Hasta La Ideas

Ilse Crawford of Studioilse has converted a 100-year-old house in Stockholm into a boutique hotel filled with richly coloured wood, leather and velvet (+ slideshow).

First built in 1910, Ett Hem was originally home to a government official and his wife, who gave the building an arts and craft style with timber-panelled walls and decorative ceilings.

Studioilse‘s renovation includes a series of communal rooms where guests are encouraged to relax in each other’s company. These areas centre around a kitchen, containing large dining tables and an assortment of seating areas.

Other rooms include a library with bookshelves stretching up to the ceiling, plus a glazed conservatory where guests can choose to sit for breakfast or dinner.

“The idea is a comfortable cultured house you can enjoy as if it is a friend’s,” said Ilse Crawford. “Sit in the kitchen, have a drink in the sitting room, pick up a book in the library or snuggle down by the fireplace.”

She added: “We hope that people who travel a lot will feel so happy there they wouldn’t want to stay anywhere else.”

There are six guest suites, five double bedrooms and one duplex suite on offer at the hotel. Each room comes with a mixture of vintage and modern furniture pieces, as well as a brass cocktail cabinet.

Art and photography decorates the walls in each room and a few of Crawford’s own furniture designs are also included.

London designer Ilse Crawford spent nine years leading interiors magazine British Elle Decoration before launching her own London studio. Her best-known projects include interiors at Shoreditch House in London and Grand Hotel in Stockholm.

See more stories about Ilse Crawford, including an interview we filmed about her studio and work.

Photography is by Magnus Mårding.

Here’s some more information from Ett Hem:

The Ongoing Story of Ett Hem

Built in the first years of the twentieth century, this building was home to a government official and his wife, a lady with a love for the aesthetics of Karin Larsson, who collected objects, textiles and furniture from all over Sweden. This was a time when the home became the focus of art and life, and design was integrated into the everyday. The influence of the Arts & Crafts, the romantic notion of national character and the delight in the design of useful things, combined with an impulse to embed a family in a place through architecture. All together this created a very special moment for domestic architecture in Sweden.

Ett Hem, built in 1910, dates from this moment. The house in Sköldungagatan was designed by architect Fredrik Dahlberg. With its protective brick shell it weaves a coat against the harsh Swedish winter. In its interiors it has both the robust, dark-timber-lined rooms of public life, the masculine realms. And the feminine realm of the private. Upstairs the house evokes the summery whiteness and lightness of Carl Larsson’s super Scandinavian interiors, feminine family spaces suffused with sun. Ett Hem has always been a container of beautiful things, the finest furniture, antiques and design. Today its spaces are inhabited not only by guests but by objects and art with real stories and histories, things that frame moments in a life.

Like all the best Scandinavian hosts, Ett Hem is at home indoors and outdoors. The courtyard garden, a secret city wilderness, is a room every bit as important as the interiors, a place for relaxation and conversation, for a chilled bottle of wine or a steaming hot coffee. Personal touches are as important as the design in defining the everyday experience.

The Life of the House

Ett Hem is not the usual hotel. If Ett Hem is an idea of home, of comfort and security, of familiarity, the other is an institution, a series of services. Ett Hem is something very different. It is active, where the guests can subtly shift the conditions, the atmospheres, the conviviality. A hotel is passive, a place that exists with or without you.

While it has all the facilities expected today, Ett Hem is a place that allows the guest to become part of it. Guests are treated as friends of the family. They can turn on the television in the sitting room, borrow our car or take the dog for a walk. They can make themselves at home, help themselves from the fridge. The food changes with the seasons, the rooms warm up with stoves and cool down with a fresh breeze from an open window. Ett Hem is connected to the street and the sky, to the city, it is not a machine cut off from life outside. Ett Hem is as glamorous as it is casual, but while it is a luxury, it is not a luxury hotel.

The Experience of the Place

The value of Ett Hem comes through the pleasure of proximity to beautiful things, of being in spaces that tell a story, and through an ethic of generosity and care. And to a degree, of being left alone to live in a very special house. This from the moment you step through the college door, enter the courtyard into the garden and go up the steps to the front door. In the entrance hall a fire is lit when it’s cold outside, and fresh cut flowers from the garden are arranged on the table. Check in and wait for friends by the fire. Ett Hem will feel familiar. It is a place to use as you please. Downstairs in the sitting room there are sofas to sink into and games to play. The library, a room to disappear into, is stacked high with books you actually want to read. And the leafy glass house, where you can take breakfast during the day, or where you can enjoy a twinkling feast at night. Upstairs the bedrooms have a warm domestic feel with a sophisticated edit of vintage and new pieces in tactile materials such as cane, wood, leather and velvet. Each room has its own cocktail cabinet in gleaming brass. And throughout the house is the owners’ personal collection of art and photography. At the heart of it all is the kitchen. Furnished with a big table, comfy chairs and settles. It is a place to really feel at home. On open shelves everything is at hand. A generous fridge is full to the brim with tasty treats, healthy food, champagne and fine wine, yours to help yourself. A house guest is both privileged and respected. Privileged to be party to an intimate private realm and respected as an honoured invitee.

The post Ett Hem Hotel
by Studioilse appeared first on Dezeen.

Windows are hidden behind timber screens that fold back in all different directions at this family house in Israel by architect Pitsou Kedem (+ slideshow).

The louvred panels fold around two of the house’s elevations and sit flush with the white-rendered walls to create a completely flat facade. They screen every window to moderate light and privacy levels inside the house.

Each screen is mounted to either a hinge or a pivot on the side or on the top, forming a mixture of doors and canopies. They can be opened in any combination to open or close different rooms out to the garden.

“We can achieve a composition that is balanced, dynamic, haphazard, closed or open within the same framework,” explain the design team.

Pitsou Kedem designed the two-storey house for a family living in Kfar Shmaryahu, Israel.

Behind the timber screens, the house contains an open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen that wrap around a staircase at the rear. Four bedrooms occupy the floor above.

The rear elevation is fully glazed and recessed, creating a sheltered first-floor balcony and a ground-floor terrace below.

Pitsou Kedem’s studio is based in Tel Aviv. Past projects include a furniture showroom for B&B Italia and a refurbished apartment with a vaulted stone ceiling. See more architecture by Pitsou Kedem.

See more architecture and interiors in Israel, including a house with two matching concrete blocks.

Photography is by Amit Geron.

Here’s a project description from Pitsou Kedem:

The arrangement of objects in a given space or a defined format in order to give meaning to the placement and arrangement of the items, the result of the relationship between the object and the framework of the artistic creation.

A private, family residence in an urban environment. From without, the building does not reveal that it is a home. It resembles a mold or an artist’s canvas or an almost two dimensional frame within whose area various openings have been placed and which are enveloped with a dynamic system of wooden, linear strips.

The planar distribution of the “picture” or, in this case the front façade, creates a non-symmetrical composition which pulls towards the flanking faces in an attempt to suggest that this is, in fact, a three dimensional mass. The arrangement of the objects (the openings) is always fixed and allows for one central and permanent composition.

The ability to reverse the balanced composition into a dynamic one is made possible thanks to the design of a system of smart blinds that allows the blinds to be lifted upwards whilst they are folded into what resembles a roof. All the rails and fixtures are hidden and so, when the façade is closed the dynamic and changing possibilities hidden in the residence’s façade are not apparent.

All the openings open separately and so allow for different compositions. At any given moment and for whatever reason (privacy, protection from the sun) the relationship between the object and the plane can be changed. Thus we can achieve a composition that is balanced, dynamic, haphazard, closed or open within the same framework.

Movement through the house is accompanied (thanks to the flexible blind system) by different views of the outside, some exposed and bare, others undisguised and others framing a section of landscape especially designed for it. This selfsame changeability and flexibility also allows control of the amount of sunlight and natural light entering through the openings and into the homes spaces. These spaces are characterized by a restrained use of materials and form so that the light penetrating the space creates a sense of drama, movement and dynamism which seems to breathe life into the souls of the silent walls.

Thus, in effect, the system of relationships between the street and the structure composed of changing, but two dimensional compositions on a framed and flat plane develops, for the user of the house’s spaces, an open area that incorporates abstract or tangible images with volume.

The relationship between these same volumes (the walls, the stairs, the various partitions and the different elements in the house) and the space, create, through the structures changing façade and the dynamism of the blinds, changing compositions, sometimes controlled and sometimes random with a new and different experience being created each time for the user and those living in the home.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Design: Pitsou Kedem
Design team architects: Pitsou Kedem, Irene Goldberg, Raz Melmaed
Project: Private home
Plot size: 1500 square meters. Built-up area: 600 square meters

 Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: section

The post Kfar Shmaryahu House
by Pitsou Kedem appeared first on Dezeen.

This concrete photography studio in São Paulo by Studio MK27 features two folding walls that allow the garden to be included in shoots (+ slideshow).

Named Studio R, the three-storey building appears as a stack of concrete volumes with the studio itself occupying the entire ground floor.

Metal screens can fold up and down at both ends to offer the photographer a variety of environments. One reveals a gravel patio, while the other opens out to a plant-filled courtyard.

“The inner space of this photography studio flows into the side gardens of the building and into the urban space, establishing a spatial continuity between the square and the building,” says Studio MK27.

A green formica-clad box runs down one side of the studio and conceals a dressing room, toilet and small equipment room. “In this space, there is no interference from the structure,” add the architects.

Lighting in the floor highlights the bold colour of the walls and perforated openings let this light filter inside. A floating staircase is hidden behind it with a skylight directly above.

Offices and meeting areas are located on the first floor, where daylight filters in through a wooden mashrabiya screen. Another boxy volume sits in the centre of this floor, containing utility rooms and a second staircase leading up to the top floor.

A red-painted mashrabiya screen lines the edge of the second storey, which is a social room opening out to a rooftop deck. This storey is offset from the two below, creating a cantilever that projects out towards the building’s entrance.

The ground floor space has a white resin floor, while wooden flooring gives warmth to the two upper storeys.

Brazilian practice Studio MK27 is led by architect Marcio Kogan. Recent projects include the concrete Casa Cubo, which has no ground-floor walls, and the timber-clad Toblerone House, which was filmed through the eyes of the client’s pet cat. See more projects by Studio MK27 or see more architecture in Brazil.

Other photography studios we’ve featured include one lined with herringbone parquet and one constructed from glass.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from Studio MK27:

Studio R

Facing a small urban square, the Loft Studio opens entirely to the outside. The inner space of this photography studio flows into the side gardens of the building and into the urban space, establishing a spatial continuity between the square and the building.

The façade, an aluminum gate is recessed into the concrete binding, integrating the front patio with the square; further, two large swinging metal gates – each more than 11 meters wide – permit fluidity between the gardens and the open space of the studio. Opened, these swinging gates make all visual barriers between internal and external space disappear. Closed, they allow the light in the photography studio to be controlled artificially.

In the opening of the ground floor, there is a box clad in formica-china, where we have the lavatory, dressing room and the technical area. In this space, there is no interference from the structure, which is built into the side walls of the building. Behind the green box, the stairs – lighted by a skylight – leads to the first floor, where we find the offices and the library.

A volume with metallic material organizes all the space on this floor, separating the rooms and corridors. On this floor there is a kitchen the lavatories and the stairs that lead to the top floor. The negative of this volume is the work rooms which can be opened or closed – depending on the desired privacy – through sliding panels which are built into the central box.

In the main office a fixed mashrabiya panel filters the light, while simultaneously opening a beautiful view of the large trees in the square.

On the top floor, there is a social room positioned over the front garden. This space opens with folding wooden panels, painted red, onto a deck where you can once again see the tree tops: a pleasant space for meetings on sunny days.

The material used internally displays an industrial aesthetic, appropriate for the intensive use of a photography studio that needs to constantly transform itself, depending on the situation.

The floor of the large opening is of white resin which also becomes the endless back and the wall. On the other floors, the wooden floor warms the ambient. Externally, the metal doors join the exposed concrete and the different colored wooden panels.

Project: Studio R
Location: São Paulo, Brazil
Project: February 2008
Completion: September 2012
Site area: 338,15sqm
Built area: 373,00sqm

Architecture: Studio MK27
Architect: Marcio Kogan
Co-architect: Gabriel Kogan, Oswaldo Pessano
Customized furniture: Gabriel Kogan, Carolina Gastroviejo

Team: Beatriz Meyer, Diana Radomysler, Eduardo Chalabi, Eduardo Glycerio, Eduardo Gurian, Elisa Friedmann, Gabriel Kogan, Lair Reis, Luciana Antunes, Marcio Tanaka, Maria Cristina Motta, Mariana Ruzante, Mariana Simas, Renata Furlanetto, Samanta Cafardo, Suzana Glogowski
Collaborators: Fernando Falcon, Fabiana Cyon

Landscape architect: Passe_ar Verde, João Fausto Maule Filho
Structure engineer: Leão e Associados, eng. João Rubens Leão
General contractor: Lock Engenharia, eng. Marcelo Ribeiro
Air conditioning: Grau Engenharia
Installations: Grau Engenharia
Gates: S. Naldi

The post Studio R by
Studio MK27 appeared first on Dezeen.

This rural residence outside Melbourne by architects Studio Four features a blackened timber exterior and terraces that step down a hill (+ slideshow).

Ridge Road Residence is located in the grounds of a golf course on Mornington Peninsula and sits beside a tea tree on a gently sloping site.

Studio Four rejected the raised podium approach adopted by other houses in the area and instead planned a building that staggers down on a series of split levels. The terraces sit at the lowest levels, surrounded by long grasses that protect them from the prevailing winds.

An open-plan living and dining room opens out to one of the terraces, which is framed by a cube of timber columns and joists.

Inside this room, a double-height window stretches across the end wall to frame a view of the nearby tea tree.

“We sought to create a quality of space that provides a sense of sanctuary, enclosure and comfort,” say the architects. “Emphasis was placed upon capturing the varying qualities of light, the scale and proportions of space, and providing a tangible connection with the building’s surrounds, both in topography and landscape.”

The kitchen runs along the rear of the living room, against a wall of matte black panels that conceal utility rooms. An ensuite bedroom is located just beyond and is raised up to become the uppermost level.

Blackened timber clads the entire exterior, while each window has dark-tinted glass intended to reflect the surrounding landscape. “By using pared-back forms and detailing and a restrained palette of materials the emphasis becomes not on the insular and what has been ‘designed in’, but what nature has provided,” add the architects.

All windows are full height to maximise daylight into the house, while concrete floors and thick block walls help to hold in the heat.

Other black houses we’ve featured recently include a weekend house in Chiba and a writer’s hideaway in upstate New York. See all our stories about black houses.

See more houses in Australia, including an isolated hilltop house with a dramatic cantilever.

Here’s a more detailed project description from Studio Four:

Site Context

It is difficult to gain more than a glimpse of the dwelling through the surrounding vegetation. Where the house is visible, it blends within the landscape, the black timber cladding and dark reflective glass selected to help dematerialise the building form from its natural surrounds.

The front elevation comprises solely of blackened timber walls, punctured only to signify the entry. From the street the scale of the house is deceptively modest, the second, lower level is non apparent. The building form sits low, within the existing native grasses, promoting opportunities to connect intimately with the landscape.

Conceptual Framework

The site for this new house is located within the Moonah Links golf course, on the Mornington Peninsula. A simple brief and program requirements, teamed with a dramatic site characterised by a steep slope and a single tea tree, enabled the design to become an exploration into enclosing the basic rituals of domestic life within restrained building forms, whilst at the same time exposing the building’s program to varying levels of interaction with the surrounding landscape, both immediate and beyond.

In stark contrast to the surrounding houses, which attempt to cancel out the sloping topography by creating a podium level at which the outdoor areas sit exposed high above ground level, the design for this house adopted a gentler strategy, with the building form spilling down the slope to terminate in a series of terraced decks. These low lying decks provide privacy from the golf course below, whilst the surrounding native landscape shelters the outdoor areas from harsh prevailing winds.

Varying levels of interaction and connection with the landscape, both real and perceived, drove all aspects of the design, from the channelled views of the horizon upon entry, through to the double height picture window that captures the full proportion of the tea tree, and the direct and intimate connection provided by the low level decks.

Program Resolution

We sought to create a quality of space that provides a sense of sanctuary, enclosure and comfort. Emphasis was placed upon capturing the varying qualities of light, the scale and proportions of space, and providing a tangible connection with the building’s surrounds, both in topography and landscape. Through the building’s design, the client is able to experience many aspects of the surrounding landscape, whether it be a direct or perceived experience, whilst at the same time maintaining a high level of privacy from the golf course below.

The form of the building was also driven by the desire to separate the public and private zones of the residence. The kitchen, dining and living spaces are combined to create a single, fluid area, delineated only by a gentle level change and a fireplace / storage element. These elements provide the level of intimacy required by the client whilst also allowing the advantages provided by open planning.

The panelised matte black wall to the kitchen conceals a powder room, laundry and butler’s pantry, providing the high level of functionality required, while maintaining the calm qualities of the open plan space.

Cost / Value Outcome

Our challenge was to demonstrate that a custom architectural solution could achieve our client’s budget whilst responding directly to the essence of the site and its location. The house demonstrates that we could not only capture the sense of place, but we could also deliver a competitive cost effective solution. By using pared back forms and detailing and a restrained palette of materials the emphasis becomes not on the insular and what has been ‘designed in’, but what nature has provided and drawing this readily available ‘genius loci’ inside for all to experience.

Sustainability Statement

The design for this house stems from an exploration into the absence of what is not necessary, in both building form and detail, which is at the core of sustainable design.

Renewable timber was selected as the primary building material. Used both internally and externally, its natural aesthetic properties are complemented by the low energy levels required in its production, which significantly reduce the environmental impact of the building.

The design located the eastern end of the lower level below the natural ground line, with concrete slab flooring and block work walls providing a high thermal mass, to balance the large expanses of glazing to the north and west. The upper level is cantilevered, with the timber construction incorporating high levels of insulation throughout.

With views to the golf course to the west, all windows and glazed doors were double glazed with high performance glass, enabling a strong connection to the landscape without compromising the integrity of the building fabric. The existing tea tree became a critical element to the locations of windows, providing sun shading to the internal living areas. Access to daylight was maximised, with all windows full height, and predominantly openable to maximise natural ventilation throughout.

These core sustainable design principles were teamed with underground water storage, water saving fixtures, low voc paints and materials, to complete the sustainable approach. Following completion of the house, the site is being re-vegetated with native species endemic to the local area.

The post Ridge Road Residence
by Studio Four appeared first on Dezeen.

Google’s new Tel Aviv headquarters include a meeting area filled with orange trees, workstations on a make-believe beach and slides connecting different floors (+ slideshow).

Swiss designers Camenzind Evolution completed the project in collaboration with Israeli studios Studio Yaron Tal and Setter Architects.

The offices occupy seven floors of the Electra Tower, one of the tallest skyscrapers in the Israeli city, and were designed as a series of informal workspaces intended to encourage communication and collaboration.

Every area is themed, but each one is based on a scene found somewhere in Israel. Some of the corridors appear as narrow cobbled streets, complete with arched windows and flower boxes, while the reception area is an undulating timber landscape reminiscent of the public spaces at Tel Aviv’s port.

Fake grass covers the floor and seating in one room. Another contains surfboards that reference the city’s growing surfer culture.

“Each floor was designed with a different aspect of the local identity in mind, illustrating the diversity of Israel as a country and nation,” say the designers.

Other unusual spaces include a meeting area surrounded by climbing plants, rooms resembling converted warehouses and space modelled on a desert landscape.

One floor is assigned as a Google Campus, a shared workplace for startup technology companies modelled on one that opened last year in London.

Google frequently works with designers to develop wacky concepts for its offices and the latest London headquarters includes Union Jack flags and vegetable allotments. The internet company also recently revealed images of its data centres, which feature primary-coloured pipework and cooling rooms that glow green. See more stories about Google.

Other offices designed for well-known technology firms include a campus for Adobe in Utah and offices for Microsoft in Vienna, which also include a slide. See more stories about technology companies or see more stories about buildings with slides.

Photography is by Itay Sikolski.

Here’s some more information from Camenzind Evolution:

Amazingly inspiring new work environment for Google in Tel Aviv

At the end of December 2012, Google Israel has opened its spectacular new 8’000 m2 offices in Tel Aviv for their ever growing teams of engineers, sales and marketing.

Designed by Swiss Design Team Camenzind Evolution, in collaboration with Israeli Design Teams Setter Architects and Studio Yaron Tal, the new Google office now occupies 8 floors in the prestigious Electra Tower in Central Tel Aviv, with breath taking views across the whole city and the sea.

It is a new milestone for Google in the development of innovative work environments: nearly 50% of all areas have been allocated to create communication landscapes, giving countless opportunities to employees to collaborate and communicate with other Googler’s in a diverse environment that will serve all different requirements and needs.

There is clear separation between the employees traditional desk based work environment and those communication areas, granting privacy and focus when required for desk based individual working and spaces for collaboration and sharing ideas.

Each floor was designed with a different aspect of the local identity in mind, illustrating the diversity of Israel as a country and nation. Each of the themes were selected by a local group of Googlers, who also assisted in the interpretation of those chosen ideas.

Being in Israel, for lunch the Googlers can choose from three amazing restaurants, non-kosher, kosher dairy and kosher meat, each of the restaurants designed to it’s own style and theme.

Only 7 of the 8 rented floors in Electra Tower are actually occupied by Google. The remaining floor gives space to a new ‘Campus’, which was also opened in December by the Israeli Prime Minister. The ‘Campus Tel Aviv’, powered by Google for Entrepreneurs, is a new hub for entrepreneurs and developers, providing a base for start-up companies, and is only the second Google ‘Campus’ worldwide.

Sustainability played a vital role to Google in the development of their new Tel Aviv offices and the project is currently awaiting LEED ‘Platinum’ certification, the first of its category in Israel.

The post Google Tel Aviv by
Camenzind Evolution appeared first on Dezeen.