For a jaw-dropping $1,000 a night, you too can vacation in this architecturally interesting beach house.

Alinghi is a vacation home clinging to the cliffs of north Queensland’s Capricorn Coast, Australia.

A vast travertine stone terrace connects the front of this expansive cedar, glass and steel cliff top dwelling.

Both completely open, and cosily protected, the lines of the casually luxurious beach pad gather together the elements of comfort and sophistication.

For dining, an intriguing treehouse feeling is created by low windows that oversee the surrounding bush that leads to the sea.

The sheer ‘weight’ of all this travertine stone in the public pavilion suggest it is carved out of a limestone cliff.

Centered between the two pavilions, an even larger travertine terrace faces the infinite view.

In the sleeping pavilion on the other side, four fresh and sun-filled bedrooms drink in the ocean air.

Completely open to the salt sea spray in front, the master bedroom would feel as if it was hollowed out of the cliffs.

The walk-in shower with its eco-chic outdoor entrance makes short work of sandy feet coming in from the beach below.

For the sleeping pavilion, an abandoned beach shack feeling is created by the open slats – to elicit relaxing downtime.

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A Luxury Vacation Spot in Queensland

From his “slow studio” in North Alabama, the award-winning wood artist Robin Wade designs and crafts extreme one-of-a-kind handmade furniture.

The studio is fortuitously situated in the South with its lush, southern hardwood forests – and extreme weather.

This means the kind of severe storms that can bring down huge ancient old growth trees.

The studio tries to harvest wood primarily within a 60-mile radius from the studio, immortalizing downed trees from severe storms, as well as timber with particular historical significance.

Wade also saves urban logs or felled trees from the landfill by working hand-in-hand with local city and county governments.

The entire sourcing and production process mirrors an extensive effort to promote ecological balance and organic sustainability.

His work balances the raw, natural beauty of environmentally, locally sourced hardwoods with minimally invasive, clean lines.

The photographer Charles Moore – known for his photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the south – documented the sustainable harvesting of the huge tree that came down during a storm at Barton Hall, an historic 1840′s plantation home near Cherokee, Alabama.

Why so long ago? The process that creates his unique, one-of-a-kind pieces takes time – up to three years.

The process begin by sourcing the trees, logs, or antique beams, flitch cutting the lumber (retaining the natural edges), debarking with a draw knife, stacking and air drying – which takes one to three years, and finally the kiln drying process.

“At this point,” says Wade, “we are ready to begin cooperating with the wonderful slab to see just what form we can come up with for its next life.

Utilizing centuries-old methods, machinery, and tools, each piece is finished on-site and transformed into a hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind piece of art meant to last for generations.

The result is that the very unique company creates only a handful of items each year that Wade calls both rustic and modern. “I haven’t yet found a better artist than nature,” he says.

“What’s the rush anyway”, says Wade. “It just makes sense (to me) that if furniture takes weeks, months or years to make – the customer would in turn value it more, keep it longer, and there would be a slow down in the chaotic mass consumption of our natural resources. Well, we’re doing our part”.

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Slow Studio Furniture that Takes Years to Make

Designed by the James Law Cybertecture International, the Bandra Ohm in India is a startling Ohm (Ω) shaped luxury apartment complex suggesting the fluid ripple effect of capillary wave motion.

Fascinatingly, it is a series of small infinity pools down the front of the Bandra Ohm that create the intriguing undulating pattern down the apartment building.

Both the outline shape and the ripple pattern suggesting water, fluidity and impermanence, are supposed to be an abstract representation of the symbol Ohm (Ω).

Instead of the one pool that gets ignored in the average apartment building, this creates a multitude of small private pools for the fortunate few in this luxury residence in India.

In the fashion of these sorts of extravaganzas, some kind of central community center is supposedly housed in the bizarre contraption in the center of the building. (You just hate to think how this multistory ring thing might act in an earthquake.)

But the genius of the unusual design is seen from inside the apartments.

Cleverly, the undulating narrow exterior design of the 140m tall residential tower also results in spacious double-height luxury interiors that are sun-filled and cheerful with an apparent infinity pool hanging out over the sky.

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Infinity Pools Shape the Bandra Ohm

If eating out every night for weeks upon end sounds like fun to you, you ought to think about having your kitchen remodeled. Because in the end, that’s what remodeling your kitchen often involves —- either night after night of restaurant meals or ramen noodles prepared on a hotplate.

Living this way for an extended amount of time can drive you crazy! So how can you make your kitchen remodeling experience a little more palatable?

1) Plan a temporary kitchen ahead of time. While your dream kitchen is under construction, prepare some corner of your home to stand in as your temporary kitchen. Depending on the layout of your home, this could be your dining room, the bar area in your den, a patio, a corner of your basement or garage or even a hutch or an armoire which allows you a place to store plates and a few kitchen items. Your temporary kitchen should include a table and chairs, a food prep service, an outlet for plugging in a microwave or electric hotplate and boxes or storage crates stocked with food as well as eating utensils. If you can manage it, move your fridge out to your temporary kitchen. And if that doesn’t work, consider investing in a minifridge or an ice chest where you can keep perishables.

2) Stock your kitchen with temporary kitchen basics. These are simple appliances you are most likely to use every day. They include a coffeemaker, microwave, toaster oven, hot plate, slow cooker and an electric griddle or skillet.

3) Embrace simplicity. While you’re in the thick of your kitchen remodel, you will not be taking on ambitious 12-course meals or baking fancy desserts. That means two things: One, you can put away your mixers, bread-making machines and cake pans. Two, you can plan ahead of time for simple meals that do not require many utensils or a lot of fuss and muss to prepare. Great remodel meals include pasta with canned pasta sauce, eggs prepared on an electric griddle, and simple salads. You should also stock up on non-perishable items that can serve as simple meals in a pinch. These include peanut butter, crackers, nuts, dried fruit and canned goods.

4) Stock up on paper goods. Since washing dishes is going to be much more complicated for a few days or weeks (hopefully not months!) look for recycled and recyclable paper plates and cups to do kitchen duty. When it comes time to wash pots and pans, turn to your bathroom sink or bathtub.

5) Plan your kitchen remodel for the summer months, when eating outdoors is feasible. You will preserve your sanity and even make your kitchen remodel an opportunity to embrace healthy eating habits, if you use your patio and outdoor grill as your temporary kitchen. An outdoor grill will allow you to prepare a wider variety of tastier meals and give you some place to relax away from the chaos of the indoors. In addition to grilling fish, chicken, steak, burgers and fresh veggies, an outdoor grill can be employed to bake a pizza, roast meat, or create a variety of foil-packet meals.

6) If you can, leave town. If you’ve got a contractor you can trust, you may find a kitchen remodel the perfect time to visit your relatives, take that vacation, or go on that business trip. If you have a vacation home, it’s a great time to use that as your home base and check in every so often to see how work is proceeding at home.

Remodeling a kitchen is never exactly fun, but if you keep in mind the final results of all your effort, you’ll find it much easier to deal with the temporary inconvenience of not having a full kitchen. Embrace your adventure, good luck and bon appetit!

Do you have any good tips for surviving a kitchen remodel? Please share!

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Design Dilemma: Tips on Surviving A Kitchen Remodel

This apparent extension of a house with a glass box is fascinating. It really looks as if an outdoor deck has simply been completely encased in glass, even underneath!

The dining room is cantilevered out over the top of the grass in a way that makes this glass box concept clear.

Just two elements dominate and are contrasted, throughout the house.

A stone “chimney” at the heart of the house houses the swimming pool.

Stone, ancient, rustic and traditional is contrasted against huge panes of glass, modern, clean lined and contemporary.

From a distance, only the huge stone tower is visible above the trees.

Smooth polished concrete floors sweep through the entire structure, connecting the whole.

Open on both sides to the surrounding greenery through the huge glass walls, the house is cool and refreshing.

As if to echo the greenery outside, the predominant color within is also green.

Set in a forest clearing in the countryside, even the bedroom is unscreened for privacy.

Similarly, an “open air” bath can be enjoyed in private in this Polish country house.

The house, near Krakow, has a relaxed and yet warm and inviting contemporary feel to it.

MOFO Architects have created a house that is close to nature, but well separated from the weather.

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A Modern Glass and Ancient Stone House in Poland

An ancient and likely sensible architectural building code advises that we should not build castles on sand. But the bold contemporary Peruvian architects Vertice Arquitectos seem unconcerned.

This utterly open and gorgeous beach house at at Palillos beach is the result, with its floors and walls and even rudimentary furniture seemingly grown out of sand rock itself.

The open front and white limestone interior gives it the feeling of a cave in a limestone cliff overlooking the sea.

It overlooks a million-dollar view of the ocean near Lima.

From behind, the house brings a contemporary urban zing to beach house design.

Subtly marine-themed windows pierce the entry wall, ceding access to the huge, open and lofty space.

A kitchen are occupies just a fraction of the huge space.

By sharp contrast with the completely open front, each of the side walls is solid and windowless to preserve privacy as gradually more holiday houses also dare to build on the beachfront sand to enjoy this million-dollar view.

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Sweet Beach House is Built on Sand

By reflecting back the trees on the sidewalk, the mirrored windows on the back of this house create the impression of an apparently empty wall with windows looking through to a forest instead of into a solid house.

The forest apparently captured in the house on the street side of this innovative home from Djuric Tardio Architectes is the first of many delights in this charming eco home in the French suburbs.

The entire top of the house has an unusual gabled trellis over a full sized roof deck.

This gabled shape was in order to conform to a building code requirement that the house have the same gable shape as its neighbors.

But the architect has turned that requirement on its head. Instead of the liability of just another dark cramped attic, this is an asset.

Instead of a dark attic the young family has another place to play.

Uncluttered and simple, the roof deck offers a wide open vista on the tight space, as well as a row of skylights that provide passive warmth for the house inside.

The gabled trellis can be planted up with vines for a rooftop garden.

The empty space avoids finality, and lets the imagination roam with possibilities. Sustainably-sourced Finnish wood was used throughout.

The view back through the pleasing open house is open to the street (the mirrored windows are clear viewed from this side) is a model of passive design.

plan

Huge sliding walls slicing the spacious living area make the library off limits when parents need to focus.

But open, the library flows effortlessly from the main living area.

Passive design brings sun all the way in from a skylight wall that goes all the way back to the kitchen.

This skylight on the edge of the house ends with a double height window that opens up the space to passive heating and gives the lofty feeling of a double height ceiling.

But actually, as these varied ceiling heights show, the high wall ends above the sliding doors, where it cradles a playroom upstairs.

But light bounced between these skylights and double windows is the only warming needed.

The playroom upstairs is young and fresh with a refreshingly simple loft-like layout.

The playroom opens out to one side of the deck overlooking the garden.

The deck is planted with vegetables and fruits like kiwifruits and grapes.

The plants are irrigated by a rainwater harvesting system.

In such a cramped space between the neighbors, this house is an absolute miracle of freedom, with many light-filled, open spaces.

Almost suggesting a barn in the country, with its grasses planted at the edges, this is a home with many roomy places to escape and dream.

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Innovative Eco Home Brings Joie de Vive to the French Suburbs

This subtle and lovely minimalist sink is not where you might expect it.

In a complex of church buildings in a rural Catholic Parish in South Louisiana designed by Trahan Architects, this is a part of the new Holy Rosary Church.

The almost angelic peace of these buildings struck me.

These are intensely modern and minimalist – and yet with the medieval quality of cloisters.

The sober sight lines suggest the architecture portrayed by medieval artists like Fra Angelico, yet these structures are also modern and minimal.

The architect develops a meditative environment using the limited palette of light colored concrete with plate glass.

These minimalist surfaces draw attention to the play of light on these humble materials.

The complex includes an administrative block, two linear classroom bars, a religious education building.

The buildings form the courtyard in which the oratory is located.

The oratory, or chapel, is the focus of the otherwise orthogonal composition, but is itself skewed to further underscore its importance and to create a sense of expectation.

Light enters through a variety of openings carved from the wall thickness without revealing context or light source beyond.

Cast glass detailing offers a relief from the very restricted palette of poured-in-place concrete with plate glass.

In the humblest details, the obscured presence of light is symbolic of the paschal mystery of Christ.

Neither opulent nor austere, Holy Rosary Chapel presents a thoughtful meditation on sacred spaces and the spatial embodiment of spiritual experience.

The quite extraordinary result is an engaging and profound study in sacred space.

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A Profound and Minimalist Church in Louisiana

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Design Dilemma: An Ecletic Approach to the Country Kitchen

Wow. This has been a very long time coming.

This work by a U.S. architect – who really gets the solar aesthetic – was uncovered by my friend Tafline Laylin over at Inhabitat.

The zHome community designed by David Vandervort in Issaquah, Washington incorporates solar into the overall design right from scratch.

Look at how elegantly the sun-facing shed roof repeats, not only soaking up all those rays, but making good clean power using a lot more beautiful design than traditional energy does.

(By contrast, imagine an ugly coal power station making that same power on your roof!)

With just ten homes, it is the size of a good little community where everyone knows each other, fostering neighborliness and friendships.

That neighborliness is also indirectly sustainable. We will be much more interdependent in a future world of wild weather, needing each other for much more than a borrowed cup of sugar.

The central courtyard, the shared composting and garden all serve to foster community.

Around the edges, the electric-car-ready car access. I love it!

Each of these town homes goes from its roof to the ground (just like a freestanding house does), and opens out to the courtyard at the bottom.

The solar panels are enough to power 100% of the homes. Passive design lowers energy use as well, and in addition, ground heat pumps moderate temperature extremes so that heating and hot water are also supplied efficiently.

Excellent and responsible design.

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Zero Energy Community Designed to Foster Solar Production