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The unnamed singer purchased a three-bedroom apartment in a 25-story Foster + Partners complex on the banks of the River Thames, and though it had amazing views, it was basically a blank slate full of way too many beige surfaces. He wanted its interiors to be more engaging than the city outside, a perfect setting for parties full of movers and shakers. It also had to be substantially different from his other home, a converted barn in the countryside.

The artwork, itself a tight closeup on Bowie’s face, is a collage-style portrait with a faceted geometric effect. Its soft tones of blue, gold, and the dark red shock of hair provided the mood and the base palette for the space. Though the inspiration is retro, the designers still wanted the apartment to feel contemporary, so they started by ripping out the old wood floors and replacing them with marmoleum, an eco-friendly natural material that’s easy to clean. This new surface is covered in a custom pattern, with black and pale blue shapes dancing across an off-white background.

“The open and adventurous nature of the brief allowed for a bold use of color and form,” the designers explain. “Sculptural, flowing shapes echo the curved lines of the architecture, while bespoke-made pieces such as a coral-colored drinks cabinet add moments of surprise. The lively design vernacular carries through the whole apartment, including a glittering sequined toilet (complete with disco ball) that plays David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ on a loop.”

With a bathroom as eccentric as that, the rest of the apartment had to have its own elements of delight. They come in the form of unexpected shapes and colors, like the triangular bookshelves in the living room, a graphic rug, and new kitchen tiles in a bold grid pattern. In fact, bold geometric patterns are virtually everywhere in the home, including the wallpaper, curtains, and headboards in the bedrooms, a series of custom black-and-white closet doors, and additional wall art.

“The principal bedroom was a really difficult shape as well,” Gordon adds. A bed takes up most of the room’s footprint, so the designers framed a custom headboard directly against the wall. “Its curve mirrors the shape of the room, as do the bedside tables.” Both are a rich, deep red, since “monochrome always brings a room together,” as she explains.

The oversized green velvet sofa is custom (naturally), as is the dining table, which is ringed by Noom’s Gropius chairs in a mouthwatering shade of orange. The inside of the bar cabinet echoes that color in a slightly softer hue. Fun shapes like Sella Concept’s Ladies Pond stools in the blue-gray shade of “Jesmonite” carry the abstract sculptural feel through each room.

Ultimately, the apartment does feel like a space that would make David Bowie proud. Check out the singer’s own slightly more subdued personal taste with a glimpse of the New York City apartment where he lived before his death in 2016, which sold for $16.8 million.

The post This Wild David Bowie-Inspired London Apartment Does the Late Singer Proud first appeared on Dornob.

The existing layout of “404 Apartment” stretches from the front to the back of the building, with windows and balconies on the north and south ends. The common spaces like the living room, dining area, and kitchen are arranged along one side, with the private bedrooms and bathrooms on the other side. There was no way to physically enlarge the apartment, so optical illusions had to suffice.

Color plays an important role in this kind of expansion. The architects painted both the floor and ceiling a medium shade of gray and used cherry blossom pink for the walls on either side. “By visually lowering the ceiling, the aspect ratio of the perceived space is crushed horizontally to 16:9, further emphasizing the lateral expansion of the space,” they explain. “The aspect ratio of 16:9 is used for movie screens and television monitors, and is a familiar frame image for most people.”

Since we don’t view the real world through angle-limiting frames, the architects applied the 16:9 ratio view of the space from just one end of the room. The placement of all elements, including furniture, counters, and doors, is optimized so there’s more to look at horizontally than vertically, with the gray ceiling “crushing” the interiors. Nearly every piece of furniture is built in, with just a narrow table and bench along the center.

The pink wall panels are another visual trick. Some of these panels are actual doors to the bedrooms, bathrooms, cabinets, or closets, while others are just in place to make it seem like there’s more to the space than there really is, kind of like a movie set. The pink shimmers and catches the light, further guiding the eye along that horizontal line.

The team adds that “each of the cherry-red walls lies about its own role. They are not only walls, but also fixtures, wall decorations, and furniture. In short, a single component has multiple roles, but since they are all composed of the same details, finishes, and modules, it is sometimes difficult to tell which is a wall and which is a fixture. If we recognize it as a piece of furniture, we feel that even a mere wall is somehow intimate.”

If the space feels a little bit futuristic or reminiscent of a sci-fi movie, that’s also intentional. “This room, with its slight eeriness and discomfort in the midst of everyday life, is perceived as more expansive than reality,” they say.

Sugurufukuda’s 16:9 aspect ratio follows common advice to use eye-catching, reflective materials in the center of the space and darker contrasting colors above and below to change how narrow or wide the space is perceived. If you have plenty of horizontal space but the ceiling is lower than you’d like, just flip those colors, with the lighter, more reflective shade on the ceiling. It’ll catch the light coming in through the windows and make the whole area brighter.

The post Movie Studio Tricks Visually Expand Tokyo’s Tiny 404 Apartment first appeared on Dornob.

This colorful Ho Chi Minh City apartment is the perfect example of how the maximalist madness is taking over homes IRL, not just in design mags and social media feeds. Dubbed the “Dreamscape” apartment and designed by the Saigon-based Red5Studio, the space is a colorful ode to space-age design that perfectly encapsulates the swervy-curvy, topsy-turvy, vividly playful vibes taking the design world by storm.

Home to a couple who makes their living in the art world, the Dreamscape Apartment was created to provide inspiration while also evoking a welcoming, homey environment. With a focus on curvy lines and soft edges as opposed to the hard, straight lines and sharp angles so commonly seen in minimalist decor, the home feels like a retro retreat — one bursting with skittle-worthy colors that pop against its white-walled palette.

The middle of the apartment is dominated by a burnt orange sofa that looks straight out of a (comfy) spaceship — but that’s not all. A swirly, partially enclosed blue-walled “cave” faces the space-age sofa and houses DJ equipment for entertaining guests. The room itself is open, airy, and full of light, highlighting the many pops of riotous color that draw the eye — a flower power rug here, a globe light fixture there, the perfect balance of kitsch and low-key elegance.

The open plan main room flows purposefully into a dining room that’s by far the most understated space in the apartment. Dominated by a clear resin table that catches the light and swirls with delicate ripples, the effect is subdued yet magical. You can even spot a touch of whimsy in the accompanying black and green chairs, and the matching green kitchen counter behind them.

The bedroom continues the space’s study in bright, shapely furnishings with a gold upholstered bed complete with zebra-patterned bedding and super groovy light fixtures.The curved doorway and mirrored room divider are straight out of the 1988 Geena Davis classic Earth Girls are Easy — think a “futuristic” 1950s design aesthetic seen though the lens of over-the-top 1980s glam.

Despite its excesses, the Dreamscape apartment is still quite livable. Its rainbow-hued grooviness is perfectly complemented by its soft edges and muted, swirling aesthetics. It’s nighttime neon and DJ cave make it the perfect place for a party. A scintillating blend of futuristic funk and retro vibes, this Ho Chi Minh City apartment is the epitome of multidimensional maximalism — and the height of “good vibes only” style.

The post Space-Age Style Gets Its Groove Back in this Retro Ho Chi Minh City Apartment first appeared on Dornob.

This particular apartment, called Gambetta after the street it’s on, features a layout running at an angle to the street-facing facade and rounded walls in the two main rooms, the kitchen/dining area, and the living room. So how exactly does one take an iconic Parisian apartment with this kind of unusual shape and modernize it for the 21st century — without losing its historic charm? Jean Benoît Vétillard Architecture decided to emphasize its curves, creating custom built-in furniture to amplify the preexisting theatrical character.

“The original plan is enlarged, and the lines of force are extended,” explain the architects. “The new composition is made of depths of field. So many backstage and stage spaces, more than serving spaces/served spaces. This new organization of domestic spaces is constructed by the punctual positioning of multifunctional furniture in oiled okoume wood and brushed aluminum.”

“The front of the kitchen table hides the access to the child’s bedroom, the bow window gives its shape to a modular tatami, the living room houses a large library, but also the parental bedroom, round by geometric mirror…the advantage of this design is that it does not alter the original structure, which remains unchanged. In their original material, the light of the Boulevard Gambetta, the white stucco, and the oak parquet floors have reappeared.”

The beauty of this renovation is that the architects have chosen to play up the apartment’s quirks and historic details rather than permanently eliminate or modify them. The brushed aluminum built-in bookcase that curves around the back wall of the living room contrasts with the all-white original trim around it, highlighting the geometries of the space. This material is seen again on the kitchen wall, where it’s joined by warm wooden tones that brighten up the room and complement the flooring.

The child’s bedroom, though small, is made functional thanks to a new built-in lofted bed above a series of built-in cabinets. The primary bedroom faces the back of the living room’s curved wall, now clad in the same wood as the kitchen cabinets. Most fun of all might just be the round modular seating in the living room, upholstered in a rich blue matching the adjacent curtains. It fits perfectly into the rounded nook beside the fireplace, its modern simplicity accented by the rusticity of the old wood floors. Overall, the design feels both mature and playful, contemporary and rooted in old Paris.

The post Curvy Paris Apartment Creatively Reimagined by Jean Benoît Vétillard Architecture first appeared on Dornob.

The Art Maisonette

Esté Architekti remodeled The Art Maisonette as part of a larger renovation of the 1930s building in which it’s located. Preserving original details like the oak parquet floors and original concrete screeds on the walls, the architects introduced a new open layout to give the space a brighter, more modern feeling. The original wood beams stand out more than ever against crisp white surfaces, all the better for drawing the eye to the works of art the owners love so much. Everything is clean and neutral to provide an almost gallery-like backdrop, even the angles of the ceilings working to point out the art.

The apartment is centered around a chimney wall, with the two levels connected by a straight steel staircase featuring a transparent glass railing. The few colors purposely injected into the interior design are pulled straight from the art on display, including a vivid blue closet. As you move from room to room, the artwork almost strings together a loose narrative, prompting you to look for the next piece you know will be around each corner you turn.

“The rule of working with empathy for specific people, their lives and needs has been confirmed,” says Esté Architekti. “To step outside our comfortable minimalist design zone, the investors themselves inspired us with their distinctive taste and the investor’s non-conforming wardrobe.”

Maisonette 69

The art-loving owners of this Prague apartment asked No Architects to base their design on two paintings in their collection. The first is Number Sixty-Nine, a painting by Vladimír Houdek, which carries a special meaning for them. Hung in the kitchen, this graphic painting informed the aesthetics of the custom furniture throughout the home, the color palette in the kitchen and a fun custom heating cover branded with a 69 motif. Even the jagged contours of the kitchen cabinets are drawn from the frayed edges of the painting.

The second painting is a piece called Cesta domů by Josef Bolf, hanging on the living room wall. Contrasting the playfulness of Number Sixty-Nine, this one has a dark and melancholy quality echoed in the gray backdrop of the wall it’s mounted upon, as well as the teardrop-shaped pendant lighting in the kitchen opposite. It even visually connects to a massive multi-story waterfall mural by Patrik Hábl on an adjacent building, which can be glimpsed from the balcony.

Colors from both paintings are carried up into the private rooms, like a children’s playroom beneath a skylight upstairs. The custom furniture is gorgeous in its own right, like a pale blue built-in wardrobe full of vertical storage and decorated with circular wood inlays. Curving oak veneers within the stairwell soften the space, which is a 1990s-era attic extension of the original building.

“It is a simple living space for a family who understands art and wants to appreciate and enjoy it,” say the architects. “An interior where contemporary art is not just replaceable decoration.”

The post Two Chic Prague Apartment Renovations Draw Inspiration from Contemporary Art first appeared on Dornob.

This could involve anything from incorporating energy-saving techniques and solutions to the use of materials that are more environmentally friendly. Anything that contributes to spaces that are carefully curated to play a positive part in the world around them.

TAKK’s “The Day After House” aims to do exactly that. The Barcelona-based design studio recently took environmental awareness in interior design to the next level with this renovated 110-square-meter apartment in Madrid that has been “developed with the aim of updating the domestic space according to new models of use and environmental consciousness,” as discussed in a recent article.

But how does one achieve the perfect blend of “environmental consciousness” and forward-thinking (yet attractive) design aesthetics?

Firstly, focus on a strategy that redefines more traditional layouts. Rather than rely on a blend of rooms and corridors more commonly seen in apartments, the studio’s approach focuses more on the climactic specifics of each space. Though distinct, the spaces still work in tandem to save energy.

A spokesperson for the studio explains: “As if it were the layers of an onion, the spaces of the house get nested each one inside of another…as we get close to the central spaces…they get more and more insulated and have less needs in terms of extra energy.” This type of “climatic diverse distribution” is ideal for a climate like Madrid’s, where blistering heat waves make up the summer months and more intense, colder periods dominate the winter.

The next thing to consider is the materials. Here, TAKK aimed to prioritize things like wood and natural cork (both known for having low CO2 emissions) to insulate the home effectively and manage energy loss. It also doesn’t hurt that the two materials work well together aesthetically.

The third and final concept of the design was influenced by both economic and environmental concerns: effectively only building about half of the apartment’s square footage and leaving the other half completely empty, devoid of even windows. Essentially creating two houses for the price of one, the design scheme imagines the apartment as being akin to an empty shoebox, where 60 square meters is a perfectly insulated space (dubbed Winter House) and the remaining 50 square meters exists as an interior terrace (appropriately named Summer House).

This ingenious setup allows for the cement mortar finish on the winter house to capture heat in the summer, essentially “stealing it from the interior air [of the summer house],” as the architects explain.

The L-shaped space is then further enhanced with open configurations in both the kitchen and single, more communal bedroom —yet another way the unit encourages the concept of equitable space, regardless of the number of inhabitants.

Through their creative use of “climatic diverse distribution,” low-emissions materials, and energy-saving considerations throughout the renovated Day After House, TAKK has created an apartment that’s both aesthetically adventurous and environmentally sound.

The post Madrid’s Day After House is Eco-Conscious Design at Its Finest first appeared on Dornob.

That’s what Cavejastudio and Denara have pulled off with the restoration and renovation of a historic apartment in Cesena, Emilia Romagna, Italy. The home measures a modest 1400 square feet (about 130 square meters), but feels almost palatial in scale thanks to visual tricks cooked up by the designers. Take cues from what they’ve done here, and you might be able to do the same with a much tinier space.

The designers wanted to preserve the historical elements of the flat, which is named “Lelefante.” They maintained the original envelope with its cross-shaped wall system and 12-foot ceilings, but in addition to adding a loft (one of our favorite space-saving design tricks), they also brought in a plethora of mirrored surfaces that manipulate the viewer’s sense of where rooms start and end, “an attempt in the wake of the best Baroque tradition to capture the infinite,” as Cavejastudio explains.

The star of the show is a “technical piece of furniture,” a new built-in element that contains a walk-in closet and pantry and provides the basis for the loft. This element is “covered with mirrored panels interspersed with regular joints that dematerialize their presence, making it light and mysterious, but at the same time capable of reflecting light in the space less naturally illuminated by the sun throughout the floor.”

Even in photos, the effect is remarkable. Despite taking some of the living room area away to create the new closet and pantry, the space feels enormous, visually expanded by the mirrored panels. The room’s most beautiful elements like the gorgeous hand-painted doors are thus multiplied. You almost can’t tell which ones are the real doors and which ones are an illusion.

The black frames of the mirrors in the living room are visually repeated in the glass wall separating the bathroom from the bedroom. In the kitchen, frameless cabinetry painted a muted gold achieves a similar minimalist and graphic effect that contrasts beautifully with the soft ornamentation of the original tray ceilings.

“Both in the living room and in the respective bedrooms, it is the furniture itself that becomes the spatial regulating devices; in particular, the position of the kitchen block on the platform emphasizes the entrance-living room axis typical of the noble floors, while the wardrobe for the daughters’ bedroom is modeled on the ceiling beams, becoming a divider of the intimate space,” the designers say.

“The chrome plating of the furnishings follows a palette derived from the colors of the existing frescoes, in order to establish a dialogue with them; [this] relationship is taken from the spotlight lighting system which, by illuminating from the bottom upwards, emphasizes and enhances its presence.”

The post Mirrors and Spatial Illusions Make a Historic Italian Apartment Look Bigger Than It Really Is first appeared on Dornob.

It’s not open to the public, so most people never get a peek at the Barclay building’s stunning lobby filled with travertine, black marble, and frescoes depicting the dawn of telecommunications. But every now and then, real estate listings for the outlandishly expensive apartments inside give us a sliver of insight as to what it’s like to live in a historic New York City landmark. While the duplex penthouse at the top stayed on the market for years due to its eye-watering $39.95 million asking price, a new opening will probably get snatched up by some deep-pocketed buyer in the weeks to come.

This four-bedroom $8.8 million condo is undeniably beautiful, with interiors that live up to the building’s reputation as a design gem. Listed by the Corcoran Group, unit 20B enjoys incredible views from the Hudson River to the Midtown skyline with One World Trade Center right across the street. Enjoying 3,665 square feet of space with four bedrooms and 4.5 baths, the apartment offers 10-foot ceilings, seven-foot casement windows, white oak floors, and a walnut-paneled entry door opening into a formal foyer and generously sized great room with north and west exposures.

“The adjacent open kitchen features custom cabinetry and hardware with calacatta gold marble countertops and back splash, including an island with seating for five,” reads the listing. “The kitchen is fully equipped with state-of-the-art appliances by Sub-Zero, Wolf, and Miele, as well as a garbage disposal and vented range hood. The primary suite features two large walk-in closets and a luxuriously finished primary bath with radiant floor heating, polished Calacatta gold marble floor and wall tiles, custom vanity, fixtures and deck-mounted tub by Waterworks, and steam shower.”

“The secondary bedrooms offer generous closet space and en-suite baths, combining high-honed vanilla cream marble vanity top and herringbone floor tile with crackle-glazed white ceramic wall tile. The residence conveniently features a laundry room with washer and vented dryer by LG, as well as built-in cabinets and sink. No detail was overlooked in the design of this residence with a multi-zone heating and cooling system that carefully controls the interior climate throughout. One Hundred Barclay offers an unprecedented amenity program. Over 40,000 square feet of carefully considered amenity spaces afford the most comprehensive offering in Tribeca.”

Curious just what your bills might look like living in a place like this? The listing lays it out: your monthly mortgage would be about $30,000, plus an additional $11,000 in taxes and fees. No problem, right? Other units in the building currently on the market range from $3 to $6 million, most of them smaller and somewhat less lavishly decorated than 20B.

The post Tour a Lavish Luxury Condo Inside the World’s First Art Deco Building first appeared on Dornob.

Designed by Bumblebee Spaces, a San Francisco-based startup founded by former Tesla and Apple engineers, this robotic system hides a bed, a desk, and even storage within a ceiling compartment, making the 470-square-foot studio units feel a lot more livable. Mounted to a grid capable of holding several tons of weight, the system also responds to voice commands, so you can simply ask it to move the furniture around at your whims. No need to open an app or even press a button.

Made of stylish light-colored wood, the system blends right into the contemporary style of the apartment interior and boasts built-in LED lighting. When the components are lowered, the surprisingly narrow supports are visible in each corner, maintaining a light and open feel. Taking the automation of the room even further, the system uses artificial intelligence to recognize various objects and remember where you put them. Lost your keys or sunglasses? Just ask. It’ll also learn your daily routine, and can be set to shape-shift at certain times of the day without being prompted.

Another cool feature is the system’s ability to photograph and catalog the contents of the storage bins that retreat into the ceiling on all sides of the bed (an add-on for which you can choose two, four, or six compartments). The Bumblebee app lets you preview your boxes so you know exactly which one you need to access instead of lowering each one and physically sorting through them. Built-in sensors and other safety features ensure the kinetic components won’t put any people or pets in danger.

The studio apartment itself features nine-foot ceilings made of exposed concrete, floor to ceiling windows, and monolithic resin floors, as well as several spacious closets, Italian stainless steel cabinets in the kitchen, and a stainless steel suite of appliances. Needless to say, it’s rare for rentals to have features like the $12,000 to $30,000 Bumblebee system, especially at a rent price that’s not too far from average in New York City. These five apartments will rent for $3,550 a month, and with four months free in a 16-month lease, they average out to even less. The building’s market-rate rentals will go for about $2,056 a month, and the affordable units, which make up about a third of the building, are even less.

BIG’s design for The Smile is a response to New York City’s 1916 zoning resolution, which calls for “stepped facade” towers to allow sufficient light and air to filter down to street level. Other unusual amenities in the building include a game room, co-working studio, demo kitchen, fitness center with Peloton bikes, yoga room, steam room, dry sauna, and “sensory experience showers.”

The post BIG’s NYC “Smile” Features Robotic Shape-Shifting Studio Apartments first appeared on Dornob.

Villa Trap consists of four linked spaces that progress from public to intimate as you move deeper into the building. The first, a large street-facing room, features a dining table and curving built-in concrete banquette seating encircled by a retractible neon yellow accordion-style screen, which mimics the actual security screen outside the glass front doors. This permeable enclosure can be fully opened to make the room feel bright and accessible, or drawn completely closed almost like armor around the seating area.

Just inside the main entrance, a small kitchen with deep blue cabinetry and a sculptural stainless steel vent hood is tucked into a circular alcove. The yellow security screen either grants or denies access to the hallway and brick stairs beyond, and from there, one can either descend into the basement studio or turn into Cain’s highly unique bedroom.

Lined with matte black tiles, the bedroom almost has a funhouse effect to it, its proportions blurred and multiplied by mirrors that stretch from halfway up the walls onto the ceiling. The first thing you see upon entering is a tub sunken into the floor, with curving pink screens separating this area from the bed for extra privacy.

Downstairs, past a graffitied wall and a red door, the spacious recording studio offers a second bathroom, another bed, a seating area, a desk, and a central recording booth. Covered in street art and slapped with a “Metro” sticker, it looks a lot like something you’d find at a transit station, and that’s exactly the point. Rooted in urban contexts, trap often makes references to the literal streets in which it originated. Iniesta’s design for Cain’s home and studio brings the textures, colors, objects and art you can find throughout Madrid and arranges them into a sort of elevated bachelor pad – just the kind of space you’d expect a rapper on the rise to inhabit.

Javier Jiminéz Iniesta graduated from the Alicante School of Architecture in 2007 and later founded Studio Animal, based in Barcelona and Madrid. He explains that “Studio Animal addresses the development of proposals related to ultra-contemporary thought and its links with the habitat in which we live; the rethinking of the spaces inhabited by the contemporary subject and the atmospheres I breathe are the center of [my] work, in pursuit of a super optimistic future for the potential inhabitants of his architectures. With a progressive specialization in the design of all types of interior spaces, Studio Animal moves from the small scale of industrial design, through the planning of the brand image, to the integral design of the spatial proposal, offering tailor-made projects for each client always under a very architectural vision.”

The post Inside the Street Art-Inspired Home Studio of European Trap Star Kaydy Cain first appeared on Dornob.

The owners of this 1,065-square-foot two-bedroom apartment facing a forested hillside clearly aren’t risk-averse. They trusted the youthful architects and interior designers of 000 Design to craft a home bursting with personality, incorporating unexpected materials, clashing patterns, vivid colors, and most of all, fun. From the moment you walk in the door, you know you aren’t in an ordinary apartment.

The designers decided to throw out conventional ideas about how the feel of a home should be different from that of a business. Why not incorporate elements you’d normally see in high-end retail or commercial design instead of intimate residential spaces, if it results in a space that still feels relaxing and inspiring?

“With the development of internet and society, people spend more time living and working at their own dwelling,” says 000 Design. “We are willing to change the stereotype of a residence space which originally should be only cozy, warm, and relaxing. We hope this apartment also shows an impression of passion, fashion, and visual impact, [giving] a different attitude of the lifestyle with more freedom and maybe a little more [angst].”

An abstract mosaic of red, pink, yellow, blue, and white hexagonal tiles unifies the entire home, surrounding the main entrance and continuing inside the primary bedroom on several walls and ceilings. The small size and random patterns of this mosaic are contrasted by larger, more minimalist square white tile on the floor and on the walls of the bathroom. Out in the main living space, another tile motif in black, white, and gray brings a sense of geometric order to a balcony overlooking the landscape. Large glass walls and crystal-clear furniture keep the visual emphasis on the pattern and the view.

Careful editing is a big part of what makes the “Live & Fun” apartment a success. What the designers left out is just as important as what they brought in, leaving blank spaces for the eye to rest before moving on to the next chaos of color. In the hallways and living areas, smooth white surfaces are augmented by pale wood built-ins offering storage space, tables, and benches. The kitchen and dining nook are cut into two expanses of white built-in cabinetry, each one bedecked in neon colors for a striking jewel box effect. The lack of cabinet hardware helps the space feel clean and orderly.

And let’s not forget the ceilings, because the designers sure didn’t. Most noteworthy is the mirrored ceiling that visually elongates the common living spaces, augmented by lighting contained within red, green, and yellow acrylic boxes. A metallic ceiling surface perforated with thousands of tiny triangles complements the tile and doubles as a unique light source.

The post Colorful Tile Mosaics Brighten Up a Modern Chinese Apartment by 000 Design first appeared on Dornob.

When architecture firm Studio Razavi was approached to renovate an apartment within one of those historic buildings, they wanted to craft a design that was rooted in the Vieux-Lyon’s historic past, but modernized for its current occupant. The client, a young scientist, lives mostly alone, and needed just one bedroom within the 864-square-foot space, leaving the rest of the apartment open for a generously proportioned living and dining area.

The apartment already had a lot going for it. 14-foot ceilings, oversized oak beams, and two enormous stone fireplaces were among the original features the architects wanted to preserve and celebrate for the new design, contrasting them with modern minimalist interiors and surfaces. To make the space as cohesive and simple as possible, they used nothing but concrete, wood, and rough plasterwork for all of the new walls and arches.

“Relying primarily on the use of a single material with a limited color palette, we designed a series of events so as to create what we refer to as an ‘introspective space,’ a place to allow for reflection, for creative seclusion,” the architects say.

Part of the appeal of the space is the irregularity of the apartment’s footprint, itself a testament to the age of the building. Visible in the architects’ plans, the slight slopes and angles in the walls clearly called for some creative solutions that can subtly help even out the lines and angles within the apartment to keep it from feeling disorienting.

In addition to its single bedroom and bathroom, the newly renovated apartment features a living room, dining room, and kitchen. The archways used throughout the space, from doorways and windows to built-in shelves and niches, echo the Renaissance architectural features outside so the space still feels tied to its historic context. The sleek, uncluttered surfaces and lines are balanced by the weight and texture of the oak beams overhead, and the repeated use of a gorgeous gradient of jade greens gives the home a decidedly tranquil vibe.

The curated color palette is especially striking in the kitchen, where the brightest green shades anchor the cabinetry and single wall-mounted shelf directly beside one of the original fireplaces. Stepped blocks of color echo the stepped shapes built into the recessed bookcase on the opposite wall. The mottling of the plaster surfaces adds a lot of nuance, too – an effect you can mimic in your own home with zero-VOC lime paint, even on ordinary drywall.

The result of this refreshing renovation is a space that feels unified and creative, never lacking anything interesting to look at, and it certainly doesn’t hurt that it’s decorated with restraint and a keen eye for detail. Clearly, mostly-monochromatic interior designs don’t have to be boring.

The post A Renaissance-Era Apartment in France Gets a Curvy Modern Renovation first appeared on Dornob.

While we (sadly) can’t all live in the USS Enterprise, we can still bask in the creativity of these fab apartments, and perhaps find our own inspiration for creating quirky and fun spaces of our own.

A Bachelor Pad of the Future

When Tony Alleyne got divorced, he decided to turn lemons into lemonade by turning his Leicestershire, England apartment into a Trekkie’s paradise. Over a period of 10 years, he tricked out his apartment, doing the work himself without the aid of contractors or builders, and created the ultimate ode to Star Trek. A full-scale replica of the Enterprise’s iconic console, Scotty’s iconic transporters, and a plethora of architectural details and beautifully recreated items plucked from the famous fictional ship complete the Trek-lover’s space.

This Way to the Mushroom Kingdom

Love Super Mario Bros? Sure, we all do! But not all of us have the space or resources to turn our apartments into a tricked out Nintendo nation fit for the iconic brothers themselves. Located in Tokyo, this space is available to rent from Airbnb so anyone can get a taste of living inside a kitschy (yet fab) version of one of the most iconic games ever. The devil’s really in the details at this apartment, from yellow question blocks to mushroom patterned fabric and all the other little quirks that make it any Mario fan’s dream.

Steampunk Savvy

Straight out of a Miyazaki film like Howl’s Moving Castle, this steampunk-themed apartment ticks all the boxes. Zeppelins? Check. Submarine-style front door? Got it. Metal gears and industrial fixtures pulled from actual foundries? You know it. This 1800 square-meter New York City apartment is authentically steampunk, from the largest items like the 500 pound gears on the ceiling to the tiniest details like old wrenches used as cabinet door handles. The bed can even be raised and lowered using a switch made from a deactivated bomb!

Superhero Swag

Marvel’s juggernaut franchise The Avengers is represented perfectly in this chic decor that’s bold yet sophisticated. Singapore’s Absolook Interior Design created this Avengers-themed apartment whose over-the-top details, like the S.H.I.E.L.D symbol in the living room, and the iconic Avengers “A” in the dining room, fit perfectly with the clean lines, sharp angles, and subtle pops of color present in the rest of the space. Who wouldn’t want the world’s finest superheroes watching over them while they have dinner, or have Hulk glowering in the kitchen while they fix a midnight snack?

A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Star Wars fans are known to have some pretty cool swag — but most of them don’t devote their entire apartment to Lucas legend. Collector Choo Wong managed to turn his space into an ode to Star Wars that’s chic and packed with goodies without seeming cluttered. Darth Vader himself would be proud of the sophisticated home set-up, including black cabinets eerily lit from above and a decidedly Sith Lord vibe. Wong displays his collection with style and an eye for design that creates a space that’s livable and fun. Just check out the shelf that’s an ode to the galaxy’s most famous gangster himself: Jabba the Hutt.

These five themed apartments are all over-the-top in their own way, but any lover of pop culture will appreciate the attention to detail and kitschy design touches put into them.

The post These 5 Over-the-Top Themed Apartments Will Make You Want to Redecorate Pronto first appeared on Dornob.

Green, known for directing such movies as Pineapple Express, Joe, and the 2019 remake of Halloween, found the 1,250-square-foot loft shortly after the release of Halloween and was bursting with ideas of how he wanted his new place to look. Enter Lembo —familiar with the building where Green’s loft had sat untouched for over 30 years, and, most importantly, a lover of cinema.

Their connection was immediate. Green describes himself as “[being]…drawn to that weird place where nature and industry meet,” a sentiment no doubt inspired by the overgrown, dilapidated buildings found in the Arkansas and East Texas neighborhoods of his childhood. He’s also drawn to Stanley Kubrick, an iconic director known for his distinctive sets that pushed the limits between reality and sensory overload, often with the help of saturated colors and mind-bending twists. Though Kubrick’s films run the gamut from dystopian to satirical, what inspired Green and Lembo initially was one of late director’s most well-known movies: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What emerged was a spacey vibe underscored by lots of steel and glass, changing colors throughout the day to create a fantastically futuristic environment that’s still approachable and comfortable. The spaciness doesn’t create a feeling of alienation; rather it acts as a pleasing contrast to the otherwise plush and cozy home.

The living room is the epicenter of the Kubrick-inspired decor, with a fireplace wall that evokes the shape and look of the distinctive monolith from 2001. Lembo explains that they “approached it like a floating plane.” And truly, it does seem to almost hover, as it both dominates the room yet somehow complements it perfectly.

This may also have something to do with the room’s distinctive wall prints, the 20-foot long deep-plum colored sofa, or the kitchen mirror reflecting a spacey round light to create the illusion of depth – which itself bears an odd resemblance to the same film’s “Discovery One” spacecraft.

The second bedroom, which “looks like an escalator mall in the ‘80s,” according to Green, is replete with dichroic glass that appears to shift in color throughout the day. Pinks, oranges, and shades of green shine through like magic, further completing the futuristic vibes that permeate the rest of the apartment – sometimes more subtly, like the wavy mirror above the main bedroom’s bed, and sometimes more obviously, like the kitchenette that resembles a spaceship enclave with its small, square cabinets and sharp, angular corners.

Green admits to telling Lembo, “Let’s go too far and see what’s realistic.” And Lembo, himself an imaginative, intrepid designer who likes to play with shapes and colors, was all too happy to oblige. The result is a spacey NYC retreat where Green can recharge, “write, listen to music, read, cook, and rest.” In other words, a home that even HAL 9000 would approve of.

Images courtesy of Eric van den Brulle

The post This Director’s New York City Loft was Inspired by Stanley Kubrick, and It Really Shows first appeared on Dornob.

And this apartment building in New Delhi, India is no exception.

While not designed by Kahn himself, he certainly inspired it. The firm responsible for the over 2000-square-foot space, Amit Khanna Design Associates (AKDA), certainly invoked Kahn as a muse when conceiving the bold and dynamic building. Though located on an otherwise-nondescript residential street, the building’s eye-catching exterior is striking, to say the least, and immediately echoes Kahn’s singular design approach.

Amit Khanna, the founder of AKDA, says that the building “is an ode to Kahn and his idea of how a building should be.” Discussing the late architect’s impact on the architecture of the Indian subcontinent, Khanna adds that “crucial to his form-making was the act of puncturing seemingly vast brick and concrete walls with soaring geometric voids, creating dramatic shadows as the harsh Indian sun made its way through the sky.” This poetic assessment is surely true of such buildings as the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, designed by Kahn and highly representative of his way of “evok[ing] a mystical, yet calm monumentality” in his works.

The facade of the new apartment building is what one immediately associates with Kahn’s “soaring geometric voids”: the cut-out brick, rounded as if to soften the hard lines of the steel it surrounds; the dramatic shape and scope of the brick “screen” itself (it covers the top three stories of the building); and the way it both seems to hover and anchor the building itself. The interior of the building is equally as striking, as the openness revealed by the lens-like brick screen allows for plenty of light to stream through the windows. The upper floor also has an area that’s open to the sky, further allowing light to filter through. The layout itself is almost like a split screen, with bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen, a staircase, and an elevator on one side, and the other areas, such as the living and lounge areas, on the other.

The muted colors of the interior decor are the perfect backdrop for the dramatic confluence of more raw materials like brick and concrete, with the exposed brick especially adding a homey and charming feel to the otherwise sharp and angular space. There are surprise bits of light throughout the apartment that peek through and further add a feeling of warmth to the scene, softening it against the space’s more industrial elements.

This striking building in Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi, with its geometrically attractive brick facade whose thinness belies its strength and whose openness encourages meditation, rises majestically on its stilts and emerges from residential conformity like a great prow of a ship — or like a monument to the late, great architect Louis Kahn. Embodying the monolithic structure and modernist lines and shapes that defined Kahn’s work, this New Delhi space is a fitting homage to one of the most acclaimed architects of the late 20th century—and shows his continuing influence into the 21st century.

The post Modernist, Louis Khan-Inspired Apartment Building Perfectly Evokes the Architect’s “Calm Monumentality” first appeared on Dornob.