Wood Block House by Tadashi Yoshimura Architects

Behind a glass facade, a basket weave of timber encases the living and dining areas of this house in Nara, Japan by Japanese studio Tadashi Yoshimura Architects. The lattice wall can be used as a climbing frame for the client’s children, but also serves as a partial screen that light may pass through. Named Wood Block House, the rectilinear building is raised up from the ground by stone walls.

Zoological park - St Petersburg

Paris landscape designers TN Plus and architects Beckmann N’Thépe have won a competition to design a zoological park on a series of artificial islands for the outskirts of St Petersburg. Spread across 300 hectares, the park will replace the historic but cramped city-centre zoo. The site will be arranged to loosely reflect the layout of the Earth’s continents when they first began to separate. Different species of animals will be located in their native zones within this diagram. Construction is scheduled for completion in 2014.

Playful floor stickers

These playful floor stickers are an initiative by the city of Lucerne (Switzerland) to get people to notice and use garbage cans. 

Broccoli House

This Broccoli House most definitely made me smile.

+ Pool by Family and PlayLab

Family and PlayLab have designed a floating swimming pool for New York that would clean river water by filtering it through the walls.  

Called + Pool, the cross-shaped baths could be divided into four separate compartments with a lane-swimming pool, children’s area, sports pool and lounge. 

The designers have launched a campaign through crowd-funding platform Kickstarter to build a full-scale prototype of one arm.

GRID-IT BY COCOON

Cocoon has launched two products that feature an organizational system called GRID-IT that fits nicely into your laptop bag, briefcase, and luggage.

The GRID-IT Wrap is made of neoprene and is available in 7” tablet, iPad, and MacBook Air, and can hold power cables, sunglasses, gum, pens, and all kinds of doo-dads. It comes in black, red or gray.

The Sleeve² is made of Deflexion, which is a more heavy-duty material than neoprene, although still lightweight enough for you to easily tote around. Inside, it fits a 13” MacBook and an iPad 2 and has a removable GRID-IT. It is is available in black and red.

Mocha Mojo by Mancini Enterprises

Lego-like blocks are stacked along the walls of this cafe in Chennai by Indian studio Mancini Enterprises. Part of a chain called Mocha Mojo, the cafe caters for 110 customers on two levels.

Lighting is concealed within the wall-mounted boxes, spilling out from above and below each colourful strata.

Here are some more details from the designers:

Mocha Mojo
Chennai, India

Mocha Mojo is a coffeehouse with 110 covers in Madras providing a space for coffee and conversations. The design refers to the 70’s mastery of “special” – furniture/wallpaper which in turn dwelled on the early modernists’ approach towards interiors. Beauty through purity, reduction to functionalist objects, light on pure material on pure colour. Only in the 60s and 70s the old qualities of “opulence” and “ornament” were re-infused into interiors resulting in spaces of great intensity. It is this intensity, which was searched for in this project. Besides the carpenters and painters had great fun during the construction of those layers.

Riverside Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects

Zaha Hadid Architects have completed the Riverside Museum in Glasgow with a zig-zagging, zinc-clad roof.

Housing a museum of transport with over 3,000 exhibits, the building has a 36 metre-high glazed frontage overlooking the River Clyde.

The building zig-zags back across its site from this pointy roofline in folds clad with patinated zinc panels.

National Automobile Museum by Cino Zucchi Architetti

Architects: Cino Zucchi Architetti 
Location: Turin, Italy
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 17,700 m²
Photographs: Cino Zucchi Architetti

The current museum complex, designed by Amedeo Albertini in 1958-60, is comprised of various bodies, the main section of which a convex 114 meter façade faces onto the Po river and Corso Unità d’Italia. The competition brief stipulated the addition of a new wing on Via Richelmy and the reorganization of pedestrian and vehicular access, keeping in line with the latest developments of museums in Europe. The new museum, with an expected annual attendance of 250,000 people, accompanied by significant conference and educational activities, will thus become a driving force in the urban renewal of the southeast quadrant of the city.

The entrance to Turin from the south is characterized by the exceptional quality of the landscape and environment of the green parkway that runs along the banks of the river Po, punctuated by the presence of the impressive structures of the Palazzo del Lavoro by Pierluigi Nervi and the renovated Palavela. The project articulates the relationship between the ‘drive-by’ perception from Corso Unità d’Italia and the establishment of a more intimate pedestrian environment grafting its way on via Richelmy. The existing building’s symmetry is “redefined” by its new base, in order to respond to its surroundings and emphasize its relationship with Largo Unità d’Italia.

The existing courtyard becomes a new event space thanks to the addition of a glass roof which illuminates the space. By making the existing courtyard an internal space, onto which the museum routes face, the visitors are provided with a very natural means of orientation. This provides not only a bridge linking the two bodies but a core at the heart of the project, taking the form of a ‘Ring’, a proven exhibition scheme.

Underlining the existing horizontal lines on the river front, the new ground floor has a number of relational spaces that accommodate the different areas of the public museum and related activities (bookshop, gift-shop, bar-cafeteria). In line with many contemporary European examples the exhibition functions are integrated with a series of complementary activities that bring life to the car museum at all hours of the day and night.

The new wing on the west side, a large undivided space which provides very flexible exhibition space, integrates the existing body embracing the side of the building and giving continuity to the two “urban” elevations. The new facade of glass treated with varying degrees of transparency unifies the front on Via Richelmy, renewing the image of the museum with a great deal of attention to the relationship between the existing and new sections, connected by a design approach that can enhance and bring unity to the complex.

The auditorium and educational spaces on Via Zuretti can easily work both independently and in conjunction with the museum and the restaurant, animating this museum complex which hosts one of the most unique collections of cars in Europe.

Cloud Lamp

I don’t think I have ever been as excited about a lamp. Ever. Zhao Liping’s Cloud Lamp won my heart.

Tetris Stick Notes

Block Notes from SUCK UK.

Keira Rathbone

I discovered Keira Rathbone‘s art via My Love for You and I’m awestruck. I cannot believe she makes these pieces of art using a typewriter.

Images from Keira’s Facebook page.

Recycled Materials Cottage by Juan Luis Martínez Nahuel

Located in Chile, this cottage by Juan Luis Martínez Nahuel used materials from other homes to create a new home for a client.

The reused materials included glazed doors from a 1960s Horacio Borgheresi house, eucalyptus and native rauli parquet floors of a house of the 70s by Larraín, Swinburn and Covarrubias, and commercial laminated beams and steel pieces used for a temporary exhibition. A great result and a cozy-looking residence.

Honeycomb necklace

Blend Creations has created this Honeycomb necklace, which looks unsuspecting, but you might never know it doubles as a tool. The hexagons can fit a standard sized bit (not included) and 8, 10, 12 and 14mm bolts, you know, just in case…