Prefabricated homes already have plenty going for them: They don’t take long to construct, can fit into small urban spaces, and can even be an affordable housing solution. Now an Australian architecture firm, ArchiBlox, has created a prefab home that it says actually produces more energy than it consumes.
As life-changing as the invention of the refrigerator was, the hulking and ubiquitous appliance is a major energy consumer (pdf). It’s also a place where food can easily be forgotten—and as anyone who has found lettuce moldering at the bottom of the crisper knows, ultimately wasted.
The architect Freddy Mamani Silvestre’s extravagant urban mansions in El Alto, Bolivia, have been derided as kitschy-looking cohetillos, meaning “spaceships”—giving his work the nickname “spaceship architecture.”
Quicker, lighter, and more comfortable, wooden bikes may soon be the solution to the heavy steel bikes people have enjoyed for centuries.
When it comes to bellicose and galvanizing rhetoric, North Korea’s leadership is prolific and inventive. It has printed posters for children’s classrooms that proclaim, ”We love playing military games knocking down the American bastards” and, during the economic chaos following the demise of the Soviet Union, it urged citizens onward with the cheerful pledge: ”Let’s eat only two meals a day.”
European cities are living up to their reputation for being greener and more pleasant than cities in the US and the rest of the world. That’s according to a top-10 list of sustainable cities released by the design and engineering consultancy firm Arcadis in a recent report (pdf).
As restaurant managers and florists preparing for one of the busiest days of the year know, Valentine’s Day is a huge and growing business.
Of the many, many man bags that marched the runways at recent menswear fashion weeks in London, Milan, and Paris, the whale sighting at Thom Browne may have been the best. What appeared to be a luxe, black leather bowling bag from the front, tapered down to a tail with two padded flukes. A gold zipper across the front made its mouth.
Launching a sea of hot-air balloons into the skies of a country marked by frigid temperatures and blustering snow might seem unwise. But for decades Switzerland’s Chateau-d’Oex district has managed to lure throngs of spectators to its nine-day, international hot-air balloon festival at its namesake mountain resort, with more than 80 balloons from 20 countries. That’s because its calm microclimate boasts the cool temperatures that help hot air balloons launch without the usual accompanying wind and precipitation. (The greater the difference between the air in the balloon and the outside environment, the better the balloon’s lift.) The views also happen to be spectacular.
The story of the American street photographer Vivian Maier, who worked most of her life as a nanny and was discovered and lauded as one of the last century’s greatest photographers after her death in 2009, has captured the imagination of documentarians, curators, and young photographers.
The list of benefits bilingualism brings isn’t getting shorter any time soon. Cognitively bilingual people are better able to switch between tasks, have increased problem solving capabilities, and can learn a third language more easily. For working adults, bilingualism can open more doors with jobs, and for the elderly can possibly delay dementia, including Alzheimer’s.
When the US planned to drop American paratroopers into Europe during World War II, the military needed emergency food rations that would be lightweight, small enough to fit inside a uniform pocket, and contain all the calories needed to last one person for several days. The rations’ long journey from American factories to overseas theaters of combat, as well as the increased mobility of soldiers, prompted new research on their efficient design. Thus the invention of the compact, individualized “k-ration,” or daily combat food ration, created by physiologist Ancel Keys (Keys is where the “k-” comes from).
As hackers know all too well, most people are lazy password-creators. And despite several high-profile data breaches, not much changed in 2014.
Getting school children to eat more of the healthy foods on their plates doesn’t have to involve forcing them, tricking them, or slathering on the butter and cheese. The answer might be as simple as scheduling their lunch time for after recess, instead of before.
Some of the world’s oldest trees are tucked away on untouched mountainsides, isolated lands, and private islands. And for 14 years, photographer Beth Moon traversed these farflung places to capture photographs of ancient trees before they died or got cut down by man.
Google and Tesla have been getting a lot of the attention surrounding the development of self-driving cars. Now Mercedes-Benz is joining the ranks of those experimenting with what’s expected to be the next big thing in the automotive industry.
If you were wondering when you could buy The End of Power through Amazon again (the paperback version sold out within days of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg putting the Moisés Naím book at the top of his reading list for 2015), you’re in luck. It’s back in stock on the retailer’s US website.
If you plan on accepting Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s invitation to join his new book club, the outgrowth of a New Year’s resolution he made to read a book every two weeks, you might need to make some other New Year’s resolutions of your own—like shopping for books at brick-and-mortar retailers, or getting a Kindle.
This post has been corrected.
In the earth’s northern hemisphere, many of us are staring down another blisteringly cold polar vortex this winter. When it comes to coping, a cozy down-filled jacket is one of the most reliable defenses. Stores and websites are filled with options, and many of the deciding factors are obvious: fit, feel, color, price tag.
After a big night out, the drunken selfies you posted on Facebook can make slinking into work the next morning feel like a “walk of shame.” That’s why Facebook is working on an app to help you retain your dignity before your colleagues, family, and friends.
The US’s largest drug retailing chain, Walgreens, got into hot water a couple of days ago for selling gift-wrapping paper with a swastika design embedded in it. Hallmark, the manufacturer, has stopped distributing the paper. But Pro-Swastika, a group that wants to restore the original meaning of the swastika—a symbol of peace and well-being in Hinduism and Buddhism—has issued a statement saying it wants the product back on the shelves:
London got the green light it needed from a local borough council last week to construct the Garden Bridge—a walkway supporting 2 million pounds of dirt, 270 trees, and an array of plants—over the Thames River. The plan will now go to the city’s mayor for the final stamp of approval to begin construction late next year.
The “opaque, shellacked, monomaniacal” skyscraper that now towers over lower Manhattan has ”no mystery, no unraveling of light, no metamorphosis over time, nothing to hold your gaze” and “implies (wrongly) a metropolis bereft of fresh ideas.” These were the words of the New York Times’ architecture critic (paywall), Michael Kimmelman, in his gutting recent review of One World Trade Center, which stands close to where the original Twin Towers used to be and is their symbolic replacement.
