CREATIVE STRUCTURES ...

Bubble Hotel Rooms

Location: Roubaix, France

The French town of Roubaix, has recently opened a series of portable hotel rooms in a local park. They can be rented by people who want to feel close to nature in the middle of the urban jungle.

The bubble concept thought up by French designer Pierre Stephane Dumas aims to redefine the term temporary leisure accommodation, and is based on the following principles: minimum energy, minimum material, maximum comfort and maximum interaction with the environment. The unusual bubble rooms were launched in 2010 and have since then been made available to people who want to enjoy a unique experience in the middle of nature, for around $700 a night.

In the French city of Roubaix, a series of bubble hotel rooms have been installed in one of the local parks. They come with a clear view of the sky and offer nature lovers to be close to their environment without having to travel to far away. The bubbles are made of recycled plastic and, once inflated retain their shape thanks to an airlock at the entrance and a silent pump which creates constant pressure. Outside noises are reduced to a minimum while inside noises are maximized, so the visitors are encouraged to whisper to each other, in order to create a peaceful atmosphere

The Magic Mountain Hotel

Location: Huilo Huilo, Chile

The Magic Mountain Hotel in located in Huilo Huilo, a private Natural Reserve in the Los Rios region of Chile. The antique appearance ends with the exterior however, as the interiors are done up in luxury. There are only 9 rooms, named after bird species found in the area. Each of them overlooks the thick forest and wildlife outside, including toucans, iguanas, pumas and lizards. Guests even get a glimpse of a real-life volcano from the hotel – the enormous Arenal Volcano. Outside the rooms the special services provided to guests are definitely worth a mention. Hot tubs made out of huge tree trunks, overlooking the forest are a major tourist attraction at Magic Mountain, as is the world’s longest zip line running through the grounds.

Cappadocia Cave Hotels

Location: Cappadocia, Turkey

A trip to Cappadocia, in central Turkey, gives you the chance for a unique lodging experience: staying in a cave.The soft volcanic rock has been hollowed out for homes for at least two millennia. Recently, Cappadocia's enterprising hoteliers—led by Mr Süha Ersöz of Ürgüp's Esbelli Evi—have restored crumbling stone-and-cave houses, equipped the rooms with comforts such as electricity, modern bathrooms, telephones, and even fast Internet connections, and opened them as traditional Cappadocian inns.

If you don't stay in a cave inn or hotel during your stay in Cappadocia, you're really missing something!

MARINA BAY SANDS - SINGAPORE

Marina Bay Sands is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay in Singapore. Developed by Las Vegas Sands, it is billed as the world's most expensive standalone casino property at S$8 billion, including cost of the prime land. With the casino complete, the resort features a 2,561-room hotel, a 1,300,000-square-foot (120,000 m2) convention-exhibition centre, the 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands mall, a museum, two large theatres, seven "celebrity chef" restaurants, two floating Crystal Pavilions, an ice skating rink, and the world's largest atrium casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines. The complex is topped by a 340m-long SkyPark with a capacity of 3,900 people and a 150m infinity swimming pool, set on top of the world's largest public cantilevered platform, which overhangs the north tower by 67m. The 20-hectare resort was designed by Moshe Safdie Architects. The local architect of record was Aedas Singapore, and engineering was provided by Arup and Parsons Brinkerhoff (MEP). The main contractor was Ssangyong Engineering and Construction.

Upside Down House

This Upside Down House in Poland is built by Daniel Czapiewski, Polish businessman in tiny Polish village of Szymbark. Usually, his company builds homes in 3 weeks but this one took 114 days because the workers were confused with structural design. Its an artistic statement about current state of the world. Apart from this the builders lavished attention on every last detail & after the construction of the house they decorated & fitted it out to the highest specifications.

Kizhi Pogost: 300 Years Old Multi-Dome Church Built Without Nails:

Kizhi is a narrow strip of island on Lake Onega in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. The island is popular for dozens of historical wooden buildings that were moved to the island from various parts of Karelia for preservation purposes during the 1950s. Today, the entire island and the nearby area form a national open-air museum with more than 80 historical wooden structures. The most famous among them is the Kizhi Pogost.

The Kizhi Pogost enclosure holds two wooden churches and an octagonal bell tower built during the 18th-century. The jewel of its architecture is the 22-domed Transfiguration Church with a large iconostasis—a wooden screen covered with religious portraits. This massive church is about 37 meters tall and made entirely of wood making it one of the tallest log structures in the world.

The Church of the Transfiguration was laid in June, 1714, after the old one was burnt by lightning. Its major basic structural unit is a round log of Scots Pine about 30 cm in diameter and 3 to 5 meters long. Many thousands of logs were brought for construction from the mainland, a complex logistical task in that time. A legend tells that the main builder used one axe for the whole construction, which he threw into the lake upon completion with the words "there was not and will be not another one to match it". According to the Russian carpentry traditions of that time, the Transfiguration Church was without using a single nail. All structures were made of scribe-fitted horizontal logs, with interlocking corners joinery. 

The basis of the structure is an octahedral frame with four two-stage side attachments called "prirub". The eastern prirub has a pentagonal shape and contains the altar. Two smaller octagons of similar shape are mounted on top of the main octagon. The structure is covered in 22 domes of different size and shape, which run from the top to the sides. The roofs were made of spruce planks and the domes are covered in aspen. The design of this elaborate superstructure also provided an efficient system of ventilation to preserve the structure from decay.

The Church of the Transfiguration was intended for use only during the summer as the church has no heating, and winter in Russia is terribly bitter. It was not uncommon in Russia to have paired churches, for summer and winter. At the Kizhi pogost, the adjoining winter Church of the Intercession was built in 1764, providing an admirable visual complement to the ensemble. Whereas the Transfiguration Church soars, the Intercession Church with 9 domes accentuates the horizontal, with an extended refectory.

In the 19th century, the churches was decorated with batten and some parts were covered with steel. Some of the original iconostasis was also replaced and lost. It was restored to its original design in the 1950s.

Tiger’s Nest Monastery - Bhutan
Some Amazing Facts

Tiger’s Nest Monastery, perched precariously on the edge of a 3,000-feet-high cliff in Paro Valley, is one of the holiest places in Bhutan. Legend has it that Guru Rinpoche [wiki], the second Buddha, flew onto the cliff on the back of a tigress, and then meditated in a cave which now exists within the monastery walls.

The monastery, formally called Taktshang Goemba, was built in 1692 and reconstructed in 1998 after a fire. Now, the monastery is restricted to practicing Buddhists on religious retreats and is off-limits to ordinary tourists 

The Floating Mosque – Corniche, Jeddah

Optical illusion: Skeleton Transparent Building!

The magic in this picture, is that the building and photo are both real, but somehow give you the impression you are seeing transparent skeleton of the building only. The windows are placed in such way to give reflection of the opposite side of the building, thus making it look so real. I love this optical illusion. Do you?

Sharp turns and wild nature have put the Atlantic Road at the top of the British newspaper The Guardian's list of the world's best road trips. Atlantic Ocean Road takes you over 8 brigdes from islet to islet out to the very point where the land ends and the ocean begins. It is a 8.3-kilometer (5.2 mi) long section of County Road 64 which runs through an archipelago in Eide and Averøy in Møre og Romsdal, Norway.

Have a look at it when the sea is stormy...