Truly Magnificent Marvels of Nature ♣

The underwater forest of Lake Kaindy.

Kaindy Lake is a 400 meter long lake in Kazakhstan’s portion of the Tian Shan Mountains located 129 km from the city of Almaty.

Volcanic lightning aka “dirty thunderstorms.”

A dirty thunderstorm is a weather phenomenon that occurs when lightning is produced in a volcanic plume.

Frozen air bubbles in Abraham Lake.

Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, Canada. The plants on the lake bed release methane gas and methane gets frozen once coming close enough to much colder lake surface and they keep stacking up below once the weather gets colder and colder during the winter season.

Giant clouds over Beijing.

According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, it was just a giant cumulonimbus cloud, and its unusual shape was formed due to the fact that the cloud initially developed vertically, but after meeting with warmer layers of air began to grow horizontally.

Underground natural springs in Mexico.

Ik-Kil Cenote, Chichen Itza: A cenote is a natural deposit of spring water found underground.

Giant crystal cave in Nacia, Mexico.

The cave is 950 feet (290 meters) underground. The Naica mining complex, which yields lead, zinc, copper, silver, and gold, zigzags nearly half a mile underground (760 meters).

Shimmering shores of Vaadhoo, Maldives.

Bioluminescence causes the shoreline to glow at night. This occurs when a micro-organism in the water is disturbed by oxygen. Avatar, much?

Reflective salt flats in Bolivia.

Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat at 4,086 sq mi. This is not water, the ground is covered in a layer of salt crust so reflective, it perfectly mirrors the sky.

Light pillars over Moscow.

A light pillar is a visual phenomenon created by the reflection of light from ice crystals with near horizontal parallel planar surfaces.

Natural salt water fountain off the coast of Oregon.

The Spouting Horn at Cook’s Chasm and the Thor’s Well are both a salt water fountain driven by the power of the ocean tide.

Beautiful sandstone formations in Arizona.

The Wave is a sandstone formation on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, located in northern portion of the U.S. state of Arizona.

Rainbow Eucalyptus trees in Kailua, Hawaii.

The multi-coloured streaks on its trunk comes from patches of outer bark that are shed annually at different times, showing the bright-green inner bark.

Spiderweb cocooned trees in Pakistan.

An unexpected side-effect of the flooding in parts of Pakistan has been that millions of spiders climbed up into the trees to escape the rising flood waters. Because of the scale of the flooding and the fact that the water has taken so long to recede, many trees have become cocooned in ghostly spiders webs.

The Blood Falls in Antartica.

Blood Falls is an outflow of an iron oxide-tainted plume of saltwater, flowing from the tongue of the Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of West Lake Bonney.

Baby Chicks in All the Colours of the Rainbow

Baby Chicks in All the Colours of the Rainbow

These baby birds are actually dyed while in the egg with hyrdrogen peroxide, ammonia or food colouring that is injected into the shell! Is this cruel or cool?

Colgate Active Salt Troll :D

Colgate Active Salt Troll :D 

The Miami Sun By Visiondivision

Another proposal for the much talked about competition for the new landmark at the Bayfront Park in Miami and this time proposal comes from visiondivision practice. Their design captures the soul of Miami as well as giving the city a fresh and innovative icon that would boost Miami's architectural legacy. Here comes the Miami Sun by visiondivision's group.

From the Architects:

Background — Miami is located in the Sunshine State of Florida and is a city that is blessed with a tropical climate and great weather almost all year around, making it a major tourist destination and a popular place to retire. The city of Miami that we know of today is a reclaimed city in many ways. The land where most of the downtown area is, used to be a part of the Everglades wetland, but was drained to create land opportunities. A major part of the city was also created by landfill with the dredging of Biscayne Bay. The majority of Miami Beach is mainly created in this way and this is also the case for the many islands that lies between Miami Beach and the downtown area, such as the port of Miami for example, which is the base for the enormous cruise ships that has their embarkation point from this area. These ships are own little islands in themselves and Miami is the number one cruise port in the world. The tradition of creating new spaces from water leads to a pretty unsentimental and interesting approach to landscaping as well as architecture. The Bayfront Park which is the setting for this new proposed landmark was also created in this traditional way to free new spaces, in this case by setting up a retaining wall and pumping out sea water.

The Idea — The new landmark is both a monument of the good life, as well as a landscape addition to enrich and counter balance the existing park with its already tropical landscaping. The new monument is a thin, half sphere-shaped hotel with a casino on its lower floors and an observation deck on its upper floors, which gradually shifts its colors during the day, mimicking a dimmed sun at daytime and creating spectacular sunrises and blazing sunsets for the park at dusk and dawn. At night time it shifts to a moon. The sun and the tropical archipelago will be a relaxed and positive monument that many people also can enjoy physically and that symbolize both the laid back way of the Miami lifestyle as well as the flamboyant decadence. This tropical vista will attract many visitors, and the Bayfront Park will receive more people as a result, which is what this park lacks when there is not an event going on here. People will hopefully flock once again to the front porch of Miami to catch a relaxing tropical sunset or listening to house music and drinking coconut drinks on a small tropical island next to a huge moon.

The building and the water park — The building is reached by tender boats just like the nearby cruise ships has when they anchor in small harbours. This seclusion enhances the monumentality and the sun illusion and also heightens the exclusiveness of the hotel itself aswell as state its energy independence. The sites close vicinity with the cruises makes this a great destination for cruise tourists that normally have a couple of days in Miami before sailing out on their Caribbean adventures.

The building is a grid shell structure with a glass facade that is coated with a film of transparent solar panels. This is a new technique which is possible by letting the visible spectra of sun light straight through, and instead absorbing the high amount of ultravilolet and infrared light. This energy is more than enough to power the building and the surplus goes to the stripes of mono-frequency lights that are integrated on the end of each floor slab and that points outwards to give a glow around the hotel and make the sun effect sharp and bright at dusk and dawn. Mono-frequency lamps are powerful lights that produce light with a narrow frequency that makes colors other than black and the chosen color invisible. This makes the surrounding tinted with that specific color and creates an enchanted atmosphere around the building. At daytime the lamps will be slightly dimmed just to create a shimmering and reflective effect. At night it glows milky white like a moon.

The water park between the existing park and the new hotel is made up by a large shallow pool that surrounds a small archipelago with landscaped small sand islands with palm trees on them. The sand is taken from different popular beaches around the Caribbean so you can sample the best sand from Miami’s neighbours without leaving the city. The pools are only waist deep so you can wade to the islands and also use the whole premise as a spectacular arena for the Ultra Music Festival and other venues. The pool could also be completely dried out if needed for any special type of event.

Project: The Miami Sun 

Designed by visiondivision 

Location: Miami, Florida, USA 

Website: www.visiondivision.com

Via — Link

Zaha Hadid's Sleek Metro Station in Saudia Arabia

World renowned architect Zaha Hadid has just won a competition to design the new metro station for Saudia Arabia's capital city Riyadh. The city's population has doubled since 1990 and is now home to more than 5 million people. Due to this large influx of citizens, the city has now started planning a brand new metro system to better aid them in their day to day life.

Located in the King Abdullah Financial District, Hadid architect's proposal is a four story building that will feature six train platforms, two levels of underground parking, and even access to the cities pre-existing monorail line by use of a sky bridge. Much thought has been given into diminishing congestion by using a series of pedestrian walkways that run throughout the building without interfering with commuters and travelers.

Other design aspects of this project are the undulating waves featured on the walls and roof that are meant to symbolize Saudia Arabia's rolling desert dunes and give the building its unique fluid look. The structure's woven latice facade is designed to allow natural light to enter the interior of the station without causing a harsh glare. The estimated completion date of this project is 2017 and is sure to be an iconic landmark for the city of Riyadh. 

Via Links — 1 2 3

Awesome Photos

Awesome Photos

Good, cute and beautiful pictures ♣