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By   Kaushik  Friday, October 26, 2012 Some years ago, a British engineering firm  Atkins  proposed an extravagant design for a five-star hotel located deep within a 100-meter, abandoned and half flooded pit near the base of Tianmashan Mountain in the Songjiang District of Shanghai. Construction on the 19-story, 380-room Shimao Intercontinental Hotel finally is already underway. Initially the hotel was expected to be completed by May, 2009, but construction commenced only in March early this year. The innovative design of the luxury resort hotel stands two levels higher than the rock face of the 100 meter deep quarry and includes underwater public areas and guestrooms. Instead of draining what water there is in the quarry, it will be flooded to become a sunken artificial lake. Two of the hotels floors housing guest rooms and a restaurant are to be situated underwater. An artificial waterfall will plunge down in front of the hotel's facade and into the quarry, at...

This spectacular monument was built by the famous Subehdar (Governor) of the Punjab (1041/1632), Hakim Aliuddin (sometimes also referred to as Ilmuddin) in 1634. Hailing from the Punjab town of Chiniot on the banks of the river Chenab, Aliuddin had been employed by shahzada (prince) Khurram (later Emperor Shah Jahan) as a hakim (physician). He rendered great service to the prince during the various campaigns, and became one of the most trusted aides of the emperor—it was Aliuddin, along with Prince Shah Shuja, who was entrusted with the task of bringing the body of the deceased queen Mumtaz Mahal from Burhanpur to Agra to be buried in the Taj Mahal. Granted the title of Wazir Khan in 1620, he was raised to the mansab (title) of 5000 foot and 3000 horse (panj-hazari) on Shah Jahan's accession to the Mughal throne (1037/1628). It is the same Wazir Khan, who was entrusted with the building of the Khwabgah and Hammam-e-Badshahi in Lahore Fort, just before Shah Jahan emb...

by   Julie M. Rodriguez , 01/17/14 filed under:   biomimicry ,  gallery ,  Wearable Technology 7428   Share on Tumblr Email South Korean designer  Jeabyun Yeon  just unveiled a conceptual scuba mask that would allow divers to  breathe underwater  without oxygen tanks. The mask, called the Triton, consists of two branching arms designed to serve as “gills” that extract oxygen from the water and deliver breathable air directly into their wearer’s lungs. Instead of hauling around heavy  scuba equipment , swimmers could simply bite down on a plastic mouth piece. The device is  covered in plastic “scales”  which allow water to enter through small holes, where it enters a chamber that separates the oxygen from the liquid. The Triton’s internal filter utilizes fine threads with holes smaller than  water molecules , so that only air is able to pass through. The ox...

Having progressed through a three-and-a-half-year undergraduate degree and a two-year part-time postgraduate program in landscape architecture, followed by another year on the Landscape Institute’s Pathway to Chartership, I sorely wish I had known then some of the things I know now. It certainly would have saved me some time and effort. Here are the Top 10 things I wish I had known while I was a landscape architecture student. 10. Other professionals and consultants have a lot to bring to the project, and it is worth getting to know them. Teamwork often leads to better results While at university, I wasn’t fully aware of the specialist knowledge of other professionals. I knew architects designed buildings and engineers could make it happen, but knew little else. Planners, ecologists, archaeologists, arborists, air quality specialists, acousticians, lighting designers … the list goes on. 9. Landscape design is only one part of landscape architecture. During my under...

Before, I have posted a few articles regarding the Eight-Pointed Stars, from the basics of building it to a variation or extension of the star. For this post, let us see into more variations of the motif, this time, instead of an external extension to the shape, it will be decorating the inside of the motif itself. So, start with the basic Eight-Pointed star shape, without the guidelines or any other lines whatsoever, as such - Adding squares – Add squares to each corner of the motif. You can see that with this method you will create the alternative form of the Eight-Pointed star. You can add another extension to the motif by adding the regular star inside, as shown in figure 2. This is actually a common motif in the Islamic world. Adding arrow shapes. This is a common motif as well, but a little more complicated than the previous form. By adding arrow shapes to each corner of the shape, as shown in the first, and then adding hexagon joining between the points of the arrows th...

10. The Eiffel Tower Paris, France Gustave Eiffel originally designed this amazing monument, which has become France’s foremost cultural icon, for the World Fair in 1889. Believe it or not, it was supposed to be taken down after 20 years. Of course, that didn’t happen and now its one of the most visited monuments in the world. The design of this fantastic tower is the height of elegance. The economy of this design dictates that the tower’s 10,000 tonnes could be melted down in the same spot to be only 6 feet high. Its also rumoured that despite its size, the pressure exerted on the ground by the tower is like a man exerting pressure on a chair. 9. Burj Khalifa Dubai, United Arab Emirates Sure this is a really recent addition to human architectural history, but the tallest building in the world deserves a mention. Over the last couple decades there seems to be a competition out there for the tallest building, from the Petronas twin towers, to Taipei 101. Then the Burj in Duba...