With its ‘flat pack’ facade and intelligent floor plan this house overlooking the North Sea by young Swedish architect Johannes Norlander feels like the future.
Archives for category: planning
A decidely sexy take on open plan living by Italian architect Carlo Colombo.
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
Ever noticed how a living room feels so much more appealing when the layout is about people interacting with each other, rather than a screen on the wall?
I really like the planning of this apartment precisely because it isn’t for everyone. Instead the layout aims to express a very particular lifestyle choice, namely that of the city (in this case European) single: a knowledge worker, professional, socially-connected in the old sense of the word, who might also love to cook but doesn’t always want the kitchen at the centre of the action.
Like a good meal this new home in South Tyrol satisfies while still leaving room for more.
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
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.
In an effort to kickstart the building sector, the Italian government is relaxing planning laws and encouraging its mainly apartment-dwelling populus to add a new room or two. Not the worst idea in the world granted, but with Prime Minister Berlusconi content to trust matters of design and aesthetics to the ‘good taste of the Italian people’, it did not take long for Piano Casa to raise the ire of architects and planners all over, including that of the venerable Massimiliano Fuksas.
So with all this in mind, the roof top ‘residential containers’ concept by Czech architects HSH seems like it might be a step in the right direction. The outside of the containers is left in the original rough steel finish – a deliberate ploy designed to neutralise the contrast with the architecture of the host building below. Interiors of course need suffer no such identity crisis. And, best of all, windows are simply cut in as required to frame the view.
This kitchen in a converted Milan farmhouse with its simple racetrack layout (focussing all the attention on the task at hand instead of the wide screen TV in the next room perhaps?) is another instance of the trend back to a more well-mannered approach to domestic planning. And with dedicated dining rooms disappearing fast, it just has to make sense to put more not less visual separation between cooking, with all its inevitable creative clutter, on the one hand, and the closely related, but altogether more leisurely, pursuit of dining on the other. Especially when the results might end up looking as sleek and, well, open as this.