Architecture

While the McGee house may look like any other new designer home in the neighborhood, its walls tell a different story. Designed by husband and wife team Karl Wanaselja and Cate Leger of Leger Wanaselja Architecture, the upper outside walls of the house are made from over 100 salvaged car roofs. In a pursuit to build a house that utilized green technologies and reused materials, the couple sourced car roofs from a selection of gray-colored cars that had been left for parts in local junk yards in Berkeley, California. Their biggest challenge was sourcing car scraps that were in relatively good condition, without dents and with a good paint finish. The scraps were then cut into long tile-like shapes and used to complete the upper outside walls of the house, rendering a similar appearance to slate. Read More

Danish architectural firm MLRP has come up with a novel way to prevent graffiti and vandalism of a local town hall. By turning the outside walls into mirrors, the team successfully transformed a "drab" building into a local attraction that is hopefully resistant to future graffiti attempts. Read More

We were pretty impressed by the potential of these flying robots when we first covered this story in late November. Now the FRAC Centre in Orléans, France has released a video of the robot swarm in action during its current exhibition. Titled "Flight Assembled Architecture," the live installation showcases a fleet of quadrocopters building a six meter-high tower made up of 1,500 prefabricated polystyrene foam modules. Read More

Danish based Big Architects has revealed plans to develop the Levi Resort in Lapland. Named the Koutalaki Ski Village, the futuristic development will sit on the mountain ridge of the Levi Ski center overlooking Sirkka village in the municipality of Kittila. The design seeks to create a new hybrid resort which integrates the village with roof top skiing from a man-made "peak." Read More

There's a bit of controversy surrounding MVRDV's design for a luxury residential environment in South Korea. Some people are concerned about the resemblance of MVRD's “Cloud” to the 9/11 twin towers explosions. Whether it is a 9-11 lookalike is immaterial because it's meant to be a cloud, and it's an ingenious reinvention of the skyscraper using glass and sky and light and sun to create a unique and compelling environment, with many material advantages to the community. Read More

Japanese architecture firm Sou Fujimoto has won the Taiwan Tower International Competition with its green architecture design that features a floating forest. The competition is part of a larger urban plan in Taichung, Taiwan as a part of a new development for the "Gateway City." Architects were given the task of designing a tower that would be located at the southern tip of Taichung Gateway Park, with a minimum height of 300 meters (984 ft). Read More

China's L & A Design Group has created plans for an iconic pedestrian bridge projected for Wuxi Xidong Central Park, in Jiangsu, China. The bridge will connect the north and south foreshores of the park, and includes a man-made island in its design. The island will offer pedestrians commanding waterfront views and the opportunity to relax and enjoy the surrounding gardens or tea room facilities. Read More

We've seen cutting boards, bicycles, floors, even houses made of bamboo, but an organic chocolate factory? Evidently, when Ben Ripple and Frederick Schilling, the two co-CEOs of specialty food company Big Tree Farms (BTF) talked about sustainably building their new plant, they put their money where their mouths are. Now, the Indonesian island of Bali is home to what BTF claims is the largest all-bamboo commercial building ever constructed, and soon, it'll be cranking out tasty chocolate bars by the thousands. Read More

Portugal's OODA architectural firm has conceptualized a Disaster Education Centre that also doubles as an emergency shelter in the event of a real-life disaster. The center has been designed for the city of Istanbul and would be fully equipped with adequate technology and facilities to respond to a natural emergency. The center focuses on educating the public about disasters, with a special focus on earthquakes and floods. The design of the building reflects this theme, resembling an emergency cross symbol that has fallen onto its side, as if affected by an earthquake. Read More