#limestone wall clading

[carrollismo]

Exterior Stone Inspiration for a large contemporary white one-story stone exterior home remodel with a shed roof

[stoneartbyskl]

10 Best Wall Panelling Designs to Dress Up Plain Walls

In the world of interior design, wall panelling has emerged as a transformative solution for dressing up plain walls. It offers an exciting array of designs that can add texture, depth, and personality to any room. Whether you prefer modern patterns, nature-inspired motifs, or classic elegance, there's a wall panelling design to suit every taste. Here are ten of the best wall panelling designs to consider for your next home improvement project.

1. Modern Patterns

Modern Patterns Wall Cladding designs are all about sleek lines, minimalism, and contemporary aesthetics. These panels often feature clean, geometric shapes that create a sophisticated and uncluttered look. They are perfect for those who prefer a chic, urban vibe in their living spaces.

Key Features:

Sleek and clean lines

Geometric shapes and patterns

Ideal for contemporary interiors

Design Tip:

Use modern patterned panels in living rooms or bedrooms to create a feature wall that stands out without overwhelming the space. Pair them with neutral furniture and accents to maintain a balanced look.

2. Nature Inspired Patterns

Bringing the outdoors inside, Nature Inspired Wall Cladding Patterns designs are perfect for creating a serene and calming environment. These designs often feature elements like leaves, flowers, or wood grains, adding a touch of organic beauty to your home.

Key Features:

Natural motifs like leaves and flowers

Earthy colors and textures

Creates a calming and peaceful ambiance

Design Tip:

Nature-inspired panels work well in spaces meant for relaxation, such as bedrooms or reading nooks. Complement them with green plants and natural materials like wood or rattan furniture.

3. Geometric Patterns

Geometric Wall Cladding Patterns is a versatile choice that can fit both modern and traditional settings. These designs use shapes like triangles, hexagons, and diamonds to create visually striking patterns that can be subtle or bold, depending on the color and scale.

Key Features:

Use of various geometric shapes

Can be subtle or bold

Adds visual interest and depth

Design Tip:

For a bold statement, use high-contrast colors like black and white. For a more subtle effect, choose geometric panels in softer hues that blend seamlessly with the rest of the room.

4. Classic Patterns

Classic Wall Cladding Patterns designs never go out of style. Think of timeless elements like wainscoting, beadboard, or raised panels. These designs add an element of sophistication and elegance to any room and are particularly popular in traditional or transitional homes.

Key Features:

Timeless and elegant designs

Often feature raised panels or wainscoting

Suitable for traditional interiors

Design Tip:

Classic panels are perfect for dining rooms, libraries, or entryways. Pair them with antique furniture and classic decor pieces to enhance the traditional feel.

5. Fluting Patterns

Fluting patterns in wall panelling involve vertical grooves that add texture and rhythm to walls. This design is subtle yet effective in creating a sophisticated look. Fluted panels can be used in various settings, from modern to classic interiors.

Key Features:

Vertical grooves

Adds subtle texture and depth

Versatile for different interior styles

Design Tip:

Use fluted panels in hallways or as a backdrop for art pieces. The vertical lines can make a room appear taller, enhancing the sense of space.

6. Stone Textures

Stone Textures Wall Cladding bring a rugged, natural feel to your interiors. These panels mimic the look and feel of real stone, such as slate, granite, or limestone, adding a rustic charm to your home.

Key Features:

Mimics natural stone

Adds texture and ruggedness

Ideal for rustic or industrial interiors

Design Tip:

Stone textured panels are perfect for feature walls in living rooms or around fireplaces. Pair them with wooden furniture and neutral tones to create a warm, inviting atmosphere.

7. Generic Stone Wall Cladding

Generic Stone Wall Cladding is a versatile option that suits various architectural styles. These panels can replicate the appearance of different stones, providing a cost-effective way to achieve a natural stone look.

Key Features:

Versatile and adaptable

Mimics various stone types

Cost-effective alternative to real stone

Design Tip:

Use generic stone wall cladding in outdoor spaces like patios or garden walls to create a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor living areas.

8. Slat Fluting Design

Slat Fluting Design combine the best of both worlds – the sleekness of modern patterns with the texture of fluting. These panels feature horizontal or vertical slats that create a sense of movement and rhythm in the space.

Key Features:

Horizontal or vertical slats

Combines modern and fluting elements

Adds dynamic texture

Design Tip:

Slat fluting panels are great for accent walls in living rooms or as headboards in bedrooms. They work well with minimalist decor, adding just enough texture without overpowering the room.

9. Stone Textures Wall Cladding

Stone textures wall cladding goes a step beyond generic stone cladding, offering more detailed and specific textures. This type of cladding can closely mimic the look of materials like quartz, marble, or even fossilized stone.

Key Features:

Detailed and specific stone textures

Mimics high-end materials like marble and quartz

Enhances luxury and elegance

Design Tip:

Use stone textures wall cladding in bathrooms or kitchens to create a high-end, luxurious feel. Pair with metallic fixtures and modern cabinetry for a sleek, polished look.

10. Bone Textured Marble Surface

Bone textured marble surfaces are a luxurious and elegant choice for wall panelling. These panels mimic the intricate patterns and textures found in natural marble, adding a touch of opulence to any space.

Key Features:

Mimics natural marble

Intricate patterns and textures

Adds a luxurious and elegant touch

Design Tip:

Bone textured marble surfaces are ideal for entryways, bathrooms, or any space where you want to make a grand statement. Pair with minimalist decor to let the marble texture shine.

Conclusion

Wall panelling is a fantastic way to elevate the design of any room. From modern and geometric patterns to nature-inspired motifs and luxurious stone textures, there’s a wall panelling design to suit every style and preference. When choosing the right design, consider the overall theme of your home and the specific ambiance you want to create in each room. With the right wall panelling, you can transform plain walls into stunning focal points that reflect your personal style and enhance the beauty of your home.

Final Tips:

Lighting: Proper lighting can enhance the textures and patterns of your wall panels. Consider using spotlights or LED strips to highlight the features of your panels.

Color Coordination: Ensure that the colors of your wall panels complement the rest of your interior decor. This creates a harmonious and cohesive look.

Maintenance: Choose wall panels that are easy to clean and maintain, especially in high-traffic areas like kitchens and hallways.

By incorporating these stunning wall panelling designs, you can dress up plain walls and create a space that is truly unique and inviting.

[jurassicsunsets]

Porifera Overview, or Sponges for Dummies

I’ve been thinking about sponges a lot lately. Yes, sponges. Those sponges. I like sponges.

Let’s channel that into writing!

(Image: A photo of a diver with a very large sponge. [Source])

Sponges are a group of animals that are some of the earliest animals to branch off of the animal family tree. They’ve traditionally been classified together in the group porifera (meaning pore-bearing), but recent evidence suggests they may not form a monophyletic clade, but instead a grade. We’ll get to that later. 

Depending on how much you know about sponges, you might be surprised to learn that sponges have a lot of structure to them. Unlike the (generally plastic) kitchen sponges you’re probably familiar with, living sponges are complex, interesting creatures that have evolved to fit specific modes of life. It’s easy to think of sponges as “primitive” because they branched off so early into animal evolution, but remember: they’ve been evolving just as long as you have.

(Image: A simplified cross-sectional diagram of the wall of a sponge, with the cell types labelled. The interior of the sponge is to the left. [Source])

Sponges don’t have true tissues - they’re some of the only animals to lack them (the others being the placozoans). However, they do have differentiated cell types, and they do different jobs. 

The epithelial cells are also called “pinacocytes”; they form the exterior of the sponge. Other than that, they don’t seem to serve a ton of function.

Porocytes aren’t found in all sponges. They’re shaped like donuts, or churros, or like one of those squishy finger traps you might have had as a kid. Either way they line the pores of some sponges to let water enter.

Amoebocytes are able to actively move around the organism. They can transform into other types of cells as needed, they transport nutrients, and they can turn into egg cells for doing sexual reproduction.

Choanocytes or “collar cells” are where it really gets interesting. They have flagella that stick off into the interior of the cell and whirl around, creating water currents that draw water in. These water currents also draw microorganisms toward the body of the cell, where they are engulfed. Sponges lack stomachs, so they do all digestion within the cells. Nutrients are then distributed by amoebocytes. Choanocytes can also transform into sperm cells, since they already have a flagellum and all.

Sponges have exterior cells and interior cells, but they don’t really have cells in between. They have more of a gelatinous zone called the mesoglea or mesohyl, in which the amoebocytes can crawl around. The mesohyl is also where the spicules are located.

(Image: Scanning electron microscope image of a bunch of sponge spicules. They form a bunch of shapes, from toothpick-shaped to jack-shaped to spherical to flowerlike. [Source])

Spicules are made by the sclerocytes, another type of cell, and they’re present in most but not all sponges. They help to give the sponges structure, and they also make it a lot more unpleasant for things to eat them. They’re typically made of silica (the stuff that makes up quartz or glass), but they’re sometimes made of calcite or aragonite (the stuff that makes up limestone or antacids).

Some sponges also get some structure from a protein called spongin, which is similar to collagen. It gives structure, but isn’t very hard.

I mentioned before that sponges pump water. It comes in through the sides, into the internal cavity, and gets shot out the top. And they’re really good at it. Seriously, watch this video if you can:

There are words to describe different levels of complexity in the pores of sponges. They don’t correspond to any evolutionary relationships, and are more descriptors of the shape of the sponge. Some people make a big stink about them, but I don’t think they’re all that big of a deal. Basically, some sponges have really simple pores, and the vast majority of them have a ton of chambers in them that give more exposure time to water in order to better filter out tasty tasty microbes.

(Image: If you’ve seen anything about sponge biology you’ve probably seen this diagram. It’s really just OK. It shows the three “body plans” of sponges: Asconoid, with simple pores leading into the interior space [”spongocoel”], syconoid, with more wiggly walls, and leuconoid, with many complex chambers and a more enclosed spongocoel. In all of them, the choanocytes are located on the insides. [Source])

Most sponges are hermaphroditic - i.e., they can produce both sperm and egg. The sperm, as mentioned, come from transformation of the choanocytes, and they get shot out of the spongocoel with the outgoing water to mix with the water like the dirty, dirty little sponge sperm they are. When they find another sponge, they get sucked in through the pores and merge with eggs inside the mesohyl. Then they develop into sponge embryos and get shot out. Yes, sponges give live birth.

(Image: Diagrams of sponge larvae. They’re kinda cute! [Source])

Sponge larvae are little balls of cells that swim around with flagella on their outside, and when they land somewhere, they turn inside out and those outside cells become their choanocytes!

Sponges can also reproduce asexually, by budding! Or, if you stick a sponge in a blender, each cell can grow into a new sponge. (Or if you do that, the cells might get back together and form new sponges that are slightly bigger.)

Sponges can also move once they’ve rooted. Very, very slowly - we’re talking milimetres per day, if that, but they can do it.

I think that’s the basics of sponge biology. Let’s get into the different types of sponges!

Calcarea

(Image: The calcarean sponge Clathrina. It’s a small (centimetre-scale) yellow sponge that looks a little amorphous. [Source])

Calcarean sponges are - as the name suggests - sponges whose spicules are mostly calcite or aragonite, but not all sponges with calcite spicules are calcareans. They are mostly found in the shallow tropics, or sometimes in the polar regions. Many of them also have exoskeletons made of calcite to give them some extra strength. They come in all different body types, but all pretty much all small. There are about 400 known species as of present. 

Demospongia

(Image: A REALLY big sponge. It’s brown in colour, but it’s on the order of 2 metres call and almost spherical. There also multiple spheres. [Source])

I don’t know where the name demosponge comes from. I hope it comes from “demon sponge”, but I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, demosponges are the most diverse sponges, both in terms of number of species and different body plans. There are about 8,000 known species, and they live everywhere from shallow tropics to polar regions to the deep ocean to freshwater lakes. If you think of a sponge, it’s probably a demosponge. It’s almost hard to write about demosponges, because they encompass so much diversity. I’ll try, though.

Demosponges can have either silica or calcite spicules, but some entirely lack spicules and are supported entirely by spongin. These are the ones that have been traditionally used by humans, because they don’t have big hunks of glass or limestone in them. Smart. 

Freshwater demosponges can form what are called gemmules, a type of asexual reproduction that helps them survive droughts. Basically, they form a ball of amoebocytes and surround it by spongin and spicules to protect it, and then when conditions are better this can grow into a new sponge.

All of the really big sponges are demosponges, but there’s also some little ones. And there’s some really weird ones too. Like this one.

(Image: A deep-sea demosponge. It doesn’t resemble a sponge at all, instead resembling a white candelabra but with five branches instead of two, like if Marty McFly came back to the future only to discover he’d ruined hanukah. [Source])

That’s a deep sea demosponge. It doesn’t resemble a sponge at all, instead resembling a...well, you get the point. It’s so weird because it’s a carnivorous sponge. No, you’re not in danger from it – it’s only about 30cm/1 foot long, and it preys on millimetre-sized arthropods. Those balls are for storing sperm, and no I will not revise this sentence.

Some other demosponges have photosynthetic bacteria living inside them that help them produce food, and some others that live near black smokers host methane-eating bacteria.

Hexactinellida (glass sponges)

(Image: A glass sponge. It’s a series of ghostly white tubes; you can see the spicules through the sides. [Source])

Glass sponges are weird. Like, really weird. REALLY REALLY WEIRD. I’m not exaggerating when I say they might be the weirdest animals in existence. If you take one thing away from this post, let it be that glass sponges are weird.

There are about 500 known species of glass sponges. They have silica spicules and tend to be pretty fragile– hence the name “glass sponges” – and are generally very pale in colour. That’s because they usually live in the deep ocean, where there’s no sunlight and thus no need to camouflage yourself or scare things off or whatever sponges do with colour. They can get pretty big - up to a few metres long.

Oh, and they are basically all one cell.

One cell with thousands of nuclei.

That’s right, glass sponges have what are called syncytia, or fused cells. These aren’t unheard of in animals - muscle cells often fuse en masse. But glass sponges take it to another level. The cell membranes between the body cells are pretty much all completely gone, and the majority of the body is one cell. Different areas are separated off by so-called “plugged junctions” which are not true cell membranes. They have currents of cytoplasm that transport nutrients, nuclei, and organelles around to make sure everything is running smoothly. They also apparently transmit electrical impulses through their cell, in a manner similar to nerves. They have a reduced or absent mesohyl (understandably), and they lack the ability to contract.

They also apparently can live at least 25,000 years.

Homoscleromorpha

(Image: A homoscleromorph sponge. It’s purple-gray and wrinkly, a little bit like a brain. [Source])

Homoscleromorphs are typically quite small and make up less than 150 known species. But don’t make any mistake, because these are one of my favourite groups of sponges.

See, even though they’re fairly “boring” sponges in terms of ecology, they are really interesting in terms of anatomy. 

No sponges have true tissues, but homoscleromorphs have cells attached to basement membranes - something no other sponges have. These are pretty similar to tissues, and they’re made of type IV collagen, like the membranes of true tissues. Their sperm also seem to be more similar to those of other animals, and genetic analysis has suggested they may be closer relatives of all other animals than to sponges. 

In other words, this would mean that sponges are not a single branch of the tree of life, but instead a paraphyletic grade that might tell us something about our own ancestry (Some studies have also suggested that calcarean sponges may also be closer relatives to the rest of animals than to sponges).

(Image: One hypothesis of sponge relationships, showing homoscleromorphs as relatives of eumetazoa (the clade containing, well, pretty much all animals that aren’t sponges.) [Source – don’t judge me, wikipedia makes pretty-looking cladograms])

If this is true, it would mean that our ancestors, and the ancestors of all other animals*, would be animals that we’d call “sponges”. Homoscleromorphs have small or absent silica spicules and possess spongin; if the above hypothesis is true, it would suggest that all other animals evolved from creatures that had silica spicules and spongin, and then secondarily lost them. (And, if I may speculate idly – perhaps the free-swimming larval form of many sponges was the launching point for more mobile animals?)

Well, I don’t know how to end this post. Here’s a type of crab that likes to grow a sponge on its head (because sponges taste bad and are full of spicules).

[tuullaofchange]

The Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin on the Nerl River|Храм Покрова Пресвятой Богородицы на Нерли

EN|RU

The Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin on the Nerl River was erected in the mouth of the river Nerl at the Vladimir and Suzdal principality  water gates in the distance of  Prince Andrew  Yurievich's residence in Bogoliubov(the place that is loved by God) in 1165. 

The harmonious  refined shrine  cubage   raises  over flood plains through  mounding that was claded with limestone slabs, and seems as if it hovers above crystal clear water surface. The shrine aggregates the grace of the blooming land without opposition to the surounding area as the  previous period  structures. 

The vertical of the church is emphasised with  multiple pilaster-strips, oblong window openings and  a blind arcade that is skirting the entire perimeter. Declaiming ascension was related to the concept of the omniponent divine powers' patronage to a prince, who was haloed with the sacred mission, and his lands. 

The composition centricity of the trinaved, triapsed church with  one dome is based on a zakomar covering wave,  a positioning in the centric curtain walls, except  the east one, perspective portals covered with archivolt chiselled ribbons which stand in contrast to  wall surface. 

Reliefs in shapes of birds of prey, lions, gryphons - guardians, alluded  in deisis to Biblical king David , are located in the zakomars' semicircles.  Periphrastic apotheosis of David likens him to Prince Andrew Bogolyubsky. 

The motive of engaged columns with leaf capitals, initially expressed  with strong figural chords on the pilaster-strips, continued on the archivolt layers and terminated as robust small columns of the sanctuary screen, finally transforms the wall into the resemblance of a veil, decorated with a purl and golden plaque-chevrons. 

The high and serene shrine interior is not gauged for a major performance, it is a place for intimate prayers of a prince dwelled on the  elevated, close to the dome open galleries.  It is a reminiscent of the ideal iconic space, enveloped by golden light. 

The shift  to comprehension of religious buildings on the more poetic level from exclusively austere function motivates to enhance the effect of architecture pieces, use the visual language for the prince's political programme consolidation.  Integrity and spirituality of the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl River had an impact on architects's dictinctive technics. 

RU

Церковь Покрова на Нерли была возведена  в 1165 году в устье р. Нерль, у «водных ворот» Владимирской земли, в отдалении от резиденции в Боголюбове князя Андрея Юрьевича. Стройный изящный объем храма поднят над  заливными лугами путем устройства искусственной насыпи, облицованной известняковыми плитами, и , как будто парит над кристально чистой гладью воды. Храм сосредотачивает в себе благодать цветущей земли,  не противостоя окружающему пространству, как постройки предыдущего периода.  Вертикаль церкви подчеркнута членениями многообломных лопаток, вытянутыми оконными проемами, аркатурно-колончатым поясом, огибающим весь периметр. Декламированное вознесение связывалось с идеей покровительства всемогущих божественных сил князю, окруженному ореолом священной миссии, и его землям. Центричность композиции трехнефной, трехапсидной, одноглавой постройки основана на  волне позакомарного покрытия, размещении в центральных пряслах, кроме восточного, перспективных порталов с ажурными лентами архивольтов, которые контрастируют с гладью стен. В полукружиях закомар располагаются рельефы в форме хищных птиц, львов, грифонов - охранителей, обращенных в сторону библейского царя- объединителя Давида. Иносказательный апофеоз Давида уподобляет его   самому  князю Андрею Боголюбскому. Мотив полуколонн с лиственными капителями, впервые звучащий сильными пластическими аккордами на лопатках, продолжающийся в слоях архивольтов и завершающийся полнокровными колонками алтарной преграды, окончательно  преображает стену  в подобие завесы, украшенной бахромой и золотыми дробницами-нашивками. Светлый и высокий интерьер храма не рассчитан на действо с большим числом участников, это место, предназначенное для личной молитвы князя, пребывавшего на высоко поднятых, приближенных к ку��олу хорах. Оно походит на идеальное иконное пространство, объятое сиянием золота. Переход к осмыслению на более поэтическом уровне культовых сооружений от сугубо строгой функциональности мотивирован усилить воздействие архитектурных произведений, использовать изобразительный язык для выражения политической программы князя, ее консолидации.  Целостность и одухотворенность церкви Покрова на Нерли повлияли на особенности художественного инструментария мастеров.

[sciencespies]

Ireland's only 2 dinosaur bones have just been confirmed for the first time

https://sciencespies.com/environment/irelands-only-2-dinosaur-bones-have-just-been-confirmed-for-the-first-time/

Ireland's only 2 dinosaur bones have just been confirmed for the first time

Once upon a time, dinosaurs were a pretty ubiquitous lot. Even 66 million years after the last dinosaurs went extinct, the fossils they left behind have been found on every continent on Earth.  

But bones don’t just fossilise anywhere – they’re most often found in sedimentary rocks. One particular area where there’s a distinct lack of dinosaur remains is Ireland.

Sedimentary rocks from the time of the dinosaurs in Ireland have been moved about, buried, or undergone erosion. These Mesozoic Era rocks were torn from the supercontinent of Pangea and shifted north before being buried under basalt from intense volcanic activity after the time of the dinosaurs, so that they now make up only about 1 percent of Ireland’s rocks.

“Most of Ireland’s rocks are the wrong age for dinosaurs, either too old or too young, making it nearly impossible to confirm dinosaurs existed on these shores,” explains National Museums Northern Ireland curator and palaeontologist Mike Simms.

But it’s not entirely void of dinosaur fossils. The late Roger Byrne, a school teacher and fossil collector, has an incredible legacy – he found not one but both of Ireland’s only dinosaur fossils.

And those fossils – found in the 1980s and donated to the Ulster Museum among several other fossils – have just been described for the first time in a scientific paper.

“Finding an Irish dinosaur might seem a hopeless task but, nonetheless, several potential candidates have been identified and are described for the first time here,” the researchers write in their new paper.

“Several specimens from Northern Ireland have been suspected, or suggested, as dinosaur bones but just two can be definitely assigned to this group on the basis of their bone histology, surface texture and morphology.”

The paper looks into four specimens that could have been dinosaur fossils, three that Byrne found on the beach near the Gobbins on the Eastern coast of Northern Ireland between 1980 and 2000, and one that’s been in the museum collection since 1920, but its history is a little hazy.

That 1920s specimen is a fossil, but not of a dinosaur. Instead, the team believes it’s likely a marine reptile like an ichthyosaur.

Byrne’s 2000 discovery, on the other hand, was a weird pentagonal shape with a bone-like texture and seemed to be unlike any dinosaur discovered so far.

“It was only through examination by a fresh pair of eyes in 2019 that the mystery was finally solved,” the researchers write.

“It is not a bone at all but merely a small pentagonal piece of basalt!”

And that left two of Byrne’s fossil finds – one femur fragment of a four-legged herbivore called Scelidosaurus, and one tibia fragment of a two-legged carnivore part of the neotheropod clade.

“Analysing the shape and internal structure of the bones, we realised that they belonged to two very different animals,” says the University of Portsmouth palaeontologist Robert Smyth.

“One is very dense and robust, typical of an armoured plant-eater. The other is slender, with thin bone walls and characteristics found only in fast-moving two-legged predatory dinosaurs called theropods.”

Of course, there’s still the question of how they got there in the first place, especially with so little ‘correct’ rock. Ireland was also underwater for a significant chunk of the age of the dinosaurs, so there’s even less land for the creature’s bones to eventually fossilise in.

“The two dinosaur fossils that Roger Byrne found were perhaps swept out to sea, alive or dead, sinking to the Jurassic seabed where they were buried and fossilised,” says Simms.

The rocks from the age of dinosaurs found in Ireland are mostly limestone, chalks, and mudstones, but these were deposited under the sea. The thing about the Gobbins beach though is that there’s a large amount of basalt and limestone on the shore. 

If the occasional land dinosaur washed out to sea, it could have been fossilised in these undersea rocks, and then eventually washed back onto the shore hundreds of millions of years later.

“Despite being fragmentary, these fossils provide valuable insight on a very important period in dinosaur evolution, about 200 million years ago. It’s at this time that dinosaurs really start to dominate the world’s terrestrial ecosystems,” says Smyth.

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association.

#Environment

[juliandmouton30]

Best architecture of 2017 revealed at day one of World Architecture Festival

A huge smile-shaped structure in London and a study centre in the Philippines are among today's category winners at the World Architecture Festival 2017 awards.

Now in its tenth edition, the World Architecture Festival (WAF) showcases the best architecture built around the world in the last year.

Further category winners will be revealed tomorrow, with the winner of each category put forward for the title of World building of the Year, which will be selected on Friday.

Dezeen is media partner for both the WAF and Inside festival of interiors, which are taking place at Arena Berlin in Germany until 17 November.

Here are the full details of category winners from WAF day one:

Civic and Community: Streetlight Tagpuro, Tacloban, Philippines, by Eriksson Furunes + Leandro V Locsin

Three architecture students worked with NGO Streetlight to build an orphanage and study centre in the Philippines back in 2010. Just three years later, the complex was completely destroyed in a major typhoon – so the trio returned to build new structures.

They chose locally available materials and regional construction techniques, creating buildings that combine heavy concrete walls with lightweight timber roof structures.

Display: The Smile, London, United Kingdom, by Alison Brooks Architects

British architect Alison Brooks created this cross-laminated timber installation named The Smile for London Design Festival.  The tubular structure made using engineered tulip wood curved to lift both ends off the ground, and was touted as the "first project in the world to use large hardwood CLT panels".

"A simple and powerful concept which overcomes big technical challenges to deliver a delightful installation," said the category judges.

"The structure allows for interaction on many levels. The interior both playful and contemplative. This might be small but it has a big impact."

Housing: Super Lofts, Amsterdam, Netherlands, by Marc Koehler

Superlofts is a model for co-housing, where users are given the opportunity to customise their homes, so that the spaces suit their needs better. The flexible approach byDutch architect Marc Koehler results in homes that are sustainable and affordable.

"A housing project as a concept about the process of engaging residents in the making of homes – from the marketing, though to investment in design and ownership through occupation," said the judges.

Culture: The Palestinian Museum, Birzeit, Palestine, by Heneghan Peng Irish studio Heneghan Peng limestone-clade museum dedicated to Palestinian culture is set among terraced gardens in the city of Birzeit. Set on a hilltop, the museum overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the west through its angular windows.

Its gardens of cascading terraces are intended to reflect the museum's position as a cultural facility situated within an agricultural setting.

House: Binh House, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, by Vo Trong Nghia Architects

Vo Trong Nghia Architects used huge, grooved planters to form the facade of this slender house in Ho Chi Minh City, encouraging bamboo plants to form a screen in front of its windows.

The house is part of the Vietnamese studio's House for Trees series, which aims to reintroduce tropical greenery into cities as they densify.

New and Old: Post-earthquake reconstruction and demonstration project of Guangming Village, Zhaotong, China, by The Chinese University of Hong Kong

By innovating rammed-earth construction, a team of university researchers has created a safe, affordable and sustainable new form of building for an earthquake-damaged Chinese village.

To test the technique, the team built a prototype house for an ageing couple.

Office: Co Op Kyosai Plaza, Tokyo, Japan, by Nikken Sekkei Tendrils of plants have entwined themselves around the chain-covered facade of this office building designed in Tokyo's Shibuya ward by local architecture firm Nikken Sekkei. The offices are occupied by the Japanese Consumers' Cooperative Union.

Production, Energy, and Recycling: The Farm of 38-30, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey, by Slash Architects and Arkizon Architects

This dairy factory in central Turkey by Istanbul-based Slash Architects and Arkizon Architects wraps a central courtyard, allowing visitors glimpses of the cheese production facility within.

While the walls facing the courtyard are almost entirely glazed, the outer facades are made predominantly of stone and interrupted only by narrow, columnar windows.

Schools: East Sydney Early Learning Centre, Sydney, Australia, by Andrew Burges Architects

Australian studio Andrew Burges Architects converted a Sydney warehouse to create this kindergarten modelled as a "mini city".

Tiny house-shaped rooms made from plywood were used to reconfigure the interior of the 1920s brick building, and a sandpit surrounded by astro turf has been installed on the roof.

"A mini city within an existing structure. Every element witty and effortless, making the entire project a complete work of art," said the jury.

Sport: US Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, United States of America, by HKS

This athletics buildings by architecture firm HKS features an asymmetric roof with steep planes designed to help shed snow during Minneapolis' cold winters.

Made from transparent ETFE panels, the roof also allows daylight to shine down into the stadium during sunnier days, and to permit workers to gaze down from the city's skyscrapers.

Future Projects:

Leisure led development: Bodrum Loft by Taban architects Competition entries: New Cyprus Archaeological Museum, Nicosia, Cyprus, by Pilbrow & Partners Health: Desa Semesta, Bogor Indonesia, by Magi Design Studio Experimental: Sharjah Observatory, Mleiha National Park, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, by 3deluxe Office: Viettel offsite studio, Hanoi, Vietnam, by Vo Trong Nghia Architects Civic: Consulate Building, Staff Housing & School Complex, Karachi, Pakistan, by Mohammad Ashour Infrastructure: The Bridge, Ras, India, by Sanjay Puri Architects

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