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Thomas Frey - Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute - Celebrity Keynote

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Caught In The Act: Butterfly Mate Preference Shows How One Species Can Become Two

November 6th, 2009 at 10:09 am » Comments (0)

Polymorphic mimicry in Heliconius cydno alithea in western Ecuador, where the white form mimics the white species Heliconius sapho and the yellow form mimics the yellow species Heliconius eleuchia.
Breaking up may actually not be hard to do, say scientists who’ve found a population of tropical butterflies that may be on its way to a split [...]



Stunning Architecture: Floating Exhibition Space At 2012 World Expo

November 4th, 2009 at 3:44 pm » Comments (0)

Fluid
Designed by Melbourne-based Peddle Thorpe Architects, Fluid is a whale-inspired pavilion that is sure to be a showstopper at the much-anticipated 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, South Korea. (Pics)



Ferrari World Theme Park To Open In 2010

November 2nd, 2009 at 10:41 am » Comments (0)

Abu Dhabi is probably tired of Dubai always stealing the thunder as the star of the United Arab Emirates, but that may change with the construction of a F1 spec race track and a Ferrari-based theme park set to open in 2010.
 



Futuristic Workspace Looks Like a Dinosaur Egg

October 27th, 2009 at 7:40 am » Comments (0)

Do you like to block the world out completely when you’re working at your desk? Copenhagen-based design team GamFratesi has created a prototype for a sleek, dinosaur egg-like work environment that they call Rewrite. It reminds me of those cubicles they had at my grad school library, except they’re a lot nicer-looking.



World’s Smallest Working Model Train Set Unveiled

October 26th, 2009 at 7:37 am » Comments (0)

 

The world’s smallest working model train set has been unveiled – measuring just 1/8th of an inch by 1/4 of an inch.
At 1-35200 scale to the real thing, the five-carriage train travels around an oval route including a ride through a tunnel.
Created by New Jersey model train enthusiast David Smith, the model was built using [...]



Lotte Super Tower 123: Asia’s Tallest Skyscraper To Be Completed In 2014

October 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am » Comments (0)

South Korea’s super skyscraper
A new super skyscraper has just been announced for South Korea and will tower over all other buildings in Asia when it is complete in 2014. From a global perspective, Lotte Super Tower 123, designed by Kohn Pederson Fox, falls just short of taking the title, and will be not the tallest [...]



Solta Island Resort: Europe’s First Rotating Hotel

October 17th, 2009 at 3:34 pm » Comments (0)

Solta Island Resort
A rotating hotel is to form the centrepiece of a new resort near Split in Croatia. Designed by Richard Hywel Evans of Studio RHE, specialists in holiday resort design, the concept was proposed from a desire to provide sea views from each room.  (Pics)
 



Building The Bridge Of The Future With Fiber-Reinforced Plastics Known As FRP

October 13th, 2009 at 6:55 am » Comments (0)

Neal Bridge
The Neal Bridge is barely a bump in the road for motorists roaring down Route 100 south of this central Maine town. It’s a modest bit of the nation’s infrastructure — two lanes wide and 34 feet long, enough to span a small stream.  The bridge is newer than most, as suggested by [...]



Taiwan’s New Convention Center Has High Tech Solar-Powered Skin

October 12th, 2009 at 7:22 am » Comments (0)

Taichung Convention Center
Taiwan’s new Taichung Convention Center will be covered in solar-powered skin that naturally ventilates the structure reducing energy consumption. (Pics)
 



Sculpture Brick – Innovative Brick for the 21st Century

October 10th, 2009 at 6:50 am » Comments (0)

Featured Invention at the Colorado Inventor Showcase
Sculpture Brick is the newest veneer application process on the market today. Over the past 30 years this product has been developed into what is now patented versatile mortar enhancement process that simulates the appearance and texture of brick, but at up to half the cost. It can provide [...]



B.C. Town of Barriere Plans To Erect Its Own Stonehenge

October 8th, 2009 at 3:39 pm » Comments (0)

 

Stonehenge offers many mysteries

This Canadian brainstorm actually makes sense. The town proposing the Stonehenge replica is in a compatible global location. The folks at The Vancouver Sun tell us more.
“The town of Barriere is hatching a plan to place a concrete replica of England’s Stonehenge at the centre of a major park development.
Barriere’s version would [...]



Eco-Pod Vertical Farming Tended By Robots

October 3rd, 2009 at 9:59 am » Comments (0)

Boston architects Howeler + Yoon and Los Angeles digital designers Squared Design Lab have designed a conceptual structure for Boston, where an unfinished building would be covered in modular pods growing algae for biofuel.  The pods would be continuously rearranged by robotic arms (powered by the micro-algae produced) to ensure the optimum growing conditions for [...]



Mayan Ruins Found Frozen in Time

September 23rd, 2009 at 7:28 am » Comments (0)

Archaeologists have found new clues from the Mayan ruins of Kiuic in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula that may shed light on the collapse of the Maya civilization ten centuries ago:
… The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.
“The people just walked away and left everything in place,” says archaeologist George Bey of [...]



Ultra Cool TV Tub

September 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm » Comments (0)

Ultra cool bathtub with built in TV
Korean bath company Saturn knew it had made the right decision when it hired famous designer Karim Rashid to design its latest creation, the TV bathtub. Karim Rashid has done full justice to his task and the result is for all to see. This white, oval-shaped tub is made of LAR [...]



Habitable Polyhedron

September 20th, 2009 at 8:01 am » Comments (0)

The site SpaceInvading brings us four architechtural wonders of today.  This one is the “Habitable Polyhedron” and it has a unique function.

The project, meant for a family house back yard in the suburbs, aimed at designing a small park or opened area where the young parents and their newborn child would enjoy a independent space [...]



Solar Kiosk Could Be the Gas Station of the Future

September 19th, 2009 at 11:52 am » Comments (0)

Bozen, Denmark’s E-Move Charging Station is the work of that country’s entrepreneur, Valentin Runggaldier, and — while those renders make it look like a flight of fancy — it’s actually real and going through a series of tests. (Pics)



Modular Mobile Green River Homes

September 12th, 2009 at 11:42 pm » Comments (0)

Looks like a great place to park your housing complex
The closer you come to the center of a city the more difficult it is to find unused space available for new construction, except perhaps at the cost of all-too-valuable public parks and other civic places. Building above and below bridges is thus of increasing interest [...]



The Nirvana Bathtub – Like Bathing in a Planetarium

September 12th, 2009 at 10:50 pm » Comments (0)

Soaking in a bathtub is relaxing. Staring at the stars is also relaxing. So I guess it’s only natural to assume that combining the two is even more relaxing. Right?
The Nirvana Bathtub is basically an normal tub that’s been outfitted with 360 LED lights on the surface. Touch controls allow you to adjust the lights [...]



Longmont, CO May Host Global Contest

September 6th, 2009 at 9:09 pm » Comments (0)

The Greener Home Competition
Fifty Longmont homeowners could get full-house makeovers.
But that wouldn’t mean new couches, matching drapes and fresh paint.
These makeovers would include installing solar panels, wind turbines and data-control centers to manage energy use and safety systems.
Englewood-based DaVinci Quest is putting together a global contest to invite teams to design environmentally friendly smart homes [...]



James May’s Lifesize Lego House

August 30th, 2009 at 11:19 am » Comments (0)

The Lego House
I can confidently wager that some of you have spent a fair amount of time building miniature cities with Legos at some point in your lives. I know I did. Not only cities, but spaceships and boats, and forts, and . . . well, you get the picture. But James May, a toy fanatic from [...]



House on the Water by Formodesign

August 28th, 2009 at 12:23 pm » Comments (0)

House on the Water
Our friends from formodesign sent us House on the Water, a self-sufficient house for nomadic life offshore. Designed as a rental house for people who want to be independent it’s available only through water. It is located by Navagio beach, NW coast of the Greek Zante island. (Pics)
 



MercuryHouseOne – Pod-Like Mobile Living Room

August 6th, 2009 at 11:44 am » Comments (0)

MercuryHouseOne
Rome, Toulouse and Munich practice Architecture and Vision have designed a pod-like mobile living room with a Carrara marble shell. (Pics)
 



Amazing And Creative Architectural Art Installations

July 30th, 2009 at 10:02 am » Comments (0)

Amazing art installations and building modifications
When does a building transform from a shell into a work of art within itself? Can artists improve even beautiful architectural wonders, turning them into something more creative and meaningful? Some architectural art installations are done out of necessity because the work is simply too large to be contained. Others use the [...]



Oil Platform Matchstick Model

July 26th, 2009 at 11:55 am » Comments (0)

Former oil rig worker David Reynolds made this outstanding matchstick replica of the Bretn Bravo oil platform. It is 21 foot long, 12 foot high and it weights a half of ton. It is made with more of 4 millions matchsticks.
 



Manhattan Bridge Time Lapse Video

July 26th, 2009 at 9:23 am » Comments (0)

Here’s a time-lapsed video showing the Manhattan Bridge creaking and yawing under the weight of subway cars.