Jonah Yano’s lo-fi “shoes” highlights an emotional rekindling with his father, Tatsuya Muraoka, who he hadn’t seen in 15 years. The accompanying video details Yano’s visit to Japan, how the pair occupied their days together, and the uncanny resemblance between father and son. Originally recorded by Muraoka in Hiroshima in the ’90s, “shoes” was finished by Yano—he filled out the track’s instrumental and then laid down his vocal parts. “My dad’s Japanese lyrics are about a pair of shoes he bought me when I was a kid,” Yano explains. “My verses question his absence from my childhood and my general confusion about my circumstance, which was a fatherless upbringing in an entirely different country as a result of my parents’ separation.” The intensely personal single will appear on Yano’s forthcoming debut album, souvenir, out 19 June.

Weathered cedar covers this Vermont house, which local studio Birdseye Design built into a grassy slope to take cues from nearby barns.

Called Bank Barn, the three-storey home is located Green Mountains of Vermont on a steeply sloping meadow surrounded by 27 acres (11 hectares) of land.

The wood-clad house is designed to take cues from bank barns, which are built into hills and accessible at two different levels.

Outdoor wooden steps run alongside the residence and access the front door on the middle floor level.

“Grade transitions are a feature of bank barns and the main entry path accentuates the topography,” said build-design studio Birdseye Design.

A concrete foundation embeds the house on a flat portion of the hill and projects outwards to form barrier walls on the east and west sides.

Acting like bookends, the concrete encloses a driveway and garage on the one side, and a patio with a firepit further from the dwelling on the opposite.

“The flat grade at the upper bench proved to be the ideal site, a natural promenade to the view with an opportunity to embed the house into the landscape with an eastern slope at the arrival point,” the studio added.

An open-plan kitchen, living room, dining area and office are located on the middle level. Almost the entire floor is enclosed with glass walls to offer expansive views of outside.

Steel beams and cross-bracing are left exposed and painted white, matching the stark interiors of white walls and grey floors. A free-standing steel staircase is also painted white and has a glass railing.

The bottom floor is mostly concealed by the sloped terrain, aside from a garage door at the front that is clad in wood. A green roof covers a portion of this lower volume as it extends slightly outwards from the two floors above.

Three bedrooms with en suites and a laundry room are on the top storey. Designed to be more private, this floor has smaller windows with deep jambs to frame the pastoral views.

Bank Barn is complete with a number of environmentally friendly design elements. Geothermal wells provide heating and cooling via water-to-water and water-to-air systems, and a triple-glazed curtainwall bolsters the insulation to reduce heat flow during Vermont’s freezing winter months.

According to Birdseye Design, the home is designed to produce as much energy as it consumes on-site. “The project was designed to be a net-zero residence pending a future 18-kilowatt solar array,” it said.

Birdseye Design was founded in 1984 and is led by Jim Converse and John Seibert.

In addition to this home, the Vermont practice has built other houses in the northeastern US state, including a black house with broad eaves, a white dwelling called Two Shed and a wood-clad residence called Woodshed.

Photography is by Jim Westphalen.

Project credits:

Landscape architect: Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture
Environmental design: Atelier Ten
Builder: Birdseye

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Taking DIY furniture to a more functional and playful level, KUR!O’s shelving unit doesn’t just let you build a shelf, it lets you build YOUR OWN shelf the way you see fit. KUR!O’s design features a simple grid base that you wedge shelving-plates into. The plates interlock with each other, creating walls and floors for your shelf, allowing you to store all your belongings in the dedicated spaces you planned out for them!

The KUR!O was featured here on YD after winning a Gold A’ Design Award, and has, since then, developed and refined into a product that consumers can now buy and own. The construction hasn’t changed much fundamentally, but a few tweaks make it more durable, and allow you to even dock dowels/pegs into it to hang items like keys, photos, or that dreamcatcher you bought at the flea market.

The base of the shape-shifting, infinitely customizable shelf is its underlying grid, made from sandwiched wood-fiber boards. The cuts in the grid go as much as 20mm deep, allowing you press-fit powder-coated steel panels into it. The steel panels come in a variety of colors, giving the KUR!O its uniquely vibrant appeal, and feature carefully-placed cuts that let individual panels interlock into each other. The 2mm thick panels are heavy-duty enough to take on large loads, making the KUR!O robust, despite the fact that there isn’t any screwing or gluing of parts. Each KUR!O even comes with a set of 8mm thick steel sticks or dowels that peg into the circular holes at the intersection of the cutouts. Plug a stick in and you instantly have yourself a series of hooks right beside your shelf-spaces so you can both hang as well as place items on your KUR!O.

KUR!O’s promise of playful modularity even extends to the entire board itself, allowing you to put together multiple base-boards to create a larger shelving unit for trophies or family photos in your hall, tools in your workshop, instruments in your studio (those stick/dowels are perfect for hanging long cables), or items in your workplace. KUR!O’s fun nature is further reinforced by its absolutely delicious color scheme that adds a pop of contemporary color to otherwise dull spaces. Use it as a mantelpiece, as an unorthodox wardrobe for your hats, specs, coats, or a bookshelf that you can constantly customize as you go… and if you’re looking for more fun, use the KUR!O’s stainless-steel panels as a quirky base for your magnets too!

Designer: Markus Hofko of Von Morgen

Click Here to Buy Now: $318 $530 (40% off). Hurry, less than 24 hours left!

KUR!O — A Plug’n’Play Shelving System

The KUR!O is a modular shelving unit that gives you the freedom to re-design it over and over with ease and fun.

KUR!O combines an incredibly simple plug’n’play system with a sturdy and timeless design and turns seemingly mundane furniture into a piece of modern art.

Board and panels are available in various colors and sizes giving the freedom to create customized looks. Furthermore, KUR!O can be extended by joining multiple KUR!Os. So you can fill a whole wall with your very own composition.

Endless Possibilities with the KUR!O

COAT HANGER PLUS. Our entrance area actually requires more than a coat hanger. We have keys, sunglasses, scarves, a wallet, a watch, some jewelry, a USB stick and what not… KUR!O offers an all in one solution to place your little everyday belongings in one stylish place. The sticks come in really handy here!

ORDERLY BEAUTY. Lots of little bits and pieces gather in our bathrooms, often in undefined places. Thanks to the moisture-resistant materials KUR!O could be a stylish solution for your bathroom.

EVER CHANGING BOOKSHELF. We all love books. How about keeping them in reach and present them beautifully? The panels are made of steel and can easily hold a bunch of them.

COLLECTORS DISPLAY. The original idea for KUR!O was to create a modular shelf to display these wondrous things while being able to change them through over time. So if you collect stuff KUR!O is a no-brainer!

SPICE RACK WITH BENEFITS. KUR!O changes with your needs and stays relevant for much longer than your typical rack.

KIDS’ FAVORITES: Kids love stuff! And these things often change. Handcrafted paper objects, found natural objects, action figures, toy animals… How about giving your child the opportunity to display these beloved things in a fun way?!

Easy to Use

KUR!O is designed to be fun and versatile. A regular grid of slits and holes in a base board hold the sticks and panels of different sizes. The panels can be placed in any order and interconnect when tucked together vertically and horizontally. Panels and sticks sit 19mm deep inside the board and are held tightly. This system does not require any screws or tools and allows for an instant change of the layout. Plug’n’play!

The Board

The material for these boards is a sophisticated high density wood fibre compound which is completely dyed through, moisture resistant, non-toxic and of high stability. Some of the wood fibers are visible on the surface and gives the boards a natural and lively appearance.

The base of KUR!O is made up of two sandwiched wood fibre boards. The back of all bases will be an 8mm thick fundament. On top sits the 19mm thick main board available in following colors: Black — Blue — Grey — Chocolate — Red — Ocher

Holes and slits go all the way through the top board, meaning the modules will go 19mm deep into the board.

The Modules

The modules are made of powder coated steel, so they are heavy duty and won’t bend with heavy objects on them.

The panels are 2mm thick, the sticks have an 8mm diameter.

Extendable

The boards connect seamlessly when pushed against each other. This way you can extend your area of shelving by combining multiple KUR!Os. That’s where the real fun starts!

The boards can be joined and fixed on the backside with screw-in connectors.

Click Here to Buy Now: $318 $530 (40% off). Hurry, less than 24 hours left!

James Dyson may have designed his ventilator the fastest, but Tesla’s engineers are getting there, too. Just weeks after Elon Musk volunteered Tesla’s services, here are the company’s engineers showing you their prototype. They’re making good use of already-on-hand automotive parts and even the infotainment system for the Model 3, here repurposed as a controller:

Dezeen promotion: KOVA has launched a line of compact appliances including wall ovens, electric cookers and refrigerators.

Designed for small, modern spaces, KOVA‘s Compact Appliance collection aims to offer maximum power and energy-efficient solutions in the form of 24-inch-wide products.

KOVA is a building products brand launched by Silicon Valley design-build firm Katerra last year.

Designed to have high quality at a low-cost, products in the Compact Appliances range include dishwashers, wall ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, electric cookers and vent hoods.

“The growing trend towards more efficient living spaces has opened up new opportunities for high-quality, fully functional appliances that fit a smaller footprint, and that is our goal with KOVA’s compact appliances,” said Trevor Schick, head of the KOVA materials business.

“For KOVA, this line is another step toward providing the industry with beautifully designed materials that perform at a premium level and offer unparalleled value, particularly in the multifamily space and for consumers looking to downsize to a smaller home,” he added.

Stainless steel 24-inch-wide wall ovens with 2.47 cubic feet of cooking space are featured in the line, alongside 24-inch-wide ceramic electric cooktops with heavy-duty zinc alloy knobs and Schott Glass surface.

The collection also includes a 24-inch over-the-range microhood with six cooking functions and a two-speed fan. A 24-inch telescoping range hood with three-speed fan and an 18-inch panel-ready dishwasher are also available.

In addition, the collection also includes a 24-inch freestanding stainless steel refrigerator with a top freezer or an integrated panel-ready refrigerator, which can be built into a 24-inch cabinet.

Both refrigerator types have dual temperature zones and a reversible door.

Katerra launched its KOVA brand in November 2019, to offer “simple and timeless” building products and materials to architects, designers and trade professionals.

The company has ensured that each product featured in the Compact Appliance collection meets the highest environmental and quality standards, including Energy Star, ETL and UL certification.

More information about KOVA and its products can be found on the brand’s website.

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