Recyclebank. Eco-minded architects and designers are making treasure out of trash by recycling used PET bottles into beautiful, sustainable, buildings. Eco-minded architects and designers are making treasure out of trash by recycling used PET bottles into beautiful, sustainable, buildings. One of the wonderful things about being recycle-minded is that every piece of trash is an opportunity to recreate something wonderful. At least, that’s the way I felt when I saw testaments to the miracle of recycling — houses, cisterns, furniture, bus stops and even entire schools — made from recycled PET plastic bottles. Eco-tec, an award-winning Honduran company, has used recycled PET plastic bottles for construction of houses, water tanks, and even schools. Using some 8,000 PET recycled bottles, Eco-Tec created the “casa ecológica” or ecological house, as a means of providing sustainable construction methods and employment in Honduras. "Domestic waste can be transformed into useful stuff. Hong_Kong_Night_Skyline_non-HDR.jpg (JPEG Imagen, 4670x2000 píxeles)
15 Amazing Castles from Around the Globe. Although designed and built for the prominent purpose of defense, today the castles seem like somewhat unrealistic constructions straight from the fairytale world. From solid strongholds to oriental fortresses and highly decorative palaces, the castles are our connection to the past, where legends mix with history and reality blends with a fairyland. This fairytale castle is the historical seat of the Prussian Kings and German Emperors.
Its origin dates back to the Middle Ages - it was built in the 11th century, then completely destroyed in 1423 and reconstructed in 1461. The view from the castle that stands on top of Mount Hohenzollern (855 m) is as stunning as the complex itself. Although it looks like a castle, Howard is actually a stately home - a private residence of the Howard family that has resided in the complex for more than 300 years. Segovia Castle, located in an ancient town of Segovia in central Spain, started off as an Arab fort in the 12th century. Burg Eltz castle. 66 Beautiful Small Cities & Towns In Europe. Abandoned mental asylum. Captured: The Ruins of Detroit. Posted Feb 07, 2011 Share This Gallery inShare850 Up and down Detroit’s streets, buildings stand abandoned and in ruin.
French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre set out to document the decline of an American city. Their book “The Ruins of Detroit“, a document of decaying buildings frozen in time, was published in December 2010. From the photographers’ website: Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension. The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state. William Livingstone House # Michigan Central Station # Atrium, Farwell Building # 18th floor dentist cabinet, David Broderick Tower # Bagley-Clifford Office of the National Bank of Detroit # Ballroom, American Hotel # Melted clock, Cass Technical High School # Detroit?
Nobis House - Minimalist Boathouse Residence Near Munich, Germany. Susanne Nobis has the enviable privilege of living in this gorgeous, tranquil house in Berg by Lake Starnberg (Starnberger See), a popular southern Bavarian recreation area for the residents of the nearby city of Munich. As both the client and the designer, engineer/architect Nobis designed the home and office for her own four-member family and for her architectural practice. It is a beautifully minimalist, modern take on a traditional twin wooden boathouse, popular by the lake.
While the boathouses are on stilts over the water, Nobis’s house is on 60-centimeter high illuminated legs. This gives the house its wonderful, impermanent, hovering feel but it was in fact a necessity in this location where the ground water rises very high. This also meant that everything must fit in the space above ground — no basement or cellar possible. The structure, mainly of wood and glass, includes two separate but connected houses. Photography by Roland Halbe.