architecture

Charlotte Perriand

March 9, 2009

Charlotte Perriand

The French designer and architect  Charlotte Perriand (1903 – 1999) produced some very beautiful furniture and buildings, but she is probably not as well known as she should be, even despite the comprehensive retrospective show of her work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2005.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

The Japanese live comfortably in tiny spaces. Could we?

February 24, 2009

The Japanese live comfortably in tiny spaces. Could we?

In the western world, 750 sq ft apartments can seem really small, even for just two people. The excerpt below is from an interesting article by Nold Egenter, a Swiss architectural anthropologist, on the cultural influences that allow the Japanese to live comfortably in what North Americans would consider small spaces.

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Categories: design, Uncategorised

Handbuilt houses of the Pacific coast

February 10, 2009

Handbuilt houses of the Pacific coast

Sometimes after seeing too many chichi, precious, and citified houses, too much shiny, overproduced design, and everything just starts to look too estranged from the materials it was made from, as an antidote I go look at pictures of handbuilt houses.

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Tetsu Teahouse in Japan, by Terunobu Fujimori

February 3, 2009

Tetsu Teahouse in Japan, by Terunobu Fujimori

Minimalism and fantasy, together. The interior of this teahouse is simple and modern, while the fantastical exterior looks like something from a Hiyao Miyazaki film. The interior view of the sliding wooden doors or shutters is just beautiful.

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Handmade houses in Christiania

January 31, 2009

Handmade houses in Christiania

Maybe it’s because these houses are reminiscent of the tradition of handmade houses here on the West Coast, but there’s something pleasingly familiar about the eccentric wooden buildings of Christiana, the surreal, semi-autonomous, rebel neighbourhood of Copenhagen.

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Chan family house in 1950s Vancouver

January 30, 2009

Chan family house in 1950s Vancouver

These photographs are from my husband grandparents’ house, a blue Edwardian two-storey that still stands in Strathcona, Vancouver’s oldest residential neighbourhood. The house is less than a block away from our studio and very close to where we both live.

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Final Wooden House by Sou Fujimoto

January 18, 2009

Final Wooden House by Sou Fujimoto

This is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. It is the “Final Wooden House” by Sou Fujimoto, 2008, in Kamamura village in the south of Kyushu. It has just won Best Private Home award in the Wallpaper Design Awards 2009 and is probably on every design blog this week.

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