Interior Design

This beautiful photograph of radishes in a yellowware bowl looks like a painting. All rights reserved by raewillow on Flickr.

If the 2013 ICFF handed out an award for the most photogenic (and most photographed) piece of furniture, it would surely have gone to Carlo Aiello’s jaw-dropping Parabola Chair. Already the winner of the 2013 ICFF Studio Award prior to arriving in New York for the trade show, this chrome-plated steel stunner caused us, and everyone else within eyeshot range, to stop, stare, and reach for cameras almost on cue. Aiello, a Los Angeles-based architect, states on his website, “The design intention of the Parabola Chair was to create a simple and porous yet highly sculptural chair. The challenge was to achieve a single surface that serves as seating, armrest, and backrest supported by a minimal structure.” Not surprisingly, a chair this radical-looking involved months of experimentation, and Aiello is justifiably proud of its dramatic curves being comprised of straight, easy-to-manufacture components; and construction that requires no hardware, making the chair impervious to outdoor elements. And while it’s true that on the comfort scale, the Parabola Chair may be wanting, that may be beside the point. In person, Aiello unabashedly admitted to setting out to create, in his words, a statement chair. And, if public and critical acclaim is any measure, he’s managed to achieve his goal—dazzlingly. Photos: Carlo Aiello

Architectural sketches and motifs are etched across the concrete walls of the Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin by Russian architecture collective SPEECH Tchoban/Kuznetsov. (more...)

Materials: Linnmon high-gloss white tabletop (59x29½); Expedit 4x2 shelving unit; 2 Expedit drawer inserts, high-gloss white; 2 Expedit door inserts; 12 Capita legs; Lack shelf, high gloss red (43¼x10¼) Description: My wife and I have wanted to put together a standing desk for a long time, and took our recent move as an opportunity to finally do it. After spending a lot of time on Ikea Hackers and ikea.ca, a couple of visits to Ikea, and several draft designs, we've ended up with this, and we think it's pretty awesome. Our favorite part is that the desk itself functions as a white-board. When designing yours, you'll want to keep in mind the target height of your desk, and account for it by varying the legs you use. Ikea offers the Capita legs in 3 different heights, so by combining them you should be able to get pretty close to your desired height. In our case, I'm about 5'11" and my wife's probably 5'3" or 5'4". Accounting for the thickness of the tabletop itself, our final desk height is 41", which is pretty comfortable for both of us. Ingredients: - Linnmon high-gloss white tabletop (59x29½): $39.00 - Expedit 4x2 shelving unit (approximately 31x15½ x58½ ): $79.00 - 2 Expedit drawer inserts, high-gloss white: 2 x $25.00 - 2 Expedit door inserts (high-gloss red & high-gloss white): 2 x $15.00 - 12 Capita legs (4¾â?): 3 x $16.99 - Lack shelf, high gloss red (43¼x10¼): $24.99 Recipe: - Build the Expedit, in our case leaving out one of the smaller shelves to make room for the computer. > NOTE: Looking at the Expedit in the horizontal position, the vertical separators are indispensable. In my opinion, you would be ill-advised to leave out any of those, as they provide structural support. - Drill 6 Capita legs into the bottom of the Expedit. The Expedit seemed to be made of solid wood, so a drill was necessary but the capita legs feel nice and stable. > Ikea makes a caster set designed specifically to support the Expedit in its horizontal position, and they use 6 casters, including 1 pair to support the middle of the unit. Based on that, I decided to use 6 Capita legs, including 2 for support in the middle. - Break out the Linnmon tabletop, and line it up on top of the Expedit. Figure out where the Expedit will be below it, and mark the widest (most stable) possible locations for the other 5 (yes 5) Capita legs. > Given that there wouldn'??t be much weight on the desktop and that I wanted to use the space between the Expedit and Linnmon for storage of stuff, I decided not to use a Capital in the middle in front. You can sort of see in one of the photos what I mean: There are 3 legs along the back of the tabletop, but only 2 in front. > When you'??re thinking about how you want to position everything, keep in mind that the further back you set the Expedit under the Linnmon, the harder it'll be to get at those drawers. We set the Expedit about 4â? back under the tabletop. - Drill holes for the capita legs in the Linnmon, and screw them in. Note that the edges of the Linnmon are solid wood, so the outside 4 legs are good. But the center of the desktop is fibreboard, or hollow filled, or whatever, so be gentle with that center Capita. It'??s only there to provide support, and you'??re only drilling it in to prevent it from sliding around. - Now figure out how high you want your monitors. "??Ergonomics" says that the top of the monitor should be right around eye level when looking straight forward. - If you'??re going to use the lack shelf to support your monitors, FIND STUDS IN YOUR WALL. If you screw the shelf into drywall or particle board and put two monitors on it (possibly even one monitor), it's liable to just rip right out of the wall, wrecking everything from your wall to the Expedit below, including your monitor. If you donâ??t know how to find studs or aren't comfortable, you have lots of other options: prop the monitors up on books; ge

I LOVE this little 775 sq ft apartment located in Malmesbury, UK (it's a unique hilltop market town established in 880AD!!!). This property dates to 1850, is solid stone and has been totally renovated. I'm forever a fan of old, rustic homes brought into the 21st century - love the stone walls and the beamed ceilings. It has such a cosy feel to it. The kitchen design is pretty creative - I take it it's for folks who mostly eat out (although it even has a dishwasher!). How cool that it's accessed from the road via a courtyard so it's totally private. More details here and the agent's page here.

This is how the seller sees the house. This is how the potential buyer see the house. This is how the lender sees the house. This is how the appraiser sees the house. This is how the county tax assessor sees the house. What the buyers are thinking. I wish there were a picture showing how hard the realtor has to work to get it sold.

Read the rest of Low-budget School in Africa is Made From Earth Bricks that Were Fabricated On Site Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | digg Post tags: Africa, Architecture, Dogon Education, earth, earth bricks, green materials, green resources, Joop and Jurriaan van Stigt, local materials, local people, mali, recycling / compost, social design

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[ By Steph in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ] One hundred years from now, will we be living on other planets, teleporting from place to place, communicating to each other telepathically, or even becoming immortal by shifting human consciousness from our biological bodies to artificial ones? These predictions for the distant future seem outrageous and virtually impossible to achieve, yet steps are being made toward them at this very moment. The seeds of the potential future wonders of the world have already been planted, and in many cases, it’s not a question of whether they’ll happen, so much as when. Teleportation (images via: physical review focus, ail) As unlikely as this may sound, teleportation isn’t entirely sci-fi. Physicists have already succeeded in teleporting photons – but right now, it’s not so much about teleporting matter from one location to the next, as it is information. Quantum teleportation is a complex topic involving concepts like ‘entanglement’, the connection that links the quantum states of two particles no matter who far apart they are. Teleporting a single particle is one thing, but what about human beings, Star Trek style? As PBS’ The Nature of Reality column explains, “Remember that we wouldn’t be moving Kirk’s molecules from one place to another. He would interact with a suite of previously-entangled particles, and when we read the quantum state we would destroy the complex quantum information that makes his molecules into him while instantly providing the information required to recreate his quantum state from other atoms in a distant location. Quantum mechanics doesn’t forbid it. The rules of quantum mechanics still apply whether you’re talking about a system of two particles or human being made of 1027 atoms.” The verdict? Teleportation is certainly possible, and scientists may soon begin working on attempts to teleport living matter, like viruses. Physicist Michio Kaku believes that the transport of a molecule will happen within the next ten years, followed by DNA, but that teleporting an entire human is probably still centuries away. Artificial Intelligence Surpassing Human Intelligence (images via: mashable) How long do we have until human-level artificial intelligence is achieved? H+ Magazine surveyed experts, asking when they estimated AI would meet four major milestones: carrying on a conversation well enough to pass as a human, solving problems as well as a third grade student, performing Nobel-quality scientific work, and finally, surpassing human intelligence altogether. Robots can already see, hear, learn, solve problems and respond to questions, and some are even getting senses of smell and taste. The Eccerobot is creepily human in its movements thanks to artificial muscles and bones. The general consensus was that we’ll have AI at the human level or beyond will happen by the middle of the century, or maybe even sooner – but may not surpass humans for a hundred years, if ever. Space Settlements (images via: space.com) Applications are now open for a one-way ticket to a private space settlement on Mars. The Mars One project intends to land supplies on the red planet in 2016, and get settlers there by 2023; about 78,000 people have already applied. The company responsible, Lansdorp, insists that the technology needed to achieve this lofty goal already exists. And according to a group of astronauts, researchers and space flight firms who met in May 2013 for the first Human to Mars Summit, establishing a permanent, sustainable outpost on another planet might be a matter of saving the human species. Supplies would be dropped off first, and then a crew of either humans or robots would construct the base. There are a lot of obstacles, not the least of which is the question of transportation between Earth and Mars, and whether Mars inhabitants could maintain their own food source, rather t

David Ho of edg Corporation has designed the headquarters of Qihoo 360 in Beijing, China. Description This is the new headquarters of Qihoo 360 Technology Co., ltd. Design Director David Ho binding ‘Large Hadron Collider’ and 360’s ‘Subversive Innovation’ corporate culture to design. Try to find out the future office for 360, the number one leading cloud-based Internet and mobile security products and services in China as measured by user base. At the end of March 2012, there are about 411 million monthly active Internet users, according to iResearch. When was ready to start the design in 2012, the world’s largest underground particle acceler in Geneva (Large Hadron Collider, referred to as LHC) have discovered the Higgs boson (Higgs). The Higgs boson is a physicist called the last undiscovered elementary particles in the standard model, finding the Higgs boson is the key to unlock the Universe mystery of Big Bang. The news gave inspiration to David Ho, combined with the subversive innovation company culture and collider concept into design. According to this concept, he designed 4 radial capsule shape ‘Future Collider’ in the two floor high open area in 6th floor, provide employees brainstorm space to create more creative ideas. These ‘Future Collider’, sitting on bamboo flooring, are constructed by using straw board, a renewable agriculture bi-product to create an innovative solution for sustainable construction and healthy office environment of interior decoration. It was also the main material used in 2010 Shanghai World Expo Pavilion. The straw board based on 100% superior wheat straw; using formaldehyde-free adhesive (p-MDI) through hot press process with low carbon furnishing, healthy and environment-friendly structural. As they are “zero wood” content, this products help reducing deforestation, which in turn has a further positive impact on the quality of the air we breath. A climbing wall and a giant inflatable castle is installed to another 2 floor high open space where particularly devoted to the staff also their family when visit the office for having relaxing. Very much reflects the good care of employees of the company culture. In the centre meeting area, designers configured three round public meeting rooms. This shape is also a metaphor for the logo of 360. Most of the workstations are allocated along the window so employees can enjoy the best view and natural light. In each floor, there is a public pantry near the core area and the main circulation to rise/inspire more interactivities between staffs. David Ho’s design concept not only bring the ‘Green Space’ to the working space, but also take 360 companies’ User Experience ‘cultural to transfer to ‘Staff’s Experience ‘ for 360’s new HQ office. Design Company: edg Corporation Ltd. Chief Designer: David Ho Designer: Echo Zhang, Serena Shu, Tian Ren Photographer: David Ho