Here’s something you don’t see everyday! In the exquisite and contradictory city of Berlin, where contemporary, avant-garde and high tech blend wonderfully, Brandt + Simon Architekten studio has recently completed this eco-friendly single family house. The pixel-like facade is the result of using peculiar green tiles, giving you the feeling that you are admiring an 8-bit design, that happens to be…someone’s home!

Source: Freshome

The Cultural Institute Inhotim is part botanical park, and part contemporary art installation. The brain child, and passion of a Brazilian mining magnate, Bernardo Paz, Inhotim is a dialogue between art and nature. The setting is an extensive and original botanical collection of rare tropical species covering 240 acres. The galleries host a vast collection of contemporary art from Brazilian and international artists from the 60′s on.

Source: Treehugger

For thousands of years imaginative people across the globe have stared into the depths of the sea and wondered what it might be like to live in an undersea dwelling. The H2ome represents the world’s first undersea residence, a custom-built structure available for purchase from U.S. Submarine Structures. You can choose your own sea-floor site, or have the company set you up with a remarkable undersea location.

Vegetarians of the world rejoice — the world’s first TOFU chair is here! Designed by Leonardo Talarico, the Tofu Chair lives up to its name and is made entirely from tasty soy bean curd. Using portion-sized chunks of bean curd, Talarico made a sturdy seat by dehydrating the tofu blocks, then submitting them to a dose of thermal shock to create a truly unique chair fit for the king, or queen, of vegetarians.

Source: Inhabitat

We’ve all heard about buildings powered by solar or wind energy, but an algae-powered building? Splitterwerk Architects have designed just such a structure, dubbed BIQ, which will be the very first of its kind. Covered with a bio-adaptive façade of microalgae, the distinctive building has been designed for the International Building Exhibition in Hamburg and is slated to open this month!

Source: Inhabitat

Cobalt pigment applied to white clay has resulted in the most recognizable examples of ceramics through the ages. Today’s ceramicists continue the tradition of implementing this colour scheme into contemporary expressions of this aesthetic. At right, Work 0808 is a modern ceramic sculpture by Japanese artist Harumi Nakashima currently on show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. New Blue and White is an exhibition featuring artists from all over the world, and runs through July 14, 2013.

The NA House in Tokyo barely has any walls and looks like scaffolding! Sou Fujimoto Architects recently completed this single family dwelling within a residential district in Tokyo, Japan. Similar in form to a stacked pile of boxes the internal areas generated by the exterior appearance are set at different elevations. The small rooms within each platform are connected by ladder stairs allowing a free movement through the home’s loosely defined program.

Source: Architizer Read more …

Nestled atop Cortez Hill stands the historic ‘El Cortez’, San Diego’s leading landmark since its grand opening in 1927. From its opening through the 1950s, it was the most glamorous apartment-hotel in San Diego, hosting multiple U.S. Presidents such as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Gerald Ford, as well as entertainers like Bing Crosby and Elvis Presley. Today, the historically significant ‘El Cortez’ combines a contemporary high-rise lifestyle with the lure and attraction of old world charm.

While the building’s exterior is Spanish Renaissance style, owner Sasha Favelukis of Sequoian Investment Inc. considered modern Australian design team Pauly De Bartolo and Ivan Rimanic of De Bartolo + Rimanic Design Studio (DBRDS) a natural choice for the remodel of his 600 square foot condominium. To maximize space in the 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom small home, an ‘Australian-inspired’ custom kitchen was designed to provide additional depth of storage as well as a linear bench which runs the length of the kitchen, dining and living area to maximize storage and provide window seating.

The kitchen is clad in white oak to impart a textural balance between the dark wood floors and the white walls and features. A white modern interior allows the space to evolve from bright and clean during the day to evocative and golden in the evening, capturing the dynamic view of the San Diego skyline at night.

To reflect upon the history of the space in an otherwise modern interior, a wall featuring period-style moulding and a soft grey color was designed for the bedroom.  All of the design elements were hand selected to provide a cohesive, relaxing and unique feel for this modern living space. The only original elements are the bathtub and bathroom floor. To make his design vision a reality, De Bartolo reached out to the team at Hold It Contemporary Home to supply all of the furniture, artwork and accessories.

Through minor, non-load bearing interior modifications to the converted hotel rooms, DBRDS transformed the feel of the condominium into an open floor plan, allowing for flowing space and more natural light. The General Contractor on the project was Alan Loghman of Pacific Design & Construction. Read more …

MAD Architects just unveiled the China Wood Sculpture Museum in Harbin, northern China. The long, polished steel building twists and curves while bringing a bit of nature and abstraction to the urban setting. Skylights on the top draw natural light into the halls, while a thick shell minimizes energy losses. Featuring wood sculptures and paintings from the region, the China Wood Sculpture Museum is a break from the city.

Source: Inhabitat

Industrial designer Tobias Tøstesen transcends the inherent playfulness of standard LEGO elements to explore their infinite potential as a module for lighting. The floor-to-ceiling chandelier uses the transparent bricks to offer a glance through the colorless lighting installation, preferring to use the curved form to capture the changing glow of the day, from distinctive cool chroma to exclusive hot hues.

Source: Designboom