Interior Design Sense

Designed by Mesh Architectures, Steve Burns’ new Brooklyn residence is a 2,100-square-foot bachelor pad created for the enjoyment of the resident and his guests. The former host of the children’s show “Blue’s Clues” wanted to live in an open space, suited for his new found love: music. By keeping only three brick walls of the existing structure, the architect created a modern space with amazing features, like the catwalk on the second floor. The main rooms of the house – master bedroom, bathroom and living room/kitchen – all have access to the private courtyard with a deck created from salvaged Coney Island planks. The converted garage became an amazing house with the help of Eric Liftin at Mesh Architectures, known for repurposing old materials. The interior courtyard was cut into the shape of the structure in order to beneficiate from fresh, open air without breaking the zoning regulations.

At the Indaba conference in South Africa, architect and Designer Dror Benshetrit announced an amazing new architectural system or “space truss geometry” called QuaDror . The system has massive potential in architecture, construction and even disaster relief. According to the official website, the unique space truss geometry – now named QuaDror – is made from the assembly of four identical L-shaped pieces, either thin resulting in a trestle structure, or thick resulting in a solid panel. The collapsible system allows for rapid assembly and a transition from closed and flat to open and self-standing. A major advantage of this system is that every single panel has the stability and load-bearing capacity of a cube with only 1/5 of the volume. Impressive acoustic properties, less construction time and fewer heavy machineries needed are just some of the features of the QuaDror. Be sure to check out the video at the end of the post for a better understanding.

The apartment was designed by architect Neave Brown for COEN!. We received a few photos and a description from the architects which we would love to share with you: ” This luxurious city apartment is designed by COEN! to create a harmonious whole. A perfect combination of robust, warm and pure materials like wood, stone, glass and marmoleum. The use of sober colors with colorful accents make it a timeless and stylish residential. The apartment is designed upside down: the design studio is placed on the ground floor, the sleeping rooms on the first stock and the living with a beautiful view on top. Art brings color in this sober but warm apartment. Works of Bert Vredegoor, Margriet Smulders, Erwin Olaf and of course work from Coen van Ham himself (Testbeeld, situated in the design studio) have all the attention they need because of the serene surroundings.”

Achieving the best possible result using as few means as possible. This is the starting point of designer Coen van Ham. This interior reveals what he means by this. The transparent appearance contributes to the strong look of the functional design. ‘But most importantly perhaps is the fact that the focus has been entirely on the people that live in this apartment, and not on the interior,. says the designer. ‘I was looking in the visual language of the interior I designed.’

Lara Hedberg Deam, the founder of architecture and design magazine Dwell is the owner of this magnificent home located in Mill Valley, California. Recently renovated by her husband, architect Chris Deam, the house has a fresh and inviting feel, not to mention an impeccable modern design. First of all, the crib had to be adapted to the needs of a growing family: Lara, Chris and their two beautiful children: We wanted to carve out space for the individuals—for Lara’s home office, for me to have a place to work, for each of the kids, for a smaller room where we could watch TV and have family time, and for more space to entertain- says Chris. The home plans were eventually developed accordingly while also creating a strong indoor-outdoor connection. An interesting element you may observe is the door which opens towards the backyard: The door weighs about 2,000 pounds (907 kilos), and it has its own foundation under the pivot point. In the first concept sketches it was really thin and elegant, but it just kept growing and growing and eventually the diagonal brace showed up—in the end, why not let the engineering show? Enjoy the photos and let yourself be inspired by this fresh and mesmerizing family home! (Photos by: Dustin Aksland)

Yet another one of A-cero‘s contemporary masterpieces caught our attention. The residence called 19 Housing brings many standing ovations to the architect’s creativity. Featuring public spaces like a lounge, a dining room and a living room at the first floor and bedrooms and other private rooms at the second floor, the house also brings comfort and relaxation with the help of the 80 m2 geometric swimming pool. A basement level shelters the garage and service areas. The Spanish architects built the residence in Madrid, Spain, on a 4000 m2 terrain and covers 1.600 m2 in surface for the three levels. “The structure of this new house is made of clear volumes, straight lines and simple shapes. The house’s front is made of marble travertino and there are many windows in it. Both elements give a lot of lightness to the house.” Special features make the architecture even more spectacular: a glass wall offers amazing and unobstructed views of the outside pool.

The contemporary Harkavy residence was designed by Us architect Robert Gurney and is located in Potomac, Maryland, USA. Found on HomeDSGN, the residence stretches over an area of 2,900 square feet and is oriented towards the forest. Here is a short description from the architects. The sequence of entry is defined by a series of walls, intended to privatize and delineate the approach and entry into the house. The walls, garage volume and house become a threshold between the road and the wooded parkland. The house is composed of three volumes articulated with varying roof forms. ‘ A two-story wood volume anchors the composition. A butterfly-shaped roof is employed to open views southward and sloped to funnel rainwater into a collection system. With simple forms rendered in sensory materials, the house becomes a small part of the larger landscape, providing a place to witness trees changing colors, fog rolling in from the not too distant Potomac River and deer herds wandering to the edge of the woods. Freshome readers, would you like to see more nature-connected architecture projects on Freshome?

Lately we’ve been featuring a few commercial interior designs on Freshome because we know most of you out there are very much involved in world of business. We decided these sort of projects could be inspiring when it comes to decorating your’  own commercial space. In this particular post, we would like to present an unusual optician’s shop located in The Hague, Netherlands and designed by architect Alexander Nowotny. Envisioning the “shop as a stage”, the architects managed to create a highly original atmosphere as if taken from a fantasy movie: The new Hofstede salesroom had to be both entertaining and seductive, had to stimulate all the senses without being loud and vulgar. The concept had to embody the opposite of monotonous, overfilled shop windows and endless’  display racks inside.

Hofstede shows frames without exception in display cases, also in the shop window. The products are presented as unique items, because the customers themselves, of course, would like to be unique and buy something unique. Most of the frames are locked away and taken out for the personal consultation with the customer. Self-service only applies to sunglasses. The customer should be served and be given the feeling that he or she is a “star”. The shop serves as a stage. Please let us know what you think of this project and if you would like us to feature even more commercial designs on Freshome!

If you did not know this yet, Barbie’s latest incarnation is… an architect! Mattel recently launched the model in New York, as part of the “I Can Be…” series, which feature a variety of professions. The architect-character looks highly cheerful, seems to be very much into pink and carries a set of blueprints. We’ve read some funny comments saying that the model is not realistic, as its face looks very fresh when it should have actually been dark and tired-looking, with bags under the eyes. We don’t know about you guys, but to us it doesn’t seem like she’s too much into CAD either. We featured this post on Freshome, as we believe this could make for a fun and funny gift in the field of architecture. We are looking forwards to your opinions and comments on how believable this architect Barbie doll really is.