Instead of being built on top of the soil, the whole structure rests on over 300 isolators. These giant bearings let the building move laterally during an earthquake. After Istanbul got rocked by a magnitude 7.4 monster in 1999, and another major quake predicted to occur within the next 30 years, you can see why engineers decided to make this massive building shake-resistant.

As terrible as a massive earthquake would be, it would be incredible to see a building this huge move from side to side. Maybe we will in a future “World’s Strongest Man” event. [Wired]

The Japanese maple in Jeff Dauber’s San Francisco backyard is not at the centre of a carbon-sucking vortex. Sorry, sci-fi fans, but the Berkeley-based architect Thom Faulders’s perfectly flat deck only looks like its far corner has its own warped gravity. Ever since Francesco Borromini’s Gallery Spada, in Rome, forced perspectives and architectural patronage have gone hand in hand, but whereas the Renaissance architect employed a mathematician to make that arcade seem longer through foreshortening, Faulders used 3-D–modelling software to achieve Deformscape’s dipping effect.

“I wanted someone to barf when they look at it,” says Dauber

So Dauber serves guests burgers on the built-in grill only to get a perverse satisfaction when they puke it up later on. Nice. But the weirdness doesn’t end there. Faulders also designed much of the interior space of the home, turning it into a bachelor pad/art gallery with crazy walls and ceilings that appear to undulate. Needless to say, if you suffer from motion sickness don’t hang out with this man. [Metropolis via Fast Company]

Hold me, I feel like puking after watching this video from the top of the Burj Dubai, the tallest man-made point on Earth. The shaking? That’s because the tower’s wobbling. Vertigo, uggghhhhh. [YouTube via Skyscraper Forums via Mahoney's Playground]

$US35,000 was the final bid in a charity auction that will take the winner and a small group of friends around the Gates’ Lake Washington property, with the house pater familias as the exclusive tour guide. Last year, the winning bid was only $US8600.

If I had tons of money to spare, I’d probably bid next year. I’m curious to see his house. Can I play Natal with him? Who is his favourite painter? Can I browse through his record collection? And his personal, dearest bookshelf? Do his sofas have plastic covers? Can I open the fridge and make a sandwich? Oh well, since that is not going to happen, I’ll just watch the 3D video like everyone else.

[Techflash]

They are not just light sources, however. These LED towers also collect rainwater and funnel sunlight to the multiple levels of the 1km long Expo Boulevard. [World Architecture News via Inhabitat]

The giant bubbles would be structural, decorative and be used to project weather info, spectator numbers and race results. They’d be constructed from of a type of plastic called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), the same stuff used to build the Beijing Aquatic Centre.

The Cloud has been shortlisted in the competition set up by London’s Mayor, and has been called “a sculptural spectacle, and a celebration of technology” by the senior curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The designers intend to build The Cloud using micro-donations from millions of people. One of the architects, who’s from MIT told the BBC: “We can build our Cloud with £5m or £50m. The flexibility of the structural system will allow us to tune the size of the Cloud to the level of funding that is reached.”

I hope they get all the cash they need, because that design is straight out of my sci-fi dreams. [The Cloud via BBC] Thanks Tom!

According to Panasonic, their system controls lighting to guarantee “good sleeping”. I don’t know about you but, to me, “good sleeping” means a large bed, a good doona and someone special to spoon with all night. Still, if you want to get close to the experience of hibernation in a deep space vessel, this is the place to go. [9hours via 9h]

These images of the bridge — called the Mike O’Callaghan-Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge — were shot in September 2009 as the 323m twin-rib concrete arch advances towards its late 2010 opening. The $US240 million, 610m bridge is part of a larger project, a 5.6km corridor that begins in Clark County, Nevada and ends in Mohave County, Arizona. [Hoover Dam Bypass via Industrial Interface via DRB]

The building is made up of 14,000 equilateral triangles. Some are solar panels, some are windows and others just fill out the structure. The net result is a building that manages to mask the black behemoths you’re used to seeing.

I love how the exterior influences the interior lighting, not to mention how great it all looks when lit up. [Inhabitat]