Bio Bay

The Bioluminescent Bay (also known as Puerto Mosquito, Mosquito Bay, or "The Bio Bay"), is perhaps the world's largest and brightest[citation needed]. The luminescence is caused by micro-organisms (dinoflagellates) which glow whenever the water is disturbed, leaving a trail of neon blue. A combination of factors create the necessary conditions for bioluminescence: red mangrove trees surround the water (the organisms feed off the dead leaves); a complete lack of modern development around the bay; the water is cool enough and deep enough; and a small channel to the ocean keeps the dinoflagellates in the bay. This small channel is the result of Spanish ships' attempts to choke off the bay from the ocean's waters. The Spanish believed that the bioluminescence they first encountered was the work of the Devil and tried to block the ocean's waters from entering the bay by dropping huge boulders in the channel. The Spanish only succeeded in preserving and increasing the luminescence. Kayaking is permitted in the bay and can be arranged through local vendors. Swimming is allowed on limited basis through guided tours.

Mingun Paya

The Mingun temple is a monumental uncompleted stupa began by King Bodawpaya in 1790. It was not completed, due to an astrologer claiming that, once the temple was finished, the king would die. The completed stupa would have been the largest in the world at 150 meters. Huge cracks are visible on the structure from the earthquake of 23 March 1839, Like many large pagodas in Myanmar, a Pondaw paya or working model of the stupa can be seen nearby. King Bodawpaya also had a gigantic bell cast to go with his huge stupa, the Mingun Bell weighing 90 tons, and is today the largest ringing bell in the world. The weight of the bell in Burmese measurement, is 55,555 viss or peiktha (1 viss = 1.63 kg), handed down as a mnemonic "Min Hpyu Hman Hman Pyaw", with the consonants representing the number 5 in Burmese astronomy and numerology.

Pando

Pando (or The Trembling Giant) is a clonal colony of a single male Quaking Aspen located in the U.S. state of Utah, all determined to be part of a single living organism by identical genetic markers and one massive underground root system, although whether it is a single tree is disputed. The plant is estimated to weigh collectively 6,000,000 kg (6,600 short tons),making it the heaviest known organism. The root system of Pando is estimated to be among the oldest known living organisms in existence at 80,000 years of age. Pando is located in the Fishlake National Forest, near Fish Lake on the Fish Lake Plateau located at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau in South-central Utah. The name "Pando" was chosen because it is Latin for "I spread."

Swiss Bunkers - Fake Rock

Who would have thought that peaceful Switzerland could have produced camouflaged architecture during the cold war: fake upper-middle-class houses, fake farmhouses, fake rocks, etc. Fake buildings are in general always cool in one way or another and that some fake trees actually are a highly sophisticated missile detector are of course supercool.

Noah's Ark

The Genesis narrative tells how God, grieved by the wickedness of mankind, decided to destroy the corrupted world. However, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the lord", so God instructs Noah to build the Ark and take on board his family and representatives of the animals and birds. The flood rises to cover the Earth, but at its height "God remembered Noah", the waters abate, and dry land appears. God promises never to do it again, displaying a rainbow as a guarantee. Great project.

Crazy Horse Memorial

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the form of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 10 km away from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture's final dimensions are planned to be 195 m wide and 172 m high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 27 m high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 18 m high. The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is still far from completion. If finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture.

Place Djemma El Fna

Djemma el Fna, the "Meeting Place of the Dead", a suitably chilling phrase which conjures an aura of exoticism and savage justice to an otherwise fully functional public square, has continued unabated for centuries. By day it serves as a venue where magicians, fortune tellers, herbalists, acrobats, monkey handlers, snake charmers, dentists, astrologers, numerologists, and sorcerers create intriguing displays of bewitching spectacle. By night, the square transforms into a symphony of mystical brotherhoods and night musicians: the Aissoua, Derkaoua, Hamadasha, Jilila, and Gnaoua. Free from the restrictions and expectations of light entertainment for a tourist crowd, this "Rendezvous of the Dead" is where the performances animate the audience and musicians alike into an elevated spiritual congress colliding in sonorous ecstacy.

Palace of the People

The second largest building in the world (Pentagon is No. 1) has never been finished,The construction works started in 1983. The palace stands 12 storeys high with over 1000 halls and rooms and massive underground basements. There is a nuclear bunker, underground parking that could accommodate Buckingham Palace and a lobby stretching for 300 ft. The rooms are lavishly decorated in gold leaf and marble and over 4500 chandeliers (of 11,000 originally planned) hang in the Palace. This enormous building was originally known as the Casa Popularii, The House of The People, but the people instead coined it Casa Nebunului - the Madman's House."An entire quarter of the old town with 26 churches and over 7000 homes was destroyed to make room for the palace. In 1989 the dictator and his family fled the enraged crowd by helicopter from the roof of the building. It didn't help them much.

Mar del Plastico

Mar del Plastico is a gigantic agricultural region in Almería province southern Spain and a workplace for thousands of illegal immigrants. The roofs of tens of thousands of closely packed plastic greenhouses forms this Sea of plastic (Mar del plástico).The glossy roofs making this place one of the most recognizable spots on the planet for passing satellites.

Shwedagon Pagoda

"Then, a golden mystery upheaved itself on the horizon, a beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the sun, of a shape that was neither Muslim dome nor Hindu temple-spire. It stood upon a green knoll, and below it were lines of warehouses, sheds, and mills. Under what new god, thought I, are we irrepressible English sitting now?" - Rudyard Kipling

Kafka Castle

Often referred to as a resort, Kafka Castle is an apartment complex consisting of 90 apartments, a swimming pool, sauna, bar, and restaurants. Even though, the Kafka Castle maintains some programmatic similarities of a typical Spanish apartment building, the design of the apartment complex differs greatly. The complex is an assemblage of prefabricated cubes that are based on two mathematical equations that generate their placement in relationship to the vertical circulation towers in addition to the overall site design. Bofill and his team employed two equations that would lead to the volumetric design of Kafka Castle. The first equation generated the number of room capsules that plug into the stair towers. While the second equation determined the height of each spiral progression around the stair towers. Aside from the prefabricated elements, the two equations provided a non standardized design based solely off a generative process that created volumetric overlapping and close proximal juxtapositions that begin to create interior voids within the cubic composition. The pods, or cubes, are small prefabricated units that because of their size and scale to the overall organizational system only contain one room or space allowing for each pod to have a direct connection to the centralized stair tower. The cubes are designed in such a manner that each cube contains one important spatial element to the overall construction of the apartment units. One cube may have a bathroom-bedroom or they may have a living room-dining room combination. The apartments are then created through the combination of the different units that are all connected through various level changes within the interior of the units. Coincidentally, around the same time Moshe Safdie was building a similar scheme, Habitat 67, in Montreal, Canada for Expo 67. Both projects explore the cellular housing typologies that branch out from a central organization system in addition to the diverse spatial qualities that are generated from a more unitized and porous design.