A hotel that says 'Hi' to you before you even get there? Now that's friendly. The Hi Hotel in Nice was created with conviviality and accessibility in mind. As they say, 'Some hotels make you feel at home, others, like you're a guest.' This one aims to make you make you feel at home, albeit a seriously stylish one.
The most beautiful women in Thailand are men. Or so they say. Tanya is a great example. I love travelling, and meeting the weird and wonderful, and she (or he) is certainly one of the most wonderful.
Disasters suck (think Katrina) and accidents happen (watch Alive!). While there is very little we humans can do to prevent such cataclysmic events from happening, at the very least we can prepare a little bit for the absolute worst. And as survivors of the above crises might attest, in the most extreme of situations, and in the face of dire peril, a little goes a very long way. With this in mind we present the Survival Kit in a Sardine Can.
Last weekend, giant crowds looked on in awe as a colossal spider took over the streets of Liverpool. It looked like something out of The War of the Worlds, an oversized arachnid poised to eat the famous city alive. In reality it was a piece of performance art by French theatrical engineers La Machine, in honor of Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture.
Fall. Yellow and brick red leaves cling, trembling, to the trees. A gust of crisp wind, and a few are dislodged and scatter to the ground to join the ones that crackle under my feet. It is ten a.m. in New Zealand, and the grass is still coated with dew. My tennis shoes leave shiny prints on the lawn, ending where I head across the gravel trail. I hear each step, register the crunch of the tiny rocks crushed and spat out from my feet.
It's 2100. Humans haven't gained control of their carbon emissions. The earth has warmed up. The oceans have risen. Millions of ecological refugees have nowhere to go. Unless, of course, they had the foresight to build Lilypads.
Almost everytime I slip on Vans these days I get a strong sense of déjà vu. Deservedly so. I've been slipping on Vans for over twenty years now, and hundreds of those colorful canvas and rubber classics have announced my feet to the world in skateshoe couture fashion. As a native Angeleno, skateshoes are in many ways part of my identity. It's part of who I am. As the Skateboard Museum in Stuttgart attests, I am not the only one.
I hate heights, so, although I love this amazing structure in Norway, I'm not sure I could walk on it. The Aurland Lookout, created two years ago by Saunders Architecture, reaches out over the Aurland Fjord - and appears to fall into it.
I don't know about you but I love the idea of a cylindrical hotel. Check out these designs by Swiss artist Guy Dessauges, who was fascinated by cylinders. Semi-circles, he said, have been used in architecture since the Roman times and even further back in caves. So why not circles? There have been quite a few upright cylindrical hotels, but very few that use the sideways tube as the focus of their design.
If you're on the Hudson River this weekend, don't miss the chance to see a curious flotilla of eccentric vessels making their way towards Queens. The Swimming Cities of Switchback Sea are the creation of maverick NYC installation artist Swoon.
At Been-Seen, we're not immune to the charms of private islands. It's just that they're incredibly expensive. Sixty acres of tropical paradise all to yourself? That's all very nice if you're Mel Gibson or Nicolas Cage, but I'm not. Here's an idea that makes island ownership just about feasible: tiny little islands with homes on them. A small outcrop, a house, and just enough room to swing a cat.
Not all blue frogs are poisonous nor found in the jungles of Suriname. Mumbai boasts its own species. Safer to the touch, and silkier on the senses, the restaurant/bar/theater/recording studio hybrid Blue Frog proves itself to be as versatile as the amphibian it is named after.
