Steven Holl Architects

4+1=2?
When Steven Holl Architects announced this week that it had won a competition to design a corporate master plan in China's southern financial capital Shenzhen, near a new tower by OMA, it immediately raised some eyebrows.

Blair Kamin calls the Sears Tower " a symbol of Chicago's urban might, not only because of its dark, masculine color but also because its exterior boldly expresses the structural system of "bundled tubes" that support it."

It's not for nothing that Skidmore, Owings and Merrill were nicknamed

We wrote a year ago about Michelle Kaufmann's assault of the booming prefab modern gingerbread scene, noting that "as the mortgage crisis deepens, this may be the only modern prefab market left." We are disappointed to note that whereas last year her house was a modest, one storey number, she has gone all McMansion on us with her GingerLotus, which is

TreeHugger has discussed Solar One before, and George had posted a video of Solar Two

Now it appears that the proposed education facility has won the whacking big Holcim Award, $100,000 provided by one of the world's largest cement and aggregate companies to honour the best in sustainable cons

We have followed Ruth Singer's career since she first started creating pillows out of organic, ecological and recycled fabrics. A sweet pink one made out of an old cashmere sweater, with a red rose was a favourite. Then she moved on to scarves and pillows made of hemp and vintage fabrics. This year at

The house-in-a-greenhouse probably wouldn't play very well in say, Arizona, where enclosing your house in glass shell would be folly. But Bengt Warne, a Swedish architect, starting designing what he called the Naturhus (Nature House) in 1976 to work with Scandinavian nature.

photo: Pure Yoga

As a huge yogi, my feeling is that yoga is supposed to bring you closer to Mother Earth. But as yoga has exploded in the West, you can't escape the over commercialization of even this sacred practice. But maybe that is soon to change. Sustainable yoga studios are popping up across the country like Pure Yoga which recently opened in New York. Let's see how pure it really is....

It's the second week of Origin: The London Craft Fair and there are 140 different craftspeople showing their wares. This time around there is a whole different feel to the show; lots more yummy and unique jewellery, weaving and vessels with an eco bent to them.