Enough talking, let’s get into this week’s architecture round-up! You can tune in every Friday to check out our top 10 weekly picks from the world of Architecture Design. Or click here for an archive of all our Architreasure posts.

1. It may not be aurora season yet, but this floating treehouse in Sweden is just the perfect spot for some Borealis-watching! The 7th Room by Snohetta is designed based on the traditional Nordic cabin, except it hovers 10 meters above the air and features a balcony with a full glass construction from top to bottom. There’s nothing quite like floating above the snow-laden floor, staring at the Northern Lights! You can even book the cabin for yourself here!

2. Why demolish a building when you can just build on it?! The Elbe Philharmonic Complex stands proudly ON TOP OF a warehouse on the Elbe river. Designed by Herzog and de Meuron (designers famed for the Beijing Olympic Stadium), this glass-fronted, wave shaped building sits right on top of another one, looking almost like a meringue on a pastry. Inside it are 3 concert halls, 205 hotel rooms, 45 private apartments, and a massive 43,000 square foot plaza that offers a stunning panoramic view of the city of Hamburg!

3. Famous for his vertical forest in Milan, Italian architect Stefano Boeri has unveiled plans for yet another vertical forest in China, a twin set of towers covered with trees and trailing plants in the center of Nanjing. With over a 1000 trees and 2500 other plants in it, the residential tower (with over 240 suites) has the capacity to produce 60 kilograms of Oxygen PER DAY!

4. Gathering inspiration from the sun, Studio Gang has revealed their design titled the Solar Carve, to be built in New York’s Meatpacking District, right off the Hudson. Taking cues from the sun’s angles, the building has chiseled cuts removed from the cuboid form of the building to prevent the blocking light and views. This also leads to the building having an almost gem-like appearance!

5. Ole Scheeren’s latest tower design looks like architecture met Minecraft, and it’s glorious! The 77-story MahaNakhon tower topped out at 314 meters, becoming the tallest building in Bangkok!

6. The Center for Jewish Life in the Drexel University, designed by Stanley Saitowitz & Natoma Architects certainly has an interesting facade. By making use of a 3D brick pattern, the building manages to appear in two different colors, when the shadows cast by the sun kick in. Each brick creates a shadow that somehow from afar makes the building look like it’s been striped with both dark and light red paint. However when you come up close, you realize that it’s just clever design!

7. The prefab home craze is back! It never left to begin with though. These homes designed by Vipp are termed as Battery Charging Stations for Humans… and truly so! Located amidst nature, who wouldn’t feel refreshed and rejuvenated after a weekend in this ready-to-live cabin in the woods!

8. Another one of Herzog & de Meuron’s wonders, the Beirut Terraces located in Lebanon feature multiple offset levels that create visual tension and drama, while looking stunning. Each level overhangs to an extent, creating multiple balconies and even terraces on every level. With no two levels being identical, there are parts of the balconies where you get shade, and other parts where you can bask in the sunlight.

9. These huts are like nothing we’ve seen before. The Jikka, by Issei Suma are located on a flattened mountain ridge, but their architectural style in ways, pay homage to the peaks of the mountain. Designed as a final abode for the clients (two women in their 60s), the mountain home is designed to be the place where they spend the rest of their lives, amidst nature.

10. Episode #6 could not end on a more high note than this next and last building. This is the entrance to Mitoseum… a Dinosaur Museum! Designed by rimpf ARCHITEKTUR, the building looks almost picked from Jurassic World, with its habitat center aesthetic. Making brilliant use of daylight during the day, and lighting up like a beacon at night, the entrance is sure to set the mood for the rest of the Museum/Theme-Park. Besides, with the life-size dinosaur sculptures inside, you’ll definitely grab the interest of passersby!

Whether it is a day at the office, a casual evening or a weekend away, the Lasso Sock was designed to provide comfort and security for every man. For ..

Just hours ago we were introduced to this mean machine, the BMW Motorrad Concept Link. Fresh from its reveal at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este 2017 in Italy, the Concept Link is BMW’s concept scooter aimed to usher in a new era of urban mobility.

The design of the Concept Link is by far the most interesting. The e-scooter is broad, dominating, low-slung, and you immediately notice the majority of horizontal straight lines making it feel like the scooter is zipping forward. Looking like it was picked right out of a transportation designer’s sketchbook, the scooter’s aesthetic and silhouette are immediately striking and novel. Showcasing BMW’s absolute love for the black/gray color combination, the Concept Link features electric orange highlights that stand out beautifully, almost like war-paint, giving the bike a sense of dynamism.

The sleek e-scooter doesn’t just showcase a different aesthetic, it boasts of a connected approach to transport. The Concept Link “knows what’s in the rider’s calendar and therefore his next destinations.” This allows the two-wheeler to plan the fastest route or even the most scenic. The design features two displays, a windshield HUD display shows vital stats like battery, speed, navigation, while a lower touch-capable screen is reserved for other functions.

The Concept Link is envisioned to be a fully electric, zero-emissions ride and even features a reverse gear. The seats are adjustable length-wise and we can’t get enough of the way the below-seat storage opens up! What’s more, BMW plans to launch a range of connected clothing that are compatible with the Concept Link. A specific touch-gesture on the sleeve of the connected-jacket, for instance, opens and closes the bike’s sliding cargo door! I’m so excited for the future!

Designer: BMW Motorrad

Images via BMW Motorrad

This Danish modern entry chest hails from the mid-1960s and is crafted in rosewood and copper.

Two drawers provide storage.

We’ve had a few other pieces with this same copper relief by Mobel Intarsa, which this chest may have been made by, but as it is unmarked, there is no way to definitively say who manufactured it.

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These “Mid Century Modern Find of the Week” posts are provided courtesy of Mid Century Møbler, which specializes in importing vintage Danish Modern and authentic Mid Century furniture from the 1950s and 1960s.

On an all-inclusive note that considers makers from all of New York City’s boroughs, WantedDesign continues to give design lovers not one, but two locales and experiences to visit during the NYCxDesign festivities. Each event in turn brings its own special flavor to the fair and exhibition mix. One fair, taking place in Wanted Design’s lovely headquarters in Industry City, focuses on the future and community: how has the current economic and political situation we live in shifted our perspective as designers? In what ways can designers around the world collaborate and communicate in order to create a better world? The Brooklyn respite included works from innovative students from around the globe as well as exhibitions organized by Oui Design, an organization dedicated to fostering great design between creatives in the US and France. The Brooklyn space also took some playful turns, even offering some delicious and unusual honey tastings.

On the other side of the bridge was Wanted’s Manhattan space, which honed in on the here and now by displaying beautiful renditions of form and function by working designers—the Manhattan fair offered up selections from small local furniture studios, a number of pieces featured in Salone’s Ventura Lambrate exhibit in Milan, as well as several interactive stations ruminating on topics such as immigration, news echo chambers, each one thought up by students in the SVA Products of Design Program.

WantedDesign Brooklyn

WantedDesign Brooklyn began with a nice spring opening party in the courtyard of their headquarters in Industry City.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

WantedDesign Brooklyn began with a nice spring opening party in the courtyard of their headquarters in Industry City.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

SVA’s MA Design Research Program manned a booth that visualized topics discussed in their recent thesis presentations. These Monopoly game pieces on display are part of graduate student Alexander Bevier’s research on the history of game design and how the objects and images them gain cultural relevance.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

For her thesis work, SVA MA Design Research grad Emma Ng’s looked at “food startups Blue Apron and Soylent, examining how their visions for food systems change filter down into the products, experiences, and social lives they design for their customers.” In conjunction with her research regarding food, her visual display at Wanted envisioned how a sort of apocalyptic survival cookbook of the future might read.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The welcoming “Honey bar” run by Green Island at the entrance of the Wanted Brooklyn space was a hit. The booth offered tasting of local honey served in a variety of innovative ways (they had all kinds of interesting honey variations, including a sour flavor).

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The University of Oregon’s new Sports Product Design Master’s degree program just launched last year and debuted some of their final projects from the first year at Wanted (more details from this exhibit in a later post!).

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

Outside the Box 6.0 was an exhibit at the Industry City space showcasing groupings of objects made by designers from specific geographic areas with prominent design communities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, New York and Montreal.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

Outside the Box 6.0 was an exhibit at the Industry City space showcasing groupings of objects made by designers from specific geographic areas with prominent design communities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, New York and Montreal.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

SVA’s Products of Design Program curated a speculative exhibition called “Coincident Times”, creating a number of conceptual products “for the present day that become catalysts towards their imagined futures.” More on what exactly they designed in a follow-up post.

Photo credit: Core77

WantedDesign Brooklyn

The SVA students created a fake news-esque newspaper brochure including future-gazing essays and images of their individual product designs.

Photo credit: Core77

View the full gallery here