https://www.scmp.com/rss/307119/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com I really must protest to Mr Bentley, next time I see him. When one enjoys a ride of rare refinement in a limousine as shiny and self-assured as the 2017 Bentley Mulsanne, one really does expect the whole kit, caboodle and shooting match: the subtle (and ostentatious) sumptuousness; the intricate details (and the big, beefy bodywork); the untrammelled hedonism (and the smidgen of guilt at the utter, oozing, polished perfection of it all. In fact, no – scratch the guilt.) This is a first-class... https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2087478/new-bentley-mulsanne-opulent-power-statement-and-fit-queen-hong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2087478/new-bentley-mulsanne-opulent-power-statement-and-fit-queen-hong?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Apr 2017 07:31:01 +0000 You may already be familiar with the 2017 BMW 5 Series. It starred in that horribly irritating pop-up ad that until recently shot sideways across every webpage you summoned. That alone would have been enough to make me buy Mercedes-Benz. But let’s be generous at the outset. Whatever the numbers and letters on the back of the variants – 520, 530, 540 or 550; d, e or i – the 5 is a serious executive saloon for serious executives and guarantees quality, comfort and luxury. It is more agile than of... https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2083490/lighter-quicker-and-more-advanced-bmw-5-worth-price?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2083490/lighter-quicker-and-more-advanced-bmw-5-worth-price?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 31 Mar 2017 08:03:22 +0000 Bad news for Kim Jong-un: when the tubby tyrant fires North Korean biological weapons towards the West in a future provocation too far, countless potential victims will be firing back obscene gestures – from the sanctuary of their Tesla Model X. A Bioweapon Defence Mode is probably not the first thing you look for when buying a car – not yet, anyway. And outlandish it may be, but it’s a bona fide, if tongue-in-cheek, feature on the Tesla Model X, whose air filter is 10 times bigger – and 800... https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2081845/tesla-makes-waves-its-family-car-future?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2081845/tesla-makes-waves-its-family-car-future?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Mar 2017 08:14:17 +0000 A few years ago I bought a pair of those go-faster Puma racing drivers’ boots, with soles made to look like tyre treads. They are the commercial version of Formula One footwear, so obviously I was channelling my inner Fernando Alonso. Or something. They re-emerged last week when I decided to give them some pedal time in the revamped Volkswagen Touran; but walking to the car I suddenly felt hopelessly overdressed, as though I had pitched up in black tie to play pin the tail on the donkey. The... https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2073768/touran-takes-road-less-travelled-carve-niche?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2073768/touran-takes-road-less-travelled-carve-niche?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:27:08 +0000 On my busman’s holidays I like to steal the keys to my other half’s Mini Cooper and enjoy the bump, the grind, the irresistible go-kartyness of a bundle of fun that is so cute you could pinch its little wheel arches. As we all know, the Mini first became cool when driven by Mr Bean. But it reached its apogee of coolness when piloted by Jason Statham and chums in the remake of movie The Italian Job. By then it had become, in most of its iterations, a hatchback, courtesy of parent company BMW’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2069835/renault-megane-looks-dream-and-drives-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2069835/renault-megane-looks-dream-and-drives-one?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Feb 2017 08:35:55 +0000 Britain, 793. The Dark Ages: no English Premier League football, no street lights. Into this foggy, climatically noxious land so disdained by the Romans thunder the Very Violent Vikings (Gothenburg chapter), a gang of oversized, hirsute blokes so tough they wear the horns on the insides of their helmets. Leading the charge west (not east, as in real history) are Erik, Ingvar, Leif and Trevor, all out for a bit of general mayhem of the lock-up-your-daughters kind. Britain is going berserk,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2067507/volvo-makes-mighty-statement-trendy-powerful-v90?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2067507/volvo-makes-mighty-statement-trendy-powerful-v90?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Feb 2017 08:00:27 +0000 “Vorsprung durch Technik”, as Audi’s celebrated television advertising campaign reliably and entertainingly informed us in the 1980s and beyond. As everybody knows, this translates as, “Hello from the ugly sister of the Deutsche automotive industry! Thanks to our friends at Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche, motorists sometimes look down on us and call us the poor Teutonic relatives of the autobahn, condemned to drive forever in the slow lane of public apathy while our shiny brethren throw down... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2053295/germanys-other-luxury-brand-pushes-right-buttons-could-have-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2053295/germanys-other-luxury-brand-pushes-right-buttons-could-have-more?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 09 Dec 2016 10:27:59 +0000 “All SUVs are equal, but some SUVs are more equal than others.” Had George Orwell, a man of principle, been an enthusiast of all-terrain vehicles, he would undoubtedly have driven a Lada Niva. Had he still been around today, however, he would have found himself floundering behind the wheel of his jewel of Soviet off-road automotive genius, kicked to the kerb by a hulk of the highway, left munching a mouthful of dust in the wake of a Tarmac-crunching cruiser, and swatted sideways in the jet wash... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2042679/bentayga-bentleys-debut-suv-sophisticated-brute-lives-hype?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2042679/bentayga-bentleys-debut-suv-sophisticated-brute-lives-hype?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Nov 2016 06:47:26 +0000 Those of us who can remember the pre-digital age will recall the heroically posing Che Guevara annoyingly being here, there and everywhere, especially the flats of female fellow students. But even more hirsute – and every bit as revolutionary – was the similarly ubiquitous, so-called March of Progress, the controversial scientific illustration imagining the millions of years of evolution that led from Pliopithecus, ancestor of the gibbon, to Homo sapiens – us. From left to right our... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2025858/review-all-round-success-vws-tiguan-compact-suv?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2025858/review-all-round-success-vws-tiguan-compact-suv?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Oct 2016 13:00:45 +0000 You know those buxom bikini babes who flesh out the sales push at motor shows? Well, their employment prospects are newly diminished, at least in the supercar segment. This car has the curves. This car has the legs. This car will make your jaw plummet and your head whirr as it sashays by. This little beauty could win Miss Universe all on its own. This is the McLaren 570GT. This is the Caravaggio of cars; the Van Gogh of vehicles. And I assure you – I’m not talking Pollocks. If it is a work of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2023793/driving-mclaren-570gt-tourer-masquerading-pure-art?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2023793/driving-mclaren-570gt-tourer-masquerading-pure-art?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Sep 2016 13:00:26 +0000 According to unreliablehistory.com, when Winston Churchill made his celebrated V for Victory signs in the 1940s, he was in fact foretelling the rise of a powerful force that would dominate the tastes and behaviour of generations hence. An unstoppable, automotive force in evidence since 1927. A force called…Volvo. Okay, I just made up the bit about Churchill. But the rest is true, to varying degrees. Quality and safety (of which, more later) were Volvo’s watchwords from the off, plus... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2021720/volvos-macho-s90-may-help-revive-fortunes-iconic-swedish-brand?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2021720/volvos-macho-s90-may-help-revive-fortunes-iconic-swedish-brand?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Sep 2016 06:30:30 +0000 When is an SUV not an SUV? When it’s the “ultimate practical sports car”, that’s when. When it’s a sports car that miraculously enjoys the countryside so much it likes to venture off-road; and when it’s a sports car that can comfortably seat five adults of regular dimensions. Jaguar might tell you all this – that “ultimate practical sports car” legend is part of its marketing thrust – but if the company thinks its F-Pace filly can steal sales from its rivals through the back door, by pretending... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2013185/just-be-yourself-lesson-jaguars-f-pace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2013185/just-be-yourself-lesson-jaguars-f-pace?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Sep 2016 15:07:48 +0000 If you’re all about channelling your inner Steve McQueen, there’s really only one car for you. In 1968 the smouldering Hollywood hot-shot starred as police officer Frank Bullitt in, yes, hit movie Bullitt. The swaggering McQueen radiated his regulation cool. Some might say, however, that arguably the brightest star of his era was outshone by the film’s real draw: a 1968 Ford Mustang 390 GT 2+2 Fastback, which lights up perhaps the most electrifying car chase in cinematograph history. As usual... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2009424/fords-latest-high-performance-brute?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2009424/fords-latest-high-performance-brute?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Aug 2016 08:15:15 +0000 If you like golf, or the Golf, does that automatically make you a middle-aged Tory? With a Porsche Cayenne to take you to the ParkNShop Fusion and back? Not me: I’m a champagne socialist to my Belstaff and Tag Heuer core, and I like it. The Golf, that is. Specifically the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport, not any old Golf and not any old clubsport (move over, Holden), but the 40th anniversary model of the Golf, a car made for the kind of understated high-performance motoring that doesn’t attract... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2002947/volkswagens-new-hatch-packs-mighty-punch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/2002947/volkswagens-new-hatch-packs-mighty-punch?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 12 Aug 2016 11:58:23 +0000 I flatter myself that when Charles Rolls made the acquaintance of Henry Royce in Manchester’s exalted Midland Hotel in 1904, they had a vision: that one day soon(-ish), a swanky conveyance of their design would conduct me, a lad from that very neighbourhood, in sumptuous style around the boulevards of a far-off land, where the triumphant approach of their mechanical wonder would cast beatific smiles upon the rosy cheeks of the citizenry, who would sense that everything was in its proper place... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1999754/new-dawn-rolls-royce?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1999754/new-dawn-rolls-royce?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Aug 2016 14:15:14 +0000 I’m not a supermodel. Nor, however, am I a burger-laden fat boy, hence today’s memo to Dr Ferdinand Porsche: what’s with the waist-cinching seats in the new Porsche 911 Carrera S, Ferdy? Perhaps German posteriors have slimmed (unlikely) since Ferdy first took a spanner to a slotted hex washer. But anyway, on the climb in, the bucket front seats in the new 911 seem kidney compromising to the extent that you believe your enjoyment of this thoroughbred beast may be in jeopardy. Okay, so anyone used... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1984038/little-complain-about-new-porsche-911-except-its-waist-cinching?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1984038/little-complain-about-new-porsche-911-except-its-waist-cinching?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Jul 2016 08:02:52 +0000 Beginning a relationship is all about knowing which buttons to press. Which button will speed things up and which will slow them down. Which gives optimal control and which gives the firmest possible hands-on experience. Which will take her top down – and put it back up again pronto if it looks like stormy weather. So it goes with the Mercedes-AMG SLC 43 compact roadster, a streamlined filly of a car that will inspire appraisals certain to send the placard-wielders foaming all over the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1976911/topless-and-throaty-new-mercedes-slc-roadster?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1976911/topless-and-throaty-new-mercedes-slc-roadster?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Jun 2016 10:48:50 +0000 Don't know your Helvetica from your Baskerville? How about your Times New Roman from your Daytona? Your Rockwell from your Gill Sans? Still blank? Don't worry, you're far from alone. Although much of the world, on its screens and billboards and in its books and magazines, is a blaze of typefaces often twisted and teased in the service of product or programme, more often than not we don't know what we're looking at - not in a typographical sense anyway. Typography, the art of arranging and... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1859090/hong-kong-exhibition-celebrates-history-typography?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/article/1859090/hong-kong-exhibition-celebrates-history-typography?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Sep 2015 14:59:16 +0000 In Helen Boyd’s light-infused Sai Kung home, life doesn’t so much imitate art as spin dizzily around it. The one-bedroom flat on the top floor of a village house has expansive sea and mountain views. Nestled in a secluded corner of Tui Min Hoi village, at the far end of Sai Kung harbour, it is within strolling distance of the seafront seafood joints but far enough from the neon signs for quiet contemplation. Boyd and her husband, Wendell, who have lived in Hong Kong for 13 years, hail from... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1856713/how-couple-empty-nesters-turned-downsizing-fine-art?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1856713/how-couple-empty-nesters-turned-downsizing-fine-art?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Sep 2015 07:45:45 +0000 The appropriately named Marty McFly might have outwitted the bad guys in the fictional version of 2015, as depicted in 1989 movie Back to the Future Part II. But the "hoverboard" he piloted is still a dream, despite the recent debut in California of the Hendo Hoverboard, which levitates at 2.5 centimetres. Still, its earth-bound predecessor, the skateboard, retains considerable cachet among the heirs of the original skateboarders, California's "sidewalk surfers" of the 1950s. Hong Kong has a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1747854/hong-kongs-skateparks-dogged-safety-issues-and-design-flaws?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1747854/hong-kongs-skateparks-dogged-safety-issues-and-design-flaws?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 26 Mar 2015 22:06:02 +0000 The South Korean wave of movies, television shows and pop music continues to wash around the world, promoting "brand Korea" on a tide not just of popular culture but of a growing interest in Korean language, cuisine and lifestyle. And, like the country's booming inbound tourism figures, this is all icing on the economics cake. Less visible is a non-exportable, domestic-market component of the wave, helping Seoul and other cities such as Jeonju present their most fetching faces to the world. As... https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1709475/seoul-preserves-its-personality-traditional-urban?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1709475/seoul-preserves-its-personality-traditional-urban?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Feb 2015 22:00:33 +0000 It's small, but it's still significant. In the often wacky world of design, a little coloured globe can denote the difference between a transparent gimmick and a thoughtful contribution to modern life. That's because, since 1992, a Red Dot Award has been a globally recognised hallmark of good design. In 1954, the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany, a major European institution in design promotion, began acting as a go-between for designers, industry and business. The following year a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1689062/red-dot-award-winners-show-proof-good-design-can-make-life?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1689062/red-dot-award-winners-show-proof-good-design-can-make-life?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 22 Jan 2015 22:05:45 +0000 Don't go looking for any blizzards of blossom or visual vows of self-discipline at the Japanese Poster Artists - Cherry Blossom and Asceticism exhibition at the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) in Tseung Kwan O. Don't search either for woodblock-rendered tsunami scenes, or delicately depicted fisherfolk crossing flimsy bridges under starry skies. You're in the wrong century for all that. Instead, at this exhibition mounted in conjunction with Zurich's Museum of Design, steel yourself for blasts... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1649987/japanese-poster-exhibition-eclectic-mix?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1649987/japanese-poster-exhibition-eclectic-mix?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:33:41 +0000 When it comes to branching out, Professor Li Xiaodong seems to have cornered the market. Li, of Beijing's Li Xiaodong Atelier, received the inaugural Moriyama RAIC International Prize in October for a building whose radical design could have his fellow architects turning over a new leaf. The Liyuan Library, in Jiaojiehe village near Beijing, is perhaps the biggest tree house on earth. It won the C$100,000 (HK$685,680) prize, which was established by the Canadian-Japanese architect Raymond... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1644583/li-xiaodongs-prize-winning-library-brings-tourism-jiaojiehe?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1644583/li-xiaodongs-prize-winning-library-brings-tourism-jiaojiehe?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Nov 2014 09:26:33 +0000 Are you standing comfortably? Or kneeling? Or sitting? Are you dividing and conquering, chatting, conversing, co-creating, huddling, warming up or cooling down? If so, you may be working in one version of the salt mines of the future, because the latest research into office landscapes is bringing new rules to the game of workplace musical chairs. In 1904, long before the evolution of Cubicle Man, American engineer Frederick Taylor inflicted Taylorism on ranks of human battery hens, whom he... https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1643100/living-office-concept-new-species-worker?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1643100/living-office-concept-new-species-worker?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Nov 2014 20:40:04 +0000 The announcement that froze the marrow of every devotee of mid-20th century modern architecture - that Hotel Okura Tokyo, the epitome of 1960s chic, is to be partly obliterated from September next year - caused a seismic reaction in the blogosphere. But all is not yet lost - and it will not be if Tyler Brule has his way. Channelling the power of his global affairs, culture and business magazine Monocle, the Canadian journalist and entrepreneur is standing in the path of the bulldozers waving an... https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1621425/rethink-urged-revamp-60-s-chic-hotel-tokyo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/international/article/1621425/rethink-urged-revamp-60-s-chic-hotel-tokyo?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:16:49 +0000 The human population is projected to hit nine billion by 2050. That makes Harvard scientist Dr E.O. Wilson's recent proposal that we devote half of the planet to wildlife to avoid a "biological holocaust" on the scale of the dinosaurs' extinction appear fanciful. But a step in the direction of overturning humans' woeful exploitation of other species has been taken by Denmark's Bjarke Ingels Group (Big). The Copenhagen-based architects have suggested a radical rethink of the traditional zoo in... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1590179/animals-home-range-danish-zoo-project?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1590179/animals-home-range-danish-zoo-project?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Sep 2014 08:03:52 +0000 A suggested war cry for those save-the-worlders who have seen the light (and are partial to cold war-era sloganeering): better LED than dead. The proclamation's modern application refers to the light-emitting diode's capacity to slash electricity consumption and bring about our exodus from the greenhouse of doom. No longer simply red readouts on rudimentary calculators, LEDs are the power behind pictures on jumbo TV screens, the transmission of information from remote controls, the intensely... https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1588789/led-evangelist-teddy-lo-combines-art-and-commerce-real?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1588789/led-evangelist-teddy-lo-combines-art-and-commerce-real?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Sep 2014 20:30:45 +0000 An American friend played in a band he named Shut Up and Drive. Were he to christen the same outfit today, he might call it Boom, Zoom and the Speeding Psychedelic Trippers - after he'd paid an inspirational visit to the Mini showroom in Tsuen Wan. Without actually reproducing those pharmaceutically assisted journeys of the 1960s, the shiny auto emporium is offering, until Sunday, a unique behind-the-wheel experience that might just eclipse Hong Kong's nightly harbour laser show. Part of the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1581424/converted-mini-wheel-deal-budding-djs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1581424/converted-mini-wheel-deal-budding-djs?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Aug 2014 06:15:45 +0000 "Put it in bricks and mortar" remains a popular morsel of advice doled out to those looking for secure places to park their money - because such investments are seen as, well, safe as houses. The degree of truth in that wisdom varies with geography and circumstances: the US housing market collapse of 2007 was the worst in history; the economic catastrophe in Greece has seen property values obliterated. But there remains enough confidence in property's investment potential to keep the advice... https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1577031/buying-property-international-markets-turned-one-man-books?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1577031/buying-property-international-markets-turned-one-man-books?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Aug 2014 21:21:31 +0000 It's not quite the little house on the prairie: in fact, it stands in a friend's garden. But it is the house that Dee built ... every square inch of its 84 square feet. Having heard Dee Williams' downsizing story, Hong Kong householders who believe their living quarters cramp their style - and their ability to store box after redundant box of neglected consumer baubles - might just abandon their expansionist dreams and agree that small really is beautiful. But first, the house: a mobile, timber,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/interiors-living/article/1539683/house-dee-built-home-sweet-tiny-home?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/interiors-living/article/1539683/house-dee-built-home-sweet-tiny-home?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 24 Jun 2014 17:31:19 +0000 Time was when being banished to the doghouse might have meant you were lucky just to have a woof over your head. But a dog's life isn't what it used to be, as a handful of designers seek to elevate the humble kennel into innovative digs many pet owners would envy. Japanese graphic designer Kenya Hara is so sure that doghouses of distinction will become a global trend, he co-founded online project Architecture for Dogs, which supplies free blueprints (as well as instructions and videos) for 13... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1517934/novel-designs-canine-living-spaces-could-start-new-trend-dog?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/technology/article/1517934/novel-designs-canine-living-spaces-could-start-new-trend-dog?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 May 2014 02:10:22 +0000 There seems to be no accounting for taste in architectural fashion. Shunned, condemned and demonised in its "lifetime", Kowloon Walled City was long considered a malignant blot on the progressive Hong Kong landscape. Yet just 20 years after its destruction, the squatter camp has been transformed in the minds of commentators into a paragon of design - albeit organic - and the archetype of a workable, livable development underpinned by a sense of community among those who resided there. The truth... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/interiors-living/article/1473901/once-reviled-kowloon-walled-city-now-regarded-example?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/interiors-living/article/1473901/once-reviled-kowloon-walled-city-now-regarded-example?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 11 Apr 2014 04:15:03 +0000 Conjugate the verb "to pod". I pod, you pod, we pod, they pod … yes, the pod is set to come bursting out of solitary confinement thanks to a multitude of design innovations to whisk you and your overstuffed luggage around airports, send you cruising the oceans and at the end of it all give you a place to grab a quick snooze. From this year, the pod will no longer be the lonely preserve of "I" because everybody will be in or on one. Or using one to open cans of soup. While we're on the subject,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1406923/march-pods-how-design-going-egg-shaped?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1406923/march-pods-how-design-going-egg-shaped?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 17 Jan 2014 01:24:26 +0000 Once upon a time, an avant-garde senior citizen, being way ahead of the design curve, lived in a shoe. Another occupied a house that eschewed concrete, bricks, tiles and glass in favour of gingerbread and gateaux. And an artist and erstwhile chef decided it would be an environmentally engaging idea to grow a house from mushrooms. Without wishing to challenge the veracity of the world's bootmakers and confectioners, the first two tales may not be entirely true. Not only is the third genuine, it... https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1258559/phil-ross-uses-fungus-make-bricks-and-furniture?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/1258559/phil-ross-uses-fungus-make-bricks-and-furniture?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000