The Legacy of Saddam’s Architecture of Fear
Empires rise and fall, but the physical foundations they lay remain like ghosts. Fifty years ago Baghdad had just three public sculptures. During the revolution mobs destroyed two of them, leaving just one dedicated to an obscure prime minister. Today Iraq proliferates with imposing monuments and lavish palaces. But what has become of this architecture of fear since the fall of Saddam?
Continue reading...San Francisco’s Incredible Stained Glass Salt Ponds
Thursday, August 6, 2009
‘Art imitates life’ – or so the old saying goes – but when the reverse appears true, as Oscar Wilde noted, the effect can be all the more striking. The vivid hues of the San Francisco Bay salt ponds remind us more of a crafted stained glass window than the sea’s naturally muted colour palette, and they produce some of the world’s most magnificent natural colourways…
Continue reading...The Incredible Light Shows of Niagara Falls
Monday, August 3, 2009
What do you get when you illuminate one of the world’s most spectacular waterfalls with nearly 5km of shimmering floodlights, over 125 animated displays and 3 million sparkling tree and ground lights? A dazzling extravaganza that will make you see the Niagara falls in a whole new light – and for those of you who can’t make it, we decided to take a closer look.
Continue reading...The Unstoppable Coal Fire Blazing Beneath Pennsylvania
Friday, July 31, 2009
In 1962, firemen in the Pennsylvanian mining town of Centralia successfully extinguished a minor blaze at a landfill dump – but little did they know a layer of coal just below the surface had ignited, creating a hidden and deadly inferno that raged undetected beneath the town for almost twenty years. This is the story of Centralia and the fire that refuses to be extinguished.
Continue reading...The Amazing Wooden Mirror [pics]
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Lying at the heart of this project is again a simple but deeply moving concept: the idea of everything around us acting as a mirror, or perhaps more precisely - making everything around us into a mirror onto the world. By using a naturally unreflective surface to create reflections, Rozen highlights not only the human beings incredible capacity for technical accomplishment, but the fact that every object in the world might reflect, in some sense, the image of those who have crafted, used and sold it.
Continue reading...The Terror Blob Strikes Venezuela!
Monday, August 4, 2008
The roads are deathly quiet. Antonio Perez's shabby old taxi carefully makes its way along the main highway into Caracas. Yet terror is only yards ahead. A looming shape becomes visible through the gloom and Perez, who drives these roads every day, knows exactly what it is - he swerves, losing control of the car, sparks go flying...
Continue reading...The Awesome Way To Recycle a Dumpster [pics]
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Goldsmith's design graduate, Oliver Bishop-Young, unveiled two interesting proposals for the re-use of dumpsters (or skips as they're called in the UK) at the New Designers' festival earlier this month - but would you have lunch in a dumpster, or more to the point, would you swim in one? The first proposal is for a website where people can share information about the contents of their skip and others can salvage it (demo now online).
Continue reading...20 Most Incredible Light Phenomena [pics]
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Howard Nemerov said “Nothing in the universe can travel at the speed of light, they say, forgetful of the shadow's speed.” But what about the amazing effects and contrasts of light and dark. In their invisible race to the finish line, what effects or phenomena do they create? We decided to explore 20 of the most stunning images for your viewing pleasure
Continue reading...30 Starving Bears Trap Geologists in Russia
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
A group of Russian geologists working on the volcanic Kamchatka peninsula found conditions un-bear-able (apologies) after a group of over 30 bears trapped them in their camp. But as nature encroaches further inland in this far corner of eastern Russia, is this a sign of the damage poachers are doing to natural resources in the area?
Continue reading...Rothschild Sails Across the Pacific on a Piece of Junk
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Our friends at Men's Vogue recently featured an interesting interview with eco-adventurer, David de Rothschild, and although he may be a member of one of the world's most famous banking families, he's far from being all about the deal - his environmental interests have taken him across the globe from New Zealand to the frozen ice caps of Greenland and now the intrepid explorer is about to embark on one of his most challenging expeditions to date: crossing the Pacific on a boat made of garbage!
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Monday, November 2, 2009
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