If you’re looking to decorate an Asian-inspired home, it’s important to remember that the Asian style draws from many regions, including China, Japan, and Thailand to name a few. For interior design purposes, Asian style usually refers to either Japanese or Chinese influences, as they are very different. Japanese style is more calming and minimal in terms of furniture and decorative elements, while the Chinese uses bright colors and more detailed, dramatic decor.

Furniture

Streamlined, functional furniture fits the Japanese design style. The pieces are minimal both in terms of number as well as appearance. Designing a Japanese-inspired home involves adopting a mind-set of Zen principles, which strive for a calm, clear and open state of mind. How does that translate into interior design? Take away the clutter in a room, reduce the color palette (think water and earth tones) and clear the walls and floor areas (no brightly colored area rugs or paintings). Walls can be a rich color, such as a chocolate brown or natural green, as long as they maintain the room’s earthy feel.

Hardwood floors and Tatami mats (made of rice and covering large areas), serve as traditional Japanese flooring. Furniture and accessories that sit lower to the floor help maintain a spaciousness, as opposed to large, imposing tables and sofas. Pillows can even be used for seating.

Any space should feel as open as possible, so translucent partitions called Shoji screens are a popular way to divide a room or provide privacy.

Sunlight easily diffuses through a Shoji screen, and they work well in covering unsightly window views without dampening any natural lighting. Furniture with flexibility keeps the flow relaxed; futons change from sofa to bed, Shoji screens can be moved depending on their immediate use, and pillows rearrange easily for comfortable seating.

Chinese design is bold and dramatic, ideal for those who want vibrancy in their home. Several ornate pieces of carved furniture coated in a glossy black or red lacquer make the statement, often with some gold decoration and hand-painted oriental designs.

Filling a room with too many stylized, striking pieces can be overwhelming and uninviting (as with the below photo), so choose one or two, and then use plain, dark wood furniture as a complement.

Walls can be painted in rich colors as well as patterned with oriental-inspired wallpaper of Chinese lettering, or exotic flowers, fish and birds. In more traditional Chinese wall decor, entire murals celebrate a dynamic culture by depicting historical scenes and legendary mythological figures.

Although boldly colored and ornate, the Chinese design-inspired home is still comfortable and easy to live in.

Lighting

Natural lighting is key in Japanese design, so this style would be great for a room that already gets a lot of sunlight. Windows can be  curtained with sheer fabrics or earth-toned fiber window shades, or even left uncovered. Low wattage interior lighting maintains the soothing effect into the evening. Try a rice paper lamp shade or something similar with mild colors.

Chinese decor tends to be bolder and more colorful, specifically using bright reds (red is a color symbolic of good luck in China), blues and yellows. A lamp painted with mythical Chinese characters is a dramatic touch, or for a softer glow, hang Chinese paper lanterns.

Accents & Accessories

Overall, when you walk into a room that is a Japanese design-inspired, less is more and the effect should be a calming one. Neutral colors like the earth tones of gray, brown and green allow for visual flow without catching on a particular bright color. That doesn’t preclude the use of color, but keep it simple nonetheless. Frame an embroidered silk kimono of traditional Japanese design, or display a colorful porcelain tea set.  Otherwise, choose accessories that evoke nature; for example, use bamboo and stone materials, and decorate with bonsai plants and orchid flowers for more organic elements.

Chinese accents involve bright colors and rich, luxurious fabrics like silk embroidered in Chinese designs (often mystical beasts and animals like tigers, monkeys, dragons, as well as birds and flowers). Pillows and curtains in these opulent fabrics imbue the room with a vitality particular to Chinese design. Ceramics and pottery with the same motifs are beautiful accessories atop tables and dark wooden chests. Unusual Chinese antiques can be found in street and flea markets, as well as on the Internet.

Chinese rugs are key for floor accents, and come in all sizes and prices.

With such a wide range of accent pieces to choose from, it’s important to keep in mind that all it takes to create a Chinese design-inspired home is a striking piece of furnishing, a splash of color and a few choice accent pieces, from art to rugs to ceramic vases.

Finding YOURSELF somewhere in Asia

Remember, designing your home means considering the rules and then breaking a few if you choose. Modern Asian design is an example of how you can use traditional Japanese and Chinese styles and then infuse aspects of the two, or combine them with alternative design elements. How about painted black bamboo bunk beds, white walls with a bonsai tree mural and a giant red area rug? The point is, create the space that feels home to you, and incorporate as many or all of the Asian-inspired design aspects as you see fit!

1. Earth-Friendly Home Design

Perhaps the most exciting and most important trend in home design is the increased sensitivity to the environment. Architects and engineers taking a new look at ancient building techniques that used simple, bio-degradable materials. Far from primitive, today’s “earth houses” are proving comfortable, economical, and rustically beautiful. See our article: Turning a cave into a home

2. “Prefab” Home Design

Factory-made prefabricated homes have come a long way from flimsy trailer park dwellings. Trend-setting architects and builders are using modular building materials to create bold new designs with lots of glass and steel. Prefabricated, manufactured and modular housing comes in all shapes and styles, from steamlined Bauhaus to undulating organic forms.

3. Adaptive Reuse in Home Design

New buildings aren’t always entirely new. A desire to protect the environment and to preserve historic architecture is inspiring architects to repurpose, or re-use, older structures. Trend-setting homes of the future may be constructed from the shell of an outdated factory, an empy warehouse, or an abandoned church.

4. Healthy Home Design

Some buildings can literally make you sick. Home designers are becoming increasingly aware of the ways our health is affected by synthetic materials and the chemical additives used in paints and composition wood products. The most innovative homes aren’t necessarily the most unusual; they are the homes constructed without relying on plastics, laminates, and fume-producing glues. See also: Architecture in a green world.

5. Storm-Resistant Home Design

Every shelter should be built to withstand the elements, and engineers are making steady progress in developing storm-ready home designs. In areas were hurricanes are prevalent, more and more builders are relying on insulated wall panels constructed of sturdy concrete.

6. Flexible Floor Plans in Home Design

Changing lifestyles calls for changing living spaces. Tomorrow’s homes have sliding doors, pocket doors, and other types of movable partitions allow flexibility in living arrangements. Dedicated living and dining rooms are being replaced by large multi-purpose family areas. In addition, many houses include private “bonus” rooms that can be used for office space or be adapted to a variety of specialized needs.

7. Accessible Home Design

Forget the spiral staircases, sunken living rooms, and high cabinets. The homes of tomorrow will be easy to move around in, even if you or members of your family have physical limitations. Architects often use the phrase “universal design” to describe these homes because they are comfortable for people of all ages and abilities. Special features such as wide hallways blend seamlessly into the design so that the home does not have the clinical appearance of a hospital or nursing facility.

8. Outdoor Rooms in Home Design

An increased interest in eco-friendly architecture is encouraging builders to incorporate outdoor spaces with the overall home design. The yard and garden become a part of the floor plan when sliding glass doors lead to patios and decks. These outdoor “rooms” may even include kitchens with sophisticated sinks and grills. Read more here: Creating a Green Roof Garden.

9. Abundant Storage in Home Design

Closets were scarce in Victorian times, but over the past century, homeowners have demanded more storage space. Newer homes feature enormous walk-in closets, spacious dressing rooms, and plenty of easy-to-reach built-in cabinets. Cathedral ceilings are becoming passé because families tend to prefer usable space below the roof. Garages are also getting bigger to accommodate the ever-popular SUVs and other large vehicles.

10. Eastern Ideas in Home Design

Feng Shui, Vástu Shástra, and other Eastern philosophies have been guiding builders since ancient times. Today these principles are gaining respect in the West. You might not immediately see the Eastern influences in the design of your new home. According to believers, however, you will soon begin to feel the positive effects of Eastern ideas on your health, prosperity, and relationships.

Source | architecture.about.com

The house is located in a town with rich historical associations. These include a Shinto shrine and caves, in sculpt by hand into the cliff-face, which formed part of an eleventh-century workshop for crafting samurai swords. The house is one of three buildings on the site alongside a pavilion, with a gallery for displaying art works, a large function space, and specialized storage. The overall composition ties these buildings together in a harmonious arrangement, informed by the Japanese belief that nature is at its most beautiful when considered in relation to the man-made.

A series of parallel structural walls organise the interior spaces of all three buildings, which are further articulated by perpendicular infill walls that carry the service functions. Special attention has been paid to the subtle use of colour throughout the interiors, with muted tones and dark gray ceilings that add a degree of intimacy. The design team developed a number of specialized materials for the project. The primary walls are clad with a custom-manufactured reconstructed stone, while glass blocks made from recycled television tubes provide diffuse light. Hand-sculpted terrazzo elements are used throughout. The floor surfaces are covered in part with antique Chinese tiles, and the indoor pool is finished in glazed volcanic stone tiles.

The house is planned around the rugged landscape and focuses on a mature cherry tree. Circulation through the building is organised around a sequence of views that progressively move from darkened to fully lit rooms, revealing the houses natural surroundings and the clients extensive antique and modern art collection. A comprehensive integrated lighting system, which includes fiber-optic installations, dedicated spotlights, and naturally back-lit glass blocks, further emphasizes major individual art works. The attention to the play of light and shadow, created through a combination of materials and artificial and natural light, is fundamental to the design of the house and evokes the quietude of traditional Japanese architecture.

Organic architecture strives to integrate space into a unified whole. Frank Lloyd Wright was not concerned with architectural style, because he believed that every building should grow naturally from its environment.

From An Organic Architecture, 1939, by Frank Lloyd Wright

“So here I stand before you preaching organic architecture: declaring organic architecture to be the modern ideal and the teaching so much needed if we are to see the whole of life, and to now serve the whole of life, holding no ‘traditions’ essential to the great TRADITION. Nor cherishing any preconceived form fixing upon us either past, present or future, but – instead – exalting the simple laws of common sense – or of super-sense if you prefer – determining form by way of the nature of materials…”

Modernist Approaches to Organic Design

In the later half of the twentieth century, Modernist architects took the concept of organic architecture to new heights. By using new forms of concrete and cantilever trusses, architects could create swooping arches without visible beams or pillars.

Modern organic buildings are never linear or rigidly geometric. Instead, wavy lines and curved shapes suggest natural forms.

Examples:

Source | architecture.about.com

The most popular Victorian styles spread quickly through widely published pattern books. Builders often borrowed characteristics from several different styles, creating unique, and sometimes quirky, mixes. Buildings constructed during the Victorian times usually have characteristics of one or more of the styles shown here.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico, architect José R. Marchand and interior designer Jorge Rosselló restored and updated historic La Concha hotel. Colorful bridges connect the shell-shaped restaurant, originally designed by Osvaldo Toro, to the hotel.

Toad Hall is the rustic home of Kreis and Sandy Beall that they built on a picturesque 32-acre site in the wooded foothills of Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains. Tadpole Cottage, one of five log cabins on the property, sits across a pond. Its function, defined by designer Suzanne Kasler, could be said to be the universal function of all that Toad Hall embraces: “charm and folly!”

On the rue du Bac at the heart of Paris, designers Valerian Rybar and Jean-François Daigre collaborated on Daigre’s own town house, set in a Louis XVI pavilion. The opulent salon featured curved mirror paneling, a Régence giltwood mirror and Louis XV chairs. “The mirrored salon,” remarked Daigre, “is my fantasy.”

Architect Helena Arahuete, of Lautner Associates, cantilevered a five-foot-deep swimming pool and slate-covered deck off the south side of a house in Green Valley, California. In the spirit of John Lautner’s architecture, the house is composed of expansive spaces and is respectful of its surroundings.

Designed by the architectural firm Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, in Chantilly, Virginia, houses private, commercial and military aircraft and spacecraft.

Beacon Cottage, left, was built at the base of the Start Point Lighthouse near Kingsbridge, Devon, in 1871. It was restored by Trinity House, which manages the lighthouses, and is part of a collection of former keepers’ cottages along the southern coastline.

Bill Bensley designed a couple’s weekend retreat on the Indonesian island of Java. Behind a waterfall that cascades from the glass-bottom swimming pool is a sandstone-clad “golden cave” with a custom-made brass bed.

Originally built for the transport of goods, the 80-foot Tusitiri is an African dhow, or lateen-rigged ship, which anchors at Lamu Island, Kenya, and can be chartered.

Elephant Watch Camp, a safari camp created by world-famous elephant conservationists Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton, is located north of Nairobi, Kenya. Dinner is served on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro River.

Le Meridien Lingotto Art + Tech, a modular concrete-and-glass hotel designed by architect Renzo Piano, is one of the additions to the former Fiat plant complex in Turin, Italy.

Architect Robert M. Gurney redesigned a 1950s house in Washington, D.C. Sleek contemporary chaises make a graphic statement by the infinity pool.

Architects Norman Foster and David Nelson, of Norman and Partners, designed a residential retreat in Kamakura, Japan. Fiber-optic lighting shines through fragments of glass in the composite walls, illuminating a hallway.

Belgian designer and antiques dealer Axel Vervoordt’s apartment is on the piano nobile of the 15th-century Palazzo Alverà in Venice, Italy.

Architect Mike de Haas and interior designer Twila Wilson designed Karl-Erivan and Katrin Haub’s home on St. John in the Caribbean. From the pool, which features a compass rose, an infinity edge, limestone coping and a coral-stone deck, is a spectacular view of the island of Tortola.

On a scenic reservoir of the Colorado River in Austin, Texas, Ted Flato—of the architectural firm Lake/Flato—designed a contemporary 6,000-square-foot residence.

Shambha Niwas, built in the 1860s in Udaipur, India, is the private residence of India’s oldest ruling family. Beyond the swimming pool of the private terrace are Lake Pichola and the lights of the Lake Palace, the island hotel that was once the royal summer retreat.

The Sowden House in Los Angeles, California, was originally built by Lloyd Wright in 1928 and restored in 2000 by owner/designer Xorin Balbes and architect Paul Ashley. “The new pool in the courtyard locates a water element in the heart of the home; water spills over the edge of the spa, filling the rooms with its sound,” says Balbes.

Source | architecturaldigest.com

“I have been living in a cave for five years and I wouldn’t live anywhere else! My cool cave can be found in the beautiful village of Galera in the Granada Province of Spain.” Says Les Edwards, a niche real estate business owner.

I can almost guess what is going through your mind as you read this – he lives in a dark, damp, dirty hole in the ground so why tell the world about it! Well, his one of a kind rural property in Spain is a cave house, it has three bedrooms, is comfortable and very modern in all but appearance – similar to a whitewashed country cottage.

Just to show you how modern a cave house can be, Les has satellite TV, satellite internet, telephone, mains electric, mains water and mains sewerage. The rooms are dry, many have large windows to let in natural daylight and, importantly, in this extreme climate of hot dry summers and cold mid-winter nights the cave home keeps an even temperature all year round thanks to it’s natural geothermal heating for the winter and cooling for the summer.

Because his cave house is built into the west side of a hill he has the most spectacular views stretching many miles to the Sagra Mountains and for three hundred days of the year he watches the sunrise as he eats his breakfast.

Cave houses in some parts of Spain have been home to man for thousands of years. Their popularity has risen and fallen as the centuries passed, today demand is soaring. Many people, both Spanish and other nationalities, are looking for a different lifestyle and homes that are affordable and eco-friendly and with modern technology and a good architect you can turn a cave into the perfect home.

Most modernised cave homes consist of two parts, the part that is cave and built underground with conventional rooms built onto the front. In this way you get the best of both worlds. So cave houses have light, airy living rooms to the front and cooler cave bedrooms to the back. Almost everyone loves to sleep in the cave rooms, they are quiet, fresh, dark and natural. Many people state that their cave bedrooms have a calming effect, connecting with inherited memories from our earliest creation. This sense of tranquillity induces a deeper sleep resulting in improvements in both physical and mental health.

Cave houses have a number of distinct advantages compared to conventionally built houses:

1. A cave house is significantly cheaper. Cave houses are 20 to40% cheaper than an equivalent conventional property. As examples, it is still possible to buy a three bedroom cave house, fully modernised for under 100,000€ and four bedrooms for 115,000€.
2. Each cave home is uniquely in its design. Almost all the modernised cave homes have been rebuild from much older dwellings, originally hewn out by hand one or two hundred years ago, as a result no two caves homes are alike. There is no danger of ending up with a home exactly like that of your neighbours.
3. Because the cave rooms are sunk into the rock they maintain roughly the same temperature summer and winter, between 13 and 18°C. There is absolutely no need for air conditioning in the summer and winter heating requirements are significantly lower than in conventionally built houses. As a result power consumption and costs are much lower.
4. Recently renovated cave houses can come with double block cavity insulated external wall, double glazed windows and extra roof insulation making them beautifully cool in the summer and cosily warm on those winter nights, providing additional comfort and economy.
5. They have a quaintness and charm rarely found in so called “modern properties”, yet they have all the facilities you expect from a new home. Electricity, mains water, mains sewerage, telephone, satellite TV and broadband Internet are all available enabling you to have the best of both worlds.
6. Low maintenance is another benefit. With few external walls and often no roof to worry about, maintenance costs can be kept to a minimum.

Les states he can easily sleep at night, close to nature and knowing his eco-home didn’t cost the earth.

Decades from now people in Canada and cities around the world could be looking at fish going by and enjoying the view of shipwrecks like the Sligo.

Seen through the pressurized window of an underwater condo, the stark wooden ribs of the 19th-century schooner might be seen reaching up toward the surface of Lake Ontario. To highlight the historic remains, the condo’s board could place lights around the bones of the Sligo so residents could watch salmon schooling at night around the underwater landmark off the western waterfront.

The Sligo is one of three visually dramatic wrecks on the bottom of Lake Ontario, close to Toronto’s shoreline. Now visited only by scuba divers, breakthroughs in both building and air cleansing technologies mean multiple dwelling habitats – such as submerged condos – could one day be built within sight of the lake-bottom attractions.

Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise called space the final frontier, but that distinction may actually belong to those parts of the planet covered by water.

Michael Schutte, the vice-president of engineering at U.S. Submarines, doesn’t believe it will take as long as 30 years before people are living on the bottom of Lake Ontario. The Toronto-born-and-raised mega-yacht designer is now based in Oregon overseeing the construction of an underwater five-star hotel to open on the edge of a coral cliff in the South Pacific by 2009.

Schutte, 45, is overseeing the above-water construction of the Poseidon Undersea Resort, which will be taken to Fiji and placed on the bottom of a deep lagoon. There will be 24 undersea hotel suites and apartments covering 51 square metres, anchored on the ocean floor 12 metres beneath the surface.

Although the hotel will have a fleet of small submarines, getting down to the luxury suites (rumoured to be priced at $15,000 per person per week) won’t actually mean getting in the water; the building will be connected to the surface by elevators and air shafts.

“The only reason you haven’t seen any underwater condos in Toronto yet is that farmland is literally dirt cheap and underwater construction is super expensive,” Schutte says. “If you build a unit that begins at the bottom of the lake and breaks the surface, you are in essence simply building a basement onto a houseboat. Given the price of waterfront land in Muskoka, as prices rise the houseboat with a 10-storey cement basement has more and more appeal.”

Today, however, more people live in space than submerged in H20. More research dollars are spent on establishing habitats on the moon and Mars than underwater.

“Why does everyone live on land anyway?” asks Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. “Three-quarters of our planet is water and yet mankind is clustered haphazardly on the land. From space you can easily see where people are congregated. You just look for the ‘Big Smear,’ the bands of pollution that permanently surround our large cities.”

“It is said that if we could handle the density of Manhattan, the whole population of North America could be placed in a state the size of Connecticut,” Hadfield tells visitors at the Ontario Science Centre. “On land we have randomly chosen where we live. But in the water, there would have to be more order. Living underwater, like living in space, has some challenges – breathable air, potable water, construction constraints and temperature – but there are advantages, too.

“It would take housing pressures off agricultural land and allow (the city) to access underwater resources for cooling, insulation, electricity and, of course, water.”

Hadfield, like most other NASA astronauts, has spent time in the Aquarius permanent undersea laboratory, one of the world’s few underwater habitats, 20 metres down and five kilometres east of the Florida Keys. The submerged building is owned by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and used for a wide range of underwater research projects.

“People live under the water today for very short periods of time – usually a week or less, but sometimes for extended periods of up to two to three weeks,” says professional architect, author, explorer and former mission commander for seven NASA underwater missions, Dennis Chamberland (see chamberland.org).

“But no one has ever lived undersea permanently – not one person in all of history. My group is planning to establish the first permanent civilian colony off central Florida in 2012 and for the first time, mankind will have a permanent address undersea. So it will happen in the next few years, not 30!”

Chamberland’s Atlantica project will be using a donated submarine (originally built to hunt for the Loch Ness monster) to establish three manned undersea habitats over the next five years. If the construction of the underwater station goes as planned, people will begin living on the bottom beginning in 2012, Chamberland says.

“Humankind is attracted to the beautiful and exotic places of our solar system. Just as man will be attracted to one day living on the cliff sides of the Valley of the Mariners on Mars, mankind will be attracted to live in the beauty of the underwater regions of our own planet,” he says.

Schutte agrees.

“Living underwater is not a new idea,” he says. “Hell, people in their 40s and 50s who are in charge of investment funds and brokerage houses and who grew up on Scientific American and Popular Science know it is doable. And these people have the money to make it happen.”

“The technology is already here,” Schutte says. “In essence, I am building a luxury yacht to sink beside a Fijian reef. People are willing to spend $30 million on a boat, so why not an underwater hotel?”

A decade ago a research project involving the Canadian Navy’s Cormorant dive tender found little life on the floor of Lake Ontario near Toronto’s Harbourfront area.

But filling in sections of Lake Ontario, albeit in relatively small blocks, presents more political problems than ecological and construction roadblocks. Would interest in underwater construction persuade politicians to allow building in the same lake that provides Toronto’s drinking water?

Blame much of the current interest in underwater projects on Lloyd Godson, a young Australian scientist. Earlier this year Godson, with the backing of the Australian Geographic magazine, spent 12 days living in a yellow steel capsule submerged in a flooded gravel pit. He built and sank “the world’s first self-sufficient, self-sustaining underwater habitat.”

Using solar power sensors on the surface and riding a stationary bicycle to produce additional electricity to keep his lights and computers working, Godson lived independent of terra firma. The air that he breathed was purified and recycled by algae soaked in his own urine. His algae garden absorbed the carbon dioxide he exhaled, and released oxygen for breathing (he did have to supplement his air supply with air from scuba tanks).

“The demand for information from the media took me by surprise when I was underwater,” Godson says. “We were front page from England to Taiwan.”

After emerging Godson was besieged with offers from the media to fund and film future extreme adventures. He was in Toronto earlier this summer to shoot a pilot TV show for Canada’s Cineflix Productions, which wants to make a 13-part series following Godson’s future projects.

“My quarry project was done on a shoestring, but it shows that soon people can live underwater and it can be done cheaply,” Godson says.

“My habitat wasn’t luxurious and there would have to be a lot of improvements to be usable again. I had a bed, a computer, a phone, email, plants and a fishing rod. I was doing all right, but mate, it was a bit boring.

“There is no noise underwater. If you are a people person, an underwater home is not for you.”

Their presence may have disappeared 500 years ago, but their Islamic architectural influence very much remains in the character and heritage of areas like Granada, often termed the ‘Moorish jewel’. The best surviving historical examples of it dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries are La Mezquita, the Roman Catholic Cathedral and former Mosque in Cordoba, and the Alhambra Palace in Granada.

The Moorish style features more than just horseshoe arches and intertwining patterns. Elaborate decoration, intricate mosaic work and ornate ceiling carvings also play their part, as do the regal surroundings. This is most notably characterised by the presence of an interior courtyard or ‘riad’, which has its origins in Morocco and other parts of the Islamic world in the Middle East.

Also at the heart of any Moorish building is the use of nature and light. Many Moorish features emanate from the desert-like conditions found in parts of North West Africa, on the edge of the Sahara. The use of water is central and hugely important to the Moorish style and architecture. Every part, be it a room, a courtyard or a garden, utilises water. Indeed, interior courtyards typically feature a spring of running water from nearby mountains. Fountains, reflecting pools and tiny canals that run through floors combine aesthetics with cool refreshment from the year round weather.

Modern moorish fountain

As important as the use of water is the use of light. Depending on the property and the room or courtyard, the light may be full, filtered, reflected, or made to create elaborate designs across floors according to taste. Double height ceilings are also typical, ensuring the retention of the Mediterranean light well into the evening. Both the use of water and light, introduced over 1000 years ago, were considered highly sophisticated at the time compared to existing practices throughout Europe.

Tuscan architecture combines modern and classic elements that make up pure Old World Europe. The beauty of architecture Tuscan style comes from the typical custom crafted natural stone. This includes limestone, travertine and marble. Terracotta floor and roof tiles are often used to give the antique feel. In Tuscan architecture, wooden beams are often refurbished from Tuscan farmhouses.

Tuscany architecture involves fine Italian building materials that create beautiful marble fireplaces, wrought iron gates and amazing fountains.

Integrating Tuscan elements brings a sense of Old-World charm and mystique to indoor and outdoor aspects of your home.

Exterior architecture typically include:

Tile roof Wrought iron front door entrance Walls covered with vines Crumbling stone walls that outline patios and walkways Beautiful travertine cobblestone driveways Brick or stone set garden paving Tuscan Landscape : Lavender, rosemary and sage can be found surrounding a Tuscan style home. Old lemon pots and antique jars give the feel of a Tuscany garden .

Interior architecture typically include:

Walls: Plaster walls with hand painted wall treatments. Usage of warm colours that represent the rolling hills of Tuscany bring the feel of basking under the Tuscan sun! Mediterranean decor involves subtle earth tones. These are standard in French Country decorating.

Ceilings: Textured richly. Stencilled borders can be found along the ceilings. Panelled or vaulted ceilings are a typical choice in decor as it creates pure Tuscany architectural framework. Wooden or chestnut beams provide a rustic feel to the Old World style home.

Floor: Glass, stone and tile are often used to create amazing mosaic art for flooring, which works well with table tops. Terracotta tiles, marble and ceramic flooring marks true Tuscany home decor. Selection of marbles that blend nicely with your Tuscan colour palette.

Tuscany architecture uses pale travertine in home flooring. Marble Chips, stucco and crushed stone are polished nicely creating terrazzo floors.

Your home can be so beautiful when choosing architecture Tuscan style!

The stunning Eiffel Tower never loses its attractive appeal for tourists. This monumental tower was erected in 1889 to mark the centennial of the historical French Revolution. It’s difficult to imagine that this tower was considered abhorrent by most people back when it was built! And today it stands proud in the grand City of Lights, as a exemplary symbol of magnificence and art. And Tom Cruise is not the only one who proposed a beautiful woman in the shade of the sloping tower.

The Jules Verne restaurant has become just as popular as the tower itself and offers some delectable varieties of classic French cuisine. It is set atop some four hundred feet height marking the second level of the tower. The day time at the Eiffel Tower is usually more crowded, and the night time is much more fun with the frolicking lights and lively panorama.

The Eiffel tower is not just a historical delight, but an architectural amusement as well. The cast iron girders and sloping legs have become a familiar feature which shows inventive elegance and stands prominent in the beautiful and romantic city of Paris in all its magnificent glory. Once you have booked yourself a trip to Paris, it is a good idea to get travel insurance since the trip can be on the expensive side.

LOUVRE MUSEUM PARIS

The Louvre Museum in Paris is an enchanting venue for tourists who want a taste of superb ancient art. There are many guided tours in Paris that will take you on a journey towards the depths of French culture and the solemn beauty of the three important arts of the museum will leave you astounded.

The first is a statue of the beloved Greek goddess Nike who was the eminent goddess of victory with grandiose wings. It is set upon the isle of Samothrace (an island in the North Aegean Sea) and is meant to celebrate success and victory and at sea in the second century BC.

The second is the classic winged sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite, called the Venus de Milo Melos. This wondrous statuette is characteristic of the primordial Hellenistic period.

Then of course there is the Michelangelo painted archetypal of the Mona Lisa also called La Giaconda and dates back to 1503 to 1506. Historians are confused as to who the actual Mona Lisa was but there are certain references of a Mona Lisa who married a Florence man with the surname Giaconda. But Giaconda in Italian refers to a cheerful or optimistic woman. Leonardo is known to have made the portrait in Italy and then have brought it to France.

Many guided tours can provide you with proper historic details of these works in the Louvre Museum and there are many other departments in the museum which will also keep you on your toes. If you have a quest for knowledge of such art you must visit the Louvre Museum while you stay in Paris.

According to standard orthodox Egyptology the pyramid complex on the Giza plateau are funerary structures of the three Pharaohs from the fourth dynasty approximately 2575 – 2465 BC. The Great Pyramid is attributed erroneously to Khufu (Cheops) – with the other two being those of Khafre (Chephren) and Menkaura (Mycerinus).

Author Miroslav Verner writing in The Pyramids stated:

“To suppose that the pyramid’s only function in ancient Egypt was as a royal tomb would be an oversimplification.”

This is now more true than ever and I am of the opinion that if the pyramids, or more specifically the Great pyramid, was built solely for burial purposes of the given King (Khufu/Cheops) then it was and will remain an unprecedented farce. It is simply unimaginable that so much effort be placed into building an architectural structure of such gargantuan proportions, with such amazing astronomical alignments, with such perfect precision, by thousands of human souls, all for the one purpose of burying their God-King.

Statue of king Khufu

In all the pyramids in Egypt, not one has delivered the full body of a Pharaoh. There have been parts – a supposed mummified foot at Djoser; fragments of a mummy in the pyramid of Unas and Pepi; an arm and shoulder at Teti and a skeleton of a young woman in the coffer of the pyramid of Menkaure. But never a full mummified body of a pharaoh that was supposed to be buried within. The Egyptologists claim that this was due to the tombs having been raided over the vast period of time. This may be true, but alternatively it may be that pyramids were used for other purposes as well, or instead of. These body parts discovered within the pyramids may be pharaonic remains, but they could just as easily be more modern burials, placed within the pyramids at a later date. A similar thing is found in the burial mounds of Europe and elsewhere. Here, the burial mounds, as sacred images of the primordial mound, womb of the mother earth or world mountain were Gateways to the Otherworld and for centuries progressive generations would cut into them and make fresh burials. This did not take away the purpose or meaning of the mounds as Gateways. In fact this use utilised the main purpose.

Were these great feats of human ingenuity and skill just for the purpose of encasing the carcass of one man? If they were built for just one man then why did Amenemhet III have two pyramids built, one at Dashur, which contained his granite coffer and one at Hawara with a quartzite coffer? It is claimed that one of these was a cenotaph, which comes from the Greek kenotaphion, meaning “empty tomb”. Of course, this is even more remarkable, that a tomb should be built empty, and the reason given by Egyptologists is simply that it would confuse the “tomb raiders”. So thieves were stupid then?

The only so-called evidence that the Great Pyramid was built for Khufu is scant to say the least. Herodotus, the infamous Roman historian visited the pyramids in 443 BC and claimed that Khufu was buried underneath the pyramid, not in it. This was two thousand years after the supposed event. We simply cannot trust what we read today in our newspapers, let alone believe Herodotus and his interpretation of what he was lead to believe.

The next piece of “evidence” is extremely controversial as it relies upon some difficult to see, let alone decipher “inscriptions” on a funerary complex near the Great Pyramid claiming to be “in the time of Khufu.” Again, and lastly, in the pyramid itself the hieroglyphic symbol for Khufu himself as a quarry mark was discovered by archaeologist Richard Howard-Vyse who is now believed to have forged it under pressure of competition from contemporary foreign archaeologists – namely the Italian Caviglia.

So, we are left with an inscription “near” the pyramid, a fake hieroglyph and a two and a half thousand year old text based upon hearsay. This is hardly evidence for it to be the burial place of Khufu, let alone for anything else, although it is perfectly possible that Khufu was buried at this “special” place where later or earlier a pyramid was constructed. The pyramid however remains an enigma; regardless of what we are led to believe.

This unproven nonsense has pervaded Egyptology ever since, regardless of any other reason for the existence of the pyramids.

Now there is another reason.

The Great pyramid of Giza is to be found arguably at the centre of the earth’s landmass (30 degrees north, 31 degrees east) – both north-south and east-west. It is in the perfect location – at the centre – for collecting the “earth energy” as Tesla proved with his experiments on resonance as we shall see, it is also the perfect shape and size. To add to this, the two materials used were also perfect, as I shall explain. But first we need to take a foray into the world of Tesla.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was an eccentric and brilliant inventor who managed to harness the alternating current we use today as well as radio, florescent lighting and much more. Tesla believed he could send waves of electricity directly to our homes through the earth and/or ether without the use of wires and without harming anybody along the way by simply applying a subtle push-pull resonator. In 1901 Tesla said “my next step was to use the earth itself as the medium for conducting the currents…” and he did.

Tesla successfully sent electricity 26 miles and extracted it using a “magnifying receiver”. This is an incredible thought that energy waves, even extremely low frequency waves, could be sent around the globe and then with a magnifying receiver they could be picked up and understood or used. In fact Tesla even “tuned” in his pyramid shaped magnifying transmitter to the resonance of the earth and found that his co-workers were becoming ill with symptoms of “extreme tension of the nerves.”

Nikola tesla during one of his experiments

Tesla discovered that “The Earth was found to be literally alive with electrical vibrations, and soon I was deeply absorbed in this interesting investigation.” Tesla continued and revealed his feelings; “My first observations positively terrified me, as there was present in them something mysterious, not to say supernatural.”

“It was some time afterward when the thought flashed upon my mind that the disturbances I had observed might be due to an intelligent control.”

It would be many years later that Schumann would discover the resonance of the earth and prove that it had its own wave-particle pattern and that it can be altered by the surrounding universe and any number of other external influences. How does it do this? The chaotic beginnings of the big bang are still very much in the realms of theory and there is another theory, which goes that the universe is a standing wave being pushed and pulled by some impulse. This impulse pushes and pulls the standing wave, which then does the same to its neighbour and hey presto light can travel across the universe as a wave cascade, without loss of energy – a perpetual motion.

Tesla had discovered “intelligent” signals by pure accident and stated the case. Unfortunately through circumstances outside of his own control he never did get around to seriously working on the phenomena and nobody since him has had the intelligence or will to see the issue through. What Tesla discovered however was found within the ELF (electro-magnetic frequency) field, the low frequency band widths. Many people are out there, not least of whom are SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) looking on the megahertz level, when they should be redirecting their search back down to earth and to the extremely low frequency, before the mobile phone masts completely engulf us.

What struck me though was, Tesla’s receivers were great towers with pyramids on top and Tesla’s insistence that to be at the centre of the land mass (dependent upon where you are) would be far more beneficial to the purpose of the machinery.

So, Tesla discovered the resonance of the earth and that this resonance had intelligent or supernatural attributes. The resonance of the earth is in the same 0-40 Hz as the human “mind”, the same mind, which is constantly emitting signals into the environment around it. These signals are much more than just waves, they are also particles – they are therefore “matter”.

We see stars in the sky, little lights flickering billions of light years away. Many of these lights are no longer there; they are stars that have died, and yet we still see the light. This light, we now know to be wave-matter-particle; we know it is the continued life of that star. We ourselves, as part and parcel of the whole universal constants and laws of chaos and order, are nothing different to those stars. We are also putting out signals, which will continue as wave-matter-particles, even after we have died.

Amazingly Tesla described these electromagnetic signals as stationery parallel circles forming on the surface of the earth. These are no different to the circles mankind has been perceiving and materialising here on the earth for thousands of years, as stone circles, rock art and all manner of mysterious artefacts. And where would the most powerful, collective electromagnetic current collect other than at the centre of the landmass. As the great and mystical saying Om turns from a circle into a square as it reaches “mmm”, so too this great collection of human thought and quantum emotion turns into a square base at the great pyramid in Giza.

So, the Great Pyramid, at the centre of the earth’s landmass and as a perfect shape for receiving the resonance of the earth, simply must have a better reason for existing than as a large coffin for one man.

Lets break it all down and move through the various elements one piece at a time.

The base of the pyramid

The Great pyramid at Giza

Made up of mainly solid mass with the interior spaces being the Descending and Ascending passages, the Grand Gallery, a subterranean chamber, another chamber unnamed and the King and Queens chambers. The King’s chamber (so named by Arabs who attempted to raid the tomb, but found it empty) is 10.46 meters east to west; 5.23 meters north to south and 5.81 meters high. This is an architectural 3 dimensional representation of the Golden Mean or Phi – a sacred geometry well before Pythagorus.

The sides of the Great Pyramid line up almost exactly with the cardinal points (NWSE) on the compass, with an accuracy that would defy today’s builders, leaving a fifth point on top. The dimensions of the earth’s size and shape can be calculated using the dimensions of the pyramid, it being a scale model of the hemisphere with information on the latitude and longitude of the earth. Adding to this the element of the earth’s pre-historic tilt of very approximately 22-25 degrees being built into the whole structure, then we have a truly powerful mathematical building.

The very foundations of the pyramid also defy modern building techniques as it rests perfectly level with not one corner of the base more than 13mm higher or lower than the others. When we remember that the base covers 13 acres we can suddenly understand just how this was an incredible feat of human engineering.

The King’s chamber is made of solid red granite transported from the quarries of Aswan six hundred miles away.

The kings chamber

In the chamber itself there is a coffer, thought by Egyptologists to be the remains of Khufu’s sarcophagus. Nothing was ever found in the coffer, neither was there a lid. It is too big to take out of the corridor leading to and from it – indicating that it must have been laid inside as the building was erected around it, which is opposite to the funerary custom of the period. There is not the slightest piece of evidence to suggest that Khufu be ever laid to rest in this 3 ton granite container. There is nothing, not even any funerary implements or embalming materials, not a scrap. And yet, short of any other ideas, the orthodox situation remains that a building with 2.3 million blocks, weighing between 2.5 and 50 tons each, of perfect size and orientation was built for one man to be buried within. To add to this not one of the fourth dynasty Pharaohs put their names upon the pyramids supposedly built for them, whereas from the fifth dynasty onwards official inscriptions are in their thousands. No wonder I am constantly told by academics that they don’t believe the pyramid was a tomb!

So what is the truth of the Great Pyramid? Well, firstly I decided that I should run through some of the theories that have been put forward and some of the more esoteric beliefs, which related to my own quest.

There are legends and traditions that claim the King’s chamber to be a place of initiation. I would in part go along with this theory, especially in relation to the rituals required or made surrounding the Gateway mythology. There are also many stories of individuals who have felt peculiar presence’s or had mystical experiences within the chamber. There is also the tradition that Napoleon himself actually refused to express what happened to him in that enigmatic place, saying, “You would not believe me if I told you”.

According to these modern popular folk tales the coffer itself is the centre of the process or “energy vortex.” Writer C. Dunn in his book The Giza Power Plant: Technologies of Ancient Egypt (Bear & Co, Santa Fe) goes so far as to say that the Great pyramid was a huge geomechanical power plant that responds to the earth’s vibrations or resonance and transforms it into energy. Dunn conjectured that the geometric and physical design of the chamber inside the pyramid turned it into a large transducer and has produced a highly scientific analysis of the subject. So there is now scientific experimentation behind these folk tales – but with a very different purpose.

The passageways inside the great pyramid

The main tunnel leading up to the kings chamber

On the medical and scientific side there are stories of amazing healing and sharpened razors. In the 1920’s Antoine Bovis discovered that the heat and humidity of the King’s chamber reduced the decay rate of dead animals – something denied by orthodoxy still today. Bovis went on to construct a small-scale pyramid and oriented it in the same fashion. He placed a dead cat inside and found the result to be the same. Following this in the 1960’s US and Czech researchers repeated the process and achieved the same results.

In the ancient Egyptian language of Khemitian (black people or people from the black) the pyramid was known as Per-Neter, which can be translated in two ways – House of Nature, or more importantly the House of Energy, remarkably like “pyramid”, which means Fire in the Middle. It is interesting of course to note that Nature and Energy are interchangeable in this way, indicating that the Khemitians truly saw the energy as from nature itself (herself). Not to mention that the word Neter (NTR) also means neutral, which is the position one supposedly has to be in to gain entry into the Otherworld – i.e. between the gates. Another title of course for the Giza area is Rostau, which means Gateway and is sacred to Osiris and his progenitor Sokar, the God of the Underworld. In the Book of Am-Duat, Sokar inhabits a place of the dead that even Ra, the sun god cannot access – this is therefore a place of darkness or black. Sokar can also be seen in the representations of the fourth and fifth hours of the Duat, standing upon his mound within what seems to be a hill topped by a black conical symbol of some sort. Incidentally and perfectly related, the only way that Ra can traverse this mystical realm is by taking the form of the snake!

The sun god Ra

According to Reginald Aubrey Fessenden – author of The Deluged Civilisation of the Caucasus Isthmus (1927) – The term ‘Rostau’ is again a literal translation of E-kur or Akur – meaning the “great mountain” or “great house.”
Ak is the first half and comes from Akh, which is “one of the five elements forming the human being seen as an aspect of the sun, the link between the human and the luminous life force. It left the body at death to join the circumpolar stars.” Ur is the second half and means city. And so, the location of Akur, where the pyramids are situated means simply the city where the dead leave the body to join the stars. Add this to Rostau, meaning gateway and we truly do have the Stargate.

Writer Zecharia Sitchin tells us that the Sumerians also called their Ziggurat temple in Nippur – (a truncated, stepped-pyramid) – Ekur, a “house which is like a mountain” – but quotes a poem which exalts the goddess Ninkharsag as the mistress of the “House with a Pointed Peak” – a perfect pyramid. This is interesting in that the Sumerian goddess Ninkharsag is synonymous with the Egyptian Goddess Isis. The Inventory Stele – said to have been written by Khufu – states that the monument (Great Pyramid) was dedicated to Isis.

It’s possible then that Akur and Akhu both come from the same root words, as does the name Aker, which, according to the studies made by Egyptologists, is also connected with the Sphinx – being the “guardian of the entrance of the Underworld.”

The Akhu or ‘Shining Ones’ – variously named ‘Ancestors,’ ‘Sages,’ ‘Ghosts’ or ‘Spirits,’ can also mean ‘Astral spirits’ as associated with the stars.

As for the serpent link, there are many ancient Egyptian illustrations showing human figures on the backs of ‘feathered serpents’ about to ascend to the stars.

So, why would all three meanings of the Giza area and pyramid, and the myths, relate to both a gateway and to illumination? And why would the people associated with this area be deemed to be special “bright” or “shining” people if not for their seeming ability to access the illumination and hence go through the Rostau or Gateway.

The truth of the Great Pyramid from its history, folklore, legend and language is that the ancient Egyptians saw it as the portal to another world. Not a world of aliens or a parallel universe, but as the perfect ancient machine to enable and to even magnify an internal altered state of consciousness. For thousands of years the tribal shaman would be the guide to the life-after and bring back fortune. He would access caves, holes in the ground and eventually man-made mounds such as Newgrange in Ireland. Over time the shaman became priest, leader, king and pharaoh. He alone could contact the gods and the pyramid is the ultimate extension of this very humanly evolved process.

But this is just the beginning of an amazing tale that will lead us into a world of wonder. For there is something much more amazing about a world full of gateways to the otherworlds…..

Source: ezinearticles.com

In a case strongly promoting sustainable architecture, some experts have laid down certain basic elements that will help us to contribute to this matter further.

Small spaces 

Large houses generally use a tremendous amount of energy to heat and cool. They also consume far more building materials which may have their own environmental consequences. In a move to do away with such wastefulness, small houses are now being preferred allowing one to conserve energy and avoid unnecessary depletion of natural resources.

Solar Energy 

Nothing can be more comfortable for body and mind than living in a good solar-heated house. If designed ecologically, good passive solar energy provides just enough sunlight into the rooms to be absorbed by the surrounding thermal mass which acts as a heat battery and gives the warmth back into the room when the sun goes down. Crushed volcanic rock and straw bales make for good thermal mass insulation and designs in a green house

Renewable Energy 

Among the several ways to conserve fossil fuel and produce electricity are using the natural powers of the sun, wind, or water.

Conserving water 

The use of low water capacity toilets, flow restrictors at shower heads and faucet aerators are now being used as a part of sustainable architecture. More radical water conservation approaches include diverting gray water from bathing, clothes washing and bathroom sinks to watering plants; catching rain water from roofs and paved areas for domestic use. Landscaping with drought tolerant plants can also save water.

Efficient home appliances

Using local and natural materials 

Nature has been benevolent enough to provide us with several materials to build with, no matter what region you live in. If you use local materials for construction, processing and transporting hassles are minimized thereby also keeping environmental and economic costs low. From both, an aesthetic and health point of view, building with natural materials also helps sustainable development. Natural materials would include stone, glass, lime or mud plasters, adobe or rammed earth, bricks, tiles, untreated wood, cork, paper, reeds, bamboo, canes and grasses as well as all natural fibers. Including plants in your living space can greatly enhance the natural ambiance. Plants not only look nice, but they also release oxygen into the air, and some of them can actually filter some pollutants out of the air.

Saving our forests 

While wood is most definitely a renewable source of energy we have gone beyond sustainable harvesting and ruined our eco-systems through deforestation. Wood must be used as little as possible and mainly for decorations. Cull dead trees for structural supports. Use masonry, straw bales; paper crepe, cob, adobe, rocks, bags of volcanic rock, etc., instead of wood. Homes can be made with certified sustainable harvested trees. This means that the forests where the trees are cut down from are carefully monitored to ensure that the health and character of the forest is maintained. Only certain trees are culled periodically, leaving the remaining trees to grow and contribute to a healthy ecosystem.

Durability

One of the important elements of sustainable architecture is durability. If a building doesn’t stand the test of time, it would be a waste of energy, from all perspective, human, resource and economic.

Source: http://thegreen-home-living.com/sustainable-green-architecture

Any home can be pleasing with the proper application of basic interior design methods. Some people study interior design to be very good at it but there are people who are gifted with an eye for beauty and for interior designing.

A person who is creative can do some interior designing on his own even without formal training. Those who have an eye for what is aesthetic can just as easily decorate and design his own house depending on his tastes. Of course, it helps to read books and articles about designing to be updated on the basic and latest design methods.

Any interior designer can create a specific atmosphere just by putting together several pieces and unifying them in a single theme. There are interior designers who have a bias for certain motifs like eclectic, modern or even country style. Some go for simple designs without the clutter.

Interior design is not only aesthetic but also functional depending on the requirements of the client. An interior designer can make a small room spacious and an otherwise cluttered room into an orderly one. Interior design is used just about anywhere from homes, offices to commercial buildings.

The interiors of a room should always match the personality of the person who will occupy that room. This is the reason why designers always work closely with their clients so they can make sure that they get a feel of what their clients want in terms of design style.

People have this notion that interior design is expensive. However, designers are not only creative people but they are also very good in budgeting. Most designers will work on a design that will match or fit the budget of their clients. A person can allot a minimal amount for the interior design of his home or office and still come up with an aesthetic and functional room.

Professional interior designers who are formally trained usually have basic knowledge on architecture, engineering and even accounting. They need these courses to make their design aesthetic, structurally correct and cost effective.

The terms Interior design and interior decorating have often been used interchangeably. However, the two terms actually deal with different phases of making a room or a space aesthetic. Interior design is basically the process of studying the personality of the occupant of the room being designed in order to maximize and tailor-made the room’s design for that person’s behaviour and personality.

Interior decorating on the other hand is the process of actually mixing and matching the different design techniques like window treatments, the right wallpaper, wall finish and even the furnishing of a room.

There are a lot of opportunities for those in the interior design and decorating industry. An interior designer can go into designing household, corporate or commercial establishments. Others specialize in the design of health facilities or even tourism establishments.

The latest trend now for those in the interior design industry is to be able to incorporate the right engineering and aesthetic design with sustainable development. Even designers are now more conscious about the state of the environment so they tend to use environmentally friendly materials for their designs.

There are designers who specialize and use Feng Shui in their designs. This requires further study because Feng Shui deals with the Chinese’s ancient methods of designing a space to make the design work for the owner’s health, business and other life factors.

Feng Shui Bedroom Design

The Chinese believe that a structure should be properly designed so as to allow positive energy to enter the structure. When the structure has already been built without the aid of a Feng Shui expert, the mistakes can be corrected through proper interior design using the Feng Shui methods.

By incorporating Feng Shui in interior design, it is believed that a person can bring out all the positive energies in a room to make him rich, happy and healthy. An interior design using Feng Shui can also get rid of bad spirits that bring in negative atmosphere in an abode.

Getting the services of an interior designer can make a room both aesthetic and functional. Any person who wants to make his home liveable and functional should try getting the services of an interior designer to maximize his space.