Lapping up the side of a three-story building in Kiev, Ukraine, this dark mural mixes blue and gray hues to capture dark waters and skies of the Black Sea.

Originally from London and based in Cape Town, South Africa, artist Jake Aikman enjoys working on extreme and dramatic landscapes, from dark blue oceans to dark green forests and distant lonely mountains.

The focus in most of his pieces is not so much the scene but the setting — especially at larger scales and absent figures, as in this piece, they create a tone or mood rather than telling a particular story. In short: they leave a lot to the imagination, like a blank canvass providing a time and place but no characters.

This particular piece is one of his largest to date and was produced for Art United Us. Spanning the entire side of a structure, it was completed in just over a week.

When a cold front blew in over Lake Ontario, photographer John Kucko caught wind of the phenomenon and rushed to shoot images of a remarkably frozen home.

Located in Webster, New York, the house is entirely trapped inside ice, a combination of sheets and icicles wrapping the residence on all sides. Outdoor furniture and landscaping elements between the lake and the house were likewise wrapped in frozen water.

An unusual combination of waves, wind and freezing weather contributed to the mix, as well as the home’s proximity to the lake. Winds over 80 mile per hour pushed water the short twenty feet to the residence. You can see more images and videos on the photographers Facebook page.

Years ago, artists in Detroit did something similar but intentional with an abandoned home, showering it with water and letting it ice over for effect.

Combining the physical benefits of circular plans with the practicality of straight lines and corners, octagonal houses are uniquely positioned to resist hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes that threaten coastlines.

Rounded habitats have a long history, from tipis and yurts through the geodesic domes of Buckminster Fuller. Indeed, round homes make sense for a lot of reasons. They have less surface area, which means they require less construction material and have greater energy efficiency, for instance. Critically, rounded homes are also ideal for resisting extreme weather (above: a regular home destroyed in a storm and a surviving semi-round house).

Flat sides pose a significant structural risk during hurricanes and tsunamis. It is much easier for wind and water to flow around a round house than a square or rectangular one.

In modern rounded house designs, radial floor and roof trusses meet in a center ring like spokes on a wheel and thus lock the building in a constant state of compression, which further reinforces its structural integrity. This approach also helps them resist earthquakes.

Of course, fitting furniture along the edges of a truly round house can be frustrating. The space and materials saved are nice, but the usability of the resulting spaces is diminished.

Today, many round-house makers opt for a middle ground and go with octagonal floor plans (or other variants with more than four sides). Doubling the number of walls, this represents the best of both worlds in many ways. These are easier to construct with contemporary materials and techniques, but still take advantage of wind- and water-resistance found in edge-less dwellings.

Deltac, one manufacturer of such semi-round structures, boasts that none of their 5,000 homes built to date has been knocked down by nature. These kinds of homes also have an added benefit for those living along coasts, where storms are a great thread: their shapes provide seaside dwellers with amazing panoramic views (images via Deltac and Cayman).

As roads closed and kids turned staircases into sledding hills and snowboarding slopes across East Coast cities during Jonas, one photographer stopped to shoot a few pictures that turned out looking like modern-day impressionist paintings.

Photographer Michele Palazzo managed to capture not only the swirling snow around the structure, but an installation of snowflakes inside mirroring the exterior weather. Despite Sprint and Apple logos, hallmarks of the present age, there is something timeless about the composition.

According to Colossal, “the snowflakes you see in the window of the Flatiron are part of a paper origami installation by Chelsea Hrynick Browne in the Prow Artspace. The cloudy atmosphere and gusty winds creates patterns that appear uncannily like brush strokes. You can see more of Palazzo’s shots from the morning of January 23rd on EyeEm.” (See more storm photos, thumbnails above, over at the EyeEm Blog).

An idle thought while waiting out a snowstorm led to an accidental artistic discovery: projecting a movie on falling snow can result in an visually rich result bordering on magical, in turn captured on film.

Photographer Brian Maffit had no idea what to expect when he turned his projector to face outside his window during a snowstorm, but when he realized the potential, he began documenting the results with both still and video cameras.

By zooming in and out, shifting the perspective of the projector and the camera, and taking shots at various degrees of snowy downfall and capturing moments throughout the movie, the images end up spanning a surprising visual range of colors and contrasts.

“The ‘RGB dots’ were the biggest surprise, I guess when the projector is showing a white screen, it is really rapidly cycling between fully-saturated red, green, and blue screens… thus the dots in a few of the shots.”

Aside from the embedded video and stills found here, you can also visit his Flickr page for high-resolution images taken throughout the experience. And the film in question? The Lorax. Perhaps best watched on snow anyway.