Hasta La Ideas

Design consultancy LifeEdited has built a family home on Hawaiian island Maui, as a model for sustainable, off-grid living.

The LifeEdited: Maui residence was completed last year to showcase methods of constructing, furnishing and running a house with as little environmental impact as possible.

The black building is entirely self-sufficient, boasting a combination of design and technology features that save and produce energy, and collect and store rainwater.

“We are presenting a vision of the future that is sustainable, resilient and frankly, awesome,” said LifeEdited founder Graham Hill.

“With as much as 70 per cent of global carbon emissions tied to constructing, operating and furnishing buildings, the project is a firsthand representation of how we can reshape our future, starting with life at home.”

The two-storey house sits on a steep remote site. Measuring 1,000 square feet (93 square metres), its flexible layout includes four bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and an indoor-outdoor area for cooking, eating, working and relaxing.

All of the living space is located on the upper level, while a garage and storage facilities are housed underneath.

Space-saving furniture in the lounge and bedrooms allows the areas to be used for different functions, depending on the occupants. LifeEdited said the home is capable of entertaining up to 20 people.

The house is outfitted with efficient LED lights and a low-energy air-conditioning system. Windows and sliding doors are made from a high-performance composite called Fibrex, while tiles are partially composed of recycled materials.

Thin solar panels cover the gently pitched roof, collecting 10,550 watts of power to supply everything in the house, and charging a 1973 Volkswagen Thing that has been converted to electric. A Blue Ion 2.0 Energy Storage System in the garage acts as a battery.

Rainwater is collected from the roof via chains at each corner, filtered on-site and stored in a tank close to the home.

LifeEdited: Maui is designed to comply with the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which aims to implement 100 per cent clean energy across the island chain by 2045.

The second largest of the Hawaiian islands, Maui is a popular location for holidaymakers, second homes, and retirement retreats.

Other new houses on the island include a getaway comprising to small pavilions and a clifftop residence with a faceted concrete roof, which are both designed to make the most of the warm climate.

The post Hawaiian house by LifeEdited harvests more energy and water than it consumes appeared first on Dezeen.

For the past several months, industrial designer Ti Chang and her team at Crave have been renovating an old Airstream trailer for an unusual purpose: Rather than prepping it for a camping trip, they’ve converted it into a rolling build-a-vibrator workshop to tour the country.

Crave has been holding build-your-own-vibrator workshops for years, finding them a helpful and informative way to engage customers. With the trailer, they can now take the workshops on the road, reaching more people around the country. They debuted the just-completed Airstream at the World’s Fair Nano in San Francisco this weekend, complete with Vibrator Technicians on hand to answer fairgoers’ questions. 

The interior has been transformed into a gallery showcasing Crave’s products, and one end of the trailer features a workshop area where attendees can build their own vibrators.

Here’s Chang discussing the project and the ultimate goal of the trailer:

And here’s the video for Crave’s crowdfunding campaign:

You can read our earlier Q&A with Chang here, and you can support the crowdfunding campaign here.

Want to see how a Crave vibrator comes together? Stay tuned!

French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, known for dressing icons including Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, has passed away at the age of 91.

The news of Givenchy’s death was confirmed yesterday by his partner, couture designer Philippe Venet.

In a statement released to the Agence France-Presse, he said the designer had died in his sleep on Saturday, 10 March 2018.

Givenchy’s eponymous fashion house, which he founded in 1952, later released a statement – describing the designer as a “gentleman who symbolised Parisian chic”.

“His enduring influence and his approach to style reverberate to this day: with his first couture collection, in 1952, he championed the concept of separates,” it read. “His work remains as relevant today as it was then. He will be greatly missed.”

The House of Givenchy is sad to report the passing of its founder Hubert de Givenchy, a major personality of the world of French Haute Couture and a gentleman who symbolized Parisian chic and elegance for more than half a century. He will be greatly missed. pic.twitter.com/xapm0zSwDy

— GIVENCHY (@givenchy) March 12, 2018

Givenchy was born on 21 February 1927 in Oise, France.

His fashion career began in 1944, when at the age of 17 he began training under Parisian designer Jacques Fath.

He then moved on to design for other major fashion houses such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Lucien Lelong – where he worked alongside then-unknown Pierre Balmain and Christian Dior.

He founded his own fashion house in 1952 and presented his first collection in February that year, which included the iconic Bettina cotton blouse named model Bettina Graziani.

As well as his own couture lines, Givenchy was also known for creating the so-called “little black dress” worn by actor Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The pair went on to collaborate for over 40 years, with De Givenchy also creating her outfits for musical Funny Face in 1957 and movie How to Steal a Million in 1966.

“He revolutionised international fashion with the timelessly stylish looks he created for Audrey Hepburn, his great friend and muse for over 40 years,” said a spokesperson from his fashion house.

Givenchy left his own company in 1995. A slew of young British designers took to the helm of the company, including John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Julien MacDonald.

From 2005 to 2017, designer Riccardo Tisci was put in charge of the company’s artistic direction. Tisci was largely credited with bringing Givenchy up-to-date but announced his departure from the company in 2017.

The fashion house’s current artistic director is Clare Waight Keller, who oversees womenswear, menswear and couture lines.

The post Fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy dies aged 91 appeared first on Dezeen.

US studio Altus Architecture + Design has created a low-lying residence for a wooded site in Minnesota with glazed and cedar walls, along with a detached shed wrapped in polished and mirrored stainless steel.

The Woodland House is located in a small village just outside of Minneapolis. Sited on a forested plateau, the single-family home overlooks a wetland and Lake Marion in the near distance. Creating a home that embraced the picturesque scenery was a guiding concern for the design team.

“This new residence seeks to quietly integrate into the surroundings while capturing dramatic views and optimising natural light,” said Altus Architecture + Design, a Minneapolis-based studio.

The home consists of three, connected rectilinear wings that sit atop a stone base. For the exterior walls, dark-stained cedar was paired with vast stretches of glass, which provide see-through views from the entrance facade to the backyard.

The low-slung home is fronted by an arrival courtyard, and a rectangular storage building wrapped in folded panels of polished and mirrored stainless steel. Visible from the interior of the home, the shed is meant to be interpreted as a reflective surface, rather than a “solid object occupying space and views”.

“The detached out-building, or ‘shiny shed’, is intended to be a foil or counterpoint to the house that dissolves into the woods by fragmented reflections of the surroundings,” the studio said.

Inside, the home is divided into three programmatic areas. On the far west side is a volume containing a den and the master suite. In the bedroom, a simple bed is placed against a richly colored wooden partition. Floor-to-ceiling glass provides a strong connection to the verdant landscape.

The central volume houses the public area, which contains an open-plan living area, dining room and kitchen. Awash in natural light, the room is furnished with contemporary decor, with a fireplace made of bluestone and blackened steel serving as a focal point. The public area overlooks a generous terrace shaded by a pergola.

Beyond the kitchen are a laundry room, a wine cellar, and an office. The third wing, occupying the northeastern side of the house, contains a garage and workshop.

Throughout the home, the team incorporated walnut finishes, exposed wooden beams and unassuming white walls – all of which are meant to reinforce the home’s connection to place.

“The interior of the home is designed for a couple with a preference for a warm, clean and uncluttered living space,” the team said. “The spatial composition is distilled, creating a consistent connection to the dynamic natural surroundings.”

Other homes in Minnesota include a residence by D/O Studio clad in cedar boards that are intended to weather over time, and a rustic lakeside cabin by Salmela Architect that is composed of cantilevered boxes.

Project credits:

Architect: ALTUS Architecture + Design (TA Alt, principal; Roger Cummelin; Chad Healy)
Structural engineer: Stroh Engineering (Bernie Stroh)
Landscape architect: Travis VanLiere
Contractor: Streeter & Associates (Steven Streeter)
Landscape contractor: Landscape Renovations (Scott Frampton)
Pergola contractor: Great Northern Woodworks (Phil Bjork)
Shed metal cladding: AllStar Construction (Pete Carlson)

The post Altus designs Minnesota home and accompanying “shiny shed” to blend with the forest appeared first on Dezeen.

A 132-year old German message in a Dutch gin bottle was recently discovered by a Perth family while taking a stroll along a Western Australia beach just north of Wedge Island. The previous record holder was a 108 year old message in a bottle.”The message was dated June 12, 1886, and said it had been thrown overboard from the German sailing barque Paula, 950km from the WA coast.Between 1864 until 1933, thousands of bottles were thrown overboard from German ships, each containing a form on which the captain would write the date, the ship’s coordinates and details about its route.It was part of an experiment by the German Naval Observatory to better understand global ocean currents.”..(Read…)