Architecture

Renato D’Ettorre Architects — Italianate House, Surry Hills

26 August 2018 in Architecture Comment

The concept for this modern home was to translate an existing 1990s office fit-out into a contemporary residence while honouring the historic charm of the building and giving the owners a comfortable home with bold design modifications.

Introducing the impressive engineered double height brick vault ceiling to the restructured rear wing seemed an appropriate element for the Italianate style of the house. This brings to modern design such elements of historical grandeur that gave rise to the great architecture of early civilisations bestowing the notion ‘the arch never sleeps’.

Renato D’Ettorre Architects

PH House — Norm Architects

19 August 2018 in Architecture Comment

PH House
Norm Architects

Norm Architects have restored and rebuilt a historic villa in Copenhagen after a devastating fire. The story goes that the house used to be inhabited by the renowned Danish architect, designer and cultural critic, Poul Henningsen.

The villa, located in Copenhagen, is said to have been the home of the famous, danish design-icon, Poul Henningsen. Today, a family of three resides in the historic house – a modern home that holds references to its original state – with beautiful high panels, parquet flooring, low, paned windows, teak furniture and – of course – retro PH lamps hanging over the kitchen island.

“The house being a former home – or summerhouse – of Poul Henningsen wasn’t my initial motivation to buy the house, but coincidentally I’ve been collecting his lamps for quite some time, so you’ll find them around the house.” says the owner.

Unfortunately not much of the original building was left after the fire in 2014, but while rebuilding the house it was possible, by increasing the height of the facades, to extend the top floor from approximately 40m2 to 100m2, which has made the house more suitable as a modern family home.

With a clean and minimal approach, the classic elements of the house have been restored and elegantly combined with contemporary details, making for timeless interiors and generally warm aesthetics. The dark mid-century teak furniture and minimal marble plinths create beautiful contrasts, boasting a clean and subtle elegance against the plain, white walls and dark inbuilt kitchen elements in sawcut smoaked oak.

With light coming in from different angles, every room of the house is bright, filled with daylight and comfortable to be in.

The ground floor of the house has been changed from small divided rooms into one big living area with windows on all sides, only subdivided centrally by bespoke elements; a large kitchen cabinet covered in dark stained oak separating the kitchen and the living room, and a central staircase, creating a dynamic, semi-open space with soft transitions.

The floating steps in solid oak create a flow between the basement, ground floor and top floor, connecting the house vertically in a harmonious and contemporary way with skylights flooding the staircase in natural daylight and increasing the sense of height in the house.

The minimal kitchen in smoked oak with bronzed brass handles, designed by Norm Architects for Danish kitchen manufacturer Reform is complimented by a sculptural kitchen island in a light grey ceramic stone, and both the kitchen and bathroom of the house sports slim brass faucets.

Norm Architects

Castell de Peratallada’s Garden by Mesura

14 August 2018 in Architecture Comment

Castell de Peratallada’s Garden, Spain

The Peratallada Castle, a heritage building dated from the 10th Century, is where we find this fabulous and unique garden of a private villa. A magic refuge place, in the heart of a village that preserve a clear vestige of it’s medieval past in every street.

Mesura Architecture

Antiparos House — Nicos Valsamakis

13 August 2018 in Architecture Comment

Antiparos House in Greece
Nicos Valsamakis

Villa Waalre by Russell Jones

6 July 2018 in Architecture Comment

Villa Waalre by Russell Jones

Russel Jones

Photography by Rory Gardiner

Voice of Coffee — Yusuke Seki

18 June 2018 in Architecture Comment

Voice of Coffee
Design by Yusuke Seki

A modern storefront brings the past to light
This coffee shop, located just off of a bustling district in Kobe, is housed in a former barbershop. The three letters above the entrance, “AAA,” are a vestige of its former use, reminding visitors of the history of the site. The façade, which used to extend to the street, has been set back and opened up as a glass front. The intervention creates an ENGAWA, a traditionally Japanese threshold space between the street and the shop interior, where guests can sit and enjoy their drinks while protected under a roof. While the setback reduces the actual amount of space inside the store, the addition of another spatial layer between interior and street ends up making the store feel deeper, and thus more spacious, than before.

The storefront incorporates a number of unusual strategies that are meant to momentarily throw off visitors, giving them pause and a chance to take a closer look at the details. Take, for example, the lower half of the front, which is composed of glass bricks stacked on top of one another. Whereas glass bricks are usually kept in place by a general metal frame, these elements are held together by the binding concrete alone – an unprecedented construction in Japan. The door handle, on the other hand, is made of two panes of glass, glued using a special adhesive on both sides of the glass door. The result is a completely transparent doorway, which allows guests to appreciate the natural hues of the material itself. The interior features a cupboard of glass and steel, whose gull-wing mechanism was developed by Yusuke Seki specially for this store.

Almost all of the structural elements were left as they were found during the demolition process. The wooden screen below the ceiling, for example, is the original timber frame that held up the suspended ceiling in the space’s former life, rediscovered as workers removed the plaster that had hidden it for years. The walls, too, have been left as they were after the workers had removed the finish covering them. Paradoxically, this subtractive approach has an accumulative effect: every detail come to light, every inscription left behind by a worker a generation ago, serves to make history visible, adds to the sense of time passing. This sense is heightened by a special detail: a layer of silver leaf, barely appreciable, applied to the wall near the back of the store. Over time, as the silver oxidizes, this square will change colors to a warm gold.

Yusuke Seki are Japan based Design team.
Their approach to design challenges is to conceptualise and revaluate into irreplaceable design with new interpretations. His designs embrace simplicity and minimalism at first glance and his inspiration comes directly from aspects which already exist within the context: such as materials, location, histories; all gathered and represented through the formal design approach. The function is essential in his design but through his work he focuses on facts and phenomena from the environment, including the essential design methods from the past, passed through to the future.

Voice of Coffee
Yusuke Seki