To understand the Grouf House you need to understand the budget; for almost every design decision made was driven by budgetary considerations. Northern California is one of the most expensive places to build in the world. Most of the houses we design tend to cost in the range of $800 per square foot. We built the Grouf House for slightly over $200 per square foot.

The only way to accomplish that is to use building systems that dramatically reduce labor; in this case we employed metal building technology that is more typical of industrial/commercial buildings. The steel structure and metal panel exterior of this building went up in about 3 weeks, as opposed to probably 4 months for stick framing. The metal panels were prefinished on the interior and we left them exposed, eliminating the need for interior finishes on the exterior walls, such as drywall and paint. The concrete slab foundation was left exposed as the lower level finish floor. And the structural steel framework was painted but otherwise left exposed as an architectural expression of the design. Wherever possible we eliminated the need for finishes.

The site was an already level graded pad with extraordinary views of Sonoma County. The center of the building is almost totally glass in response to that view, but all of the rooms in the house have beautiful views out to the varied valley landscape. In many of the rooms we used sliding glass doors (with the lockset height modified) as the windows, in response to the scale of the building.

Source : Lundberg Design

The Kube is dominated by one particular geometric shape in its interior design. Designers Raymond Morel and Christiane Derory have given the U-shaped building, located in a quiet street in Paris’s bubbling 18th arrondissement, a truly mind-bending revamp.

In addition to, obviously, lots of cubes, the themes of coolness and transparency, which are emphasised throughout the public spaces are offset by the warming sense of privacy and comfort that pervades the guestrooms. The courtyard of the revamped 19th century building features a see-through cube, which contains the necessary reception facilities in a suitable way.

Sashaying into the stylish bar, which serves as the heart of the hotel, you’ll find yourself transported to a rather futuristic space, complete with generously high ceilings, lots of stainless-steel gratings, floor-to-ceiling curtains and a long counter in tarnished silver to lean against and get your wits back about you. Cubic seats and lounge chairs accented in fur set off the black glass of the walls, which are animated in turn by a whole row of plasma-screen televisions.

Bars play a pivotal role in the hotel’s concept so you’ll find the “Ice Kube” bar on the mezzanine – held at a constant temperature of only minus 5°C, it is a whole universe entirely made out of 25 tons of ice. Once you take off the polar coat provided for the ice bar, you may well feel like heating things up again while swinging in Eero Aarnio’s 1968 ‘Bubble Chairs’ suspended in mid-air.

Oozing a sleek iciness in its public spaces, the 31 guestrooms and 10 suites of the hotel turn the heat up a little with warm touches added to the arctic-geometric theme. Black and white faux-fur curtains give the space a definite cuddly feel whilst readily living up to the chic provided by the pastel-coloured furniture by Raymond Morel in tarnished glass. Spinning the crystalline look further in the bathrooms, Philippe Starck’s aptly named ‘Jelly Cubes’ collection for Duravit of rectangular elements sits squarely with specially made glass cube showers made from matt the high-tech material Corian.

Source : Design Hotels

The concept for The Kirketon Dining Room & Bar in Sydney is based in the great restaurants and bars of Europe and America built in an era of style comfort and quality. Key priority was to encapsulate the style of Paris and the comfort of New York and yet still incorporating the edgy style of contemporary Sydney restaurant design.

Rigorous functional requirements and intense design collaboration with the client, James Ingram, dictated generous egress for wait staff, soft ambient lighting and the maximising of seating capabilities to match licensing. The kitchen also required upgrading to match the newly expanded seating layout as well as providingroom service to the Hotel guests.

The colour palette is restrained and used in a predominantly structural manner to define areas. Cladding finishes – predominantly black stained American Walnut panelling with brass trim, brass cladding treated with a bronze patina and finely sanded stucco plaster finish polished with bees wax define the palette. The ceiling was repainted in Dulux Deep Onyx to recede and take emphasis away from the relatively low ceiling height.…Unfortunately, This restaurant has closed on 12 February 2007

Source : kirketon dining room, your restaurants

Is your apartment up to date? Or would a designer scoff, “How passé!”? You’ll need more than throw pillows to keep up with Manhattan’s hottest design trends. Below are expert designers’ top ten trends for apartment living in the city.

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1. The Living/“Screening” Room
An unassuming living room transforms into a private movie theatre with large flat-screen monitors that disappear when not in use. Stephen Miller Siegel of Stephen Miller Siegel Architects has recently seen clients requesting this kind of double-duty. “As technology gets more compact, it’s easier to camouflage and become discreet,” said Siegel.

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2. The New Wood Floor
A hardwood floor is still par for the course (sorry, carpet salesmen), but their continued popularity has spurned the refinement of the ready-made floor. “Pre-finished, engineered wood floors have really grown in quality and popularity,” said Keith Steier, President of Knockout Renovation, an all-in-one design and remodeling service. They are significantly less expensive and much faster and easier to install. The boards snap in to place and don’t require the laborious process of staining and re-staining. Your guests will never know they are walking on laminate instead of solid oak.

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3. Living With “The Valuables”
Designers suggest that you don’t separate the objects you love from the rest of your living space. “There seems to be a return to the great design of the early seventies when one mixed great antiques with contemporary elements,” said New York interior designer and architect, Robert Couturier. “The newest trend I’m seeing is using furniture, even functional pieces like sofas, as art or sculptural elements.”

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4. Bye-Bye Bathtub
Designers are opting to install a full-size walk-in shower these days, in lieu of cramming in a too-small tub to narrow bathroom spaces. “Bathtubs have definitely fallen out of favor,” said Jennifer Melis, chief designer for Knockout Renovation. “There’s been a focus on updating bathrooms and kitchens, because you tend to get the best return for your investment in those rooms,” Melis added.

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5. New Granite Counter
Every home design show on TV has the decorator drooling over a new granite countertop. “People like the look and they’re durable,” explained Steier. As with hardwood, popularity has spawned more options, like fake granite, that allow you to upgrade without blowing your design budget. “Man-made products give you the look and require zero maintenance,” said Steier. Another plus: while it’s not possible to control the color and pattern distribution in a slab of naturally occurring granite or marble, man-made delivers a completely consistent result.

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6. Apartments Go Green
Designing using environmentally-friendly materials and renewable energy sources is a current trend. “There is definitely a new direction as far as using environmentally correct materials that did not seem to exist a couple of years ago,” said Couturier. Knockout Renovation has experienced a lot of demand. “Energy efficient appliances are quite popular,” said Steier. They’re easy on the conscience and the utility bills.

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7. Recessed Lighting
Who really wants to look at a fluorescent dome in the middle of their ceiling? Modern apartments have the lights tucked away and dimmable. “It creates a softer, nicer mood,” said Melis. “It’s a really clean look since nothing is hanging down from the ceiling.”

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8. Space-Saving Innovations
Designers are coming up with creative solutions to get your clutter out of sight and out of mind: from floor-to-ceiling shelving in bedroom and living rooms, to extra tall pantry closets, to roll-out bins. “Any idea that will get things off the counters and off the floors,” said Melis. New appliances are helping in the fight against clutter (and small spaces). “More manufacturers are offering drawer dishwashers and counter-depth refrigerators,” Steier said. Drawer dishwashers are the only way to offer the amenity in many tiny galley kitchens, and the new models are of a higher quality than leaky, breakage-prone early models. Counter-depth refrigerators give a small kitchen a sleeker look, since they sit flush with the line of the counter instead of protruding out into the middle of the room.

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9. Closet Pros
If you’re sick and tired of the weekly sweater-avalanche from the top of your closet, you are not alone. “Custom closet interiors continue to be a huge trend,” said Melis, “And people don’t mind putting a significant amount of money into it.” Be careful before you attempt to nail up some boards on your own. “We often refer clients to someone who specializes in making custom closets,” said Melis. “It’s a whole trade in itself.”

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10. Open Floor Plans
To make your apartment truly modern, consider using a sledgehammer. Melis and Steier agree that taking out extra walls is a huge trend for remodeling apartments. “Many clients have had us take out the wall between the kitchen and the adjacent dining or living room,” said Steier. “It visually opens up the space.”

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Source : New York Resident, Interior Design

Näckros Villa designed by Staffan Strindberg architecture in Sweden. The 12×12 metre Villa has six rooms and a kitchen, 178 sq metres of living area, 125 square metres of terrace and 74 square metres of windows but is crammed with technologies to enhance your lifestyle and create an ambience of tranquillity and harmony with nature.

“The idea of living so close to the water and nature is really thrilling. The design is focused on bringing the surroundings inside, to get the feeling of the water into your living .” With water comes a special light and the reflections from the water that dance on the ceiling. Strindberg’s experience and fascination with water and light led him to explore far and wide, and he was particularly drawn to the “the beautiful treatment of the light that you can find in the old Turkish villas climbing the slope of the Bosporus around Istanbul where they mainly let the light in from below, reflected from the water.”

In building the site, Strindberg tried to foresee what could happen around the site, and then got more and more interested in the idea of not just one but several water houses and how to arrange the interior of the house for this imaginary pattern. “On one side you have the dock and on the other side you have the water, one official side and one private. How do you get the most out of the privacy and how do you make a welcoming entrance yet a distinct border for privacy?”

The entrance design takes into account various dock heights and those environments without a tide. The living room is as close to the water as possible and sleeping facilities are positioned so you go to sleep at the same level as the surrounding water. The layout is concentrated on opening the house to the water. The kitchen is close to the entrance and faces the quay but is also a part of the open area that includes the living room and the terrace.

Strindberg also had to address what the feeling and ambience should be based on, such as “what is a floating home, what does it stand for, does it have to look like other kinds of floating things that man uses, like boats?” “Should it even borrow details to associate to other floating vessels?” “What does it express in its design?”

These thoughts led to the decision that it should be a house, not a boat. “A house that takes care of the special qualities of the surroundings,” says Strindberg.

Source : Arkinetia, gismag, Modern Marine Home, Interior Design

The duoMo hotel has long been a fixture in the historic heart of Rimini, one of Italy’s long-standing and established seaside resorts. Untouched for many years until the owners decided to bring celebrated architect Ron Arad and his team into the picture in 2003, resulting in a unique and exciting transformation. The main concept revolved around the need to embrace the past while simultaneously creating space for a thorough look into the future. This need for dynamism, design and creativity resulted in a unique identity in design, where subtle contrasts, light, shadow and transparencies were infused into the existing building, thus giving birth to the new hotel.

The hotel entrance is through giant pin-ball-flipper doors, framing the view to the reception area, which inevitably becomes the focal point of the hotel. The front desk is an oversized circular stainless steel structure, dramatically leaning at an angle, looking like a large inclined wedding ring dancing on a plate. Shelves are built into this ring defining the horizontal topography of the desk. The wall behind the reception is formed by a series of aluminium fin-shapes, allowing natural daylight to flood the space while affording an edited view of the offices located behind it. Although ultra-futuristic in its design, the entrance area exudes a bouncy lightness. The intrepid original features, daring colours and adventurous shapes inevitably make a big impact, setting a distinctive tone for the duration of the guest’s stay.

The much-hyped noMi club is a large island with fjord-like scoops spreading outwards from the main structure to provide guests with surfaces to sit at. The surface of the bar top is made of brushed steel and its sides are finished in mirrored polished steel, creating distorted reflections of the people and the surrounding environment. On balmy summer nights, cleverly retractable glass walls allow for the activity in the bar to be taken outside onto the streets of Rimini’s lively historical centre. World renowned DJs are invited on a regular basis to entertain guests and locals and the Sunday beach parties promoted by the hotel already feature high on the agenda of the in-crowd. Unconventional and exciting design is also present in the private champagne room. It has been set up in an exclusive atmosphere for guests to indulge in after a long day of work or leisure.

Arad’s audacious design philosophy is reflected throughout the rooms as well. Individually formed bathroom pods create the backdrop to the sleeping area. Each pod is a wet room with teak slatted timber flooring and a large circular glazed window, which allows natural light into the space. The exterior of this uniquely designed structure forms the bed head. Arad has played with visual provocations, experimenting with basic spatial perceptions while maintaining the highest level of comfort in the rooms. The careful management of the movement of light and shadow evokes the idea of infinite spaces at the duoMo.

Source : Design Hotel, Interior Design

Yes, Rainbow Poops! It so cute.:D This wallpaper design by Undoboy and selling by Blink. Undoboy’s whimsy and eye-popping color will bring good cheer to any room.

Undoboy is a graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon. He is now working for Wieden + Kennedy as an art director / senior interactive designer, after roughly a year as an art director at JWT, NY. Undoboy also spent 8 months at Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, which as a short hop from Florida’s Ringling School of Art and Design, where he got a BFA in graphic design in 2005.

His designs embrace a simple philosophy “design brings happiness” and his work includes brand identity design, editorial design, interactive design, character design, packaging design, toy design, motion graphics, and illustration.

…And another design.

Source : Undoboy, Blink, Interior Design

Your bedroom is the room in the house that is a true reflection of yourself. It is the room you will spend the most time in and should provide the ultimate comfort and support. It is where you begin and end your day so it is important that it is restful, personal and intimate but also simple and free from clutter.

Assess your room

First of all you need to take a cold hard look at your room and assess the pitfalls that need to be overcome before the room can become and oasis of calm. Ask yourself a number of questions:

How big is the room? Depending on the size of the room depends on the colours you use to either give the illusion of space or to create a cosy retreat

Is there adequate storage? If there isn’t adequate storage and if there are a number of electronics on display no amount comfortable bed linen will make the room feel a restful retreat. Invest in good quality wardrobes and hide TVs away.

Which way does the room face? An easterly facing room will have the morning sun, which will wake you long before the alarm does. Invest in some good quality curtains to block out the morning sun (this is especially important in a children’s room unless you want to be woken at 5am every morning!!)

How comfortable is the bed? The type of mattress, duvet and pillows all has a significant effect on how good a night’s rest you will have. It is recommended that you replace your mattress every seven years by which time you will have logged up more than 20,000 hours there. By then your mattress will be full of dead skin cells, dust mites and fungus.

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Colour schemes

Greens and blues are the best colours choices for the bedroom because they are associated with feelings of peace, calm and serenity. Use soft muted tones and pastels to ensure the room is restful and calming after a hard day. Neutrals are another good choice with gentle earth tones. The calming colour schemes can be livened up with deep rich colours as accessories to give your bedroom that individual touch.

Bright stimulating colours like yellows and oranges are best avoided in a bedroom, as are deeply contrasting or clashing colour schemes.

Use colours effectively to make your room appear larger or smaller. For example a low ceiling will appear higher if painted a lighter shade than the walls and paint the darkest shade near to the floor to give an illusion of space.

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Bed Linen

The most luxurious fabric for bed linen is 100% cotton. Cotton “breathes well” absorbing moisture and heat whilst feeling deliciously smooth and soft against the skin. Generally the higher the thread counts the softer the fabric however the length of the cotton fibre is also important in determining the softness. Egyptian Cotton has the longest cotton fibre and thus is the softest cotton available. The way the cotton is woven also contributes to the softness. Cotton sateen is the softest but the classic linen effect will give a beautifully crisp feeling.

The bed and the linen will be the most dominant feature in the room and therefore it is important to consider the colour and pattern if the linen to achieve to overall affect you wishes to create in the room. Throws and cushions can be changed to reflect the different seasons and to keep the room updated.

Bedding

The choice of bedding depends on your personal desires. The best filling is down, it is more effective than feather and is lighter. However for people who suffer from allergies synthetic fibres are better. Depending on how much warmth you require from a duvet will determine the tog rating you need. Another consideration is the effect of the different seasons. An all seasons duvet maybe the answer – it is a combination of a 9.0 tog and 4.5-tog duvet to create a 13.5-tog duvet in the winter and either a 4.5 or 9.0 tog for the rest of the year.

Lighting and accessories

To create a peaceful and restful mood in your bedroom it is essential to have bedside lighting rather than simply relying on the overhead lighting in the room. Also the use of scented candles will appeal to all senses.

So the secret to a very deep and restful sleep is to invest in good quality products and to create a very restful scheme in the bedroom. Hopefully we have inspired you to use your imagination in order to create your own very personal space.

Source : Grand Ideas, Interior Design

Melanie Coddington and her team create refined, elegant spaces. Strong silhouettes and sophisticated use of colour are key to the rooms success. She loves to mix finishes in a room to avoid that matchy matchy vibe and concentrates on quality of materials and timeless pieces. These rooms are serene but definitely not simple. Luxe living by Coddington Designs.

Images from Coddington Design

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Source : desire to inspire, interior design

Inhabitat were introduced to Viesso, a company which brings the concepts of prefab and mass customization (with minimal construction waste, eco-friendly products, and quick turnover) to your living room. What’s so incredible about Viesso, is their ability to produce a completely custom product that is ready to ship in just three weeks at a price that is unbelievably affordable. Best of all, each of their pieces come with an eco-friendly option to make sure your furniture, from the springs and foam, to the frame and fabrics are all from green resources.

Viesso’s self-guided online customization process is super easy, even for those who aren’t the most computer savy. You’ll find the resulting products to be well made, durable, and exactly to your specifications. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you can try-out several of Viesso’s pieces first hand before purchasing in their Santa Monica Showroom. If for any reason you can’t find exactly what you want on Viesso’s website.

Those hesitant to be creative, or who would rather walk away with something more immediate should check-out Viesso’s Floor Model Sale.

+ CABoom 4
+ Viesso
+ Viesso’s Floor Model Sale

Source : Inhabitat, Interior Design