It seems that even in the property world, green is the new black.  Earlier this month, the Government announced the locations of the UK’s first four eco-towns which will feature affordable homes that use natural energy.
This was followed by news this week that Velux are to build the country’s first two carbon neutral model homes [...]

In honour of the BBC’s lavish new series, Desperate Romantics, which is based on the lives of the artists behind the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti), this week’s Five to View focuses on studio houses.
The Pre-Raphaelite boys and their associates were often from privileged backgrounds, of course, so [...]

If you took one dollop of 2001: A Space Odyssey, whisked in a hefty glug of Blade Runner and added a dash of The Mummy you’d end up with something like Makoto Tanijiri’s sleekly beautiful Pyramid house in Saijo, Hiroshima, Japan.
Not only is it a stunningly futuristic statement, but it also apparently echoes the earliest [...]

Welcome to our new series where we’ll be focusing on a different property type each week – a bit of a 57 varieties of the residential world, if you like.
To start: thatched cottages - simply because they appeal to my retirement fantasy of living a Miss Marple-esque existence where I effortlessly solve local village crimes [...]

The winner of Shed of the Year 2009 has been announced over at The Shed Blog, and wooah! What a wonder!

In fact, it’s such a humdinger of a shed that Steven Harwood’s Kite Cabin has caused some heated debate in the Editorial Dept here at FAP Towers.
“It’s bigger than my [...]

“The fully outfitted, meticulously detailed, two bedroom, Boeing 727 fuselage suite” at Hotel Costa Verde, Costa Rica.
Just… wow.
(via Inhabitat)

Maybe it’s because I’m a curmudgeonly old misanthrope (no, no don’t protest, it’s true) but I’ve always fancied the idea of living on an island.
The only thing stopping me is a slight lack of cash, because unless I fancy a midge infested rock in some Canadian great lake, then the more salubrious islands are way [...]

You may like your toast quite well-browned, or even slightly burned; but for really, really DARK toast you need one of these bad boys - a Darth Vader Toaster…

And in the interests of keeping the balance of the Force, we move away from the Dark Side to something that’s lighter than errr, a lightsaber and [...]

My new favourite designers are the Play Coalition, who first came to my attention with their selfless light fitting, The Martyr; a neat little visual pun on the idea of energy-saving.

They’ve now come up with a crazy, Tim Burton-esque solution to light-starved houseplants, The Plantbot.
Slap in your favourite fern, yucca, whatever and say goodbye to [...]

Now here’s a novel notion: a church built out of beer cans.  Yep, that’s right.  A church. From beer cans.
Although it may sound like something straight from the mind of Homer Simpson, this is actually a true story of ecclesiastical architecture.
Having lost their main church building to developers, the parish of Colston Milton in Glasgow [...]