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    Philippe Starck draws on mid-century modernism for Saint-Tropez hotel

    French architect and designer Philippe Starck used warm tones and modernist references in his renovation of Villa W, a boutique wellness hotel on the coast of Saint-Tropez.

    Created as a little sister to the existing Starck-designed Lily of the Valley hotel which is located nearby, Villa W is a fitness and wellness hotel located in an existing villa that was renovated by Starck.
    Villa W is a hotel in Saint-Tropez designed by Philippe StarckThe 1,559-square-metre villa, which is situated on the southwestern corner of the peninsula in the French Riviera town, was designed as “a romantic hideaway” where guests can relax as well as work on their fitness and health.
    “We’ve all dreamed of a little cabin, chalet or fisherman’s hut by the sea,” Philippe Starck said. “We don’t have to dream anymore, because we’ve made that dream a reality – a romantic hideaway nestled in a pine forest that looks down onto the Mediterranean at La Croix-Valmer.”
    It has a 17-metre-long swimming pool along the frontSet over two floors, the boutique hotel has three double rooms and can cater to up to six guests at a time. Each bedroom has its own private terrace with views of the surrounding lush landscape and the Mediterranean sea.

    During the renovation process, Starck decided to emphasise the original architectural features of the villa. It was built in the 1960s by a local architect called Jean Nielly.
    The interior is dominated by brown and beige coloursMade from vast sheets of glass, concrete and steel, the villa already had unparalleled views onto its surroundings. In a bid to celebrate this, Starck focused on drawing attention to the length of the villa, adding arbours made from chestnut wood along its long, south-facing glass facade.
    Large French doors set in aluminium frames allow plenty of natural light to brighten up the interiors and merge them with the exterior, while a decked terrace that wraps around the edges of the building has a private 17-metre-long pool.
    There are six double bedrooms on the second floor”Villa W boasts views that have remained unchanged for hundreds of years,” said owner of Lily of the Valley Lucie Weill. “So, when we were designing it, we felt it was essential to keep this unique, panoramic view of the Mediterranean.”
    “That’s why we placed so much importance on the length of the villa so that guests would be able to see the sea from every room,” Weill told Dezeen.
    “The effect is quite something: instead of feeling like a building nestled against the hillside, Villa W feels more like a boat moored on the coast.”

    Philippe Starck restores time-worn interiors of the Quadri restaurant in Venice

    Inside, Starck Starck drew on the mid-century modern style found in Charles and Ray Eames’ home in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighbourhood for Villa W.
    Guests enter the hotel through a main lobby and reception area where tan leather sofas, wooden ornaments and rust-coloured rugs can be found.
    Off to one side of the lobby is the terrace area with rattan seating, while a bar at the back of the space serves what the hotel calls “a healthy Mediterranean gastronomy.”
    Extra touches of warmth are provided by the wooden flooring and soft furnishings.
    Starck sourced vintage furniture for the roomsThe warm colour palette is continued upstairs in the hotel’s bedrooms where vintage items sourced by Starck, such as a brown Egg Chair by Arne Jacobsen for Fritz Hansen and wooden Walnut Stools designed by Charles and Ray Eames, can be found.
    The three bathrooms have a cleaner, lighter aesthetic with marble floors and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, which the designer incorporated to emphasise the omnipresence of the Mediterranean.
    Each room has views of the Mediterranean seaStarck is one of the most prolific designers in the world. Although is best known for his product designs such as the Icon Chair and Juicy Salif citrus squeezer, he has also produced a number of notable interior projects.
    These include renovating the interior of the Quadri restaurant in Venice. Earlier this year, he led the art direction for Villa M, a hotel in Paris covered in plants.
    Photography is by Novembre Studio.

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    “Homes manifest mechanisms of power via relationships of gender, class and age”

    The way our homes are designed is intrinsically linked to domestic power struggles, write Charles Holland and Margaret Cubbage.

    What is the relationship between architecture and power? How can buildings – inert piles of stone and steel, glass and concrete – exert power over us?
    The obvious place to look might be examples that clearly aim to control or confine us, such as prisons. Alternatively, power may be found in buildings for political institutions or corporate HQs. There is, however a subtler realm in which architecture exerts control over our lives. That place is one that almost all of us experience: the ordinary domestic spaces that we inhabit every day.
    Our homes shape our lives and inform the dynamics of our social relations
    What can such spaces say about power? Surely the rooms in which we live, eat and sleep are an escape from the hierarchies of the workplace or our increasingly CCTV-controlled public spaces? The home is associated with being a place of refuge but also somewhere to connect, or disconnect from the outside world.

    As innocent as they may appear, our homes shape our lives and inform the dynamics of our social relations. They manifest mechanisms of power via relationships of gender, class and age. Why do we separate functions into separate rooms? Why are some spaces more private than others? These questions are of course culturally specific. Not all societies organise their houses in the same way. And what might seem like an ordinary convention to some might be an unimaginable luxury to others.
    Radical Rooms, an exhibition currently running at the Royal Institute of British Architects’ (RIBA) Architecture Gallery, explores this knotty subject, examining the micro-territories of our homes. It begins with the plan – the most basic of architectural drawings – and examines the way that the arrangement of rooms in our houses reflects the way that individuals, couples, groups and families organise themselves.

    Women-led studios create sculptural pavilions for Women in Architecture exhibition

    The exhibition focuses on a history of housing in the UK, mining the RIBA Collection of drawings to find examples where traditional power relations have been subverted and where new ways of living have emerged as a result.
    It also looks at the characters behind the buildings, revealing figures within architectural history that have not always been acknowledged or accurately documented.
    Gender relations are inscribed in the plans of our houses. This is a question of both how spaces are organised – think of traditional male preserves such as the study or the historic association of women with kitchens – and of who owns and authors them. The history of famous houses is often also a history of the famous men who designed them, or the men that wrote about them.
    Houses are innately collaborative ventures
    Radical Rooms shifts that focus instead onto houses that were designed, commissioned or curated (and sometimes all three) by women. In doing so it draws on the work of important historians including Lynne Walker, Elizabeth Darling and others.
    Houses are innately collaborative ventures. We share them and they are extended and added to over time. The history of architecture though is largely a history of individuals, of single authors and buildings preserved as static objects. Prior to the development of discrete roles for architects, clients and builders however, authorship was less clear. This ambiguity might well have allowed (admittedly wealthy) women who were otherwise formally disempowered from designing buildings to exert a powerful influence on the development of architecture.
    Take A La Ronde, an eccentric, sixteen-sided house built on the Devon coast in the late 18th century. The house was built for two female cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter, but its authorship has been the subject of much debate. Keen to find a male architect, historians have traditionally plumped for John Lowder, the son of a relative who would have been just 17 when the house was completed. It is more likely that the house was a collaboration between Lowder and the cousins, who had just returned from a Grand Tour of Europe’s classical architecture.
    Hopkins House uses Venetian blinds to distinguish between spaces for living and work. Photo courtesy of the Historic England ArchiveThe degree to which Jane and Mary Parminter designed the house might be unclear, but their unique way of occupying it wasn’t. Arranged in plan like a clock face, the cousins moved around the house during the day, following the path of the sun. When they died they stipulated that it be left only to unmarried women, an explicit rejection of the patriarchal system of male inheritance. A man eventually did come to live in the house and, revealingly, he was responsible for drastic changes to both its layout and appearance.
    The design of Hardwick Hall, an Elizabethan mansion in Derbyshire, is generally ascribed to Robert Smythson. The house was commissioned though by Bess of Hardwick, an immensely wealthy 16th-century aristocrat. Her involvement in the design of her house, the fourth that she commissioned, extended well beyond the role of client as it is currently conceived. Principles of the house’s layout, its material choices and decorative scheme reflect Bess of Hardwick’s intense involvement.
    Prejudices around authorship have continued into the current era. Take Team 4, a well-known but short-lived collaborative practice from the 1960s that consisted of three women and two men. The subsequent fame of the men – Richard Rogers and Norman Foster – has tended to eclipse the role of the women – Wendy Cheesman, Su Brumwell and Georgie Wolton.
    Field House pursued an interest in dissolving boundaries
    Wolton was the most short-lived member and the only fully qualified architect of the group at the time. She subsequently designed Field House, a radical, steel-framed, open-plan residence that has remained somewhat below the radar of architectural history ever since.
    Field House pursued an interest in dissolving boundaries within the home as well within the discipline of architecture. Its interior was conceived largely as a single, fluid space with minimal separation. The exterior walls were entirely made of glass so that the interior merged with the external landscape. Intriguingly, the house is currently described as dismantled rather than demolished, reflecting an interest in adaptability and moveability on the part of its designer.
    This blurring of uses and of the inside and outside also manifests itself in the Hopkins House in north London, designed in the mid-1970s by Patty and Michael Hopkins. Originally used as their office as well as their home, the house has no corridors and minimal separation of functions. The combination of its delicate steel structure and Venetian blinds helps to subtly delineate the different zones of family and work-life within the home.

    “The irresistible draw of Bridgerton reflects our need for a new aesthetic”

    Some 50 years before, in 1926, Eileen Gray designed an apartment in Paris that consisted solely of moving screens and metallic curtains. The remarkably innovative interior, designed for her sometime lover Jean Badovici, also rejected the discrete division of domestic space into separate functions in favour of a dynamic internal landscape that could be re-made every day.
    Radical Rooms looks not only at power within the plan but at who gets to design those plans. The exhibition provides a platform for the exposure of (mainly) overlooked women designers and architects, revisiting the ways in which women influenced design prior to formalised architectural education. It deconstructs the domestic plan and exposes it as something intimately bound up with the power structures in which we live.
    Radical Rooms: Power of the Plan is free to visit and will run throughout July and between 5-24 September at the 66 Portland Place in London. For more information, see Dezeen Events Guide.
    Charles Holland is a professor at the University of Brighton, the principal of Charles Holland Architects and a former director of London studio FAT. Margaret Cubbage has been curating design and architecture exhibitions for 15 years.
    The top photo is by Gareth Gardner, courtesy of the RIBA.

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    Cells in former Berlin prison turned into guest rooms for hotel Wilmina

    German practice Grüntuch Ernst Architects has converted an abandoned women’s prison and courthouse in Berlin into a “tranquil” hotel.

    Called Wilmina, the hotel occupies a duo of listed 19th-century structures in Charlottenburg that had been forgotten for decades prior to their renovation.
    Grüntuch Ernst Architects has converted a prison into the Wilmina hotelThe former court, which sits at the entrance on Kantstraße, accommodates the hotel’s reception as well as a temporary gallery called Amtsalon.
    An extension housing Wilmina’s restaurant connects the courthouse to the prison’s U-shaped cell block, which fits 44 guest rooms across five levels including a new penthouse floor at the top.
    Grüntuch Ernst Architects also added a roof terrace above the penthouse alongside a library, bar, spa and gym.

    Guest rooms are arranged on narrow galleries around the atriumInteriors were designed to respect the buildings’ existing architecture and reveal traces of their former use.
    “The process involved reversing the spatial configuration and its meaning so that an anti-social space can become an inviting place,” said the architecture firm, which was founded by husband-wife duo Armand Grüntuch and Almut Grüntuch-Ernst in 1991.
    “Through sensitive interventions with deliberate openings, build-ups, superimpositions, relocations and penetrations, the existing structures were expanded, connected and reprogrammed.”
    The rooms occupy the prison’s former cellsVisitors enter the Wilmina via a bright lobby and journey deeper into the hotel through a sequence of courtyards, passages and rooms that become increasingly private.
    In the hotel proper, narrow galleries with wrought-iron balustrades are wrapped around a central atrium, leading to the guest rooms that were set up in the former prison cells.
    Windows were enlarged to offer views into the courtyardA lighting installation with glass pendants is suspended from the ceiling of the atrium to emphasise its height.
    Although no two guest rooms are exactly the same, all of them are finished in light colours, soft textures and warm, tactile materials to create a soothing ambience.

    EPR Architects transforms historic prison into NoMad London luxury hotel

    Where possible, the cells’ small high windows were enlarged to provide views into the main courtyard. But their prison bars remain intact to remind visitors of the building’s history.
    The new penthouse level features floor-to-ceiling windows that offer views down across the complex and its gardens. The new rooms are designed to be minimalist, clear and calm, with fine metal chain curtains that shimmer in the breeze.
    Minimalist bathrooms blend in with the larger interior schemeAt the centre of the site sits the hotel’s restaurant Lovis in an extension constructed using bricks that were removed elsewhere during the prison’s transformation.
    The eatery occupies the site of the former lock yard, its old gates now replaced with large windows providing views of a small enclosed garden with rare ferns, vines, climbing plants and an old birch tree.
    The hotel occupies a U-shaped red-brick cell block”The unique location and the detailed, sensitive transformation make the forgotten place a special experience in Berlin,” said Grüntuch Ernst Architects.
    “Wilmina is a place of discoveries, of surprising visual links, ambiguous layers of space and traces of the past. Wilmina is also a place of natural tranquillity, relaxation and comfort – an oasis in the middle of the city.”
    An extension formed from reclaimed bricks houses the Lovis restaurantMeanwhile in London, EPR Architects and interior design firm Roman and Williams recently transformed the former Bow Street Magistrates Court and Police Station in Covent Garden into the first overseas outpost from American hotel brand NoMad.
    The photography is by Patricia Parinejad.

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    Fabio Novembre launches first concept store in Milan dedicated to his designs

    Italian architect and designer Fabio Novembre has opened IoNoi Gallery, a hybrid retail space and gallery in Milan with “strongly postmodern” interiors designed to showcase his work.

    Located on a street corner a few steps from Novembre’s studio, the shop sells a range of products the designer has created throughout his career for companies including Italian furnituremaker Kartell, lighting brand Lasvit and glassmaker Venini.
    IoNoi Gallery showcases Fabio Novembre’s works on a street corner in MilanNovembre designed the minimalist interior himself, conceiving it as a blank page in an architect’s sketchbook.
    This is represented through the grid pattern printed on the store’s white melamine laminate walls, which allows the bold colours and forms in his work to take centre stage.
    “The design of the interior is like a blank squared page, the perfect canvas for an architect,” Novembre told Dezeen. “It allows objects to float in space, suspended on a system of interchangeable luminous shelves.”

    Yellow plinths display the designer’s productsThe displayed items, which straddle the realms of art, design and fashion, are arranged across simple shelving with embedded LED strip lights.
    A bright yellow wall that leads to the rear of the store and three yellow display plinths provide accents of colour against the grey stone floor.
    A yellow wall leads to the far end of the storeIn keeping with his other work, Novembre describes his first dedicated concept store as “strongly postmodern”.
    The gallery’s name, IoNoi, is derived from an ongoing research project of the same name, conceived by Novembre to explore the relationship between the self and the collective, between objects and their “universe of reference”.

    Thomas Phifer creates monolithic concrete gallery as home for Richard Serra artwork

    “IoNoi started as a blog in 2008,” Novembre explained. “Its point was that people and things are born from other people and other things. The research of connections, often unplanned and undeclared, helps pave the way for an inclusive and cross-cutting approach to knowledge.”
    “Today, the project evolves into IoNoi Gallery, a physical space that contains and exhibits my world made of industrial objects and art design in the continuous link between design, architecture, art and fashion.”
    Floating shelves are mounted on the wallsThe store will double up as a venue for hosting exhibitions, research projects and collaborations.
    Novembre also hinted that he is working on more ceramic products following his recent work for Italian porcelain brand Villari.
    The walls are finished in a pattern reminiscent of gridded sketchbook paper”I find it interesting to continue with the formal experimentation on porcelain, carrying on the tradition of Italian design masters such as [Ettore] Sottsass and [Alessandro] Mendini – my maestros,” he said.
    Novembre’s wide-ranging portfolio includes a number of other architecture and interior projects. Among them are the headquarters of football club AC Milan and a house on a man-made island in Abu Dhabi that is wrapped around a reflecting pool.

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    Holloway Li transforms Munich office building into Wunderlocke hotel

    Wassily Kandinsky’s abstract paintings influenced the colourful yet understated interiors that design studio Holloway Li has created inside the Locke hotel in Munich.

    The aparthotel, called Wunderlocke, contains 360 serviced studio apartments and is situated in Munich’s Obersendling district, taking over an office building that previously belonged to German tech company Siemens.
    A timber desk anchors Wunderlocke’s receptionLondon-based Holloway Li aimed to celebrate the building’s raw structure and reveal its “inner voice”, avoiding a more traditional “material intensive” approach to retrofitting.
    This decision was chiefly informed by the work of 20th-century Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky – a pioneer of abstract art who spent a significant portion of his career in Munich.
    Adjacent to the reception is a co-working area”Kandinsky’s work explores how we can develop a closer relationship to nature through abstraction, rather than through more figurative approaches favoured at the time,” explained Holloway Li.

    “He believed that by connecting with the ‘innerer klang’ (inner voice) of things, an artist could reveal the natural essence of objects and materials.”
    Teal-coloured leather runs around the edge of the bar counterIn line with this idea, the studio stripped back the building to its concrete shell and added a carefully curated selection of furnishings using natural colours and materials where possible.
    At the heart of the ground-floor reception is a curved timber desk inset with panels of wheat-coloured carpet, which were also used to wrap the lower half of the room’s structural columns.
    Yellow and red furnishings bring a burst of colour to the barBeyond the reception is an informal co-working area dressed with plush sea-green sofas and communal timber desks.
    Holloway Li placed leafy potted plants around the periphery of the room and along the trellis-style shelves, creating the impression that the nearby Grünwald forest has “grown into and occupied” the interior.

    Fettle designs Schwan Locke Hotel in homage to early German modernism

    This floor of the Wunderlocke hotel also houses a drinks bar, with the lip of its countertop upholstered in supple teal-coloured leather to encourage guests to get comfortable and hang around for longer.
    Mustard-yellow tub chairs and a red seating banquette provide extra pops of colour.
    The building’s terrazzo staircase dates back to the 1960sThe upper floors of the hotel can be reached via a terrazzo staircase, which dates back to the 1960s but was updated with a stainless steel handrail.
    Painted in natural blue and green hues, each guest suite is designed to function as a small studio apartment with its own lounge area and kitchenette.
    Guest suites are decked out in shades of blue and greenIf guests don’t want to cook in their room, they have the option of eating at Mural Farmhouse – a group of five food and drinks venues spread across seven floors of the Wunderlocke building.
    Run by the founders of Munich’s Michelin-starred restaurant Mural, the complex encompasses an all-day restaurant, a wine bar, cocktail bar, coffee shop and an upscale eatery.
    All of the venues follow a farm-to-table ethos, making use of hand-picked herbs and vegetables from the hotel’s rooftop farm, which offers views over the Bavarian Alps.
    Each suite comes complete with a lounge and kitchenetteWunderlocke is the second Munich outpost from British aparthotel chain Locke. The first, called Schwan Locke, pays homage to early German modernism and features a colour palette informed by the work of Mies van der Rohe.
    Holloway Li was previously tasked with designing Locke’s location in the London district of Bermondsey, which evokes sunny California deserts.
    The photography is by Ed Dabney.

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    Aimé Leon Dore's London boutique homages modernist architect Adolf Loos

    New York interior designer Sarita Posada has layered “lived-in” details and rich textures inside the first London store from fashion and lifestyle label Aimé Leon Dore.

    Located on Broadwick Street in London’s Soho, the two-storey boutique is the brand’s second outpost and first international flagship, designed in collaboration with London-based West Architecture.
    Aimé Leon Dore’s first international flagship is located in London’s SohoRather than riffing on the design of Aimé Leon Dore’s first-ever store in New York, the London flagship was designed to provide a contrasting experience.
    “We imagined the next iteration of the brand’s environment as a moodier and more intimate experience,” Posada told Dezeen. “We wanted the space to evoke the feeling of some old members’ clubs you might find around London.”
    Walnut cabinetry is used to display products on the main shop floorAs well as a retail space, the shop incorporates Café Leon Dore – an all-day cafe and eatery serving Greek-inspired fare and drinks that nod to the heritage of the brand’s founder Teddy Santis.

    The dark and atmospheric interior was designed to play with Aimé Leon Dore’s vibrant colours and patterns while paying homage to the work of Austrian architect Adolf Loos, famous for designs including the Villa Müller in Prague and the American Bar in Vienna.
    Persian rugs and marble floors help to create a richly textured interiorInformed by the architect’s richly textured interiors, Posada filled the space with dark walnut wall panelling, Cipollino marble floors, mosaic tiling and brass detailing, alongside “lived-in” details like antique Persian rugs and custom furniture with leather insets.
    “The connection to Loos was originally in the materiality and how nicely these elements complemented the brand palette,” Posada told Dezeen. “Villa Müller and Knize, a renowned tailor shop he designed in Vienna, felt particularly relevant for this project for that reason.”

    Theatrical curtains enclose the entrance of Tokyo fashion store The Playhouse

    “Although we had various historical references and wanted them to read in the space, it was important to create an environment where modern furniture such as an Achille Castigiolini’s Light Ball fixture and detailing would still feel at home,” she added.
    Customers entering the store are greeted by a series of deflated basketballs mounted in a grid on the wall – a signature work by New York artist Tyrrell Winston that serves as a tribute to Aimé Leon Dore’s New York roots.
    A grid of deflated basketballs by artist Tyrrell Winston decorates the entranceMuch like the main retail space, Café Leon Dore is wrapped in walnut panelling and features hand-cut marble flooring, a brass logo inlay, Calacatta Viola marble countertops and a leather banquette.
    A private lounge finished with fabric panelling and leather banquettes is located downstairs. This is equipped with a sound system and a DJ setup, as well as a curated vinyl collection and a bar for guests.
    A dark lounge space with a sound system is housed on the ground floorPosada is a designer specialising in interiors and furniture, who began her career working with Shawn Hausman on the design of The Standard hotels.
    Since then, she has taken on a range of residential and hospitality projects including the Palm Heights Grand Cayman hotel, where she worked with creative director Gabriella Khalil and LA designer Courtney Applebaum to create an interior styled like a 1970s Caribbean mansion.
    The photography is by Harrison Boyce.

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    Ten homes with light-filled glass extensions

    For our latest lookbook, we’ve chosen 10 residential glass extensions that create airy, light-filled and modern additions to homes.

    Glass is a popular material for house extensions as it is durable, weather-resistant and – thanks to its transparency – adds light and brightness to a space.
    While glass extensions are common in cities all over the world, many examples in this lookbook are found in homes in London, where demand for extra space continues to increase.
    The transparent extensions have been constructed to provide additional space to an existing building and are often used by residents for socialising, dining and entertaining.
    This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks on homes framed by shutters and louvres, interiors with cork walls and homes that make use of board-formed concrete.

    Photo is by Will PryceTower House, UK, by Dominic McKenzie Architects
    The lofty structures often found in rural Italy informed Dominic McKenzie Architects’ brick extension for this home in Islington, London.
    The studio added black glass-panelled French doors that open out onto a sunken garden, while a rectangular skylight above allows light to filter into the dining area from overhead.
    Only minor changes were made elsewhere in the home. The pre-existing joinery was repainted and a Carrara marble fireplace was installed in the living room at the front of the house.
    Find out more about Tower House ›
    Photo is by Fionn McCannChurchtown, Ireland, by Scullion Architects
    Located in the suburbs of Dublin, this 1930s semi-detached house called Churchtown has an extension modelled on a traditional conservatory.
    Designed by Scullion Architects as a continuation of the original home, the extension houses an open-plan kitchen and dining space framed by clerestory windows. Both the white terrazzo used on the work surfaces and flooring and the stained-oak panelling were used throughout the house.
    Find out more about Churchtown ›
    Photo is by Adam GibsonMount Stuart Greenhouse, Tasmania, by Bence Mulchay
    Architecture studio Bence Mulchay added an extension with a black steel frame to a 19th-century villa for a client who wanted to maximise views of the surrounding lush gardens in Mount Stuart, Tasmania.
    The open-plan dining area features shelves that connect to the external steel structure and large counter-tops with built-in storage units made from dark timber.
    Find out more about Mount Stuart Greenhouse ›
    Photo is by Logan McDougallFelsham Road, UK, by Giles Pike Architects
    Tasked with extending and improving this Victorian semi-detached house, London-based studio Giles Pike Architects designed a stepped, double-height extension to create an open-plan living, kitchen and dining room.
    As part of its overhaul, the studio added simple finishes throughout the property – dark wood covers the floor and the walls are painted white, while the kitchen cabinets and cupboards are all painted a charcoal grey.
    Find out more about Felsham Road ›
    Photo is by Mark MahaneyFloating Farmhouse, US, Tom Givone
    Designer Tom Givone hoped to combine archaic and modern elements in his renovation of Floating Farmhouse, a two-storey home in rural New York that overlooks a picturesque creek.
    After installing a large wall of glass at the front of the waterside kitchen, he finished the space with a polished concrete floor and a wood-burning stove, while the original colonial touches such as exposed beams and white-painted timber cladding were left intact.
    Find out more about Floating Farmhouse ›
    Photo is by Aisling McCoyThe Glass Ribbon, Ireland, by Scullion Architects
    A large dining area, study and drawing room surrounded by glazed windows and skylights make up the extension of this house in Dublin.
    Irish architecture studio Scullion Architects wrapped the walls in a thick, concrete plinth that doubles up as an informal bench and window sill for potted plants.
    Find out more about The Glass Ribbon ›
    Photo is by Joe FletcherValley Street, US, by Síol Studios and Levy Art and Architecture
    Sweeping views of a historic sloping garden are enjoyed through the window wall of this study in Valley Street – a split-level home in San Fransico’s Noe Valley neighbourhood.
    Created by Síol Studios and Levy Art and Architecture for a couple that is passionate about art, the interiors combine industrial and bold details such as exposed wooden beams.
    Find out more about Valley Street ›
    Photo is by Robert BattersbyLantern Lean-to, UK, by Blee Halligan Architects
    Crittall-style black gridded frames form the exterior of this 100-square-metre extension, which has oak parquet flooring, light-coloured brickwork and timber surfaces inside.
    The large family that occupies Lantern Lean-to wanted local studio Blee Halligan Architects to create more space for entertaining their many guests while still keeping the interior timeless.
    Find out more about Lantern Lean-to ›
    Photo is by Jack HobhouseBurrows Road House, UK, by Rise Design Studio
    To bring plenty of light into this home in North London, an extension made almost entirely of glass was added to the side of the house, with full-height glass doors at the rear.
    Rise Design Studio inserted brass fittings and a white island unit in the large kitchen-cum-dining room at the back of the mid-terrace house.
    Find out more about Burrows Road House ›
    Photo is by Heather HobhouseMile End Terrace, UK, by HÛT
    London-based architecture studio HÛT removed this home’s existing brick extension and replaced it with what the architects described as a “jewel-like glass box extension” that opens onto a sunken patio.
    “The glass box helps bring daylight deep into the centre of the house where the kitchen is located and gives views into the lovely garden,” the studio said.
    In the rest of the property, the architects decided to keep the original historic features wherever possible, in particular making a statement with the listed building’s staircase.
    Find out more about HÛT ›
    This is the latest in our series of lookbooks providing curated visual inspiration from Dezeen’s image archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks showcasing multi-generational homes, homes filled with decorative ceramics and residential corridors.

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    AvroKO draws on Korean culture for Oiji Mi restaurant in New York

    Traditional designs from Korea, from houses to hairpins, are reworked to create the interiors of this Manhattan restaurant by New York studio AvroKO.

    AvroKo, a studio that focuses on hospitality, completed Oiji Mi, an upscale Korean dining spot in the Flatiron District – an area once home to over 100 social clubs during the Gilded Age.
    Elements throughout Oiji Mi informed by traditional Korean designs include custom lighting”Oiji Mi’s design recalls these classic Manhattan social clubs through bold marbles, rich leather and velvet fabrics and dark walnut woods, but reimagines them to represent the fusion of Korean and American culture,” said the design studio.
    AvroKO based the main dining room on a hanok, a traditional Korean home dating back to the 14th century.
    Interlocking wooden beams mimic those used to build hanok housesInterlocking timber beams across the ceiling and walls mimic those used to construct the hanok, while gridded partitions echo the windows and screens found inside.

    A wooden flooring system known as daecheong runs through the restaurant, from the bar area at the front to the open dining space behind.
    The bar is located at the front of the space, while the dining area is found behindLighting is also based on the shapes and textures of Korean jewellery, and decorative hairpins called binyeo.
    Among these bespoke designs are pendants suspended straight above the tables, bead-like sconces and chandeliers that arc out from a central column.

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    “The designers also brought in elements of dansaekhwa, or the repetition of action which is known to stabilise and restore those in its presence,” AvroKO said.
    This principle is apparent in the use of textiles, such as a custom installation above the bar influenced by jogakbo, a style that uses patchwork to create flowing patterns and shapes.
    Materials like walnut and brass are used to evoke the social clubs of the Gilded AgeTabletops of walnut and marble accompany a palette of teal and claret across the walls and upholstery.
    Mirrored and tinted metal panels under the tall ceilings make the space feel larger, and also harken back to the Gilded Age clubs.
    Mirrored panels help to visually extend the dining spaceAvroKO is behind the designs of many well-known restaurants and hotels in New York City and beyond.
    The firm’s recent projects have included a members’ club in Chicago and an eatery and entertainment space in Nashville.
    The photography is by Christian Harder.

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