Shipping Container House - Incredible Container Homes Designs

Shipping Container House - Amazing Container Homes Designs | Incredible Shipping Container Houses Around the World | Builds Low-Cost Sustainable Home | Building a Shipping Container Home | Shipping Container Homes You Must See 

Containers are in many ways an ideal building material because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. Architects as well as laypeople have used them to build many types of buildings such as homes,offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios and emergency shelters; they have also been used as swimming pools. They are also used to provide temporary secure spaces on construction sites and other venues on an "as is" basis instead of building shelters.

The abundance and relative cheapness of these containers during the last decade comes from the deficit in manufactured goods coming from North America in the last two decades. These manufactured goods come to North America from Asia and, to a lesser extent, Europe, in containers that often have to be shipped back empty, or "deadhead", at considerable expense. It is often cheaper to buy new containers in Asia than to ship old ones back. Therefore, new applications are sought for the used containers that have reached their North American destination.

For each person, the definition of a dream house is different. While some are more fond of traditional dwellings, others are looking for new and innovative ways to build their perfect home. While building a house out of shipping containers is not exactly new, some people still manage to surprise us with their skills and ability to transform ugly metal boxes into cozy homes.

Backyard Lounge - Small Backyard Turn Into Lounge Bar Area

Backyard Lounge - Small Backyard Turn Into Lounge Bar Area | Limebok landscaping company from Hemel Hempstead in UK 

Having your very own flat is cool and all, but having your very own house with your very own backyard is cooler. Not only does it give you more space for your stuff, which, face it, you will always have too much of, but also the freedom to decorate and build it the way you want it, unrestricted by the confines that flats often impose.

Limebok Landscaping, a small landscaping company from Hemel Hempstead, UK, has recently shared some photos of one of their latest projects that surprised many people on the internet with how a seemingly regular and ordinary piece of land can be transformed into a backyard that’s the equivalent of a family-friendly restaurant with a bar and a playground.

Public Restrooms | Transparent Public Toilets in Tokyo, Japan

Surprisingly Unique Public Restrooms | Transparent Public Toilets in Tokyo, Japan 

Public toilets around the globe have a reputation for being dark, dirty and dangerous. Tokyo recently unveiled new restrooms in two public parks that aim to address those concerns. For one thing, they are brightly lit and colorful. For another, they are transparent. This way, the logic goes, those who need to use them can check out the cleanliness and safety of the stalls without having to walk inside or touch a thing.

Japan has long experimented with toilets, resulting in lids that open and close automatically and seats that warm up. But the new stalls — designed by Shigeru Ban, the Pritzker Prize-winning architect — are made out of an opacity-changing “smart glass” that is already used in offices and other buildings to provide privacy when needed.

The toilets were installed in Japan’s capital this month, coinciding with a nationwide campaign to phase out the city’s old-fashioned public toilets ahead of the now-delayed Summer Olympics. Set up in front of a cluster of trees in the Shibuya district, the stalls stand out like a Mondrian painting, bearing tinted walls with colors like mango, watermelon, lime, violet and teal.

Coffin House - Life Inside Coffin Home in Hong Kong

Coffin House - Life Inside Coffin Home in Hong Kong 

A coffin home is a temporary coffin depository where the coffins containing the cadavers of recently diseased people are temporarily stored while awaiting transport to the place of burial. The term is also loosely used to refer to Bedspace apartments.

Yih-jong literally means "mansion of righteousness" and originally referred to any charitable organization. These charities were typically established by prominent families to promote their standing in the community. The designation yih-jong was first used by Fan's Yih-Jong, established by Song Dynasty imperial chancellor Fan Zhongyan in his hometown Suzhou.

Giethoorn Village in Netherlands | Fairytale Village

 

Giethoorn Village in Netherlands | Fairytale Village also dubbed "Venice of the North"

Giethoorn is a mostly car-free village in the northeastern Dutch province of Overijssel. It’s known for its boat-filled waterways, footpaths, bicycle trails, and centuries-old thatched-roof houses. It borders a section of the Weerribben-Wieden National Park, a marshy area once popular for peat and reed harvesting. Next to the park, Museum Giethoorn ‘t Olde Maat Uus is a farm museum illustrating the region’s history.

If you ever wanted to live your own fairy-tale, you may want to consider moving to the village Giethoorn. Also known as “Venice of the Netherlands”, this magical village founded around 1230 is the kind most people could only dream of… It has no roads or any modern transportation at all, only canals. Well, and 176 bridges too. Tourists have to leave their cars outside of the village and travel here by foot or boat by (usually by “whisper boats”, which have noiseless engines). So you can probably imagine how peaceful it is here (well, when it isn’t flooded with tourists, of course)… Even the village’s website says that “the loudest sound you can normally hear is the quacking of a duck or the noise made by other birds”.

Building Your Own Private Beach | Custom Private Pool

Building Your Own Private Beach | Custom Private Pool with sandy beaches 

A Spanish company called Piscinas de Arena NaturSand builds sand pools — custom pools with sandy beaches — and if you already have a pool, it can convert it into a beach. The company claims that it can "provide an environment similar to that of a piece of natural beach."

Sounds amazing, right? A quick look at its Facebook page provides all the inspiration you need for your own backyard pool with a twist.

The company's sand pools are made of special concrete mixed with sand, which is reinforced to make it strong enough for the pool. More perks: the sand doesn't get hot, and you can get a customized pool built to suit your plot and dimensions. In some cases, weather-permitting, a sand pool can be built in only 30 days.

Seems like a great way to beat the heat this summer!

Piscinas de Arena NaturSand is based in Spain, but it provides construction or renovation of pools all over the world. The company has built more than 800 sand pools in over 14 different countries, including the US, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.

Your sand pool can have various depths and lighting styles, and it doesn't require a ladder. That's because the entrance of the pool is at ground level on a soft ramp — just like the entrance to the ocean at a beach. In terms of maintenance, the company's website says it's pretty much the same as a regular pool.

You have to get in touch with the company via their website to get a quote, and it's probably reasonable to assume a sand pool doesn't come cheap. But this is one investment that you can enjoy regardless of what's going on elsewhere in the world, right?

Harry Potter Themed House Villa At Orlando Florida

Owned by Loma Homes translated the magic of "Harry Potter" into an epic new rental just 30 minutes away from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando.
The Wizard's Way villa has eight themed bedrooms with 10 beds, five bathrooms, and dozens of book and movie Easter eggs that fans of the franchise will love.
Surrounded by brick walls with half of Harry's trolley sticking out of them (complete with his owl, Hedwig), the bed in this room is made to look like the front of the Hogwarts Express.
According to the listing, the smokestack actually smokes and whistles.

Cube house

Kubuswoningen, or cube houses, are a set of innovative houses built in Rotterdam and Helmond in The Netherlands, Incredible designed by architect Piet Blom in 1984. The houses in Rotterdam are located on Overblaak Street, and beside the Blaak Subway Station. Blom tilted the cube of a conventional house 45 degrees, and rested it upon a hexagon-shaped pylon. There are 38 small cubes and two so called 'super-cubes', all attached to each other.

As residents are disturbed so often by curious passers-by, one owner decided to open a "show cube", which is furnished as a normal house, and is making a living out of offering tours to visitors.

The houses contain three floors:

* ground floor entrance
* first floor with living room and open kitchen
* second floor with two bedrooms and bathroom
* top floor which is sometimes used as a small garden

The walls and windows are angled at 54.7 degrees. The total area of the apartment is around 100 square meters, but around a quarter of the space is unusable because of the walls that are under the angled ceilings.





















Source : Galinsky

Five Star Public Toilet

A five-star-toilet, which is located in Bishan County in Chongqing Municipal City, opened to the public and attracted many near-by residents and passers-by to pay a visit.

The toilet is not only equipped with a stereo system, inductive water flushing equipment and green dish gardens, but also has a central air conditioner that runs 24 hours.

Since it opened, many residents have praised it, but there are also some who question whether it is necessary for a public toilet to be so luxurious.

Melting Building

This Melting Building mural, a trompe-l’oeil, is located in Georges V Ave. in Paris, France. Trompe-l’oeil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist, instead of being just two-dimensional paintings. The name is derived from French for “trick the eye”, from tromper - to deceive and l’oeil - the eye.

Richard Murphy helped me remember of a mural I had intention writing more about. It is the same principle all those pavement artists like Eduardor Relero and Julian Beever are governed by. It is derived from French for “trick the eye“, from tromper (to deceive) and l’oeil (the eye). These surely prove that the site wasn’t photoshoped, like some of you thought. Yes, this is add-on to the original melting spot illusion. Richard added:

“This building is on King George V in Paris, we found it by accident on way to Champs from tower and not seen it or heard of it before, hope you can use, its an amazing site to see.”

I would also like to apologize because of the short down-time. We had some server problems, so the site was unavailable for few minutes. All is proper again. Enjoy!















Source : Mighty Optical Illusions

The Rubber House

The Rubber House by Zeinstra van Gelderen architecten have designed this one-man pavilion made entirely of rubber.

The Rubber Pavilion is entered though a slit and has a bench in one wall and a window frame, which cannot be seen through, in another.

The house is an amber-coloured rectangular monolith (outside dimensions 1,5x 1,5 x 2,3 m) in which an egg shaped interior seems to be carved out. One wall offers a small bench and another a window-frame with no view. The entrance is nothing more than a vertical cut in a third wall. The whole house, including bench and window-frame, is made out of poured in place urethane resin.

Rubber House by Zeinstra van Gelderen architecten

Source : Dezeen

The Amazing Monasteries Of Bhutan

The Kingdom of Bhutan is sometimes overlooked, locked between Tibet and India, but the Land of the Dragon as the Bhutanese call it is home to some of the most exquisite Buddhist monasteries in the word. Here, we take a fleeting visit to some of the over forty monasteries in Bhutan – quite a number considering the population of the entire country is only around 700,000.

1:- Taktsang Dzong
2:- Punakha Dzong
3:- Tango Monastery
4:- Tongsa – The Door to Heaven
5:- Cheri Monastery
6:- Rinpung Dzong, Paro
7:- Lhuentse Dzong

Source :- Kuriositas Via The Presurfer

Khan Shatyry

Khan Shatyry Entertainment Center ("Royal Marquee") is a giant transparent tent in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. The architectural project was unveiled by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on 9 December 2006.

The 150m-high (500 ft) tent has a 200m elliptical base covering 140,000 square meters. Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football stadiums, will be an urban-scale internal park, shopping and entertainment venue with squares and cobbled streets, a boating river, shopping centre, minigolf and indoor beach resort. The roof is constructed from ETFE suspended on a network of cables strung from a central spire. The transparent material allows sunlight through which, in conjunction with air heating and cooling systems is designed to maintain an internal temperature between 15-30°C in the main space and 19-24°C in the retail units, while outside the temperature varies between -35 to +35°C across the year.

After the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation (2006), a giant glass pyramid in Astana, this is the second national project designed by UK architect Norman Foster (of Foster and Partners), (Partners in Charge Filo Russo and Peter Ridley), and UK engineers Buro Happold led by Mike Cook[2] Construction documentation architects are Linea and Gultekin The construction of the tent-city is the responsibility of the Turkish company Sembol.

After long delays, the main mast was erected in December 2008, and was opened July 5, 2010, on the occasion of Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev's 70th birthday. Andrea Bocelli gave a concert for the occasion

Source :- Khan Shatyry Entertainment Center

Rome gets hotel made from rubbish‎

Sleeping surrounded by rubbish would not be most people's idea of a great selling point for a hotel in the middle of one of the world's most beautiful cities.

But that is exactly what currently stands in the centre of Rome - and it can already boast a major celebrity endorsement after model Helena Christensen was the first guest to stay there.

Constructed entirely from debris found on beaches in Europe, the Save the Beach hotel makes a startling sight in the streets more famous for the Colosseum and the Pantheon.

It was built from a huge range of material including plastic bags, fishing nets, skateboards, unwanted clothes. There is even a rocking horse and a mannequin's leg somewhere.

Five reception rooms are lined with 12 tonnes of rubbish.

German artist Ha Schult is behind the project, which sits near the 2nd Century Castel Sant'Angelo. He hopes he will be able to recreate a similar idea in other capital cities, including London.

He claimed the hotel is a 'mirror of our times'. 'We create rubbish and we become rubbish,' he said. 'We must change the world before the world changes us.'

The lavatories are chemical toilets, there are no showers and sheets have been ripped up to act as curtains.

Allan Thompson, from Surbiton in Surrey, and his teenage daughter Rebecca one a night at the hotel in a competition.

'It was a bit basic,' he admitted. He told The Times: 'There was a downpour and the roof leaked but it was a great experience.'

He joked he would give the hotel three and a half stars on Trip Advisor - a site where travellers can review destinations for all to see.

Christensen also said she had a 'great night'. 'I am deeply disturbed by the state of our beaches,' the model turned photographer and environmental campaigner added.

Shult has previously sculpted 1,000 figures from waste which have been exhibited at the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian Pyramids and the Red Square of Moscow.

The hotel is only open until June 7.







Source:- Daily Mail

Museum of Islamic Art

The Museum of Islamic Art is a museum located in the Qatari capital Doha and designed by architect I. M. Pei.

The museum draws much influence from ancient Islamic architecture yet has a unique design. It was the first of its kind in the Persian Gulf and has a very large collection of Islamic art, plus a study, a library, and several restaurants. Sabiha Al Khemir served as the founding director of the museum from 2006-2008. The museum has a total area of 45,000 m2 and lies on the edge of Doha harbour at the south end of Doha Bay. Construction by Baytur Constr.Co. (Turkey), of the structure reached completion in 2006, but the interior was subjected to a variety of changes thereafter. The museum celebrated its VIP opening on November 22, 2008, and opened to the general public on December 1, 2008.

In the museum are displayed a collection of works gathered over the last 20 years, including manuscripts, textiles and ceramics. It is one of the world’s most complete collections of Islamic artifacts, ranging from Spain to Egypt to Iran, Iraq, Turkey, India and Central Asia. At the age of 91, Pei had to be coaxed out of retirement to undertake this enterprise. He traveled throughout the Muslim world on a six month quest to learn about Muslim architecture and history and read Muslim texts to draw inspiration for his design.

Declining all the proposed sites for the museum, Pei suggested a stand alone island for the structure to avoid the encroachment of other buildings. Thus it was built on 64 acres on an island approximate 195 feet off Doha’s Corniche and surrounded by a park.















































Source:- Wikipedia