Hasta La Ideas

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Slideshow: the walls of this house in Tokyo by Japanese studio Apollo Architects & Associates stretch outwards around a secret balcony.

Projecting several metres in front of the two-storey house, the extended walls are supported by narrow columns and define the boundaries of a front entrance courtyard.

Narrow vertical windows frame the front door, which leads in towards bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor.

A cantilevered staircase with tapered treads leads up though the centre of the house to a living and dining room that occupies the entire top floor.

Apollo Architects & Associates have designed a number of interesting houses over the last few years – see a selection of them here.

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

More information from the architects is provided below:

RING

This project started with the plot which locates at a tranquil residential area in west Tokyo. The client is a high school teacher and his wife.

The first floor with slit windows lays a kids room, a main bedroom and a water area while the 2nd floor resolutely sets a family room with a large opening.

Taking the privacy into consideration, we adopted a court house with entrance attached and the wall encloses the south opening.

To answer to the coverage ratio, we set a grating balcony which functions as a gentle connection of the 1st and 2nd floor and as a stand to appreciate the view of the symbolized tree.

Making maximum use of the compact plot, the masters cherished modern furniture create lively and dynamic space which cannot be imagined from the outside.

Credit Information

Architecture: Satoshi Kurosaki/APOLLO Architects & Associates

Project Outline
Location: Kitayamacho Fuchu city Tokyo

Date of Completion: March 2012
Principal Use: Private House

Structure: RC
Site Area: 104.36m2
Total Floor Area: 88.98m2 (40.99m2/1F, 40.99m2/2F)

Structural Engineer : Kenta Masaki
Mechanical Engineer : Zenei Shimada

Material Information
Exterior Finish: Lath Mortar

Floor: Walnut Flooring & Tile/1F, Walnut Flooring & Tile/2F
Wall: Wall paper
Ceiling: Wall paper

Glaser plays with an age-old mandala theme and re-purposes to it to fit a more modern sensibility.

It’s always exciting to witness a master’s exploration in a new medium. At 82 years old, legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser reminds us that it’s never too late to become a student of a new field. His recent work with Lapchi, an Oregon-based carpet company that specializes in hand-woven, hand-dyed custom-made rugs made in Nepal, explores the traditional art of rugmaking. The result of this collaboration, a new 34-piece rug collection, is now on view (for one week only) at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in Los Angeles. To see the artist’s virtuosity in a new light has an uplifting effect.

Milton Glaser for Lapchi: An Exploration of Pattern Making and Color Effects in Textiles is Milton’s mind on display. It flits from an exploration of mystical Tibetan symbolism to a contemplation of nature, expressionist sensibility to bold, playful freeform. “I look upon this collection almost as a portrait of Milton. There isn’t one theme, but all themes point out to his different interests and his character,” says Andrew Neave, Lapchi’s artistic director.

Milton Glaser’s collection has about five or six themes that express his current interests.

The Milton Glaser collection is the largest Lapchi has ever produced and represents six years of collaboration between the two. Juggling Glaser’s busy schedule, commissioning small samples to be made in Nepal and revisions to be approved, the new collection celebrates Glaser’s mastery of color and form, while exploiting the unique qualities of a textile medium.

Coming from a pixel-precise profession such as graphic design, Glaser first had to understand the technical limits of handweaving. “Some images are too small or too difficult to achieve, they’re best used in a print medium.” After an initial round of very complicated designs that were too difficult for handweavers to achieve, Glaser began to have a feel for the medium and its possibilities. Though it wasn’t as exacting as graphic design, one can manipulate perception by changing the color, material, or method, which affects the way the light, bounces off the rug, explains Neave.

“Landscape” recalls a pond of water in a forest. The darker color palette lends the piece an air of grave solemnity, as opposed to the lighter color palette that changes the mood.

One cannot fully appreciate Glaser’s exhibition without understanding the process that goes into making a handwoven rug. It is when Glaser’s style and Lapchi’s creative accommodations mesh that textile transforms itself into an exciting medium. “If you were to look at it in a fashion sense, this collection is almost like haute couture,” says Neave.

(more…)

Seasoned food writer Nigel Slater presents an ode to fruit

In follow-up to “Tender“, his dedicated volume on vegetables, London-based food writer Nigel Slater turns to the fruit section of his garden in “Ripe“. The beautifully photographed tome serves as a comprehensive primer on 23 types of fruit and a collection of more than 300 recipes, but most importantly, reads like an alphabetically organized love letter to each and every variety, from apples and apricots to gooseberries, damsons and elderflower.

Overseeing a 40-foot terrace garden off his London flat, Slater extolls his devotion to fruit, which despite their secondary role in the importance of his growing efforts, fill him with an unparalleled sense of joy and wonder season after season. “I always knew that if ever I found a space in which to grow a few knobbly vegetables of my own, some of it would be set aside for fruit,” says Slater in an introduction that walks the reader through each row and past each bush and tree of his small city garden. “Their pleasures are brief, and yes, there is always a struggle to get there before the birds and the squirrels,” he continues. “But it is hard to find a mulberry more exquisite than the one you have grown for yourself, a strawberry more sweet, or a fig more seductive.”

Slater’s prose will delight fellow gardeners and offer indispensable instructions for the uninitiated. You may be inspired to start growing yourself, or at the very least, find a new appreciation for those who provide us with such sweet bounty at the market each week. Each fruit’s section comes prefaced with Slater’s deeply personal and highly informative analysis. “Without heat,” he says, “there is little point to the black currant. He goes on to pay homage to what he calls the “cook’s fruit” with concise recipe for making jelly—a hobby he picked up much to his amusement.

Each fruit he outlines by their behavior in the garden and purpose in the kitchen, listing details on their many varieties and offering proper pairings among different herbs spices and other ingredients. Throughout the practical introductions Slater reiterates the pleasure he derives from fruit, likening a bag of cherries to “a bag of happiness” because “their appearance, in deepest summer, comes when life is often at its most untroubled.”

Recipes are simple and thrilling. “When the oven has been on for a roast, I sometimes sneak in a dish of baked fruit,” offers Slater, as an intro to a recipe for baked pears with marsala. From lamb with quinces to classic applesauce and gooseberry fool, dishes represent rustic delicacies from several different cultures while sticking to Slater’s essential unfussy but still very passionate attitude toward his ingredients. Despite the collection’s creative range, the author reassures us “you should find nothing to raise an eyebrow…no flights of fancy, no strawberry sauce with chicken to upset the family at suppertime.”

All the sweetness of fruit shines through in their thorough explanation and simple imagery throughout this thick new book. “Ripe” drops 10 April 2012 and is currently available for pre-order through Ten Speed Press and Amazon.

A l’occasion de la sortie de l’album “La Notte”, Bird nous propose le clip illustrant le morceau “The Whole World Knows”. Réalisé par Aaron Bird avec Elise Clark, les images illustrent avec talent le repos et le charme de ce morceau. A découvrir dans la suite.

Previously on Fubiz

• Silent World
• Giant Bird’s Nest
• World Press Photo 2012

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