The best way to experience a foreign city is to live amongst its locals the way the locals do. If Porto, Portugal is on your itinerary (and it should be), the Hotel Favorita can provide the sense of localized immersion that a major hotel cannot. Hotel Favorita is built into a pair of thin, four-flat buildings which retain the flavor of apartment living in Porto. The bedrooms, dining area, lounge and patio feel like home, but are given a subtle, high-style treatment that is so inviting to the design traveler....

The Cold Brew Coffee Craze In the United States, over 400 million cups of coffee are drunk daily by 64% of the population. It is the most popular hot beverage in the world and is also a classic starting point for any good date or budding love story. However, the days of ordering a coffee and getting a hot beverage in return are gone. There is now far more to coffee than just coffee....

Whether you’re taking a bottle of wine over to a friend’s place, out and about for a romantic picnic, or simply anywhere that doesn’t have a fully stocked kitchen, you’ll most likely have to come up with some creative ways to remove the cork. Lucky for you, this problem isn’t a new one, and people have been coming up with ways to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew for centuries....

Kew House 3 by Vibe Design Gallery

The new Lamborghini Egoista Concept is designed to celebrate Lamborghini’s 50th anniversary, one that spans a collection of some of the most exciting vehicles ever built. From our favorite, the mid-80s Lamborghini Countach to the modern day Aventador and now the Egoista, there is plenty to celebrate. The Lamborghini Egoista was first shown off at the Grand Giro d’Italia this week, and we expect many similar stops in its future....

A project by MIT Media Labs – known as CityHome– seeks to change that. CityHome is quite literally a house in a box. The machine is the size of a closet, and stows a bed, dining room table, kitchen surface, cooking range, closet, and storage container. Any of these elements can be called forth or retracted with something as simple as a gesture or a voice command. Not only that, once it’s installed, the entire module can move several feet in either direction, extending or compacting a room at will....

Lamborghini Egoista Concept It doesn’t get much more exotic than a Lamborghini built for one. The Lamborghini Egoista Concept was revealed in 2013 as one of the most unique Lamborghinis ever envisioned, a supercar-class vehicle with a single seat in its cockpit. The Egoista is powered by a 600hp 5.2L V10 engine, which seems like overkill for a vehicle designed to transport one passenger. Overkill might be the whole point– its designed to provide the ultimate in Lamborghini performance for a single driver, like a batmobile for an Italian Bruce Wayne....

SALT Siida is a student architecture program in Norway that designs and constructs lodgings on the island of Sandhornøya. The island is dynamic and pristine, and the structures are inspired by Arctic nomadic construction methods that took place here centuries ago. Unlike their forebears, the student architects of SALT Siida use modern materials to construct these nomadic lodgings. The Nomadic Shelter is built almost entirely out of 2×4’s from bottom to top....

In addition to the infinity pool, which is an obvious features to point out, there is an abundance of transparent, teak framed, sliding doors which allow for the opening and closing of the various internal spaces. The architects say this allows the city to “merge into the apartment,” but also serves to regulate the climate and give residents an unhindered look at the sky line. As they describe on their website: “The levels of transparency and exposure are regulated using various methods of shading....

Resting just off the great Niagara River in Niagara Falls, Ontario is the Riverhouse Niagara by ZERAFA STUDIO. This horizontal habitat is comprised of two rectangular sections that create two floors and 4700 square feet of living space. Its exterior of limestone, silver metal, Brazilian teak and floor-to-ceiling glass house a warm, relaxed interior with comfortable modern furnishings throughout. At night, a careful array of lights give Riverhouse its full personality, with the limestone front wall greeting guests as they approach the twin wooden front doors....

Photographer Michael Najjar sees in the mountains an analogy to the social structures of the world. His focus is natural geologic structures that resemble the classic architectural work of man– and the society they represent. The Rock Mountain Photography of Michael Najjar is breathtaking whether or not it is attached to a deeper meaning. The might, the majesty of these mountains is truly humbling. After a first glance, one can begin to see the formations of rock that resemble the works of man, and how Najjar drew his analogies within these photos....

Rock star architect Robert Stone has designed and constructed a vacation home unlike anything we’ve seen before. The Rosa Muerta Joshua Tree Home is a desert sanctuary designed for those who need a true escape from the city of Los Angeles just 140 miles away. This all-black obelisk provides “glamour camping” to its visitors, an open-air vacation rental with running water and comfortable bedding– but total immersion in the wonderous natural environment of the desert....

Japan has a long-standing tradition in architecture that reaches back across a stretch of time only history itself can remember. These traditions have never been forgotten, born again repeatedly in the work of progressive architects with a strong sense of their cultural foundation. The T Residence by Kidosaki Architects Studio is a work both modern and traditional, carrying the tiered, pagoda-style influences of times past. Like the structures from Japan’s past, the T Residence maintains a focus on sustainable style, bringing the world of nature into its forms to merge seamlessly with the environment....

Your selection of down pants will insulate your lower half in plummeting temperatures. They will keep the snow, water, and slush away from your inner layers. Some of these cozy packable pants are so light that you can wear them around the house as well. Below are eight of the best top shelf and lower cost down pants options, but first: How to Choose a Great Pair of Down Pants Before taking out your wallet to purchase any random pair of insulating pants, read through this list of factors that make the ideal down pants for your winter activities....

With all this nuance built in to martial arts and hand-to-hand combat styles, knowing the right choice could be a crapshoot. You could spend years mastering Kenpo only to find you should have been a Judo disciple. Though declaring one “better” than another is a slight misnomer, there are those that work well, and those that falter. There’s also the difficulty of learning, the level of athleticism required to use it effectively, and which ones fit most easily into modern life....

The Caterpillar House by Feldman Architecture Gallery

Like the luxury vehicles of the road, class and performance can be achieved on the water on the speedboat scale. The Frauscher Boats 717 GT is a prime example of the luxury speedboat, with a hull and heartbeat that means business– and a top end interior as refined as they come. The power in this poweryacht comes from a gasoline, diesel or hybrid engine pushing 184 – 309 kW of muscle as the 717 GT glides across the open water....

The George Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art – a building commissioned by Lucas and devoted to sharing the history of narrative storytelling – looks like it was pulled straight out of a Star Wars story line. Me, I’d say it’d look right at home on Alderaan (if the Empire hadn’t, y’know, blown it up). The $300M museum is located on a beautiful plot of land on Chicago’s lakefront – although that’s not where it was originally supposed to be built....

In choosing the best tablets we aimed partly for those that hit the best benchmarks, but since a speedy tablet isn’t necessarily the best choice, we opted to choose products that had an appeal beyond pure power. Intuitive interfaces, smart accessories, and niche execution were big facets in selecting the most useful tablets for most people. Those that did the job, made it interesting, added ease to our lives and efficiency to our EDC gear were given the highest marks....

As a horror author, this is a post that speaks to my heart. Myths and legends abound. They fill every single culture on this planet and are a rich source of inspiration and creativity. From your western angels and demons to the many different demonic creatures in the far east, the true list of the different types of demons would be too large to capture in a single list....