Enter where the waterfall divides, pass over a moat full of crocodiles, and you’ve just entered a skyscraper that is the wildlife park of the future.

The Swedish-designed Eden Falls is a 100-metre-tall concept building for a Buenos Aires nature reserve, and one to dispel all notions of zoos being rank animal prisons.

Monkeys, birds and other visitor-friendly animals roam a quaint indoor jungle within a high-ceilinged atrium. The other denizens are just a hop onto an elevator away. Cantilevered levels each house a specific species, with its native vegetation grown to suit.

But the rooftop is the place to be. This is where you can gaze at the dolphins frolicking in the pool. It is also where the water, pumped from a nearby river, overflows and forms the waterfall that curtains the entire project.

Cleverly, the system of pipes installed to move all this water also serves as the building’s structural frame. And the zoo itself is self-sufficient, as turbines harvest the energy created by the falling water. This way, Eden Falls is an ecological and holistic concept, from top to bottom – and top again.

Of all the spirits that straddle the old world of oak-panelled luxury and the gleaming urban cityscapes of contemporary high life, cognac is probably the most versatile.

Courvoisier, for instance, was a favourite of famous French militarist Napoleon Bonaparte – his image has been immortalised on every bottle since the early 19th century. But the tipple has also been celebrated in popular culture through American rapper Busta Rhymes’ song, Pass The Courvoisier.

While the French general and American urban poet may make strange bedfellows, they are apt symbols of how Courvoisier has evolved from its lofty French origins to be appreciated by the old world as well as society’s newer tribes.

What links the two different worlds, however, is an uncompromising approach to perfection. Made from the finest grapes in the region of Cognac – picked at just the right time and matured in oak casks for at least 50 years – everything about Courvoisier spells class.

Its latest jewel, L’Essence de Courvoisier, combines over 100 rare blends from the early 20th century with eaux-de-vie from the 1970s and 1980s. The sublime result is housed in handmade crystal decanters from Baccarat. The Courvoisier story will continue as long as there exists an appreciation for luxury and excellence.

Hit the switch, and with nary a whoosh, a refreshing stream of air wafts forth – from seemingly nowhere. This is the magic of Dyson’s latest fan, or to use its parlance, “air multiplier”. It’s just a loop perched upon a base, with no blades in sight.

“If you tackle a problem the same way as everyone else, you’ll wind up with very similar products,” says Alex Knox, design director at Dyson. “And no one’s really thought about the blades being an issue before.”

The science behind the Dyson Air Multiplier is quite complex, but it basically sucks in air from the base, accelerates it through the loop and channels it out via an airfoil ramp. The resulting jet also draws in the surrounding air to amplify the stream 15 times.

In plain language, what you get is 450 litres of cool, uninterrupted air each second.

But it’s also about the aesthetics. “As designers, we aim to create something people will talk about,” says Knox. “We could probably make them in angular shapes in theory, but it could take a while to readjust the angle of the ramp.” Till then, we’ll make do with the rounded ones, available in table, tower and pedestal versions.