More great repurposing ingenuity from the land of windmills and tulips. In Dordecht, Netherlands, the Dutch architecture firm 2012Architecten recently erected Recycloop, a small public pavilion for showing art. Visitors can view the art inside through the sinks' drains and a hidden door grants visitors access within the structure. Visitors are asked to clean their vegetables elsewhere.......read more
Video clips don't come any more captivating than this. With a commission from Melbourne's Federation Square, the environmental designers at Eness studio built a series of triangular sculptures then shot them in various configurations around the city. The result is this next-level interpretation of public art. The hypnotic stop motion animation was shot over a period of two weeks, with each shot......read more
In Rio de Janeiro, where world leaders are meeting for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), two gigantic fish are rising from Botafogo Beach. The public art installation has been created entirely from discarded plastic bottles collected on and around the beach. By day, the plastic sculptures shimmer in the sun, against the gorgeous backdrop of Rio's mountains. By night, the big......read more
Whether you're talking about food, fashion, music, or art, Denmark is a veritable hotbed of culture (not to mention one of the greenest countries in the world). The coastal town of Aarhus contributes to the vibrant cultural community by playing host to Sculpture by the Sea, a huge outdoor sculpture exhibition that runs through the month of June. First launched in 1997, the festival takes place in......read more
Superstar contemporary artist Ai Weiwei unveiled the latest rendition of his incredible bicycle sculpture last weekend in Toronto. "Forever Bicycles" is the centerpiece of this year's Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the annual all-night art event that takes over the streets of the city. This marks the first time that the Chinese dissident artist has shown the installation in public, outdoor space. With......read more
On his new political blog at The New Republic, Jonathan Cohn looks into the policy implications of the Gulf oil spill, arguing that public pressure for clean energy legislation has been fairly muted in the aftermath of a massive environmental disaster. In the post, Cohn presents a persuasive argument that the lack of public action may limit the chances of pushing comprehensive legislation through......read more
Folded Roads: Google Earth images become surrealist artworks in Clement Valla's series Postcards from Google Earth, which depicts bridges and roads that appear warped when you zoom in just the right way. T-Shirt Upholstery: Swedish eco designer (and mega babe) Maria Westerberg won first prize at the 2011 Green Furniture Awards for the T-shirt Chair, made of recycled textiles and bent wire fence.......read more
There is something special about the morning commute to work on public transit, coffee in hand, mellow tunes on the headphones, with the low sun warming you out of your sleepy haze. With "Morning Commute," St. Paul, Minnesota native Adam Celt offers up an abstract video that captures that feeling well. "Most mornings I put on headphones, close my eyes and look at the sun as I ride the......read more
With renewed interest in transit-focused urbanism, an age-old form of public transportation is being revived in cities across the US. By 2015, no less than 30 American cities will have streetcar networks, more than doubling the number in existence just fifteen years prior. Washington, DC and Salt Lake City launched trams last week. Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Cincinatti have......read more
In Luxembourg, Austrian architecture firm AllesWirdGut has re-envisioned the site of an obsolete steel mill as an elegantly designed urban park. Leaving the skeletal elements of the the old factory in place, the architects let the site's hidden qualities shine through the new design. From their description: Seating areas and new trees are concentrated into islands, which leave empty......read more