Dome home on pensacola beach florida

The Dome Homein Pensacola Beach, Florida, constructed to withstand hurricane force winds, has proved its worth! While most of the homes around it were destroyed or heavily damaged, the Dome Home was basically unharmed.

The ‘Waldspirale’ (Forest Spiral) in Darmstadt, Germany

The ‘Waldspirale’ (Forest Spiral) in Darmstadt, Germany was the final architectural masterpiece designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser before he passed away. It’s an apartment complex with 105 units, an interior courtyard with stream, a restaurant and a cocktail bar near the top of the tower. The roof is planted with grass and shrubs.

Incredible house made with snow

It’s quite the man cave. Jimmy Grey says he’s been out of work for almost a year and needed a project to stay busy. So with the heavy snowfall this winter, the 25-year-old laborer got to work on an extreme igloo in his family’s yard in Aquilla (ah-KWIL’-uh), about 30 miles east of Cleveland. His four-room creation has 6-foot ceilings and an entertainment room. He powers the TV with an extension cord plugged into an outlet in the garage. He also ran wires for cable television with surround-sound stereo. Grey says candles help add ambiance for nighttime get-togethers with friends, and the freezing temperatures mean that the beer never goes warm.

The Most Amazing Rock House

This home gives the phrase “have you been living under a rock?” a whole new meaning. The house, built into a gigantic boulder, sits near the coast of Portugal. Search homes for sale and for rent in New York.

Dream Home : The Luxury Casa Son Vida 1

This 8,500-square-foot, crazy home in Mallorca, Spain is actually a renovation of a 1960s Mediterranean villa – though you’d never know it from its uber-modern facade. “Casa Son Vida 1 aims to redefine the notion of the luxury villa by moving most of the paradigms of luxury towards a more contemporary and forward-looking expression of architecture and technology. The project pushes the envelope in every direction and every sense; it is highly sustainable, basically off-the-grid, gives an unheard of sense of space and place, explores new construction technologies, and enters into a critical dialogue with the decorated box buildings in its vicinity. Casa Son Vida 1 is unavoidably exuberant and unabashedly outrageous,” the architects say.

Toilet Shaped House in South Korea

Oh poo! This toilet-shaped house – named Haewoojae, which means “a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries” – was designed by the chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association, who hopes that it will bring attention to the world’s sanitation problems, according to Freshome.com. It is located in Suweon, which is south of Seoul, Korea.

Wisconsin’s Futuro house

The blog Hooked on Houses recently dug up photos of Wisconsin’s Futuro house, known as the “UFO house” because it’s, well, shaped like a spaceship. The good news: looks like you can rent it for a summer vacation.

The AURA Residence on the island of Cyprus

The AURA Residence on the island of Cyprus is a “very modern and futuristic-looking villa” that is being entered into the World Architecture Awards. “The philosophy behind the (exterior) design of The AURA Residence was based on the Great Wave off Kanagawa, a famous woodblock printing by the Japanese artist Hokusai.

Most Awe-Inspiring American Monuments

1. Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA
Once the world’s longest suspension bridge, the 1.7-mile Golden Gate has since been surpassed in size-but not in beauty. Hundreds of people walk the span from San Francisco to Sausalito each day, so you’ll want to plan wisely. Bypass the two-hour meters at the overcrowded main lot off S.F.’s Merchant Road in favor of ample free parking at Crissy Field Center (crissyfield.org). There, fair-trade coffee awaits at the Warming Hut Café & Bookstore, a whitewashed shed near the shore that’s the perfect place to fuel up for the gentle, half-mile Bay Trail to the bridge. The Golden Gate’s best-kept secret: Although it’s closed to pedestrians after sunset, gates are opened for star-gazing cyclists. We wouldn’t dare rank nation’s natural assets—who could choose between Yosemite and Yellowstone? But the man-made attractions? You bet. Behold, our picks for the country’s most epic buildings, monuments, and engineering feats, with advice for navigating them smarter, better, and with fewer crowds.