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This may look like your average German suburb on a quiet day, but it's actually a planned community 30 kilometers outside of Shanghai. This is Anting German Town, a one-square-kilometer residential development founded in 2001 and built specifically to resemble a little slice of Deutschland. There's only one problem for this quirky Teutonic oasis —nobody wants to live there. More »
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Compare these skyline views of Shanghai in 1990 vs. last year in 2010. It's amazing how quickly urban structures can evolve. (via Nils Gilman) More »
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There's something blissfully futuristic about subways. Maybe it's that these people-movers evoke space stations or arcologies. Or perhaps being shoved ass-to-shoulder together with strangers during rush hour unleashes some long-dormant pack instinct. Regardless, these metros are shiny. More »
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User interfaces for computers are modeled after familiar places like offices and houses (hence "folders" and "windows"). But in this design project, called Signterior, architect Nobuhiro Nakamura uses a computer-like interface to help people to navigate a large Shanghai office and shopping structure. I often think this is what the future would look like if I could travel to it: A bewildering world filled with signs and directions I can't parse. Check out a few more oddities of signage that Nakamura created. More »
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Is the United States the least futuristic post-industrial country? Every week we hear about cool robots playing soccer and musical instruments in Japan, or the Tron-looking Pad building in Dubai (see photo.) Meanwhile, the U.S. is retiring its space shuttles and has the slowest broadband in the universe. What's going on? Five futuristic inventions from a world that has left the U.S. behind, after the jump. More »
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