Lovegrove Designs Ethereal Capsule Bed in the Alps

Tags: alpine capsule, Architecture, capsule bed, Moritz Craffonara, Ross Lovegrove

Ross Lovegrove’s innovatively bizarre yet beautiful design range from Swarovski studded UFO shaped aircrafts to simplistic pens and DNA-strand staircases. The latest project undertaken by Lovegrove is to design a living space for a client with a lavish amount of money and a private mountain in the Alps.

Lovegrove’s design, the alpine capsule, is based on the client, Moritz Craffonara’s desire to sleep under the stars in the mountain landscape. Interestingly, that is all Craffonara desires: a bed to sleep in within all this beauty, and who can help materialise this eccentric request better than Lovegrove? With two-way mirrors enslaving the bed so that all nature’s beauty is reflected back on itself, Craffonara would wake up every morning with a splendid view of the Alps.

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Fountain at Banpo Bridge, Seoul: Major Tourist Attraction

Tags: Banpo Bridge, Eco-friendly, Fountain, Seoul

Just a twist of design, a splattering of paint, a cheeky addition to something old can make it look brightly cheerful and attractive to the eyes again.

The Banpo Bridge which crosses over the Han River in the Seoul capital of Korea has been given new life with the addition of a fountain. And instead of remodelling this huge structure to fit it with the usual design of a fountain, even that has been give some change, with the fountain shooting water downwards instead of up. The fountains at the Banpo Bridge were installed on September ninth and have since become a major tourist attraction. It has nearly 10 thousand nozzles on either side of the bridge that shoots out 190 tons of water every minute.

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Santa Ynez Valley Estate: Beyond Beauty and Luxury

Tags: estates, home station, Luxury, Santa Ynez Valley Estate

Flamboyant fashion has no place in the world of elegance which is the hardest thing to achieve. Elegance comes from simplistic yet beautiful designs that are practical and oxymoronically boldly demure.

This piece of elegance sits atop 20 acres of land in the Santa Ynez Valley area of California. Completed in 2006, it took place of pride in the Interior Design Magazine and won the 2007 AIA Design Award. Constructed in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful areas on the Western coast of the States, the house does not appear a blemish but instead is complimentary in reflecting the serenity of its surroundings. The house includes an 800sq ft master bedroom suite with a walk-in closet, a 1200sq ft guest suite and a common den fitted with a warming fireplace. Designed for a work-at-home artist, the house also has an 800sq ft art studio with an adjoining office.

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Stratocucine: More than just Kitchens

Tags: eclettica, Kitchen, kubista, non plus ultra, stratocucine

The kitchen becomes one of the most important areas of a house; the main source, if not purpose, of our existence. In this fast-paced world, there is a strong necessity for kitchens to be practical and designed in such a way that cooking is made time-efficient, comfortable and pleasurable.

The Stratocucine line of kitchens appears like installations from the future with its sleek bold lines and glimmering steel look. The designs for the Stratocucine line hold an other-worldly appearance that lend to it a majestic sense power, of being able to achieve almost anything within the sphere practicality. The Eclettica has a curved outer frame and is fitted with a sink that can be rotated to be used on either side of the kitchen. Non Plus Ultra features cupboards and cooking area made from huge chunks of steel and the Kubista is a beautiful display of a perfect cooking area.

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World Trade Centre Transportation Hub Designed by Santiago Calavatra

Tags: Santiago Calavatra, World Trade Centre, World Trade Centre Transportation Hub, WTC

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Ever since the World Trade Centre crumbled down, plans of renovation have been making the rounds and some have even begun. With different parts of the property being designed and built by different companies, it is interesting to note that the World Trade Centre Transportation Hub is being designed by a Spanish architect.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have re-confirmed their decision of having Santiago Calavatra design the WTC Transportation Hub. However, they revealed new designs for the Transportation Hub last week with several changes from the old design. The changes, which include the absence of a skylight and inclusion of tapered columns, have been made because of the constraint of time and the need to make the building cost-effective. The WTC Transportation Hub is due to be opened by 2012.

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Solaleya’s UFO-Homes All Set to Take-off in America

Tags: America, Domes, Earthquakes, Patrick Marsili, Solaleya, UFO Homes

The thought of living in UFOs is excitingly eccentric. Patrick Marsili designed the Solaleya homes in France around 20 years ago. These homes are now set to land in America through Solaleya and gained appreciation at the latest West Coast Green. Though these homes look like UFO’s, they comprise a mechanical structure at the base which helps them rotate to face the sun like a sunflower.

Made 90% out of FSC-certified wood and insulated with cork, they can survive hurricanes and earthquakes measuring up to 8 on MSK scale. With windows and solar panels on the dome-shaped roof, these rotating homes absorb maximum amount of sunlight possible to light up the house. A single rotation uses same energy as that needed to vacuum the house.

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Lost City of Alexandria Recreated in Underwater Archaeological Museum

Tags: alexandria, cleopatra, jaques rougerie, museum, underwater

Perhaps the most difficult thing that every designer faces is the job of making his design as original as possible. Showcasing your talents in the best way to grab people’s attention is difficult and requires creativity like it hasn’t been displayed before. What, then, do you propose to do when your job is to bring to the people someone else’s works of art?

Museums may be thought of as boring because they show you things from long past that barely seem to affect your current life. Every museum picks something from a destination and displays it in an old building while trying to recreate the magic of the original destination. But no recreation, however innovative, can be true to the original and this may be the reason designer Jaques Rougerie has opted to display the palace of Cleopatra in its natural habitat. Rougerie has designed an underwater archaeological museum that would allow visitors to see the beautiful statues et al from an underwater location where the once lost city of Alexandria now dwells. The Archaeological Museum of Alexandria will, obviously, be open in Egypt.

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Big Brother House by Julien De Smedt: Zero Privacy

Tags: Architecture, big brother, big brother house, glass house, julien de smedt, television

Reality is based upon fiction and anyone who thinks otherwise has not stuck their heads into the world of fiction much. The best of this world, architecture, technology, etc, has been inspired from fictitious musings. But this doesn’t mean that picking up an idea from fiction is always a good idea; don’t ever tell your girlfriend you want to put her under a machine and ‘pimp ‘er up’!

Julien De Smedt Architects take their inspiration from the television reality show, Big Brother, and have designed a house where none of the occupants would have any privacy and would have to live under the complete scrutiny of the other occupants and the outsiders. The house would definitely look good but it is a matter of debate if anyone would want to live in a house where each room is a block of glass. The blocks are constructed with an inner open courtyard. Aesthetically, the design looks great and is also practical in terms of ventilation and lighting.

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Australia Abundant at Venice Architecture Biennale 2008

Tags: Architecture, Australia Abundant, Buildings, Eagle Talon House, New Holland Folly, Peter Stuchbury Architecture, Studio505, Venice Architecture Biennale

An exhibition is not just a platform to showcase your talents but is also a forum for interaction with others who share your views. They also give you the opportunity to reach out to a great number of people and educate them about something dear to your heart. The Venice Architecture Biennale 2008 saw a great number of entries from different countries, one of the most striking of which was Australia.

Australia’s Abundant exhibition intends to clear a certain misconception from the minds of the people about the blandness of Australia. Starting from the brightly decorated trees at the entrance to the exhibits, the lighting within and the exhibits themselves will leave visitors with no doubt about the cheery colourfulness of this island continent. Australia Abundant was curated by architects Durbach, Lewin, Thompson and Warner and designer Frost, and shows a beautiful melange of the past and the present popular designs. The exhibition saw participation from over 200 architectural firms, each one showing a distinctively imaginative design following the theme of ‘architecture beyond building’.

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Symbiotic Villa by Zaha Hadid: Vision of the Future

Tags: Architecture, Next-Gene 20, Symbiotic Villa, zaha hadid

The look of living spaces are getting more and more exotic every day. The imbibing of ancient techniques of art in architecture has taken the looks of our streets beyond anything we ever dreamed of. They herald the arrival of the future when it comes to new visions.

This is not the first time we have written about the wondrous world of designing as Zaha Hadid creates it, most obviously because Hadid is a designer of phenomenal talent. This design of the Symbiotic Villa as part of the Next-Gene 20 project in Taiwan was presented in Venice during an architectural biennale, and left the visitors breathless. The bold lines give form to never-before-seen spaces that leave you with a sense of airy openness that is almost futuristic.

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