Dezeen School Shows: a sustainable crematorium that crystallises ashes using water cremation is included in Dezeen’s latest school show by students at Arts University Bournemouth.

Housing that aims to introduce single-living residents into a community to reduce loneliness and a project that aims to create sustainable change in the tourism industry.

Arts University Bournemouth

University: Arts University Bournemouth
School: Design and Architecture
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design
Tutors: Monica Franchin, Michael Cavagin, Ed Ward, Emily Manns, Jamie Yeates, Madalina Voicu and Charlotte Lacey-Clarke

School statement:

“Our course is positioned with the clear aim of developing interior architecture and design graduates who see themselves as creatively confident, technically competent, critically capable and ready to commence within the professional interior architecture and design community of practice, or related fields.

“The BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design at the Arts University Bournemouth has an enviable record in graduate employment, often working with clients on real design projects in a studio-based, professionally-focused learning environment.

“Our students have demonstrated the ability to influence changes in our society, their work is set in a global context but with a human-centred approach.

“They have communicated their desire to develop a better world for all in a sustainable manner.

“The work that our students have produced supports our aim to empower each of them in progressing to their chosen destinations, further developing and realising their potential as professional designers.

“You will see that the students have embraced the powerful role of designers to enable people to live well and wisely alongside each other, with a realistic use of resources.

“During the three years with us, our students have developed the capacity to collaborate and embrace empathy to our society’s immediate and long-term needs.”

The Future of Modularity by Dan Downer

“The aim of this project is to reconsider conventional design when applied to compact living spaces.

“These spaces will be suited to individuals and couples working within professional fields, providing shorter commutes and high quality, compact living spaces.”

Student: Dan Downer
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

The Secret Garden by Tala Alkhiami

“The Secret Garden is a redefined, comprehensive palliative care centre that will deliver a high quality health care service, with a focus on patients’ and families’ psychological and mental wellbeing.

“The planned facility is designed to accommodate patients in a well-considered environment as well as support the NHS and healthcare systems in the UK.”

Student: Tala Alkhiami
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

The Mill House by Harry Powell

“Considering the future of design, there is now a heavy focus on sustainability.

“In addition to this, there is increasing importance in how communities can collectively combat climate change.

“Offering a space, vision and experience for all ages, the tidal mill – reimagined with a new water turbine – helps create a carbon zero building.”

Student: Harry Powell
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Mind the Gap by Molly Rook

“The intention of this project is to put emphasis on the importance of ‘third spaces’ in bridging gaps between socio-economic groups in city planning.

“The project creates a collection of communal spaces on the three lower levels of brutalist social housing block, Wyndham Court, Southampton.”

Student: Molly Rook
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Collective Possibilities by Isabella Williams

“Reforming healthcare focuses on gathering, synthesis and exploration of data.

“It provides an environment, promoting human value to reduce healthcare inequalities.

“Entitled Collective Possibilities, the evolutionary nature of research answers to the ‘possibilities’, while ‘collective’ highlights the promotion of cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

Student: Isabella Williams
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Fort Homestead by Femke Burley

“Contributing towards the ongoing battle to reverse the negative impacts of humans on the health of our planet, there is an opportunity for change in the tourism industry to redefine the current concepts of tourism in a post-pandemic society.

“This project aims to develop the concept of slow tourism through the enhancement of a heritage site in Gosport, England, known as Fort Gilkicker, in order to promote the general idea of being a ‘tourist in your own city’.

“It also encourages culturally-motivated travel to contribute to a more economically and environmentally sustainable future for society.”

Student: Femke Burley
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Phases by Lara Monasingh

“Current housing is unsuitable, inflexible and expensive. It creates issues in affordability, social separation and loneliness.

“This model aims to change the preconception of housing and inform future developments by providing an intergenerational living system.

“It creates the opportunity for individuals who struggle with the challenges of living alone to be a part of a bigger community where knowledge, skills and experiences are shared.”

Student: Lara Monasingh
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

REVE: The Water Crematorium by Trinity Tam

“REVE converts the historic Chapel Mill building in Southampton into an alternative sustainable crematorium.

“Within the building walls of REVE, the deceased live on as sparkling crystals made from their ashes.

“This project uses water cremation and has spaces to support funerals, after-death arrangements and memorialisation.”

Student: Trinity Tam
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

The Creator by Orla McKee

“The project aims to provide an immersive experience that rethinks the existing typology of exhibition spaces as more than a showcase of information, but rather an experiential journey that opens up the potential of the space for the act of creation – taking form in multiple artistic/musical avenues.

“As uncovered within my dissertation research, psychogeographic techniques enable the user to develop a personally-curated narrative.

“It provides each user with a level of personal influence within their journey path, both regarding navigation and creative opportunity.”

Student: Orla McKee
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Navigate by Seralyne Lubila

“With advancements in technology, more people are eating at home rather than eating out. As a result they miss out on the experience of dining out.

“Navigate is a novel approach to dining experiences, aiming to bring individuals together in a social setting.

“As users navigate through the building, they will enjoy the different meal courses in dedicated spaces, each designed to emphasise the social bonds created.”

Student: Seralyne Lubila
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Architecture and Design

Partnership content

This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and Arts University Bournemouth. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

The post Arts University Bournemouth presents 10 design and architecture projects appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish studio Balzar Arquitectos has added a copper-toned family house named La Casa de los Olivos to an olive grove in Valencia, Spain.

Aiming to blend into its site in the town of Quesa, the long and low-lying home has been finished with a red-hued lime mortar that mimics the surrounding soil.

Balzar Arquitectos also preserved as much of the existing planting as possible by designing the house with a linear form that fits within a grid of trees.

“The landscape was already wonderful as it was, so when it came to the intervention, we wanted to respect this place, trying to keep as many olive trees as possible,” said studio co-founder Laura Moreno Albuixech.

“We wanted to create a dialogue between the natural and the artificial, between the olive trees and the house,” Moreno Albuizech told Dezeen.

Built with a steel frame, the copper-toned home is nestled into the gaps of the eight-by-eight-metre grid of trees. Inside, rooms are arranged across a single floor.

“The olive trees are arranged in a perfect grid of eight by eight metres and this was a key factor in the geometry of the house,” said Moreno Albuixech.

“Both the house and the swimming pool take advantage of the free spaces left in the grid of olive trees and insert themselves between them.”

Running down the centre of a gravelled courtyard is a long swimming pool. It extends towards the main building, curving to meet a porch that is covered by an overhang perforated with a circular skylight.

A large glass door separates this porch from the open living space, which extends into a dining area and kitchen with green-toned cupboards and brass surfaces.

“The muted green colour of the leaves of the olive trees was used for the woodwork and the gold of the sun at sunset was reinterpreted in the kitchen with natural brass,” said Moreno Albuixech.

Throughout the home, red walls and accents mimic the soil-informed colour of the exterior, including terracotta-toned floors and Iranian travertine marble surfaces that feature in the bathrooms and interior pool.

“The choice of materials and colours was clear from the beginning,” said Moreno Albuixech. “Both the clients and we were looking for colours that respected the chromatic range that the plot already had when we visited it for the first time.”

Two ensuite bedrooms branch off from the main living space and open onto private patios that frame views of the surrounding olive trees.

“The home integrates with the rural environment through patios that embrace the existing olive trees and a longitudinal platform that reinforces the linear perspective towards the horizon,” said the studio.

“Through the patios, the olive trees and the wide terrain become part of the dwelling and lives of the people.”

Other Spanish homes recently featured on Dezeen include a narrow home designed for indoor and outdoor living and a house spread across six pavilions arranged around a courtyard.

The photography is by David Zarzoso.

The post Balzar Arquitectos nestles copper-toned home into Valencian olive grove appeared first on Dezeen.

German interior designer Peter Heimer and joinery studio Buchholzberlin used a restrained material palette of concrete, oak and aluminium when renovating this flat inside London‘s brutalist Trellick Tower.

The Grade II-listed building, designed by architect Ernö Goldfinger, originally opened in 1972 to provide social housing for the neighbourhood of Kensal Rise but has since become a landmark of brutalist architecture thanks to its distinctive lift tower.

The renovation works were carried out in a privately owned apartment on Trellick Tower‘s 21st floor that had not been significantly altered in several years and as a result, was host to narrow rooms and lacklustre white walls.

Its owners wanted the open up the 86-square-metre floorplan to create the impression of a “cool concrete loft” while offering better views of the surrounding cityscape.

“Their taste was also trained by contemporary Japanese design, so they wanted to use a reduced range of pure materials,” Buchholzberlin told Dezeen.

“Since Trellick Tower is subject to strict preservation requirements, our hands were tied so to speak. But we were able to push through with small improvements.”

The wall separating two former children’s bedrooms was knocked through to create a larger unified space that now serves as the living area.

The team also exposed the building’s original concrete walls, laid oak flooring and installed slender aluminium lights across the ceiling.

A bench seat with inbuilt storage boxes was fitted beneath a row of windows at the front of the room, allowing for uninterrupted vistas of northwest London and beyond.

The two doors that previously led to the respective children’s bedrooms were left in place. Between them now stands a huge, double-faced oak sideboard.

An inlaid mirrored panel reflects the distant skyline and in turn “brings an impression of the city into the apartment’s centre”, according to the team.

More concrete and oakwood surfaces can be seen in the kitchen, which occupies the former living area. Low-lying cabinetry was installed along the room’s back wall, while a large breakfast counter was placed at its centre.

The counter was custom-built to stand at the exact same height as the railing of the apartment’s balcony, ensuring that sightlines aren’t compromised when the clients sit down to eat.

The former kitchen, meanwhile, was converted into a study with an oakwood desk snaking around the edges of the room.

Its base conceals a network of water pipes that had to be redirected to serve appliances in the new cooking quarters. One side of the desk also conceals a pull-out bed that can be used when guests come to stay.

The principal bedroom was left in its original place but – like the rest of the apartment – was stripped back to expose its concrete walls.

Oakwood was used here to form the base of the bed and its lengthy headboard, which extends along the lower half of the walls.

Heimer and Buchholzberlin also removed the time-worn laminate that once covered the small flight of stairs leading down from the apartment’s entrance, revealing the concrete steps beneath.

Trellick Tower is just one example of the striking council estates that can be found across the British capital, which were recently chronicled in a book by photographer Jack Young.

Others include Holmefield House with its graphic tiled facade and the Brunel Estate, which has a monumental slide sweeping through its public pathways.

The photography is by Heiko Prigge.

The post Trellick Tower apartment revamped in line with Japanese design principles appeared first on Dezeen.

Called Tree House by the Lake, this stunning home is located on the shores of Da Bang Lake in the Chau Duc District in Vietnam. The home is built using recycled metal sheeting and repurposed wood and glass and was commissioned by an elderly couple. Designed by local studio H2, the home is designed to bring the couple and their grandchildren closer to nature, helping them build a deeper connection to it, and immerse themselves in greener surroundings. The Tree House by the Lake is surrounded by the forest and was in fact constructed using local scrap materials to reduce the impact on it.

Designer: H2

“The aim of the project is to create a house that blends in with the woods. The building has a rustic, idyllic appearance of old materials, along with the interior and everything in the house is very simple and light, to make room for sunlight, wind, and trees to play,” said H2. The home was designed to resemble a tree house and is shaded subtly by the forest canopy. The main form of the home gradually rises up from the ground, giving a rather expansive and impressive impression, allowing the cool breeze from the forest to roll into it.

Trees grow through the terrace, voids, and roof via openings of the home, allowing nature to seamlessly and directly integrate with the architecture of the house. The home has two storeys, with the low storey featuring glazing and pivoting panes that open out into the garden and the surrounding landscape. It holds the living room, with a majestic tree growing through the floor. The upper storey is a rectangular volume clad in reclaimed corrugated iron, and it cantilevers over the lower floor, giving the impression that it is gracefully floating in the air.

A long spiral staircase connects the two floors, while a double-height wooden walkway links the bedrooms at either end of the house. The walkway is an interesting indoor-outdoor space with a glazed roof, and an elliptical window sits in the center of the walkway, and functions as a window seat that offers lovely views of the surrounding forest.

The post Tree house-inspired home in Vietnam is built using recycled and local scrap materials first appeared on Yanko Design.

This is probably the only mouse that won’t eat your cheese away but will help you serve instead. In the world of culinary delights, presentation plays a significant role in enhancing the dining experience. Every detail contributes to creating a memorable meal from the arrangement of ingredients to the choice of utensils. ‘Slice and Mice,’ a charming cheese knife collection, captures this essence with its unique and playful design.

Whoever said cheese couldn’t be whimsical and fun hasn’t seen the ‘Slice and Mice’ cheese knife collection! These cuties are not your average, run-of-the-mill knives. They are a delightful blend of functionality and quirky design, guaranteed to bring a smile, polished stainless-steel knives with handles that resemble teeny tiny mice. The only mice you would appreciate in your kitchen. This unique cheese knife set is all about elegance and making a statement!

Designer: Igor Mitin

The core objective behind ‘Slice and Mice’ was to create something more than just kitchen utensils. These knives were designed to be eye-catching, conversation starters that add a dash of glamor to any cheese platter. By integrating whimsical mouse designs into the handles, the knives become more than mere inanimate objects; they become an integral part of the dining experience and interior decor.

These little mice are not just there to look pretty, the designers nailed the comfort factor too. The handle design of these knives is a standout feature. The meticulous attention to detail ensures that the handles replicate the adorable characteristics of miniature mice while maintaining a sleek and polished appearance. The stainless steel construction provides a smooth and pleasant touch, while the ergonomically shaped handles fit perfectly in hand. The designers aimed to create a comfortable grip, allowing the palm to rest effortlessly on the wide, mouse-shaped handle.

Despite the emphasis on elegance, the ‘Slice and Mice’ cheese knives do not compromise their practical functionality. When using these knives, the ears of the mouse-shaped handle provide an additional grip spot, facilitating better control and precision. Moreover, the stainless steel handle adds a satisfying weight to the knives, enhancing the overall tactile experience. A crucial aspect of these knives is their ease of cleaning after use. The meticulously crafted mouse parts are designed to facilitate effortless cleaning, ensuring convenience and longevity.

Let’s not forget the blades! Shaped like slices of cheese, they’re a feast for the eyes. The designers didn’t stop there; they added indented circles to make sure you really feel that cheese-loving vibe. These details not only complement the overall concept but also serve to reinforce the connection between the knife set and its intended purpose. The ‘Slice and Mice’ collection successfully strikes a delicate balance between visual appeal and practicality.

In a world where cheese reigns supreme, the ‘Slice and Mice’ cheese knife set exemplifies the creative possibilities of merging functionality with artistry. By combining polished stainless steel with adorable mouse-inspired handles, the designers have crafted a collection of knives that transcends their utilitarian role and become a delightful addition to any dining table. With their seamless blend of elegance, ergonomic design, and easy cleaning features, these knives are a testament to the vision of creating utensils that warm both the eye and the heart.

The post These cheese knives inspired by mice brings to mind the lifelong chase of a mouse and their cheese first appeared on Yanko Design.