In case you liked the green wall in Madrid, here’s something that breaks the conventionality. Blending with the trees and the nearby green, here’s a creative design by Parisian-based architects from R&Sie Architects who turned a concrete house into a living home.

Dubbed the Lost in Paris House, here’s a 130 sqm structure has been covered with more than 1,200 ferns that draw all their needs from some 300 traditional glass-blown beakers filled with a chemical mixture of bacteria, nutrients, and rainwater. Nothing short of breathtaking, Lost in Paris had to deal with the French planning rules for five years before turning into the creepy city rain-forest you see in here.

It sure brings the concept of the vertical garden to a new height. [StyleCrave via Wallpaper]

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When a foreign (outside of Japan) car maker can’t make a car as good as Japan does, what do they do? Contract a Japanese car maker to make it for them and call it their own.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will make electric cars for France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen Group beginning early next year. The French government is ponying up to 5,000 euros, ($6,500), and giving tax breaks to those who buy electric cars. The U.K. and Germany are doing the same. And, Europe is bent on becoming the leading electric-car market.

Mitsubishi Motors will make its i MiEV passenger car on an OEM basis. The MiEV will debut in Japan this summer. It can go 160km (100 mi) on a single charge, more than enough for one day.

Mitsubishi gets access to PSA Peugeot Citroen’s sales network throughout Europe and Peugeot can sell the electric cars under its own brand helping the company make inroads into the green vehicle market. Because they have a larger market for its cars, increased production will help lower costs and boost competitiveness.

The i MiEV will cost about $20,000 and should be competitive with conventional gasoline-powered cars in France aftert the subsidies are taken into account.

With 60-percent jurisdiction under Switzerland and 40-percent under France, Lake Geneva is the second largest freshwater lake in Central Europe when it comes to surface area (582 km² – 225 mi²). The crescent-shaped lake is second just after Lake Balaton, in Hungary, has a maximum length of 73 km (45 mi), a maximum width of 14 km (8.7 mi) and has a maximum depth of 310 m.

Lake Geneva From A Peddle Boat

Since many of you wondered what do the Swiss call Lake Geneva, we decided to take a deep look into it and came up with a more complex answer. The fact is that Switzerland is a multi-lingual country where people speak German, French, Italian and a little Romansh, meaning the lake has not just one name, but more.

Lying on the Rhone River that descends from the Rhone Glacier near the Grimsel Pass, in German it’s called Genfersee or Genfer See, in Italian it’s Lago Lemano, or Lago di Ginevra and in French it’s called Lac Léman or Lac de Genève. Actually Lac Léman is what most of the people in the country call it these days.

Vineyards and Lake Geneva

From 1960 to 1980, water pollution levels were so severe that it wiped out almost all fish and it got to the point where it became dangerous even to swim in the lake. However, using modern anti-pollutants the lake is now considered safe these days and allows major leisure activities that include sailing, wind surfing, rowing, scuba diving and bathing.

The sad twist in this story is that the lake had to be cleaned up at all. Why is it that we can only learn from our mistakes? Why can’t we NOT have to ever clean things up because we kept them clean from the outset? That would be good stewardship of our planet, make that the best stewardship.

Wonder no more what do the Swiss call Lake Geneva? Now you know. If you’ve been there, just tell us how it is to see it live.

Images courtesy of douglasamcintosh and pictureshots

In some worlds trains are faster than airplanes, or at least definitely more convenient considering fuel and airline ticket prices, rising the way they are.

Image by Nicola Beccu

Europe’s first high speed train link from Paris to Lyon saw air traffic drop significantly. This was followed by the same phenomenon more recently in the Paris-London, Paris-Brussels and Paris-Amsterdam combinations. Madrid-Barcelona high speed trains caused an 18.4% drop in airline passengers. When I lived in Japan, Tokyo was linked to Niigata by bullet train and the air route was canceled altogether.

It’s faster to get on the train and than to going to the outer limits of the city to reach the airport, check-in, fly, check-out, etc.

Image by Dan Holder

Train speeds are pushing along faster – 300 kph (200mph) about the speed and sometimes better of small commuter airlines. In any event, can we expect trains to overtake plane routes in more places? I don’t see it happening in the States. The country is too big. However, there has been talk of a high speed train route from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

But, those talks always stall because of some special interest group. In this case, the environmentalists prevent environmentalists from trying to do ‘good.’ Then what?

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In the “that’s what happens when oil reaches new records” category (no we don’t have one) truckers from Spain and France went on strike on Monday to protest against high diesel prices. And they have damn good reasons : €1.30 for a liter in Spain ($7.71 a gallon) and €1.45 in France ($8.62 a gallon). This is 40-percent more than last year and 20-percent more than January.

For the record, these are not the highest prices for diesel in the European Union. The Brits are leading with ~ €1.65 for a liter.

Most of the big cities in Spain such as Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona suffered traffic jams because of the low speed driven trucks, while the two main borders with France, La Jonquera and Irun were blocked because no vehicle was allowed to pass, by the demonstrators.

The protests are expected to continue till the end of the week when Portuguesse truckers may join, too. Of course, one way to save gasoline/diesel fuel is to sit and let your trucks idle for a couple of days, right guys?

We’re still waiting for the mainstream electric trucks. How about you guys?