Where's the best place to be when you're on a tropical vacation? Why, right near the beach, of course. The quest for a "waterfront view" has led thousands of hotels and stores to scoop up real estate just steps from the sand. While this proximity makes it easy to take a moonlight stroll on the beach, it creates shorelines crowded with skyscrapers that block the views for others. But Bjarke Ingels, one of our favorite outside-the-box architects, doesn't believe that first come, first served should apply to smart ocean-front construction. BIG recently unveiled plans for The Grove at Grand Bay: two luxury condominium towers that employ a spiraling design to give all inhabitants a breathtaking view of Miami's Grand Bay and the surrounding city.

 

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More than 70 percent of our planet is covered with water, yet the oceans are still the most mysterious parts of the world. Earlier this year, deep-sea photographer and diver Yoji Ookata discovered something he had never seen in his 50 years documenting the underwater world off the coast of Japan: a beautiful circular structure on the sand, about 80 feet below sea level that was so accurately carved that it looks like a deep-sea crop circle.

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The average person sleeps around eight hours a night — which amounts to a third of your life spent in bed. But despite the amount of time that we find ourselves tucked under our covers, most of us don’t give much thought to the place we plant our bodies when night falls (or when a nap calls). While it’s well-known that getting enough sleep is vital to our health and our ability to function effectively, many of us don’t consider the fact that the quality of sleep we get also plays an important role. One way to improve your night’s sleep is to invest in a high-quality 100% natural mattress. One of our favorites here at Inhabitat is by Coco-Mat, a family-owned, eco-minded company producing sustainable beds designed for the deepest of slumbers. Each of their beds is made from multiple layers of natural materials that provide optimal, elastic support to the human body, without the use of metal springs. The eco-friendly company only utilizes natural materials from renewable sources, such as coco fiber, natural rubber, wool, cotton, sea weed, horsehair, silk, linen, wood and goose down (read: no toxic chemicals or retardants). Established in 1989, Coco-Mat has developed a global following – and they recently set up shop right in the heart of New York City!

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Rotterdam-based Supergoed has created the HotTug - a combination hot tub boat that allows you to navigate harbors and lakes while relaxing in a Jacuzzi! This brilliant water vehicle is powered by a wood stove that heats the water inside while providing energy for mobility.

 

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The 18th Conference of the Parties or COP18 ends today in colossal failure. Not only have the negotiations failed to produce any meaningful emissions cuts, but ‘Hot Air’ permits that allow countries like Poland and Russia to maintain their heavy industries may even result in more emissions. Talks have stalled for a host of reasons, though most developing nations blame rich countries like the United States, Canada and Japan for refusing to sign an interim successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol that would bind them to emissions reductions.

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Scientists from NASA and NOAA just unveiled a series of breathtaking new images of our planet glowing at night. Thanks to high-res composite data acquired by a new sensor, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the floating Suomi NPP satellite, we can get “day-night band” images sensitive enough to detect the light from a single ship in the sea. These beautiful cloud-free night images feature cities that never sleep, within a glowing planet that is nowhere as dark as we might have thought.

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It’s no secret that design and architecture are highly competitive fields, and those in the industry often pay thousands on R&D, not to mention the money spent on all of the educational degrees they needed to get a job in the first place. But for many successful designers, the answers and inspiration that led to their breakthroughs were found not in a school textbook or through a research and development firm, but right within their own natural surroundings. Biomimicry, or the application of solutions found in nature to man-made technologies, has been responsible for many innovations such as velcro, airplanes and passive cooling, and has inspired numerous designers to connect the dots and come up with world-changing concepts. If you’re interested in learning how this relatively new methodology can give you a competitive edge, Biomimicry 3.8 is giving away its online Introduction to Biomimicry course to four lucky winners. Read on to see how you can get this $99 course for free.

TO ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY:

1. SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER HERE >
(If you are not already a subscriber.) We’ll be announcing the winner in our weekly newsletter, so if you want to find out who won, you’ll need to receive it in order to claim your prize!

2. LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW >
Tell us why you want to win this introduction to biomimicry course. Maybe you want to use it to gain an advantage over your competition or to simply become a better designer — let us know in the comments below. The deadline for this giveaway is December 31st. We’ll pick the comment we like best and announce the winner in our newsletter, so make sure you’re signed up!

4 CHANCES TO WIN! DEADLINE IS DECEMBER 31ST

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Swedish firm DAPstockholm designed Villa Midgard - a modern single-family residence inspired by the natural materiality of its site outside of Stockholm.The clients wanted the home to be secluded and immersed in its natural surroundings so that they could enjoy the sound of rain playing off the roof or the morning sun hitting their beds. This prompt allowed the architects to explore the nature of the sloping site and the materials that formed it. As a result, the building has seven different facades which respond to the three dramatic factors of the site: the lighting, the terrain, and the views.

 

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Fallen Industry‘s beautifully crafted furniture is built from 100% reclaimed fallen trees and salvaged NYC man-made industrial driftwood. The bases are forged from American-made or recycled steel parts whenever possible, then hand-brushed into a beautiful finish. The reclaimed wood gives the pieces a natural, organic feel, while the steel contrasts this with a robust modern, industrial look. This is reflected in the natural curves of the fallen trees and the urban driftwood, that still shows signs of holes and bolts from their former lives.

+ Fallen Industry 

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Aether and Hemera employed arrays of LEDs to build three giant kinetic POV (Persistence of Vision) lighting installations. These bright and lively wheels project ‘illusions’ of texts and patterns to the audience, harnessing the stroboscopic effect and the phenomenon where the human eye retains an image for a brief moment after it was actually seen. Attached to motor-powered blades, each LED is programmed to continually change color and intensity to form intricate patterns.

+ Aether & Hemera

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Space management just got extremely inventive with Studio_o1's Barcode Room. Commissioned by the Japanese real estate company Able, the award-winning concept features twelve different "bars" or walls that can be configured in multiple combinations to either save or occupy space.

 

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Hailing from Wyoming, Nate Storey and Paul Bennick founded Bright Agrotech in 2009 to help revolutionize agriculture for small-business farmers and consumers. More recently, they’ve created  modular hydroponic towers and a dual purpose, vertical hydroponic kit which allows anyone to grow a vertical garden. The kit also allows local farmers to place mature towers full of living produce directly in peoples homes as part of a CSA subscription.

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As I write this, I’m chewing on a spicy little arugula seedling that I grew from within the last couple of weeks. Considering that it’s -15C outside right now where I am, and there’s a good 3” of snow coating everything, I hadn’t expected to be chowing down on fresh greens unless I’d bought them from the grocery store, where they’ve been marked up exponentially as out-of-season luxuries. How did I manage to coax these sweethearts into growing, then? The answer is actually quite simple, and surprised me as well: south-facing windows.

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Image: Skip Van Wert

Perhaps symbolic of how many New Yorkers are picking up the pieces after Hurricane Sandy, a spruce tree that was also toppled by the storm has been given new life as a beautiful holiday tree for Long Beach Township. Raised by the Van Wert family in North Beach Haven, the evergreen was hoped to someday become one of the trees used to light up Rockefeller Center. After Hurricane Sandy uprooted the tree, the Van Werts were saddened and disappointed but still knew that it was destined for more than just a wood chipper.

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