My wife wants a Mini Cooper Clubman and one day I'm going to suprise her.  Maybe even one with a design job like these.  They're smoking hot, like my wife.

via CYANA TrendLand

The Andel’s hotel chain have recently opened their fourth designer hotel, featuring interiors by the design group Jestico + Whiles. The 278 room hotel is located in a historic 19th century building in the Polish city of Lodz.

Visit the Andel’s in Lodz website - here.

via Contemporist

Taiwan recently finished construction on an incredible solar-powered stadium that will generate 100% of its electricity from the sun! Designed by Toyo Ito, the dragon-shaped 50,000 seat arena is built with 8,844 solar panels that illuminate the track and field with 3,300 lux. The project will officially open later this year to welcome the 2009 World Games.

As a follow up to the recent guerrilla marketing post, check out this anti-landmine campaign by UNICEF.

 

I love my PG Tips Black Tea from England with a bit of organic honey.  No better way to start the day.  But, I bet it'd taste even better if "put on a kettle" with this Bugatti 2009 Vera...

Love this new clever add campaign by Pringles...

Not sure this should go under Architecture or not but it just seemed right.  I know I'm late on this but I'm not really.  I've had several articles about these Frank Lloyd Wright Lego sets sitting in my "Clippings" folder for days now.  I love how anything more than a few hours old on the internet is considered "old news."

Anyway... with my love of all things Lego, I thought these were pretty cool if not sophisticated.

the frank lloyd wright foundation together with lego have just released the frank lloyd wright collection of lego architecture building sets, coinciding with his exhibition 'from within outward' at the guggenheim museum. the line currently consists of six buildings, including two of his most famous and recognizable buildings, the solomon r. guggenheim museum and 'fallingwater'.

Fun Lego Facts:

• Worldwide, seven boxes of Lego are sold every second.
• Heo Young-Ho of South Korea left Lego on the top of Mount Everest in 1987.
• According to Lego, even just two bricks give 24 different combinations.
• All Legos are made equal. Every brick is compatible from the first brick made in 1958 (the year before the Guggenheim was completed and Wright died) to those made today.
• The Lego minifig was born in 1974, and it took another 30 years for them to get proper, skin-colored faces when licensed figures dropped yellow for flesh-tone.
• Kids waste around 5 billion hours a year playing with Lego.

Check out the Lego Architecture Product page for more information when they take down the "Coming Soon" and actually have more information.

In the meantime, check out the rest of the soon-to-be-released sets below.

via Wired and NOTCOT

 

I would love to see some of these around.  This reminds me of the Clean Marketing we saw not very long ago in London.

Because we're inundated with so many ads these days, agencies are having a harder time capturing the attention of their audience and therefore translating that attention into revenue.  Enter guerrilla marketing.  These concepts move way beyond the Little Caesars guy that spins a neon orange sign on the corner at the traffic light.

There's some really creativity here in concept and execution.  I wonder what I could come up with to promote DNSLNS.  That would be fun.  Check these out and let the creative juices flow.

via WebUrbanist

Like some of you, I've travelled a bit internationally and I'm always intrigued with foreign currency.  Some countries' money is really colorful.  Some varies in size depending on the denomination of the bill (very thoughtful of the blind).  Some have these cool little celophane windows where you can actually see through the bill (I forget what country that was).

Anyway, I don't know if it will happen here like it did across the pond but I sure do love the idea of holding a contest to redesign the US bills.  We should spice it up a little.  Get away from the all green bit.  I mean, I'm colorblind and can't really see green so it's even more blah to me.  Throw some other colors in there that I can see.

Richard Smith on his Dollar ReDe$ign Project...

'the american dollar has not truly been redesigned since about the 1930s. the dollar redesign project is your opportunity to theoretically ‘change’ that. yes, technically there are many limitations and complications when it comes to bank note design, but if the swiss can do it on a regular basis, why can’t we north americans too.  besides our great ‘rival’, the euro, looks so spanky in comparison it seems the only clear way to revive this global recession is to rebrand and redesign. why not ? it seems to work for everyone else … RS

Keep up with the blog to check out all the designs or submit your own.  If you do, be sure to let us know.  My favorite designs are the last three below by Michael Tyznik.  He put some real thought into his designs like incorporating braille.

This is the office of the Selgas Cano architects in Madrid.  Probably not downtown Madrid.  They definitely have a different perspective on their surroundings.

via Today and Tomorrow