USM and UNITEN triumph in Perodua Eco-Challenge 2010

Back in February, Perodua donated one unit of the Viva plus RM10,000 seed money to each of the engineering departments of the participating institutions, which included Politeknik Sultan Azlan Shah (PSAS), Universiti Kuala Lumpur-Malaysia France Institute (UniKL-MFI), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM), Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Politeknik Ungku Omar (PUO). The other institutions are Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Universiti Industri Selangor (Unisel) and Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.


source : Paultan.org

Tiramisu of The Day : 2011 Sonata & 2011 Tucson

BMW 0 Series, is that you?

If BMW intends to go downmarket any further, which seems likely considering that the automaker has already confirmed it will offer a front-wheel drive model under its own badge, there's only one model designation available: 0 Series. And by all accounts, it's on the way soon.

Intriguingly, BMW may be offering a few hints as to what we should expect from the new entry-level model. In a new video released for its Innovation Days in Asia, the automaker prominently displays a series of still images that may very well be early sketches of the upcoming 0 Series.

Assuming for a moment that we are indeed witnessing the new Zilch, we like what we see. Deeply sculpted sides, a nicely sloping rear hatch and large, vertically oriented kidney grilles indicate a design language that's suitably differentiated from current rear-wheel-drive BMWs. And it looks pretty dang good !


Source: Autoblog.nl

Lada Samara Diva transformed into life-size robot

If comically obscene and offensive ghettofied twin robots aren't your thing – and we certainly hope they are not – allow us to introduce you to a transforming automobile that is in much better taste. Designer Nikola Nikolov took his first car, a Lada Samara Diva, cut it apart and welded it all back together to form the finished product you see here.

The artist describes his created as standing "in a position of ready surprise. He is in the moment between knowing what he was and knowing what he has become." No, we're not quite sure what that means either. Regardless, we think this 6.5-foot-tall, 200-pound robot statue is pretty darn awesome.


source : autoblog.com

The Future of Green Architecture: A Floating Museum

Physalia is a vessel, 100% self sufficient in energy, whose bionic structure is inspired from the pneumatophorous called also “Physalia physalis”, from Greek physalis that means “water bubble”! As this aquatic pneumatophorous, the project is relevant by its perfect symmetry, its oblong shape and its translucent aspect. It is a sum-up of the nature and the biotechnologies dedicated to navigate on the main extra-European rivers between Danube and Volga, between Rhine and Guadalquivir, or also between Euphrate and Tiger. It is a poetic invitation to travel, a sensory experience for the transdisciplinary research, geopolitical debates, popular pedagogy and therefore for the emergence of an ecologic avant-garde on the water theme. It is a charismatic place, an abstraction of landscape opened on the world and mixing the European cultures through an innovative special assembling. It is a ecosystem reacting to its environment, a fragment of living earth, inviting the fauna and the flora of the fluvial biodiversity to come and make its nest in the city!


source: Vincent Callebaut Architecture

Why Walk Though a Museum, When You Can Drive?

Not just any car museum. A drive-through car museum. The proposed building, by Francesco Gatti of Rome and Shanghai, looks exactly as it should -- like a glorified parking garage. Visitors cruise up a ramp that encircles the exhibition space (see above) until they reach a top-floor lot. From there, they descend by foot into the core of the museum. With glass every which way, everyone and everything is self-consciously on display: the motorists, the pedestrians, and, oh yeah, the cars. It's like a Saturday night on Sunset Boulevard.

source : fastcompany.com

Tiramisu of The Day : Bugatti-16C-Galibier Rendering