Hawaii, and more particularly Hilo, has a large Filipino community.   In case you haven't heard there is an excellent and very successful designer you should meet.

Twin Brazilian brothers Octavio and Gustavo Pandolfo worked with the the city of Vancouver to beautify six 70 foot high silos. Their work goes by the name os gemeos, "the twins” in Portuguese.
It took the two less than a month to complete painting the 23,500 square feet of surface area.  Crowd-funding was done on Indiegogo and in two months has raised CAD$70,000.

To learn more about the Osgemeos click here.

Architect Zaha Hadid would like to be paid for her firms work on the 2020 Tokyo Olympic stadium. Apparently the Japan Sport Council is withholding money in exchange for ZHA giving up claims to copyrights.

Zaha Hadid design for the 80,000-seat stadium was selected by the council on Nov. 16, 2012.  Later the this design was rejected because of cost and on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015 the Japan Sports Council announced a newly selected design by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.

Hadid's office submitted a document to the Council explaining the similarities of "the structure, layout and numerous elements" between ZHA's original design and the latest.

Unfortunately, is not uncommon for governments or large corporate organizations to bully designers into getting their way by withholding payment.

Original story here.

Brilliant idea and awesome work for a huge problem without pollution or expense.  5 stars!

Gravity Light was designed to replace kerosene lamps throughout Africa using the power of gravity to run the light.  It provides over 30mins of LED lighting as it takes 26lb bag to drop before the bag needs to be raised again.  the UK development team is working on an improved model with will again be assembled in Africa to provide jobs within the communities that use Gravity Light. The cost ends up being $5 to the end user and with in 6 weeks of switching from kerosene to Gravity Light users save money.

For more info check out Gravity Light

Planting flowers in potholes has become a recent trend in North America and Europe to draw the attention of the local transit authority.  Although quite passive aggressive, these artists have to be given credit for the unique approach they have taken since all else has failed to get the governments' help.  Some citizens have tried planting flowers, trees, mosaics and staging rubber ducks and sculptures in the potholes.  In New Orleans, citizens are filling potholes with Mardi Gras beads or repairing them themselves even though it is illegal for citizens to fix potholes themselves.  In Jackson Mississippi, ‘Pothole Robin Hood’ (Ron Chane) broke-in and stole some of the city's asphalt and fixed 101 local potholes with the tag ‘citizen fixed’.  Another speedy way is spray painting genitalia over the potholes like Wanksy does in Ramsbottom, Greater Manchester in the UK.  It seems odd that covering up graffiti is more urgent than public safety on the roadways.