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Any architect recognizes the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), lead by star architect Rem Koolhaas, as one of the most important and thought-provoking architectural firms in the world. The counterpart to OMA's architectural practice is AMO, a design and research studio that specifically focuses on areas beyond the traditional boundaries of architecture, such as media, politics, sociology, technology, fashion or graphic design. Remarkably, it seems AMO is getting more and more active in developing complex-scale, mass-medium data graphics. In February of this year, they presented the "Energy Report" for the WWF, a comprehensive study claiming that the world can be 100 percent reliant on renewable energy by 2050.

Lowering energy consumption associated with computer data storage (specifically, cloud computing) and saving millions of dollars are possible now, thanks to new memory technology, a field that researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have been exploring through a four-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded in 2009 titled, "Large: Storage Class Memory Architecture for Energy Efficient Data Centers."

Elizabeth Demaray, an associate professor of fine arts, is cultivating lichen on the sides of New York City skyscrapers to counteract the lack of native vegetation found in the city. Her "Lichen for Skyscrapers Project" was featured as part of New York's Art in Odd Places Festival from Oct. 1-10 and is currently on view as a site-specific installation on 14th Street between Union Square Park and the Hudson River. "Metropolitan centers figure into local temperatures in an interesting way," Demaray says. "They are sometimes referred to as 'urban heat islands' because they create heat and they trap heat. A large part of this process is due to the materials that we build with and the actual architecture of the buildings that we create." Demaray says one of the ways to reduce heat in these cities is to cultivate lichen, which forms a protective barrier, insulating its supporting building from harmful elements. It can lower cumulative temperatures by absorbing sunlight and reflecting heat due to its light color palate while making oxygen and creating green space on the sides of buildings.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are sharing computational resources and expertise to improve the detail and performance of a scientific application code that is the product of one of the world's largest collaborations of climate researchers. The Community Earth System Model (CESM) is a mega-model that couples components of atmosphere, land, ocean, and ice to reflect their complex interactions. By continuing to improve science representations and numerical methods in simulations, and exploiting modern computer architectures, researchers expect to further improve the CESM's accuracy in predicting climate changes. Achieving that goal requires teamwork and coordination rarely seen outside a symphony orchestra.

City buildings create their own microclimates. Ignoring these variations can make life uncomfortable for inhabitants and prevent buildings from achieving true energy efficiency, according to Evyatar Erell, a professor of architecture at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev."Even when architects design a green building, it may not make the best use of the environment because other buildings get in the way," he said.

Gary Chang, an architect, designed his 344 square foot apartment in Hong Kong to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the "Domestic Transformer." Check out the video of Chang in his apartment below.