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How has design impacted your life? Is there a specific building, structure, city or object that is really important to you, that helped define you who are today? Perhaps you’ve traveled to distant lands to see incredible works of architecture or maybe the designs that inspire you most are right in your own home. How has design shaped your family memories and connected you to your heritage? We’re partnering with Federated Media to challenge you to send us your favorite photo memory showcasing a design that left an impression on your psyche. We’ll pick our favorite photo based on creativity, image quality and its ability to tell your story and the winner will take home a fabulous $500 Best Buy gift card! It’s easy to enter, and just think about how nice it would be to have an extra $500 to spend on your friends and family this holiday season, or maybe just buy an iPad for yourself!
1. Upload your favorite design photo(s) to Flickr.com and tag them #CapturedPhotoContest_Inhabitat.
2. Important note: Be sure to make your pics “public” so that we can see them.
3. Comment below with a link to your Flickr photo and a short description of what it is.
4. You may submit up to FIVE photos between now and December 24th. We’ll be judging them based on creativity, image quality and storytelling-through-photography. The contest ends on December 24th at 11:59PM EST and we’ll be contacting the winner through Flickr Mail around January 16, 2012.
Within days of the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, researchers in cities across the United States noticed that radiation levels in air, water, and milk that were hundreds of times above normal. Now, as the government in Japan declares the disaster solved, a new peer-reviewed study blames elevated levels of radiation for 14,000 deaths in the United States – and researchers involved in the study are still wondering how far the death toll will climb. They hope this startling discovery will show nations worldwide that the risk of radiation poisoning is not limited to the community immediately surrounding the site of the disaster.
South Korean Artist Choi Jeong-Hwa used 1000 brightly colored recycled doors to transform a bland 10-story building into an eye-popping visual indulgence. Jeong-Hwa is a master of using found objects to make provocative spaces, and the project is one of his most ambitious attempts to place normal things in an extraordinary way. The doors stretch up the scaffolding of the mid-rise, giving the hulking mass a pixelated charm.
Gingerbread houses are a dime a dozen come the holiday season, and this year, we have seen quite a few impressively crafted gingerbread creations. But this amazing gingerbread Brooklyn brownstone by designer and chef Renee Baumann takes the cookie, er cake. Baumann designed and built the entire structure from scratch, even drawing and cutting original templates and carving tools to make the decorative features and brick pattern. She detailed every delicious step and made her templates available on her website, so you can (try) to bake your own brownstone at home.
For the holiday season, Blackmarket Bakery owner Rachel Klemek made this — dare we say it — adorable AT-AT from gingerbread. In Klemek’s depiction of the infamous Battle of Hoth, the Star Wars assault vehicle can be seen traipsing over a field of candy canes and taffy, leaving a trail of destruction in its delicious path. The scrumptious scene also depicts a Rebel Alliance Snowspeeder wrapping a licorice tow cable around the AT-AT’s legs — so like the movie, will this be the sweet demise of the Imperial Walker? Maybe, but we think it could go down just as easy with a glass of milk.
Via Dvice
Image: Mommy_Pants
Eco Lala‘s recycled bags, clutches, bike accessories, dustbins and even seats will cheer up any person or abode in dire need of some color. Based in Buenos Aires, the brand by Agustina Rozenwasser receives and collects all sorts of food packaging, and uniquely recycles them into new and useful objects. By cutting the plastic into tiny little pieces and using a heat-press machine to melt them into a plastic sheet, Eco Lala’s creates a pliable textile that can be turned into wonderful eco-designs. Washable, strong and surely eye-catching, Eco Lala’s creations are one-of-a-kind.
Photo © Eco Lala
Hardly angelic behavior, Victoria’s Secret was recently outed in a report by Bloomberg News that alleged the company has been using malnourished, underaged West African children to pick the cotton being used in some of its undergarments. Reporter Cam Simpson documents the story of a 13-year-old girl working on a farm in Burkina Faso that has been operating under the guise of a fair trade program designed to help women and children. Beaten and verbally abused, the young girl highlighted in the story is found laboring under horrific conditions, all to produce the cotton that will be fashioned into leopard-print hip-hugger panties and lacy fishnet thongs.
In Chile, mixed-breed dogs are called Kiltro, and these resilient animals are known to be survivors. Taking its name from these dogs, the Kiltro House was built under challenging conditions including a changing budget, design, and building permits, making it a true survivor in Latin America’s difficult building environment. Designed by Juan Pablo Corvalán and Gabriel Vergara from Supersudaka, the building stands within the long and narrow country’s central valley, and it was made from recyclable materials like aluminum, steel, glass, local stone and wood from naturally fallen trees.
London-based product designer Émilie Voirin has courageously re-interpreted a crop of iconic modern chairs into fantastic biodegradable seats. Using woven rattan and bamboo, the designer created sustainable versions of Verner Panton‘s ‘Panton chair’, Michael Thonet‘s ‘Thonet Chair No. 18′, Charles and Ray Eames’ ‘LCW Plywood Chair’ and Frank Gehry‘s ‘Wiggle chair’. Rattan is a durable plant fiber that is often used for making furniture, baskets, and other household items, however Voirin has adapted the material to give these classic chairs a sustainable twist.
In the race to win the bid to build New York City’s Silicon Island East, it was Cornell and Stanford in a dead heat, and it was anyone’s guess as to who Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration would pick to head up the East Coast’s future preeminent school of applied sciences. Then, when Stanford dropped out just a few days ago, rumors started flying around the airwaves, and now it’s all but confirmed that Cornell will get the nod, the plot on Roosevelt Island, the nearly $400 million in New York City funding and infrastructure, and the chance to be the school on the cutting edge of New York City’s technology development future.
San Francisco has a poop problem – in the city’s Tenderloin district alone, there were almost 10,000 recorded “incidents of human waste” last year, according to the Bay Citizen. So
Opened late 2009, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, has come to be Saudi Arabia’s first LEED certified project and the world’s largest
Electricity and lighting is something we often take for granted, but millions around the world live in areas lacking the proper infrastructure to even support turning on a lamp. In Africa, the market for
This morning saw a solar breakthrough at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where researchers created a quantum dot solar device that has a higher energized particle percentage output than
Madrid-based OOIIO Architecture recently designed a 6-story housing project for Wurzburg, Germany. The colorful complex consists of 15 multi-faceted and sustainable apartment blocks that transform a
Even though trains are considered more eco-friendly than a pile of people driving their own cars, let’s face it – they aren’t exactly the freshest green places to hang out. So Vittori
Over the past few years, we’ve seen a number of department store chains investing in alternative energies and now Kohl’s has also jumped on board the green bandwagon by announcing a pilot
The sun set on the disco era decades ago, but polyester is still just as prevalent as ever. Roughly 40 million tons of polyester fiber is produced worldwide each year, and studies have linked some of the
If you’ve got a tech geek on your list this holiday season, but are having trouble figuring out what the latest and greatest gadgets are these days, then look no further because we’ve go
‘Tis the season for model trains to zip and zoom through miniature worlds decked out for the holidays. While snow-capped houses and plain-Jane locomotives are certainly lovely, they don’t hold