Very few people have the courage to voice publicly the truth behind the flaws of their society; in contradistinction, those who use their talents and skills for personal profit and gain are legion. Artist Jagath Weerasinghe belongs to the former category as he uses his passion for art to communicate his subconscious thoughts of an unforgiving human society.

In the design of city houses, the architect has to contend with small plot sizes and densely packed streets that characterise urban settings. Privacy and daylight, therefore, are at a premium.

Holiday homes allow an architect to explore new ideas and thoughts that can push architectural thinking to a level, which may not always be possible in a more domestic everyday situation.

Working in Calcutta for a few years now, I have had the great privilege of getting to know a client with whom I have more than architecture to share.

Shipping containers – commodities of globalisation; self-sustainable, lockable cabins; are breaking new ground in the developing world as disaster shelters, housing for the urban poor, as community facilities and as urban infrastructure.

A designer begins his creation by visualizing an object and moulding the material to fit the image in his mind. A buyer sees the beauty and functionality of the final product and assesses how it will appear in his home.

Paolo Soleri, the visionary Italian-American architect and theorist who built the famed urban setting ‘Arcosanti’ in the Arizona high desert, died on the 9th of April 2013 at the age of 93. Soleri dedicated his life to promoting an art of living that re-establishes the all-important relationship between human beings and the environment they live in.

At the turn of the millennium, the “Middle East” was renowned as an astute block of sovereign nations with soaring GDP’s and glittering cities with all the trappings of the rich and the not so-famous, with wealth abundantly amassed as a result of an “eternal” supply of natural resources.