© Yojiro Oshima

Wood may not seem like the best material for a bicycle, but considering how energy-intensive it is to process metals, wooden bikes seem like a more reasonably earth-friendly alternative, and may even be a better ride. Though we’ve seen no shortage of stylish wooden bikes, this sculptural beauty by Yojiro Oshima, a design student at Tokyo’s Musashino Art University, is quite the head-turner.

via Sculptural Japanese wooden bike sports serious curves

This is an amazing base that just opened in Antarctica. It crawls to keep it from freezing to the ice! Lots more cool details inside. Amazing Green Modular Halley VI Crawling Antarctic Base Opens

You may be able to one day print your own house. Yes, that’s a thing. Softkill Design joins race to build the first 3D printed house. 

Do you think the US will ever have high speed rail like this? This map is what a cross-country rail network could look like. Think it’ll happen?

See more info and a higher-res version here: Map Shows What US-Wide High Speed Rail Might Look Like

The Design Stories of 2012 That Will Resonate in 2013

Here’s a look at some of the big ideas we talked about in 2012 and how they will progress in 2013. 

Almost everybody has been saying nice things and showing beautiful photos of the work of the late Oscar Niemeyer, (Witold Rybczynski is an exception), but the fact is that Brazilia, the city he designed with Lucio Costa, is not exactly a model to emulate. Brazilia was the biggest built example of a planning ideal Le Corbusier’s, a Radiant City where cars are separated from pedestrians.

At about the same time that Niemeyer was building Brazilia, British architect Geoffrey Jellicoe had a different idea: Put the cars up in the air.

Growing food indoors is usually limited by the space you have. More often than not, that means some kind of vertical placement, as we’ve seen withwindowfarms, mini-greenhouses doubling as lighting and aeroponic systems.

Fogponics — a more advanced application of aeroponics where vaporized water is used to transfer nutrients and oxygen to enclosed, suspended plant roots — is where German design company Vakant Design begins instead with Fogger, a unit designed to give plants that extra boost.

(via Fogponic Unit Stacks Vertically to Grow More Veggies in Less Space : TreeHugger)

Most people are looking at how one can make cars better, but Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure are looking at ways to fix the roads. The induction priority lane will charge your car while you drive, probably using induction coils buried in the road. Such a car could also very easily be made driverless, just following the coil.

via Smart Highways Will Charge Your Car, Tell You What the Weather Is

Oh, the wonderful techno-optimism of the Space Age! This ad is from a 1971 Scientific American, two years before the oil embargo when they thought fuel was cheap enough to deliver houses by helicopter!  

(via A Picture Is Worth: Home Delivery By Helicopter)