First Full Bamboo School in Philippines Stands Up to Tough Stormwinds

As you may recall in the famous fairy tale, the three little pigs build homes of straw, brick and wooden sticks to avoid having their houses being huffed and puffed and blown down by a big bad wolf. In the end, the pig with the brick house triumphs, but in real life, a new school in the Philippines (where they know quite a bit about buildings being blown down by powerful tropical winds) has done one better by utilizing a flexible, storm resistant material that is also locally grown and rapidly renewable - bamboo. Designed by architect Eleena Jamil of Malaysia as the winning entry in the Millennium Schools competition organized by Illac Diaz's MyShelter Foundation, the structure was recently completed in Camarines Sur, and is proud to call itself the first full bamboo school in the Philippines.

The Date Farmers Create Striking Collages from Found Materials

Artists Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez, aka “The Date Farmers,” take regular trips from their homes in Southern California to scavenge Mexicali and Oaxaca for found materials to create their collaged art work. The pair pick up everything from cracker tins, old signs, and discarded toys to paper advertisements, stickers and bottle caps, which they then assemble and embellish with drawings and paintings.

Houston Hive is a Sustainable Village Made from 500 Shipping Containers

When you think of sustainable building and green architecture, Houston probably isn’t the first city to come to mind. But a group of Houston-based artists have created HIVE, a self-sustaining village and living work of art constructed from nearly 500 recycled shipping containers to be built in Houston. Inspired by a former artists colony founded by HIVE’s creative director, Nestor Topchy, HIVE will occupy a 6.5 acre wooded plot of land just outside the city center.