Fields of floating paper hiraganas hang to create colorful screens and passageways in this spectacular work of installation art. Designed by Emmanuelle Moureaux, it is part of a larger 100 Colors series exploring a whole spectrum of intimate and thoughtful spaces.

The opening of the exhibit coincided with Tanabata Day, a Japanese star festival during which people traditionally write down their hopes and dreams on pieces of paper then suspend these from bamboo branches.

The result is a peaceful place made up over of 140,00 paper cutouts, draped from the ceiling to create rainbow passages and aligned to create opportunities for connection as well as isolation throughout the artwork. From some perspectives, the entire spectrum is visible, while in other places, a single color dominates.

Located just a few hundred meters from the checkpoint to Jerusalem and a mile from the centre of Bethlehem, the Walled-Off Hotel (a play on Waldorf) project features works of art and artistically designed rooms — it serves as a habitable way to raise funds and awareness, too.

Now, the hotel has released a set of works depicting the West Bank barrier and other regional art pieces by Banksy, rendered in miniature and only available to those who visit (most are not available online).

Many of these are framed as works of “anticipatory art,” designed to foreshadow a better future of trust and interconnection in the region.

“The gift shop is situated towards the back of the hotel and sells items created exclusively for the Walled Off by Banksy. It should not be confused with the ‘Banksy Shop’ next door – which has nothing to do with Banksy at all,” note the proprietors. “All profits from sales go towards sustaining the hotel and social projects.”

With the fresh move by the Trump White House of the U.S. embassy, travelers are assured they will be safe, but also warned to use caution and pay attention to current events before traveling. And, of course: exit through the gift shop.

Designer Fernando Abellanas has built a remarkable micro-dwelling in Valencia, Spain, that slides into position under a bridge, suspended safely out of sight from the traffic passing by above.

The clever construction of the room’s frame allows it to roll over tilted sections of beam, making its way between a lofted and secluded position and the top of a slope on the other side for entry and egress.

A hand-crank lets the dweller move the enclosure back and forth without any need for an external power source. Furniture and fixtures, meanwhile, stay put, attached to the vertical span of bridge supports where the room docks.

Embracing a minimalist approach and industrial palette, this urban refuge has flexible walls that can form an enclosure and act as privacy screens, allowing the occupant to hiding completely behind raised plywood surfaces.

A light-touch approach means the structure leaves essentially no footprint – it glides lightly around existing infrastructure. And its built-in mobility mechanism assures castle-like protection, vertical space acting as a natural moat.

Indeed, the designs were based on childhood fantasies and real-worldassociations with hard-to-access spaces like tree houses and table forts easy for children to access but hard for adults.

The dull hum of the road is a bit like the buzz of a family going about its business — the buffer of concrete also dampens some of the noise, making the space less loud than it would be to occupy a space alongside the highway.

Abellanas has long been fascinated with furniture as well as forts, and his work with other artists and architects reflects an ongoing interest in paradigm-challenging designs do-it-yourself guerrilla interventions.

When someone exclaims “It’s raining pitchforks and hammer handles out there” they rarely mean it quite so literally. Dubbed The Crusher, this installation sounds as much like a pro wrestler or horror movie as a piece of art. And as the ominous name suggests: it is something to be awed … and perhaps at least a little bit feared.

British artist Simon Birch works in a variety of mediums, but this installation in a Los Angeles is a bit of a departure from his safely-on-the-canvass oil paintings. The 300 suspended forks feature three to five prongs for a total of over a thousand points on which one could be impaled.

Visitors to this site-specific work are invited to view it now just from the side but also from beneath. The rundown appearance of the surrounding structure and variety of aged potential death traps above do little to assuage one’s anxiety while going below (or watching others do so).

So far, the work has been hugely popular, but one has to wonder: what if there were an earthquake, or one of the forks slipped loose somehow?

Simon Birch “has also ventured into film and installation work … These large multimedia projects integrated paintings with film, installation, sculpture, and performance housed in specifically configured spaces” (via MMM).

Above and beyond your typical five-star hotel, this open-air room sits at nearly 6,500 feet in the mountains of Switzerland with panoramic views of the Alps.

A bed, side tables and lamps are not quite all visitors need to enjoy their stay at Null Stern (translated: Zero Star), but bathrooms are just a few minutes down the slope and meals are delivered by a butler. The name is a little misleading, since in most hotels one would have greatly reduced access to the infinite stars in the night sky.

At around $250 per night, the space and its amenities are a steal and reservations are refunded in case of inclement weather. The wall-and-ceiling-free room is available in spring and fall but closed during the winter.

The Null Stern is part art experiment and part boutique hotel, using the sky as a ceiling and mountains as walls.

“Even though this version is radically different from the first one in the nuclear bunker,” a previous project by the same creators, “the essence and the spirit of the concept remains the same,” said one of the artists behind Null Stern “To put the guest at the centre of the experience and to focus on the intangible by reducing everything else to the minimum.”