Spotted: faked Apple stores! Guess where? In China! This is today's (small) buzz.Check out the full story here.

What to learn from that story is how much the brand image asset can count for a firm's revenues. What best strategy for an opportunistic businessman but to duplicate a winning strategy to make fast (and yeah, dirty) money? 

Source: http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/

Because it's spring in the Northern hemisphere and I've been missing freezing and snowing weather and winter way of living since I left Denmark, let me tell you a few words about this iceskating winter Shelter in Winnipeg, Canada. 

True, not anyone is able to understand the interest of such a shelter. Just imagine how it feels when the temperature is a low -20°, you're outside enjoying some winter sport on a frozen river, and the wind arises. See? Being able to stay seated while being protected from the chilling wind is a great relief.

And if not for appreciating the protection while iceskating, you can still appreciate the architecture and how it fits to the surrounding environment. As it's middle of a frozen river, I'm wondering what the shelter becomes when ice is melting down...A shelter to protect from burning sun?

Congrats to Canadian Patkau Architects for their fairytale shelter so in line with Canada and the respect for nature there! Should fit other countries abroad.

Source: www.designbuzz.com

Photo: J.C Carbonne

To finish my series of posts about Constance Guisset, and because I'm a very big fan of French super famous choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, I wanted to share this great scenography by Constance Guisset for recent solo performance "Le Funambule" by Angelin Preljocaj.

Not much to say, images are mesmerizing, don't you think so?

Sources: www.constanceguisset.com

Photograph: Jason Havneraas & Grethe Fredriksen

Spotted: a wooden hut for Norwegian little children ordered by the Trondheim municipality for their kindergarten. The constraint: the budget. The answer: leftover material from a nearby building site, only allowing small pieces of wood as key ingredient.

A great place to play protected from the rain, gather over a fire and dream while staying in that fairy modern nest.A recollection of former Norwegian huts.

Scandinavian designers have hit again: congrats to Haugen/Zohar Arkitekter!

Source: www.archdaily.com

Because Wikileaks is the buzz word of the moment, I've just discovered the storage place Wikileaks rented the services of recently: Swedish internet services provider Bahnhof's data storage center in Stockholm, Sweden, also known as the "Pionen White Mountain".

It's an amazing work of sci-fi architecture designed by Albert France-Lanord Architect. The location? A former bunker 30m under the ground, relevant place for cooling the storage system, directly inspired by sci-fi movies and in particular the James Bond scenes: 1200 sq-m of storage spaces as well as offices where human beings have to spend their whole work day under the ground. A great challenge achieved by the combined work of the architects and the client. Congrats!

Read agency's explanations about the project here. 

Sources: www.archdaily.com + http://ddkdhar.blogspot.com/

It's often asked "What's the difference between art and design?". It's often answered "Design is about function". But sometimes, art can come to function.

A good example is given by non-profit organisation RxArt dedicated to art in hospitals as a hope- and patient comfort-enhancer. Idea is to place work of arts, dedicated or not, created by major artists into medical venues. I find this over-10-year-lasting initiative fabulous. If more and more attention is paid to medical venues in terms of architecture, such attention can only be afford in new building projects. Which means most medical venues worldwide are out of this scope. No great news when you know the likelihood of a patient to recover is highly due to his/her mental and faith in recovering.

So just applause RxArt for their work and hope their initiative will be widespread outside the US.

Learn more about RxArt here.

Source: BMW Mini Newsletter

Kinetic, here we are again! yes, but it's so beautiful! And no, I haven't searched on purpose news about brand art and kinetic sculptures around the world! Life is as such: sometimes, you focus on something and then it seems that the whole worlds revolves around it!

This time, we're talking about a gigantic kinetic work of art being designed by art-based design studio UAP and artist Ned Kahn, for the Brisbane Domestic Airport short-term carpark.

A 5000sq.m-8-storied wall made of 250000 panels of aluminium that will move with the wind and give an image of unceasingly moving water. Should be a great urban work of art: a bit of poetry and fantasy within a very urban environment! Plus that work of art will not only be aesthetics and mesmerizing, it will also help cooling off the car park.

Due date late 2011. Don't miss to fly to Brisbane!  

Source: http://weburbanist.com