Timeless is one of those overused terms that rarely matches the project it’s used to describe. But not so here. This recently completed refurbishment of a traditional Spanish patio house, especially in these shots, feels like it could have been completed yesterday or forty years ago. There’s no way of knowing for sure but I suspect it has something to do with the architect’s lack of ego and his desire instead to let the building decide what happens next.
The stunning new ‘destination’ calendar by Milan photographer Gianni Pezzani rewrites the rules.
Layout takes precedence over fancy finishes at the new Bouroullec designed open kitchen spectacular Dos Palillos in Berlin. In what has to be the high water mark in gastronomic voyeurism (or should that be narcissism?), the massive street exposure means it won’t be just the kitchen crew enjoying all the attention. Food for thought too about the way the whole celebrity chef/cult restaurant phenomenon (ex-elBulli star Albert Raurich heads up the kitchen) is changing the way we dine in public.
via designboom
With the on-off switch doubling as a dimmer control for the new-tech halogen globe, this limited edition shelf light is almost as versatile as it is cute. The work of designer Andreas Martin-Lof, the mix of materials is lovely. And with each component part lovingly sourced from the workshops of local Swedish suppliers, the A.M.L Clamp is a piece of home decor with a tail at least as long as its brilliant blue fabric flex.
Somewhere between cheap and chic designer hotel and exclusive sports club, one of the most exciting things about Facebook might just turn out to be its new Silicon Valley workplace by Californian designers o+a.
A still life moment in the 1930′s Milan apartment of vintage collector and proponent of ‘anonymous design’ Claudio Casarin.
The new dual brand Moroso-Flos showroom looks so inviting you’d think you were sitting in a loft off Via Tortona rather than an ex-office building in London’s Clerkenwell. Which is, of course, the whole rather ambitious point, with the two Italian super brands setting up house together to sell not only furniture and lighting but the very culture of Made in Italy itself.
In a similar move, Moroso teamed up with Diesel and Foscarini in Milan for this years’s design week but I prefer the more grown up union with Flos. And so it seems might Patrizia Moroso, with plans afoot for more shared flagships (most likely starting with Beijing or Shanghai) in 2010.
via AT Casa
Swedish by geography, the Story Hotel shares the freestyle, ‘very hip friend’s apartment’ spirit finding form more and more in the interiors of self-styled hotels everywhere. Especially nice the public spaces – the white attic and the matt black dining room are examples – that take on the same unfinished, impromptu, domestic feel as the guest rooms. The whole place having the mood of a private club, but one that welcomes its new members with open arms.
via AT Casa
This gorgeous, highly original interior by French designer Patrick Norguet for the Lyon Sofitel draws on the rich silk making traditions of the region – not to mention the new taste for design terroir already making waves at the more price-sensitive end of the hotel food chain. An auspicious new trend in the design (and redesign) of five stars everywhere? Let’s hope so.
via dezeen, but check out the images on the designer’s website. Especially the one where the pastel macaroons and the fabric wall panelling are colour coordinated.
OK I admit it, I have a thing for older men lately, especially passionate, talented, distinguished ones like the Milanese Maesto Angelo Mangiarotti, still going strong at 88, and whose ethos includes “happiness comes from correctness”… The Mangiarotti anthology exhibition now showing in Mantova at the Casa del Mantegna until November 8 includes sculpture, architecture, design that looks like sculpture and the poignant, evocative free-hand drawings for which the architect is famous – and so well loved.
9ex AT Casa
