art, we can all agree, it stimulates our senses. Broecker has aroused our sense of taste (not to mention eliminated the need of elbowing our way to the bar) by hanging flat, glass containers with a variety of cocktails in the exhibition space. As the night progressed, the levels of the multi-coloured infusions diminished. By the end of the event, the art, itself, ran dry, and empty drinking glasses were returned to where they were originally placed.

For her thesis project at Rice University, a student, Chin, proposed ten "waterscrapers" that would slice across the urban space of Manhattan, cutting through buildings, through parks, and through the urban grid itself, forming strange aquatic intersections with the city.
Inside would be routes for scuba-diving, new aquariums, and multi-seasonal sites for public swimming.
These above-ground pipes of water – like hydro-boulevards, or one might say the hydrological Haussmannization of Manhattan – are less an actual proposal for construction than a sort of architectural dream: the city cross-cut by amniotic utopias through which people can wander at all hours of the day.


As you can see in the short comic strips that accompanied the project, it is themed around overlapping idea of excess, self-indulgence, and addiction, as if these Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture-like scenes might be therapeutic, a mass psychotherapy of space.
It's 3am and you're depressed; you can't sleep. You go out wandering across Harlem, inside one of the Annexes, completely alone, not a single other person in sight – when a group of people goes scuba-diving over your head. As if they've attained flight through an artificial river in the sky.
In a city of insomniacs, the city itself becomes the dream.

as seen in bldgblog

Apparently Fortune Magazine has just made a list of the best companies to work in.. Take a look on who scored first place.
(From ideiainteligente.blogspot.com)

Hong Kong International Airport


Airwalk


Conquering land


Bank of China and Friends


Convention Center


Bruce Lee


Hong Kong Skyline