Produced in collaboration with The Woolbeding Charity and the National Trust, Glasshouse acts as a spectacular focal point for a new garden that takes visitors on a 12-step journey through a mock Silk Road. The ancient network of Eurasian trade routes played a central role in cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and the West, and it still influences the designs of English gardens to this day. Some favorite English garden plants like rosemary, lavender, and fennel were brought to Britain for the first time along this route.

Following the garden path, visitors will discover over 300 plant species across 12 regions of the Silk Road, including Mediterranean evergreens and Gallica roses brought to Europe by traders from Persia. Inside the Glasshouse, they’ll find tropical species like umbrella trees, magnolias, bananas, and a rare Aralia vietnamensis. During colder weather, the structure’s ten steel “sepals” remain closed to protect the plants. When it’s warm, the sepals open using a hydraulic mechanism to provide access to sunlight and ventilation.

“This is a place and a project that literally unfolds,” says Heatherwick. “You step through this bewitchingly beautiful garden and discover an object that starts like a jewel and ends like a crown as the Glasshouse slowly unfurls. I think it also speaks of our need to keep creating amazing pasts. Weaving contemporary inventions into the fabric of historic settings and having the confidence to let each one speak to the other.”

It takes about four minutes for the Glasshouse to fully open, a process that must be a spectacle to behold in person. The structure already looks like a beautiful gem when closed, but once the sepals unfurl and point toward the sky, it catches the sunlight in a whole new way, scattering spiky geometric shadows all over the lawn.

“This Heatherwick Glasshouse represents the cutting edge of technical design and engineering, but it’s also a restoration of something that is part of Woolbeding’s history,” says Mark Woodruff of The Woolbeding Charity. “It stands as a crowning achievement in contemporary design, to house the flora of sub-tropical south-west China at the end of a path retracing the steps along the Silk Route, from temperate Europe and across mountains, arid lands, and high pastures that brought the plants from their native habitat in Asia to come to define much of the richness and glory of gardening in England.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChkJ7_3Y4PA

The Woolbeding Glasshouse and Silk Route Garden were created with the help of engineering firm Atelier Ten, MRG Studio landscape architects, moving structure specialist Eadon Consulting Ltd., Bellapart glasshouse engineering design and construction, and others.

The post Heatherwick Studio’s Sculptural Glasshouse Unfurls into a Crown first appeared on Dornob.

But surprisingly less luxurious is their former home on the grounds of Kensington Palace, where the couple lived early in their relationship. The realities of living in the “tiny” 1,324-square-foot Nottingham Cottage are revealed in the documentary’s home movie footage.

Affectionally known as “Nott Cott,” Nottingham Cottage is among the smaller houses on the palace grounds, containing two bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, small living spaces, and a petite back garden. Harry first moved into the cottage in 2013, and Meghan joined him in 2017, shortly before the couple’s engagement.

Home movie footage depicts interiors that look cozy and relatable. The proportions are small, the materials similar to those you’d see in any other modest home. The kitchen features a checkered black and white floor, white cabinets, and unremarkable gray countertops. This is where Harry proposed to Meghan while roasting a chicken. The compact living room is featured in a scene in which the couple announces their engagement to the world.

Closet space is apparently tight, as the prince is pictured dressing in his officer’s uniform with a freestanding rack of clothing behind him. In another shot, Meghan stands in the doorway of an apparently carpeted bathroom. “It was just a chapter of our lives where I don’t think anyone could believe what it was actually like behind the scenes,” she said of the couple’s time in the home.

“It is on a slight lean with really low ceilings,” Harry said. “I don’t know who it was for. They must have been short,” Meghan added, “He would just hit his head constantly because he’s so tall.” Oprah was apparently astonished by the size of the cottage when she visited. Harry said, “Well, Oprah came over for tea, didn’t she? And when she came in, she sat down, she goes ‘No one would ever believe it!'”

Nottingham Cottage was designed by architect Christopher Wren for William III and Mary II in 1689. The decor and finishings have changed several times since then, as the cottage was occupied by various generations of royalty. Queen Elizabeth II’s uncle, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester lived there prior to the 1950s before it became home to several senior members of the royal family’s staff.

Notably, the cottage was once promised for life to Marion Crawford, a former governess of then-Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, but her rights to it were revoked after she published a tell-all memoir about the royal family.

Other occupants included Miles Hunt-Davis, the Duke of Edinburgh’s private secretary; Robert Fellowes, Queen Elizabeth II’s private secretary, and his wife Lady Jane Fellowes, who is the older sister of Princess Diana; and Prince William and Kate Middleton, the then-Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, prior to the birth of Prince George. After Harry and Meghan moved out, Princess Eugenie moved in along with her husband Jack Brooksbank and their son August.

As for Harry and Meghan’s Montecito home, where they live with their children Archie and Lillibet, it seems that the couple may find it not quite private enough given their ultra-high profile. Though the seven-acre estate is located off the beaten path about 90 minutes north of Los Angeles (near the estates of Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres), the family still has trouble with trespassers and paparazzi.

Realtor.com reports that police were called to the residence nine times in nine months, once resulting in the arrest of a man named Nickolas Brooks, who drove over 2,300 miles from Ohio to intrude on the property. Next up for Harry and Meghan might be a more secure residence within a guard-gated community.

The post Netflix’s “Harry & Meghan” Doc Gives Us a Peek at Nottingham Cottage, the Couple’s First Home first appeared on Dornob.

Cox and his wife Alena (aka Mrs. Doodle) started by recruiting friends and family to help them paint everything stark white, inside and out. When the pandemic restrictions and lockdowns started in spring 2020, Cox took advantage of his sudden downtime, devoting himself entirely to this project. He did all the doodling himself, working on one room at a time, starting with the upstairs bedrooms. Each one has a loose theme, like birds, sea creatures, food, clouds, robots, or “heaven and hell.” Cox doesn’t sketch anything out or even come up with a particular idea before he starts working, preferring to just draw whatever comes to mind in the moment.

Everything is monochromatic, and anytime Cox made a mistake, he left it in place. “The nature of a doodle is to let it be,” he told The Washington Post. By the time he was done, Cox had used 900 liters (238 gallons) of white paint, 401 cans of black spray paint, 286 bottles of black drawing paint, and 2,296 pen nibs. He also took 1,857 photographs of the process, later stitching them together to create a roughly two-minute-long stop-motion animation that reveals what the project looked like as it came to life.

Though Cox greatly enjoyed getting into the improvisational flow of constant doodling, it did have an effect on his psyche. In February 2020, he got the flu and started having doodle-related hallucinations, spending six weeks in a psychiatric ward. “It’s a scary feeling to think you are losing your mind and not know what’s real,” he told the Sunday Times. “I’m glad I have a grasp on reality again and now I want to make sure to go on walks and step outside of doodle world now and then.”

While he was working on it, Cox did his best to keep his doodled home under wraps. He limited visitors and was always afraid a delivery driver would snap a photo and put it on the internet. Luckily for him, that never happened. His neighbors have been supportive (and the fact that his house is hidden behind a dense layer of trees probably helps with that). However, the couple who sold him the house probably don’t love the results now that Cox has shared them with the world. “They told me whatever you do, please don’t doodle,” he told the Evening Standard. “I didn’t listen.”

Cox was able to buy the house in the first place after his career took off, the result not of agents or gallery representation, but social media and word-of-mouth. By 2021, the 28-year-old was selling nearly $4.7 million worth of doodles around the world over a period of just nine months. He now has over 2.7 million followers on Instagram and more than 95,000 YouTube subscribers, not to mention collaborations with major brands like MTV Europe and Puma.

The post Sam Cox Covered His Entire 13-Room Mansion in Black and White Doodles first appeared on Dornob.

The high and low points of the installation seem to shift as they catch the light from different angles, creating a dynamic, almost kinetic effect. Designed by famed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, the British Antique Museum opened in September 2022, honoring the close relationship between the town of Kamakura and Great Britain.

Just a one minute walk from Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine and a seven-minute walk from Kamakura Station, BAM exhibits British antiques collected over the years by museum director Masaomi Dobashi. The museum consists of four floors, each representing a different era and theme. The first floor is the museum shop, featuring a London taxi and telephone box. On the second floor, visitors will find Georgian-era antiques, including leather trunks, red cloaks, and bearskin hats worn by the Royal Guard.

On the third floor, visitors step into the world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels with a Sherlock Holmes-themed exhibit that recreates the fictional detective’s study and living space down to the most intricate details. The museum explains that “in the front, there is an armchair that invites clients in, and the gourd-shaped gasojin (soda water maker) that appears in Holmes’s story, as well as antique microscopes and physics and chemistry equipment, are reproduced as they were at the time.”

Standout objects on the museum’s Victorian-themed fourth floor include a John Broadwood & Sons piano, an extra-large gramophone made in 1935, a fireplace from a Kensington mansion, and stained glass featuring an image of Queen Victoria.

“As a connection between Kamakura and England, there is the National Trust movement that started in England in the Victorian era,” Dobashi explains on the BAM website. “It is the permanent preservation of historically significant land and assets through donations, and many scenic spots have been preserved as heritage. Kamakura is the place where the idea of the National Trust was introduced for the first time in Japan. ‘Kamakura’ is linked to the desire to cherish the good old British things, and the wonderful cultural heritage is still inherited.”

Kuma’s process of designing the British Antique Museum is documented in the book Kengo Kuma: Creating a Small British Antique Museum in Kamakura by Masaomi Dobashi, revealing more details about the connections between Kamakura, Great Britain, and Kuma, who also designed V&A Dundee, a branch of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum located in Dundee, Scotland.

“British antiques and modern electric cars are exhibited there, and it can be said that it is a timeless fusion of old and new,” Kuma says. “This time, the British Antique Museum BAM, which stands on the approach to Kamakura’s historic Dankazura, is lined with pure antiques that have absorbed more than 100 years of time collected by Mr. Dobashi. In that sense, I thought that the design of the building should be as pure as possible. As a result of repeated deliberations, we eliminated all the windows and made it simple, adopting a facade inspired by Kamakura-bori, which symbolizes the traditional culture of Kamakura.”

The post Kengo Kuma Honors Japanese Woodworking Traditions with Striking Museum Facade first appeared on Dornob.

The architects were tasked with building for the long-term while using present resources wisely, working with designers, consultants, builders, and craftsman to develop a space that improves the success and well-being of students. The College wanted The New Library to honor its past without just passively “blending in.” The result is an inspiring structure that preserves a human scale.

“The result — a solid and confident, yet deferential new kid on the college block,” says Allford. “The light-filled, warm-wood interior lifts spirits and fosters connections. The overarching commitment to build something that will stand the test of time can be felt in every material and detail, and from every viewpoint. This is the epitome of how to build for the long-term.”

Sited in a sensitive historic setting along the boundary wall between the enclosed Master’s Garden and open Fellow’s Garden, The New Library is a contemporary, sustainable addition to the Magdalene College campus. Its exterior consists of elegant brickwork set adjacent to the wood-and-glass gables. The older college buildings are made of load-bearing brick with timber floors and similarly gabled pitched roof structures — the architects simply translated these elements into modern forms that maintained a sense of harmony with the historic facilities.

The interior spaces are built with cross-laminated timber structural elements as well as hardwood bookshelves and tables. There’s a sense of rhythm to the layout, with all the roof lights, columns, light baffles, windows, and balustrades forming an orderly “warp and weft” throughout the space. Natural light comes streaming in at just the right angle to illuminate the library without creating glare or damaging the books. Spaces are single, double, or triple height, ranging from small and intimate study areas to awe-inspiring halls with contemplative views.

“The library is approached from Second Court, through a little doorway, and out under an old Yew tree,” say the architects. “From this shady corner, you sense the presence of the river opening out at the edge of the lawn. We wanted to make the building a journey that gradually rose up towards the light. On the way up there would be rooms, galleries, and places to perch with a book. At the top, there would be views out over the lawn towards the water. We wanted to create a variety of ways for someone to situate themselves depending on inclination. You might sit in a grand hall, a small room, or tuck yourself into a tiny private niche.”

They add: “For us, good architecture plays a variety of experiences against underlying order so as to produce harmony. The new library is based upon a logical latticework of interrelated elements. A regular grid of brick chimneys supports the floors and book stacks and carries warm air up to ventilate the building. Between each set of four chimes, there is a roof lantern bringing light down into the spaces below: air rising and light falling.”

The selection marks the first time the RIBA Sterling Prize has been awarded to a college. It’s also the first win for Níall McLaughlin Architects, who have previously been shortlisted for the prize in 2018, 2015, and 2013 for its timber Bishop Edward King Chapel.

The post Níall McLaughlin Architects Wins the 2022 RIBA Prize for Magdalene College Library in Cambridge first appeared on Dornob.

Newsubstance and the Unboxed crew moved the retired oil rig from its former location in the North Sea to the Somerset coast and transformed it into a new public art installation and visitor experience this summer. It was transported by sea on a barge the size of a football field and then lifted over the seawall by crane and set onto prefabricated legs.

The four-story, 450-tonne rig is set within a shallow pool on the beach. Its top platform hosts the garden, while a 6,000-piece kinetic installation featuring the work of Ivan Black and Trevor Lee shimmers across the front. The vegetation was chosen to stand up to the Atlantic gales and corrosive saltwater sprays. The waterfall, dubbed the “SEE MONSTER’s roar,” recirculates via the pool at the base, and the kinetic art moves along with the wind.

Lee’s installation, WindNest, was designed in collaboration with Land Art Generator initiative and consists of two rotating airborne pods that generate clean energy through wind and solar technologies, powering the irrigation systems for the “Garden Lab” on the upper platform. Black’s installation features 6,000 aluminum tiles representing the “monster’s scales,” fluttering in response to weather conditions. Three drone shows by SKYMAGIC light up the skies above the shores of the town, drawing people in to see the installation after dark.

The creators hope SEE MONSTER will inspire conversations about how our industrial history has shaped our climate (mostly for the worse), and what we can do about it.

“SEE MONSTER is a celebration of how we can use our past to shape our future,” the creators say. “Harnessing renewable energy from the great British weather, this reimagined platform will feature experiments, performances, gardens, and even waterfalls — showcasing local innovation and showing how creativity can challenge and change the status quo.”

“SEE MONSTER is being brought to life on the site of Weston’s iconic Tropicana lido by Leeds-based studio Newsubstance with support from Weston-super-Mare Town Council and North Somerset Council. Throughout the UNBOXED summer, it will stand as a vivid reminder of our shared past — and a symbol of our united journey towards a more sustainable future.”

As for Unboxed’s connection to Brexit, The New York Times explains that the $132 million festival was meant to display the best of British creativity after the nation voted to leave the European Union. It’s now being investigated as a “waste of money” by the government’s spending watchdog. The festival has attracted 238,000 visitors since it opened in March; organizers had predicted it would draw up to 66 million people from then until its closure in November.

The post An Abandoned Oil Rig Became a Massive Art Installation in England This Summer first appeared on Dornob.

Created by artists Ella and Nicki, Hugh Broughton Architects, Professor Lucy Berthoud, Dr. Bob Myhill, PEARCE+, and public input, Mars House features an inflatable gold foil structure designed to sit on the surface of the red planet, and a subterranean level beneath it. The prototype is currently on display in the English city of Bristol along with a four-month public program of workshops, events, and research that will ultimately help determine what the interiors of the house look like. For now, it’s just a shell providing space for small research groups to collaborate on projects that help us envision what a future life on Mars could look like.

“The two-story 53-square-meter house is powered by solar panels and designed to be lightweight and withstand the environmental challenges that would be faced on Mars — such as average temperatures of -63 degree Centigrade and exposure to galactic and cosmic radiation,” says PEARCE+ Architects. “The upper level is designed to sit on the Martian landscape and is formed using a pressurized inflatable gold-coated foil, making it lightweight enough to be transported to Mars.”

The architects note that: “in Bristol the foil is filled with air so it can be reused, but on Mars it would be filled with Martian concrete made of regolith (soil) and the water found below the surface, to provide protection from galactic and solar radiation. The house has a glazed elevation, with views towards Bristol’s Princes Wharf standing in for the Martian landscape. Inside, a hydroponic living room is designed to surround occupants with plants to aid relaxation. This will feed into a circular waste water system linking the plants with the ablutions and kitchen water systems.”

The entirety of the structure can currently be seen above-ground in the Martian House’s Bristol location, so we can imagine what the underground portion would look like as well. This area would occupy lava tubes that naturally exist beneath the surface of Mars, protecting inhabitants from high levels of radiation. It contains an environmental control room that houses all life support systems for the house, two tiny bedroom pods, a shower, and a low-water “Martian loo.”

All those who interact with the project in person will be welcomed to contribute to the design of its interior components, which include everything from furniture and appliances all the way down to toothbrushes. This level of public participation turbo-charges creativity, introducing a wide range of ideas that might just help us figure out real-world solutions for our quest to populate the most promising planet in our solar system. Check out the schedule of events lasting throughout the rest of October here.

The post Building a Martian House: Inflatable Installation Explores the Possibility of Life in Space first appeared on Dornob.

“The opening of Air-One, backed by government funding, will revolutionize the way people and goods travel across the nation,” said Robert Courts, the UK’s minister for Aviation. “This step forward puts Britain at the vanguard of clean transport, bringing investment and high-skilled, green job opportunities to the nation.”

Urban-Air Port founder and executive chairman Ricky Sandhu agrees, adding: “The opening of Air-One is a momentous moment — the starting gun for a new age of transport, an age of zero-emission, congestion-free travel between and within cities that will make people healthier, happier, and more connected than ever before.”

The airport was constructed in just 11 weeks across a 17,000-square-foot plot sectioned off into different zones. At its center is a 56-foot circular platform that can raise 19 feet into the air for vertical vehicle takeoff and landing. Surrounding that locus are zones for a vehicle hangar, a cargo and logistics base, a command center, a security screening area, a passenger lounge and café, and retail pop-up sites.

Even though this breakthrough airport is officially open, the aircraft to carry all the future loads of passengers and cargo aren’t quite ready for business. There are plenty of zero-emissions drones in the works and even some that are operational, but there is not yet a commercially viable eVTOL fleet.

While building the airport, Urban-Air Port also teamed up with Washington, D.C.-based Supernal, and has the company’s concept S-A1 eVTOL on display in the Air-One hangar. “The Coventry demonstration is an important first step forward to reimagining how people across the world will move, connect, and live,” says Supernal Chief Commercial Officer Mike Whitaker.

Coventry Air-One is currently more of a model, and the first of what the company intends to be a 200-site network of global air pads for eVTOL vehicles, including projects already underway in the U.S., Australia, South Korea, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Southeast Asia. It envisions these unmanned aircraft charging from off-grid hydrogen fuel cells as part of the “coming green air transportation revolution.”

Their versatility will also aid that trend, as the designs call for versions to be built on land, on water with inflatable pads, and even on top of skyscraper roofs. These tiny airports in otherwise inaccessible aircraft spaces can allow air traffic into more areas, potentially reducing automobile use along with its congestion and air-polluting emissions.

“Our patented technology allows for an ultra-compact but high-capacity infrastructure,” explains Sandhu. “Precisely what is required in complex, dense urban locations – where the demand lies, where our passengers and members work and live.

The company has also designed models for emergency or disaster management, as well as for military defense operations in remote regions.

Visitors to the Covington area can order tickets to visit Air-One and get a glimpse of the future of air traffic.

The post UK Opens the World’s First Airport for Flying Cars first appeared on Dornob.

As part of the £9 billion (roughly $11 billion USD) Battersea Power Station revitalization project, Gehry’s Prospect Place building is the first residential structure the Canadian-American architect has ever created in the UK.

“I love London. It has culture, history, and diversity and the buildings we have created at Battersea Power Station are designed to stand artfully on their own amongst all of that, whilst also framing an internationally recognized icon,” said the 93-year-old starchitect. “It is important we create social places for future generations, and our goal from the start has been to create a neighborhood that connects into the historic fabric of the city of London but also has its own identity and integrity.”

Located south of the power station — which gained worldwide notoriety in 1977 when it appeared on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Animals album — the complex comprises 308 homes, including a variety of studios, multi-bedroom apartments, townhouses, and penthouses. The open plan units start around £510,000 ($635,000 USD).

The exterior’s white-washed curves and ripples were inspired by the traditional bay window, but their peculiar angles were intentionally designed to allow as many residents as possible views of the adjacent historic power station. Those random-looking twists also ensure that no two homes are identical here, though all of them do have access to either a winter garden or terrace.

Inside, residents have a choice of two color palettes: the “London” or the “LA.” While the London is characterized by metal finishings as a nod to the area’s industrial past, the LA embraces natural wood and light colors for a more relaxed vibe.

Because the entire project was intended to foster community and interaction, the residents of Prospect Place are also allowed access to the neighboring Battersea Roof Gardens, designed by Foster + Partners. The building itself boasts an enormous private Sky Lounge, gym, lounge area, workspaces, sunset bar, and theater room. They also have use of the exquisite rooftop gardens conceived by James Corner and LDA Design.

The 42-acre former industrial site also includes a children’s playground, restaurants, retail spaces, and will soon have a unique tourist attraction called the Battersea Power Station Chimney Lift. Visitors can venture into a glass elevator inside one of the station’s obsolete chimneys for a 328-foot ride up to the top, where they can enjoy 360-degree views of London.

The power station developers had high praise for Gehry’s Prospect Place construction. “Frank Gehry and his team have gone above and beyond in the delivery of world-class buildings at Prospect Place,” said Chief Executive Officer at Battersea Power Station Development Company, Simon Murphy. “It’s an honor that Frank’s first UK residential project is at Battersea Power Station, and its completion marks an important milestone in the development.”

Even though this is his first residential design in the UK, Gehry’s work is well known around the world. He founded his eponymous architect studio in California in 1962 and quickly became famous for his avant-garde style, designing Spain’s Guggenheim Museum, Prague’s Dancing House, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. His firm is currently working on the projects like Facebook Campus in Menlo Park and a new Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi.

The post UK Gets First Frank Gehry Residential Design at Battersea Power Station first appeared on Dornob.

Not only does the Tower of Light make this industrial facility a lot more beautiful on the outside, it puts on light shows by day and by night in two very different ways. When the sun shines on it, polished reflectors inside it move in the wind, reflecting patterns of light into the tower’s chambers to create a natural sparkling effect. After dark, LED lights directed at the reflectors amp up the drama with animated, programmed light sequences every 15 minutes to mark the passage of time.

The tower’s unusual form derives from “Shell Lace Structure,” a biomimetic structural technique developed by Tonkin Liu in collaboration with engineers at Arup. This innovative technique uses digital design, engineering analysis, and advanced manufacturing tools to achieve complex organic shapes without compromising structural stability. The technique is inspired by the structures of mollusk shells, which gain their strength from optimized curvilinear geometry. Strategically placed perforations give the shell a lightweight quality while spreading loads in multiple directions. The Tower of Light is now the largest Shell Lace Structure ever built.

“The Shell Lace Structure technique represents an adaptive approach to architecture that allows for enhanced means of expression as well as additional opportunities to respond to site, structure, and climatic requirements,” say the architects. “The technique is multi-faceted and by involving both the hand and the machine in its design process, Shell Lace Structure enables us to regain intuition whilst wielding the speed, craft, and precision inherent in digital tools.”

The architects call the street facade enclosing the new energy center “Wall of Energy.” Visually complementing the tower, this facade features glazed ceramic tiles to reflect light and movement from clouds in the sky as well as human activity on the street to give it an ever-changing appearance. The shape of the tiles is inspired by “the dynamic energy of earth’s movements, as seen in patterns left in the sand by ocean waves,” Tonkin Liu explains.

The energy center itself is known as the Civic Quarter Heat Network (CQHN) and Energy Center, providing the neighborhood with low-carbon energy. It’s powered by an engine and two gas boilers, and designed so that future energy technologies can add or adapt to the power supply without disrupting the flow of electricity. Heat from the power-generating engine is harnessed to create hot water, which then runs through insulated district pipework across the city network, improving energy efficiency by as much as 45 percent.

The post Manchester’s Tessellated Tower of Light Puts on LED Light Shows to Tell Time first appeared on Dornob.

The homeowners in Loughton, Essex were looking for “a space for modern day living and a stronger connection to their beautiful garden.” The original main floor had three rooms crowded in the back of the house: a constricted kitchen with dated fixtures, a tiny living room with no windows, and a dining room extension added in the 1980s. The bottom floor sat a full three feet above the exterior ground, with just one steep staircase granting passage to the back garden. Very little light made its way into this downstairs level, thanks to a large nearby outbuilding that blocked many of the existing windows.

After demoing that outside structure, the architecture firm solved the limited space problem by extending out the back exterior wall at garden level, connecting the addition to the current interior with three wall-to-wall stairs to and an overall open concept. The kitchen was also rehoused in the new ground-level addition, providing direct physical and visual access to the beautiful green spaces around it.

Natural light now streams in through three unique and ingenious windows and doors. The custom-made archways and the U-shaped window balance each other in geometric harmony. From the outside, it almost looks like the glass shapes spell the letters “n-n-u,” the name Studio Jayga gave this design.

The “nnU House” window is set into the wall, creating a perfect resting seat for enjoying the outdoor splendor while also taking advantage of the indoor climate. The top of the window extends above the ceiling line, jutting into a skylight and allowing even more light in from above.

The kitchen island takes its cues from the rounded windows, curving around in a gentle oval and further softened by a ribbed lining of cylinders around its base. Elsewhere, a comforting green envelops the wall of cabinetry, bringing the outside in. It complements the playful, multi-hued terrazzo stone backsplash and countertops.
The rest of the eating area is filled in with neutral floor tiles and crisp white walls, creating an airy space for gathering and working.

The connected living room is framed in on one side by tall, natural-colored timbers that outline the separate space while still offering clear sightlines to the kitchen. Birdseye maple flooring laid in chevron patterns draws the eye over into this area.

The outside of the addition was covered in timber charred on-site in the ancient Japanese style of “shou-sugi-ban,” giving the siding a cultivated and aged look.

Studio Jayga Architects was founded by Abul Mahdi, a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) who got his start building a village clinic in Bangladesh. Perhaps that experience influenced the studio name, which comes from a Bangla word meaning “place.”

“We believe that the spaces we inhabit should have a sense of place; this means that architecture should engage with its social and physical context to create a sense of belonging and community,” the company website says. “We believe that good quality design can benefit and improve people’s lives significantly.”

The post UK Kitchen Addition Takes Geometric Design to the Next Level first appeared on Dornob.

Elsewhere on the 800-acre grounds of this UNESCO World Heritage Site were two more of Messam’s large-scale artworks: “Bridged,” a similarly spiked installation placed across the River Skell, and “Drifted,” a series of floating replicas of the Studley Pyramid set on the upper Canal.

All three sculptural works are part of “These Passing Things,” a temporary exhibition aiming to infuse the landscape with “visual exuberance.” Originally intended for installation in summer 2020 and delayed due to the pandemic, the exhibition aims to revive the playful spirit of Georgian follies in a contemporary way, lightening the mood of all who view it.

“The work is inspired by designs for a 16-meter-high funerary pyramid in the water garden,” Messam explains. “Archive records show this was commissioned by William Aislabie in the 18th century, after his father’s death. Despite scale drawings and detailed costings for the piece, no further mentions of it were ever made, and no record or evidence exists of this mysterious pyramid ever being built.”

He adds that “the original designers of the Studley Royal water garden, the Aislabie family, created many follies to surprise and delight their 18th-century guests. Since 2015 The National Trust at Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal have been celebrating these fashionable and whimsical structures and the Georgian water garden they sit within, through its former folly exhibition series.”

The managers of Studley Royal Garden say they hope the installation will get visitors thinking and start a conversation about the connection between the past and the present while offering a fresh perspective on the Georgian garden. Like many traditional follies (ornamental structures built purely for decoration), Messam’s are ephemeral and have no specific function other than their visual impact.

“While over time we may invest them with meaning or stories, at their core they’re just there – large-scale artworks in the landscape, and as an artist that’s what I’ve been interested in for the past 20 years,” he says. “I’m also interested in the role that follies play in creating focal points in constructed views of the landscape.”

To create “Spiked,” Messam used old plan drawings of the temple to create life-size paper patterns using CAD software. He worked with preservationists to ensure that the inflatable piece wouldn’t damage sensitive elements of the temple like the plaster ceilings. A single quiet fan kept the artwork inflated to maintain the contemplative nature of the setting.

Both “Spiked” and “Bridged” are made of hundreds of yards of fire-resistant polyester, and the steel bridge was custom-built for the project by an engineering firm. About 500,000 visitors crossed the installation between July and November 2021, itself located near the site where a Georgian iron bridge was once located.

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Hollaway, who was commissioned for the project by billionaire Roger De Haan, recently told Dezeen that “We see this as an opportunity to put Folkestone on the map. To the best of our knowledge this has never been done anywhere else in the world.” The park’s ambitious three-story plan certainly aims to impress, offering facilities for both skateboarders and BMX riders to hone their freestyling and tricks. There will also be a boxing ring (operated by a local boxing club), an 11-meter-high climbing wall, a café, a first aid center, and a rooftop terrace present to complete the ultimate skaters’ paradise.

Located on the site of an old bingo hall in the center of Folkestone, the project is meant to be a lot more than a fun, tricked-out space and architectural centerpiece. More importantly, Holloway wants F51 to be a draw for the area’s youth through engagement and community involvement, with the end goal of revitalizing and re-energizing the small town of Folkestone. “If you make childhood meaningful through education, sport, and recreation, then it’s more likely [youth] will invest in their town and the future…that is what true regeneration is about,” the architect said at the outset of the project.

Replacing the old harborside skatepark also owned by De Haan, the park will definitely be a striking addition to the town. Currently under construction, the structure’s three stories tower above the rest of nearby Tontine Street, looking eerily similar to the prow of an enormous concrete ship. A true work of art described as a “giant piece of pottery” by local artist Matt Rowe, who has been documenting F51’s progress since the beginning, the skatepark was created using polystyrene molds set with rebar, which were then sprayed into their more finished concrete forms. The process is not only artistic (think ceramics), but a crucial part of one of the park’s signature features: a suspended concrete bowl located on the first floor that’s perfect for the likes of BMXers and skateboarders looking to trick, jump, and ride with reckless abandon.

The open space, with its “refined skate surfaces” and reinforced concrete pillars, will also be a fully immersive experience, with the acoustics playing an important part in creating the park’s enigmatic and energetic ambience. Initially described by Halloway as a “controlled adrenaline facility,” the park offers opportunities for boarders and BMXers of all skill levels to showcase their skills. And even though it’s being designed with safety in mind, the park will nonetheless offer an exhilarating way for locals to ollie, 360, and shred to their hearts’ content – all in the small English town of Folkestone.

The post F51: The World’s First Multi-Level Skatepark Shreds into a Quaint English Town first appeared on Dornob.

Banksy also posted a short film to his Instagram depicting his seaside tour in an aging camper, as he painted his signature stenciled murals on brick building facades, beachfront retaining walls, and other urban surfaces. The tone of the works range from lighthearted to slightly political, and one even consists of a brand new sculpture dropped into a town’s miniature village.

In Suffolk’s Nicholas Everitt Park, three painted children play in front of a storm drain alongside the words “We’re all in the same boat.” The work initially included a crude boat sculpture made of found objects, but the local government removed it due to concerns that it could block the drain during heavy rain.

In Katwijk Way, Suffolk, a seagull appeared on the side of the house, appearing to zoom in for a bite of trash out of an adjacent dumpster. In Lowescroft, a child with a crowbar sits beside a sandcastle in one work, while a rat leans back in a beach chair drinking a cocktail in another.

In Norfolk, three people dance and play accordion atop a bus shelter on Admiralty Road, and an arcade-style grabber reaches down to a bench at the beach. A sea wall in Cromer, Norfolk features a group of hermit crabs, one holding a sign reading “Luxury rentals only,” apparently a commentary on the contrast of high-end rentals and homelessness in the area.

In Great Yarmouth, the Merrivale Model Village got a surprise addition with Banksy’s own stable added to the scene. The miniature stable is graffitied with the artist’s name along with the tagline “go big or go home,” along with a rat doing a cartwheel.

Other works include an inflated raft floating away in the air with children dangling from it, painted outside a manmade pond in Gorleston, and a humorous addition to a statue of engineer and former mayor Frederick Savage in Guanock Place, King’s Lynn. The statue got a new pink tongue and an ice cream cone made of expanding foam.

Soon after they appeared, several of these works were vandalized. The rat was painted over, and jokesters added some spray-painted teddy bears beneath the arcade grabber. The Great Yarmouth Borough Council removed the inflatable raft image because it hit a little too close to home after the death of a three-year-old child from a burst trampoline on the same beach in 2018. The local councils rushed to protect the other works to prevent additional damage, covering them with clear plexiglas and in some cases hiring temporary security staff to keep watch. The miniature building was moved to a “safe location” and replaced with a replica.

It’s not unusual for Banksy’s works to be defaced or even chipped off and sold at auction, often by the owners of the buildings upon which they’re painted. In some cases, art dealers and collectors approach the owners and ask to remove them, like a Torquay hotel wall piece recently freed from its concrete wall with an angle grinder for John Brandler, who has previously paid six figures for other major Banksy murals.

The post Banksy Confirms New Staycation-Themed Seaside Murals in the UK first appeared on Dornob.

Located on his own 50-acre property, art dealer Michael Hue-Williams came up with the idea during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Walking through these beautiful grounds during lockdown, I realized I have a unique opportunity to share the experience,” he says. “Having access to this land, combined with my numerous years of experience working with contemporary sculpture, made the decision to open an outdoor sculpture park really compelling.”

“There is very considerable interest from the public in seeing sculpture, particularly in the countryside in southern England, where there are such limited opportunities. In the current pandemic situation, it would be of even greater benefit,” says Lord Rothschild, one of several financial supporters of Albion Fields.

Opening on July 9th, 2021, the art garden’s first exhibition features 26 pieces from some of the world’s top sculptors, all showcased in the lush beauty of the English countryside. One preeminent work is Bernar Venet’s “Indeterminate Line” (2016-2020), itself an oversized mass of coiled metal. Also highlighted is “Sofa in Black” (2011) by Ai Weiwei, which looks convincingly like real leather but is actually carved entirely out of solid marble.

“Horizon Pavilion” (2017) by David Adjaye is a geometric timberwork that blends in harmoniously with its natural surroundings. Elsewhere in the garden the giant frame of “Cement Truck” (2010) by Wim Delvoye catches the eye, having been outlined with intricate Gothic architectural elements.

Many of the garden’s featured artworks also focus on light and reflection. “Big Be-Hide” (2017) by Alicja Kwade is composed of giant boulders on either side of a mirror, one natural and the other constructed from aluminum, thereby providing different echoes in the glass.

Erwin Wurm’s “Fat Convertible” (2019) is a mirrored car silhouette of bulbous metal, and Hue-Williams has artfully juxtaposed it against the weathered wood of an ancestral barn.

Panels of polished stainless steel and aluminum create a dimensional object that appears to vanish into the background at certain angles in “Twisted Geometric Mirror III” (2020) by Jeppe Hein. Albion Fields also includes another of his works – a nine-foot-tall metal cucumber.

Yet another reflective sculpture is Ryan Gander’s “More really shiny things that don’t mean anything” (2012), a six-foot tall sphere composed of a thousand small chrome objects.

To enhance the garden encounter, Hue-Williams even had his land, long used for agricultural purposes, rewilded with deer, badgers, owls, hares, woodpeckers, and other woodland creatures. As they move from piece to piece, visitors can catch glimpses of them as they meander on a zen-like path through forests, meadows, and lakes.

The project came together with the help of four partnering galleries: König Galerie, Goodman Gallery, Lisson Gallery, and Marian Goodman. Adding to the uniqueness of the space, every sculpture on view is for sale through their respective galleries.

The current set of sculptures will be on display until September 25th, after which the collections will be rotated every six months. Visits to the Albion Fields and the adjacent indoor gallery Albion Barn are free, but reservations are required.

The post Art Dealer Brings Sculptures Outside for a Safe and Rejuvenating Gallery Experience first appeared on Dornob.

Well think again. When Adam Collier-Woods, a U.K. based carpenter, discovered that one of these behemoths was en route to the scrap yard, he decided to put his skill and creativity into repurposing it as a destination for vacationers looking to have a unique, relaxing retro experience.

While on a drive through the countryside, Collier-Woods saw a decaying bus in a field and was immediately inspired to transform his own double-decker bus into, to paraphrase Monty Python’s Flying Circus, “something completely different.” After purchasing one on Ebay for £4,500, he spent over half a year renovating the enormous bus, documenting the entire process on a local television station.

Built in 1982, Collier-Woods’ bus ended its career after clocking nearly 700,000 miles on the odometer. Hoping to evoke an air of nostalgia for those who may have taken a similar bus to school when they were children, he placed a strong emphasis on keeping as much of the original structure and features as intact as he could, including the steering wheel, driver’s seat, and select other seats. Throughout his renovations, Collier-Woods also sought to keep the interior design retro, taking great care to procure matching furnishings and paint to create the perfect bright, nostalgic vibe. That included keeping the bus’s original bright green exterior. Finding the project “one massive recycling exercise,” Collier-Woods was able to put his skills as a carpenter to good use devising what is now known as the “Big Green Bus.”

Now located on a campsite in East Sussex, the bus is available to rent and can sleep up to six people. Nestled in an idyllic forest setting, holiday makers should prepare to max and relax (and unplug, as there’s no Wi-Fi) around the bus’s picnic area, heated outdoor shower, and outdoor hot tub. Inside, features such as a full kitchen (including stove), a log burning stove for warmth and coziness, comfy beds and seating areas, and the funkiest electric lime green decor make the former transport vehicle both comfortable and stylish.

If you feel like venturing out and exploring the surrounding area, there are plenty of things to do in East Sussex. And if you want to just kick back in the bus and dig those funky vibes the whole trip, you’ll have almost as much to do. A lounge area toward the front of the bus contains board games, and there are also plenty of books laying around in case you want to pretend you’re cruising through the forest while lounging on one of the Big Green Bus’s original seats.

With amazing views, luxe accommodations, kitschy design, and a bit of nostalgia, the Big Green Bus is sure to delight guests who want a cozy cottage experience in a unique, retro setting. Learn more about it here by taking an online tour of the bus and its beautiful surroundings.

The post The Big Green Bus: See How a Carpenter Transformed This Double Decker Into a Hip Retro Vacation Spot first appeared on Dornob.