i hope those pillars are strong

below is the recently (2003) extended runway at funchal airport in portugal. the original 1400m runway was notoriously short and, as a result, sometimes dangerous for landing planes. the runway extension won the iabse’s ‘outstanding structures award’ and rightly so: due to an obvious lack of land, engineers have supported the extension on 180 pillars, each 70m high. on the last photo you can see the presumably noisey car park that now lives under the end of the runway.

living on a landfill

welcome to irisan, a barangay (village) in baguio city, the philippines’ ’summer city’. there are around 125 barangays in bagiuo city and the majority of the the rubbish/waste they all produce lands at this landfill site which has developed into an enormous, presumably horrific smelling mountain, nestled amongst the housing you see above. if you look closely you can see some locals milling around at the top, most probably earning their living from the surroundings.

10 stunning ultra-geeky home cinemas

huge screens, incredible sound systems and luxurious seats are popping up in seemingly spare rooms and basements larger than my entire flat. however this is also giving a few movie geeks a real chance to shine and it seems they’re not content with a simple in-home movie theatre decent enough to hold a premiere in. so, in no particular order, here are 10 of the best, geekiest, themed home cinemas on earth…

4 more stupidly cool research facilities

the joint european torus (jet) is the largest nuclear fusion experimental reactor on earth and is also a unique facility for researching fusion technology. jet is an example of a ‘tokamak’, a machine which produces an extremely strong, doughnut shaped magnetic field in order to confine a plasma. in jet’s case these plasmas can reach temperatures in excess of 100 million degrees centigrade…

the world’s most controversial boardgames

how different would christmas day be if, after dinner, your dad gathered the family around the table and opened a game like ‘war on terror’ or ’serial killer: the board game’? amazingly, this may have happened for some as all of the board games below have been / are still available to buy and each one has caused some degree of controversy, the reasons for which will quickly become apparent. some of them are pretty horrible and their inclusion in this list does not in any way condone their creation.

5 fascinating ‘alternative’ school premises

the majority of tourists who visit vietnam (around 90%) will end up at halong bay, a huge stretch of coastline containing nearly 2′000 islands of varying size. surrounding many of the islands are floating villages - small communities of locals who have probably never lived on solid ground. above is one of many floating schools to be found dotted around the shores, flanked by school boats, the floating village’s equivalent to a school bus. in case you can’t read the sign…

israel’s bizarre uphill subway system

maybe i live a sheltered life but i’ve never been more surprised by a public transport system than when i came across this little beauty. it’s called the carmelit, it runs underground in the citry of haifa, israel and it’s the country’s only subway system. due to the city being located on the side of mount carmel, the entire single track ‘funicular’ system has been designed to accomodate the incline, hence the strange stepped stations and diagonal trains.

the world’s nicest social-housing complex?

welcome to alt-erlaa, a social housing complex in vienna.

built between 1973 and 1985, this incredible, government funded 27-storey complex accomodates approximately 10′000 low-income residents amongst a healthy amount of greenery. as you can see, the blocks are topped with outdoor swimming pools, but the facilities available to residents don’t end there…

(another) 5 extremely cool research facilities

i’m currently hooked on these structures so, hot on the heels of the first 5, here’s another bunch of amazing facilities and fascinating machines that have been created for research purposes.

5 unbelievably cool research facilities

otherwordly structures, massive machines, surreal technology….

some incredible beasts have been constructed in the name of research and below are 5 of the most immediately intriguing…