Macau S.A.R., China

How do you build visual reminders of nature into the urban environment? Use the thousands of canvasses the planners gave you: Dual purpose your sidewalks. Let them make of your city a shadowbox of silhouettes. Then, watch to see if pedestrians step on the cuddle fish. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Casino owners in Macau salivate when they think of the construction project materializing before their eyes right now: a series of bridges and tunnels that will link Macao to Hong Kong and the mainland. As planners dreamed about engineering the mouth of the Pearl River, they must have looked back on the Chesapeake Bay for inspiration. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Macau is the global city of the gambling industry. If you are working your way up the gambling hierarchy, start at your local 7-11, spend a week-end in Atlantic City, fly to Vegas for a week, and end up in Macau, where it would be easy for an addict to spend the rest of his life. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

What do pandas eat?  Bamboo. Leaves, stems, and shoots.  Almost exclusively. And, because they eat so much, the species needs large bamboo ecosystems to survive. None are left in Macao and few are left in China. Their ecosystems are disappearing, and by the end of the century, pandas will exist only in zoos. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Your choice: (a) What would the mid-day sun and a rainbow look like if there were no light or color in the world? (b) What would a half-buried Möbius strip look like if it were in the middle of a hiccup? (c) What would Sister Moon look like if she had just stolen a glance at Medusa? [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Macau is a world of its own embedded in a Chinese universe, yet strangely disconnected from it. Perhaps that is what this armillary sphere symbolizes. The armillary sphere was invented by a geographer named Eratosthenes, an ancient Greek. But, of course, the thing had been invented in China a century earlier! [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Does big beget big? Just the opposite: big begets small. Big cites beget small scooters: because space is at a premium. What would make urban two- and three-wheelers even 'greener'? Plugging them in rather than filling their tanks. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Give her a big Green Star. She, and an army of gatherers like her, wander the streets of cities in East Asia (not just here in Macau) collecting cardboard and finding a market for it. Good boxes can be reused as boxes; the rest can be recycled. People are as important as technology to environmental sustainability. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Taking a rest, not guarding the gate. These two wander the streets of old Macau, taking advantage of open space guaranteed by the presence of a church. Macau used to be a Portuguese enclave on the coast of China; it still is a Roman Catholic enclave. When the Portuguese left, they left their religion behind. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

Every harbor has 'em: tugboats. Macau's are yellow, a color that seems to fit the Chinese palette perfectly. It is favored as a symbol of the earth itself. These look like designer tugs that haven't worked a day in their lives. Are they more interested in color coordinating with the tire bumpers that line the wharf? [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

This island of tranquility, fashioned after the Portuguese fatherland, was planted in Macau in the early 20th century as the Colegio de Santa Rosa de Lima. Don't you like the symbolism of the steps? They used to be so much a part of school architecture, a reminder of the struggle to achieve and the necessity of learning anything a step at a time. [2011]

Macau S.A.R., China

It was an ordinary skyline until 2007 when the Grand Lisboa was completed to become the tallest building in Macao. It's a casino, of course, shaped like a yellow lotus. But that cupola on top looks very much like something lifted from the Lisbon skyline. Remember, Macao was Portuguese until 1999. [2011]