External Brain

The High Museum of Art, designed by Richard Meier & Partners Architects, is a major public building and art repository that responds to the typological and contextual aspects of the museum’s program. The city of Atlanta’s progressive building tradition, as well as its role as a developing cultural center, had a strong influence on the design — via ArchDaily

Dock4 Architecture have designed the White Perrin house in Tasmania, Australia.

Situated on a steep site with sweeping views to the open ocean, this new dwelling was designed to make the most of it’s spectacular context. Views to the east are captured from every room of the house, while a 5 star energy efficiency rating was achieved through careful attention to the passage of the sun and high value double glazing and insulation — via CONTEMPORIST

Next month at Baselworld 2011 trade show, the Italian watchmaker will present an updated version of its Glycine Lagunare L1000 diving watch.

By the way, this is the first Glycine Lagunare that comes in a 44 millimeter case, which makes it 2 mm smaller than previous iterations of the diver. Being only 11.70 millimeters in height, it is also quite slim for a diving watch, which is rated for impressive 300 meters of depth.

Of course, playing in the second league, Glycine lacks resources to design and produce its own in-house calibers, so it is bound to use blank movements from third-party manufacturers. However, the Italian brand offers its watches with high-grade ETA 2824-2 automatic movements that are known for their robustness, reliability and accuracy: something that any mechanical tool watch really needs — via World Watch Review

German creative agency Dan Pearlman have redesigned the MTV Networks Headquarters in Berlin.

MTV Networks’ personnel can rejoice: with the redesigned and newly organized reception, meeting and break room areas at MTV headquarters, a long-held wish of employees becomes a reality and a once gloomy office complex on the Spree can finally function as the head offices– via CONTEMPORIST

This residence, designed by TOFU, is located in villa subdivision in Shiga, Japan. There are rich natural environments with Lake Biwa in thesoutheast and Mount Hira in the northwest. Therefore in the first stage, we have decided to use cedar panels as exterior material. The exterior wall is colored with three colors and attached gradation patterns, so the abstract wood texture comes and gives us a massive impression — via ArchDaily

With the new Bulgari Octo Quadri-Retro Chronograph automatic watch the Italian jewelry brand keeps on consolidating the legacy of the famous watch manufacturer Gerald Genta.

This particular model, for example, is a face-lifted and rebadged version of the Gerald Genta Arena Chrono Quattro Retro wristboard automatic watch that was presented two years at Baselworld 2009 if memory serves me well.

Originally inspired by dashboards of classic American muscle cars, the watch featured four retrograde indicators (minutes at 12 o’clock, date at 6, a chronograph 12-hour totalizer at 9 and a 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock) as well as a jumping hour indicator at 12 o’clock — via World Watch Review

The project, designed by Atelier Zündel & Cristea, which included medical offices and consultation rooms, called for the creation of two separate divisions, each to be established on its own floor. Sixteen parking spaces were requested in the basement, along with a boiler, and space for technical and archival premises — via ArchDaily

Passive House is an increasingly popular low-energy standard. Passive Houses must be airtight (0.60 ACH at 50 Pascals) and low energy (4.75 kBTU/ft2/year max heating and cooling demand and 38 kBTU/ft2/year maximum primary demand) — requirements that slash energy demand by about 90% — via Jetson Green

Indoor pools conjure images of giant rooms dedicated to swimming, or bathroom sauna-and-spa extensions … somehow, the concept of a small pool right in the middle of your living room seems impractical, but still strangely compelling.

A retractable roof turns this portion of the elongated interior into a partial courtyard-on-demand – a modest outdoor space for a townhouse with shared party walls on either side and nowhere to access the outdoors from within, except via skylights — via Dornob

This construction, designed by Ulisses Morato de Andrade, occupies the top of a hillside and is projected over an immense valley framed with a chain of mountains, a predominant relief in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. In the surroundings of Nova Lima – MG, where the construction was erected, a considerable part of the houses are influenced by the language of Portuguese colonial architecture and uses manual techniques of construction — via ArchDaily

The challenge for the Arkansas House was to reassemble a fire-damaged home and introduce possibilities for re-thinking the house’s spatial character by adding new elements. The design had to be completed in three weeks and the details were resolved after construction began – one fragment at a time. Marlon Blackwell Architect were allowed to work only in the fire-damaged zones of the existing house (exterior and interior), leaving the remainder untouched beyond new windows and a new HVAC system — via ArchDaily