Located near Ludwigsburg in Germany, this building, designed by J. Mayer H. Architects, echoes the footprint of the original house built in 1984, duplicating and rotating it.

Lifted up, it creates a semi-public space on ground level between two layers of discretion. The skin of the villa performs a sophisticated connection between inside and outside and offers spectacular views onto the old town of Marbach, Germany.



I love the luminosity of the place and the futuristic shapes and I would love to live in this house! The flow of space just inspires so many possibilities for personalizing and living, but of course, this is extremaly minimalist and if you are looking for the toys, the mess, the half-eaten yoghourt on the table and the newspaper wrapped on the floor, this house/exposition hall is probably not meant for you :)

Cooling off in an air-conditioned room, I came across this hot list of 16 Creative and Sophisticated Fireplaces at Home Interiors Zone. A well-organized list that it is, it covers the best of the fireplaces that have rendered some warmth to Bornrich too. Luxurious dens aren’t complete without a stylish, attention-grabbing fireplace! And with an abundance of options up there, it becomes interestingly tricky to zero down to just a few of the best fireplaces. The Table Top designed by Carl Mertens doesn’t demand any extra space while the space-consuming Glass fireplace can only find its way in palatial houses. Vauni’s burning globe fires up with green ethanol and the Cyclone mesmerizes with its spinning tower of fire. My personal fave is the Greed for Quiet fireplace. It is fantastic adaption of campfire for indoors. A complete set with chairs to perch on, Jan Brauer’s design has actually made me greedy.

So we all know the world is heading towards being green. Solar, wind, hydro, electric energy. Check out the commercial real estate below, these buildings are the future of realestate.


Last but not least, green trophy buildings are all the rage, and like cars, they offer a fun, almost indulgent starting point for anyone trying to spruce up their ECO-ICONIC offerings. Consider the exhibitionist glee with which these buildings expose their vast green roofs, towering windmills and glimmering acres of solar panels.


The Bahrain World Trade Center is the world's first commercial building to incorporate large-scale wind turbines into its initial design. It has three massive wind turbines that measure 29 meters in diameter and are supported on bridges between the BWTC’s two 240-meter-high towers. The turbines generate approximately 11–15% of the BWTC’s total energy needs.



The Castle House, a 42-storey apartment tower under construction at Elephant and Castle in London, will feature a roof with an array of integrated wind turbines, each nine meters in diameter.
The Lighthouse is currently being designed by international consultants Atkins (who also designed the aforementioned Bahrain WTC), and is envisioned as a 360-meter, 55-storey luxury low-carbon office tower in Dubai. Quite a lot of the structure’s energy will be gained from three huge 225-kilowatt wind turbines and 4000 photovoltaic panels. Plans are still in the development phase, but the building is slated to be completed by 2010.
The 309-meter-tall Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, aims to be one of the most environmentally-friendly buildings in the world. Slated for completion in 2009, it too features turbines that turn wind into energy for the building's heating, ventilating and air conditioning.





More Dubai: the 370-meter, 92-floor Wave Tower, designed by the Spanish architectural group A-cero, will be located right on the water. The “seascraper” is designed to be a green building: interior gardens or 'sky gardens' will be located in common zones, improving the air quality and working as natural temperature regulators. The building's silk-screened glass skin will assist with controlling heat from the sun. Wave Tower will also contain a water purification plant, which will desalinate and purify the surrounding sea water to be used as drinking water and for landscape maintenance and sewage.



The Solstice on the Park, a 26-storey residential tower in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, to be completed in September 2010, is literally shaped by solar access. Its surface is designed to precisely the optimum angle for 41.5 degrees north (Chicago), which allows the sun to enter the apartments during winter for passive solar warming and keeps it out during the summer to reduce air-conditioning usage. The saw-tooth design creates balconies that block direct midday sun, decreasing the need for power-hungry air conditioning. In winter, when the sun is lower, rays pass through the windows to warm the interior. Quote from the architects: “By making latitude into a visible feature for the façade and its reason-to-be, the project challenges the current notion of pure iconography and symbolism in tall buildings."





The Agro-Housing concept by Israeli Knafo Klimor Architects is a combination of housing and urban agriculture. The building is composed of two parts: an apartment tower and a vertical greenhouse. The greenhouse is a multi-level structure for cultivating crops such as vegetables, fruits, flowers and spices. It's equipped with a drip-irrigation system, heating system and natural ventilation. Knafo Klimor Architects developed this concept with concern for predictions that 50% of China's citizens will eventually live in its cities, a trend mirrored in many developing countries in the world.





South Beach is a planned commercial and residential complex to be located on Beach Road in downtown Singapore. The development will feature two new towers, 45 and 42 stories tall, which house two luxury hotels, offices and apartments. Designed by British architectural firm Foster + Partners, a key feature of the design is a large 'environmental filter' canopy that covers open spaces, providing shelter from the elements and drawing air currents to cool the area beneath it. The two towers will have slanting facades to catch wind and direct air flow to ground-level spaces. The buildings' facades will also incorporate photovoltaic cells. Rainwater will be collected off the towers and the canopy and flow into a holding tank underground, instead of being wasted. South Beach is scheduled for completion in 2012.




And last but not least, expect many more green roofs and walls to add to the ECO-ICONIC landscape. From GAP’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco to the Ann Demeulemeester store in Seoul, to the ACROS building in Fukuoka, Japan. And yes, green roofs will increasingly appeal to households, too

Viennese artist, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, has designed what has become one of the more unique and visually stimulating buildings in the world. With over 1000 unique windows, individualized handles on windows and doors, a living roof, café, parking garage, restaurant, bar, playground, and a running stream, the Waldspirale in Darmstadt, Germany is an architectural wonder. Upon first glance, second and third, one is simply enchanted and astonished.

The apartment building contains 105 apartments, with no two windows alike. The overall design follows Hundertwasser’s dogma ‘gegen die gerade linie’ (against the straight line), and its off-center placement of windows is aptly described as ‘aus der reihe tanzen (dancing out of line). Each of has a personality of their own, and no two are alike.
The U-shaped building is 12 stories at its highest point; onion gilded domes placed at random points along the roof, and multi-colored earth-toned stucco about the façade and the absence of sharp corners and straight lines all reflect elements often attributed to Hundertwasser’s personal style. The outward appearance makes one fondly think of a child with a box of crayons, and no ruler with which to draw lines – designing only what is inspiring.
A ‘green’ roof, including varied plant species, beech, maple and lime trees, a grand selection of deciduous shrubs and a bed of grass, crown this organic architectural masterpiece. And, within the courtyard, a running stream gently trickles through a children’s playground.
nspiring design, whimsical detail and a sense of responsibility to the environment, the Waldspirale is an enigma in the design world. Hundertwasser’s view on the incorporation of the environment in his design is simply expressed by the artist himself: “If man walks in nature’s midst, then he is nature’s guest and must learn to behave as a well-brought-up guest.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

It seems like Sheiks in Dubai are bored and excessively rich. Everyday there are INSANE skyscrapers going up. This is the latest one check it out
Plans to construct what could become the world's tallest building, at more than 1km high, were unveiled today.

Dubai developer Nakheel - the company that created man-made islands in the shapes of a palm tree and the world - said the structure will be the centre-piece of an inner-city harbour set to become the emirate's new, unofficial capital.

It would not comment on exactly how high or how expensive the Islamic design-inspired Nakheel Tower will be. The building will have "more than 200 floors" and be part of "a multi-billion pound development", the company said.

But "tallest building" claims are notoriously difficult to make. Debates about what counts as a candidate include whether buildings under construction should be considered and whether roof-top antennas count.

What is certain is that the tower will climb above what is said to be current holder of the "world's tallest building" position - the emirate's own Burj Dubai.

Speaking at a press conference today, a cautious Nakheel chief executive officer, Christopher O'Donnell, said: "From our perspective, we are building a tower that's going to be over 1km in height. This is a complete iconic development. It may be the tallest. Someone may build something taller."

Hollywood power couple Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas also attended the press conference.

The Nakheel Tower will have around 150 lifts and be built with some 500,000m3 of concrete. If the reinforcing bars planned were laid end to end, they would stretch from Dubai to New York.

The building will have enough cooling capacity to air-condition more than 14,000 modern homes.

It will be so tall that it experiences five different microclimatic conditions over its height. The temperature in the atmosphere at the top of the building could be as much as 10 degrees cooler than the bottom.

Planned high speed shuttle lifts will allow people to see the sunset twice - from the bottom and again from the top of the building.
Asked if Nakheel was concerned about embarking on such a development during a banking crisis, Mr O'Donnell said: "It was always going to be a project that would take 10 years-plus. When you go about trying to fund a project like this, you have to take account of the economic cycles."

The tower and harbour project will take more than 10 years to complete.


Catherine Zeta-Jones looks on during the presentation of the Nakheel Harbour & Tower project

Apart from the landmark structure, there will also be another 40 towers, ranging in height from 20 floors to 90 floors. The entire development will be home to more than 55,000 people and a work place for more than 45,000 people.

Nakheel executive chairman, His Excellency Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, said: "There is nothing like it in Dubai.

"Nakheel Harbour and Tower is located in the heart of 'new Dubai', where we have focused on creating a true community, a location for living, working, relaxing and entertaining, for art and culture.

"All of this is concentrated in one area."

Nakheem said the designs of the planned harbour and tower were inspired by landmarks of Islamic design - including the gardens of Alhambra in Spain, the harbour of Alexandria in Egypt, the promenade of Tangier in Morocco and the bridges of Isfahan in Iran.

"With the Islamic influences governing its design, Nakheel Tower has been able to reach its height of more than a kilometre," said His Excellency.

"This inspired approach has enabled us to achieve a number of amazing feats of engineering, for example the tower will be the world's tallest concrete structure."

Nakheel's other developments in Dubai include the Palm Jumeirah and The World - man-made island communities for the wealthy.