Image Source: Edited screen capture from Ja StudioInc.

Xiamen Museum
Designed by MAD Architects and destined for Xiamen City in China, this is one of the most unique museum ideas I have ever seen. The Xiamen Museum is an odd shaped, 3-story structure that would cover about 144,000 sq. ft. (13,340 sq. m.). The first level would be comprised of lush green space, where the public could check out amphitheaters, sports areas, or simply go for a walk. The second level is where the museum would be located, as well as offices, cafes, and so forth. On the third level (the roof level), you’ll find a landscape garden and solar panels. Oh, and the structure would be stationed on an island that would drift around the reservoir in the city’s central area. I guess you could say that would give a whole new meaning to “moving exhibits” (as far as museums go).

Orbiting Eco-House
Have you ever wanted a stationary mobile home? I suppose if people wanted to do that, they could just get a trailer and replace the tires with cinder blocks, but this nifty idea puts a whole new twist on things. Imagine a home with 2 floors (or levels) and each floor is in a separate building. Both buildings are connected by a stationary cylindrical structure, but they can move independently of one another. The bottom floor contains living space, kitchen/dining area, bathroom, and laundry area, while the top floor contains a sleeping area, office space, and another bathroom. This is the brain child of artist and designer, Michael Jantzen. Sure, a moving house sounds cool but what else does it have? Well, how about the large rain catching container on the roof that can store water in holding tanks for use around the house. Oh, and surrounding the container is a wind turbine with photovoltaic solar cells and a solar hot-water heating panels attached to the turbine. Both the solar panels and the wind turbine are used to generate and store electricity in batteries, which help power the house. All of the sliding glass doors, skylights and windows have insulated panels, allowing the opening or closing of them to control heat loss or gain. Further adjustments can also be made to the house, such as the addition of earth pipes to aid in heating and cooling, or phase change materials placed in the floor to help store passive solar heat over the cold winter months. The best part of all, however, is since it’s a rotating house, you can change your view of the landscape (or where the sun and wind may hit your home) at any time of the day!

Slow Uprising
This last design was created with Italy in mind, particularly a stretch of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria highway between Scilla and Bagnara. Designed by Ja StudioInc, the Slow Uprising is unique in its own way—and also potentially dangerous or deadly. The idea is to build a series of homes under bridges located along the worn down road (warning: beware of trolls!) and while this does not seem particularly enticing, perhaps what I’m about to tell you will make it more (or less) so. The houses would be built on a number of platforms located under the bridges and these platforms would be connected by ramps, which lead from the bridge all the way down to the valley floor. Not only would the houses be built on top of the platforms, but also underneath them. Think of a bat hanging upside down and replace the bat with a building—though the building wouldn’t be upside down, it’d just be hanging there. Ah, yeah, and those ramps that connect the platforms—they don’t have any rails or fencing along them. While it’s a creative use of space and bridges, the general consent is that it would be an acrophobic’s (a person with a fear of heights) worst nightmare.

That’s all for this article, but check back next week for more designs!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from Botanicalls.com.

If you’re an avid lover of plants or have plants of your own, then you’re probably aware of all the care they require and how easy it can be to make mistakes–especially when it comes to watering. We all know they don’t get the same amount of water, but how much is too much or too little? And how often should you water them? Do you let the soil go dry or should you keep it constantly moist?

Well, guess what. There’s a new invention that eliminates all the guesswork and makes at least one phase of plant care 100 times easier.

Enter: The Botanicalls Kit.

This awesome little device allows your plant to notify you when it’s thirsty… via Twitter! Apparently, there was a previous version of this that allowed plants to “call” their caretakers if they needed something (which sounds a bit odd, but you can read about that here), but this version is much easier to use and a lot more convenient.

Basically, all you have to do is assemble the kit and place it in the container with the plant you want to check up on. Any time the plant is in need of water, it will send Twitter updates to your cell phone. Once its request is fulfilled, it will also send you an additional “thank you” Tweet for your help. It’ll also let you know if you’ve been giving it too much water.

How awesome is that?

You can find out more about Botanicalls here. And yes, they are for sale–for $99.99.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from Treehotel.se.

Located in the village of Harads (about 60 km south of the Arctic Circle), the Treehotel offers some rather unique and eco-friendly lodgings for the world traveler, or locals wanting to get away for a while. There are 6 rooms available, each with a different design and theme; plus a tree sauna—making this the first tree hotel in the world to have a sauna.

The designs include a giant bird’s nest, a mirror cube, and a ufo. The mirrorcube tree house is particularly interesting because it’s designed to render the lodging practically invisible in the trees, but the mirror/glass panes are covered with an infrared film visible to birds, thus preventing any accidents or crashes.

In addition to the unique lodgings, the Treehotel offers a variety of year-round activities, including hiking, horseback riding, kayaking, snowshoes, sleigh rides, and more!

To find out more about the hotel and book your reservation now, check out the site here.

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Cropped screen capture from Ma-Steven.Blogspot.com

The wheel has been regarded as one of the best inventions of all time; it’s simple and yet it has so many uses. Over the years, people have wondered how to improve on such a design; some have even attempted to and while it’s always nice to make an effort, they haven’t always succeeded. However, there is one recent design that puts a whole new twist on the wheel shape. The only setback is it doesn’t move, but once you hear everything else about it, the lack of motion will hardly be a disappointment.

Architecture professor, Steven Ma, has created a rather interesting and unique design, called the ec-O.bench. Yes, it is a bench, but it is also much more than that.

First of all, this bench comes equipped with solar films on the top of 4 lighting channels. Right there you already have 2 awesome, green features: it can collect solar energy during the day and use that stored electricity to provide lighting throughout the night. Another great feature about the ec-O.bench is that it also has a built in water collector and filter, which are used to aid in plant growth.

So far, you have a bench that also functions as a renewable energy source, a night lighting system, a water collecting and filtering system, and a rather unique urban container garden of sorts. Could it possibly get any better than that? Yes, actually, it can. In addition to all those amazing features combined into one design, the ec-O.bench is made from completely recycled parts—specifically, Bio-Aluminum—made from 100% recycled aircraft aluminum materials—and Bio-Glass—made from 100% recycled glass.

I certainly hope to see this design become an actual structure and put to good use! It would be great to see such a thing throughout the cities and even rural areas of the world. Not only could it add a bit more green space to urban areas, but it may even be able to replace some out-dated street and park lighting systems.

Have you created an awesome green design that you feel deserves more recognition? Feel free to share your ideas with us!

By Heidi Marshall

Image Source: Screen capture from D-Vision.

There is something that we use everyday. We use it to see. We use it to work. Some even use it to keep the darkness at bay. What I am talking about is light and that is what the designs in this article are all about.

97% Soap Lamp
This ingenious design was created by D-Vision. What makes it so ingenious? Well, as the name says, the lamp is made almost entirely out of soap. During the molding process of the soap, a LED light is placed inside the core of the lamp. This combination of glycerin soap and an LED light works great for 2 reasons:

1. LED lights are actually quite cool to the touch and thus, they don’t really emit any heat to burn or melt anything (such as soap).

2. Glycerin soap is a great soft light diffuser and has a low melting temperature; plus it’s cheap and eco friendly.

Also, by using glycerin soap, the designers are able to add different fragrances and colors to each lamp, making every design unique.

Unplugged
If clean technology isn’t your thing, then you may be interested in these manually powered lamps, created by Gionata Gatto. Both lamps are relatively simple. The smaller, table lamp, dubbed the “Table Crank”, simply uses a hand crank to generate the electricity. The larger lamp, named the “Pedalator” is actually connected to a piece of cycling equipment. Users of this lamp will have to pedal their way through the dark in order to get the light they seek. Whichever lamp you choose to use, they both require 4 minutes of manual labor in order to get 30 minutes of light. Best of all, they operate completely off the grid.

Paper Task Light
The name of this light (like the others) really speaks for itself. Yes, it is made out of paper—or, at least, paper pulp. Designers Claesson Koivisto Rune and Wastberg combined their efforts to create this rather neat little lamp. Using LED lighting, the structure of the lamp is made entirely from a material called Durapulp. This material is made from a combination of paper pulp and Storch polymer, and can be folded into a number of interesting forms. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: this lamp is compostable and biodegradable.

That’s all for this article. Expect more designs later this week!

By Heidi Marshall

Image source: inhabitat.com

A creative initiative around the missing tower of the Cathedral of Antwerp, that’s what Designing The Absent is all about.

The Cathedral, as they proudly call the building in Antwerp, was built in the 14th century without taking much account of the budget needs for such a big undertaking. Due to a failing economy, the money quickly ran out and the construction of the Cathedral what stopped. Although the structure of the building meets the functional requirements, the Cathedral lost one of its towers in the process. According to the organizers of Designing The Absent this absence is like a blank canvas:

By generating ideas for a new tower, we can put a focus on the cathedral itself. The given fact of an absent element within an existing structure functions as a great generator for ideas… By playing with the idea of the absence, we generate a focus.

- Designing The Absent

The absence of the tower has long provided a sense of desolation, of incompleteness of the building. Designing The Absent aims to fill that void with its contest.

I found pictures of the design of Tim Hobbelman and Chris Idema on the Inhabitat website. And it was right up my alley. This sustainable and green design proposes a self sufficient, organic, completely independent tower, powered by solar energy. It is designed with living walls provided with water through the use of an ingenious system of rainwater collection. The energy needed to keep the water running on the walls is provided by the solar cells placed on every window of the tower.

The green tower, which is similar in form to the current tower, creates a natural environment where birds and other animals can find peace in a city that has otherwise displaced them from their original habitat.

For those of you who would like to participate, the contest runs until April 20, 2010.

Additional Information:
The Designing The Absent website
Check out www.inhabitat.com for additional images of this design

By Murielle Ungricht

Århus inner city in 1998, from the South Harbor side (Image source: Wikipedia Commons)

Designed by 3xn and Nord Architects, a new cultural center shall make way for those interested in visual arts, literature and scenography—the practice of making things like theatre sets and costumes. In particular, the Northern Goods Railway center will serve to inspire and provide interaction between artists, businesses and education.

The green specifications of this design will actually involve greens—and lots of them. A number of the buildings will be triangular in structure, containing open and transparent ground floors, roof gardens and terraced houses. You can thank 3xn for bringing nature into the fold, adding a number of green spaces to the structure that was once used for rail freight. The use of natural elements will also allow for: reducing heat gain, eliminating water runoff, better ventilation and lighting systems and reducing overall energy demands.

To go that extra green mile, rather than demolish the railway buildings that are already there and build everything from the ground up, this project will allow them to simply renovate the structures. All they will end up actually adding is one new building—complete with a large scale auditorium—the roof of which will appear as a green carpet, given the amount of flora that will be placed up there.

The project—which is a collaboration between the municipality of Aarhus and the Realdania Foundation—is expected to be completed by 2012.

By Heidi Marshall