Home Design Find

No Comments »

A Sophisticated Beachfront Home in Venice Beach, California

Dan Brunn Architecture built this striking home in a region of Venice Beach already noted for outstanding modern architecture.

Giant shutters on the side are fully movable for privacy when needed, while still providing panoramic beach views.

The clients are both professional photographers, and their home is also a public showcase for their work.

Unlike many in this part of Venice Beach, they live and work here year-round.

So the home is no beach cottage, but a professional live-work space.

A shared office space overlooks a small grass courtyard, giving a breath of fresh air while working on the computer.

Interestingly, this same plot of grass also opens onto a wide open bathroom

The wall on the other side of the grass can be closed off for privacy during the summer season when there might be people around.

Two sides of the building have open walls, the first of which facing the beach and the other facing a public walkway that borders the home’s property.

Two floors have the potential to be turned into a gallery or party space, with only the top story being exclusively private.

A private deck off the upstairs bedroom is a pared-down space that echoes the serene and simple view beyond.

The detailing throughout is perfectionist in its scrupulous minimalism.

The result is a sleek and sophisticated live-work home for two photographers all in black and white – like an old photograph.

No Comments »

Design Trend: All Eames Reproductions are Not Alike

The iconic Eames lounger, designed by Ray and Charles Eames in 1956, has become one of the most sought-after furniture pieces today.  It exudes California cool, which makes sense, since the duo originally designed the chair for their Hollywood director friend Billy Wilder.  Along with comfort, simplicity and elegance, the Eames chair offers beautifully rounded curves suggesting something organic and sheltering, which also explains why so many of us love to spend hours nestled within its welcoming confines.

Are you thinking of investing in an Eames lounger for your home? If so, you should know that not all reproductions are alike. There are good ones and bad ones, and just as in any investment, it pays to take a little time to do your homework. Here’s what you should look for:

The overall shape. A quality reproduction, such as that manufactured by Rove Concepts,  offers the right proportions. Many poor replicas are much larger than the original designs, but a quality reproduction respects the original intent of Ray and Charles to design a chair that is as comfortable as a barc-o-lounger, but nowhere near as big. Check out the difference below. On the left, you have a poor knock-off that looms over the original design, on the right. At Rove,  the full original specifications and details are incorporated into the design, so if you were to put an original next to a Rove reproduction you would see no discernible difference.  It’s lounge-y comfort without the bulk!

The proportions are also respected when it comes to the base. A poor reproduction gets the look wrong, inclining the legs at a pitch that’s too steep, as you can see in the photo on the left, versus the original on the right.

Another important difference is this: when you look at a good reproduction versus a poor one, you will notice that a good one is much more angled, just like in the line produced in 1956.

The armrests
A good reproduction extends the chair’s sleek profile right to the armrests, which are thin. The Rove Concepts armrest, for example,  is contoured to the original design.  Underneath the armrest, Rove uses the same rubber shock mount used in the original.  This is extremely important to create the proper flex while sitting back on the chair. And also important, there are no visible screws on the plywood!

Quality leather

Here again, the Rove Concepts reproduction wins out over others. Their version uses high grade Italian leather, and the most expensive type of foam resulting in deep tufting lines. Using the correct foam, the Eames lounge chair looks exactly as it should and even more importantly, sits as comfortably as it should.  Low cost knock offs, on the other hand,  stretch the leather to save on costs, and use cheap foam that quickly flattens.

The details

Here’s where a quality reproduction really stands apart. Rove features double sided veneer. Both the outside and inside of the wood frame are fully veneered with imported wood veneers. A cushion-locking mechanism means that the chair has easily interchangeable parts. The way Rove cushions are secured to the veneer is engineered to match the original – to the extent you can actually swap cushions with an original Eames. A cheap version, on the other hand uses glue, Velcro, or nails to secure the cushion to the veneer. The inside veneer is never finished, which you can notice if you take a peek under the armrest.

So to sum up, here’s what you will notice in a shoddy Eames reproduction:

No Comments »

Amazing Courtyard Roof Creates Boxes of Sky

I love the roof of this courtyard home from Guadalajara, in Mexico.

Designed by DIPLAN, this extraordinary courtyard roof is the star turn in a very unusual home.

The house is designed around a central courtyard.

A skyway stair leads up to the roof terrace that circumnavigates the ‘sky boxes’.

The central courtyard is surrounded on the ground floor by the public spaces of the house.

While the bedrooms surround the upper courtyard on the second floor.

The huge shapes create pop art shadows analogous to the leaves of a tree.

By night, these now boldly lit shapes are even more intriguing.

You have to wonder what the neighbours think!

“We do not intend to invent, but rather to rediscover the old familiar courtyard of the typical old houses of Guadalajara,” say the architects.

They say the blue of the sky and the white of the stucco creates “a canvas for shadows always moving.”

The plain wall provides a permanent outdoor movie projection screen in the privacy of the courtyard space.

Light spills from the central courtyard into all of the relatively shallow surrounding spaces.

An intriguing kitchen skylight deliberately fosters the impression that its ceiling is as open to the sky as the courtyard’s.

A small kitchen garden brings some of nature’s abundance within the walls.

To protect from rain, the rooms opening onto the courtyard are glazed.

The interior facades facing the courtyard are carefully planned and geometrically ordered.

And the courtyard roof is an ever present reminder of what the architects describe as “a window to the clouds and stars. A facade parallel to the sky that others forget, but here is equally important to all. The face of the house that the angels see.”