Hasta La Ideas

Our job of the day from Dezeen Jobs is for a business development manager to join OMA in Rotterdam, which recently designed an adaptable amphitheatre for this year’s MPavilion in Melbourne. More ›

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Austin-based North Arrow Studio has raised this glazed house on stilts to offer its residents elevated views over tree tops in rural Texas, using the iconic Farnsworth House as a reference.

Located in Texas Hill Country near Austin, The RoadRunner Residence is modelled on modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s famous house, which is also built in a rural setting – on the edge of Fox River, Illinois.

As with the original, North Arrow Studio made the walls of the one-storey Texas house mainly from glass to open up the interiors to the surroundings. On the western side, all the living spaces are offered views of the rolling wooded hills.

“The home takes cues from one of the most recognised designs of modern architecture; the Farnsworth House designed by Mies Van der Rohe,” the architects told Dezeen.

“The western facade of the home is mostly glass with minimal interruptions, and provides some of the most stunning views in Texas.”

Completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House is considered an important example of the international style and one of Mies van der Rohe’s most revered works. Earlier this year it was revealed that the story behind the project is set for the silver screen, with Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges set to play the famous modernist architect.

Along with the glazing, the stilts of North Arrow Studio’s design are also adapted from the Farnsworth’s, although much taller than the 1.5-metre-high originals.

The rear of the house rests on these stilts, while the front is supported by a concrete structure. Both work together to lift the house above the tree canopy.

“[The home] looks as if it is floating, nestled comfortably within the trees of the Texas Hill Country,” said the studio, which completed the house in 2014.

Other similarities include the overhanging flat roof, which provides shelter to a long decked balcony that runs along the rear. Each space inside the house, including the lounge, dining room, study and bedroom, has a door that opens to the terrace.

There is also platform at the entrance to the house, which extends into a paved pathway running diagonally to the garage at the front.

Inside, white walls and pale wooden flooring are offset by wallpaper featuring colourful geometric patterns.

A series darker wooden touches are found on a wall in the hallway and the underside of the kitchen counter, which contrast the rear wall covered with a white herringbone pattern and the white cabinets.

Other residences completed nearby in Austin include a hill-side house with charred-wood siding that creates a “camp-like aesthetic”, and a lake-side cottage situated among cypress trees.

Photography is by Chase Daniel.

The post North Arrow Studio’s Texas woodland residence takes cues from Mies van der Rohe appeared first on Dezeen.

Austin-based North Arrow Studio has raised this glazed house on stilts to offer its residents elevated views over tree tops in rural Texas, using the iconic Farnsworth House as a reference.

Located in Texas Hill Country near Austin, The RoadRunner Residence is modelled on modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe‘s famous house, which is also built in a rural setting – on the edge of Fox River, Illinois.

As with the original, North Arrow Studio made the walls of the one-storey Texas house mainly from glass to open up the interiors to the surroundings. On the western side, all the living spaces are offered views of the rolling wooded hills.

“The home takes cues from one of the most recognised designs of modern architecture; the Farnsworth House designed by Mies Van der Rohe,” the architects told Dezeen.

“The western facade of the home is mostly glass with minimal interruptions, and provides some of the most stunning views in Texas.”

Completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House is considered an important example of the international style and one of Mies van der Rohe’s most revered works. Earlier this year it was revealed that the story behind the project is set for the silver screen, with Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges set to play the famous modernist architect.

Along with the glazing, the stilts of North Arrow Studio’s design are also adapted from the Farnsworth’s, although much taller than the 1.5-metre-high originals.

The rear of the house rests on these stilts, while the front is supported by a concrete structure. Both work together to lift the house above the tree canopy.

“[The home] looks as if it is floating, nestled comfortably within the trees of the Texas Hill Country,” said the studio, which completed the house in 2014.

Other similarities include the overhanging flat roof, which provides shelter to a long decked balcony that runs along the rear. Each space inside the house, including the lounge, dining room, study and bedroom, has a door that opens to the terrace.

There is also platform at the entrance to the house, which extends into a paved pathway running diagonally to the garage at the front.

Inside, white walls and pale wooden flooring are offset by wallpaper featuring colourful geometric patterns.

A series darker wooden touches are found on a wall in the hallway and the underside of the kitchen counter, which contrast the rear wall covered with a white herringbone pattern and the white cabinets.

Other residences completed nearby in Austin include a hill-side house with charred-wood siding that creates a “camp-like aesthetic”, and a lake-side cottage situated among cypress trees.

Photography is by Chase Daniel.

The post North Arrow Studio’s Texas woodland residence takes cues from Mies van der Rohe appeared first on Dezeen.

In the 1980s BMW began flexing their design muscles, forming an internal division called BMW Technik to develop new vehicle concepts and technologies. This division was to be…

…a kind of think tank in a cutting-edge company branch that would be completely isolated from all other development departments. The idea was to give highly skilled BMW engineers, technicians and designers free rein to work on turning their best creative concepts into reality themselves.

The Technik division’s first project was the groundbreaking Z1 roadster. 

By Karrmann – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The “Z” stood for Zukunft, “future” in German, and the car lived up to the name: It had a multi-link rear suspension (a big deal in 1985), xenon headlights (also a big deal in 1985), removable plastic body panels so that the driver could change the color of the entire car by swapping them out…

…and most famously, these crazy doors:

The doors could even be open and closed on the fly, if the driver wanted a more open-air feel:

Here’s a look at the mechanicals beneath the door skins:

To help you understand what you’re seeing, here’s the description of the mechanism from BMW:

The mechanism for the doors and side windows was driven by two electric motors and a toothed belt. The motors incorporated a freewheel function to allow the doors and windows to be operated manually if necessary. To avoid burdening the actual door with additional weight, all of the electrical and mechanical components were integrated in the car’s body. A double mechanical lock acting on the doors in both opened and closed position prevented rattling noise and excessive door movement while driving. The side windows could, of course, be lowered separately from the doors: after the doors had been opened and closed again, the windows automatically returned to their previous position.

And yes, the two mechanics in the latter two videos finally figured out how to solve the closing problem:

The Z1 was difficult to produce, taking nearly four years to bring to market in 1989. BMW claimed that they had 35,000 orders, but the car “[had] to be built largely by hand on account of its unusual design characteristics and the materials used,” so they were never able to build more than 20 Z1s per day; during the entire production run, which lasted from ’89 to ’91, only 8,000 were produced. If you ever see one of these on the road, count yourself extremely lucky!

You can read more about the Z1 here.

It’s 2017, which means we’ve come ten years into the iPhone hysteria with phones that have undoubtedly changed our world as we know it. Along with these phones came dreams, expectations, and as a result of them, concepts. We’ve seen everything from clear iPhone renders, to curved smartphone images. Today’s concept is no less. As we celebrate the iPhone’s tenth birthday, here’s a look at the iPhone 8 concept by Emad Rahimi. Even though leaks have shown us what the upcoming iPhone will look like, Emad’s design gives the iPhone 8 a bezel-less design highly reminiscent of Xiaomi’s Mi Mix phone (designed by the one and only Philippe Starck). The design retains the home button, however, even though rumors are that TouchID is all set to get integrated into the smartphone’s screen (Vivo’s smartphones just managed to pull off this engineering marvel). Although the design looks a little premature (in the designer’s defense, most iPhones look like beveled slabs), it gives us a taste of what the highly anticipated iOS 11 will look like on a device. Plus, is that a front facing camera on the bottom right corner? Hmmm…

Designer: Emad Rahimi