Hasta La Ideas

This six-sided wooden cabin by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar has walls that zigzag up and down and two circular windows resembling fisheye camera lenses (+ slideshow).

Designer Jaanus Orgusaar based the wooden house, called Noa, on the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron – a convex polyhedron with twelve identical rhombic faces. This creates a modular structure that can be extended with extra rooms, but that also feels like a round space from inside.

“The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, the walls and roof are compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module,” Orgusaar said. “The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space.”

The 25-square-metre house is located in Estonia,

can be easily assembled or taken apart, meaning it can be transported elsewhere if needed.

It is built entirely from wood and its exterior cladding boards were soaked with iron oxide to give them a grey, weathered appearance intended to help the cabin blend into its surroundings.

Insulated wooden boards cover the roof to keep the interior warm, and the base of the structure is raised up from the ground to prevent damp.

“The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground and is therefore also more cold-resistant than a usual dwelling,” explained Orgusaar.

Walls inside the cabin are plastered walls and painted yellow, and the space is furnished with a small kitchen and a dining table and chairs.

A terrace can be attached and used as a dining area in warm weather.

Orgusaar built the first house as a summer cottage for his family, and plans to add two more modules. The design is also being manufactured by prefabricated building company Katus and will be available for sale soon.

Here’s a project description from Jaanus Orgusaar:

Aiamaja Noa

Noa is an easily mountable sustainable living space, adaptable to a variety of landscapes and environments. The advantage is that one can always add a module to extend the housing step by step, with each module, ones “saves” a wall.

It is an invention by Jaanus Orgusaar, an Estonian designer-inventor. He built the first one for his own family, and plans to add two more modules. One module is 25 square metres.

The small house was brought to life from the need for a practical, sustainable and economical living space which would be easily mountable compiled from identical elements. The base element is a specific rhombus. The base for the structure is the rhombic dodecahedron.

The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to tessellate three-dimensional space. It can be stacked to fill a space much like hexagons fill a plane. Some minerals such as garnet form a rhombic dodecahedral crystal habit. Honeybees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycomb from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of diamond and diamondoids.

While looking for the perfect structure that would fill the space without void, Jaanus chose this unique structure for it is stable standing on three feet, stiff and because it spreads the tension evenly, and offers a synergy in space apprehension, having almost sacral feeling to its round space.

Jaanus is an inventor diving into the very bases of geometry. Many of his creations starting from shoes and fashion, product design and now architecture takes its inspiration from the sacred geometry, the five platonic solids and their inter-relations.

The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground, therefore also more cold resistant than a usual dwelling. The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space. The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, walls and roof compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module.

This kind of structure is simple and economical, yet strong, offering a great, almost timeless, sacral space experience. The little house is currently in use as a summer cottage for the designer’s family, the insides continue without interruption to the summer terrace that is used as a dining area. The house is situated at the brink of a forest in the very vicinity of a 200 year old pine tree and fur tree, therefore guests from the forest, as owls and squirrels are commonplace.

Materials used are all sustainable- wooden construction, floor and outside boarding, even roof- covered with thermo boards. The walls are plastered with limestone paste and painted with cottage cheese paint. The outside wall boards are soaked with iron-oxide to make the house grey fitting into the surrounding nature almost inconspicuously.

The round windows frame the view to the open space of endless fields. In the dark the windows reflect the space so that it creates an illusion of additional rooms in the dark.

Noa widens the concept of space offering a different space experience.

Author: designer Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer of first prototype: Jaanus Orgusaar
Producer: Woodland Homes
Photos: Jaanus Orgusaar and Terje Ugandi

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with wooden walls and fisheye windows appeared first on Dezeen.

Créé et conçu par Andrea Deppieri, ce projet Head Wood est la première et unique conception en bois, résultant de la combinaison du design industriel de l’architecture et du design de mode. Le concept a pour volonté de façonner un matériau noble comme le bois pour devenir un accessoire confortable de tous les jours.

Stockholm 2014: design duo Färg & Blanche created this furniture collection by sewing pieces of plywood together (+ slideshow).

Färg & Blanche used a heavy-duty sewing machine more commonly used for making car seats to stitch together sections of plywood.

“No one had ever tried using such a hard material on the machine,” Emma Marga Blanche told Dezeen.

After discovering that it was possible to sew the wood together, the pair experimented with different thicknesses and densities to push the limits of the machine.

“It was really exciting to find that this actually worked,” said Blanche. “We went thicker and thicker with the wood, so the ideas kept coming and developing.”

The first item they created in the Wood Tailoring range was the Pocket Cupboard, a modular storage system with leather pockets attached onto the front of the doors.

“Sewing is so heavily associated with the fashion industry but we like to think we’re tailoring each of these pieces to create Haute Couture furniture,” said Fredrik Färg.

Wood contours that get darker as they become smaller form the back of the Wood Layer Armchair, which arcs around a leather seat.

The pieces of the smaller Bespoke Chair are steamed to bend them before stitching, while the armchair is sewn flat and then glued into its curved shape.

Färg & Blanche also sewed a large freestanding cupboard from a dark grey insulation material, with a topographical motif on the sides similar to the back of the armchair.

Färg & Blanche are a Swedish and French duo who worked independently before combining their efforts and setting up their own studio in Stockholm four years ago.

In 2011 they curated the 20 designers at Biologiska exhibition, where designers’ work was presented among stuffed animals and dried plants.

The products were debuted at Färg & Blanche’s studio last night and are currently on show at the Stockholm Furniture Fair and Northern Light Fair, which commences today and runs until 8 February as part of Stockholm Design Week.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

Wood Tailoring

Fredrik Färg and Emma Marga Blanche’s latest innovation Wood Tailoring will be presented at the Stockholm Furniture Fair for the first time. Sewing technology is taken to its extreme with a thoroughly researched craftsmanship.

“We have tried extreme sewing technology the past years,” says Fredrik and Emma jointly, “not at least in the Emma armchair for Gärsnäs where the stitch was part of the construction. Now we have gone even further by reducing everything, only a shell of wood with the sewing as pattern generator and a structural element.”

Wood Tailoring employs sewing machine to stitch directly on to the wood in order to join different parts together while at the same time creating patterns which has an aesthetic of their own. Layer on layer of thick plywood is stitched together to make the Wood Layer Armchair, and where the sewing presents a topographical map with an organic pattern that resembles the growth of wood.

“Sewing is usually seen as something, which has to do with soft materials. We use our heavy-duty sewing machines to sew in wood. And, yes, it’s a raw poetry that fuses the hand-made with the industrial.”

Wood Tailoring is a new technology, which explores radical new possibilities in the joining of parts in furniture. The first products are the Wood Layer Armchair, the Bespoke Chair and the Pocket Cupboard, all to be presented at the Stockholm Furniture Fair.

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together to form furniture appeared first on Dezeen.

Stockholm 2014: all of the solid wood furniture in Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune‘s collection for Japanese brand Matsuso T has five sides (+ slideshow).

Rounded pentagons feature in all of the designs from Claesson Koivisto Rune‘s Five range for Matsuso T, a new brand curated by Japanese designer Jin Kuramoto.

“We live in a world of five elements that we experience through our five senses,” said the studio’s cofounder Mårten Claesson. “Five is gently odd. Five is not too many. Five is beautiful.”

The maple wood collection includes an armchair, a stool, dining and coffee tables, a coat stand, a clothes rail and a bench, each with softened corners.

“We developed a shape that combines a circle with a pentagon,” Claesson explained. “The chair, the table, the clothes rail and the other members of the Five family all share this iconic shape.”

Legs equally spaced at the corners of table tops and seats are denoted by indentations on the surfaces.

Some items are available with sections or just the dents coloured red. The chairs also come entirely in the same bright shade.

The chairs still have four legs, two of which are angled to meet the ends of the curved element that forms the arms and back. A fifth vertical strut is used to brace this piece in the centre.

One of the legs of a stool is extended through the seat to form a coat stand, with angled branches attached to the pole for storing garments.

A clothes rail is formed from a simple wooden beam with ends that gently point upward, which hangs from the ceiling on thin red strings.

The Five range will be unveiled at the Stockholm Furniture and Lighting Fair, which opens on 4 February as part of Stockholm Design Week.

Claesson Koivisto Rune is also presenting a modular table with plug sockets within the structure in Stockholm next week.

Photographs are by Takumi Ota.

The post Claesson Koivisto Rune to launch
pentagonal wooden furniture appeared first on Dezeen.

Toshiharu Naka of Tokyo-based Naka Studio added an asymmetric roof with overhanging eaves to this house in a Japanese skiing village to create a huge sheltered terrace for residents (+ slideshow).

Located within a patch of woodland in Nagano Prefecture, Villa in Hakuba was designed to adapt to a dramatically changing climate that switches between heavy snowfall in winter and soaring temperatures in summer.

Toshiharu Naka said he wanted to create a house that could open itself up to the surrounding woods, unlike the typical houses of the area that are raised a metre off the ground to protect them from deep snow.

“As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature,” he explained.

To avoid this, the architect built a large polycarbonate roof canopy that shelters both the house and patio from snowfall.

“This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest,” he added.

Three ladders are positioned around the edges so that residents can hang curtains around the terrace. In summer these are nets to keep out mosquitoes, while in winter they are made of plastic to keep the heat in.

Sliding glass doors connect the patio with the main family room, which accommodates living, dining and kitchen areas, but can also be transformed into a bedroom by extending the length of a built-in bench.

Stairs lead up to a small study on an intermediate floor, then continue up to a larger bedroom space on the first floor.

The bathroom is housed within a small shed at the centre of the terrace and residents can use one of the ladders to climb onto its roof.

Exterior walls are clad with pale cedar siding and a concrete floor slab enables a passive geothermal heating system that gently warms and cools the house.

Photography is by Torimura Koichi.

Read on for a project description from Toshiharu Naka:

Villa in Hakuba

This small villa is an environmental device, where we can find ourselves as a part of nature throughout the year.

This villa is built in Hakuba, famous for its international snow resort. In this area, many houses have ground floor, which is set at 1 metre high from the ground because of the deep snow. As a result, these houses are visually and functionally separated from the surrounding nature.

So, I set the large roof upon the site at first, which enables a floor continuous with the ground level. This large roof, made of polycarbonate panels to bear the weight of severe snow, is transparent to gain a lot of sunlight onto the roofed terrace. So, we can enjoy time and light in the forest.

These architectural components work as a passive system at the same time. The floor, continuous with the ground, gains geothermal heat to store the slab under the floor. Surrounding snow works as an insulation in an environment below the freezing point. The transparent roof builds double skin, which enables natural ventilation by sunlight in summer and avoids ice dam problem in winter.

Architecture: Toshiharu Naka / Naka architects studio
Structural Engineer: Hirotsugu Tsuboi
Thermal analysis: Yoshitsugu Yamamoto
Location: Hakuba, Nagano Pref. Japan
Area: 84 sqm

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a huge terrace beneath its roof appeared first on Dezeen.