Hotel Aire de Bardenas

Hotel Aire de Bardenas is located in the northern area of Spain, in the middle of a fairly rural area in the Bardenas Reales Nature Reserve. It's known for its minimalistic architecture and views into the open fields and it's basically an assembly of sleek boxes in the landscape. Two architects from Barcelona, Emiliano Lopez and Mónica Rivera, own the four star hotel with 22 rooms, some of which include an outside bathtub. The food is apparently fairly delicious and the hotel grows its own vegetables. 

Head over to the hotel's website and hit "Me gusta", it's a great concept and seriously well exectuted.

On a side note, I apologize for the slower pace of updates. I was gone for a while because of a small medical issue but I should be back to more or less full speed now. As usual, thanks for reading!

UtM House by Giovanni D'Ambrosio Architecture

One way to make yourself feel ignorant is being surprised when you see snow in Australia. The "Under the Moonlight" House is located in Mount Hotham, Australia, an area where skiing clubs are common, as well as snow, which isn't surprising seeing as Mount Hotham's summit reaches a quite respectable 1861 meters of altitude.

In any case, the house consists of carefully chosen materials that reflect the local historical background without seeming antique or misplaced in today's modern times. Stone, metal and glass each fulfull their purpose in the construction. The metal acts as a solid frame, the stone not only acts as a great structural base for the building, but also does a great job of seamlessly integrating the entire project into the environment and the large windows let sunlight in and give visual access to the great views of the surrounding landscape. Interestingly, one of the architect's key concepts was to "treat interior and external spaces as if they were the same", an idea that is accomplished by these large glass surfaces.

The architect's website is underconstruction but there is some more information here.

Lockout looks mindless - and fun

Behold the latest treat created for us by Luc Besson, the creative force behind Taken (one of our all-time favourite movies). His involvement alone alone has got us plenty excited about this film, which appears to embrace its own mindlessness to the fullest. Check out the trailer below.

Probably our favourite line from the trailer? "He's the best there is... but he's a loose cannon." At least you're left with no illusions about what sort of movie you're in for.

As you no doubt noticed, the plot is strikingly simple: all of Earth's worst criminals are kept in a space station prison. The President's daughter, played by Maggie Grace, visits said prison, and then all hell breaks loose. And Guy Pearce, in his role as the wise-cracking, smartarse Agent Snow, is the only one that can save her.

Two rather lengthy full clips of the movie have been made available, and they'll give you a pretty good idea of the sort of silliness we can expect from Luc Besson's latest film.

Watch the first five minutes of the movie below...

...and then check out this other promotional clip from further on in the movie.

It's doubtful that Lockout will win any Academy Awards this year, but it sure looks like a fun ride - we're looking forward to it!