Awesome Architecture

The Kangbashi district in China has wonderful amenities and houses. But while it was designed to support a million people, it stands mostly empty, simply because people can’t afford to live there.

Scheduled for construction in 2012 and expected to be in operation by 2014, the flowing, $85M Port and Cruise Service Center in the city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan will be designed by reiser + umemoto.

Michael Graves’ steeply sloped, Dutch-style peaked roofs and dormers compliment the historic surroundings of the Louwman Collection, the National Automobile Museum of the Netherlands.

Getting it done in China: swift workers completed the main structural components of the Ark Hotel in just 46 hours, and finished the building enclosure in 90 hours; that equals 2 minutes in YouTube land.

The 2010 World Architecture Festival has honored the ultra-linear MAXXI, the National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, with the World Building of the Year title.

Antilia, the house of Mukesh Ambani – India’s richest and the world’s 4th richest man – has 27 floors, a 50-seat cinema, a 160-car garage and a staff of 600 to care for his family and their abode.

This is what high rollers check out on eBay. This jaw-dropping 10,700 sq.ft. estate is in Majorca, Spain. More than 1,230 sq.ft. of 24k gold was used in the swimming pools and the house itself.

A family in Honshu, Japan live under a set of stairs, but not in the way you think. The stairs in this case also doubles as the roof of the house. The playful design also happens to provide good insulation.

Environmental extremists might not mind doing time at Washington state’s LEED-certified Coyote Ridge Corrections Center, built with solar panels, high efficiency boilers and FSC-approved wood.

Choi+Shine‘s entry in the Icelandic High-Voltage Electrical Pylon International Design Competition turns pylons into statues. Frankly, we’re more surprised that there’s a pylon design competition.

The Kameha Grand Hotel in Bonn features stylish avant-garde public spaces and rooms by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, a glittering glass façade and stunning views of the Rhine.

Gibraltar Airport is included in Popular Mechanics’ list of strangest airports in the world, and rightly so – its runway intersects a major road. We bet no one ever beats the red light there.

The Marina Bay Sands development in Singapore is now open, at a cost of US $6 billion, and features a rooftop SkyPark and 492′ infinity pool perched high (650 feet) atop the 3 hotel towers. (Thanks Corey!)

Strata SE1, the largest residential tower in central London, is the first major building in the world with integral wind-turbines, which will generate at least 8% of the energy needed to power the units inside.

Bambu House from Tanji University Shanghai was recently unveiled at the European Solar Decathlon. Designed by a 20 member team, it’s made almost entirely of bamboo and runs only on solar power.

Designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas has two faces – one surreal, and one rigid, to represent the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

The 500+’ Capital Gate tower in Abu Dhabi holds the Guinness World Record for world’s furthest leaning manmade tower. It leans at 18°, more than 4 times the angle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Japanese architect Takuya Tsuchida was charged to build a home with a central atrium with potted tree, a 9 car garage for the owner’s auto collection and a view of the cars from the living room.

The glulam lattice structure of France’s Centre Pompidou-Metz twists to touch the floor at 6 points in a vortex of wood and metal. At night the building revels in the glow of its beautiful hexagonal design.

Istanbul, Turkey will be the car enthusiast’s heaven once the Autopia Europia is built. At over 2.3 million square feet, the future “world’s largest car mall” will even have a rooftop racetrack.

CNN International’s project marking the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall utilized street art installations by urban tape artist El Bocho to tell heroic stories of escape along the original divide.

In the machine that can print buildings, layers of sand are bound together to create a marble-like material, in effect turning it back into solid stone. The process includes internal curves and ducting.

Scotland’s McKay Flooring has figured out a way to turn beautiful oak whiskey barrels into flat boards, many with their distinctive branding intact, and convert them into flooring instead of trash.