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Update on the Loft For Los Angeles Home

A tiny house in Los Angeles relies on a mezzanine bedroom to make it a liveable space.

With space so expensive in the heavily built neighbourhood, it’s lot is half the size of its neighbours.

Despite this, the solution houses all the necessities of Los Angeles living with a simple plan.

The plan depends on a mezzanine bedroom.

It’s a familiar loft bedroom solution.

This means the rest of the space is one big open space with the living room to the front.

The kitchen is at the back behind the living room. Read the rest of this entry »

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An Urban Courtyard Oasis that Suggests a Stage Set

An urban townhouse that occupies the perimeter of the lot – designed for a single client as a brief break from a busy professional life – centers around a courtyard.

En-nobling the means to get home from work with a translucent white plastic screen, the garage is an ever-present part of the courtyard.

Dropping the keys and turning on the TV after a busy day, the client continues through the movie room to the kitchen to unload the groceries.

Movie-watching gets its own wide but shallow room – perfectly proportioned to maximize the experience – that leads directly off the car park.

…but perhaps take-out is brought home, instead!

In this non-kitchen kitchen: food appears on the table by magic. The cupboards are disguised as a modular wall system. Read the rest of this entry »

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More from Seijo Peon Arquitectos on Mexico’s Coast

After covering their gorgeous and well conceived house in Merida, Mexico, I had to see more from Seijo Peon Arquitectos.

This amazing solution to a familiar problem does not disappoint.

While this design looks as if it is for a luxury condo complex, it’s more complicated.

The clients, a couple with four grown daughters, had a single narrow lot facing the ocean view.

Each family was to get their own adjoining beach house on the same lot.

They had to be designed as though there were already neighbours on both sides, because here on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, there will be.

The clients had not foreseen that the now wide open, wild and empty coast would soon fill up.

The parents’ house at the front still serves as the main gathering place for all the families.

Although each house partially overlaps the one in front, it gets its own views on both sides, as the entrances lead up to small porches on the west side.

Its curved frame helps focus the stunning view. Read the rest of this entry »

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Design Dilemma: Some Precise Rules for Hanging Art

It’s not uncommon to see people who have a lot of art who don’t know how to hang it. Yes, the art is beautiful, but the way in which it is hung detracts from both the art and its surroundings. So for those at a loss of how to get the most visual impact from their art,  we are offering a few simple rules  to obtain a striking, curated look in your home. Follow them, and you’ll be met with oohs and ahhs everytime guests come to visit.

1) Aim to have a painting occupy two-thirds to three-quarters of a wall. Large walls occupied by postage-stamp sized pieces result in art that loses its potential impact. If you favor abstract and contemporary art, large is especially alluring. Below, a large painting is tremendously powerful in a dining room.

2) Keep your art centered at eye level. Keeping the art at this height makes it easier for the viewer to appreciate the painting. Take into account whether you will be sitting or standing when you view a piece. The painting below hangs a little lower because it’s in a dining room. In a different type of room, it might hang higher.

3) The bottom edge of a piece should hang no higher than six to 12 inches. The idea is that the painting helps define the space. If it floats too high above furniture it will feel disconnected. If it sits lower, it will help tie together a furniture grouping. For example:

Just think how odd these rooms would look if the paintings were hung any higher:

4) Create a gallery wall tied together by colors, theme or materials. Below we see two examples. In the first, taupe, beige and sepia tones come together to create a wall that feels very integrated. This owner has relied on less-expensive prints to fill out an art collection.

And in the gallery wall below, the collector has grouped a number of portraits of women for a quirky, curated feel.

5) Make art the inspiration for the entire room. In the room below, the deep browns and reds were used as a starting point to inform the rest of the room, to great success.

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An Intriguing House in Peru

OK. From the outside, this house in Peru is a little blunt.

But a curious sail appears poised above it.

The sail creates a shaded roof deck that is open all around.

In the distance, strangely similar mysterious boxy white houses form the neighbourhood, with similar protection from the intense afternoon sun.

Designed by Gómez de la Torre & Guerrero Arquitectos, the center of the house is open to the sky.

The stairs lead up to a rooftop pool, and down to a central courtyard, revealing a Spanish ancestry to the house in Canete, Peru.

An interesting glass walkway is supported on struts, and keeps rain off the entrance to the rooms below leading off the courtyard.

Glass also encases the stairway to the roof.

Overhead, a retractable roof brings in sun and air in good weather.

Shades of M.C. Escher, its central staircases are intriguing. Read the rest of this entry »