Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck has transformed the refectory of a Jacobian convent in Toulouse into a multi-sensory art installation for the Printemps de Septembre Festival. A wooden path leads visitors through sand dunes and camping outposts, with barren trees and a simple strand of light marking the route. Garden of Whispers is perfectly synchronized with Op de Beeck’s view of “man as a being who stages the world around him in a tragi-comic way.” The work stimulates the sense and invites viewers to experience the environment through the visual, olfactory, and auditory.

A soundtrack of whispering voices fills the space, which at once seems both empty and full. Visitors are encouraged to meditate on the space, and while they will find references to mythology, religion, and history in the small tableaus set up throughout the installation, the artist’s aim is to create a timeless experience outside known references. Performance is also incorporated into the work, with figures carrying out mundane acts staged throughout. Occasionally, these figures may offer tea to spectators. 

The ephemera—pots, pans, glass bottles, bedding—that greets visitors as they make their way down the wooden path creates a sense of arriving in an inhabited space or perhaps a land recently abandoned. How the viewer fills that space is left to the imagination, as the artist leaves visitors room to interpret his creation.

Garden of Whispers is on view until November 27 at the Couvent des Jacobins in Toulouse, France. 

Hans Op de Beeck: Website | Facebook
via [designboom]

All images via Studio Hans Op de Beeck

Australian architecture firm ArchiBlox has created an eco-friendly home that was constructed in just six weeks’ time. Known as the Avalon House, it’s a modular green-roofed home that was prefabricated off-site and then installed on a gorgeous beach side property in New South Wales.

While the 106-square-meter Avalon House may be cozy in size, the designers set large sights on sustainability. The house faces the ocean—whose east-west orientation promotes cross-ventilation—and is also topped with a living roof that minimizes rainwater runoff and solar penetration. This vibrant green roof also acts as thermal mass.

ArchiBlox has a “strong focus on quality, service, and transparency” to ensure that their clients are provided a solution that best reflects the environment and their lifestyle. Based on the surroundings and future inhabitants, this project features main facades facing north with windows minimized on the south side. The resulting bright and airy interior allows for an open-plan living area, dining space, and kitchen on one half of the home, while a master bedroom, a two-bed bedroom, and a bathroom occupy the other half.

The concept behind Avalon House is described by ArchiBlox as, “Embedded within the earth, the beautifully crafted dwelling creates an enriched experience within the environment. Immersed in the serenity of its surroundings, the house creates an endless and continuously changing source of visual and aural beauty.” The water-front views provide “visual connection to water [and] further creates an undulating calming visual and aural effect. The dwelling promises to offer a serene environment enduring the effects of time.”

Learn more about the Avalon House and other prefabricated modular buildings on ArchiBlox’s website.

ArchiBlox: Twitter | Facebook | Youtube | Pinterest | Instagram
via [Inhabitat, ArchDaily]

All images via ArchiBlox.

While some people chronicle their traveling adventures with a camera, artist Clover Robin uses a slightly less typical tool: a pair of scissors.

The London-based illustrator and designer “delights in nature and all things botanical” and is known for her creative and colorful collages that feature everything from fruits and veggies to scenes of the seaside. Never short on inspiration, she often crafts collages on-the-spot to “sketch” her surroundings, whether outside, inside, or—in the case of her recent road trip along the West Coast of Canada and the United States—from the passenger’s seat of a cruising car.

In each paper piece, she depicts a stylized scene that, to her, symbolizes every unique destination. Towering redwood trees commemorate California, while Oregon is represented by a lakeside cabin and Arizona materializes as a cluster of cacti. Though most of her road trip collages depict scenic landscapes, Robin was also inspired by less majestic encounters, like a scattered assemblage of Canadian maple leaves and even a massive pile of gooey chili cheese fries. 

You can leaf through all of Clover Robin’s charming collages on her Etsy site.

Clover Robin: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Etsy | Blog 
via [Brown Paper Bag]

All images via Clover Robin.

According to Gabriella Cardoso and Eduardo Lima, the couple that surfs together, stays together.

Cardoso and Lima have created Tandem Surf Brasil, an Instagram account that documents their aquatic and acrobatic adventures. Tandem surfing is a Hawaiian sport in which two people share a surfboard and perform impressive tricks and spectacular stunts. The water sport requires an immense amount of skill, athleticism, and commitment, and Cardoso and Lima chronicle the extensive training involved—both on land and in the sea—in their comprehensive collection of photos. 

To the dedicated duo, however, the sport is much more than just surfing in style; it’s a way for them to grow closer as a couple and work together as a team. Cardoso notes that, in order to master each move, they must help each other and constantly communicate. The results? A better technique, stronger bond, and “romance among four elements; a board, a ban, a woman, and a wave.”

Tandem Surf Brasil: Instagram | Facebook 
via [Instagram Blog]

All images via Tandem Surf Brasil. 

It was his first attempt shooting lava, but it certainly won’t be his last after photographer Mike Mezeul II ended up with an epic shot in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park. Photographing lava has been a goal of Mezeul’s, as he’s always been fascinated by lava and volcanoes. After several evenings spent looking for surface flows, the adventurous photographer braved a nearly 13 mile roundtrip hike on his last night to capture the lava flow he’d been monitoring. 

The fiery red glow of the lava is set off against the violet sky, with Mezeul able to capture the moon, Milky Way, and a meteor in one shot—it’s certainly a photograph of a lifetime.  ”I was literally in shock,” he says. “It was my third frame to shoot after the sun had set, and after I saw the meteor, I knew I couldn’t beat that image, so I packed it up and headed back.”

In such a perilous environment, safety was certainly a concern. “As far as fears go, I was scared. I have chased tornadoes and severe weather, and I know those environments real well, but this was a whole new beast,” confesses Mezeul. “I met with a local friend, Bruce Omori, who is one of the best lava photographers I know, and picked his mind on advice and how to be safe.”

Such a unique image set off comments that the photograph couldn’t have been a single frame, but Mezeul confirms this was not the case. “Images like these are indeed possible with the right conditions and knowledge of gear. I’ve had a few people apologize and state they were jealous after I showed them the RAW file and explained the shot,” Mezeul shares.

Photo of a lifetime? Almost, but not quite—Mezeul reserves this image as his most memorable. Enjoy more stunning lava photographs from Mezeul, who also teaches photography workshops, below.

Mike Mezeul II: Website | Facebook | Instagram
via [Petapixel]

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by Mike Mezeul II

The stunningly modern Shanghai Tower borrows its name from the city in which it’s located. Designed by San Francisco-based firm Gensler, the structure rises high above the horizon line and is now China’s tallest building at 632 meters tall—making it an iconic part of the bustling skyline. The multi-use space is home to offices, entertainment venues, a luxury hotel, conference center, and other cultural amenities.

Boasting a futuristic look and feel, the 121-story skyscraper features a transparent, spiral form whose interior build is visible from the outside, giving us a firsthand look at the structure’s inner-workings. Once you’re inside, however, you realize that the exterior view doesn’t do it justice—the design has graceful, flowing curves that turn ordinary ceiling beams and window treatments into abstract works of art.

The Shanghai Tower has recently had the immense honor of winning the American Architecture Prize’s (AAP) Architectural Design of the Year. They note that the building is influential on a global architecture scale, but that it “also points the way forward for technical innovation accomplished within the parameters of a Chinese cultural identity.” Continuing, “…its function, identify, and symbolism are firmly rooted in the needs of its specific site.” Check out the other winners of the 2016 AAP here.

Gensler: Website
American Architecture Prize: Website

All photos by Connie Zhou.

My Modern Met granted permission to use photos by David Teravagimov.

Neurobiologist Igor Siwanowicz marries science and art with these incredibly-detailed images taken with a confocal laser-scanning microscope. Using the hi-tech device, he uncovers the invisible world of small creatures such as barnacles, moths, and beetles. Siwanowicz, who has won awards for his photography, works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus and uses this special microscope as creative escape from his stressful work. “You need creative outlets,” he shares. “Especially photography, where the magic happens in a split second where you press the shutter. You’re not dwelling in the past, or thinking about the future. You’re in the moment. It was very therapeutic for me.”

The confocal laser-scanning microscope has the ability to capture an unparalleled amount of detail in comparison to a lens-based microscope. It works by taking multiple photographs at different levels of focus, reconstructing them into a single high-resolution, depth-enhanced image. The surreal colors are owed to fluorescent dyes used to illuminate the samples, making these minuscule creatures seem extraterrestrial.

Siwanowicz’s images highlight the beautiful complexity of nature. Even the smallest of creatures contains millions of details, contrasted all the more by the glowing colors of the photographs. The element of surprise is part of the fascination for Siwanowicz, as not even he is sure of what he will discover until the image is finalized. Discover more of his microscope photography here.

Above image: Acilius diving beetle male front tarsus (foot) 100x

Barnacle

Midge Pupa

Moth antennae

Moth antennae (detail)

Paraphyses and Sporangia

Front leg of whirligig beetle

Isopod appendage

Igor Siwanowicz: Website | Facebook
via [Colossal]

All images via Igor Siwanowicz