Wallpaper - Beijing

Here at Wallpaper towers, we've gotten tired of the Spa at Badem Wurttemberg and just a little weary of those lush cherry tomatoes from Riverford Organic Vegetables so we thought we'd pay a flying visit to the new seat in the house called Beijing. To be sure we were surprised at the breath taking giantness of it all in an endlessly rolling suburban setting and a square that holds a million but what really caught our eye was...

... OK you can see I think the Wallpaper talk sounds like air kisses on cocaine. They got away with it for a while and Tyler Brûlé has moved on but still manages to do big time carbon footprint for the F.T. and Monocle which is like The Economist with Miu Miu shoe straps.But I wanted to talk about a different wallpaper that has really knocked me sideways. The following pictures are some structures which were knocked up in a matter of weeks and in one memorable instance tore a road up and made a new one, just for the construction; pretty much over night. But the point I want to make is that someone has decided they can't be completed in time for the Olympics and so they've come up with the ingenious idea of just wallpapering a skin to the outside so it looks like its ready to ROCK.

I call it velocity construction and you gotta see it to believe it.Chutzpah eh!

"The good news is we're running out of oil. The bad news is there's a lot of coal" - Yvon Chouinard

flower_bee

The mountains above are in Patagonia, Argentina and the picture was uploaded last Saturday from Argentina. I do think immediacy isn't everything but in this case it is. You can almost smell the mountain air unless VW Eos haven't branded it as theirs with advertising. Patagonia is the same name as the clothing label run by Yvon Chouinard who is the real deal when it comes to, we are what we do, and living an 'examined life'. I'd never heard of him before a few weeks ago but happen to stumble across a podcast on the often slightly worthy Social Innovation Conversations. Around about the 38th minute into the podcast he says everything you need to know about putting sustainability back into the wealth creation business model with simple but brilliant marketing values. In this case its for an oil company but it applies to all business. This audience with Yves is the sort of podcast I recommend for a Sunday while prepping the vegetables for the Sunday roast. and getting a good pot of tea on the go. It doesn't need full on attention and its not a blow away grab you by the nuts Mr Motivator podcast. Instead its a conversation that to paraphrase the robust words of Paul Coleman gives "just a continuous unshakable feeling" that this guy knows how to make money, do the right thing, treat people right, sell responsible products and live an examined life. Its fun, interesting and I can't recommend it enough.