Two years after it went up on Craigslist with the simple description “runs, drives, stops, registered,” a 1948 Chevy bus became a bohemian hand-crafted home by the name of Ophelia. Freelance surf-craft builder Ryan Lovelace renovated the interior, which already featured a microbus extension on top, to make it a comfortable residence.

Over 2012 and 2013, Lovelace fitted the interior with built-in couches, a wood stove and a small kitchen. There’s a closet tucked into the back of the bus, and a rail running along the top row of windows holds potted plants.

The wood paneling inside was reclaimed from a demolition at director George Lucas’ house, acquired at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Lovelace also built a wooden loft that he refers to as the ‘sleeping pod’ to the upper back portion of the bus, with a large window that provides views out onto whatever landscape he chooses to live in at the time.

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“Suspension House” preserves all the charms of this very special setting but lessens the home’s impact on the creek. The project presented an engineering problem at the outset: how would the architects expand and modernize the home without changing its outline? Their solution was to stack a whole new level on top of the two existing ones and modify the structural supports so they could accommodate the extra weight.

The original 1970s version of the home was built on columns driven into the creek bed. The new structural system uses steel supports under the floors to anchor the home to the bedrock so that no part of it is touching the water. The tranquil flow is unimpeded, and nearly every living space inside the 2,500-square-foot dwelling enjoys a beautiful view. Each level has its own glass-enclosed balcony, and a spacious deck (also following the contours of an existing structure) spills out onto the hillside. From inside, massive new floor-to-ceiling windows create an immersive experience.

Set at a 90-degree angle to the two original floors, the new addition contains the home’s primary suite, bedroom, and flex room. The shared spaces like the kitchen, dining area, and living room are on the middle level, and the spaces closest to the water include a guest room and utility room. The pale zinc cladding and black steel framework coupled with the stacked rectilinear shapes preserve the original home’s modernist feel.

“Transparent materials and carefully considered sight lines merge the home with this dramatic landscape,” say the architects. “The two lower floors stay studiously within the confines of the original building; yet the minimal glass volumes, steeped in the surrounding beauty, feel more expansive than ever. A third floor addition strikes a more slender profile facing east to engage the breadth of the site. The experience is one of being in nature and also humbled by it.”

Of course, the project calls to mind the famous Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, a 1935 home in southwest Pennsylvania built partly over a waterfall on the Bear Run creek. But that’s not the only beautiful home that enjoys such unusual surroundings. “Bridge House” by architect Dan Brunn hovers above a small natural stream in the mid-Wilshire area of Los Angeles, using lightweight modular steel for a low impact on the natural site. And in rural Australia, architect Max Pritchard built a similarly bridge-like home with recycled corrugated metal siding, set across a seasonal winter creek that divides the property.

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The renovation will begin in May 2023 and be completed in 2026 for a 2027 reopening ahead of an important occasion: the 1,125th anniversary of Sugawara no Michizane’s death. Keeping the shrine completely out of commission for a three-year renovation wasn’t an option, since Tenjin is worshipped internationally and Dazaifu Tenmagu draws up to 10 million tourists every year. The renovation will repair the hall’s thatched Japanese cypress bark roof and its lacquered interiors, and make the whole structure more resistant to earthquakes.

Fujimoto’s single-story temporary sanctuary hall will be set up in front of the honden hall to host rituals and worship. Made of steel beams, it’s designed so it can be quickly built in just a few months between February and May 2023. The temporary hall is the same size as the main hall but will be open to the air, set on a black platform with a single solid wall in the back. A ramp enables wheelchair access, and unlike the main shrine, the temporary hall will also allow visitors to enter without taking their shoes off.

The temporary hall’s defining feature is its tilting green roof, which will disguise and soften the construction going on behind it while also creating the spectacle of a “floating forest.” Grasses, shrubs, and full-size trees will be transplanted onto it for the effect of a mature forest.

At a press conference, Fujimoto said, “I aimed for a design that can connect the tradition of Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine with today and pass it down to future generations.”

“We will build a ‘cave’ in front of Kumamoto Station to welcome everyone to visit,” says the team at the Dazaifu Tenmangu shrine. “Since it has only been exhibited for three years, we wanted it to be a place that will be pleasing to the Tenjin Sama and all the visitors. It has been designed to blend in with the surrounding landscape, carrying on the tradition and connecting to the future.”

Sou Fujimoto’s unconventional nature-oriented approach to architecture has produced some incredibly unique projects in the past. For his “Flowing Cloud” resort complex in China, the architect created a terraced plan cascading down a hillside, partially covered by a ceiling made of woven grasses. In Budapest, the Hungarian House of Music revives a 300-acre city park with 97,000 square feet of both open and enclosed exhibits and theaters, all topped by a distinctive circular roof inspired by the vibration of sound. And in Maebashi, Japan, the architect’s renovation of the Shiroiya Hotel produced a faux hillside covered in greenery, trees and walkways.

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To incorporate that sense of bonding with the beyond, Duy and his team at Duy Le Architects decided to use lots of glass and mirrors to create duplicating illusions throughout the space.

“At some specific angles, an infinite view can be seen within the house,” he says. “Some details in the house are only half-designed and once reflected by the mirror, they will reveal the complete pattern.”

The top floor hosts a Catholic altar for linkage with ancestors, and an extra bedroom upstairs further hints at the Coco theme with a solitary guitar positioned in the corner.

exterior

The entire exterior facade is composed of curved glass bricks in a nod to the eternal waves of the ubiquitous waterways intersecting the Sóc Trăng region. They also provide an open and airy feel, allowing the indoor spaces to flow seamlessly into outdoors.

The residents also wanted to be able to run their medical business out of the house, and enjoy their hobbies of gardening and koi fish ponds. The architect maximized the small space (only 15 feet wide) by removing as many walls as possible and creating clear sightlines across both levels.

The bottom floor includes a parking area, a clinic work space, the primary bedroom, bathroom, and an open concept kitchen and living area. The kitchen island was designed to expand between six and 18 seats, according to the daily family or business needs of the residents. The lounge area in this space feels like a tropical getaway, with a giant hammock opposite the island and seating inside a boat floating in a koi pond.

To accommodate the clients’ passion for gardening, the Duy Le team created five separate gardens spanning both floors of the Coco House, with marbled pebble skylights and glass block walls providing abundant natural light for both the vegetation and koi fish.

In fact, the architects created an entire microclimate for the home by strategically placing vented glass blocks in the walls. “The design utilizes ventilation bricks to ensure protection from rainy weather. It also allows air circulation from the facade to every nook and cranny. The selection and arrangement of the ventilation bricks, which have been under thorough consideration from the architect, are set up in different directions for aesthetic aspects as well as functioning as drainage and ventilators,” says Duy Le, who adds that the pond also helps regulate the temperature within the tropical abode.

The Coco House fits in perfectly with Duy Le Architects’ mission. “Our two main design influences are sculpture and climate,” the company website says. “It all starts with being sensitive to the local climate and mitigating the effects of climate change by using readily available, cost-effective, energy efficient, sustainable materials.”

The founder adds, “I always want to create impressive and different architectural works, sustainable with time, expressing the creativity and personality of Vietnamese people, not only for Vietnamese customers but also…all over the world.”

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“In this renovation, instead of designing everything from the beginning, we designed it while proceeding with dismantling,” the architects explain. “The elements of the past, which emerged as the demolition progressed, provided considerable inspiration for the design.”

Located in the Koishikawa/Hakusan area of Bunkyo Ward, an area historically full of bookbinding and printing-related facilities, the building once housed a printing factory in its lower half and a private residence in its upper half. The second owner converted the entire structure into a home. When Akira Mada and Maya Mada of MAMM Design purchased it, they wanted to restore its former live/work layout, but adapt it to their personal needs and style.

They started with the staircase, which was contained within its own dark, dim walled stairwell. At first, they envisioned knocking out the concrete walls and putting a skylight at the top to create an atrium, replacing the old stairs with new ones. But as the demolition revealed the jagged concrete edges of the walls and the internal rebar supporting the old concrete stairs, they realized they wanted to keep some of these elements in the finished product.

Thus appeared the home’s star feature, the skeletal metal staircase now entwined with living vines. Stretching the full height of the building, the stairwell is topped by a skylight that can be opened for exposure to the fresh air, with a ladder providing rooftop access. The old rebar staircase is now purely decorative, with new stairs piercing the floors and ceilings in other locations.

The rugged nature of the exposed concrete and metal contrasts beautifully with new elements the architects brought in, like blond plywood, salmon-pink tiles, and translucent partition walls. Additional plants, like small trees in oversized planters, help draw a sense of vitality into the rest of the home and out onto the balcony and rooftop.

The renovation also revealed some surprises. Had they started the process with rigid ideas of how everything should look, the architects might have missed out on some defining features that add a lot of texture and historical context to the redesign.

“In order to apply a new finish to the outer wall, I scraped off the existing plaster finish, and found the glossy tiles from the beginning of the new construction,” says Akira Mada. “I thought it would be a good contrast with the green of the newly planted trees, so I polished it and decided to use it as it is. In this way, as we proceeded with dismantling, we carefully read the existing shapes and materials, and sometimes gave them new meanings.”

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Seeking a home for their young family and their retired parents, one Belgian couple purchased such a property and contemplated their options. Ultimately, they decided they wanted to preserve the history and character of the existing buildings, hiring Aalst-based firm Objekt Architecten to bring their vision to life.

The design brief was relatively unusual. The clients wanted one home for themselves and their children, and a separate but connected “care home” for their elderly parents. This aging-friendly home would need to be set up so that the parents could live there for the rest of their lives, even as their abilities changed. Both homes would require privacy and nice views of the surrounding farmlands while maintaining easy access to each other in case of emergencies.

Objekt Architecten started by preserving as many of the exterior walls of the crumbling buildings as they could. They chose concrete as a primary material to complement the neutral tones and textures of the existing brick, plaster, and mortar. Red terracotta floor tiles and traditional red clay roofing tiles were also brought in to mimic the look and feel of the original elements.

The architects left the appearance of the existing house and barn unchanged, turning the old farmhouse into the care home portion of the estate. Designed with accessibility in mind, the single-level structure contains sleeping quarters, a bathroom, and several spacious storage rooms, as well as covered outdoor areas. This home connects directly to the young family’s new house, which was built within the shell of the adjacent barn.

Clad in a striking bronze-colored aluminum finish, the new volume is set back from the original walls under the same new roof to create covered outdoor walkways. The roof of the care home was extended to stand perpendicular to the new volume. On the other side, the roof rests on the original exterior wall. One long hall links all the bedrooms, and skylights let in an abundance of natural light.

The architects call this project “Old & New,” reflecting both the contrast in historic and modern architectural styles and the contrasting but complementary needs of various generations of the family.

The team explains that “in the new house, the choice fell on a low-maintenance, polished concrete floor. In the sitting area — which houses the lounge and the play area — a contrasting sandblasted oak herringbone parquet was chosen. In the center of the house, we find a royal blue core, which on one side houses a toilet, a cloakroom, and a staircase, and on the other side is part of the kitchen and storage room. The rounded kitchen island, finished in a natural wood tone, has a peach-colored countertop.”

“Together with the brass accents, these give the whole a contemporary, luxurious look. With this renovation, we tried to transform an existing house into a care home where the original residents feel at home and can live a lifetime, while the clients do not have to sacrifice modern comfort and privacy.”

The post Old & New: Belgian Farmhouse Converted into a Contemporary Care Home first appeared on Dornob.

“I work from home, so I wanted to create something completely personal and comfortable,” the 21-year-old told Architectural Digest. “I brought in references from many decades and design eras, and I tried to meld them into something that feels not only cohesive but new. It wasn’t about following the rules or sticking to one aesthetic. I tried to approach it all with a lightheartedness and an open mind.”

The process began when Chamberlain bought the five-bedroom, seven-bathroom estate in June 2021 for $4.3 million. The 4,440-square-foot home was built in 1955 and had plenty of existing charm with high, open beam ceilings and cozy fireplaces. She then enlisted the design talents of Ashley Drost and Marie Trohman of Proem Studio to help her put her own spin on the space.

“It almost felt like a summer camp, so we leaned into that mood. We described it as Wet Hot American Summer meets Troop Beverly Hills. Emma said, ‘I love that idea, but I have no clue what you’re talking about,’ ” an amused Drost recalls.

Chamberlain also turned to the world wide web to help her settle on a vision (only natural for someone with more than 11.8 million followers on YouTube alone). “I’m a mood board type of girl. I scoured every corner on the internet, every weird, deep hole on Pinterest,” she says. “I find inspiration for the home everywhere, the same as fashion. It’s all one in my mind.”

The home’s color palette is muted and inviting. While the backdrop of the interior features lots of white and natural wood, the kitchen hosts a wash of calming green tones, and the bathroom has playful blue tiles splashed across the wall and floor. Drost and Trohman incorporated natural textures and materials like swaths of raw copper, cork ceiling treatments, and braided banana tree bark as wallpaper.

Quirky accents feel right at home for Chamberlain, who was once named “the funniest person on YouTube” by the New York Times. Among other things, the dining room chandelier is composed of a pair of oversized metal chains that end in glowing orbs, and there’s a custom cat bed carved out of a vintage TV console. All throughout the renovation process, the young starlet has been hard at work on her popular “Anything Goes” podcast, building her Chamberlain Coffee enterprise, and collaborating with high-profile fashion houses like Louis Vuitton and Cartier to promote her brand.

Ultimately, “the most talked-about teen influencer in the world” (according to The Atlantic) isn’t concerned about whether her followers or others dig her residential style. As she puts it, “I don’t really care if people don’t like it. I’m the one who lives here, so I have to love it. And I do.”

Photos courtesy of Architectural Digest

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Formerly known as Harman Hall, the Cherry Creek North gem was built at the turn of the 20th century and is an integral part of Denver history. Often referred to as the city’s most iconic residence, the building served as a town hall before being converted into a stylish residence. However, like many buildings of its age, this Colorado landmark also has its secrets, including a former speakeasy (a remnant of the days of Prohibition, when passwords and hidden rooms were the norm). Today, the expansive home is a renovated dream space on the market for approximately $15 million, making it by far the priciest listing in the area.

Purchased by Pat Hamill, CEO of Oakwood Homes, the historic residence certainly needed a little TLC. Hamill was just the man to return the home to its former glory. After an epic 2010 expansion and renovation, the former Harman Hall is now a contemporary residence that retains nods to its iconic past, complete with authentic turn-of-the-century touches like reclaimed wood and blast-from-the-past patterns.

For his part, Hamill felt that the “iconic home” was special, and certainly worth all the trouble. In addition to expanding the residence’s square footage by approximately 7,000 square feet and gutting the interior, he also paid homage to the house’s past by restoring its original red brick facade. In a nod to the former speakeasy, Hamill also transformed the lowest level into a private event space fit for Prohibition-era partying, though it now hosts charity events and gathering rather than secret social meetings.

The former speakeasy also has another more modern function. Connecting to an underground showroom with space for up to 10 cars, the space serves as a showcase for grandeur and luxury, complete with a hydraulic lift and connecting three-car garage.

Though replete with modern touches like heated wood floors, floor-to-ceiling doors, and elevators, the former Harman Hall remains an iconic cornerstone of Denver architecture. Now a sprawling luxury residence, the historic home retains much of its turn-of-the-century charm with nods to the past that can be seen everywhere from its restored brick facade to its speakeasy-turned-entertainment space. And while you may not need a secret handshake or code word to enter this majestic manor, you do need a cool $15 million to make it your own. But perhaps that’s price worth paying for this unique piece of Denver history.

The post This $15 Million Denver Home is Packed with Historic Secrets, Including an Underground Speakeasy first appeared on Dornob.

Most kids’ bedroom designs that “grow along with them” transform in some way, often with modular elements that can be dissembled and reassembled into new shapes. It’s unusual for the design to be static and contextually flexible, like “The Room for Small Gulliver” by rhymedesign.

Architect Taka Shinomoto, rhymedesign’s founder, renovated an apartment in Nagoya, Japan to include elements that can shift in function as the clients’ child grows up. Those same elements are also usable by the adults in the house, just in different ways. Central to the design are three gray frames: one incorporated into a massive built-in book shelf, one that’s mobile so it can be moved around the space, and a large nook that frames a bay window in the kitchen.

“As in Gulliver’s Travels and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bodies of idiosyncratic scales can turn mundane lives into fantasies and dramas,” Shinomoto explains. “The relative body sizes can put the same environment in different perspectives — for adults, chairs are always to sit on, while for children, they could function as tables, desks, and counters. Looking up at the world from below, children find and experience the world in their own ways. As they physically grow, they also develop new relationships with the physical environment.”

The architect continues: “For the Room for Small Gulliver, I designed the three different sizes of gray frames. The largest is installed as a frame of the bay window facing the outside. The smallest is part of the bookshelf. The other is portable; it can be anywhere in the room. I designed them to grow relationships with the child, as his body and mind matures. The nook where his body completely fits can soon become a casual seat. The gate to the closet will not remain as it is experienced today, when the children’s body feels it differently. The portable frame should turn to a counter from a secret capsule in the near future.”

One of the coolest aspects of this design is that the child’s space isn’t separated from those of the adults. It’s actually in the living room, making the bulk of the home shared family space, though the parents do have their own tranquil bedroom for privacy and quiet.

The child’s experience of these spaces will change over time, but his enjoyment is considered just as important as that of the adults. While the shared areas are airy, white, and brightly illuminated, the bedroom is more like a cave, with the walls and ceiling painted a deep forest green that matches the bedding. The entrance to the closet is hidden behind an oversized picture of deer in the woods.

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Painted black on the outside, the shipping container pool is level with an elevated wooden deck that offers just enough room for a pair of lounge chairs. Measuring the standard 8 feet wide, 8.5 feet high, and 20 feet long, the pool has been fitted with a waterproof liner, built-in bench seating, and underwater lighting. It was professionally made by Modpools, a company that sells shipping container pools all over the United States and Canada, and features an automation system by Pentair that lets you control the lights, pH, and sanitizer performance via smartphone.

Modpools are self-contained portable units, so once you have one, you can take it with you when you move, if you want. All you need is a crane and a flat deck truck. They can be installed above ground, in-ground, or somewhere in between, and they come with an optional lightweight divider wall that turns half of the pool into a hot tub on demand. If you want to try one in person, check out the Casa Cosmos Airbnb in Desert Hot Springs, California, which has a nearly-identical pool to the one at this Joshua Tree residence.

The rest of the home is nothing to sneeze at, either. The renovation was spearheaded by Karen McAloon, former host of the television shows Find Your Style and Design Remix on HGTV and co-founder of design firm X8 Property & Design. McAlool has turned a number of Joshua Tree homes from drab and dated to vacation rental-worthy, and her work on 636 Valencia Drive will have you dreaming of warm arid nights with sage and pinyon pine in the air. The home boasts a Morso fireplace, 26-foot hand-plastered bench, handmade white oak cabinets in the kitchen, and a 45-square-foot white quartz island.

The primary bedroom, which opens onto a private Saltillo tiled patio, features a generously sized en-suite bathroom with a dual walk-in shower. Two guest rooms open to the front patio and share a bathroom with a Roman clay wall treatment. An adjacent garage has been converted to a one bedroom, one bathroom guest casita for even more hosting capabilities.

If you love the idea of a shipping container pool but want to save some cash, it is possible to DIY this project. It can be as cheap and simple as adding a pond liner to a clean, watertight container or more high-end and durable with a fiberglass liner insert. Check out our guide to shipping container pools for more details. For even more of a fun DIY spirit, you can even transform an old dumpster into a swimming pool.

The post You’re Going to Want to Copy This Modern Shipping Container Pool in Joshua Tree first appeared on Dornob.

Nicholas and Stanley spent every weekend working on the house over the course of 15 years, making use of found and recycled materials and allowing their plans to grow and change as they went. Today, the home looks nothing like the cottage it once was, or like any other house on the street. It’s entirely unique. And while the jagged black exterior isn’t for everyone, it suits them perfectly, and it’s more welcoming inside than you might imagine.

“We changed so much from when we started at the age of 25 to when we finished at the age of 40,” Stanley told Dwell. “By being hands on and playing around with ideas, we came up with a lot of stuff that we wouldn’t have if we were sitting at the drawing board and pushing to get things done quickly. And, as young architects, getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn.”

Collecting materials from warehouses and country yard sales, the couple began adding vertical exterior cladding made of Oregon timber beams. They staggered the heights of each board to mimic the way a city skyline rises and falls. It also extends higher than the actual roofline, providing enough privacy for a rooftop bath. They kept the gabled form and scale of the original home but opened and expanded it, creating new nooks and crannies both inside and out. The gable shape is echoed with a pergola on the rear facade. Zig-zag shapes along the exterior walls create space for large expanses of windows without sacrificing privacy.

Inside, the jagged black motif is repeated, and black is used to anchor many interior elements within an airy, light-filled space that’s otherwise painted white. This color palette, plus the incorporation of materials like a welded steel framework to which they attach elements like hammocks, gives the former cottage an industrial feel. Over the years, some mezzanine areas that were open have been partially enclosed to create newly private rooms, while low ceilings were eliminated. But the entire home maintains an open traffic pattern, with most rooms, including bathrooms, flowing into each other without doors.

Believe it or not, after all that, the couple decided they were ready for something new altogether. They put their one-of-a-kind home on the market and purchased a new property on the same street in order to start their creative process all over again.

The post Splinter Society Gives a Melbourne Home a Spiky Black Makeover first appeared on Dornob.

“From the very first moment we entered it, it was like an enchanted place that was left behind for decades, overgrown with vegetation,” says Almut Grüntuch-Ernst, one-half of the architect duo. “You enter and are struck by this forgotten feeling. You’re inside this romantic, castle-like structure erected at a time when there were no other buildings around it, and all you hear is birdsong.”

Converting the former Charlottenburg Women’s Prison to a hotel that’s more than just a gimmick was no small undertaking. The walls, as you might guess, are incredibly thick, and the architects had to cut through them to enlarge windows and create new doors. The guest rooms couldn’t be limited to the unworkably tiny prison cell size, either, so cells were merged to accommodate comfortable spaces with ensuite bathrooms. “It’s about inverting the building’s configuration and spatial concepts, from an antisocial place to a very social place,” Almut told Design Hotels.

Avoiding any sense of exploitation in the theme was a high priority. The architects carefully considered how to complete the adaptation in a sensitive way, determining which elements from the past should and shouldn’t be left visible. This prison’s history is particularly complex, as German resistance and anti-Nazi activists were held there during World War II. After the war, it was an administrative office for a while, then a juvenile detention center, which closed in 1985. Afterwards, the building was used as a storage facility and a set for several movie productions (including Academy Award-winning The Reader starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes) before finally being transformed into the Wilmina.

The architects used the facade-facing courthouse building for the hotel lobby and built a new extension for Wilmina’s restaurant, which connects the former courthouse to the prison’s U-shaped cell block. The restaurant consists of bricks reclaimed from the construction process. 44 guest rooms are spread across the five levels of the block, arranged on narrow galleries around an atrium. Each one still features bars on the windows and the original cell door, but is clad in minimalist, mostly-white furnishings for an airy feel that’s anything but claustrophobic.

The top level features a penthouse suite, and on the roof is a terrace, library, bar, spa, and gym. Today, with warm amber lights glowing within large glazed openings and lush courtyard gardens, the former prison is surprisingly welcoming, beckoning guests to come inside with open minds.

“Wilmina is a place of discoveries, of surprising visual links, ambiguous layers of space, and traces of the past,” say the architects. “Wilmina is also a place of natural tranquillity, relaxation, and comfort — an oasis in the middle of the city.”

The post Former Prison Cells Turned into “Tranquil” Guest Rooms at Berlin’s Wilmina Hotel first appeared on Dornob.

The entrance is purposefully mysterious, finished in black steel with no apparent function. The intention is to raise expectations for the interior space, taking inspiration from the entrances of traditional Japanese shrines. Carving the new retail space right into the thick concrete walls and leaving their unfinished contours in place, the architects create the sense of penetrating into a deep, dark cave or bunker. Seeing all the watches lined up on their pristine white and steel shelving, one wonders if they’ll find the Batmobile around the next corner.

The architects intentionally chose materials that would be in conflict with the rough nature of the concrete to create a visual tension. Shallow beds of gravel make the transition between the original surfaces and the new tile flooring. Most fascinating of all, perhaps, is the choice to subtly highlight the brokenness of the concrete in some areas with gold powder in the spirit of “kintsugi,” the Japanese art of repairing broken vessels with gold to highlight the beauty of their imperfections.

“By laying gravel between these spaces, we express a sense of calmness and beauty reminiscent of a Japanese garden,” say the architects. “The floor was finished by old lumber and floated in the space as a stage for encountering rare products. The stainless steel showcase makes a sensation of an otherworldly bank vault and the rarity of the product stand out more. The display stand of the watch uses natural stone as it is, and by contrasting it with the natural beauty of the stone, it enhances the attractiveness of the artificial beauty of the wristwatch, which can be said to be the crystallization of advanced craftsmanship.”

The firm adds that “you can bring your favorite products to the negotiation booth and carefully examine them. The booth is a neutral space finished with white steel and plastic and surface emission from the ceiling makes [it so] you can concentrate on the detail of the product. The strong contrast of various materials makes each space stand out independently. And through those ‘space’ experiences, you can feel the connection with the concept of ‘time.’”

There’s a certain poetry to Kenta Nagai Studio’s approach to this project, especially given the history of Shinjuku City. Now known as Tokyo’s major commercial center, home to the busiest railway station in the world and most of the city’s skyscrapers, Shinjuku was almost 90 percent destroyed during the Tokyo air raids in 1945. Only its roads and rails remained, preserving its pre-war form for post-war reconstruction. In this sense, those roads and rails are almost like the gold lines of kintsugi passing through the city, knitting together old and new.

The post Old Tokyo Building Sliced Open for a New Store and Repaired with Traditional Japanese Kintsugi 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 two-story brick building, that dates back to the 1800s, had good bones, but all the walls and ceiling had been bafflingly covered up with white boards for the past few decades and the wooden ceiling was starting to deteriorate. The design team, led by company founder Tommaso Fantoni, peeled back construction layers to expose beautiful brick archways that ended up informing the entire plan.

“All edges are rounded where possible, including one of the casted concrete walls, to give fluidity to all movements, to the touch, and to the eye,” explained Fantoni. Even the master bed with its rounded-corner platform was given a custom semi-circular headboard to fit into one of the brick arches.

Though it has only two bedrooms, with 3,200 square feet, the area has been well apportioned for the owner’s large gatherings. “It’s a great space for parties,” Fantoni told Wallpaper. “They frequently get a hundred people here.”

The common rooms include the kitchen and dining room, as well as a spacious living room with a built-in set of tiered seating in flowing curves. There are also extra sitting rooms, one on the main level and one upstairs overlooking the entertaining area below.

Fantoni took a personal interest in creating a customized space for the owner, who is also a sailing champion. “I devised everything down to the toilet paper holder,” he said.

Using a materials palette of primarily wood, iron, brick, and concrete, Fantoni created special features like a circular staircase, enclosed in a rounded concrete stairwell, with boat propeller-inspired oak stair treads.

The floors were redone in wide oak planks, with gaps blackened to mimic the look of a sailing vessel deck.

The master bath is clad in soot-gray slate from Liguria, a favorite sailing haunt of the owner, a color choice that also offers a soothing serenity to the room.

“It’s the quality of the design and the details that appeals to me,” the architect said. “The simplest things are always the most beautiful.”

Attention to those types of details was bred into Frantoni. Architecture and design were the bread and butter of his childhood as the grandson of famous architect and furniture designer Osvaldo Borsani, and the son of accomplished designers Valeria Fantoni-Borsani and Marco Fantoni. Tommaso’s own creative acumen landed him a decade-long career with Noman Foster’s New York branch of Foster + Partners, after which he found his own studio in 2015.

In fact, Frantoni unwittingly brought in aspects from his heritage to this garage restoration. The hollowed-out half-moon shapes that function as handles on the many sliding doors in the residence came out of his familial subconscious. “It’s exactly the same half-moon as in the master bedroom in the Borsani house,” he said. “But I had no idea until after I had completed this project and I opened up my grandfather’s house this spring. Some things just come to you.”

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