Hasta La Ideas

If you’re worried that the next generation isn’t interested in toys, books, or playing outdoors, ask yourself… are you really setting the right example? Andrej Kregar makes a pretty insightful comment about how kids emulate their elders, so if you’re attached to your phone all day, chances are your child will follow the trend you set. Keeping that in mind, Kregar decided to not just adopt a healthier lifestyle, but to also give his offspring the tools to live healthy too. It first meant using his smartphone a little less around his child, then taking up bicycling, and then designing the Bixie, a sustainable, eco-friendly bicycle for his daughter that helped her develop a love for cycling while also staying active and therefore healthy.

Bixie is the best way to get children excited about sustainable, healthy living right from the get go. Not only does it promote exercise, but its sustainably built wooden construction introduces eco-friendliness in kids from an early age. Bixie is made from locally sourced beech wood from the Alps. Finished with natural oils and waxes, the wood is lightweight, sturdy, weather-proof, yet completely biodegradable, and a 100% non-toxic.

The bicycle’s frame was designed for children from ages 1.5 to 4, getting them excited about exercise, traveling, and spending time outdoors. The wooden construction makes it biodegradable and eco-friendly, while providing the same durability as metal. The bike comes with an adjustable seat, and doesn’t use any plastic in its construction, or even glue for that matter. The bike relies on traditional wooden fixtures, and is, for the most part, completely recyclable. The handlebars and saddle both come made with authentic handmade leather, providing comfort as well as a touch of tan to the beechwood’s light brown hue, while the inflatable wheels remain perhaps the only standardized part on the otherwise mindfully designed bicycle.

Bixie started as a gift from Andrej to his daughter, and then blossomed into a crowdfunding campaign to allow more parents to do the same for their children. Designed for kids up to the age of four, Bixie comes without pedals, and is a wonderful toy to help exercise a kid’s motor skills, while nurturing in them an appreciation for wandering, the outdoors, and more importantly, love for the environment!

Designers: Andrej Kregar & Kreatif Design

Click Here to Buy Now: $149 $249 (40% off). Hurry, only 4/49 left!

Bixie: Minimalist Wooden Balance Bike for Kids

Bixie balance bike is an all-natural design and sustainable solution to learn cycling. With the use of natural materials for its construction, the product improves environmental issues. The product is made for children from 1.5 to 4 years of age.

Healthy & eco-friendly. Bixie is made of natural European beechwood with the least amount of glue and wood. Glue does not have any harmful ingredients like Formaldehyde (classified as cancer-causing substance). Formaldehyde is often present in plywood balance bikes.

Learn to ride pedal bikes faster with Bixie. Unlike tricycles and training wheels, it is light and easy to ride, kids can move quickly and safely over uneven surfaces, providing them with much fun and independent riding before the time comes for pedal bikes.

Children who improve their balance at a young age have better coordination when they grow up. Learning to keep balance is a significant part of children’s development, not just in sports, but also in other activities. Kids who use a balance bike are confident enough to move quickly and explore the environment by themselves.

Design Features

Bixie has a unique wooden frame made of natural solid beech wood making their balance bike eco-friendly, light (total weight 3.4kg/7.5lbs) and sustainable.

Bixie has adjustable saddle height and has a unique seat clamp solution not seen anywhere else.

Story & Product Development

Andrej Kregar got the idea of creating a wooden balance bike when his daughter celebrated her 1st birthday. He listened to his daughter’s wish to have a balance bike that looks like a real bike because children want to have copies of the things their parents have.

Trained as an architect and an industrial designer, he decided to design and develop a sustainable, natural and plastic-free bicycle for his child to grow with it. The designing process of Bixie was bumpy but fulfilling, to make something enjoyed by children, liked by parents and harmless to the environment and society. 83% of Bixie is locally sourced and locally made.

Click Here to Buy Now: $149 $249 (40% off). Hurry, only 4/49 left!

Black metal panels and angled wooden slats cover this pointed house Canadian practice Campos Studio has created for a woman and her dog living in Pacific Northwest rainforest.

The property is set among forest in a small municipality called Sooke, which is located on Canada’s Vancouver Island. The area is known for its dense old-growth forests overlooking the Salish Sea, which separates the island from Washington state on mainland US.

“A small clearing nested among the trees upon the knoll provides slices of ocean and mountains through the trunks of the large Pacific Northwest rainforest,” said Campos Studio.

Wrapped in black metal panels and angled wooden slats, the irregular shape of the property is designed to frame of views of the surrounding forest.

Its layout separates the owner’s bedroom at one end of the home from the guest bedroom, located opposite. In the centre of the home, the kitchen, living and dining room enjoy access to a south-facing terrace, with glimpses of the waterfront visible through the trees.

A blackened steel column sits in the centre of the space, between the kitchen, dining area, and living room. “The house structure, organised around one proportioned concrete column rising out of the floor, mimics the trees trunks in size and scale,” said Campos Studio.

This marks the highest point of the angular ceiling, which provides different interior heights for various spaces within the home. It is lined with wooden planks similar to those cladding the home, helping to unify the interior and exterior treatments.

Plenty of wooden accents feature inside the home, including floors, cabinets, and accent walls. Most walls are rendered in white, and a collection of minimal furniture completes the aesthetic of a tranquil getaway.

The home’s specific location was chosen after the design team took a camping trip to the area, to get a better impression of the property.

“The rocky knoll, at the high point of the site emerged as the natural place that organised the site,” Campos Studio said.  “It was the place where everyone congregated to observe and socialise.”

“Recognised as such, the decision was taken to leave this area intact and envelop it with the house,” they added.

Campos Studio recently collaborated with industrial designer Tom Chung on the renovation of a Vancouver residence, where they uncovered a working brick fireplace.

Other projects on Canada’s West coast include a cantilevered home for a pair of empty nesters by McLeod Bovell, and a “Canadian Nordic” overhaul to a long, narrow home by Falken Reynolds.

Photography is by Ema Peter.

Project credits:
Builder: Paul Clarkston Construction
Structural engineer: Equilibrium Structural Engineering
Millworker: Nigel MacMillan

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Balbek Bureau has designed the interiors of a restaurant in Kiev that incorporates traditional Ukrainian forms, materials and colours in a contemporary way.

Called 100 Rokiv Tomu Vpered, which translates from Ukrainian as “100 years ago in the future”, the restaurant has a menu featuring modern updates on traditional Ukrainian dishes.

Kiev-based Balbek Bureau said that it wanted the interior to follow this theme of “creating a connection between historical past and innovative present of Ukraine”.

The 260-square-metre restaurant is split between two levels. A dining room, banquet hall, and bar area are located on the ground floor, while a smaller dining room and a kitchen are located on the first floor where large windows provide plenty of natural light.

For example, the restaurant’s walls, floor and furniture are finished in light-ochre tones accented with clusters of red – a colour scheme typically used to make traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts.

On the restaurant’s first floor the accents of red are provided by chairs with oversized seat cushions designed by Slava Balbek for his furniture brand Propro.

The design of the large dining table and benches is inspired by the old interior but its white finish and clean lines enable it to blend within the new modern setting.

The design incorporates natural materials such as oak floors and wall paneling as well as a calming neutral colour palette that mixes ochre, sienna and raw umber-coloured funriture. Tables are individually lit to create a warm and welcoming ambience.

Balbek Bureau also used plenty of natural textures including driftwood lighting, bullrushes and potted ferns to evoke the atmosphere of an enchanted forest.

Separated from the main areas of the restaurant by a folding wooden screen, the banquet hall on the ground floor is used for private parties and masterclasses run by restaurant chef Yevgeniy Klopotenko.

The banquet hall features strong colours such as burnt sienna alongside natural materials, clinker tiles and soft, comfortable furniture.

A collection of antique household objects are displayed across a wall made from wooden shingles that were salvaged during the demolition of an old local house.

“The design theme reflects the main objective of the restaurant operations – to promote Ukrainian traditional cuisine through a modern and creative approach to food intake,” explained the design team.

“The ‘Fairytale forest’ became the interior design theme, featuring plants that are native to Ukraine – fern, bulrush, ears of wheat.”

The Kiev-based designers also recently completed Grammarly’s office in the Ukrainian capital, which includes its own conference hall, nap pods, and a soundproof music room.

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London design duo Studio Ayaskan has created a clock, which rakes sand in hypnotic, concentric circles to mark the passage of time.

The Sand project is a nod to Japanese rock gardens, called karesansui, in which sand is shaped into patterns to mimic the appearance of water rippling.

It consists of a circular, sand-filled platform and a single hour hand. In the daytime, from midnight to midday, it draws ripples in the sand.

Then, for the second half of the day, the hand flattens them out again in order to begin another cycle at midnight.

“In nature everything is cyclical,” explains Begum Ayaskan, one of the twins behind the self-titled studio. “It’s a way of timekeeping, through day and night, seasons and tides. We like to reflect on these subtle changes.”

The circular pattern and its subsequent levelling is created through having the hour hand rotate, not just around the face of the clock but also around its own axis.

“It has grooves on one side and is smooth on the other to flatten the pattern out,” Begum told Dezeen. “The hand is constantly rotating on its own axis, with a full rotation taking 24 hours to complete. During the 24 hours, the hand also makes two rotations around the clock face – one to draw the lines and one to erase them.”

For the hour hand, the studio opted for wood and brass to match the brass bowl which holds the sand.

The clock is powered by customised electronics, plugged into an outlet.

“The central column contains the electronics, which are hidden under the brass platform,” explains Bike Ayaskan, the design duo’s other half. “The motor connects to the arm to create the rotational movement around the clock face and beveled gears move the arm around its own axis to create the two patterns.”

Much like a Japanese rock garden, the sisters hope the clock will inspire a certain amount of introspection through its repetitive patterns.

“It is a meditation on temporality and permanence,” said Bike. “It’s about the need to maintain and take care of something every day, to redo it, as it gets undone. And through the meditative quality of these repetitive actions, it becomes a time for personal reflection.”

The Ayaskan sisters are originally from Istanbul and founded their design studio after graduating from London’s Royal College of Art in 2015.

For their graduate show, they created a plant pot that expands with the size of its occupant.

Other unusual clock designs include one which uses perfume to tell the time and one created via a 12-hour long video performance by Dutch designer Maarten Baas.

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Coloured skylights offer rainbow-hued illuminations on one side of this holiday cottage that Nina Edwards Anker has designed in Long Island, while the other is covered in cedar shingles.

Architect and designer Anker, who runs New York’s Nea Studio, completed the Cocoon House in Southampton, a seaside town on the South Fork of Long Island.

The cedar shingles cover the curved, northern side of the property, which was designed to adhere to restrictions for the house to remain a 150-foot-radius (46-metre-radius) from wetlands and 35 foot (12 metres) from neighbouring properties. Large expanses run along the souther side offering views of the garden.

“The Long Island cottage is split in two: ‘cocooned’ into a soft opaque shape that provides privacy, and transparent and crystalline to allow for views onto an undisturbed landscape,” said the studio.

Two huge rounded windows punctuate each end of the glazed side of the property, fronting the large open living area and the master bedroom. A single-storey glass wall runs in between to flank the hallway that connects these two end.

The coloured skylights are angled over the walkway to reflect light from the pool and cistern that wraps the rear of the house.

“The colours range from vermilion red, which signals sunset and rest, above the master bedroom, to deep yellow, which signals zenith and activity, nearest the living room,” said the studio.

The skylights above the hallway of the bedroom wing are based on the way thay JM William Turner’s 19th century paintings that depicted sunlight above water. Turner created his works according in response to a colour theory developed by German writer and politician Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that explored colour as a result of  perception, and not just light.

Inside, the wall facing the windows is white and left bare, apart from doorways and small windows, so that it provides a backdrop to the geometric patterns.

“It’s meant to serve as a cinematic screen, its round shape abstracting the play of light and shadow, cocooning the interior like an ocean wave with light hitting its surface,” the team added.

The interior decor is kept simple throughout, with white walls paired with wooden flooring. A curved white wall wraps one side of the open-plan kitchen, living and dining room, and is punctured with openings for a fireplace and log storage.

Anker designed most of the furnishings, which include coiled, rattan chairs, a geometric, monochrome chandelier, and a soft bean-bag-like sofa.

The dining table and chairs are curved white and glass, providing a nod to the aesthetic of the house. The kitchen is slotted behind here and fitted with white cabinetry to provide an almost seamless connection with the surrounding walls.

In one of the bedrooms, curving timber woodwork created as part of the building’s structure is left exposed. A wooden ladder provides access to a mezzanine bedroom tucked into the roof, with wooden railings running along the front picking up on the structural details.

The master bedroom at the end of the property is complete with a white marble bathtub designed to fit in with the rounded walls. Black glass doors lead from here to the rest of the bathroom. Other details include a white desk with a huge dip that tapers into one of its leg. The table is paired with an angular seat that contrasts its rounded shape.

Cocoon House is an LEED-certified home and was created to align with Passivhaus principles. The northern, shingled-covered side supported by timber to form thick walls with a high thermal mass that retains heat and blocking humidity during warmer months.

Large expanses of south-facing glazing enables heating gain during winter months, with interior blinds providing shade during strong sunlight. Sliding glass doors also open up to allow for breeze from the ocean, which is then ecouraged to circulate by the curved walls. The pool at the rear, is also designed to gather and filter rainwater.

The house is built on wetlands, so is slightly elevated to allow for flooding in the case of an extreme weather event.

Anker is among many New Yorkers that have weekend and holiday getaways in Long Island. Other properties include a bayside residence with an infinity pool and a beachfront home topped with grass.

Photography is by Caylon Hackwith.

Project credits:

Designer and architect: Nina Edwards Anker, Nea Studio
Prefabricated structural laminated timber trusses: Unalam
Structural Engineer: Will Laufs, LaufsED
Jordan Goldman
Mechanical Engineer: Zero Energy Design: Mechanical Engineer
Electrical Engineer: Michael Edwards, Avioworks
Sound engineer: Charles von Mueffling, Obelisk Consulting
Additional credits: Anna Agoston, Raphael Walter, drafting

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