This design venture challenged the firm from its onset. One side of the lavish and modern duplex apartment has a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea and ruins of ancient Rome. The opposite side looks out on the vivacious, vibrantly colored streets of Beirut. For obvious reasons, the clients insisted that neither view could be compromised.

Nisrine Nasr, co-founder and interior designer at Askdeco, clarifies the situation. “One Oak 3&4 B2 is a modern family duplex owned by a young couple with a baby. When we first met with the client, their vision was of an industrial-style home, but over the course of the project, that idea collaboratively evolved into a vision of a more refined and livable space.” In addition, she explains: “The client adores a world of colors, cultures, and textures, so the task at hand was to harmonize all of those influences within a single living space.”

Understanding the Clients’ Vision

One of the homeowners is a world traveling art collector with an acute appreciation for unique furniture, and they both wanted that passion incorporated into their seaside apartment. With constant communication and adaptation, Askdeco found the ideal balance of Arabesque, Grecian, and Moroccan patterns, colors, and influences to bring that vision to life.

According to Nasr, the majority of Askdeco’s clients want décor that brings the house together and makes it flow, creating a sense of cohesion from room to room. In this case, the opposite effect was desired. “This particular client wanted to incorporate many different styles of furniture and accessories from different countries, which results in different themes and feels to each room.”

The 7,534-plus-square-foot space at One Oak 3&4 B2 is separated into two very different environments. The upper level is designed for receptions and social events, with ample space for mingling and enjoying drinks a good distance from the bedrooms and other intimate areas reserved for family. Yes, this section of the seaside apartment is all about fun, complete with a full bar, cigar lounge, and game room (which itself boasts a top-of-the-line Toulet billiard table and foosball table).

The lower level is a strikingly different world. An intricate cage-inspired spiral staircase leads to the home’s bedrooms, an ultramodern fully loaded kitchen, and a dramatic bathroom starring a striking Palazzani glass bathtub and a freestanding Fantini bathtub mixer.

Finishing Touches

Outstanding design deserves only the best accoutrements. The soft white walls and Carrara marble flooring throughout the seaside apartment offer a definitive canvas to let every colorful painting and accessory shine in their respective lights. Furniture from top designers mingles with vibrant Mediterranean influences and paintings by T.P. Hardisty, Hussein Madi, and Joan Miró, simultaneously nodding to pop culture via the inclusion of pieces like a living room jukebox. The open, stark white kitchen is accented with bright Mediterranean hues of blue and yellow. Overall, One Oak 3&4 B2 makes for a welcoming home that combines luxury and warmth with all the distinctive tastes of its owners.

The post Askdeco’s Seaside Apartment in Beirut is an Exercise in Organized Eclecticism first appeared on Dornob.

Lead architect Fouad Samara, whose eponymous firm enjoys a new office on the ground floor of the building, approached the project with a whole checklist of expectations. He wanted the building to have lots of light, a sense of spatial luxury, honesty in its use of materials, and functional flexibility.

The stack of luxury lofts addresses a need for dense high-end housing in the city while also contributing to the beauty of Beirut itself. The architects drew inspiration from traditional Lebanese houses known as “beit,” marrying their orderly and streamlined sense of purity with the flexibility of late modernist urban lofts in cosmopolitan cities like London.

“Functionally, we tried to fulfill the demand for flexible — truly and effortlessly flexible — small to medium size residential units in the heart of vibrant Beirut,” says Samara. “It was important for us to create an architecture that met this rising demand that also created an inspiring addition to the city, and an uplifting place to live.”

“I think this is what Le Corbusier was referring to in Vers Une Architecture, where I think he was yearning for not “another” architecture or “new” architecture as he was mistakenly interpreted, but for architecture as it had always been, and always ought to be — a relevant, ordered, and coherent architecture: a ‘modern’ architecture.”

Each apartment is double-height, fulfilling the architects’ desire for a spacious quality. Dark steel, pale wood, and exposed board-formed concrete give the structure a raw industrial character, and generous glazing opens each of the seven stacked units up to daylight and spectacular views of the city. But for Samara, the most crucial element was the ability to transform the interiors to meet the occupants’ changing needs, imbuing the lofts with a sense of home that’s often lacking in modern apartment towers.

Flexibility is especially poignant in fast-changing Beirut, which Samara calls “chaotic” in its constant evolution. If your apartment can shape-shift along with your life, you can stay in one place much longer, feeling a little freer to put down some roots.

Each apartment features two rooms or modules on a lower level and another two linked by a bridge on an upper level. Internal staircases and storage like built-in cupboards are located in the main open living space, while exterior staircases, elevators, and utilities are contained within a narrow space at the back of the building. But it’s those sliding walls that really make the Modulofts apartments so striking and novel, sliding right out of the apartment and into the air to create 16 different interior configurations.

The bedrooms can be self-contained by the walls or opened to the main space at will. Occupants can shift the layout for all sorts of purposes, making certain areas feel cozier or enlarging them to host gatherings. As they transform their homes individually, they also transform the look of the building as a whole, so it rarely looks exactly the same way twice in one day.

The post Modulofts: The Apartment Tower with a Shape-Shifting Facade first appeared on Dornob.

Repetition – the echoing of design elements throughout a space – can be a powerful tool when used wisely. .PSLAB created this distinctive lighting fixture to mirror the existing unique spiral staircase in architect Bernard Khoury’s home in Beirut.

The double volume spiral staircase already in place was a beautiful sight on its own. But the space needed something more – and this custom lighting solution was a perfect match for the personality of the home.

Carrying on the theme of the ascending spiral, the architects chose to create a visually connected lighting fixture. The arms extending from the central axis are each a different length, emphasizing the illusion of a climbing light fixture.

Visually, the staircase begins at the first floor and continues all the way up to the ceiling by way of a continuous spiral. The lighting complements the staircase so well that it seems like a perfect continuation.

More details via ArchDaily

“The hanging channels are equipped at their extremity with extended rectangular shaped arms of equal size. These extended arms house deep inside the light bulb and reach the center of each step, giving the impression that the fixture follows the staircase. The staircase’s core is represented in the lighting installation set above it with the channels positioned in a manner to create a core parallel to that of the staircase. The outcome is a grand scale lighting fixture with distinguishing architectural features that mirror and complement those of the staircase.”

About PSLAB Lighting Design

“We are architects, engineers, designers and communicators. We are lighting experts, specialized in the planning, implementing and manufacturing of light and lighting fixtures. Beirooted. We are located globally, but are rooted in Beirut. A place full of contrast and intensity. Vibrant and abandoned, fragile and demanding, haute cuisine and black-outs, peace and turmoil, concrete and gold. Beirut is a part of us. We thrive on possibilities beyond borders. On tension, desire and freedom. The soul of Beirut is good.”

The post Spin Factor: Stunning Spiral Staircase Reaches for the Sky first appeared on Dornob.