Hasta La Ideas

North Arrow Studio has completed a compact, corrugated metal accessory dwelling unit in East Austin’s Chestnut neighbourhood featuring a custom, circular pivot window that is reminiscent of the round opening in a birdhouse.

Aptly named the Birdhouse, the 900-square foot (84-square metre) ADU shares a narrow 5,900-square metre (550-square metre) lot with a 1939 single-storey house and three large protected pecan trees.

North Arrow Studio’s principal architect Francisco Arredondo described the two-bedroom, two-bath house as “simplicity carried to the extreme”.

“There’s simplicity in the footprint, the massing, and the material palette throughout,” Arredondo said. “But it’s also a smart little house that makes me smile.”

The home was strategically placed around the trees to create a courtyard between the main house and the ADU while providing privacy for the separate living quarters.

The L-shaped plan features a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living room featuring a roll-up garage door on the ground floor, all wrapped around an external pecan tree.

Upstairs, the main suite sits within the vaulted ceiling of the double-gabled form. Four five-foot (1.5-metre) diameter circle windows sit under each gable and use the surrounding tree canopy for privacy.

“They create a resemblance to a traditional birdhouse and bring a sense of whimsy to the design,” the studio said.

One of the custom-fabricated steel windows serves as the required egress for the room.

“We began with a pivot design and worked our way towards a final swing design that opened up to the pecan tree’s canopy,” the team explained.

The rounded-window motif carries throughout the house with miniature custom steel circle windows.

“Strategically selected walls are curved to soften edges and draw you into the spaces,” the studio said. “Interior finishes are simple and restrained apart from a few accent walls that give life to each room.”

The monotone ADU is wrapped in light corrugated metal that “is a nod to the many metal sheds and accessory buildings already found throughout the neighborhood, but with a modern and playful twist”.

The soft, rounded edges and neutral colour complement the existing house and provide an accent along the alley, and the metal runs up the walls and becomes the roof material as well.

In the courtyard, a curved polycarbonate wall brings light into the hallway and creates a softly glowing, semi-transparent effect.

Corrugated metal was selected for its sustainability and resilience as the envelope is 100 per cent recyclable, repels sun and heat in Texas summers and is durable and low-maintenance, according to the studio.

“Working with a tight budget and constrained footprint can be very helpful in creating a story for the design,” the studio said. “The constraints begin to guide you and lend opportunities to be creative with traditional materials and spaces in ways that typically wouldn’t be considered.”

In 2014, North Arrow Studio created a stilted home in the Texas Hill Country that references Mies Van der Rohe’s glass Farnsworth House.

The photography is by Chase Daniel.

Project credits:

Builder, developer, owner: Brita Wallace, Digs ATX
Styling: Ben Newman Studios

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More than 900 survivors, bereaved family members and local residents affected by the Grenfell Tower fire have agreed a settlement in a civil claim over the disaster.

Companies and public bodies involved in a refurbishment of the 1970s London social housing block, which was destroyed in a huge blaze in June 2017 that killed 72 people, have reached an agreement with the claimants after nearly two years of legal discussions.

The settlement comprises an undisclosed sum of compensation set to be divided between the claimants based on their individual circumstances.

“Fight for justice continues”

One defendant also told Dezeen that it has “agreed to contribute to a restorative justice project to benefit the community affected by the fire”.

Among the organisations involved in the case is Studio E Architects, the architecture firm appointed to the refurbishment contract, which went into liquidation in 2020.

The claimants were represented by a group of 14 law firms.

“A group of over 900 bereaved family members, survivors and local residents (BSRs) whose lives have been devastated by the Grenfell Tower fire have agreed a settlement of their civil claims arising from the fire,” the law firms told Dezeen.

The civil claim is separate to the public inquiry into the fire, which finished taking evidence in November 2022 and is expected to issue its final report later this year.

It is also separate to an ongoing police investigation, with the Crown Prosecution Service expected to decide whether to pursue criminal charges after the inquiry report is published.

“In those respects, the BSRs’ fight for justice continues,” the law firms added. “Finally, it should be recognised that no amount of damages could ever be sufficient to properly compensate those affected by the fire.”

The case was brought against 22 parties including Studio E, cladding manufacturer Arconic and fire consultancy Exova.

These three companies were named at the inquiry by survivors’ lawyer Stephanie Barwise in a “rogues gallery” of those most responsible for flammable polyethylene-cored aluminium cladding being fitted to the tower during the refurbishment – identified by the inquiry as the primary cause of rapid fire spread up the building.

Studio E was stiffly criticised by inquiry expert witness Paul Hyett for its role in the project, though in its closing submissions Studio E questioned his experience and expertise.

“Merry-go-round of buck-passing”

“Arconic confirms that it is a party to the full and final settlement in connection with a large majority of the claims relating to the Grenfell Tower fire in the High Court brought by survivors and estates of decedents,” an Arconic spokesperson told Dezeen.

“Arconic also agreed to contribute to a restorative justice project to benefit the community affected by the fire. Arconic continues to express its deepest sympathy to the Grenfell residents and their families, and appreciates the importance of this milestone for providing a resolution that lessens the delay and stress to claimants that would result from protracted legal proceedings.”

The inquiry heard evidence that US conglomerate Arconic conducted testing that showed its product to be highly combustible as early as 2004, with a senior staff member later emailing colleagues about “how dangerous ‘PE’ [polyethylene] can be when it comes to architecture”.

Among the other defendants was contractor Rydon, which is currently among a small number of house builders refusing to sign up pay to replace unsafe cladding on their schemes.

Central government departments the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities are also involved, as well as building owner Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and its management company the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation (KCTMO).

In January, UK housing secretary Michael Gove became the first government minister to admit that “faulty and ambiguous” building regulations had been a factor in the Grenfell fire in an interview with The Sunday Times.

Most of the organisations directly involved in the Grenfell refurbishment project have not accepted responsibility for the fire, with inquiry lead counsel Richard Millett pointing to a “merry-go-round of buck-passing” intended to protect companies’ own interests.

The settlement does not include all victims of the fire, with a separate, smaller group represented by two other law firms.

Dezeen has contacted the organisations named in this article for comment.

“We recognise that a monetary settlement won’t mitigate for the loss and trauma, but both the settlement and the restorative justice process is a welcome step forward,” a KCTMO spokesperson said.

The photography is by Carcharoth.

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As marijuana becomes decriminalized and/or legalized, how long until we start seeing pot vending machines? It does raise the question of how they’d be packaged: Loose? Rolled? While cigarettes come 20 to a pack, somehow that figure sounds high (no pun intended) for a pack of joints.

Which makes me wonder if single, pre-rolled joint vending machines could catch on. (ID students looking for your thesis project, you’re welcome.) Believe it or not, single-cigarette vending machines do exist—and have since at least 1931, when an unknown British inventor devised a coin-operated loosie dispenser that even lit the cigarette for you:

No word on how the thing worked.

As for the single-cigarette vending machine of today, they’re not exactly marvels of industrial design. This one is manufactured in South Africa:

It too features a built-in lighter, though it’s no mystery as to how it works:

The description reads:

“Sturdy, well built machine. Hygienic and eye catching. Cigarettes remain fresh for longer. Holds 740 loose cigarettes. Adjustable coin mechanism – 6 way – set your own price. Has lock and key.”

“Mountable, counter top or wall. Fitted built in lighter. User friendly. Mechanical and manual – no electricity required.”

It’s “eye catching” alright, but in the wrong way. The thing looks like it was designed in Minecraft.

Other than that, this category of object is pretty slim. I was able to find this video showing a Marlboro-branded single-cigarette vending machine in Mexico, and that’s about it. This design, at the least, leaves little doubt as to what it sells (but offers no lighter):

Back to the cannabis thing: What would/should/could a vending machine for loosie joints look like? What would be an economical and more attractive way to integrate a lighter? What I wouldn’t give to see a pot-friendly ID professor assign this to a class.

To paraphrase an old industrial design saying, I’d argue that no one wants a flashlight; what people want is convenient portable illumination. In the quest to provide it, designers have experimented with different form factors over the decades. Each brings its own UX drawbacks:

– Flashlight: Ties up one hand.

– Portable task light: Difficult to set up close enough to be useful, while far enough to be out of your way without casting shadows on the work.

– Headlamp: Incompatible with certain types of headgear, blinds anyone you look at.

The latest form factor to gain ubiquity is the wearable neck light. Unthinkable in the age of D-batteries and incandescent bulbs, lightweight LEDs and batteries have made the form viable; everyone from Milwaukee to Snap-On to an army of electronics companies you’ve never heard of makes one.

At least two companies, Snap-On and a company called PowerSmith, make a neck light with an interesting feature: The lights themselves are essentially mini-flashlights that attach magnetically, and can be popped on and off. (Here we’re showing PowerSmith’s 300-lumen offering, primarily because Snap-On PR’s visual media assets game is lacking. But read the caveat* below.)

The magnets on the butt end of the lights are mounted in a ball joint, allowing you to adjust their angle.

You can of course attach the lights to anything magnetic.

The rechargeable batteries are within the lights themselves, meaning each needs to be charged. Hence this unusual dual charging cable:

In a pinch it can be worn on the head, though this runs into the potentially-incompatible-headgear issue you might have with headlamps. There’s also no telling how easy it is or isn’t on your ears.

To be clear, I’m not recommending you buy a PowerSmith unit; I’m just commenting on the design. One of PowerSmith’s signature products is an ash vacuum, which received a poor review in this Chicago Tribune comparison; the unit suffers from an overheating problem. PowerSmith has been around for over 20 years, which is long enough to figure out how to build a proper product, so I’d consider this a quality control issue that makes me suspicious of the brand.

Dezeen Showroom: Spanish design brand Gandia Blasco has launched Mass, a “flexible and timeless” collection of outdoor furniture created by New York designer Todd Bracher.

Mass was designed by Bracher with Gandia Blasco to offer users a modular collection of seating that can be easily reconfigured to suit any social setting.

The outdoor furniture collection is made up of five lightweight components, including two seat modules and three backrests of different lengths, each with pared-back designs to ensure their timelessness.

These elements are constructed with a robust aluminium structure mounted on iroko wood legs and covered in water-repellent fabric that is available in a variety of styles.

“Mass tries to address a real need for authenticity and to put furniture design at the service of the user experience, and that need is to foster interaction and interconnection in a scalable and flexible way,” said Bracher.

“Mass is designed to welcome spontaneity,” he added. “Essentially, Mass embraces the dynamism of outdoor living for both commercial and residential use.”

Product: Mass
Designer: Todd Bracher
Brand: Gandia Blasco
Contact: alejandra@gandiablasco.com

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