Sweet privacy Designed for teenagers, this inflatable room ("personal mobile inflatable bag-room") and air mattress fits into a bag.

http://www.designboom.com/contest/view.php?contest_pk=8&item_pk=4218&p=1  ¶ 2:08 PM 0 comments

  Furnishings An "illuminated, self standing, polyethylene bathtub". I prefer the "neutral/white" to the somewhat less subtle nuclear-reactor green.



http://www.gnr8.biz/ltt.html  ¶ 11:17 PM 0 comments

  "Plastics." Not housing, but innovative nonetheless.


A biodegradable cell phone case that contains a seed that germinates once it's recycled.



http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000257021952/


A plastic that's 90% cornstarch, and which completely disperses after adding water.



http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000257021952/

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/051002/kyodo/d8d072eg0.html  ¶ 10:41 PM 0 comments

  15 most expensive hotels Forbes tours the 15 most expensive hotel rooms in the world, ranging in price from $5,000 to $25,000.

So what exactly do you get when you're spending between $5,000 and $25,000 for a hotel room, which is the range of our list? Space is the most obvious. All of the rooms on the list are huge, averaging more than 5,000 square feet, and that is not counting terraces and balconies--and the occasional private cinema. The other amenity is service. Most of these hotel rooms come with a personal butler or a chauffeured Rolls-Royce at your disposal. Those that do not have a butler or assistant on hand have an implied "anything you want" rule.

http://www.forbes.com/2002/03/07/0307feat.html  ¶ 10:39 PM 0 comments

  Ithaa Not housing per se, but still interesting.

"Ithaa, which means pearl in Dhivehi, is the world's first-ever undersea restaurant, secured five meters below sea level, at Rangali Island of Hilton Maldives Resort & Spa. The five- by nine-meter restaurant has a capacity of 14 people and is encased in a transparent acrylic roof offering 270° of panoramic view to its customers."

I mostly like it because it reminds me of the Isaac Asimov short story "Waterclap".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaa  ¶ 10:35 PM 0 comments

  VIP capsule hotels, Japan Speaking of capsule housing, Japanese hotels are starting to offer VIP rooms.

"Nearly everybody who uses a capsule hotel does so with the realization that they're no-frills kinds of places that are basically just somewhere to sleep," a spokesman for Capsule Inn Shinbashi tells Spa! "We figured that if our places are just for sleeping, we should do what we can to make that sleep an awesome experience. And that's how our VIP Rooms started."


http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20050929p2g00m0dm020000c.html  ¶ 10:30 PM 0 comments

  dasparkhotel Das Park Hotel in Linz is remniscient of Japanese capsule hotels, but in the form of 'tube suites'. Now I want to visit Linz.






http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/006869.php

http://www.dasparkhotel.net/index.php?lang=EN  ¶ 10:24 PM 0 comments