Tag Archives: design

where architects live.

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As a voyeur of interiors, I love peering into other people’s homes. There is a departure between architecture and interior design and architects often don’t involve themselves with interiors, leaving the design to somebody else. An interesting thing then, to see architects’ own homes.  An exhibition in April called Where Architects Live looks at the private homes of eight world-renowned architects. 

Of those on preview, one of my favourites is the Paris home of Massimiliano Fuksas, an Italian architect known for his work in urban problems and the suburbs, as well as his ‘big’ architecture, Shenzhen airport, for example. A fabulous mix of materials old and new, original Jean Prouvé furniture, and masses of artwork, it feels at once calm yet vibrant. The home of David Chipperfield, as would be expected, is a more restrained affair – a concrete building in Berlin with simple, minimal space and one or two deep colours like the forest green sofa. Zaha Hadid’s home is unsurprisingly white, with lots of her own avant garde and Russian revolution-era inspired artwork and furniture. Mario Bellini’s home is bold, angular and dark-hued. I can’t wait to see more in April.

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Photographs 1 + 2, Fuksas home, Aki Furudate

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Photograph of Chipperfield home, Davide Pizzigoni

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Photograph of Zaha Hadid home, Davide Pizzigoni

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Photograph of Mario Bellini home, Davide Pizzigoni

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Photograph of Daniel Libeskind home, Nicola Tranquillino

Where Architects Live,  Salone del Mobile, Milan 8-13th April 2014 via

gallery house in concrete and pink.

A triple-height gallery housing a collection of prized paintings is concealed behind the wooden shingle facade of this house in Stuttgart. Like any well-designed gallery, the design is all about the internal spaces and how they play to the artworks that will embellish their walls. It is an inward looking house, with no long views. Rather, light and interior space are the game-players, allowing the artwork – a collection of old masters paintings – to take centre-stage. 

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Gallery space and living spaces are separated. A massive concrete core, extending ever up through four floors, acts as the spine of the building, housing the stair, kitchen, bathrooms and services. Clerestory windows bring light down into the gallery, while dedicated spotlights recessed into the concrete core on opposing sides light the artworks. Skylights along the ridge of the roof allow daylight into the living zones. 

Walls are painted in a curious dark shade of pink, which works beautifully against the raw concrete. Joinery, doors and bookshelves slotted into recesses add texture and warmth.

Shingle house by (se)arch architekten, via  Photography: Zooey Braun

Another wonderful home and gallery space, here

happy weekend.

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Seven architects from around the world – Alvaro Siza, Eduardo Souto de Moura and Kengo Kuma included, have created a series of site-specific installations and inserted them into the main galleries and front courtyard of the RA. More than just a shelter or a flashy building, architecture has the ability to shape and form how we feel everyday. We are invited to touch, climb, walk, talk, sit, contemplate. And more – as you enter the galleries, a sign orders you to tweet, and photography is encouraged. A rare treat in the rarefied environment of this grand institution. Definitely one for the littles… 

Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined until 6 April 2014
Royal Academy of Arts, London. More, here. Image via

butchers and bicycles.

First impressions are of an industrial and inviting creative space, all monochrome finishes and lush greens, regular, white tiled walls and poured concrete floors, dark stained wood, and functional furniture pieces.

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This showroom is home to a new venture and brand, Butchers & Bicycles. Based in the meatpacking district in Copenhagen – hence the name – three young design engineers have developed a new type of cargo bike, Mk1, where the cycling component is not compromised by the ‘cargo’ component. And it’s a beautiful piece of design. I’ve always loved the idea of a cargo bike but am terrified about using one in London, which has nothing of the bike-friendliness of other Northern European cities, like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. But living (as we soon will be) right next to the vast green of Hampstead Heath, it would be a fabulous way of getting the little one as well as the shopping from A to B. And for a bit more money, it even comes with an integrated electric motor… 

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What do you think? Have you ever ridden a cargo bike? More, here. Photographs: Kristine Funch

More found objects, here

the fantastic world of ontwerpduo.

Tagline: impossible things before breakfast.

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A bird cage in which you can swing freely, a rocking chair and cot in one, a table you can play marbles on. With wonderful names like Cageling and Rockid, these are fairy tales ideas made possible. Made up of a duo who studied together at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and based in the Netherlands. Ontwerpduo take their own and other people’s ideas and make them into reality.

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I love the wit and fantasy and charm of these objects. And the optimism, that anything is possible. What about you?

The fantastic world of Ontwerpduo, here. All images via 

More wonderful design, here

eclectic in milan.

This 1920s Milanese apartment is an eclectic mix of late Art Nouveau with nineteenth-century embellishment; and colourful, contemporary furniture mixed with neo-Gothic inspired, monochromatic artwork.

Beautiful, highly polished Palladian marble floors with touches of blue inform much of the interior’s colour palette, with palest blue walls and a curvaceous, powder blue velvet sofa. Furniture is sophisticated, elegant: blown glass and brass Bell Tables, an iron, wood and brass screen, Gio Ponti‘s Superleggera chair, a delicate, oval dining table of marble, wood and metal. The ornately carved, wood-lined bay window adds another level of sophistication and a connection with the outside.

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It is an interior that is infused with personality. I find the vivid, cerulean blue master bedroom, with its Vertigo pendant light quite beguiling. What about you?

More Casa Russo, here (via) Photography by Filippo Bamberghi

More wonderful spaces, here

happy weekend.

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Maisie Broadhead, Isabella – 1, 2014. Digital C-Tye Print, 51 x 45 cm. Sarah Myerscough Gallery

It’s London Art Fair week, the first show of the art world year, showing Modern British work of both established and emerging artists. And it’s not just about the art – it’s the most wonderful place to people-watch.

London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington 15-19 January 2014.

More Maisie Broadhead, here

a parisian modernist in blue.

The February 2014 issue of the always fabulous World of Interiors features this apartment, designed by antiques dealer Florence Lopez for Charlotte Gainsborough and her artist husband.

It’s another Parisian apartment (I’ve featured so many recently that I’m thinking of a name change to owl’s house paris..); the difference this time is that the 19th-century decoration has been stripped back in its entirety, leaving a blank canvas as the starting point.

Lopez has a very particular 20th-century aesthetic. The inspiration for this interior comes from Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, which explains the ‘graphic rigour’ within. The parquet floors have been painted black throughout, which create cohesion with the dark slate terrace outside. Walls are painted matt in chalk-white or various shades of blue. Blue prevails, also as an upholstery colour – armchairs in the entrance area are covered in four different shades of deep blue, for example. Otherwise, black, white and the odd shot of vivid yellow provide the contrast. A sleek, wall-hung granite washbasin and copper and brass accessories add an element of luxe.

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Furniture includes a daybed by Jean Prouve, pieces by Josef Frank, Alvar Aalto and Robin Day.

It’s quite a rigorous, purist approach, stripping back all signs of classical detail and extraneous elements, but I think it’s hugely successful. What do you prefer, classical elements or clean modern lines?

20th Century Fox, World of Interiors, February 2014. Scans by owl’s house london.

More wonderful spaces, here

corners.

I love these images taken by Paul Raeside, capturing glimpses of beautifully styled corners in this pared-back Parisian interior. Off-white and shades of grey provide the back-drop to the wonderfully light interior; window treatments are simple lengths of sheer (very on-trend for 2014, says the Wall Street Journal). It is the objects and their placement that provide the detail and texture.

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happy weekend.

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Allusion and ambiguity beguile in these fantastical portrayals of modernity by the impressively monikered Geebird and Bamby. With echoes of  Julius Shulman, Alfred Hitchcock, Ed Ruscha and others they appear familiar and yet surreal at the same time.

The Modern Gentleman by Geebird and Bamby, here