Hasta La Ideas

This narrow house in Tokyo by local studio Another Apartment has no windows or doors on its front to prevent neighbours from seeing inside.

The house for a family of three is squeezed onto a 58 square-metre plot in a residential neighbourhood of the city.

It is surrounded on three sides by other properties, so Tsuyoshi Kobayashi of Another Apartment positioned the building on the northern edge of the site, and located the entrance and windows on the south-facing sidewall.

“We adopted a plan to make maximum use of openings on the south face and the roof for natural illumination, ventilation and views,” explained Kobayashi.

A spiral staircase with cantilevered treads and a minimal handrail links the ground floor with both the upper storey and a basement level designated for use as a home theatre.

The entrance opens into the living room, which also contains the kitchen and features a full-height sliding window that can be opened out to a narrow patio.

“The living room on the first floor is located a little higher than the ground level and has an atmosphere like a broad veranda as a whole,” said the architect.

Upstairs is a single space that can be separated into two bedrooms using sliding partitions that disappear into the wall when not required.

On the south facade, a series of windows spans the full length of the room, while the opposite wall features built-in storage and includes a hidden sink.

Photography is by Koichi Torimura.

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has no windows or doors on its front appeared first on Dezeen.

“Macarons are the quintessential confectionery delight. In the macaron, the color, texture, and flavor become so much more than the sum of their parts. And since the flavors aren’t dictated by the cookies’ form, each one becomes a vessel of endless possibility for the most fantastic flavor imaginable.”

–Will Cotton, discussing his collaboration with Ladurée. The artist’s macaron flavor (think ginger-infused whipped cream) and box debuts this week in Miami at Art Basel Miami Beach.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fresh roasted beans, a nice dripper and fine-tuned grinder are great, but serious coffee drinkers know that using a scale rather than measured scoops is the only way to achieve the elusive perfect cup! For ease of use and cleanliness, the Acaia scale uses responsive, waterproof, touch-sensitive buttons and a flat, silicon bottom rather than extended feet to enhance it’s minimal look. Better yet, there’s an iPhone app that will not only show the weight, but keep track of brew time and coffee recipes!

Designer: Aaron Fujiki Takao

–
Yanko Design
Timeless Designs – Explore wonderful concepts from around the world!
Shop CKIE – We are more than just concepts. See what’s hot at the CKIE store by Yanko Design!
(The Minimalist Coffee Brewing Scale was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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French office Topos Architecture used timber cladding and a pitched roof to give this kindergarten in Mayenne, France, a domestic appearance that the architects thought would be more welcoming to children (+ slideshow).

Named Maison de la Petite Enfance, which translates as House of the Early Childhood, the single-storey complex provides preschool education facilities for 100 children up to the age of five.

Topos Architecture, whose previous projects include a larch-clad nursery in Nantes, planned the building as three zones. Classrooms and activity spaces are positioned at the rear, while staff rooms and storage facilities run along the front, and a sequence of patios and gardens are sandwiched in between.

Narrow strips of Douglas fir provide a uniform cladding across the outer walls and roof of the structure, and were also used for the perimeter fences. “The use of a wood facade gives a unity and a natural tone to the whole building,” said the architects.

Windows face inward towards the patios and gardens, while the sloping roof is topped with a chimney-like structure that houses an attic filled with ventilation equipment.

“Overlooking the entrance of the building, the roof has a double slope that gives it the silhouette of a house – an architectural line that is also included in the typology of the surrounding urban fabric,” said the architects.

Four large multi-purpose rooms are contained within the building and can be subdivided to accommodate different activities.

Other spaces include a dressing room where children can put on and take off their coats, a sheltered entrance where parents are encouraged to interact and a network of corridors that help to prevent children bringing dirt inside.

Photography is by Jérôme Blin of Collectif Bellavieza.

Here’s a short project description from Topos Architecture:

Conception and construction of the House of the Early Childhood

The House of the Early Childhood, located in Mayenne, between the city Centre and the new railway station district, is an urban building of a single level.

The architects have imagined a soft and welcoming architecture for children, for parents, but also for nursery nurses.

In this way, the building is based on a domestic and hospitable universe: presence of wood outside but also inside, reception and common spaces user-friendly, roof partially built in double slope, omnipresent natural light, generous vegetation.

The garden (800 m2) is an outside room really private and there are four patios that give rhythm to the common spaces.

This centre welcomes from now on 90 children in 1300 m2.

This building is emblematic on environmental plan. It has received from Certivéa, the certificate of conformity to the label for High Energy Performance. Certivéa certifies that it’s in accordance with the BBC level and with the requirements of the Effinergie brand.

Location: Mayenne (53) – France
Surface: 1 300 m2
Architects: Topos Architecture
Children in the House: 90
Project owner: Ville de Mayenne (City of Mayenne)

The post Timber-clad kindergarten with “the silhouette
of a house” by Topos Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

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