Friday Favorites

• Video animations of construction projects are always fun. But this metamorphosis of Rio de Janeiro is quite amazing.

• Meanwhile, architects are taking “building skin” to a whole new level – and proposing a building in Dubai that grows its own skin!

• And over in Mexico, while this building may not be designed to grow, the modules on the facade “are coated with a special pigment that, when hit by ambient ultraviolet light, reacts with urban air pollutants, breaking them down into less noxious compounds like carbon dioxide and water”…in other words, it eats smog.