If you enjoy being in a houseboat floating down a river by green meadows then you will like this floating houseboat designed by Russian architect, Vladimir Plotkin. The structure was built for the Arch Stoyanie Summer Festival 2008 in Nikola-Lenivets village, Kaluga, Russia. This summer’s festival theme was “Noah’s Ark”. The houseboat was actually floated down a gently meandering river in what looks a pastoral landscape.

There are two sections to the houseboat. The raft portion is meant for activities such as sunbathing and socializing. Simple poles provide steerage. A raised giant disc-like structure holds the living quarters and access is via a couple of ladders and through portholes.

The interior shows comfortable living quarters for one with lattice walls for privacy and ventilation. Sunlight streams in through the round portholes above and provides natural light. The light coming in through the latticework casts pretty shadows inside contributing to the idyllic atmosphere of this delightful houseboat. Via

Vila Isabella is a 330 sqm project that was completed in 2007 and was designed by Brasil Arquitetura. This project is located in Hanko, Finland. The building displays a personality of its own in between the bleak and untouched nature, without imposing itself onto her. Its integration into the landscape will be orchestrated according to the seasons, to varying light conditions and functional circumstances, and the experience of the materials, colors and structural elements will be transformed.

When you are looking at these pictures this might look like a modern piece of architecture, but after you’ll see the video attached below you’ll see that Flare is more than that. Flare is a modular, computer-driven system that creates a moving skin for the facade of a building and it was created by Christopher Bauder and Christian Perstl. The Flare units are made up of computer controlled metal flake bodies which are by supplemented pneumatic cylinders. A great futuristic outer shell for any building. Because of the shape and size of each unit it can be placed on any designed building.

Each metal flake reflects the bright sky or sunlight when in vertical standby position. When the flake is tilted downwards by a computer controlled pneumatic piston, its face is shaded from the sky light and this way appears as a dark pixel. By reflecting ambient or direct sunlight, the individual flakes of the FLARE system act like pixels formed by natural light.

And now after you have an idea of how this system works, and you saw some pictures here is the most interesting part of this post, a video clip that shows the different patterns that are created based on how the tilting flakes reflect natural light.

What you are going to see in this post, is one of those rare things in life that leaves you truly speechless, and one more reason to say that technology in these days has no limits. When it comes to tearing down buildings, I’m pretty sure that you think at an implosion ( BTW - here is a cool one ), but today you’ll see a new demolition method that starts on the bottom floor. The process is called daruma-otoshi after a Japanese game that makes players take the bottom parts of a column using a hammer without disturbing the rest of the parts above.

Japanese construction firm Kajima Corporation is using this innovative new skyscraper demolition method to dismantle a pair of old company buildings in Tokyo. Compared to blowing it up, this method saves time and space, pollutes the air less, makes material recycling easier, I think that in big cities this method would be very useful and it’s obviously a lot less dusty than a traditional demo.

How do they do it ?

First they replace the support pillars at ground level with computer-controlled metal columns. Then, a crew carefully demolishes the entire floor by hand, leaving the structure resting on the mechanical pillars, which then go down slowly until the next floor is at ground level. They replace the support pillars again with the mechanical ones, destroy that floor, and repeat the operation until they get rid of all the floors.

This makes it look as if the building is shrinking in front of you, or being swallowed by the street. According to the company, this method greatly reduces the environmental impact of the demolition, as well as the time. Kajima says that it speeds up the task by 20%, while making it easier to separate materials for recycling, as well as reducing the amount of products released into the air. - Via

When I saw this amazing house I’ve remembered of my last year vacation in Greece, where I’ve saw a similar project on an island. This house is owned by Real Estate Executive John Chadwick and I’ve found it in NyTimes. For John Chadwick, two words describe what led him to build a multi million-dollar villa on a peninsula overlooking bustling Patong Harbor: “The view.” And after you take a look at the pictures below you’ll agree that the view is breathless.

The 7,500-square-foot house, sitting on a 12,350-square-foot lot, cost more than $2.5 million to build a few years ago. The top floor of the two-story house includes the living room, dining room, kitchen, master bedroom, office and patio. The bottom floor is more for parties, with three more bedrooms, an exercise/game room and a massage room, all surrounding a pool equipped with lighting and sound systems.