Blob Helps You Work and Store Stuff in Small Spaces (video)
Not ready for Christmas, just yet, this Israeli multi-purpose desk design and storage unit could be on a green shopper’s list next year if it goes to production.
Design
Handmade Earthen Hookah Pipe Adds Class to Middle East Past Time
Everywhere in the Middle East, in cities or rural villages, you will inevitably find people sucking on tall, usually cheaply made shisha pipes made from glass. This earthen Hookah from the Netherlands adds class to the popular past time. Just in time for Christmas?
The Wheel House is a Tiny Home Tossed About by a Fictional Sea
What’s it like to live on a boat? In such cramped spaces and always subject to nature’s whim, otherwise reasonable people can go mad if they don’t get cooperate. Acrojou explores the idea through a fascinating theatrical circus genre that is trending – even in Lebanon.
Flexible Solar Canopy to Cover Dubai’s 2020 Expo Pavilions
An enormous flexible canopy of photovoltaic cells will shade the pavilions at Dubai’s 2020 expo, an innovative step towards greater energy efficiency for the international event, but critics warn that the workers slated to build the necessary infrastructure stand to suffer the most.
Can Microsoft’s High-Tech Smart Bra Curb Appetite?
A day late and an undergarment short! The morning after Thanksgiving, I read about a new stress-busting bra that could’ve kept me from, once again, approaching turkey-day as a competitive eating event.
Hundreds of Xerox Paper Strips Make Extraordinary Recycled Curtains
Israelis are well known for being industrious – especially when it comes to turning innocuous every day materials such as tomato cans, or in Naama Arad’s case, paper into beautiful works of art.
Comparing Qatar Stadium to a Vagina is “Ridiculous” Says Zaha Hadid
I never thought that I would agree with Zaha Hadid, the Iraqi starchitect who has failed time and again to support the green building movement. But her dismissal of claims that the Al-Wakrah stadium looks like a vagina has my support.
Japan’s Sou Fujimoto Re-Imagines Doha with Modular Stacked Arches
Qatar is undergoing a massive change, and many of the world’s top architects are hoping to become a part of the action. Zaha Hadid and AECOM have weighed in with the Al-Wakrah stadium, and now Sou Fujimoto has re-imagined Doha with a series of modular stacked arches.
Bees Trained to Detect Cancer and TB on Human Breath
It turns out that bees are not only essential to global food production, they also make amazing sniffer “dogs.” Which is how Portuguese designer Susana Soares is able to train Apis mellifera to detect cancer and tuberculosis on human breath.
Oil-Rich Qatar Takes Eco Expertise to Philadelphia’s Famous Greenbuild
The Qatar Foundation is distinguishing itself as a leader at Greenbuild, the world’s largest gathering of green building pioneers in Philadelphia, where Hilary Clinton will deliver the 2013 keynote address tomorrow.
5 Steps to a Carbon Neutral World Cup in Qatar
Qatar has promised a carbon neutral 2022 World Cup, but we know from the Masdar City experiment how hard that is to achieve. Still, here are five dubious steps AECOM and Zaha Hadid Architects are reported to be taking to support that goal with their joint design – Al-Wakrah Stadium.
Design a Bridge for the Strait of Hormuz – Crucial Passage for Global Oil
It is one of the most important bodies of water in the world, the only one to link the Persian Gulf with the open ocean, and it is frequently at risk of closure due to politics. Here’s your chance to design a new bridge for the Strait of Hormuz.
Solar-Powered ‘Desert Cascades’ Cube Gushes Water in the Desert
The same team behind SunGlacier, an extraordinary solar-powered artificial leaf that produces ice in the middle of the desert, has come up with a new concept – ‘Desert Cascades.’
Wearable Boutonnière Vase Keeps Floral Scents Close to Your Chest
Israeli designer Omer Polak has designed an adorable wearable vase that keeps a flower or herbs close to the wearer’s chest. The Boutonnière is a lapel pin made from blown glass attached to clothing via a small brass pin.
Naive Israeli Startup Tricks Beirut Designers into Doing Illegal Business
Creativity, like nature, knows no borders, and we’re all about putting politics aside for the greater good, but a pair of naive American women behind the Israeli startup ArtSetters pulled a stunt that could have put Beirut artists in serious danger.