This film has been very difficult to see, consistently selling out (I saw scalpers at the last showing). The Vancouver International Film Fest is hosting this new set of screenings, based on the popular demand. 

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The post “Coast Modern” – film screenings in Vancouver this week appeared first on Ouno Design.

Can anyone identify this chair? Years ago, thinking I would ask a furniture making friend to reproduce it, I took its measurements but then did nothing with them. I’m passing them along in case anyone else would like to try.

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The post Unknown wooden chair appeared first on Ouno Design.

Wallander, the Swedish detective of Swedish books, TV and film, has now appeared in a BBC remake starring Kenneth Branagh. Shot in Sweden, the BBC remake has a Bergman-like mute bleakness despite the attractive minimalism of (most of) the interiors.

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My sister, an emergency pediatric doctor, can’t watch House M.D. because she says the medicine is either wrong or stupidly farfetched, and I feel the same way about the decor. What is all that pricey midcentury modern design doing in a hospital?

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Often the “before” shot is better than the “after,” but not here. Above is a nice use of nearly black paint on an old plaster wall in this Hemet, California midcentury cinderblock house.

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The post The Brick House appeared first on Ouno Design.

Kusari toi (sometimes translitered “doi”)—the Japanese characters are 鎖樋 which translates literally as “chain gutters”—are known in English as rain chains. They are used in Japan as downspouts to direct rain from a gutter to the ground, where it either flows into a gravel or pebble bed or into some sort of catchment.

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Pardon my ignorance, but please educate me – is there a non-aesthetic purpose for this, or is it just cool? We don’t have this where I come from. Does it stop water from flowing quickly off the roof, or prevent something from running around up there, or discourage sunbathing, or what does it do, exactly?

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The post Why rocks on the roof? appeared first on Ouno Design.

I love this house in La Quinta. I asked my California friend Darren why the town is called La Quinta, which means “fifth” in Spanish, and he wrote: “It’s called that because in colonial times, there were haciendas along major commercial routes that were reached every fifth day of travel.

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Not a rhetorical question. This is a hodgepodge sample, for sure, and spans decades, but all of it seems to partake of some form or other of adventurousness.

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The post Why is Australian design so cool? appeared first on Ouno Design.

I’m developing a taste for these. There are lots of dinky suburban tract versions of these perforated walls, but when the scale and placement are well thought out, they can be the building’s most arresting feature.

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The post Patterned concrete screens appeared first on Ouno Design.