Author Archives - Courtney
Unity Headquarters by Rapt Studio
By Courtney • May 28, 2019
In the sunny but busy streets of San Francisco, California, Rapt Studio has created a company headquarters in a historic old building with plenty of character both inside and out. The Unity Headquarters uses a stripped away aesthetic to impress visitors with visual sophistication worthy of their shining reputation in their industry.
Unity is a 3D development platform company and creator of the world’s most widely downloaded platform for developers looking to create interactive 2D, 3D, VR and AR experiences internationally. The company’s employees were in need of an innovative, flexible, and contemporary workspace that matches the level of forward thinking found in their product and service.
The goal from the beginning was to create an office with an atmosphere and framework that feels comfortable and accessible to everyone but also like it was built for the next generation of developers and industry leaders. Like the software they create, Unity executives wanted their head office to harness flexibility and transformation.
This is part of the reason designers chose to make the most of available space by building the office across two existing buildings, joining them as a single complex in the process. The full expanse of the office occupies a three-storey atrium that boasts individual and group workspaces, places for events and full dining experiences, and areas for screenings and tech assembly.
As might be expected from a leading tech company, the office is cutting edge in the way it uses modern electronic devices to make office processes, both individual and group, feel simple, fast, and streamlined. Employees can both attend and participate in mass meetings from any floor without even getting up from their individualized workspace.
At the same time as the office allows for fantastic individualized productivity thanks its tech accessibility and layout, it is also decorated in a way that fosters togetherness and encourages collaboration. A calming, neutral colour scheme and natural palette of materiality makes the space feel relaxing even as it enables a fast paced work day, making the work day feel like a gathering rather than a staunch and lonely process.
Besides being created to foster collaboration and productivity, the office’s interior was put together with the specific goal of harnessing the beauty of the original building in an authentic way. Many of the materials now featured in the decor scheme, furnishings, and details were original elements before teams arrived on scene.
The materials preserved in this way (which were almost all locally sourced) were primarily natural ones. Brick walls were left exposed all around the office, concrete columns remain uncovered, and salvaged wooden beams were move from their original places and transformed into the facade of the new reception desk, as well as the canteen bar. Upcycling played a huge role in balancing the new with the historical all across the office.
The canteen bar is a social hub within a hardworking office. It is a comfortable space designed to help employees relax, get to know one another, and give their brains a break so as to avoid losing steam during the day. It is understood here that any employee is welcome to make themselves a coffee or even pour themselves a beer.
The central atrium of the building, around and above which various workspaces in the office are built, is another place where authentically old fashioned looking elements are incorporated into a high tech place. Here, an industrial staircase provides access to every floor with a bright, open atmosphere that gives views into different collaborative rooms as you travel up or down.
Overall, designers wanted to provide Unity’s employees with a space that might be as fast paced and simple to use as the technologies they create. The office’s floor plan includes phone rooms, cafes, lounges, conference rooms of different kinds, and even a well stocked library full of relevant reference materials. Employees are enabled to work from almost anywhere in the building with full access to what they need, set up comfortably enough that they feel right at home.
Photos by Jasper Sanidad
Fujitsu Offices by Billard Leece Partnership blend Japanese company’s values and local Australian influence in Melbourne
By Courtney • May 28, 2019
In the heart of Melbourne, Australia, a new international office for the Japanese company Fujitsu was recently completed by design teams at Billard Leece Partnership with the goal of blending visual, spacial, and decorative elements from both countries.
The well known global technology firm wanted to build a space for their employees that bears recognizable details from each nation’s style, culture, and history, but also feels cohesive within itself in order to keep things comfortable and easy to concentrate in. Designers wanted to create a scheme that harness’s the company’s international value of “One Fujitsu” while adding a bit of an Australian flavour into the mix for the sake of familiarity.
Melbourne is a city that is already quite known for its slightly European influence architecture and styling, which gave designers something quite unique to work with already. The result of this and Japanese concepts of tech access and clean minimalism was a clean, crisp, and slightly understated sense of contemporary styling. Readily apparent quality can be seen in every material detail and finished surface.
Another point of decor inspiration from Melbourne itself was the way that city is organized. Laid out in a grid-like fashion with notorious laneways interspersed alongside main streets, the city’s structure motivated the way designers incorporated pops and streaks of colour throughout different activity zones that other was look quite urbane, refined, and neatly organized.
Fujitsu and their Japanese roots are heavily featured right alongside the decor elements that were inspired by the office’s location. The company’s signature red hue is woven through out the space like a highlight in a fabric, accenting furniture, decor details, and joinery. The presence of bright red serves as a link to the brand’s international status while still keeping the headquarters’ space authentic to its local character.
At the same time as designers aimed to keep Japanese roots and local Melbourne influence enmeshed into their office layout, they also wanted to incorporate the key values of the company itself (beyond just the colour red). The offices, therefore, pay utmost respect to environment through the use of sustainable materials at the same time as they exemplify leadership in innovation through the seamless and accessible integration of cutting edge technologies in the workplace.
Overall, the finished offices present a flexible and adaptive workplace that offers employees of all kinds spaces that are optimized for collaboration, independent focus, client engagement, and workplace community, depending on one’s needs. Each space is equipped with the latest technology, making the office a space of good information flow and interpersonal connectivity.
Photos by Ian Ten Seldam and Damien Kook.
Kane World Food Studio by Bogdan Ciocodeică created in Bucharest with a mixture of materials and an emphasis on greenery
By Courtney • May 27, 2019
In a lovely up and coming neighbourhood located just outside of Bucharest’s downtown core in Romania, Bogdan Ciocodeică has built a beautifully blended looking and nature inspired new space for Kane World Food Studio.
Besides just providing great food to the locals in the area, the restaurant actually aims to become a landmark within the city’s social fabric. You see, this newly transformed building space is just one part of a wider effort to regenerate areas of the city;s boroughs that have become worn and distressed in terms of their buildings and spaces over time.
The approach designers opted to take in terms of aesthetic and materiality was kept quite simply and clear, establishing a sense of atmosphere that might appear minimalist were it not then embellished with lovely abundant greenery. Without doubt, the priority for everyone involved was atmosphere and not image, with acknowledgement for the fact that each improves the other.
Now that it is complete, it feels like an urban oasis the moment you walk through the door. In contrast with the concrete streets outside, the restaurant presents a lush jungle within the steel frame of the building housing it. In a way that fits its diverse, fusion style menu, the restaurant provides a space that feels relaxing but also somehow exotic and worldly.
The plants serve a functional purpose as well as a decorative one! Not only do they create a strong outdoor connection from within the restaurant’s main room, but they also define some of the inner space and provide a bit of privacy to different parts. This is far more pleasant and sensical with the place’s overall values than building, say, solid booth separators. Guests sit within and around pleasant, fresh “screens” of greenery instead.
The plants serve a functional purpose as well as a decorative one! Not only do they create a strong outdoor connection from within the restaurant’s main room, but they also define some of the inner space and provide a bit of privacy to different parts. This is far more pleasant and sensical with the place’s overall values than building, say, solid booth separators. Guests sit within and around pleasant, fresh “screens” of greenery instead.
In some places, fully mirrored walls reflect the space to make the room look open and spacious while brass details contrast beautifully with smooth marble and stunning wooden furniture, adding a sense of the high end to all of that otherwise natural materiality. These metallic details aren’t actually the only place that uses balance and contrast to perfect things.
The seating areas themselves and they way they’re laid out also differ and a well laid out way that creates a sense of balance and contrast simultaneously, making the spaces practical but also enjoyable to use. This lies in the existence of both a higher seating area with a harder perimeter, making it seem a little more fast and formal, and a softer, more fluid seating area in the centre of the room that feels quite shared, organic, and relaxed.
Artwork throughout the space serves both decorative and practical function as well. Besides adding local character and depth to the space through their mere colour and beauty, the art gives the restaurant a sense of depth and volume through the way it was purposely positioned to be reflected across the room in the various mirrors.
Lighting is very intentional within the space as well. Most of the perimeter of the restaurant is floor to ceiling windows, flooding the whole space in stunning light. To work with this, the installed lighting varies between soft, dispersed light that adds a glow to the whole larger space and more direct lighting that focuses on specific tables, adding to social and dining experiences.
In total, the restaurant spans a space of 180 square metres inside. The main dining room offers 74 seated spots, most on custom made furniture or pieces selected from brands made by local designers.
Photos by Andrei Margulescu
Escala Partners Offices by Molecule Studio
By Courtney • May 27, 2019
In the financial district of Sydney’s downtown core, in the sunny streets of Australia, Molecule Studio has recently completed a significant office transformation for prestigious wealth management company Escala Partners.
Besides just physically expanding the square footage of the available office space for those working there, this brand new office project marks an interstate expansion for the company’s overall growth, making it a bit of a tribute as well as a workspace. This office is a sibling space to the primary head office in Melbourne, which was also completed by Molecule Studio in 2013.
This new office is, in a number of ways, influenced by the design and aesthetic present in the previous office, but designers still wanted to give the space in Sydney its own distinct character. They used this updated project as a chance to re-investigate and refine some of their basic design ideas, customizing them to a brand new context.
The goal here was balance between related spaces; the company wanted to see that the new office space had some design and function aspects that were all its own, but without deviating entirely from what they know already works for the same team in another city.
In the new Sydney office, most spacial plans centre around the already grand entrance and the stunning harbour views provided naturally by the location. Why not take advantage of what’s already there and doesn’t need changing to be beautiful? Now, clients enter into a wide and impressive reception area with its own lounge. This greeting space is quite flexible and is therefore also often used for informal client meetings during the day and sometimes even functions in the evening.
The reception area is not, of course, the only space where meetings might take place. There is also a large and fully tech equipped boardroom for office wide meetings and conference calls as well as several smaller meeting rooms for quicker proceedings with less people. These are all positioned adjacently to the building’s facade, giving peeking views of the harbour and skyscraper laden landscape below, a pleasant thing to gaze upon during long meetings.
Joining the reception area to these other spaces, as well as collaborative and individualized work spaces, is a nine metre long hallway-like space that displays stunning materiality. The floor and walls are clad in a smooth, light timber veneer while marble gives the place a sense of sophistication. This stretch also serves as a bit of a divider between the reception and the primary workspaces.
At the end of the office, you’ll find a set of pivoting panels that let employees control whether certain parts of the office can be viewed or given more privacy. Behind these panels sit the full equipped staff kitchen and a case. Each of these boasts lovely timber floorboards and veneering, continuing the front area’s rich and slightly formal looking colour palette.
Although overall colour schemes in the office are quite neutral, there’s still a sense of luxury all throughout the space. This is in the fine copper and metallic finishes, the teal green upholstery, some dark stained timber veneer contrasting with the light, and even some smooth, caramel coloured leather. In some spaces, you’ll also find sandstone inspired marble, which is a direct called to the Melbourne office, where it is paired with navy blue, tan, and rosewood colour schemes.
The finished product is a pair of spaces in different city borders that share a sense of principle and philosophy but each bear that own distinct atmosphere even so.
Photos by Prue Ruscoe
1960s home updated to create the contemporary Bent Annexe by BENT Architecture
By Courtney • May 24, 2019
In the mid-century neighbourhoods of Melbourne, Australia, a lovely old 1960s home called Bent Annexe has received a stylish updating by BENT Architecture that has brought it into the contemporary age in terms of architectural design and style.
The primary change in the home is an extension that was directly inspired by the layout and concept of a traveling caravan. The home is fortunate enough to already be surrounded by lush greenery from the natural environment around it and the installation of wonderfully large floor to ceiling windows draws in abundant amounts of natural light. These are partially intended to provide light and lovely views, but they’re also part of an energy efficient system in the home based on passive solar principles.
The extension was built for the new owners who recently purchased the original home; a young family of four with two dogs and a huge love for all things outdoors. This partially influenced designers’ choices to incorporate as much sunlight and blending of indoor-outdoor space as possible. They also prioritized an improvement on ventilation than what the original midcentury home had to offer.
In the new iteration of the home, the primary living spaces of the house now sit in the addition or new annexe. This left increased space elsewhere in the house for more diverse and flexible use, so designers took the opportunity to update parts of the existing dwelling to take better advantage of that space.
As a result of these updates, the finished house now has much larger bedrooms than before, a large family bathroom, and a whole second living space that functions more as a casual family and media room than a formal living room. The larger, new living spaces sit further towards the original backyard and garden, but the annexe doesn’t take up so much space as to consume the home’s entire available outdoor area.
Instead, designers put in great effort to make the annexe actually feel like part of the garden. They blended it, rather than just popping it in the middle, by creating new green spaces on both sides around it. Now, the green space down one side of the annexe juts inward to separate the original building from the far wall of the addition, creating a sort of calming inner courtyard.
This courtyard is an enjoyable place to spend time together outside for the owners and their family, but it also serves practical functions for the home. Now, the master bedroom has an extra outer wall with large windows that give it much more natural light, as do both of the living areas. These huge windows create the illusion of continuous space, which lets them feel blended with the greenery outside, making them feel spacious and welcoming.
In order to make sure that the house doesn’t let is so much light as to get too hot, designers also installed a built-in shading system over several of the largest glass encasements. This is where the caravan inspired element is perhaps the most visually apparent; these retractable shading devices create cool spaces on the deck and outdoor dining area while also working with the louver style windows and thermal mass concrete floors to passively heat or cool the house at large.
Photos by Tatjana Plitt
Beautifully named and decorated House of the Winds created by Leo Romano to combine natural materiality with open spaces
By Courtney • May 24, 2019
On a stunning green plot on the edges of a city in Brazil, Leo Romano has recently created a stunning L-shaped house called House of the Winds with the explicit intention of creating a relaxing atmosphere through natural materiality and blending indoor and outdoor spaces into one lovely living area.
The house was built on a lusciously green plot of land that provides a lot in terms of views and garden spaces already. Designers chose to create a building that clearly uses contemporary architectural principles despite its very natural looking setting in order to create some beautiful contrast right off the bat, before visitors have even entered through the front door.
The shape of the house creates a fantastic recessed area in the inner yard where the walls provide some shade for a lovely balcony. The way the house dips inward also gives a feeling of increased green space, contributing even more to the already nature-filled views that same balcony is afforded.
The L of the house is formed by two separate volumes with varying floor plans. The two box-shaped volumes overlap at one end, which is where the differentiation between public and private spaces inside the home takes place. Social and shared living spaces lie in the front volume where the main entrance is, while intimate spaces like the bedrooms and a master bathroom sit in the volume that sits further away from the public entrance.
The base of the volumes on both sides is formed from reinforced concrete which, all around the top half of the house, is surrounded by a screen. This screen is made from steel rebar, which creates a visually interesting effect and makes the structure look rather grand and noble indeed.
In stunning contrast, a smooth wooden partial facade wraps around the side of the house with more windows facing towards the best natural sunlight. Large wooden shades here can be pulled closed for inner shade, temperature regulation, and privacy, as you see in most photos here, or the screens can be pulled back and fully opened to welcome the sky into the room.
A similar fully opened feeling can be achieved downstairs in the primary living rooms and social spaces. Here, the full floor to ceiling patio windows that protect the inside of the house from weather without sacrificing any light can be retracted fully into the solid walls surrounding them, almost as if the barrier between the living and dining areas and the sunny patio has dissolved.
To give the inside of the house as much character as the outside provides viewers from the street, designers on this project chose to furnish and decorate the space using pieces created primarily by artists from the local area. Brazilian made furnishings made the spaces comfortable and stylishly useful while stunningly colourful paintings and impressive sculptures created by local artists make the home feel every more inviting and uniquely contemporary.
Photos provided by the architects.
Sleek, open concept Business Center Binet created by AZC Architectes using minimalist values, concrete, and wood to create a multipurpose space
By Courtney • May 23, 2019
In a historic neighbourhood located just northwest of Paris’s 18th arrondissement in France, AZC Architectes has finished the stunningly minimalist Business Center Binet, presenting those who use it with nearly endless spacial possibilities.
The centre is located in the Porte de Montmartre neighnourhood, bordering the stunning town of Saint-Ouen. Freshly renovated in several areas and capacities, the place where the new business centre sits is part of an extensive urban renewal project taken on by the city of Paris in order to better facilitate modernizing changes to its historical local architectural fabric.
In fact, this is actually one of the several projects that were named priority in its particular location! This business large complex was created to provide a brand new home for up to 59 businesses. Alongside those premises, it also features shared spaces like communal areas, a large multi-purpose hall, a fully equipped conference room, and a cafeteria. There are even 33 easily accessible underground parking spots!
Besides providing new (or newly moved) businesses with flexible, modern, and diverse spaces to work out of, the goal with this business complex was to provide a structure for local businesses that is actually sustainable. The building’s solid facade and simple but sophisticated interior communicates a certain quality of life and business and takes fantastic advantage of available space.
Most spots up for grabs to businesses are generously open in their arrangement and concept. Many offer terraces and uniquely shaped workspaces, with spots for individualized tasks and collaborative efforts. At the same time as it offers several things that are practically useful for a workplace, the building also gives employees and clients there breathtaking views and carefully landscaped green spaces that contrast in a lovely way with the still quite urban setting in which the building sits.
In terms of its actual layout, the building turns at a right angle into a sort of L-shape, letting it run parallel to two different roads. This shape affords it more window spaces in each business premises, making the rooms bright and well lit no matter where they’re located within it. Large, spacious hallways are featured right from the ground floor upwards, with elevators easily accessible, central, and simple to find on each floor so that movement through the building is simple and flows well.
The building also offers a certain level of welcoming, contemporary transparency throughout the floors, where the fronts of most office and work spaces are comprised of stunning, glazed floor to ceiling windows just as tall as those on the outside of the building letting daytime pour in. This lights flow throughout the whole building itself, traveling through the rooms rather than hitting them all individually and differently but then being collected and left to sit still in the interior of each.
In fact, the emphasis on natural sunlight and its flow was so high on the designers’ lists when they began planning the new business centre that it was actually listed as being inspired by the concept of building a “daylight factory”! The clean, simple materiality inside lets sunlight bounce off polished concrete floors and warm smooth, light wood in a way that gives each space plenty of character before they’re even occupied and furnished by a business.
This heavy emphasis on maximizing the amount of sunlight that reaches an interior space is actually one of the main ways the business centre displays its little bit of Westernized influence, since that’s actually a North American architectural priority. In other places, however, the building is still distinctly European, as can be seen in the fact that it’s topped by a sunny, quiet rooftop terrace, something that isn’t as common across the pond from Paris and its outlying towns.
Photos by Sergia Grazia
Shipping Container Carpark by Archimontage Design Fields
By Courtney • May 23, 2019
In a suburb of sunny Bangkok in Thailand, innovative designers at Archimontage Design Fields Sophisticated have thought inside the box in order to create a unique parking garage built entirely out of upcycled shipping crates!
In total, the carpark is made of eight very large shipping containers that were deemed too old for their original use. Instead of letting them be thrown out, this company spruced them up, made sure they didn’t bear any weak spots, and transformed them into a building! This building looks shockingly elegant considering its recycled nature, sitting in the centre of the suburb of Nonthaburi.
Within those eight containers we mentioned, the building is made up of two different sizes of container; four large and four small. The four smaller modules make up the wonderfully bright, light filled front building while the larger ones make up the places to the back and top where cars are stored when they’re parked. The containers are arranged purposefully and strategically to fit effectively into the narrow, compact little corner lot in which they sit.
Originally, this plot was home to another building. This building also featured a car care business but it was simply too old and run down to continue housing the service in a way that gave the owners what they truly needed. Designers immediately began strategizing better ways to organize and take advantage of the 3000 square foot lot, with its unique long and narrow shape.
In order to expand on the space the owners might have available without trying to fill the lot too heavily, designers chose to build things upwards rather than outwards. This is how the stacked looking vertical design that you see in the photos came about. Growing the building to boast three stories provided more flexible, multi-purpose space without cramming too much onto the ground level and overwhelming the look of the street around the structure.
The bottom level of the finished carpark as it is now was designed to let the business it houses grow. The spaces that aren’t currently being used serve well for storage until the owners get back into the swing of things with clients post renovations and overflow of car service moves into that space instead.
On the second floor things are actually entirely open and empty right now, but they won’t stay that way forever. The owners actually have plans for building a restaurant and bar there above the carpark! The third floor is and will remain a lovely, light filled office space with an outdoor staircase that lets visitors access it without crossing the work floor where the cars are serviced.
Speaking of spaces being light filled, the level of natural sunlight was actually a huge priority in this project and partially determined how the shipping containers were arranged! The goal was to create as much window space as possible but, due to the intense Thai heat in the summer, designers still chose to install metal sun shades in certain places so the level of sunlight can be reduced when necessary in order to avoid overheating.
The final touch on the building’s completion was to paint the exterior in as aesthetically pleasing but subtle matte black. This helped the building itself blend into the urban landscape around it while also reducing solar radiation. To contrast this and keep things from feeling too dark and closed off, the carpark’s interiors all remain a clean, bright white that looks very modern and impressive indeed.
Photos by Chaovarith Poonphol
Literally named Trentham Long House created by MRTN Architects to exemplify contemporary rustic design principles
By Courtney • May 22, 2019
In Trentham, Australia, a uniquely shaped and very long house that was recently finished by MRTN Architects has been appropriately dubbed the Trentham Long House. This stunning structure combines contemporary interior decor and slightly rustic building all in one seamless and interesting place.
The Trentham Long House sits comfortably nestled atop the Great Dividing Range on the edge of the sleep town of Trentham, about 100km outside the city of Melbourne. Once upon a time it was a gold mining town, but now it’s a calm, quiet country escape. The dwellers of Trentham value their home for its country air, which is crisp, cool, and incredibly fresh, and also for its quiet streets, which are most often free of traffic.
It makes sense, then, that this relaxing town is the perfect setting for a home that’s intended to feel a little bit like you’re stepping back in time, even though it still has all the sleek amenities of contemporary living. The house is a delicate balance of the simplicity of times of auld and the conveniences of modern home technology.
The house is more than just a semi-traditional throwback to simpler living. It’s actually part of a partially rural development that sits on the periphery of the small town and prioritizes low maintenance, energy efficient homes. The Long House in particular was build for an older couple who often have their children and grandchildren stays for visits. They requested a home that would harness the historical elements of the area and its local context but also provide a comfortable dwelling with easy living all year round. They also wanted to be able to host large family gatherings!
Though the house has several nearby neighbouring properties, its situated so as to feel serenely on its own. It bears expansive garden in both the front and the back, giving it quite idyllic views no matter where in the house you’re seated. The actual structure of the house is very unique indeed; rather than being one solid piece standing within shared walls, the Long House is actually a collection of contemporarily styled farm buildings that have been gathered under one very large gabled roof.
This sort of semi-attached building collective is actually typical of the traditional farming houses in the local area’s history. In fact, the goal to be authentic with the house was so well met that parts of it are actually upcycled buildings from real surrounding farms that were not longer in use.
The garage, for example, was once an old machinery shed. The main farmhouse, which is organized around a central and traditionally laid out farmhouse kitchen with its own wood burning stove, is new but several elements of it were built with reclaimed and locally sourced wood.
In terms of materiality, the house maintains a naturally subtle colour palette in the way it uses things that were sourced directly from the surrounding environment. The house is actually built with natural wear and tear over time in mind. The facade, which is made of gum wood cladding, will gain a natural patina as it weathers, which is specifically intended to add to the home’s historical character. This will blend it even more effectively into its natural surroundings than has already happened.
In the home’s interior functions, the buildings are divided according to function, so that the needs to low impact country life all make sense as you move throughout the space. There is also a blending of function in certain places. For example, there is a carport at one end of the long house that provides shade and coverage to the area directly next to it, which is a guest house. The overhand provides a buffer to the hot Australian sun.
Towards the far end of the house from the meandering driveway, you’ll encounter a row of mature eucalyptus trees. These are stunning to look at and provide shade, but they also have a functional purpose in the way they separate the relaxing home spaces from the parts of the land plot that actually feature more functionally working farm aspects.
In the main living spaces, the warm hearth is the centre of the house around which most things are arranged. It creates a lovely focal point that is also a clear and comfortable gathering place and delineates the seating and meeting area from the eating area. Because the interior decor scheme is so sleek and simple, actual architectural elements of these spaces are given more visual space, speaking to the home’s traditional senses.
Perhaps the most contemporary element of the home- the place where the contrast is most stark- is in the kitchen. Here, life seems more high tech with modern cooking facilities and glazed floor to ceiling windows with movable screens that can blend indoor and outdoor spaces. Moving towards the private sleeping spaces of the house, things feel more local and traditional again.
Photos by Anthony Basheer
Ultra contemporary and colourful Rombo IV created by Miguel Angel Aragonés to combine living space and art in new ways
By Courtney • May 22, 2019
In the beautiful Cuidad de Mexico area of Mexico, innovators at Miguel Angel Aragonés have built the Rombo IV building; a stunningly modern and artistic complex that houses three bodies and a studio space with plenty of awe-inspiring artistic features.
The “Rombos” are actually the four volumes of the building, which are carefully assembled together here to make a single stunning structure that stands out against the more traditional urban fabric within which it sits. The private wings are those where the three houses sit and the fourth volume sitting closest to the public street is where the studio can be seen.
The complex sits on a bustling central street in an area of Mexico City called Bosques de las Lomas. Despite such an urban setting, however, the presence of a tall, sprawling tree right at the door, which can be seen from just about any room inside the complex, makes it feel less foreboding in its contemporary nature and more welcoming and in tune with nature.
This natural theme continues around the back of the building towards the houses and their patios. Lush gardens and small bursts of greenery through the property make sure things feel tied to natural reality rather than seeming too surreal in all the shining white lines, gleaming marble, and colourfully lit artistic displays that can be seen from the street at night.
Water is a continuous theme throughout the complex as well. Several water features dot the patio spaces behind the houses like small pools while similar displays can actually been found inside the entryways and studio in the interior of the complex as well, adding a sense of bubbling serenity to the already calming space.
To take the beautifully reflective surfaces of the water features even further, many spots in the homes and studio feature large, crystal clear mirrors. This makes the space feel wide and free and also reflects the presence of green life, like the space is somehow a lush garden in every corner at the same time as it is sleek and cleanly contemporary.
The inspiration for including such natural features so heavily alongside such modern looking artistic displays and furnishings was to highlight how precious nature is, particularly within busy city settings. The whole complex has a sense of making space for not just art, but also vegetation, land, and water. All of this takes on a particularly surreal quality when the colourful light displays are set aglow at night.
Although there is so much to see from the street in the form of coloured lights or to gaze up on in the public art studio, privacy was actually still a massive priority for designers and owners alike. They wanted to establish a space of quiet, calm solitude, as though the only entities seeing it besides yourself might be the sun and the sky. This explains the presence of abstract screens, uniquely cut and shaped windows, and interesting partitions that obscure the view of the three private homes almost entirely, shifting focus to the features of the home that are specifically designed for other eyes.
The intention of the stunning light display you see in these photos was to add a sort of language and balance to the space. They contrast the hardness of the marble with a soft glow and the starkness of the white finishes with a splash of colour. They paint the home like a backdrop the way nature does to hard rock face and urban settings. Between these light displays and the way other art pieces within the studio play with shape, the effect is nothing short of breathtaking.
Uniquely Treehouse inspired house by Atelier Victoria Migliore features stilts, swings, and climbing nets just like the real thing
By Courtney • May 21, 2019
Located in a calm, quiet pine forest in Frehel, France, the incredibly unique and aptly named Treehouse by design innovators at Atelier Victoria Migliore is inspired by and truly harnesses some fun and authentic elements of an actual treehouse.
The house sits on a hill in the midst of the forest, nestled among the trees in a way that is at once quiet and cozy but also full of adventure and wildness. The structure itself, despite its rustic looking presentation, is very modern and entirely contemporary in its eco-friendly systems. In these ways, the house not only blends into the nature surrounding it but also respects it.
The specific plot on which the house was built is sandy, perfectly supporting the foundation and posts on which the shockingly light house actually sits. At its highest point in the air, the house is raised three metres off the ground, with screw piles driven deep into the ground elevating it. These piles are placed extremely strategically so as to not disturb the roots of the pine trees all around.
The house itself is a single rectangular structure made of locally sourced and mostly upcycled burned wood. The rectangle is not solid on all sides all the way around; instead, it features several voids where miniature sort of courtyards indent to accommodate trees and green space. The house is also heavy on stunning floor to ceiling windows all the way around its perimeter.
The way the windows and glass walls open onto raised outdoor spaces makes the home feel as though the woodland area surrounding it extends right inside and on into the main living spaces. Balconies and raised courtyards are featured up on the treehouse like platform with the rest of the house, making the whole raised experience of staying there consistent.
The wooden theme follows you inside, making the house blend well with its surroundings, but there are several other extremely unique features that made things seem almost ethereal as well. In the centre of the house, for example, a suspended open fish tank sits in a raised, open air patio space with the rest of the house organized around it.
Above this central patio, a suspended sort of net made from knotted rope covers the space between the sections of the roof where the courtyard space was made. Visitors can climb right up onto this space and use the netted spot as a hammock, relaxing with the sky above the fish tank.
As if that feature weren’t interesting enough, the house bears another treehouse-like characteristic over the edge of the deck, where two wooden and rope swings hang down towards the ground! Here, visitors and dwellers of any age can socialize and play together, swinging in the woodland breeze like they really are out playing in the treehouse in their childhood backyard.
Inside, things are a wonderful blend of modern and rustic. The gorgeously smooth light wood keeps things grounded in that intentional woodland feel but, at the same time, large windows and up to date appliances and amenities provide nothing but the most modern living experience. Huge windows in the bathrooms and bedrooms keep the house bright and cheerful no matter where you are.
The house truly is organized entirely around that central raised courtyard; Each room has a glazed glass wall in the centre where visitors and dwellers can look out upon the fish swimming around. These windows also let natural daylight and the warmth from the sun travel through the house, rather than just into it, helping make it more efficient to light and heat.
Photos by Cyril Folliot
Unique wood and concrete fortress called Private Residence created by Trípólí to play with shapes and contrasts
By Courtney • May 21, 2019
In a quiet suburb of Reykjavík in Iceland, called Garðabær, a midcentury private residence was recently renovated with a modernist twist by innovators at Trípólí. The Private Residence home now stands tall and unique in the street’s visual fabric.
New owners of the original home ordered not just a complete renovation of the space, but also a drastic expansion. When it was first built in 1966, the house was a simple, cubic looking unit that featured a flat roof, which looked quite contemporary for its time. Additions were added to the home a decade later and then, in 1994, a pitched roof was added on top of the flat one.
Around that same time, a facade was added to the exterior walls. These were clad with Steni facade panels which covered most of the original architecture form the 60s. Now, even more decades later, the new owners wished to bring the house back to its roots a little and re-centre some of that original modernist style. At the same time, they wished to adjust the layout of the main volume in order to add several new rooms entirely.
These brand new spaces include a family room in the centre of the house, as well as a south addition that is now home to a new dining room, high tech kitchen, and floor to ceiling glass wall that opens onto a sunny patio below a cantilevered roof that provides some pleasant shade.
In terms of materiality, the house feels very modernist indeed, but not without contemporary updates or nicely contrasting blends in texture and visuals. The bulk of the house is created from polished concrete with thermal absorption properties that help passively heat and cool the house. In many places, the wood panelled facade is mirrored throughout the house in flooring, furnishings, and inner facades as well.
To save the space from looking too concrete, designers also put an emphasis on some low maintenance plant life, particularly near entrances where guests and visitors will most often see the house from. Lovely concrete planters are home to colourful green succulents with red and purple glints and highlights, warming the space and making sure it blends with surrounding nature well.
Between the dining and living rooms, a glazed glass slit was created. These rooms are on two separate but close by levels and the slit, which sits near one of the succulent planters, is recessed slightly, designed to bring natural sunlight and that sense of nature a little further into the house. The glass here helps light and warm the entryway and wide staircase that leads to the main social rooms.
For something extra unique and wonderfully calming, designers built a kind of spa space right off the garden area. Here, a sauna provides a warm, private place for relaxation and reflection while an outdoor hot tub provides a more social space that heats itself efficiently using geothermal systems.
Photos by Rafael Pinho
Bashirul Haq & Associates builds a combination of family home and studio space
By Courtney • May 20, 2019
In the busy urban setting of Dhaka in Bangladesh, creative designers and teams at Bashirul Haq & Associates have created the Architect’s Family Home & Studio as a combination of private and creative space for one of their own!
The home and studio structure sits in the downtown core, on a busy city street with lots of activity out from. From the outset, the plan was to create a housing and workspace that spans the available 670 square metres of the chosen plot. The home was planned to have two floors in total for the primary living space with an additional mezzanine floor extending above the garage to house the studio space.
In order to give the home a little more privacy from the busy public street (and also reduce the harsh winds that blow through the neighbourhood), the house is constructed in an L-shape. This shape also creates some clear delineation between the parts of the building that make up the home and the parts that are used as an office and workspace.
This separation of functional spaces is beneficial for more than just the mental health perks of differentiating between work and family life. It also influences the structure of the house, as the joining portion between the private and work volumes of the L is a beautifully vaulted space that gives access to different areas and rooms.
Above the vaulted area sits a room that is primarily used as a study. Here, exposed brick walls that match the home’s stunning facade enclose most of the room in order to give it privacy and quiet. Even so, designers aimed to give it lots of motivating natural light as well, featuring a set of historical looking wooden windows. These are set deeply in an opening to protect them from rain and wind.
This recessed structure in the office also isolates the space a little more from the noise pollution coming off of the busy street outside. Beyond the windows, a front courtyard also provides more space and takes on the brunt of the area’s often harsh weather, giving another buffer to the study space and rendering it even more of a quiet work haven.
Moving back into the main house past the vault, a wonderfully decorated void separates the work and living spaces even further without interrupting flow and easy movement from one to the other. This void space has a skylight set into the roof to keep things bright inside the brick building, which lets the weather outside shift the light so it plays across the furnishings and decor details there.
A similar skylight keeps the main living room well and naturally lit. Just like the one in the voice space leading from the study, this skylight lets light play across the furniture, varying as the daytime sky changes. The shadows cast throughout the day contribute to the decor scheme of the room and keep things looking dynamic.
Photos by Al Amin Abu Ahmed Ashraf (Dolon)
JP Residence by Sarau Arquitetura
By Courtney • May 20, 2019
In an expansive corner lot by a stunning lagoon, the JP Residence by Sarau Arquitetura provides a small family with a stunning Brazilian escape that takes the climate into account and feels almost like a relaxing private resort.
Located in Araçatuba, Brazil, the lot that the house is built on occupies almost 1200 square metres and stands only a single storey tall. The house has an intriguing trapezoidal shape and was specifically designed to take the climate into account, blending indoor and outdoor space and interior and exterior sensations like light and fresh air as seamlessly as possible.
Part of the way that designers chose to blend with outdoor spaces was to include lots of greenery in the design, both inside and outside. Along one side of the yard, for example, a garden extends the complete length of the 25 metre long swimming pool, which shines blue from the lush green lawns like an oasis.
The house was also organized according to the function of their spaces, with designers paying just as much attention to how the interior of the house is laid out as they did to how the indoor and outdoor spaces are organized. The intimate areas of the house are quite distinguished from the social areas, creating two sorts of sectors.
Part of what distinguishes the two areas from each other is the marked difference in ceiling height. In the private spaces, the ceilings are low and intimate, creating a cozy, friendly space that feels close in a pleasant way. This is balanced by the fact that one section of the ceiling is actually completely open to the sky!
In the public spaces, on the other hand, the ceilings sit rather high, creating an open effect filled with woodworked detail. The effect between this and the way the patio doors slide entirely open to blend the living and dining rooms completely with the green space outside. In fact, all of the public spaces are situated in the house such that they’re turned towards that stretching green space and sparkling blue pool.
In a transitionary space between the public and private space sits a bit of a service area. This is where you’ll find a guest bathroom, a relaxing sauna with a door nearby leading in from the swimming pool and hot tub, and technical areas like storage and other things one might need to take care of a house as an owner. This is also where access to a little ground floor balcony area is gained.
One of the most noticeable pieces in the living room is undoubtedly the fireplace. This is a vertically impressive structure that features stunning stonework reaching all the way up to the high ceiling of the social area. All around the fireplace, natural light floods into the living room, kitchen, and social area from sprawling floor to ceiling windows.
Leading to the master bedroom, the hallway features a set of large windows all the way down that sit right up against parts of the garden outside the window. Large green leaves sit right up against the glass, creating the illusion of a spa or calming jungle area. This plays off the natural ventilation and the skylights to make dwellers feel as thought they’re walking down an open air space instead of an indoor hallway.
In combination with the open air sense of space and the natural materiality of the interiors, which is heavy in wood and stone, the overall atmosphere in the house has a sense of synergy and calm that even visitors can sense immediately.
Photos by Lio Simas
Mole Architects turn old, Edwardian British garage into contemporary, energy efficient dwelling called Fijal House
By Courtney • May 17, 2019
In a central conservation area in the village of Ely, United Kingdom a new house has been built from what was originally a garage built in 1905 when the street was first laid out. Now, Mole Architects‘ Fijal House sits looking modern and stately between two detached Edwardian houses that provide impressive contrast.
The house is brick clad but the bricks are angled in such a way that one must look twice to realize what the facade is actually made of. Set on angles so that they create almost zig-zag looking ridges, the bricks create a visual appeal that designers created as an artistic and contemporary interpretation of the older houses that flank it on either side, which are made of classic brick.
The actual vertical shape that designers chose to create in their offset placement of the facade’s white bricks was inspired by another much older local landmark. The shape is an homage to the stone columns that mark the entrance of the Ely Cathedral! On the house, the bricks are at at 90 degree angles to each other to get the right visual texture.
The entrance of the house is set into the brick, recessed underneath a modernist looking lintol made of precast concrete. This slab provides shade to the small porch and the entryway’s front window. For even more visual appeal that the facade already provides, the space below the lintol is adorned with colourful tiles creating a pattern in cream, green, and blue.
In terms of its construction, the house was created around a prefabricated frame. The ground floor and internal walls were constructed using concrete screed, with dense concrete block work included around the base for extra thermal mass. Skylights in the roof, particularly those on the south side, bring sunlight into the house all day long, spreading to every corner from the dining area and staircase in particular.
The upper floor of the house sits under a roof that features exposed rafters on the inside and a steeply pitched shape. Once again, this element was inspired by the local cathedral; the angled is modelled after its nave. The angled interior effect is that the modestly sized bedrooms below have a cozy sense of scale and lots of old fashioned character typical of original houses in the region but unusual for more modern houses built in the surrounding suburbs more recently.
From the outset, designers wanted to give the home’s interior layout a bit of flexibility, allowing good flow and movement and enabling rooms to be used in diverse ways. The owners wanted a space that could feasibly balance hosting large social gatherings but also suits regular family use, with decent acoustic separation between rooms, particularly those with differing private and public functions.
In terms of decor, the materials used inside the house are simple and modest. Floors are made of smoothed dark stone while pale ash lines the walls for natural contrast. Upstairs, floors are carpeted for comfort in the bedrooms on chilly mornings. In direct contrast to and communication with the angular lines in the home’s exterior facade, smooth curves are featured in the home’s interior wherever possible, adding a sense of comfortable flow.
Photos by Matthew Smith
Bornet House is a stunningly rustic barn turned into a beautiful little home by Savioz Fabrizzi Architectes
By Courtney • May 17, 2019
Thanks to innovative designers at Savioz Fabrizzi Architectes, a beautifully rustic and vintage original barn has been transformed in a minimalist but luxurious way and renamed Bornet House.
Located in the countryside of Ollon, Switzerland, the Bornet House is a former barn that still bears a lot of its original masonry which adds historical character despite the fact that much of it resembles stylized rubble this many years since it was first built. The barn actually sits at the centre of the tiny village of Ollon, which is quite dense in terms of where the buildings sit in reference to each other.
On the ground floor of the barn house is a singular, open concept space where all of the functional parts of the house are featured. Here, the kitchen, living room, and dining room blend together but in a way that makes sense and enables free movement. Closer to the entrance, the main bedroom actually sits on a higher level but only slightly, built up on a sort of central wooden pedestal.
The difference in levels between the bedroom and the functional and public spaces gives the sleeping space some uniquely situated privacy, as though it’s its own little escape. At the same time, the fact that it sits only slightly higher than the other rooms and isn’t closed off at the top affords the living room double the height to the ceiling, making it feel even more opening.
In terms of materiality, the inside of the house bears a sort of cohesiveness with the outside. The tones of the natural materials chosen suit the outside of the house, matching the stone of the original work quite well. Inside, the natural concrete floors match the ashy tone of the natural ceiling while the wooden walls match the bedroom platform and frame of the kitchen.
In terms of the physical structure of the building, designers opted to stay true to the history by refraining from altering the walls and openings in drastic ways. In one spot, however, the west wall needed to be rebuilt to maintain the integrity and strength of the building and preserve it for years to come.
Despite the fact that they maintained the building to its truest form as much as possible, they also accounted for the way it sits on a slope as well, particularly when it came to filling the floor on the inside. In the rebuilt wall, however, designers did take liberty in the revived space to add a window that runs the whole width of the building, harnessing the power of the slop once more to provide a breathtaking and totally unobstructed view of the Rhone Valley.
In order to keep incorporating the beautiful outdoor setting the barn house is afforded, designers also added a small terrace right off the side of the bedroom platform. This gives dwellers another way to enjoy the old fashioned setting of the tiny village, contrasting well with their experience of the freshly modern interior of their new house.
The final area of the house, not always visited by guests, is the basement. This area houses a useful home office and even a plant room, which is actually partially under ground thanks to the way the land the house sits on slopes.
Photos by Kristyna Strejcovska
Clean, bright Wye River House, set high above the water, built by MGAO to provide breathtaking Australian views
By Courtney • May 16, 2019
Located right along the river that gives it its name, the Wye River house in Australia was recently completed by design teams at MGAO to give owners unparalleled views and the brightest of naturally lit home spaces.
This particular house actually arose out of some misfortunate originally. In 2015, a bushfire became beyond control on Christmas day and swept through the little township of Wye River, leaving great damage in its wake. Over 100 homes were lost entirely and various social and housing projects have happened in the years since to replace the damaged dwellings for those families.
The Wye River house is one of those replacement projects! It is located on a plot of land that slopes quite steeply, giving it a dramatic view of the Bass Straight. Fro, below, the house looks as though it’s perched lightly on the hillside, standing tall amongst the greenery of the brush that is still growing back where a canopy of trees once stood before the fire.
In order to give it some locally referenced character and style, designers chose to model this house after the typical beach shacks that were dotted so consistently along the coastline in the area in the 1960s and 70s. This explains the boxy shape and modest material choices, and the repetition of this inspiration in other homes applies that same aesthetic to much of the village.
Besides its basic rectangular shape, the most direct references this house bears to its beach shack forefathers come in the form of the Skillion rook and the several cantilevered balconies. The way that the external cladding, which gives the house that warmly dark facade and makes it stand out against the countryside, is also an influence. This makes the building look monolithic, just like the beach shack towers it was modelled after.
Perhaps this exterior cladding and the clearly high quality glazing in the floor to ceiling windows are the most modern aspects of the Wye River house. These windows let the area’s high amounts of gorgeous natural sunlight flood into each room, practically lighting each corner, giving the interior a wide open and comforting feel and letting the greenery outside appear as though it’s part of each space.
The way the greenery and the ocean are framed by the windows was actually a very important priority to designers. After all, these trees are something the locals fought extremely hard to save, preserve, and revive during and after the devastating fire. It’s only fitting that they get their moment to shine each and every day.
In contrast with the dark exterior of the house, most of the indoor spaces are incredibly clean, bright, and near flawless looking. This, in combination with the windows, helps the space feel limitless and even bigger than its generous square footage actually is.
Photos by Paul Hermes
