Ben VanderVeen is the founder and editor of Moss & Fog, one of the web’s longest-running visual culture destinations. Since 2009, he’s been finding and framing the most beautiful, surprising, and thought-provoking work in art, architecture, design, and nature — reaching over 325,000 readers each month. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Their latest creation, the Sky View Residence, set against the rugged high-desert terrain of Sun Valley, Idaho, takes that signature mechanical genius to new heights.
Kinetic Magic in the High Desert
Spanning 7,190 square feet, the residence is built from a palette of board-formed concrete, exposed steel, floor-to-ceiling glass, and warm timber.
Rather than flattening the land, the house straddles a natural arroyo, using its concrete base to mirror the sheltered, cooler conditions of the ravine below.
Above, elevated living spaces wrapped in grid-framed windows look out across expansive meadow and mountain views.
But the crown jewel sits at the very top of the house.
Perched on the upper level is a warm, timber-lined music room equipped with one of Kundig’s trademark oversized hand wheels. With a few manual turns of the hand crank, the entire roof retracts backward, peeling away the ceiling to turn an intimate indoor lounge into a open-air sky observatory.
During the day, it captures the moving shadows of clouds; by night, it turns stargazing into an immersive, living-room ritual.
Hand-cranked retractable roof over top-floor music room
Like their iconic Delta Shelter, which uses hand-cranked steel shutters to open and close a cabin in the North Cascades, or their thoughtful, light-filled urban church design, the Sky View Residence celebrates architecture as an active experience rather than a static backdrop.
It’s a masterclass in architectural theater, and inspiring for those of us that seek balance that great design brings.
This insane pink crystal sauna just rose from Sweden’s industrial ashes
In a world where architecture so often plays it safe, artist duo Bigert & Bergström have delivered something delightfully otherworldly. They present us a geometric, metallic-pink crystal sauna that looks as though it crashed down from outer space into northern Sweden.
This thing is not easily forgettable.
Titled the Lithium Crystal Sauna, this striking structure isn’t just an exercise in futuristic sculpture. It is the inaugural permanent installation of the WasteLand Climate Action Park in Skellefteå.
The site, formerly home to the Scharin pulp mill, spent more than a century suffering severe chemical contamination before undergoing 17 painstaking years of soil remediation.
Where toxic emissions once dominated, a surreal beacon of community, wellness, and reflection now stands.
The Power of Paradox
Rather than sweeping the land’s industrial trauma under the rug, Bigert & Bergström leaned straight into its contradictions. The sauna’s faceted form mimics the atomic geometry of a lithium crystal, serving as a deliberate nod to the double-edged sword of the green energy transition.
Lithium powers our electric vehicles, battery grids, and fossil-free dreams, yet its extraction carries massive environmental costs. Placing this symbol on a rehabilitated industrial site creates a poetic, thought-provoking tension.
Bigert & Bergström in front of their wild creation.
To bring the digital design to life, 280 asymmetrical prisms were laser-cut with pinpoint precision and clad in titanium-coated mirrored stainless steel.
The shimmering pink hue was achieved through a vacuum evaporation process, creating a facade that shifts dynamically with the northern light. Leaning back at a four-degree tilt, the crystal appears to be actively emerging from the earth.
Ancient Rituals Meet Future Tech
Step across the hexagonal deck of local heartwood pine and push open the glazed doorway, and the hyper-futuristic exterior instantly gives way to a warm, sanctuary-like timber interior.
Lined with rich heat-resistant wood veneer over a spruce framework, the inner chamber takes inspiration from prehistoric cave shelters, the ultimate human retreat. Up to 12 bathers can gather on custom alder benches around a central cage of Normandy black flint and 260 kilograms of heat-retaining olivine stones.
Even the heat source tells a story: the sauna utilizes a custom heater powered by green electricity stored in batteries or electric vehicles.
Remarkably, the heater’s physical silhouette is shaped after a 2.5-million-year-old stone chopper, mankind’s earliest known tool.
Reflection in Every Sense
The exterior’s mirrored pink finish reflects the surrounding river, forest, and returning flora, alongside the scars of a landscape reshaped by human intervention.
It stands as equal parts art installation, historical monument, and public sanctuary: a space designed to strip away social barriers, warm the body, and spark crucial conversations about our changing planet.
Bigert & Bergström have crafted far more than a place to sweat out toxins. They have given us a captivating vision of how art and industrial healing can merge, proving that even from our most polluted pasts, remarkable new ecosystems can emerge.
Forget fine china, crystal wine glasses, or that standalone pasta maker currently gathering dust in your aunt’s attic.
The newest must-have item on modern wedding registries isn’t for the dining room, it’s for the throne room.
Couples are officially asking their loved ones to pool their hard-earned cash so they can poop in peak luxury.
Specifically, high-tech, design-forward smart toilets (ranging anywhere from $3,000 to eye-watering five-figure sums) are suddenly having a major moment.
Trone, a French brand as seen here, have a wide range of styles, including traditional and Japanese designs, which have built in heater, bidets, and automatic seats.
So, how did porcelain water closets transform into the ultimate interior design status symbol?
The Evolution of the Throne
For decades, the humble toilet was the unglamorous workhorse of residential architecture. As long as it flushed and matched the bathtub, nobody gave it a second thought. But as home wellness culture exploded, and our collective obsession with spa-like primary bathrooms reached a fever pitch, the throne room got a long-overdue design promotion.
These pod shaped toilets might deeply confuse your mother-in-law.
Enter the modern smart toilet: sleek, rimless, wall-mounted, and packed with more processing power than the computer that landed Apollo 11 on the moon.
We aren’t just talking about a clip-on bidet attachment here. We’re talking about integrated sculptural masterpieces featuring self-opening lids, ambient foot-glow nightlights, customizable warm-water sprays, heated seats, air purifiers, and self-cleaning UV sterilization. Some models even come equipped with built-in Bluetooth speakers, so you can bump your favorite playlist while indulging in a little personal reflection.
Trone’s Callipyge line is modern and chic, available in a range of hues.
“Till Death Do Us Part… or Until the Bidet Breaks”
Asking your college buddies or distant second cousins to pitch in on a $3,000 Kohler or Toto might sound like a cheeky breach of etiquette, but registry trends show a massive shift toward practical luxury. Why ask for 12 place settings of silverware you’ll use twice a year when you could gift yourselves a daily, warm-air-dried, hands-free sanctuary experience?
It’s the ultimate expression of modern domestic bliss: starting a marriage with zero bathroom arguments, zero cold seats in the middle of winter, and an undeniable aesthetic flex for visiting houseguests.
The New Aesthetic Anchor
Beyond the sci-fi feature list, there’s a genuine design movement at play. Modern industrial designers are treating the toilet as an architectural centerpiece rather than something to hide behind a half-wall. Monolithic silhouettes, matte black ceramic finishes, brushed metallic accents, and floating geometric forms are turning the most taboo fixture in the house into a legitimate conversation starter.
Is spending thousands of dollars on a high-tech commode slightly absurd? Absolutely.
But in an era where self-care reigns supreme and home interiors are curated down to the last detail, high-design toilets are proving that luxury knows no bounds.
Here’s to the newlyweds: may your love be everlasting, and your seat always warm.
No, it wasn’t a performance art piece about lasagna or Mondays.
A cargo container packed with 1980s Garfield landlines fell off a ship during a storm in 1983, wedged itself inside a hidden sea cave, and slowly burped plastic feline phones onto French beaches for 35 years.
The infamous Garfield Telephone.
For over three decades, beachcombers in Brittany, France, kept running into the exact same surreal sight on the sand: bright orange, sleeping plastic Garfield phones washing up with the tide.
Doesn’t get more 80s than this…One of the long-weathered Garfield faces.
Now, filmmaker Zack Grant has turned this legendary tale into a wonderfully quirky 12-minute documentary short called Silly Little Plastic Cat.
Instead of hitting viewers over the head with a gloomy lecture, Grant serves up a playful story packed with eccentric French beachcombers, colorful retro nostalgia, and local collectors who turned a marine disaster into an accidental treasure hunt.
Locals hang them like sea decorations.
Indeed, for years locals have been scavenging the beach for parts that have gotten stuck between rocks, slowly fading in color and deteriorating.
Boxes of battered orange phone parts.Bits of the degraded phones, still found 40 years later.
Why You Need to Watch It
The Ultimate Beachcombing Lore: How a lost cargo box became Brittany’s strangest coastal urban legend.
A Lesson in Repair: The film uses the orange pop-culture artifact to talk about our throwaway culture, making a sneaky case for fixing old tech instead of chucking it into the sea.
Pure Visual Joy: Beautifully shot, delightfully weird, and way more fun than an environmental doc has any right to be.
Silly Little Plastic Cat proves that even a ridiculous piece of 80s plastic can teach us a thing or two about taking care of the planet.
One of the many phones, washed up on shore.Reciting the story on camera
Round a quiet coastal bend on Japan’s Route 207 and you won’t find a sterile glass shelter waiting for you. Instead, you’ll meet a six-foot-tall strawberry. Down the road sits a giant watermelon, a webbed honeydew, a plump tomato, and a bright mandarin orange.
In Japanese, tokimeki means the heart-fluttering thrill of a pleasant surprise, which is precisely what happens when your daily commute involves waiting inside a piece of produce.
Built for the 1990 Journey Exposition and inspired by Cinderella’s pumpkin carriage, these shelters are serious works of public art.
Hand-sculpted from mortar over metal lath frames, the craftsmanship is delightfully detailed—right down to 180 individually molded seeds on the strawberries and hand-carved webbing on the melons.
Best of all, the fruits reflect the local crops grown by the town’s farmers.
More than 35 years later, these playful structures remain a masterclass in how everyday civic infrastructure can transform a mundane wait into a moment of pure wonder.
Would these playful bus stops make you more likely to hop a ride?
Take a look inside your shower: it’s likely a graveyard of plastic bottles destined to spend centuries in a landfill. Enter Sapone, a zero-waste beauty brand that solves the problem by packaging salon-grade liquid shampoo inside a functional, self-dissolving soap bottle.
Pour Your Shampoo: Pop the natural cork stopper and pour out the nourishing 2-in-1 shampoo (packed with argan oil, aloe vera, and B5).
Use the Bottle as Soap: Lather up the marbled outer shell to wash your body.
Leave Nothing Behind: By the time you finish the liquid shampoo, you’ve used up the soap container. Zero trash, zero plastic.
Featuring elegant embossed typography and a grip-friendly texture, Sapone proves that radical sustainability can be effortlessly stylish.
Founded by 17-year-old student Paulius Buivydas after 23 prototypes, the concept is brilliantly simple:
Ever heard of a Dragon’s Blood tree? Or a Quiver tree? They’re amongst the rarest, and most unusual in the world. We love learning about things like that, maybe you will too.
TREES
The Four Rarest Trees in the World
Here are four of the most rare a special tree species in the world.
Are catastrophic wildfires the new normal? It not only terrifies us, it deeply angers us, as we (humans) are the reasons they've gotten so bad. What can we do about it? A lot, it turns out.
CLIMATE CHANGE
This Is Not Just a Season. Why We Can't Accept Global Fire
When we treat toxic air and annual fires as routine, we numb ourselves to the damage.
We've teased the Moss and Fog Shop, and now it's coming to life! Look for the new shop live in the next week or so!
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A deer stands in an empty intersection. A fox waits by a closed community pool. The gas station is lit but shut.
Nicholas Moegly paints American neighborhoods at the hour they stop belonging to anyone. Amber streetlight, everything else in deep blue and green. Nothing is lit for drama. Everything is lit like a parking lot, which is worse.
The animals aren’t the point. They’re the evidence. A deer standing calmly in a crosswalk tells you how long the people have been gone.
He came up making gig posters
Moegly works out of Cincinnati. Before this he was a graphic designer making concert posters, agency jobs until he went freelance in 2016. It shows. He knows how to build a single frame that stops you from across a room.
“I like to create quiet serene moments in my illustrations that are typically at night,” he says. “Creating mood is probably my favorite thing about my style.”
He started with Hopper. These days he says he’s looking at nighttime photography more than at painters. The comparisons people reach for are Todd Hido’s Houses at Night and Chris Van Allsburg, and both fit. Same sense of arriving a few minutes after the interesting thing happened.
Lately he’s moved from digital into oil, and he’s at work on the largest painting he’s attempted. He’s also starting to show in person instead of dropping work online.
Occasionally the logic slips and there’s a dinosaur in the subdivision. The painting doesn’t seem to mind.
We love buildings that aren’t afraid of a little color, or a little irreverence.
Take this new cultural art village in Shenzhen, called Bihailou Art Village that feels like it was designed to make you smile.
Instead of wrapping cultural spaces into one giant, intimidating block, MVRDV stacked a series of distinct, brightly colored volumes on top of each other.
Think of it as an architectural remix, drawing hues, shapes, and materials directly from the surrounding neighborhood and stacking them into a 6,500-square-meter “vertical village.”
Why We Love It:
Choose Your Own Adventure: An exterior maze of staircases, ramps, and escalators connects each space, allowing visitors to wander freely through open-air plazas, cozy shops, a double-height theater, and green roof terraces.
Smart & Generous: The offset stacked blocks naturally create shaded overhangs at ground level, offering shelter from sun and rain.
Flexible Living: Because each “house” is independent, every museum, café, and venue can set its own vibe and opening hours.
We use the term “jumble” in the nicest way possible. The volumes of the space use a wide range of colors and textures.
As MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas puts it: “The joy of this design lies in its contradictions… It looks complex, but the idea of one space for every function is really quite simple.”
Architects should take note: People like color, whimsy, and creativity. Don’t hold back.
At some point in the last few years, two words quietly worked their way into our daily language: smoke season.
We say it casually now, the same way we talk about winter rain or July heat. We check air quality indexes on our phones before opening the front door. We replace furnace filters, tape up drafty windows, toss N95 masks into the glove box, and tell our kids they cannot play outside today.
We adapted because human beings adapt to almost anything. But in adapting so quickly, we accepted something unacceptable as ordinary routine.
In our home of Portland, we had the distinct displeasure of being in the top 5 worst air in the world this week.
It is not just another time of year, and pretending otherwise is dangerous.
When we treat toxic air and annual fires as routine, we numb ourselves to the damage. Billions of tons of carbon flood the atmosphere. Entire forests and watersheds vanish in an afternoon. Millions of people spend weeks inhaling microparticles that damage their lungs and leave a lingering, low-grade anxiety.
Buying a better air purifier or staying inside every August is not a plan.
It is surrender.
When we treat toxic air and annual fires as routine, we numb ourselves to the damage. Billions of tons of carbon flood the atmosphere. Entire forests and watersheds vanish in an afternoon. Millions of people spend weeks inhaling microparticles that damage their lungs and leave a lingering, low-grade anxiety.
Adding fuel to this literal fire is a fossil fuel industry that continues to prioritize short-term profits over planetary survival, backed by a Trump administration actively making the crisis worse.
By rushing to gut environmental protections, open public lands to expanded drilling, and dismantle clean energy initiatives, federal leadership is doubling down on the carbon expansion that guarantees hotter summers, drier forests, and longer burn windows.
It is a deeply cynical and reckless policy direction that directly fuels the flames while leaving communities to breathe the fallout.
With that in mind, we’re left feeling like waiting for government agencies or slow institutions to solve this is a dead end.
They move at the speed of bureaucracy (or not at all), while fire moves at the speed of wind.
If traditional leadership won’t propose bold answers, then designers, inventors, and communities have to start doing it themselves.
The following piece looks at the ideas we should be demanding: early detection networks, acoustic suppression, smart materials, and simple changes to how we build our homes. None of these are silver bullets, but they represent what happens when we stop waiting for permission and start building the tools we actually need.
Fighting Fire With Sound, Gel, and Smart Networks
A major wildfire is an overwhelming thermodynamic event. It dumps heat into the air at the scale of a power plant, racing across miles of dry timber. Worse, it does most of its damage through embers carried miles ahead on the wind. Long before the main flame front arrives, glowing fragments fall on roofs, wooden decks, and dry gutters.
Standing in a driveway with a garden hose while the horizon turns orange is a terrifying feeling. Our traditional methods are falling behind because climate shifts have made fires larger and faster than our legacy tools were ever designed to handle. The loss of forests and neighborhoods is heartbreaking. But giving up is not an option. We need faster, sharper, and far more practical responses.
The fantasy of a magic chemical drop that turns off a wildfire instantly does not exist. Physics does not work that way.
Fire is a rapid chemical reaction fed by heat, oxygen, and fuel. Water remains our best tool because it absorbs vast amounts of thermal energy as it turns to steam. We have not found anything better per pound, which is a humbling place to start.
Real progress is not about inventing a magic elixir. It is about finding precise ways to disrupt the fire before it builds uncontrollable momentum.
The Ten-Minute Window
A small spot fire is relatively easy to put out during its first ten minutes. After two hours in dry, windy conditions, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.
The outcome of almost every major fire comes down to that initial window. Human crews, delayed by dispatch calls, traffic, and dangerous terrain at night, cannot always get there in time.
Finalists for the XPRIZE Wildfire project are being chosen.
Automated systems are designed to close that gap. Contests like XPRIZE Wildfire are driving teams to build detection tools that act without human delay. In Colorado, pilotless aircraft are being tested to fly into steep mountain canyons at night, dousing small ignitions before they spread. Solar-powered sensors mounted on trees can detect the chemical traces of smoldering leaves before a visible flame breaks out.
The goal is simple: catch fires early and put them out while they are still the size of a campfire.
Acoustic suppression is being tested for effectiveness. Image created with Midjourney.
Starving Flame With Sound
Some ideas sound improbable until you look at the physics. Acoustic fire suppression uses low-frequency sound waves aimed directly at a flame. The air pressure waves push oxygen away from the burning fuel, extinguishing the fire without water.
Laboratory tests prove it works on small flames. Whether a drone carrying a heavy sound emitter can hold off a wildfire on a steep slope remains unproven. But in dry regions where water supplies are low, a waterless tool powered by electricity is worth developing.
A next-generation gel material could help slow a fire’s progression.
Gels That Toughen Under Heat
Water-based gels can protect buildings, but fierce heat and dry winds often dry them out right when they are needed most.
Researchers at Stanford developed a gel that reacts to heat in a different way. Instead of evaporating, intense heat turns it into an aerogel, a lightweight material that insulates like solid smoke.
The hotter it gets, the better the shield insulates. Applying these gels to homes or dry brush before a fire arrives creates a protective coating built to survive extreme heat.
Defending Known Corridors
Chasing an advancing fire across wild terrain with trucks is a losing battle. But blazes consistently travel through the same canyons, ridges, and valleys mapped over decades.
Installing permanent misting lines along these known pathways changes the strategy from a chase to a fixed defense. High-pressure water lines fed by underground tanks can spray mist ahead of an advancing fire, soaking the ground and slowing the flames before they reach homes.
Permanent watering or misting lines might become necessary.
The First Five Feet
Investigations show that up to 90 percent of homes lost in wildfires catch fire from airborne embers, not direct contact with flames. Embers travel miles on the wind, landing in dry leaf piles, wooden fences, or bark mulch against the foundation.
This changes how we protect our homes. Replacing bark mulch with gravel, putting fine metal mesh over attic vents, and clearing dry debris within five feet of a structure are simple, practical steps that save buildings.
No single invention will solve wildfires on its own. Real protection comes from combining practical ideas across every level:
Tree sensors that detect early smoke
Automated aircraft that react in minutes
Gels that insulate better as heat rises
Water mist lines placed along known fire routes
Fire-resistant materials within five feet of every home
Living in fire country (wherever that may be today) requires clear eyes. We can acknowledge the fear of what we might lose while actively building the tools required to protect our homes and forests.
What would our world be without trees? Not worth living, in our mind. Our green planet still holds over 73,000 species of trees 🌲 🌳 🌴 , though there are some that are either very uncommon, or in danger of extinction. We’ve gathered a list of four of the most rare from around the globe, what makes them special, and why they’re rare. 🌍
1. Baobab
The giant baobab, or Adansonia, are a fascinating tree native to Africa, and less commonly in Asia and Australia. A long-living deciduous tree, they’re sometimes referred to as “upside-down” trees, due to their unusual appearance. Known to live for over 2,400 years, baobabs have the ability to hold huge amounts of water in their trunks, up to 32,000 gallons.
In the last decade or so, however, the oldest and largest of these beautiful trees have been dying off, due to climate change and rising temperatures.
2. Dragon’s Blood Tree
We’ve always loved the highly unusual, wildly-named Dragon’s Blood Tree, which lives only on the archipelago of Socotra, located in Yemen. The scientific name is Dracaena cinnabari.
Their tightly-packed canopy is very distinctive, looking almost like it’s been trimmed or manicured. It appears almost like an umbrella from a distance. When the bark is cut, the tree bleeds dark red sap, hence the memorable name. These rare trees are threatened by human encroachment, and by the tree’s poor regeneration.
3. Monkey Puzzle Tree
Yet another unusual name is fitting for this additional unusual tree.
The Monkey Puzzle Tree, or Araucaria araucana, is native to southern Chile and western Argentina. The tree’s appearance is so similar to species from ancient prehistory that it’s often referred to as a living fossil.
The tree’s hard, sharp leaves resemble scales, and cover the majority of the limbs and branches. The leaves themselves live for an average of 24 years, making the tree feel extremely hardy. Sadly the tree is now considered endangered, due to wildfire, grazing, and logging.
4. Quiver Tree
We’re least familiar with the Quiver tree, which has some visual similarities to some of the others, while remaining decidedly unique.
The Quiver Tree, or Aloidendron dichotomum, native to South Africa and Namibia is actually a tall branching species of succulent plant. It gets its name from the San people, who would hollow out the branches of the tree to make a quiver for their arrows.
The tree’s strange, alien-like appearance have inspired numerous science fiction books and films, including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Climate change has negatively impacted the tree, making them vulnerable to extinction.
Every so often nature produces something so improbable that it feels borrowed from a comic book.
Crime-fighting superhero, anyone?
The Mwanza flat-headed rock agama is one of those things. A scarlet head and shoulders melting into a deep electric blue body, worn by a lizard that spends its days basking on sun-warmed boulders in Tanzania, Rwanda, and Kenya. Look at him once and the nickname explains itself.
We love this creature because he is not trying to blend in. He is trying to be seen.
Colors get brightest during mating season.
That color is a male thing, and a mood thing. It flares brightest in breeding season, when the red deepens and the blue turns almost fluorescent, a broadcast aimed at females and at any rival male considering the neighborhood. It is also reversible. After dark, or when something startles him, the whole spectacle drains away into a modest brown, the same brown the females wear year round. The superhero suit, it turns out, comes off.
The rest of him is built for the terrain. Flat head, slim body, strong limbs, sharp claws. He can flatten into a crevice in an instant, run up a vertical face of granite, and cover ground on his hind legs when the situation calls for it.
These lizards live in loose social groups on the kopjes, the rounded rock islands that rise out of the East African plains, where a dominant male holds court over a stretch of stone and courts a female with an elaborate sequence of head bobs and swings.
Is this the web-slinger after all?
A quick note worth making, because it comes up constantly. This is not the red-headed rock agama, though the two are close cousins and endlessly confused with each other. The Spider-Man one is Agama mwanzae, described in 1923 and named for the Tanzanian city of Mwanza on Lake Victoria. The red-headed rock agama, Agama agama, is a different and far more widespread species that also happens to favor red and blue.
What stays with us is the sheer confidence of the display. In a landscape of dust and ochre and pale grass, evolution produced something that looks lit from within.
Cubes, 2014. Photography by Lernert & Sander, commissioned by de Volkskrant.
Some ideas are so simple that they feel inevitable in hindsight, and so punishing to execute that nobody had actually bothered to make them before. This is one of those.
In 2014, the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant was putting together a documentary photography special on the theme of food, and invited the Amsterdam studio Lernert & Sander to contribute an image. What came back was a photograph of 98 pieces of unprocessed food, every one of them cut down to exactly 2.5 x 2.5 x 2.5 centimeters, laid out on a staggered grid against a soft grey sweep.
With no CGI, AI, or compositing. Beef, tuna, mackerel, watermelon, dragon fruit, romanesco, red cabbage, corn, leek, purple cauliflower, all of it carved by hand and photographed as a single frame.
Salmon, kiwi, pomegranate, red onion. In the grid, everything is granted the same square footage.
Aesthetically processing the unprocessed
The concept came out of a conversation the studio was watching play out everywhere in the mid-2010s, and which has only intensified since.
Everyone had suddenly become preoccupied with provenance: where the food came from, whether it was local, whether it had been touched by a factory.
That is a genuinely sharp joke, and it is the reason the picture has legs. Nothing here has been cooked, cured, emulsified or extruded.
Every cube is a raw ingredient in its purest state.
And yet the image reads as the most industrially processed thing imaginable, a factory output, a Pantone chart, a set of pharmaceutical samples.
Purity and manufacture turn out to look identical when you apply enough geometry.
A shiitake cap, a block of tuna, mackerel with its skin still silver. The cut becomes the reveal.
The grid does the work
What makes this more than a novelty is the arrangement. A staggered grid is a flattening device: it removes hierarchy, kills composition, refuses to tell you where to look. Every ingredient gets exactly the same square footage.
Marbled beef sits at the same rank as a piece of white onion. The most expensive thing in the photograph and the cheapest thing in the photograph are impossible to tell apart by status, only by color.
Stripped of shape, silhouette and plating, the only information left is surface. So you start reading food the way you would read a minimalist artwork, by texture and hue alone.
The cross-section of a leek becomes a set of nested arcs. Red cabbage becomes a purple-and-white marbled stone.
A corn cob, sliced through, turns into a tiny stack of yellow bricks. Half the pleasure of the image is the slow work of identification, which is precisely what happened when it went online: Reddit spent days trying to name all 98.
Romanesco, red cabbage, cantaloupe, beef. And a green pepper losing its argument with the knife.
Some foods refuse
Look closely and the perfection develops cracks, which is the best part. A green bell pepper is mostly air, so its cube caves inward at the corners.
Purple cauliflower sprouts out past its own edges like something growing back. Broccoli and romanesco fray at the top face because they simply do not have enough mass to hold a plane.
The studio let those stay in. A version of this image where all 98 cubes were flawless would be a much duller picture, and a slightly dishonest one. The failures are where you can still feel the hand and the knife.
Dragon fruit, corn, watermelon, banana. Some cross-sections are almost too good to be real.
Where to see it
Cubes was shot by Lernert & Sander with lighting and technique by Ram van Meel, commissioned by de Volkskrant. The studio still offers it as a signed 52 x 42 cm offset poster, along with a framed limited-edition C-print, through lernertandsander.com.
Thanks to the internet, Reddit user c0pypastry has done the work of labeling the many cubes.
The duo have been working together since 2007, and the same instinct runs through the rest of their catalog: take one obsessive idea, then follow it further than anyone reasonably would. They once blended every fragrance released in a single year into one bottle. They made a film about the ways a chocolate bunny can melt.
More than a decade later, this photograph still circulates constantly, and it still stops us. It is a reminder that you do not need scale or spectacle to make an image that lodges in people’s heads. You need one clean idea and the patience to cut 98 cubes by hand.
There’s something delightful about a purpose-made item. Something so bespoke and one-track that it borders on the pure ridiculous.
That would be the case with this Japanese Watermelon Tote, if it weren’t so lovely and endearing.
Handmade by craftsman Kadoi Yusuke, it’s another example of Japanese artisan work that borders on the obsessive to bring something lovely to life.
WATERMELON TOTE
Enjoy a sweet and delicious watermelon under the clear blue summer sky.
If one could freely and easily carry a heavy, round watermelon in a bag…
This is the thought that went through the mind of our craftsman, Mr. Kadoi, and inspired him to begin working on a special leather bag designed to hold a watermelon.
And yes, one can assume you could carry a basketball or pumpkin in the bag as well, but it might go against all that is lovely and sacred.
Part of The Fun of Carrying line for Tsuchiya Kaban, we find it delightfully irreverent and memorable.
A great vacation rental can make a trip feel completely different. Instead of simply having somewhere to sleep at the end of the day, travellers get a space where they can relax, cook, spend time together and settle into the rhythm of a destination.
For property owners, creating that experience involves much more than choosing attractive furniture or adding a few decorative touches. Guests notice whether a property is comfortable, well-maintained, and thoughtfully equipped. They also remember the small details that make their stay more enjoyable.
From keeping the temperature comfortable to providing entertainment and the occasional sweet treat, it is often the practical details that turn an ordinary rental into somewhere guests genuinely enjoy staying.
Comfort Starts With the Basics
Temperature is one of those things travellers may not think about until something goes wrong.
A property that is too hot or too cold can quickly become uncomfortable, particularly when guests have travelled from a different climate. Heating and cooling systems therefore play an important role in maintaining a pleasant indoor environment.
For vacation rental owners, regular maintenance is worth prioritising. An air conditioning system that works perfectly during one season may struggle when temperatures rise or when it has been sitting unused for months.
If a system needs professional attention, searching for hvac contractors near me can be a useful starting point for finding local professionals who can inspect, repair or maintain heating and cooling equipment.
Keeping these systems in good condition is not just about guest comfort. Regular maintenance can also help identify problems before they become expensive emergencies, which is particularly useful when a property is occupied by visitors throughout the year.
Give Guests Something to Do
A well-designed vacation rental does not need to provide entertainment for every minute of a guest’s stay. After all, one of the reasons people travel is to explore somewhere new.
However, having a few options available can be particularly useful for families or groups. Weather can change plans, children may need something to occupy them and sometimes guests simply want a quiet evening indoors.
Simple games can work surprisingly well. Board games, outdoor activities and interactive entertainment can encourage people to spend time together rather than automatically reaching for their phones.
For property owners who host larger gatherings or manage event spaces, game rentals can offer another way to provide entertainment. Options such as arcade games, carnival games and interactive attractions can help create a more memorable experience when there is enough space to accommodate them.
The key is choosing entertainment that suits the type of guests and property. A family-friendly rental might benefit from simple outdoor games, while a larger vacation home could potentially accommodate more substantial entertainment.
Make the Kitchen Part of the Experience
One advantage of staying in a vacation rental rather than a traditional hotel is having access to a kitchen.
This can make travelling with children considerably easier and can also appeal to guests who enjoy cooking. Being able to prepare breakfast before heading out or make a simple dinner after a long day of sightseeing can make a property feel much more like home.
Providing basic kitchen equipment is therefore a worthwhile consideration for owners. Good knives, useful cookware, a coffee maker and enough plates and glasses can make a noticeable difference.
Even small additions can be appreciated. A selection of tea or coffee, basic cooking ingredients or information about nearby grocery stores can save guests time and make their arrival easier.
Outdoor Spaces Matter Too
If a property has a garden, balcony, terrace or other outdoor area, it can become one of its biggest attractions.
Outdoor spaces give guests somewhere to enjoy their surroundings without having to leave the property. A morning coffee on a balcony, an evening meal outside or children playing in the garden can become memorable parts of a holiday.
Comfort is important here as well. Outdoor seating should be practical, while shade can be particularly valuable in warmer destinations. Lighting can make a patio or terrace usable after sunset, allowing guests to continue enjoying the space in the evening.
For family-friendly properties, an outdoor area can also provide somewhere for children to burn off energy after spending hours travelling or sightseeing.
Little Treats Can Make a Big Impression
Some of the most memorable details are surprisingly simple.
A welcome basket, locally produced snacks, or a few treats waiting for guests can create a positive first impression. These gestures do not necessarily have to be expensive. What matters is that they feel thoughtful and appropriate to the destination.
For events held at vacation properties, food can also become part of the entertainment. During a summer gathering, for example, an ice cream truck rental toronto service could provide a fun addition for guests, particularly at family celebrations, parties or outdoor events.
There is something inherently nostalgic about an ice cream truck. It turns an ordinary dessert into an experience, and children are unlikely to forget the excitement of choosing their favourite flavour.
Maintenance Happens Behind the Scenes
The finished vacation rental may look effortless to a guest, but keeping it that way requires regular attention.
Heating and cooling systems need servicing. Appliances need checking. Outdoor areas need maintaining, and furniture can require repairs or replacement over time.
This behind-the-scenes work is easy to overlook because guests rarely see it. Yet it directly affects their experience.
A well-maintained property gives visitors confidence that they can relax without having to worry about whether something is going to break. It also helps owners protect their investment and avoid allowing small maintenance issues to become larger problems.
Creating a maintenance schedule can make this easier. Rather than waiting for guests to report an issue, owners can regularly inspect important systems and deal with minor problems before they become disruptive.
The Details Guests Remember
A successful vacation rental does not necessarily need to be luxurious.
It needs to be comfortable, functional and welcoming. Guests want to know that they can sleep well, stay cool or warm enough, prepare food and enjoy themselves between outings.
The details that achieve this can vary from property to property. In one rental, it might be an excellent outdoor space. In another, it could be a games room or a thoughtfully stocked kitchen. Somewhere else, it might simply be a comfortable sofa and a reliable heating and cooling system.
Ultimately, the best vacation rentals understand what travellers actually need.
A beautiful property may attract the initial booking, but comfort and thoughtful details are what can turn a short stay into a genuinely enjoyable experience. When owners pay attention to those details, they are not simply providing accommodation. They are creating a place where people can relax, make memories and feel at home while discovering somewhere new.
