March 26, 2013
Project: V House, Alkmaar
Architect: BaksvanWengerden Architecten
Location: Alkmaar, Netherlands
Because of local regulations regarding building heights, roof shape, and coloring, BaksvanWengerden Architecten had to carefully craft the design of this single-family house in the small town of Alkmaar. Using the archetypal gable to crown the roof, this simple home evokes the vernacular architecture of the region. Simultaneously, the dark anthracite ceramic tile-clad façade gives a distinctly modern edge feeling. Old and new come together to create a home that feels at once humble and settled and progressive and innovative.
Read more about this project in the Architizer database.
Photos: Yvonne Brandwijk
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January 2, 2013
All images: Thierry Cohen
Cities have got a lot of things going for them, but starry skies are not one of them. All those lights and the pollution they bring with them tarnish the star-studded nights the less populous parts of the world enjoys. Photographer Thierry Cohen solves the problem, sorta, in his “Darkened Cities” photo series. His solution—to rid cityscapes of their electric lights and reintroduce the celestial vistas hidden away under the thick veil of pollutants–is a bit excessive, but the results are dazzling. Continue.
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September 12, 2012
It’s been a long journey for James Ramsey and Dan Barasch, the creators of the Lowline. Since they first announced their admittedly zany idea over a year ago, they’ve spent that time dutifully shopping the project all over town, so to speak, meeting with investors, sponsors, tech companies, fabricators, and community board members. Read more.
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September 10, 2012
Building: Family House J20
Architect: DAR612
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
What We Like:
According to the architects, this single family residence in Croatia is composed of ”two juxtaposed elements”, a white longitudinal wing and corridor that supports a dark perpendicular volume the containing bedrooms. The house is organized around a T-shaped floor plan, the two-story entry dividing the interiors into living and secondary spaces. The importance of the core of the home–which accommodates a steel-clad staircase and whimsical footbridge–captures the family in all of its dynamic motion, while fully connecting the spaces and unifying them within one structure. Read the complete project description here.
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June 21, 2012
Loft Residence in New York by P&T Interiors
At first glance, this loft redesign in the Meatpacking District seems quite the fashionable project, with all the amenities and panache utterly lacking in the average apartment, both yours and mine. Of course, it’s a bit dark and somewhat overwrought–a deliberate aesthetic say the designers, referring to affects such as the charcoal slate stone slabs and granite counter-tops whose somber color palette is skewed to the gritty grays and blotched blacks that recall the neighborhood’s historical industrial identity. But it’s not just the colors or materials that unnerve us, so much as the vintage memorabilia and props scattered around the apartment.
Period baby dolls, wearing nothing but rosy cheeks and knowing expressions, inhabit their own little corner (the ‘doll wall’) of the living space, while leopard skin rugs and animal trophy heads pile on the creep-factor in the bedroom. The kitchen is overseen by a row of seemingly charred doll heads, encased in what looks like rusted scrap metal. Portraits of royalty hang above the sofa and mason jars containing–what else–doll legs add “industrial flair and artistic edge”, in the designers’ own words. If they say so. All I know is that I wouldn’t last one night.
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