Tranquility, peace, mindfulness, and zen – that is what encapsulates a zen garden. Having lived in Japan for 2 years, the country knows how to carve out a piece of your heart! Especially if you are someone who appreciates a clean, orderly place as much as I do, Japan is your heaven. Hyunjun Choi brings a slice of a zen garden’s serenity to your home with this Bluetooth speaker.
The Zen Garden speaker captures the minimalistic element of a Japanese garden by mimicking the repetitive patterns you find in the sand there. As a bonus, the rock on the top of the speaker doubles as a volume control know. The speaker boasts of a diffused white light that shines underneath the speaker and under the pebble/volume knob, amplifying the overall tranquility of the design.
Music is known for its ability to help us transport ourselves to another space. We don’t need visuals, but we always need music to work on our mood. The Zen Garden speaker brings the visuals to help you meditate, or even take you through the streets of Kyoto, wandering as we feel that balance of tradition and modern in one tiny little package guaranteed to look great even when not in use.
Available in four subtle hues (black, green, gray-olive or tan), these high-waisted pants from Outlier are crafted from injected linen—a blend of linen and super-light polyester. The fabric feels remarkably delicate and airy (as we expect linen to be), but the pants are sturdy and remain opaque in all lighting. Available in size 28 to 38, they’re intended for all genders and the site lists all relevant measurements to ensure you find the correct size.
Architect Mark de Reus took cues from barns and ranch buildings when designing his own house, Bigwood Residence, for a wooded site in Idaho, northwestern America.
The Bigwood Residence is located just south of Sun Valley, a resort area in southern Idaho known for its beautiful landscape and ski slopes. The dwelling sits on a picturesque site dominated by aspen trees.
The house is located in snowy Idaho
The home was designed by Mark de Reus and members of his eponymous firm, which has offices in Ketchum, Idaho, and Kamuela, Hawaii. The project incorporated lessons from the architect’s 35 years of practice.
“The project features themes that our firm is known for – inserting asymmetry into a symmetrical plan, attentively selecting and crafting natural materials, and incorporating ancient aesthetics into a contemporary design,” the team said.
“Most significantly, this design has a simplicity that belies its complexity.”
The Bigwood Residence resembles a barn
Roughly rectangular in plan, the home consists of two adjoined forms – a two-storey, gabled volume that resembles a barn, and a single-storey, flat-roof volume that alludes to low-slung ranch buildings in the region.
The gabled volume holds the main living and sleeping spaces, while the lower volume encompasses a garage, storage space and a terrace. The home totals 3,760 square feet (349 square metres).
Dark spruce facades mimic the surrounding trees
Dark colours on the exterior are meant to play off the surrounding trees.
Facades are clad in vertical spruce siding that was finished with a grey-black stain, and the standing-seam metal roof is the colour of graphite.
A garage door is made of dark anodised aluminium, and window panes are set within black aluminium frames.
The kitchen looks out onto a forest
Inside, the home features cosy rooms and a fluid layout.
The ground floor holds a living room, kitchen and main suite, while the upper floor has two bedrooms and a recreation room.
On the home’s west side, large stretches of glass offer sweeping views of the landscape, including the Big Wood River that winds through the rear of the property.
A living room on the ground floor
The primary entrance is on the eastern side of the house, which is marked by a double-height window and stairway.
“It is designed to appear like a warm welcoming lantern on a dark night,” the studio said.
The kitchen features granite countertops
For the interior, the team used earthy materials such as granite countertops and eastern white pine.
A light finish on the wood allows the grain to show through while protecting against ultraviolet light.
The architect drew from a variety of sources while creating and furnishing the residence. Some details were based on special requests from family members.
“De Reus’s wife wanted a barn door, which he included in the garage, and his daughter asked for a window seat in her bedroom,” the team said.
Lighter tones are found in an upstairs bathroom
Certain elements were influenced by the home’s location and history, such as a cast-glass chandelier over the dining table.
Its design takes inspiration from the ice blocks that were once cut from the Big Wood River.
A sculpture of Garuda sits above the blackened-steel fireplace
Other details in the home are rooted in the architect’s travels abroad. Incorporated into a blackened-steel fireplace surround is a sculpture of Garuda – a mythological golden-winged bird – that de Reus acquired in Bali.
De Reus Architects has completed a number of resorts and residences in scenic locales, including a house on Hawaii’s Big Island that features steep-roofed pavilions lined by gardens and external corridors. The home’s design was inspired by the area’s thatched-hut villages.
Photography is by Gaber Border.
Project credits:
Architecture: De Reus Architects de Reus design team: Mark de Reus (project architect), John Rowland (project manager), Lindsey Akiona (designer) Contractor: Young Construcción Civil engineer: Galena Engineers Structural engineer: Maxwell Structural Design Studio Mechanical engineer: Mark Morrison, PE, Inc Geotechnical engineer: Butler Engineering Landscape: NS Consulting, PLLC
Le photographe Sebastião Salgado a passé six ans immergé dans l’Amazonie brésilienne, où il a documenté en noir et blanc la plus grande forêt tropicale du monde. Qu’il s’agisse de larges plans aériens encadrant la végétation qui peuple le paysage ou de portraits sincères de peuples indigènes vivant dans toute la région, les photographies de Salgado constituent une étude révélatrice et intime de la région aujourd’hui.
Intitulé Amazônia, un tome de 528 pages publié par Taschen compile ces images qui, en l’absence de couleur, sont attentives aux contrastes naturels de lumière et de texture.
Pré-commandez un exemplaire sur Bookshop, et jetez un œil sur le site de Taschen pour une édition d’art à venir, accompagnée d’un tirage signé. Vous pouvez également explorer une archive de photographies de Salgado et de ses voyages autour du globe, du Botswana et du Mali au Guatemala et au Vietnam, sur Artsy.
Striving to become ‘Earth’s Safest Place to Work,’ in 2021, Amazon pumped $300 million into safety projects. Intending to cut annual recordable incidents rates– or work-related injuries that result in loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted work, or transferring of job in half, the giant corporation says in a press release that the new safety programs “will help prevent injuries, provide wellness services, and offer quality healthcare for employees while at work and at home.” Dubbing it WorkingWell, the new overarching safety effort consists of a comprehensive program that provides employees with physical and mental activities, wellness exercises, and healthier food options at work and home.
Coming out of a record-breaking year, accruing an annual revenue of $386 billion, Amazon shelled out $300 million for safety projects in 2021. In Amazon’s press release, it said that WorkingWell incorporates “scientifically proven health and safety education and exercises,” such as health and safety huddles where groups of employees learn in collaboration about rotating topics that range from gripping and handling machinery to health and wellness. Wellness Zones “provide employees with voluntary stretching and muscle recovery via easily accessible, dedicated spaces within Amazon’s operations buildings”. AmaZen brings employees into interactive kiosks that are dotted throughout Amazon’s factories to guide them through meditation and mindfulness practices. Keeping the press release aside, these tiny rooms or “individual interactive kiosks,” look too small to provide any actual relief. In fact, the company faced quite a backlash over their release, with Amazon actually deleting a video of Amazen they initially shared on Twitter.
EatWell positions employees to develop healthier eating habits by “increasing the availability of healthier [food] options.” Another safety effort, Amazon’s Neighborhood Health Center, manifests as a partnership with Crossover Health, providing employees with access to comprehensive primary care services that “focus on acute, chronic, and preventive primary healthcare needs.” Employees situated behind workstations will also be notified of hourly computer prompts that guide them through “scientifically proven physical and mental activities to help recharge and re-energize.” In 2019, Amazon fulfillment centers reported 14,000 severe injuries, which increased by 33% since 2016. By integrating WorkingWell into their factories and safety measures, Amazon announces a goal of cutting that number in half by 2025.
LA-based recording artist, composer and fine artist Joseph Reuben recorded one song every day for a month while in lockdown with his family in London last year. Earlier in 2021, he asked his social media audience to listen to one-minute slivers of these tracks and vote on which he should release. As a result, “Life in Colour,” a soaring pop anthem, is Reuben’s debut track. Though the artist played shows as early as 2010 in NYC, this is his first solo release—and with its inspiring sonic palette and empowered vocals, we look forward to more.
The Temporary Services art collective was friends with a guy named Angelo, who was locked up for the long haul in a California prison. As it turns out, Angelo had drawing skills, and TS asked him if he would illustrate a book of the various inventions he and fellow prisoners had come up with to make incarceration more bearable.
That was in 2001, and the resultant book was published a couple years later. Now they’re re-releasing it with an additional 80 pages of drawings and descriptions from Angelo, who has since passed away. From the book, here are some examples of jailhouse ingenuity:
The new edition of Prisoners’ Inventions is available here, and retails for $20.
Car blogs are a’twitter with images of this custom Boat Tail, designed and handbuilt by Rolls-Royce’s Coachbuild program.
The Boat Tail is essentially a one-off droptop with a picnic service in the trunk, an umbrella for shade and a built-in champagne ‘fridge that can nail 6 degrees all day long, and the vehicle probably cost more than our space program.
While the car itself is pretty, what I found much more interesting is RR’s Coachbuild program itself, which seeks to offer an exclusive service to an already exclusive class of people. What do you do for kicks, what do you want, when you’re so rich that you can buy anything on the market hundreds of times over?
They want “to move beyond ordinary constraints,” says Torsten Muller-Otvos, Rolls-Royce CEO. These clients have “a specific ambition, and a single demand: ‘Show me something that I have never seen before.'”
Rolls-Royce figured the best way to do that…is to involve them in the design process. “Coachbuild clients are embedded within the design team, throughout the creative process,” explains Rolls-Royce designer Sina Maria Eggl. “This requires a large investment of the client’s time, but this investment means they understand every element of the design.”
Here’s how the program works, and what it yields:
Well, what did you think it was going to be—George Soros burning through a box of Prismacolors?
Calgary-based inventor Andrew Konesky has developed the Air Wrangler, a simple system for storing air tools, regardless of the specifics of the manufacturer’s quick-connect plugs.
The one-handed operation does indeed look efficient:
The 8-tool-capacity Air Wranglers are going for $50 on Kickstarter, where they’ve already been successfully funded, with 21 days left to pledge at press time.
If the Air Wranglers like something you’ve already seen, perhaps you’re thinking of the Tool Wrangler, a similar rig for holding DeWalt battery-powered tools:
Yep, Konesky invented that one too. At press time his Tool Wrangler website was having some security issues, so I won’t link to it, but you can also see the product on his Etsy page.
The Shift collection‘s towel hook is a small block, refined with smooth edges and then shifted upwards by 20 degrees to form a parallelogram.
The Shift towel hook has a simple, geometric form
It is available in a range of finishes and patterns — some of them three-dimensional forms that create an interesting play of light and invite touch.
Geesa describes the Shift towel hook as a “jewel in the bathroom” and has designed the surrounding collection to echo its simple but impactful form.
There is a wide range of finishes including brushed stainless steel
The Shift collection includes dozens of items ranging from toilet roll holders and towel rails to shower doorknobs, all highly customisable in pattern and finish so that architects and designers can realise their exact vision in contract projects.
Shift bathroom products are made of stainless steel, chrome or brass, with finishes including chrome, brushed stainless steel, brushed gold, brushed metal black and matt black. All items come with a 15-year guarantee.
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