Architecture and Home Design

This sumptuous residence is one of those properties which come in mind when you think about luxury home designed in traditional style. Elegant architecture, dormer windows and ivy covered walls could attract attention of everybody who’ll take a look at it. The house features 6 bedrooms, 6 full bathrooms, and 2 half-baths at the more than 11000 square feets of living space. Besides that there are the sauna, pool cabana with kitchen, dedicated library with a fireplace, two powder rooms, fully customized office, family room with fireplace opens to the pool, tennis court, two garages for 7 cars, fitness area and other usual living spaces. Large outdoor entertainment area is decorated with colonnade of towering palm trees. The interior is done neutral, sophisticated palette which makes it very pleasant for living. [ 351stockbridge ]

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This modern estate has an open floor play with 3 levels. It’s highly customized starting with Carara marble throughout the house and exotic wood used throughout the built-ins and doors and ending with curved exterior walls and a lot of high-tech electronic. Automation systems include built-in electronic shades for the windows and doors, central music system, security system with monitors and gates with access codes, elevator, radiant floor heating in entire house and so on. Besides 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms there are full bar, office, walk in pantry, exercise room, media room, full storage room, wine cellar, dining room, covered patio with fireplace in the house. Surrounded by Palm trees and exotic tropical fruit trees, the house is almost a tropical resort with pool patio. [ Via ]

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This Sears Tower Renovation is designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, located in Chicago, United States
According to the U.S Department of State, buildings account for an estimated 36 percent of overall energy use, 65 percent of electricity consumption, 30 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and 12 percent of water use in America. Green improvements to Sears Tower are aimed at reducing electricity use by 80% in just four years, equating to 68 million kilowatt hours or 150,000 barrels of oil per year. The architects firm responsible for the retro-design, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, has also designed a 50 storey highly sustainable tower to accompany Sears Tower on its south side which will draw power from the improved efficiency measures and work as a net-zero energy development.

Sears Tower’s Chicagoan neighbour, Merchandise Mart, was an earlier example of monumental eco retrofitting in America gaining LEED Silver and becoming the world’s greenest certified commercial building. As the world’s tallest tower for 24 years, the retrofitting of Sears Tower will be a significantly larger undertaking, with all 110 stories incorporated in the changes.

Improvements include removing all 16,000 single-pane windows and swapping with modern replacements, modernizing the tower’s 104 high speed elevators, harnessing renewable energy through turbine and solar technology, introducing green roofs to reduce storm water run-off and improve insulation as well as creating the world’s tallest vistas for tenants and upgrading facilities throughout to use more efficient technology.
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Designed by BURO II, located in Guangzhou, China.
The administration of the booming city of Guangzhou decided to develop a new administrative centre to the north of the downtown area, on the site of the old airport, at the edge of the historical landscape of the Baiyun Mountains. The new congress centre must function as the motor of this new urban process.

The Baiyun highway cuts the mountain park off from the new urban development. The old villages and the new buildings coexist in a chaotic urban conglomerate. Despite the current fragmentation of the site, it does have enormous qualities and potentials. The plot is located there where the historical dialog between the mountain and the city can be renewed within a contemporary society.

Designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi is sited at Saadiyat Island’s new Cultural District, developed as the world’s largest single concentration of premier cultural institutions.

“Abu Dhabi’s ultimate goal in creating the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and indeed the entire Saadiyat Island Cultural District, is to build a platform for deeper and more meaningful exchange among people from our own region and from all parts of the globe,” stated Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. “We move forward today with warm gratitude toward the people and government of France for joining us in the unprecedented cultural partnership that is creating the Louvre Abu Dhabi.”

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