Our job of the day from Dezeen Jobs is for an interior designer or architect to work for Naomi Cleaver, who has designed numerous student accommodation projects, including iQ Shoreditch in London. More ›
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Portuguese studio PROD has converted this 18th-century house and stables in northern Portugal into a 15-bedroom hotel, adding an elevated wooden bridge and a vaulted roof to the kitchen.
The Paço de Vitorino estate comprises a three-storey residence on the eastern side of the plot, and two wings on the northern and southern side that were previously used as a warehouse and stables.
There is also a small chapel placed alongside the entrance wall on the western side. Together, the wall and the richly adorned facades of the house and outhouses define a central square.
Designed for the heir of the Paço de Vitorino Count, who died in 2010, the architects restored existing features where possible in the six-bedroom house, and reconfigured the two outbuildings to create nine extra bedrooms for the hotel.
Under the instruction of the client, the architects used more traditional styles in the main house, while contemporary finishes were chosen for the converted spaces.
“For the spaces in which we maintained similar uses – such as in the main house – their brief was to try to recover the previous typical domestic atmosphere,” architect Paulo Lago de Carvalho told Dezeen, “while in the new spaces – former animal stables and the cellar in the basement – the brief was to transform it with a contemporary design.”
An elevated passage added above an internal courtyard in the main house provides an indoor link between the bedrooms, and the eating and socialising spaces.
The timber structure features a latticed grill with glass panels, which allows speckled light to illuminate the walkways.
“This new passage was designed to be a light timber structure, with a crossed-shaped grill covering the full size glass panels,” explained Carvalho. “Its angular shape tries to respond to the corner configuration of the patio granite passage.”
Another bridge that links the interior spaces to the baroque gardens, which features pools and statues, is made with dark steel and glass to contrast the existing granite walls and timber ceilings.
Inside the main house, the team inserted a vaulted roof above in the kitchen. It stops just before the existing chimney to allow for a large skylight to flood the space with natural light.
Rough stone walls lining the kitchen are painted cream, and the workspaces are made with wood and topped with steel. Copper pans double up as decoration for the space.
Along the outer side of the bedroom wings, the team added a series of recessed openings. The Corten steel framed windows are slightly recessed and open from the bedrooms to a patio area for sunbathing, and the baroque garden surrounding the hotel.
Inside the bedrooms, the architects have inserted a central volume made of ribbed wood that remains distinct from the original structure. The box houses marble bathrooms and wardrobes.
The style starkly contrasts the more traditional features of the bedrooms in the main house.
“The contrast in finishes is most evident in the bedrooms. That contrast is evident, since the wings bedrooms layout is based on the ‘wood cube’ placed in the middle of the space to organise it and enhance the large space where it rests, while in the main house the bedrooms are more traditional,” said the architect.
“These elements were placed strategically at a distance from walls and ceilings to simultaneously frame the features, organise the programme and enhance the surrounding space,” he explained.
Portuguese studio PROD was founded by Paulo Carvalho and Susana Correia in 2009. Other projects by the architects include a holiday home on the outskirts of Porto made up of four house-shaped buildings.
Photography is by Joao Morgado.
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This chic cutlery set is named “Giro” (from the Italian word for “turn”) for both its twist in the geometry and how the cutlery is turned in your hand when finding the best position for use.
The set, designed by Ben van Berkel/UNStudio for Alessi, features a twist that originates from the point where the handle transforms into blade and graduates along the length of the utensils. The ergonomic silhouette that is created by this gradual transformation creates a dynamic motion frozen in solid material and presents a balance between modern and classical.
A three finger concept for the holding and balance of the cutlery has been adopted in the design. The weight of the cutlery transfers from the lifting position to the position when in use, supporting and balancing the utensils in both situations.
Designer: UNStudio
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Design studio Michel/Fabian has created a spoon that claims to improve the flavour of food, by recreating the experience of licking your fingers.
The Goûte spoon is the result of years of research by Michel/Fabian co-founder Andreas Fabian into how the design of tableware can affect people’s perception of food and flavour, resulting in a PHD called Spoons and Spoonness.
The spoon has a tip shaped like a human finger, but its elongated overall shape makes it look more like a large icicle. It is designed for eating thick, creamy foods, similar to a honey dipper.
Fabian claims it makes food taste better, because it is more similar to the experience of licking your finger, rather than putting a strange object into your mouth.
“Food is one of the richest multi-sensory experiences, and defines our health and wellbeing, but also our relationship to others,” he said. “Some of our most delicious and memorable food experiences often come from eating without cutlery.”
“Eating with our bare hands, sucking our fingers, or even licking a plate are natural behaviours,” Fabian added.
In an experiment conducted with Oxford University’s Crossmodal Research Laboratory, Goûte was found to make food taste significantly better than a normal spoon. According to the research, the perceived value of the food went up by 40 per cent.
Fabian is now continuing his research at Buckinghamshire New University, along with studio co-founders Charles Michel and Daniel Ospina, both experts in the relationship between food and design.
“Conventional cutlery is a technology we put in our mouths every day, and currently it is only designed with functional purposes,” said Michel. “We want to offer eating utensils that enrich the sensual pleasures of eating.”
The designers have experimented with different materials to produce Goûte, including glass and various types of wood. They offer four different options for sale on their website – each found to offer a different experience.
The name Goûte is based on both the French word for taste, goût, and the word for a drop of liquid, goutte.
Michel/Fabian isn’t the first studio to explore how shape and material affects taste. Similar experiments have resulted in a set of knobbly, bulbous and serrated cutlery, and eating implements that purposefully slow down dining.
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Whether you’re a newbie writer or you’re already flailing in the uncertain waters of freelancing, it can be helpful to learn from others’ mistakes. Rookie mistakes are invaluable if a writer learns from them, says editor and writer Suzann Ledbetter Ellingsworth. “Then again, a writer should be, and should welcome being, an eternal rookie. Thankfully, the writing business presents unlimited opportunities to practice humility,” she said.
I’ve been doing this freelance thing for three years, and my climb from anonymity to relative success has been a grueling one. Come along, eternal rookies everywhere, and learn from some of the mistakes we’ve made.
It’s tempting to think you’re not worth much when you first start freelancing. And while you probably aren’t going to land that lucrative New York Times feature when you’re virtually unknown, that doesn’t mean you should write for free, either. I wasted precious time writing for a massive website that promised serious income if I generated enough “clicks” from readers, but never made more than $30 for writing over 30 well-constructed articles. There are paying markets for new writers: content farms, up-and-coming publications, trade magazines and multi-author blogs are a few examples. Tap into them first instead of selling yourself short.
You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger and say, “Hey! I need a new best friend, let’s go spend all day together,” would you? Though that’s one way to make a first impression, it’s certainly not the best way. Your pitch letter is your first impression on an editor—so it had better have a professional tone, be well-researched and be grammatically correct.
Know the market to which you’re submitting. C. Hope Clark, founder of FundsForWriters.com, says she would have taken more time studying markets she submitted to and avoiding pitching the same piece simultaneously to competing markets. “That lesson came with experience and it took a negative situation where competing markets accepted my work for me to learn that was a big no-no.”
However, this isn’t to say you should only send your work out to one market at a time. My strategy is to send the same pitch to two or three non-competing markets (an essay about postpartum depression, for instance, could be sent to both a women’s health magazine and a mommy blog). If a market rejects my pitch, I’ll immediately send it out to another similar publication. To increase my odds of publication, I also try to have a variety of pitches out at any given time, rather than focusing on selling one piece at a time.
David Henry Sterry made the same mistake with a book he’d been working on for five years. “I sent it to all these great agents and they all said, ah, your cake is half-baked!” He says he was lucky that they gave him the reasons it wouldn’t work, but more often than not it’s better to get that feedback from a friend, colleague or book doctor before you start chasing down agents and editors.
Unless you’re Barack Obama or Stephen King or Stephanie Meyer, people aren’t just going to mindlessly consume anything you write.
Sterry warns against tossing your life’s responsibilities to the wind because you believe your story is going to be a megahit. “I’ve got people who’ve written these books who are like, I’m going to take a second mortgage out on my house—I’m like, no, don’t take a second mortgage out! Please, I beg you! You’re not going to get a $100,000 advance for this book, ever!”
Ellingsworth is of the same mindset. “Magnum opus to ‘filler article about diaper rash’ writing is 100 percent reader driven.” She reminds new writers that even when professionals speak about how they really only “write for themselves,” they’re usually saying it at a promotional event, with the intention of selling their writing. Truly successful writers write with their audience in mind: Their readers’ needs and wants always come first.
You walk a fine line as a writer between having a strong online presence and oversharing. It’s valuable to connect with editors and colleagues on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+, but spamming them with photos of your lunch and your baby’s various bowel movements won’t do much to further your career.
I have worried about sensitive information going public in my writing. I’ve written a few anonymous pieces for Mommyish.com and they’ve been wonderful about honoring my privacy, but I wouldn’t have submitted these delicate stories if I didn’t already have a trusting relationship with the editorial staff.
You don’t have to be a blogger to get instant feedback on your writing anymore. Any piece you sell to an online publication has the potential to reach a massive, and often vocal, audience. Even magazine articles often get reprinted online.
Maria Guido, blogger and author, gives this advice: “Just chill out. Don’t worry about what everyone says because it really doesn’t matter. Try not to take every comment to heart because I totally believe that’s something people just do—all day! They just get online and attack people.” She also reminds writers that the people who comment are a very, very tiny portion of your actual collective readership.
I once wrote a hasty, overly sarcastic blog post for Mommyish, and it was met with a slew of comments attacking my character. I felt paralyzed for days—mostly because I knew I’d written poorly and in a way that was untrue to my voice, but also because readers who had loved my work were now claiming to hate me. I learned to take my time and to ask my editors for help when I was uncertain about something. I haven’t written anything I’ve been disappointed in since.
Remember: You’re the one getting paid to write. At the end of the day, if your editor is happy with your work and you’re happy with it, it doesn’t matter what the comment trolls have to say.
When I started freelancing, I thought it was a waste of time to study the masthead of a particular publication or learn about different editors’ preferences. I also didn’t read the publications to which I was submitting. I figured if I just sent a piece out to plenty of different markets, someone would eventually accept it. Plus, there was just so much else to do—file cabinets to organize, social media to update, ideas to jot down.
Ellingsworth says you can really only learn by reading, by doing—and by osmosis. I wholeheartedly agree. It’s no surprise that I sold my first “real” piece to Mommyish.com, a website I’d been pleasure-reading for months. Through osmosis, I’d figured out what kind of tone Mommyish preferred and what kinds of angles they needed for their pieces.
Another practical research tip for Internet writing: Just because a website doesn’t have a “submissions” page doesn’t mean they don’t accept work from freelancers. Dig a little deeper. Find an editor’s email address and send a brief email asking if they accept pitches from freelancers, and to whom you should send that pitch.
At the risk of sounding pretentious, I’ll say I knew I wanted to be a professional writer when I was 8. But I didn’t publish my first story until I was 17, I didn’t start making serious money writing until I was 25, and I didn’t have a readership until I was 27.
This isn’t to say it will take you 20 years to make it as a writer. But you have to put the work in and hope for the best. The whole process of freelancing is about building your portfolio, and using each job as a stepping-stone to the next bigger, better one.
Guido used her blog as her foundation for her writing career. “I really pursued the blog very aggressively and got it out there___ then I was able to use it as a resume to get writing jobs.” She adds, “Put in your time and have something that people can look at and see your body of work.”
If you keep at it, you’ll find your place in the freelance world. Exhaust your arsenal of knowledge. Everything you do, every hobby, skill or passion you have has the potential to become a salable story. Pay attention when you’re talking to friends or coworkers. Which of your stories intrigue them? What do people frequently come to you for advice on? If you’re always getting complimented on your garden or your extreme couponing habits or your ghost-hunting hobby, chances are there’s a readership that would benefit from your experiences. You’ll make mistakes, as all writers do, but as long as you have the gumption to bounce back from rejection and keep pitching your magnificent ideas, you’ll be unstoppable.
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This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
