jeffwongdesign

Pretty amazing homes with a lovely landscape view. The use of glass and staging of the room really showcases the environment. I’m hoping to have something like this… one day. Check it out.

Hermit crabs make their home in the New York skyline or a Paris apartment in the intricately crafted plastic habitats, which the artist simply left among natural seashells as options for the creatures.

japanese artist aki inomata creates intricately crafted plastic habitats for hermit crabs, which are influenced by the architecture of major cityscapes — the new york city skyline, a parisian apartment, and a tokyo-style house. the semi-transparent, delicate forms are designed in the style of physical human environments, which ironically become a shelter for the aquatic arthropods.

the biology of the hermit crab makes it a fascinating example of identity transfer — as they grow they require larger shells and periodically interchange their external portion with other members of the crustacean community. inomata connects her study of the hermit’s transformation to the self-adaptation of humans, whether it be in acquiring a new nationality, immigrating or relocating.

throughout her creative process, she determined that her plastic representations needed to sustain and support the hermit crab’s careful shell-selection process. she used CT scanning, typically a medical imaging procedure that produces cross-sectional pictures of the body, to capture highly-detailed, 3-dimensional renderings of an unoccupied seashell, which one of her hermit crabs had abandoned.

based on the tomography of the interior of the shell, she prototyped and produced several types of habitable shelters, which the hermits would find similar in construction to their usual exoskeleton. –DesignBoom.com

Pretty cool idea. Now that we have more accessible 3d printers, it’s exciting to see how people are using them. Pretty creative idea.

This is a luxury home in Cape Town, South Africa.

Antoni Associates was approached by a young family looking to relocate from the bustling city to a more relaxed life in the country. The family settled on this residence, called Pearl Valley 276, situated near Paarl, about 30 minutes away from Cape Town, South Africa. The owner’s were looking for what they described as “barefoot luxury” where the interior was modern, but full of natural materials.

The glass stair railing keeps the hallway open and light from the floor-to-ceiling windows fills the space.

Rich wood floors are used throughout the home, warming up the raw concrete ceilings.

The pool can be viewed from all areas of the home with the massive sliding glass doors that completely open the spaces up.

The open concept kitchen area opens right up to the informal living room with views to the outdoors. Bold colors are interspersed with the natural materials, creating a cozy balance.

Using natural organic materials, like timber and stone, they were able to create a sense of warmth in the otherwise contemporary structure of the home.

The materials create a tactile feel, contrasting with the sleek, modern furnishings.

Really impressive home. I’m digging how natural it feels. Probably a little too formal for my personal taste, but it’s well designed. Everything just has such a tactile feel.

Okay, technically these are not “bonsai”, but it’s a fun play off the idea. Really liking how they look. The use of plant life in this space is very nice.

I really like how they added a little ground lighting underneath the concrete deck. Lighting the siding in the corners is a pretty brilliant idea too. It just gives the home so much more dimension.

Saw this one on interest recently. Casting the shadows from the exterior trees creates an incredible effect on the translucent window. Really clever.

Lighting the cars from underneath really show cases the cars. What really makes this special is the mirrored ceiling. Being able to enjoy the cars from every angle is brilliant.

Through a kind of architectural anthropomorphism, Henrique Oliveira reveals the building’s structure. At Palais de Tokyo, he plays on the space’s existing and structuring features, prolonging and multiplying pillars in order to endow them with a vegetable and organic dimension, as though the building were coming alive. The artist draws inspiration from medical textbooks, amongst others, and particularly from studies of physical pathologies such as tumors. Through a formal analogy, these outgrowths evoke the outermost layers of the bark of a common tree.

Wow, pretty impressive installation. It’s always incredible to see this kind of work integrated with architecture.