The House with the Sliding Roof
'The brief was simple: to build a house to retire to in order to grow food, entertain and enjoy the East Anglia landscape.' The owners said they were "prepared to be radical." 'The outcome was as unconventional as they come. A structure that has the ability to vary or connect the overall building's composition and character according to season, weather or simply a desire to delight. Wallpaper* took a trip to the site to capture the physical phenomenon in the only medium that serves it justice - film.'Click here to continue reading..
Finding an apartment in one of the world's most expensive cities is a grave matter, but some savvy renters in Tokyo have more than a ghost of a chance of finding prime digs – they seek to rent where someone else bought the farm. Imagine lying awake at night in your new apartment, restless and not yet accustomed to the usual night noises. Your mind drifts, then settles on the great deal you got on this place – and WHY you got it. A creak; a sigh; is it just the evening breeze, or something more sinister?
The so-called suicide discount is an unwritten rule adhered to by most Tokyo real estate agents and doubtless by realtors worldwide. In Japan at least, the law compels real estate agents to make potential tenants aware if a death occurred in the unit being offered. One small catch is that the law applies only when the unfortunate event concerned the occupant immediately previous, but as one realtor admitted, "Even if we didn’t, neighbors would certainly tell new residents about the gruesome details."
One curious point brought up by a Tokyo real estate company owner was that young women are the most typical renters of apartments with shady histories. "Men, rather than women, tend to be superstitious and think the place will be haunted by the victim or something," he stated. Women are also well-connected with the online real estate scene. "They exchange information on the availability of such places and what the rent is likely to be with each other online."
200,000 gold foils, 1 mad monk and a 67-year-old craftsman... of such things are Japan's Kinkaku-ji Golden Pavilion made. With over 600 years of history, this magnificent building is perhaps the second most recognized symbol of Japan, after Mount Fuji. Located in an idyllic garden setting in Japan's ancient former capital of Kyoto, the glimmering structure is set like a jewel on the shore of a tranquil reflecting pond.
Over one kilometer in length, 8 hectares in surface area and 2.5 million liters of water. Too big to picture? Let's put it this way; The size of this pool is equivalent to 6,000 standard-size 8-meter long swimming pools. This one took five years to build, cost nearly $2 billion and has an annual maintenance bill of $4 million. The monster pool uses a computer- controlled suction and filtration system to keep fresh seawater in permanent circulation. The star of the show is the man-made lagoon in San Alfonso del Mar resort located in seaside Algarrobo, Chile.
Blind people driving cars? What's up with that? Did you think it to ever be posible? Well the folks in the United Kingdom think 
The evil eye is a folk belief that the envy elicited by the good luck of fortunate people may result in their misfortune, whether it is envy of material possessions, or of beauty, health, or offspring. The perception of the nature of the phenomenon, its causes, and possible protective measures, varies between different cultures. Belief in the evil eye is strongest in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia and Europe, especially the Mediterranean region.
The amount of literary and archaeological evidence attests to the belief in the evil eye in the eastern Mediterranean for more than a millennium starting with Hesiod, Callimachus, Plato, Diodorus Siculus, Theocritus, Plutarch, Heliodorus, Pliny the Elder, and Aulus Gellius. Studying these written sources in order to write on the evil eye only gives a fragmented view of the subject whether it presents a folkloric, theological, classical or anthropological approach to the evil eye. While these different approaches tend to reference similar sources each presents a different yet similar usage of the evil eye, that the fear of the evil eye is based on the belief that certain people posses eyes whose glance has the power to injure or even kill and that it can be intentional or unintentional.
In some forms, it is the belief that some people can bestow a curse on victims by the malevolent gaze of their magical eye. The most common form, however, attributes the cause to envy, with the envious person casting the evil eye doing so unintentionally. Also the effects on victims vary. Some cultures report afflictions with bad luck; others believe the evil eye can cause disease, wasting away, and even death. In most cultures, the primary victims are thought to be babies and young children, because they are so often praised and commented upon by strangers or by childless women. The late UC Berkeley professor of folklore Alan Dundes has explored the beliefs of many cultures and found a commonality — that the evil caused by the gaze is specifically connected to symptoms of drying, desiccation, withering, and dehydration, that its cure is related to moistness, and that the immunity from the evil eye that fish have in some cultures is related to the fact that they are always wet. His essay "Wet and Dry: The Evil Eye" is a standard text on the subject.
Known as nazar, the evil eye talisman is particularly common in Turkey. Colourful beads, bracelets, necklaces, anklets, and all manner of decoration may be adorned by this particularly popular symbol, and it is possible to see it on almost anything, from babies, horses, doors to cars, cell phones and even airplanes. Disks or balls consisting of concentric blue and white circles (usually, from outside to inside, dark blue, white, light blue, black) representing evil eyes, the "nazar" is supposed to bend the malicious gaze back to the sorcerer.
There are 