The winners of this year’s British Ecological Society Photography Competition captured animals interacting with the world around them in bold and breathtaking ways.The annual contest aims to showcase the wonder of ecology across six categories. The 2022 entrants focused on everything from prey-predator relationships and wildlife affected by human changes to the beauty of biology on a microscopic scale.

Overall Winner: A Light in the Shadows by Roberto García Roa

“Like two beacons in the dark, the striking eyes of a Helena’s treefrog seem to glow in the darkness of the night,” says García Roa, a conservation photographer and evolutionary biologist at Sweden’s Lund University.

“This image reveals the beauty of nature hidden in Tambopata, [Peru,] a region that is currently threatened by gold mining. It is paradoxical to see the eyes of this frog as small golden pearls, because in reality, the true treasure lies in ensuring the protection of this area and its inhabitants.”

Student Winner: Takeout by Sam Eberhard

Shot on the shores of Oregon’s Cannon Beach, this image depicts of a group of western gulls surrounding and squawking at a bald eagle trying to carry off its latest meal, a common murre.

“’Takeout’ is a frozen moment of intense action at Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach…,” says Sam Eberhard, an environmental studies and biology student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “While photographically documenting tufted puffins at Cannon Beach, I did not hesitate to capture a few shots of this bald eagle.”

Up Close and Personal Winner: Wild Pearls by Javier Lobon-Rovira

Javier Lobon-Rovira, a Ph.D student in biodiversity, genetics, and evolution at the University of Porto and CIBIO-InBIO, zoomed in on an endangered gold-striped salamander working its way through a nursery of eggs, their color and luminescence reminiscent of precious pearls.

Dynamic Ecosystems Winner: Invasive Battle-Fire Fierce by Javier Lobon-Rovira

Lobon-Rovira also took top honors in this category demonstrating interactions between different species within an ecosystem. “Isn’t it utopian that two invasive species cross paths in the race for survival?’ the photographer notes. “That is the case that crossed my lens when I found an army of fire ants immobilizing, killing, and causing the disappearance of a house gecko in my backyard in Florida…Eat or be eaten is the only mission in the struggle for survival.”

Individuals and Populations Student Winner: The Shrike Strikes Again! by Jennifer Holguin

“A round-tailed Horn Lizard impaled by a yucca stalk in the Chihuahuan Desert, New Mexico, USA. The culprit? A gray, medium-sized songbird known as the Loggerhead Shrike or Butcherbird,” says winner Jennifer Holguin, a student at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Ecology in Action Winner: Bruma by Roberto García Roa

García Roa picked up another award for his image of a dead female eagle lying face down after flying into overhead power lines. The GPS that Bruma the eagle was fitted with at birth helped scientists and authorities determine which power line caused her demise and allowed them to fix it to keep other birds from meeting the same fate.

People and Nature Winner: A New Plastic Home by Andreas Eich

The terrestrial hermit crab in this image shows its adaptability by claiming a discarded plastic bottle cap as its new shell. The scene contrasts with the idyllic beach scene in the background, according to winner Andreas Eich.

The Art of Ecology Student Winner: Diwali in the Forest by Naitik Patel

The light from a congregation of fireflies near India’s Kaziranga National Park reminded student winner Naitik Patel of the joyful feel of Diwali. He explains: “Diwali is a festival of lights. These adorable little fireflies were creating their own festival of lights by gently glowing green and creating undulating trails of light on the forest floor.”

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Lagerkvist and Lindgren’s design process involved researching the therapeutic benefits of nature to determine what people find most calming and relaxing. The designers believe the allure of stone lies in its symbolism, representing “nature’s slow and boundless rhythm.” When translated into malleable materials, those same qualities can feel like the reassuring embrace of Mother Nature herself.

The designers wanted “Pebble Rubble” to transcend the functions and qualities of an ordinary seat, reminding the user to slow down and appreciate the resilience and dependability of the natural world. The shapes of the rocks call to mind the process by which all the jagged edges were polished over long periods of time by the rain and wind, perhaps cloaked by a coating of moss or a layer of fallen leaves.

“Imagine we find ourselves upon a massive, mysterious slab of stone,” say Lagerkvist and Lindgren. “As if, in a time long before our own, someone gifted with superhuman strength lifted and positioned it, creating a megalithic seat. Let’s imagine that all this occurs in an unexpected location – in the entrance of a bank, the lounge of a hotel, or in the halls of a library. Lastly, let’s imagine that we are getting closer to its surface and only then becoming aware of their softness.”

“Our new system of furniture for Moroso took its forms from found shapes in nature. As children in our native Sweden, our playground was the forest, and we imagined rocks, moss, and fallen trees to be furniture and places for the body to rest and occupy. For this seating group, we 3D scanned rocks we saw on our many forest walks, and composed these organic shapes together into furniture pieces.”

Designed for Italian furniture brand Moroso, the modular cushions of the Pebble Rubble sofas come in 15 different shapes and sizes, and a range of colors including beige, gray, brown, green, lavender, and orange. Each one is available in 16 new textiles produced by Kvadrat by digitally scanning natural surfaces like moss, minerals, and snow for a realistically organic effect.

You can custom-order your preferred combination to create oversized river rock vignettes that fit your space, choosing from shapes that can act as base cushions, back support cushions, throw pillows, and stools.

The Pebble Rubble collection was produced with the hospitality and corporate sectors in mind, but it’s easy to imagine them in the home, too. You can purchase them online from shops like Mohd Furniture, with prices available upon request.

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Christophe Guinet mainly works with natural materials to create his botanical sculptures. His latest project “highlights a series of sculptures representing tree trunks that come straight out of a fantastic and magical universe,” as he explains on his website. “This series of works consist of five tree trunks which connote through their shapes emotions that we can find in nature.”

The collection includes five large sculptures: a heart, an infinity loop, a spring coil reminiscent of barbed wire, a simple knot, and a more complex knot he calls “Wooden Lace.” Guinet stages the pieces in the forest and photographs them in their “natural environment,” adding to the illusion that someone has stumbled upon strange natural formations. The artist hopes the sculptures spur a sense of childlike wonder, awe, and appreciation for everything trees can do.

We’ve seen other works of art in which living trees are painstakingly guided into certain shapes over years or even decades, like the stick buildings of Patrick Dougherty and “Baubotanic” living architecture by students at the University of Stuttgart. Sometimes nature itself does the shaping, like when trees grow around objects, twisting themselves into surprising and unexpected forms. Monsieur Plant makes things happen a little faster than that with his own artistic methods, which involve plaster and real pine bark.

Guinet says forest walks inspired him to work with natural materials, raising questions about how nature adapts to its environment and its own innate creativity. His previous works often incorporated wood, bark, and moss, like an entire wearable Batman suit made of pink bark, a tree bark skateboard, arm-shaped moss sculptures wrapping around a real tree, and Nike sneakers made out of flowers.

“Contemplative and passionate aesthete of the plant world, he uses his findings related to places and seasons, to create works of art with care and a concentration close to the meditative state,” reads Guinet’s artist statement. “The artistic process is thus an integral part of the final work of art. As ephemeral and fragile as a bouquet of flowers, Christophe’s compositions show us the beauty of nature through everyday and cult objects. His care to minimize the harmful impact on the environment is in contrast to the escalation of consumerism and the race to keep producing objects which are ever newer, more technical, more ‘hype’.”

“His fields of reflection revolve around love, life, death, as well as the ambiguity of the cycle of life in a society where death has become extremely taboo. It is interesting to see a work fade, die, follow the cycle of the seasons. It reminds us of our own cycle: a flower blooms and fades to resume the same cycle the following year. We too follow certain cycles & states: childhood, adolescence, adulthood, old age, then death. It is inevitable and every stage of life should be celebrated and magnified.”

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The architects have created a little slice of paradise in the city by building artificial streams that curve through the property, almost making it feel like the residents live in a much greener Japanese version of Venice or Amsterdam. The placid body of water squeezes through the spaces between buildings, leaving slices of lawn for picnic benches, café tables, and beautiful blooming cherry trees. The precise edging and perfectly laid sod make it clear that it’s a man-made feature, but the effect nonetheless remains. There’s just something so relaxing about gazing out at the water from inside.

Take a glance at the photos of the warm wood-lined interiors, massive sliding glass walls, and natural daylight, and you might think to yourself, “yet another luxury home that’s unattainable for the vast majority of people on Earth.” That’s usually true with projects like this, but Awazuku House isn’t a private home — it’s a series of rental houses sharing the tranquility of this setting with a broader range of people, not just the wealthy owners. Set on the edge of the city, the complex offers a peaceful place to live with close proximity to the perks of the city.

“Four houses for rent in Koda-Cho, Nukata-gun, Aichi Prefecture, located in an area far from the city center with an impressive landscape of beautiful woodlands, temples, fields, curving paths, streams, and hedges. How could these locational elements be connected to life? At the same time, the real estate agent told us that the rental stock in this area was already saturated with regular apartments and condominiums,” the architects explain. “So, we began to conceive that we could rent out a comfortable life here, taking advantage of the rich environment, which spurred the idea of ‘lending.’”

“Lending a room — lending a building — lending with land — lending an existing well, lending a field next to the main building — supporting the farm work of the parents of the main building, then ‘renting the environment,’ which eventually led to ‘renting the environment’ including human relations. Each wing of the building has a loft, and the windows of every floor have a view of the back mountain. The height and position of each building and the direction of the roof slope are determined so that the views do not overlap with each other and interfere with the line of sight from the loft floor.”

The architects repurposed stone from an existing stone wall once piled up around the site as soil retaining walls. A pillar and beam from the home that already existed on the property has now become a series of benches along the waterways. Hedges help regulate the flow line of the water and ensure privacy. The water itself comes from the old well, which is no longer in use as potable water. Now, it’s both a beautiful visual feature and a source of emergency water supply in the case of a water shutoff.

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Located in a field outside Stockholm, One Tree Four Seasons is a collaboration between Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) and Finnish artist Antti Laitinen. The project encircles a solitary alder tree set on a small hill with a giant nest-like structure, which will be periodically modified to represent the four seasons. The team uses only natural materials they can find in the immediate area to build the installation, making the results seem almost like a natural growth upon the tree.

The first part was completed earlier this year and unveiled in May, displaying the starkness of the leafless tree in the cold winter and early spring seasons. The tree was already surrounded by rocks, thanks to an old agricultural practice involving clearing obstacles from the adjacent fields. The team gathered dead branches and wove them together to form a circular nest that’s open at the top, with a huge round window looking out. Curious passersby will no doubt see the structure and the opening and approach out of curiosity, perhaps climbing inside to discover that the floor is also woven.

In August, the creative team revealed Season II. This time, a new natural material was available for them to work with: hay cut and collected from the fields. Not only did they pack the hay into the woven branch structure to give it more solidity, they crafted it into a slightly curving upper wall that focuses a tight view on the canopy of the tree overhead.

They also integrated a circular hay bench lining the perimeter. Stacked bales became temporary stairs outside the entrance. As such, this enormous nest became an organic concert space. Local string quartet Julikvartetten was invited to conduct a performance inside, playing not to an audience of humans but to the tree itself, and any wildlife that might be nearby. Season III will be underway shortly, and one imagines that it will include some fall leaves, or perhaps corn stalks or other agricultural byproducts from the scene.

The fact that the work looks like a nest calls to mind the architectural works of certain animals and insects, from termite mounds to beaver dams. Structures built by animals can be quite elaborate, blurring the lines between nature and art. Projects like One Tree Four Seasons remind us that we too are animals. Plus, there’s a very particular sense of comfort that comes from building architecture that works with nature instead of against it.

The post Living Tree Converted into a Nest-Like Concert Space in Rural Sweden first appeared on Dornob.

The fact that the clinic is a live/work environment goes a long way towards giving it a homey vibe, which is instantly more relaxing than a sterile institutional facility. The dentist, a director in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, will use this new location as a second home base. Set in an area full of medical facilities and just down the street from a nature-rich area with parks and museums, the location straddles the line between the professionalism of a more conventional setting and the comfort of a home.

“We thought it would be best to create a simple and relaxing environment stripped of stress and fear, an easy place for patients to visit,” the architects explain. “It is also the client’s desire to contribute to the community as a dentist by being able to create this project. As an architectural project, the essence of this design emerged by combining the management philosophy of the dental clinic with the architectural solution.”

First and foremost is curb appeal. The plot is designed with plenty of trees in both the front and back, with large windows looking out at them from the lobby and treatment areas. From the moment they walk up, patients can see that this is no ordinary dental clinic. Inside, they’ll find beautiful spaces lined entirely with wood for a warm and cozy feeling. The exterior walls are made of unpainted cedar wood cladding, and the interior is finished with structural plywood. Once seated in the chair, each patient will be able to gaze at branches gently waving in the breeze as their treatment commences.

According to the firm, “the private rooms were first arranged assuming the patients would not be threatened by a fearful feeling, but instead with a relaxed environment as they look at the forest in front of them. The rest of the spaces are allocated as necessary to support the dentistry functions. The second floor has a residential function, and its shape has a set back from the private rooms on the ground floor. The solution was not to prioritize a wide space, but we had a desire to create a space for treatment within it.”

“To solve the problem in a deductive way, design started from the treatment space and then passed to deciding on other elements, thereby eliminating any arbitrary operations and making the space for the patients the first priority. The idea was to create a dental clinic that would be easy for patients to come to, and that they would return to again and again.”

The dentist’s private living quarters on the second floor are designed so that in the future, they could be used to expand the clinical facilities. He might not always want to live there, and wants to leave open the possibility of creating a special treatment area for children. The architects designed the floors with space for the necessary pipes and utilities so that it would be possible without a significant remodel.

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Burning Man came back in a big way after a two-year COVID-induced hiatus. Not only did this year’s event in remote Black Rock City, Nevada draw an incredible 80,000 attendees and end with an epic eight-hour traffic jam, it also featured a record 88 official art installations. This year’s theme was “Waking Dreams,” aimed at “explor[ing] the transformative power of dreams, both literal and figurative, and celebrat[ing] the dreamers who channel this potent energy in eye-opening, often surrealistic, sometimes life-changing ways,” according to the festival’s organizers.

Here are 6 of our favorite works of art from Burning Man 2022:

Empyrean Temple

Every year, one monumental art installation is set ablaze along with the Burning Man effigy. This year, it was “Empyrean Temple” by Laurence Renzo Verbeck and Sylvia Adrienne Lisse, an architectural structure that’s revealed to be a compass rose beacon in the shape of an eight-pointed star when viewed from above. The installation represents “the region just beyond our physical realm that is the highest center of wisdom, and the source of energy-consciousness,” according to the artists. Visitors passed through portal gates and into the “multiverse” of the temple, where numerous navigational choices offer different experiences.

Paradisium

Made of reclaimed lumber and trees burned in the CZU Lighting Complex fire in Santa Cruz, an interactive grove of geometric trees sprouts out of the sand. “Paradisium” by Dave Keane and Folly Builders of San Francisco creates a play of shadows across the desert floor and offers climbable structures and walkways among the canopies. The artists explain that “Paradisium is a grove made out of trees, long fallen, that remind us of the forest’s beauty and our interconnectedness and interdependence with nature, while also fostering a sense of community and an investment in our shared future.”

Gaia

This colossal sculpture by Marco Cochrane and Julia Whitelaw measured 40 feet by 12 feet and was made out of stainless steel rods based on a “flower of life” pattern and covered in stainless steel mesh with LED lighting effects.

“Inspired by and in honor of nurturing energy… mother energy… love and connection: and the joy we feel when we act on the imperative to take care of each other and our planet,” the artists explain. “Julia’s vision for Gaia was inspired by the joy she and her children experienced those times when, as a young mother, she took her children to the beach and watched as they ran, jumped, dug, built castles, bickered, buried each other, and made new friends, and by her own memories of being that child.”

The Museum of No Spectators

Architect John Marx and artist J Abinthia Vermut created this spectacular open-air art gallery challenging the “elitist” nature of typical galleries. The “radically inclusive and interactive museum space” creates a space for everyone to make art and become an exhibiting artist. Located on the edge of Black Rock City, the unusual shaped structure invited guests to create their own art on the spot, contributing directly without gatekeeping.

The artists add: “When participants exit, they find themselves on a stage, the Theater of the Participant, which opens you back up to the vast potential of the Playa and the World beyond. This is the stepping-stone to becoming the change you want to make in the world…”

Catharsis

Point of View

A collaboration between Serge Beaulieu and Yelena Filipchuck, this piece is inspired by embroidery patterns from Filipchuk’s birthplace, Ukraine. “It is not possible for us to think of this year without thinking of her homeland and wanting to represent the beauty and spirit of Ukraine while working through the emotions of this challenging time in our artwork,” the artists explain.

The post 6 Unforgettable Art Installations from Burning Man 2022 first appeared on Dornob.

Three new facilities are planned for the cities of Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta in Greece. The largest of the three in Thessaloniki will be a dedicated children’s hospital. Not only will these new hospitals bring much-needed modernization to underserved areas that have suffered economically since the country’s government debt crisis started in late 2009, they’ll also act as templates for state-of-the-art hospitals throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Developed as part of the international SNF Health Initiative, the hospitals will focus on equity, serenity, dignity, and comfort just as much as high-quality medical care.

This philosophy is rooted in three core values: the therapeutic power of nature, environmental sustainability, and medical excellence paired with holistic patient-centric care. That translates to spaces and practices that provide privacy, personalized care, direct connection to the outdoors, and room to grow so hospitals can avoid stagnancy by keeping up with changing needs and ideas. Piano’s designs are all similar in their appearance, featuring long rectangular buildings topped with overhanging flat roofs covered with solar panels. These visible structures host clinical centers, while other buildings tucked into the surrounding hillsides contain labs and other technical facilities.

When SNF first started researching this project, they spoke to the local communities where the hospitals are being built and asked them what they’d like to see included in the design. They asked for healing gardens, upper-floor patios, art on display, and recreation areas along with green campuses ringed with trees instead of massive parking lots. In fact, the landscape was designed specifically so that patients can see trees from the windows of their hospital rooms. Plentiful windows and skylights let natural light come pouring into all spaces, including intensive care units and operating rooms.

Healing gardens have become more common in medical settings in recent years, mostly for the benefit of patients. But doctors, nurses, and other hospital staff will also benefit from the ability to walk out into a lushly planted outdoor space to take much-needed breaks from the stress of their jobs. Family members waiting to hear news of a patient’s prognosis or to comfort them after a procedure can experience a sense of relief in these spaces, complete with areas for kids to play, as an alternative to dim, institutional lobbies.

“The basic idea in the tree projects is, to give shape to facilities, which are totally immersed in nature, in order to foster a quiet, relaxing environment for patients and their relatives, but also for doctors, nurses, and all staff,” says the Renzo Piano Building Workshop. “Nature has in fact a ‘therapeutic’ role in every patient’s rehabilitation process, as in the ancient Asklepeion.”

The post Renzo Piano Integrates Therapeutic Gardens into 3 New Hospitals in Greece first appeared on Dornob.

When machines can produce stunning masterpieces that mimic a human’s signature style, that artist’s work can suddenly seem less valuable. But a recent project by Manas Bhatia shows us one way in which artificial intelligence could enhance our creativity instead of replacing it. Envisioning what organic architecture of the future could look like, “Symbiotic Architecture” breaks through our understanding of what’s actually possible and asks us to think about our built environment a little differently.

Bhatia, an architectural designer based in India, uses the AI art generator Midjourney as a tool to overcome his own conscious and subconscious assumptions. He’s particularly interested in finding sustainable solutions that are able to withstand climate change by acting more like natural structures than artificial environments. For Symbiotic Architecture, he asked the program to combine an apartment building with Hyperion, a towering 380-foot redwood in California that’s considered the world’s tallest-known living tree. He entered combinations of words like “giant,” “hollowed,” “tree,” “stairs,” and “facade,” continuing to alter the prompts until he got the results he wanted.

The final digital works of art produced by the program are nothing less than stunning, even if they seem completely impossible in the real world. Massive coastal redwoods the size of Hyperion and even larger are pierced with glass-clad dwelling units stacked on top of each other. Little sprouts of leaves pop up here and there between windows and balconies. The images give us an idea of what the world might look like if human dwellings were more like those of ants and other creatures that build their homes from the world around them. The idea is that the structures we live in breathe and potentially even grow as a part of nature instead of attempting to be separate from it.

Would we really want to insert architecture into existing groves of sensitive, slow-growing, and endangered redwoods? Definitely not, but that’s not really the point. Just because our existing construction methods, materials, and technologies aren’t capable of producing safe and durable buildings that look like this doesn’t mean we can’t develop new ones that can. Working backwards from fantastical ideas could produce amazing innovations that allow us to burst out of our minimalist architectural stagnancy. For instance, it’s not that hard to imagine something like a naturally reproducing fungus-based material growing to a desired shape and size around a framework of modular living pods with an appearance resembling these giant inhabitable trees.

“The project began as an AI-based investigation into the interactions we have all had with nature, such as appreciating a tree’s shade on a hot day, reading a newspaper in a courtyard under a tree, or simply hanging out in a park to take in the changing hues of the leaves,” Bhatia explains. “Building on these observations came the idea of a ‘utopian future’ in which buildings are not machines made of steel or concrete…Instead, the structure is alive and has the ability to grow and breathe.”

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Artist Jeanne Simmons reminds us of this simple truth with her stunning works of art rooted in nature. Based in Port Townsend, a picturesque town full of Victorian architecture on the northeast tip of Washington state’s wild Olympic Peninsula, Simmons takes inspiration from her locale and makes the most of the raw materials she’s able to find there. She (sometimes literally) weaves her human subjects together with their natural settings and composes photographs that capture this relationship in all its startling beauty.

“My goal is to express, as beautifully and as compellingly as I can, the contents of my inner world and imagination, as well as my preoccupation with the relationship between humans and nature,” Simmons explains. “With my work, I attempt to describe a connectedness between us and our environment that seems to have been all but forsaken. I hope to nurture this dynamic relationship, which is our birthright and obligation, and to perhaps even rekindle and reawaken a yearning for it in others. Simultaneously, I hope to satisfy my own need to embed myself in nature.”

“Women, for me, express the feeling of connectedness to nature in a way that I find poetic. And, since my models are, in a sense, my surrogates (as I wish that I could braid myself to the ground and document myself in that state, but cannot), it only makes sense that they should be women.”

The piece Simmons refers to here is entitled “Grass Cocoon,” in which her model, naturalist and bakes-maker Nicole Larson, is seen tucked into a french-braided cocoon of long grasses, her own braided hair weaving its way into the surrounding field. Another, “Lace Skirt,” shows the artist herself adorned in a skirt made of Queen Anne’s lace flowers.

“Womanscape” depicts a model laying at the base of a tree covered in English Ivy, wearing nothing more than a little moss and lichen. The piece came about when Simmons wondered “what would happen if I planted a seed in my belly button.”

Set on a famous hillside in Port Townsend, “Womanfall” reinterprets the natural phenomenon of the waterfall by cascading ribbons of a pale blue garment over 20 feet to the rocky shore below. “Katrina” sees a model of the same name dressed in a gown of kelp, which billows out all around her in the waters of the Puget Sound.

You can keep up with Simmons’ work on Instagram @jeanneksimmons, where she posts her latest projects. High-quality limited edition prints are available on her website.

The post Beautiful Land Art by Jeanne Simmons Celebrates our Connection to Nature first appeared on Dornob.

But it’s not just the architecture and design spheres playing pivotal parts in sustainable urban integration projects. Many artists are also sharing their talents to create interactive environments that encourage a more harmonious relationship between nature and the urban sprawl. The new “Bird’s Eye View” installation in New York’s Battery Park aims to do just that.

Opened on Earth Day last month, the art installation isn’t just interactive — it uses augmented reality to show viewers all the bird species that live and travel through Manhattan’s waterways through the lens of their very own smartphones. Dubbed “Bird’s-Eye View,” the installation is the work of NYC artist Shuli Sadé, whose display consists of both photographs and original watercolors of local birds.

By scanning one of the 70 designated QR codes found on the signs along the water, visitors are virtually transported to a magical and often overlooked world in the sky. The immersive experience also includes snippets of bird songs, information about the birds’ habits and migratory patterns, and carefully curated lines of poetry that “draw parallels between the repetitive nature of bird sounds and syllables in poems.” Bird’s Eye View offers visitors a unique glimpse into the lives of 30 migratory bird species that frequent the skies above the Hudson River and can often be seen in flight above Battery Park City’s many gardens and parks.

While a focus on biodiversity and sustainability is nothing new to the 92-acre park, this dynamic installation means to further cement the Battery Park City Authority’s (BPCA) commitment to both “establishing Battery Park City as a biodiversity haven and bringing [the] community temporary art installations that transform [public spaces]…and encourage social cohesion,” according to B.J. Jones, president and CEO of the BPCA.

As Sadé recently explained, “One of the early goals of this artwork was to heighten our awareness of the environment in urban surroundings.” These images, sounds, and interactive displays do exactly that by connecting us to nature in a new way, blurring the lines that often exist between the virtual and the natural through art meant to educate, inspire, and promote biodiversity.

The post Fly with the Birds in Battery Park City’s New AR Installation first appeared on Dornob.

A recent Pew Research Center poll of Americans with jobs that can be done remotely found that 60 percent of those working from home want to continue doing so when the pandemic is over. That’s great for the well-being of the workforce, but it also brings up a potential complication. As remote workers flee expensive cities around the world, demand for homes in rural areas is expected to rise, putting pressure on the few remaining undeveloped spaces we have left.

In Argentina, APS/Arquitectos Pablo Senmartin came up with a model for building houses in environmentally sensitive areas, adding to housing density without harming the ecosystem. Located in the picturesque Villa Parque Síquiman in the Cordoba province, “Bioclimatic House” takes advantage of beautiful views on a sloped parcel while barely touching the earth beneath it. The architects completed an in-depth study of current construction problems in natural areas and developed a building style that met the stringent requirements of LEED v4 sustainable housing certification.

The home is set within a mountainous area overlooking Lake San Roque, adjacent to a protected natural area. The area is characterized by extreme environmental fragility, with periods of long drought, wildfires, loss of native forest, and lack of infrastructure. But it also offers a beautiful setting with lots of opportunity for recreation, so it’s caught the eye of many Argentinians looking to relocate.

Instead of building onsite, the architects took advantage of prefabricated elements that can be dry-assembled quickly with minimal impact on the setting. At its base is a section they call “Plinth — the cave,” an earthquake-resistant structure made of reinforced concrete that allows water runoff beneath the building. It functions as a parking area and meditation space beneath a swimming pool. As the foliage grows up around it, it will virtually disappear within the landscape.

The home is accessed by a dock-like pier element at street level, which transforms into a terrace and solarium as it enters the house and terminates at the infinity-edge swimming pool, which visually blends into the lake beyond. The rest of the home is envisioned as a two-level box made of wood, steel, and glass for an overall feeling of lightness. The tightly spaced wood cladding fades into an open screen as the house stretches from the street out to the pool, opening up the views.

The home’s zero-maintenance roof is a single sheet of ventilated metal that collects rainwater in the technical room of the plinth. The home is insulated with washed sheep’s wool, and the floors are made of sustainably sourced pine wood. Local recycled materials were incorporated wherever possible.

“The incorporation of time in the architectural space, through a succession of vertical elements that accelerate the view towards the landscape, this relationship changes during the course of hours and days,” say the architects. “The harmony [and] color of the material represents an abstraction of the color of the surrounding nature [and proves that] in the end, environmental quality is what matters when it comes to living.”

The post Bioclimatic House: A Responsible Way to Add Homes to Sensitive Natural Areas first appeared on Dornob.

“I was very impressed by the village. It was quite beautiful,” explains founder and architect Sou Fujimoto. “The weather was mostly cloudy when I visited there, with a bit of misty and foggy air surrounding the entire village.”

The resulting ringed structure “was inspired by the site itself, especially the fog and clouds that diffused over the village,” adds Fujimoto. “They were like buildings floating in the air, or rather, like roofs connecting nature, buildings, and various sceneries around. The continuing terraced fields created an architectural image and made the whole area very dynamic and vivid. Therefore, we proposed a floating canopy just like a cloud, hugging the landscape and being part of it.”

The plan for the officially titled “Fangyukong Cultural & Creative Resort Complex” began with the main building, an open space to be used for exhibitions, conferences, and art galleries. Enclosed with floor-to-ceiling window walls, this structure allows for maximum connection with the surrounding nature but still provides protection from snow and wind. The ceiling is lined with dry, woven grasses, continuing the feeling of symbiosis with the outdoor world.

From the main building, a steel-framed canopy covered in more natural fibers weaves its way in a circle down the multi-terraced complex, with its lowest point shading a glass-enclosed swimming pool and nearly connecting to the adjacent river, adding to the flow of the landscape instead of interrupting it.

“While distinguishing buildings and natural fields, the canopy creates a view just like a huge courtyard facing the sky,” the firm explains. “…We named the project ‘Flowing Cloud’ from the impression of the environment when we first visited the site, but also for the soft shape of the entire canopy.”

In the middle of the pavilion’s loop is an outdoor amphitheater of flower-filled steppes, accessible by stone staircases on either side.

The firm adds: “We look forward to having people come to visit, lingering around the poetic village, walking under the floating canopy, and enjoying the picturesque views of the beautiful nature.”

Hokkaido-native Sou Fujimoto grew up exploring the many mountains and forest of his island, spawning his life-long love of the natural world. He is particularly inspired by cave dwellings, which he says represent “a raw space where function was determined based on human behavior.” A few years after graduating in Architecture from the University of Tokyo, he founded his eponymous architecture firm in 2000, becoming known for his houses with light structures and permeable enclosures that allowed residents to stay in touch with their surroundings.

The firm’s work became well known around Japan, landing them major contracts in Europe including the design of London’s temporary Serpentine Gallery and the redesign of a plot in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. In 2021, Fujimoto earned his master’s degree from l’École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. In addition to his design work, he lectures regularly at the Universities of Tokyo, Kyoto, and Minato.

The post Sou Fujimoto’s Flowing Cloud Pavilion Winds Through a Mountain Village first appeared on Dornob.

“I got to spend a few days and nights in some of the Treehotel rooms right before the pandemic, and left with a sense of rejuvenation from complete immersion into nature,” says BIG founder and creative director Bjarke Ingels. “I couldn’t help wondering if there was a way to take the immersion one step further – and almost instantly the idea of inviting not only the human visitors but also the resident bird and bat population to cohabit a spherical swarm of nests came to life. After our first conversations with Ulf Öhman from Norrbotten Ornithological Association we were relieved to learn that birds don’t drop where they nest – so there is hope for the glass to remain clear within this cloud of aviary architecture.”

As the name suggests, Biosphere is a spherical suspended room that offers habitation not just to humans, but wildlife as well. BIG worked with Swedish ornithologist Ulf Öhman to craft an exterior that’s capable of welcoming up to 350 families of birds, strengthening biodiversity in the area. In addition to bird houses of various sizes designed to attract different species, there are bat houses, bee houses, and bird feeders. The treehouse is accessed by a suspended bridge stretching from the ground to the pine canopies.

“Inventories in Norrbotten County, carried out both by us as ornithologists and by the County Administrative Board, show that a number of different bird populations are decreasing,” says Öhman, chairman of the Norbotten Ornithological Association. “Forestry has led to a. Reduced number of natural holes in trees where breeding birds nest. The installation of bird nests is therefore an important measure to take. Furthermore, climate change leads to the insect boom happening earlier in the year, and by the time the birds’ eggs hatch, the boom has already passed.”

“Feeding is an important support mechanism for the birds that stay in Northern Sweden and require food during winter. Demonstrating the use of bird nests and feeding, not just at the Treehotel but for people to install near their own homes, is valuable. An initiative from Treehotel to take such measures may inspire their visitors to do the same.”

If you think the outside is cool, check out the interiors. While BIG decided to craft a comfortable space that emphasizes pragmatism and simplicity, the glass walls let guests watch as birds enter and leave the birdhouses attached to the exterior. It’s a birdwatcher’s dream, almost as if you could cozy up inside a tree trunk yourself and peer out at natural bird nests tucked within the branches.

The checkered pattern of the bird houses allows glimpses of the forest outside and transmission of natural daylight. The room also includes a living area with a chair swing, a bathroom, and a lofted bedroom. These dark interiors are designed to direct visitors’ gaze outward instead of within. Even better, guests can climb up onto the roof for 360-degree views, giving them an intimate sense of immersion in nature.

The post BIG’s Biosphere Will Add a Floating Birdhouse-Covered Room to Sweden’s Treehotel first appeared on Dornob.

“When graphics become too formal and rigid – that’s when I get bored,” the artist recently told Creative Boom.

His purple plums are so reflective it feels like an entire galaxy is visible in them, while the attached twigs and leaves seem like they were just poured from smelting-hot copper. And the play of brilliant light makes the entire scene feel alive.

Valentina’s cherry portrait has the same feel but in vibrant pinks and silvers set against a sunset-colored background.

“I’m a bit obsessed with fruit and flowers for their textures,” explains the artist, “but above all, for what they represent in nature. I’m surprised how these simple elements after 200,000 years still manage to aesthetically fascinate us so much.”

Even in his font work, which includes the revolutionary metallic GoliaGolia, Valentina is inspired by nature. “The colors, textures, and proportions; I’ve always been fascinated by it,” he says, adding that “It started getting into my work without me totally realizing it. Only, after some time, friends and graphic accounts began to point out how present these things were in my work. They are such a part of me that I don’t even notice it.”

The perfection of the natural world is what attracts the Italian artist to reimagine it in various ways. “I have a great admiration for nature. It’s super competent, flawless, and always fair, and what comes out of that is always super genuine. I think it has to do with our origins. I feel it touches something so deeply.”

The Milan-based artist received his formal training at ISIA Urbina and Norway’s KHIB Bergen. He then moved to London, where he got his start in music production while also working as a freelance graphic designer. His clients include big names like Apple, Sony, BMW, and Ray-Ban.

His liquidy, inflated fonts have also been taking the design world by storm lately. In addition to his GoliaGolia, Valentina also created the GabyGaby font, a similarly 3D metallic typeface with flowing lines and pointy ends.

“For me, visual communication should be about making things that generate true communication, allowing life, ideas, and a vision to shine through as much as possible,” he said in a It’s Nice That piece. “We should be able to add more soul to things and infuse them with meaning.”

That authenticity is essential to him as an artist. “I use them almost as a mirror for me,” he says, speaking of his music and graphic design works. “The things that are around me in the moment of life, whether they are phrases, symbols, people, or emotions – I believe that this helps me maintain a genuine process, avoiding the pure ‘exercise of style.’ Being able to do more honest things is more important to me than doing nice things.”

With his latest fruit experiments, the designer tried to be genuine while taking a new approach, personifying the fruit in a way that is “less digital, and more alive” than his font work.

Valentina’s work is available on his website as well as his Instagram page @alexvxvxvxvx.

The post Alex Valentina’s 3D Artworks Reimagine Nature in Liquid Metal first appeared on Dornob.

Designed by SYN Architects, the “Hometown Moon” chapel in the Shandong village of Tai’an is a two-story structure with an enormous semi-circle of glass and concrete sitting atop a reflecting pool, causing it to appear as one great shining orb. Inside the ground floor, an identical half-circle descends from a mirrored ceiling, producing a similar effect.

The 11,000 square-foot ceremonial hall was commissioned by the Shandong Lushang Group as part of a larger project to develop a 20-square-mile mountainous region of rural villages, and to bring more tourism and business to the area. The Hometown Moon is the second attraction on that particular hill. In 2019, the billowy “Hometown Cloud” structure emerged from the green hillsides of Tai’an, but the regional planners wanted more.

The Moon was strategically placed to face the Cloud without blocking the view of the beautiful mountain behind it. SYN Architects took great care to incorporate the Hometown Cloud into their plans for the chapel, creating an entire experience with nature for visitors. For instance, the parking lot was purposefully set far away from both structures, requiring guests to take a roughly 10-minute walk through the bushes and rocks, further immersing themselves in the natural surroundings and breaking away from their normal lives.

As they journey, tourists will catch glimpses of the semi-circle rising above the pond, and the spectacle will dip playfully in and out of sight until they reach the chapel where the moon then looms large in front of the surrounding landscape.

Once inside, the lunar-like orb continues to glow, suspended from above and flanked by mossy rocks that mimic the outside world. Visitors can reach out and feel the celestial sphere as it almost touches the floor.

The symbolism of the Moon, especially one that never sets, was chosen for this event center, especially considering the many weddings that may be held in the chapel. Single individuals, entering as less than whole, emerge bonded with their other half, now a fully completed entity. The traditional Buddhist principles of harmony, perpetuity, comprehensiveness, and endlessness are also embedded in the contemplative spaces throughout the facility.

The Beijing-based company hopes that connection with those values and the organic world around the Hometown Moon will provide a long-lasting repose from the rush of every-day living.

“Since the completion of the building, it has started a dialogue with users and nature. I look forward to seeing it being modified over time, further blending with the environment as the trees grow,” says Zou Yingxi, lead architect of SYN architects. “Each architecture has two destinies: being destroyed or being protected. I look forward to creating an architecture that is reluctant to be destroyed. It will be the highest achievement of my career. For this reason, I will bestow deeper meaning to my architecture and create more emotional bonds for its users. I hope that the Moon can become this kind of architecture. Even if it disappears in time, it will still exist in our spiritual world.”

The post SYN Architects Shoot for the Moon with New Event Hall in China first appeared on Dornob.