It is an amazing city that’s built at the bottom of a lake. It’s the ancient city of Seuthopolis, in Bulgaria, which was discovered in 1948. But six years later, it was covered in water, ending up at the bottom of a lake. Now, the city is being unearthed via the construction of a huge circular dike that’ll be a whopping 1,377 feet in diameter and 65 feet high. People will be able to access the recessed city by boat, heading down into it to see the city.
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French designer Jean-Marc Felix created this concept “Itinerix“, a mobile, foldable and transportable apartment. As the winner of concours Lepine regional 2008 in Strasbourg, “Itinerix” weights 3.5 tonnes and while folded, its dimensions are 8 meters long and 2.5 meters wide. Made of lightweight composite material and resistant (750 kg / m²), its chassis is made of steel and aluminum. “Itinerix” is French-made and can have multiple uses: emergency housing, office, school … The prototype was produced in 18 months.
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Powerhouse Company created this awesome villa named the Villa1. Located in the woodlands of Holland, the Villa1 is oriented optimal towards the views on the terrain and the sun. Half of the program is pushed below ground to meet local zoning regulations. This creates a clear dichotomy in the spatial experience of the house - a glass box ground floor where all mass is concentrated in furniture elements and a ‘medieval’ basement, where the spaces are carved out of the mass.
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I really liked this HP House by Akira Yoneda and Masahiro Ikeda, and impressed by its hyperbolic paraboloid surface. Is a great example of how you can use just a small piece of land to build an really interesting piece of architecture. There is just enough space to park a small car thanks to this side wall.
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The Japanese are not only good with electronics, they also have great designers and architects. House N is a series of nesting boxes in Oita, Japan, by Sou Fujimoto Architects. It is astoundingly transparent even as it is smartly layered to create privacy where needed. Generally, the bedroom is the most private area in our house and we would try to hide away, but House N has a non-traditional design; the bed area is not in the inner most box, but in the second box. Painted in white and the blurred boundaries between interior and exterior spaces, it’s a stunning piece of design.  photos from iwan.com
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Most high-rise buildings are still outfitted with a hidden and expensive network of metal ducts which are run through structural cores or between structural beams in an ineffectual and often conflictual way. But architect Emergent did a great change turning buildings inside-out and designed The Huaxi Urban Center for China. The Huaxi Urban Center externalizes all its “innards” in a morphology of shifting lights racing up and down its glacial-like hull. The glass envelope begins to take on duct behavior by delaminating to create pleats where air can flow. These pleats branch and run across the building facades, linking to floor plenums on each level at several locations along the perimeter. A second layer of loose-fitting skin wraps the glass duct-skin, registering the pleats and shrouding the building. This shroud is made of perforated sheet metal. At night, the glass ducts glow from behind the shroud, creating elegant color and depth effects, reflections, and silhouettes.
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Harmonia 57 is a residential project by france’s triptyque architects and is located in a neighborhood in the west side of Sao Paulo. Like a living organism, the building breathes, sweats and modifies itself, transcending its inertia. Most noticeably the home’s face is covered in small holes filled with vegetation. In this great building, where the rain and soil waters are drained, treated and reused, a complex ecosystem is formed within the local. The front face also has massive louvered doors which open up the windows or shade it from the sun. “Its volume is quite simple, but also remarkable: two grand vegetal blocks are connected by a metallic footbridge, cut by concrete and glass windows and terraces. Between the blocks a internal plaza opens like a clearing and acts like a place of encountering.”
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Artists, poets and architects Arakawa with his wife, Madeline Gins built these “reversible destiny” loft-style apartments in Mitake, Japan. “Designed to stimulate the senses and force inhabitants to use balance, physical strength and imagination, the lofts feature uneven floors, oddly positioned power switches and outlets, walls and surfaces painted a dizzying array of colors, a tiny exit to the balcony, a transparent shower room, irregularly shaped curtainless windows, and more.” Two rental units are now available for 220,000 and 250,000 yen ($2,000/$2,400) per month.
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Located on the Baltic Sea Island of Usedom, this upside down house called “The World Stands on its Head” is the brainchild of Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk, and has opened its doors to the public two weeks ago. Continue reading for more pictures you can find that designers did a great job with the interior.
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Look these pictures and you can find that there’s something on the roof and it’s huge. Wonderful! Architecture isn’t just about architects. It’s human, it’s organic - it’s all about add-ons! The first picture shows a giant crab on the roof.
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