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Los Angeles is a polarizing city and Wayfaring will show you one different side of the city. To some people the city is a paradise with its beautiful beaches, luxury hotels, bars and nightclubs. To others it’s a look of apocalypse with its air pollution, earthquake and wildfires. Los Angles is a kind of place that even though some people refuse to visit.

In order to understand the whole picture of Los Angles you have to understand how the city flows of its local landscape. Once you find out how the city operate – how it form a system – you will see the beauty of  it.

First of all I will begin from wastewater plant El Segundo. It’s actually the third largest plant in the country – behind Chicago and Boston. The city even offers tours to El Segundo, which is a great place nestled between LAX and Chevron refinery. You have got the Pacific Ocean to the west and  LAX to the north. You can even seen where its pipe extends. Then I offer you the other end of spectrum – Mt. Wilson – an observatory and antenna fields. It’s cool up there with a forest of huge antennas and you can run among the trees and the towers.

Another interesting building to visit is One Wilshire – a classic modernist Skidmore, Owings & Merrill building, at the crossroads of Grand and Wilshire—–but it’s called the most connected building on the West Coast in terms of internet bandwidth. It’s a telco hotel as well and has connections directly to Pacific submarine cables. In other words, it’s infrastructure, but it’s also architecture. It’s got floors and floors of computers—–and then, occasionally, some lawyer’s office.

One of my favorite places is the gravel trench in Irwindale—–the Durbin trench and the Vulcan trench. Those are two adjacent gravel trenches in this huge complex of trenches, where much of the gravel out is that one, which the structures and the freeways in Los Angeles get made.

In this picture is the Cascades, which are a registered State Histor-ical Landmark. They are where the 338-mile Owens River Aqueduct terminates, bringing fresh water to L.A. The aqueduct’s construction, which finished in 1913, is a fascinating—–and murky—–tale of government corruption and outright theft. Los Angeles is, after all, maybe more than other cities, a complex blend of physical facts and interpretive fictions.

The Montreal Expo 67 defined today Montreal as a design spot to watch. Though Montreal isn’t booming quite like Toronto or Calgary, the European stone streets of the Old City are still a favorite of tourists—and of the American under-21 set looking for a beer. Many famous architects have designed university buildings and museums all over Montreal like the Faculty of Music Building at McGill University and several boutiques.

The truth is, Montreal is a place to discover. The people there are very welcoming and if you talk to them they will help you see. There isn’t some organized system to discovering the city as the chambre de commerce presents. I suggest dear traveler going to smaller, lesser-known places, and that’s where you find wonderful food or nightlife. It’s all very organic there, but there’s no system to discovering it, or one place or neighborhood to go. One of the best, most established places  there is Café L’Express and they don’t even have a sign.

Montreal is also an initiative city, which makes a new center in Old Montreal. It’s lovely down there and the stone buildings are amazing, but it’s very touristy by the St. Lawrence. The western part of Old Montreal is developing in a really natural way, though. McGill Street is coming up. The way the west part of Old Montreal is going, it will help re-create the natural fabric of the city.

In the past, the east side of Montreal was Francophone and the west was Anglophone. It’s still that way to some extent, but you will enjoying a moment of harmony there. The new leadership has said that the referendum is on ice for some years in order to establish a healthier, more connected city. This is a wonderful city and it’s the only place I know where everyone really does speak two languages.

You see, Montreal is all about surprise. You come here expecting one thing and then you see a guy surfing in the river. It’s on YouTube.

ContaineR is a traveling film house dedicated to the cultural countdown to the winter Olympics in Vancouver 2010. The creators are a wonderful trio form of architect Robert Duke, designers Keith Doyle and Iain Sinclair, and artistic directors Nicole Mion and Evann Seibens. The containeR can fit up to 25 guests who look up to the screen in the vaulted space where they watch projected short films about movement, dance, and sports.

The structure speaks art as well. Graphic drawings of hands, eyes and cartoon cameras cover the steel walls of the originally cream and orange colored containers.  On a walk around the structure, viewers experience large-scale graffiti, and can watch a documentary of the construction on a video screen built into the container’s exterior.

The first public appearance of containR is at Moshe Safdie’s coliseum-esque Vancouver Central Library, and will continue its journey to and from different festivals over the next year, potentially taking on new capacities as a gallery, performance venue and retail space. Springboard is still in talks with the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad organization, hoping that other containRs can be built in public venues like Whistler, the Richmond Skating Oval, Cypress Mountain and downtown Vancouver.

Hopefully the structure will also continue to inspire and spark innovative uses of sustainable materials well beyond the city limits.

Urban hostels in Europe have passed to an elegant transformation over the last decade, creating a viable alternative to the boutique hotel. The picture displays the Urbany in Barcelona. Rooms here have private baths, Wi-Fi and air-conditioning.

A particular room at the Urbany in Barcelona.

The rooftop terrace at Urbany, where the view includes the Agbar Tower, left.

A room in the modern London Central Youth Hostel. Located five minutes from Oxford Street and Regent’s Park, this hostel also has a 24-hour Internet cafe, group tours around the city, entertainment (D.J.’s, live music and karaoke nights) and kitchens where you can make your own meals.

The picture shows the Circus Hostel in Berlin’s lively Mitte neighborhood, located in the heart of the city.

One of the apartments at the Circus in Berlin. Every room has Wi-Fi.

The youth-oriented Yellow hostel in Rome only accepts guests in their late teens to age 40. Dorm rooms are all mixed gender and some have private baths. Foosball in the common room at Yellow, which is near the central railway station in Rome.

The new Airbus A380 has an outstanding interior design that will lead the A380 on a league of its own. With spacious interior space, being all around by spectacular design features, as well as a manner of the art entertainment and business facilities, the A380 feels more like a hotel bar, than an airplane. The A380 is the world’s largest passenger aircraft and includes 50 per cent more floor space than its nearest competitor.

The fabulous double deck arrangement gives extra capacity at the same time as improving the passenger experience. Each twin-aisle cabin allows wider seats but with fewer rows than on other large aircraft. Easing the stress of long-haul travel, the A380 cabins feature mood lighting thanks to light emitting diodes (LED) capable of simulating day or night. Mood lighting reliеve the stress of jet lag for long-haul passengers and also supplies a relaxing atmosphere. Windows are also larger, providing more natural light and a better view outside the aircraft.

Over the last years in New York, the Robin Hood Foundation and city’s schools administration have constructed art libraries in 62 schools. Some of the libraries and those recently created at three schools in the Bronx have also appear with the addition of art works by well-known artists. In the picture, left, an art work at P.S. 47 by the illustrator Maira Kalman.

“I go to museums all over the world, and I love natural-history displays, and I wanted something that felt like that,” said Ms. Kalman

Another view of the installation, which Ms. Kalman said was intended to conjure the kind of eccentric personal museums that amateur scientists and collectors once built as a means of cataloging the world.

Some of the objects in the installation include a lump of unformed glass, a giant 1,000-watt light bulb and a fake coconut cake with a cherry on top. The library at P.S. 47 was designed by the architect Richard H. Lewis.

This library is called P.S. 96, and the design firm Pentagram helped find artists willing to donate time and resources to create outsize pieces that ring the rooms.

At P.S. 69, Christoph Niemann has designed a mural that uses images of books serving as almost everything — as Abraham Lincoln’s beard and Mona Lisa’s smile, as a car hood, an eagle’s wings and a dinosaur’s teeth — all organized with Dewey Decimal System numbers in painted bubbles.

Asilah is a town on the northwest coast of Morocco, where sounds of waves drift over the town’s brilliant white architecture and down its freshly swept alleyways.

Asilah had once been rundown, but an annual arts festival, the International Cultural Moussem, renewed and cleaned up the town, turning it into a fashionable place.

Today Asilah is emerged as the cleanest cities in Morocco.

A view from a three-bedroom house that faces the sea, with housekeeper and chef, for 600 to 900 euros a week.

A henna tattoo.

Hamburg is the second largest city in Germany, perfect destination to explore its culture walking or on water. The port of Hamburg is the second largest port in Europe. Huge numbers of rivers, canals and lakes offer many opportunities for sightseeing the city from water. Hamburg has more bridges than Venice, Amsterdam and London, all together.

The picture shows the Fleetschloesschen, a little canal castle, is a former public restroom, then a customs office and now a cafe and restaurant.

Homeowners in the famous Winterhude neighborhood kept their boats on the Goldbekkanal, one of the many branches of the Alster River. The Alster River flows under the Sengelmannstrasse Bridge in the Hamburg neighborhood of Ohlsdorf, nearly five hours from the city center.

Many of the buildings in Hamburg are converted into lofts and commercial space for publishing, advertising and architecture firms.

Hamburg has more than 40 theatres, 60 museums and 100 music venues and clubs.

Afghanistan is located approximately in the center of Asia. Afghanistan is a crossroads between the East and the West, and has been an ancient point of trade and migration. It has an important geostrategical location, connecting South and Central Asia and Middle East.

The country has many natural resources, that’s why there’s still a war there. The natural resources are  gold, silver, copper, zinc and iron ore in southeastern areas; precious and semi-precious stones such as lapis, emerald and azure in the north-east; and potentially significant petroleum and natural gas reserves in the north. The country also has uranium, coal, chromite, talc, barites, sulfur, lead, and salt.

The most common languages spoken in Afghanistan are Persian and Pashto. Both are Indo-European languages from the Iranian languages sub-family.

Afghanistan has a complex history that has survived either in its current cultures or in the form of various languages and monuments. However, many of the country’s historic monuments have been damaged in recent wars.

The two famous statues of Buddha in the Bamyan Province were destroyed by the Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous. Other famous sites include the cities of Kandahar, Heart, Ghazni and Balkh.

Laos or the Lao People’s Democratic Public is a landlocked country in southeast Asia, offering an untouched glimpse of traditional life.

In Laos, a bungalow is the best place to enjoy sunset along the Nam Song River. the town is famous for its adventure destination, due to the many options for kayaking and caving.

The road from Ban Beng to Tha Taeng in southeastern Laos, where is possible to bump into  the indochinese tiger, the giant gaur and the Asian elephant.

Fresg vegetables are available at the main market called Talat Nyai in Attapeu.

A vendor at the Attapeu market. The Lao economy is heavily dependent on investment and trade with its neighbors, Thailand, Vietnam, and, especially in the north, China. Pakxe has also experienced growth based on cross-border trade with Thailand and Vietnam. Much of the country, however, lacks adequate infrastructure. Laos has no railways, except a short link to connect Vientiane with Thailand over the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge.

Turku is a post-modern city in Finland and today the city has a new library to celebrate for! The new city library in Turku is located at the historical centre of the city. The building is the latest addition to a block with the old library and several other historically valuable buildings.

The library has a functionally clear design. The public spaces are situated mainly on two floors surrounding the opening to the courtyard. The staff premises are located systematically on one side of the building facing the street. The first floor has a reception and lounge area, a children’s and youth section.

The building was made from concrete cast on site and fair-faced concrete was formed with vertical boards to achieve the rough feeling characteristic of the material. Glass was given a seminal role both in the outer architecture and the interior world. Transparency befits this type of building; a public library building should evoke the idea of openness.

Vancouver, British Columbia is a host city for the next Olympics Games, 2010. Despite of the fact that it is only 35 miles north of the U.S. border, Vancouver feels and looks different from any other big city in the United States or, for that matter, Canada. With its glass-and-steel towers, Vancouver could be in Asia.

There has been a lot of construction going on in Vancouver in preparation for the Games — and beyond. After the Winter Games, the 16-building Olympic Village, which will house about 2,800 athletes, is to be converted into a 730-unit luxury condominium complex called Millennium Water. About half the units have already been sold.

Most of the part of the peninsula is surrounded by a sea wall, which is ideal for walking, biking and jogging.

There are no freeways through the city. Those who want to head north to Whistler, where the Olympic skiing events will be held, can use the Lions Gate bridge, which spans the first narrows of the Burrard Inlet.

A statue of runner Harry Jerome stands against the Vancouver skyline.

No one knows for sure what Vancouver will be like after the Games!

St. Petersburg, Russia is a spectacular city but the winter nights are long, which means there’s more time for night life. St. Petersburg is a city with broad boulevards, graceful bridges, glittering palaces, winding canals and beautiful, snow-blanketed parks illuminated throughout the long, dark nights.

Saint Petersburg is often described as the most Western city of Russia. Among cities of the world with over one million people, Saint Petersburg is the northernmost. The Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A statue atop St. Isaac’s Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox church whose gold dome is one of the skyline’s most familiar landmarks.

Nevsky Prospekt, a broad boulevard lined with department stores, boutiques, cafes, restaurants, office buildings and palaces.

If you want to examine the human history into upward spiral, head to the new California Academy of Science located in Golden Gate Park. Designed by Mr. Piano, the academy has astonishing floating green roof of undulating mounds of plants.

 

‘This building’s greatness as architecture, however, is rooted in a cultural history that stretches back through Modernism to Classical Greece. ‘

 

This science academy gives the sense of weightlessness. A row of steel columns soaring 36 feet high along the facade lends the building a classical air. The impression of lightness is accentuated by a wafer-thin canopy above that creates the illusion that the roof is only millimeters thick.

 

A glass lobby allows you to gaze straight through the building to the park on the other side. Other views open into exhibition spaces with their own microclimates. The entire building serves as a sort of specimen case, a framework for pondering the natural world while straining to disturb it as little as possible.

 

The roof of the academy’s lobby, supported by a gossamer like web of cables, swells upward as if the entire room were breathing.One of the building’s many environmental features, these windows let warm air escape and create a gentle breeze that reinforces the connection to the natural setting.

 

The academy has a museum, with African Hall and gorgeous vaulted ceiling and dioramas of somnolent lions and grazing antelopes, integrating it into the new design.

 

The white-headed langur is one of the many endangered species of primates in Asia. Such an animal can be found in Guangxi region in southern China. Langurs are famous for their vegetarian way of eating- leaves and fruits.

 

During the 1980s, the langurs lived in 16 areas of Guangxi. By the late 1990s, they had disappeared from the three areas.This is the Nongguan Nature Reserve, where the langurs’ forest habitat grows on steep mountain faces as well as in the valleys in between.

 

White-headed langurs are born canary yellow.Female langurs can give birth once every two years. After a six-month pregnancy, a mother breast-feeds the baby for one year. Several weeks after birth, a langur’s yellow fur begins to fade and is gradually replaced by dark black fur, except for the head and tail.

 

Photographs by: Peking University Chongzuo Biodiversity Research Institute