Tag Archives: design

a modern house.

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In a very lovely part of North London, not far from home, is this house. It is properly modern –  built in the mid 1950s by the architects Howell and Amis. It is one of six built as a terrace, there is a shared orchard and its back garden is the wonderfully wild but utterly civilised Hampstead Heath.

The layout is over four storeys. Being a terrace it is narrow – a smidgen over 3.5 metres wide. But every level has full-width floor-to-ceiling glazing across the rear elevation, providing wonderful framed views of Hampstead Ponds and lots of natural light. The interior palette is simple, with white washed walls, wood and terracotta tiled floors, and an open tread timber stair forming a spine through the floors. I’ve already interior-decorated it in my mind.

And best of all it’s for sale! Now, about that price tag…

All images The Modern House

found objects.

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Browsing through some favorite blogs this morning, I came across these beautiful interior images  posted by French By Design. Resting on a simple backdrop of white walls and a pitch black painted floor, these beautiful pieces sit as if in a gallery, but are also part of somebody’s home, and are used and sat upon. I would like to sit and stay awhile…

All images via

danish delight.

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The launch of a new chair is something to be celebrated. This most utilitarian of objects has had so many reincarnations (one of the most thumbed tomes in my book case is 1000 chairs by Charlotte and Peter Fiell), but how many new chairs go on to become design classics?

This chair by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, launched at Orgatec 2012 in Cologne, has a distinctly Scandinavian feel to it in its elegance and simplicity (it is for the Danish company Hay). The pronounced seam in the middle reminds me of an open book when seen in profile. The pairs of legs attach at the top creating an A-frame structure allowing it to stack. It is fabricated from oak and beech, and its inspiration comes from old wooden university trestle tables. The series also features tables (with the seam this time cleverly serving to conceal cable runs), benches and stools. It is designed as educational furniture, conceived for the University of Copenhagen, and it has something of the utilitarianism of the Bauhaus era, but in a refined, light and elegant form. Was the open-book profile intended? I don’t know, but I think it is a stand-out chair and would work in so many settings. What do you think? Will it make the cut?

All images © studio bouroullec

functional form.

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This is a very clever light fitting. The arms are fine LED tubes that can be shaped and formed every which way to create a very individual piece. The finish is brass or black aluminium or oil-rubbed bronze, which makes it very current. The piece takes its inspiration from crystalline structures, both in their static form and as they grow.

It is a very contemporary chandelier, a sculptural piece that has movement and presence. I’m not crazy about the lifestyle images on the web-site, and even though I’ve not met it in person, as it were, I think the geometric form would work in a big industrial space or warehouse or a clean, minimal retail or residential environment.

It can be found, here. 

owl’s house mood.

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My desire to inspire, create, teach and learn, all of which are culminating in this blog, has led me to undertake an on-line blogging course, led by Holly Becker of Decor8 (here). The course is full of inspiring ideas and skills, which up until now were the domain of people who did that kind of stuff.. Little by little that person is becoming me.

The mood board I have created is the look of things to come. Called ‘modernism, minimalism, tones and texture, objet trouve and beauty found all around’, owl’s house is a design sourcebook, a harbinger of all things wonderful. Interior spaces. Materials and finishes. New products and old ones revisited. Design heros. Local influences and ones from further afield. And, perhaps most importantly, musings to ponder on what makes good design. I hope you will join me!