Archives for the month of: May, 2009
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Cloud Street

May 31, 2009 //
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Kvadrat’s new Copenhagen showroom has to be the ideal place to show their easy-to-love-but-a-little harder-to-know-what-to-do-with textile tile concept Clouds, designed by Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec.   But while the French duo were responsible for the interior design of the space, including the most of the furniture the project is far from a covert exercise in self-promotion for brand Bouroullec.  For the Copenhagen flagship store the designers have adopted a very context-sensitive approach, using a classic Scandinavian palette for all the built elements and even referencing the company’s new port side address in the hip gallery precinct of Frihavnen in the design of the open plan meeting zone. 

via designboom

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Categories design, fashion, interior design, planning

Sometimes Tables

May 30, 2009 //

I saw the work of Spanish designer Tomas Alonso for the first time only a couple of weeks back and the attraction was instant.  I’m thinking it’s a nomad thing.  I’ve always had a taste for light, slinky, sensational looking furniture that feels like you could rearrange the whole room (or better relocated the entire contents) single-handed.  And Alonso delivers in spades.  

The ultra minimalist yet quirky 5 degree series is especially slim and gorgeous. The range includes a billiard green table top resting on the simplest timber trestles bound with a sweet little red cord.  Best accompanied perhaps by the 5 degree collapsible stool – regular or DNA edition with a special hand-turned timber leg. Similarly slight and just as adaptable is Mr. Light - a series of lights designed around the new LED T8 fluorescent tubes.

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Categories design, furniture

Made in the USA

May 27, 2009 //
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Based in Milwaukee, Misewell is turning out beautiful, sustainable, utilitarian furniture in steel and wood that doesn’t cost the earth, in perfect step with the zeitgeist.  No wonder then that their ‘all-star’ first ever collection scooped the ICFF New Designer award at New York design week. 

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Categories colour, design, furniture

Creamy Classic

May 23, 2009 //

The classic cream through dark chocolate palette is not quite what I expected to see behind the facade of this reclaimed factory in a part of inner Melbourne that prides itself on its grunge credentials.  In fact, as a local girl, I’d go as far as to call it a rather daring choice in the circumstances… The project is the home-cum-studio of architect Stephen Jolson.

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Categories architecture, colour, interior design

Out of the Woods

May 23, 2009 //
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American artist Phoebe Washburn‘s Wood Wall and Wood Wall as Safari Vest are two of the latest works of art to be transformed into digital wallpaper by the New York based wallpaper lab.  The context shots are great.  I love the way the room settings in the photos go against the usual gallery aesthetic, instead using the wallpaper around other distinctly textural finishes like brick and concrete and even real timber…  The kind of work – both in its original and wallpaper format – that sets your mind racing.

via designboom

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Categories art, decoration, interior design

Still Life with Art

May 22, 2009 //
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In Modena, art dealer Emilio Mazzoli and architect Fabio Bortolani have combined talents to design an apartment where the line between interior design and art all but disappears.  Destined to be the city pad for guests of Mazzioli’s nearby gallery, the apartment retains a warmth and intimacy not always possible when living spaces play host to serious art.


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Categories architecture, art, garden, interior design, Italy, kitchen design

French Doors, Paris

May 17, 2009 //
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Like the faded render on a farmhouse in Tuscany, French doors are always going to be more beautiful in France.  It’s not that we can’t or shouldn’t borrow, but every so often it pays to go back to the source.

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Categories architecture, art, interior design, travel, vintage

Divine intervention

May 15, 2009 //
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Poetry in motion at Milan design week. Students of the Free University of Bozen created this installation in words and paper within the already exquisite cloisters of the Basilica of San Simpliciano.  The strange and beautiful effect seems both solemn and festive.

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Categories architecture, art, decoration, design stories, Italy

Austerity Chic

May 12, 2009 //
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Architects do frugal better than anyone. Without doubt the best office spaces I’ve worked in have been shoe string fitouts - all open plan painted doors on trestles and black angle poise lights arranged (with shambolic flair) within a lofty post-industrial shell. Spaces loved and admired by staff and visitors alike, precisely because they never felt like they were trying too hard. They were authentic.

Fast forward to Paris where, this time, thanks to two young architects (ex studio Jean Nouvel) intent on making their own way and a home for themselves and a young family, the tradition continues.

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Categories architecture, interior design, materials

Screen Saver

May 9, 2009 //
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Open plan, high visibility kitchens have their place. (All over the place in fact.)  But as readers of this blog may know, I am always on the look out for more sensitive (and sensible) ways to integrate the most important and clutter-prone zone in the house. Enter this rather lovely apartment conversion in Lucca where a folding glass screen instantly elevates the kitchen to the status of a ‘room of its own’ (with all the potential for privacy and sanctuary that brings), without compromising the all-important visual connection with the rest of the home.  Beautiful  - and very useful I’d imagine.

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Categories architecture, interior design, Italy, kitchen design, light, planning
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