Barache Residence: green fields and fresh air

Jean-Baptiste Barache's House

In Auvilliers, France there’s a discrete country house for those who sympathize with green fields and fresh air. Barache Residence seems to be placed on site like a wild flower that spontaneously sprouts from a fertile soil without disturbing the natural context around it. One single volume with a symmetrical pitched roof reminds the local traditional barns. Even the access from the road is quite similar to the ancient ones: an earthy path leads up to the front door that can hardly be perceived on the red cedar facade. A mysterious welcome sign is presented to all visitors that can’t anticipate the internal configuration of this modern weekend home. Continue reading →

Haus Ruscher: architecture follows nature

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Somewhere in the middle of the green mountains of Austria, there’s a modern poetic approach to the ancestral cave houses… Two self-contained concrete buildings erupt from the grassy ground like two inhabitable rocks waiting to be discovered. Their unique mineral appearance allows a very low impact on the surrounding countryside full of sloping fields and woodland thickets. Architecture follows nature in order to merge quietly into the magnificent scenario positioned on a steep incline at almost 1100 meters altitude… Continue reading →

Samsung Chromebox: On a cloud

samsung-chromebox

A bit of a gearhead, I get excited for products that I may not necessarily need or that I won’t use for months after I buy it. Additionally, terrified by clutter, I love tools that condense a lot of stray things into one whole. The new Chromebox by Samsung is a desktop alternative to the light, super fast Chromebooks that straddle the off and online computing worlds. And the Chromebox is one of these products that would clear a lot of space from my desk and motivate a lot of idle fiddling with the cloud-based application experience. Continue reading →

Lens House: without mass and weight

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Here’s a fine example of how to transform a classic English Victorian semi-detached villa into a contemporary home. Located in London, Lens House is a 19th century building that has been extended in time and space: two new volumes were added to this ancient architecture as a manifest of modern needs.

The new house extension has a total floor area of only 70sqm and is distributed in two separate levels. The first volume wraps around the brick walls at the side and rear of the house to make a small home office, while the second volume extends out at the back to increase the size of the first floor living room. Continue reading →

Pipeknots: simply inspiring

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What can you possibly do with a couple of steel pipes and wood rods? Ask Japanese designer Keiji Ashizawa who created Pipeknots. This collection is based upon exploring the combination of the softness of wood with the stiffness of three welded steel pipes, all joined and fixed with dowels driven into mortises. How amazingly simple, beautiful, and inspiring? Continue reading →

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