Hasta La Ideas

Italian architect Enrico Scaramellini squeezed this narrow holiday house into the passageway between two farm buildings in the Alpine countryside of northern Italy.

The house is named Wardrobe in the Landscape, in reference to the wooden shutters that swing open and closed across the narrow, closet-like facade.

Wooden panels are painted grey on the exterior, but left to their natural colours on the interior walls, floors and ceilings.

The building widens at the back, creating space for a single room.

Other retreats we’ve featured include an arrow-shaped house in Japan and a house on a sled in New Zealand.

See more stories about holiday homes »

Photography is by Marcello Mariana.

Here’s a project description from Enrico Scaramellini:

The project is based on two specific conditions: – on one side the client’s needs, looking for a small and intimate space; – on the other a small, special and precious place. The alpine landscape dominates the place: it becomes evident the condition of a privileged and unique space.

The concept of size guides the project. Great is the land, the landscape: small is the place, the space. There is a mutual relationship that inspires the design process. What is the role of the “room” in relation to the landscape? How the landscape reflects, “adopts” the room? The point of view changes in a frenzied search for balance.

A micro retreat for weekends, a place for contemplation, a clearing house from a daily hectic urban condition. A small wooden box fits between two existing buildings. Inside, the wood shows its nature in warm tones; outside, the surface treatment with silver-gray paints echoes the colors of the centenarian woods of rural buildings.

Site plan

The wooden panels, assembled with different development of the vein (horizontal – vertical), react to sunlight returning different geometric compositions.

Ground floor plan

Outside, almost in a mimetic condition, the new wooden facade seems to hide itself, in the shadows of the landscape, and then to confirm, with sunlight, its presence, dazzling, throwing a visible signal at a long distance.

First floor plan

Inside, the space becomes a privileged place overlooking the landscape. Almost an abstraction, an estrangement that allows to emphasize the privileged status of the “spectator”. A second level of thinking regards the stability of the building’s image in the landscape: spaces lived for short periods consolidate their status of “closed” places.

Section

The light that reflects differently on the wooden panels changes the appearance in colors and tones, the uninhabited façade lives of its own life. Finally, the project underlines yet another ambiguity: as a wooden container, as furniture and furnishing, it is “a wardrobe in the landscape”.

Elevation – click for larger image

The project operates in small size, uses simple devices to find a contemporary language within strongly characterized environmental contexts.

The post Wardrobe in the Landscape
by Enrico Scaramellini appeared first on Dezeen.

Danish designer Maria Bruun has created a trio of modular cabinets on spindly legs that nestle together to resemble an alien from Space Invaders.

Each piece in the Invader Storage System is on wheels, making it easy to move them around.

Drawers and cupboards can be stacked in different arrangements and slotted together.

The body of each cabinet is rectilinear, but the feet are shaped like pyramids.

See more stories about furniture on Dezeen »

Here’s the description from the designer:

Invader Storage System

Globalization is upon us, more and more people pilgrimage to the various metropolises of the world. As a result we are forced to live closer and closer to each other in smaller spaces. This also creates a new demand to our furniture where designers are forced to create products that allow the compressed lifestyle of modern consumers.

They say: ‘home is where the heart is’ but in my research I discovered that ‘home is where your stuff is’.

When I created Invader I visited 30 private homes for conversations and registrations on ‘how do people really live, and what constitutes ‘home’ for them’. During this process it became clear to me that people, however small they live, always have a collection of objects from around the world, favourite books, loving memories, and practicalities following them on their journey in life.

Through all their collected items people stage and identify ‘who they are’ or ‘who they want to be’ to the world.

Invader is a series of storage furniture with a focus on maximum flexibility for its user. Its modular flexibility, and construction on wheels creates a multiple of spatial solutions, and fills the need for both hidden and open storage.

The light long-legged aesthetic makes us question gravity and strength of the wooden legs, but a metal core in the construction provides maximal strength and allows the clean and simple, almost rigorous character of the furniture to stand out.

The stackable storage modules have a variation of three sizes and three basic functions; the drawer, the cabinet, and the surface. These three functions are the basic storage needs. A cabinet or drawer where we can hide the things that we do not want the world to see and a surface where we can stage the objects and stories we want the world to see.

The piece is inspired by its users needs and ways of living. How do we tell stories and stage our life and identity though our storage and collected objects? The project revolves around individual ways of living, collecting and creating what constitutes “home”.

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by Maria Bruun appeared first on Dezeen.

As temperatures soared in London earlier this week we all wanted to go for a dip, but none of the local facilities quite matched up to the pools that feature on our latest Pinterest board.

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