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In an ongoing exploration of its "People, Place, Purpose" design philosophy, Mecanoo distinctly anchors The Place in Taipei drawing inspiration from its local tea producing culture…

Abin Design Studio and Square Consultancy refurbish a renowned Bengali restaurant: 6 Ballygunge Place in Kolkata

Ball-Nogues Studio designs two public art installations - Air Garden and Stud Wall - that are as simple in their message as they are complex in their compositions. Check them out here…

Respecting old-world architecture without compromising on contemporary needs, Gautam Desai Design flags off the BBlunt salon blueprint in Mumbai, India. Read on to know more about this multi-functional, inspiring and at places, quirky design...

Artist Marc van Vliet's installation gives us a chance to explore sea life at Wadden Sea up close and personal

Visually stimulating scenarios give a fillip to the place as well as the onlooker. Check out innovative surface designer, Giles Miller's latest finish that simulates nature...

Why does a building of commemoration like a monument or a memorial have to be artistic? Do check out the monument-in-the-making in Lucknow and leave us your views…

"A place for the hermit"

December 9th, 02005 - Sam Harris"The View From The End Of The World"This is an audio only presentation. This talk took place in the Conference Center Golden Gate Room, San Francisco. Quote: With gentle demeanor and tight argument, Sam Harris carried an overflow audience into the core of one of the crucial issues of our time: What makes some religions lethal? How do they employ aggressive irrationality to justify threatening and controlling non-believers as well as believers? What should be our response? Harris began with Christianity. In the US, Christians use irrational arguments about a soul in the 150 cells of a 3-day old human embryo to block stem cell research that might alleviate the suffering of millions. In Africa, Catholic doctrine uses tortured logic to actively discourage the use of condoms in countries ravaged by AIDS. "This is genocidal stupidity," Harris said. Faith trumps rational argument. Common-sense ethical intuition is blinded by religious metaphysics. In the US, 22% of the population are CERTAIN that Jesus is coming back in the next 50 years, and another 22% think that it's likely. The good news of Christ's return, though, can only occur following desperately bad news. Mushroom clouds would be welcomed. "End time thinking," Harris said, "is fundamentally hostile to creating a sustainable future." Harris was particularly critical of religious moderates who give cover to the fundamentalists by not challenging them. The moderates say that all is justified because religion gives people meaning in their life. "But what would they say to a guy who believes there's a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his backyard? The guy digs out there every Sunday with his family, cherishing the meaningthe quest gives them." "I've read the books," Harris said. "God is not a moderate." The Bible gives strict instructions to kill various kinds of sinners, and their relatives, and on occasion their entire towns. Yet slavery is challenged nowhere in the New or

An Arab country with neither secret police nor censorship is unprecedented in recent decades. Tunisia is inspiring similar demands in Egypt and Jordan. When skeptics wonder if the Revolutions of 2011 would really change anything essential in the region, they would be wise to keep an eye on these two developments in Tunisia, which, if consolidated, would represent an epochal transformation of culture and politics. Arguably, Tunisians are now freer than Americans. The US government thinks our private emails are actually public. The FBI and NSA routinely read our email and they and other branches of the US government issue security letters in the place of warrants allowing them to tap phones and monitor whom we call, and even to call up our library records and conduct searches of our homes without telling us about it. Millions of telephone records were turned over to George W. Bush by our weaselly telecom companies. Courts allow government agents to sneak onto our property and put GPS tracking devices under our automobiles without so much as a warrant or even probable cause. Mr. Obama thinks this way of proceeding is a dandy idea.

Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer from Taiwan with huge factories in China, generates about 40 percent of the global consumer electronics revenue by creating things like iPhones and computer components on giant assembly lines staffed by humans. Until recently, you'd probably never heard of Foxconn, but a series of worker suicides made us all take a hard look at where our electronics were coming from. Foxconn has made some improvements (including nets around tall buildings), but by all accounts, the core of the problem (the work) remains "repetitive, exhausting, and alienating." Yesterday, Foxconn announced (at an employee dance party of all places) that they're planning on buying some robots to replace their human workforce. And by some robots, they mean one million robots over the next three years. So for every one robot Foxconn currently has working at their manufacturing plants, they're going to buy a hundred more.

@tinker-imagineers design an array of interactive games and a genial environment to make this centre designed especially for the treatment of obese youngsters a go-to place in The Netherlands. Check out the full story here

Does coffee excite you? Are coffee shops your go-to place? Are you an old-school coffee romantic? Head over to the Time More coffee experience centre designed by Robot 3 Studio now!

Sasaki's take on the #Microsoft #NERD #Centre is quirky, #experimental and #refreshing - allowing personal interactions to find their rightful place between #performance and #innovation.

Driven by a clear philosophy of efficiency and an aim to create an atmosphere of different public places, AllArtsDesign, Perm designs redcupmaximgorky - a coffee bar that is rustic and completely Instagram-wired! Check it out here…

Interior Designer, Minnie Bhatt gives a Bollywood twist to two eateries in Mumbai catering predominantly to pop culture among the youth, but making them fun places for all age groups. Check it out…

"Love Intermedia Kinetic Environments." John Brockman speaking - partly kidding, but conveying the notion that Intermedia Kinetic Environments are In in the places where the action is - an Experience, an Event, an Environment, a humming electric world.

Veering away from the old, introverted, conventional office space, the open-plan horizontal architecture aims at transforming work habits and work place culture to co-relate with its new interactive environment. Check out this office in Istanbul by Mimari Studio and leave us your views…