Group items tagged

The new City hall building in Buenos Aires is a climate responsive approach to design. Check it out here and leave us your views...

Standing out for its striking façade, this award-winning 'twin sloped roof' bungalow is primarily designed to adapt the home to Bahrain's harsh climate… Check out the 'all-glass' home here…

Ar. Rajesh Patel designs a climatically responsive and low-maintenance getaway home perfectly attuned to nature. Check it out and leave us your views...

BSB Architects conceptualise a contextual climate-sensitive school building in Bijapur paying homage to its historic Gol Gumbaz by constructing a 60 ft. vaulted dome as the highlight of the ongoing project. Check out the full story here…

Wall Street Isn't Winning - It's Cheating The two-tiered justice system: an illustration 9/10/2001: Rumsfeld says $2.3 TRILLION Missing from Pentagon  The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality The Quiet Coup "the finance industry has effectively captured our government" What OWS is about + data behind the movement Data privacy is now extinct in the U.S. "The problem that confronts us is that every living system in the biosphere is in decline and the rate of decline is accelerating. There isn't one peer-reviewed scientific article that's been published in the last 20 years that contradicts that statement. Living systems are coral reefs. They're our climatic stability, forest cover, the oceans themselves, aquifers, water, the conditions of the soil, biodiversity. They go on and on as they get more specific. But the fact is, there isn't one living system that is stable or is improving. And those living systems provide the basis for all life." The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? How the GOP Became the Party of the Rich: The inside story of how the Republicans abandoned the poor and the middle class to pursue their relentless agenda of tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent

Why are more and more old buildings being complimented by modern structures in close proximity? When should one design contextually? Are there any set tenets? Read about Ar. Zaha Hadid's new steel structure at the Oxford University building and leave us your views...

The design of this residential community by Ar. Zaha Hadid is very much unlike her other iconic fluid forms. Is she moving on to a new level of simplification? Check it out here and do leave us your views...

The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out? In a new video series from The Nation magazine and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain. Visit TheNation.com for more videos in this series.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility:  political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and -- most amazingly of all -- President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests.  One particularly illustrative example was the whiny little multi-millionaire hedge fund manager (and CNBC contributor), Anthony Scaramucci, who stood up at an October, 201o, town hall meeting and demanded to know:  "when are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Street pinata?" The Weekly Standard now has a very lengthy defense of -- including rare interviews with -- Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who fund everything from right-wing economic policy, union-busting, and anti-climate-change advocacy to civil liberties and liberalized social policies -- though far more the former goals than the latter.  In this article one finds the purest and most instructive expression of billionaire self-pity that I think I've ever seen -- one that is as self-absorbed and detached from reality as it destructive.  It's really worth examining their revealed mindset to see how those who wield the greatest financial power (and thus the greatest political power) think of themselves and those who are outside of their class.

[Barring unforeseen events, I'm going to leave this post at the top of the page for today and tomorrow, as I think the events it examines, rather in detail and at length, are vitally important and merit much more attention than they've received] The Obama DOJ's effort to force New York Times investigative journalist Jim Risen to testify in a whistleblower prosecution and reveal his source is really remarkable and revealing in several ways; it should be receiving much more attention than it is.  On its own, the whistleblower prosecution and accompanying targeting of Risen are pernicious, but more importantly, it underscores the menacing attempt by the Obama administration -- as Risen yesterday pointed out -- to threaten and intimidate whistleblowers, journalists and activists who meaningfully challenge what the government does in secret. The subpoena to Risen was originally issued but then abandoned by the Bush administration, and then revitalized by Obama lawyers.  It is part of the prosecution of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA agent whom the DOJ accuses of leaking to Risen the story of a severely botched agency plot -- from 11 years ago -- to infiltrate Iran's nuclear program, a story Risen wrote about six years after the fact in his 2006 best-selling book, State of War.  The DOJ wants to force Risen to testify under oath about whether Sterling was his source.

The Yogananda Library in Himachal Pradesh exudes a strong architectural vocabulary that not only defines its functions but empowers its serene yet pulsating environment. Check it out her and leave us your views...

Working on innovation in the built environment, Turin-based design and innovation office, @carlo-ratti-associati creates the old theme of the four seasons into the future, thanks to the adoption of new sustainable technologies. Check out the story here and leave us your views

Responding to Madrid's Mediterranean climate, Foster + Partners reveals their newest project in Madrid seeking to nurture a new identity and sense of place for the city. Check it out here…

GPM Architects & Planners are designing the #WestinSpa&Resort by the #ManglamGroup in #Jaipur on the lines of #Balinese #architecture to introduce tropical nuances to the city that predominantly sees a hot semi-arid climate…

Department of Architecture Co. creates a breezy paradise in Bangkok's tropical climate - The Commons Saladaeng, paying homage to the community, the surrounds and the neighbourhood's history.

Ar. Shigeru Ban's Aspen Art Museum sits in a glass box wrapped in a wooden lattice frame, upheld by the architect's reinventive design approach. Check it out here...

Chartierdalix Architects in association with Brenac & Gonzalez & Associates designs a mixed-use building with a ribbon-like façade that is moulded to result in constantly changing hues, reminiscent of a painting by French artist, Pierre Soulages. Check it out here and leave us your views…