LoftyLovin

2011-04-28T21:07:00.001-07:00

2011-01-25T20:48:00.001-08:00

Here is a modern apartment in Vancouver designed by Kelly Reynolds which has a total surface of 92.9 square meters and consists of a living zone, 2 bedroom, 2 bathrooms and a modern kitchen.The apartment feature huge windows that allow sun to penetrate the rooms.One of the main elements of the apartment design is the fireplace which catch the guest attention on the living room.

2011-01-25T20:45:00.001-08:00

When we were children, we all imagined that in the year 2000 the world will be governed by robots and everything will be automated and we will use spaceships for personal use. Well, technology has evolved a lot lately, but in a different direction and nothing I dreamed of is now true. However, the minimalist style adopted by most modern interior designers is very close to what we imagined about spaceship designs. So if you are at least curious what it would be like living in the future in a very cool apartment, you should see the pictures below, where you can admire the designs imagined by some specialists and which were exhibited in Odessa, October 2010 within an exhibition called I can see.

You can see very chard edges and unexpected angles, modern materials like glass and concrete and very little furniture that looks very professional and cool. The furniture and bookshelves have irregular shapes with asymmetric positioning and the whole picture of the room contains only one color or two.

Nothing that you can see there is ordinary, as chairs have unusual shapes and the lighting is either disposed on the wall or hidden in them or maybe hanging from the ceiling in unusual shapes that look like falling stars, jellyfish or maybe ivy. Everything is high-tech all around, but deeply functional and modern.

My personal impression is that you can’t simply feel nothing when looking at these designs: you either love them or hate them from the first sight.

2011-01-25T20:36:00.001-08:00

We don’t really know if Daniel Arsham, the inhabitant of this unique apartment wanted to take his passion to another level or was just looking for a creative way to decorate the walls of his current crib. According to Homedit , there are no less than 25000 ping pong balls decorating this 90 square foot Brooklyn apartment,which in consequence has an interesting “pixelated” effect. The small loft is located above the offices of Snarkitecture , the architecture company towards which Daniel climbs down the stairs in order to go to work: T he place is a study in simplicity. Arsham’s got a bed with some built-in shelves and a dresser, where he keeps a few clothes. To enter the loft, he climbs a ladder through the office’s employee bathroom. This is definitely not a design for the masses. But when it comes to applying it to bachelor’s den, it couldn’t be more inspired.

2011-01-25T20:33:00.000-08:00

We have great respect for homes with books. And an even greater respect for architects that manage to bring them into the spotlight. Sure, in the case of today’s project, highlighting them was not so hard, being given that Querosene House “accommodates” no less that 7500 books. This amazing residence comes from architects grupoSP and is located in SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil. Here is a description from the architects: The design takes advantage from the difference between the street level and the lower level of the plot, by positioning the living room in this lower level which ensures the required privacy and maintains the view of the distant landscape through the void. This simple home adopts simple constructive solutions, reducing the actions required for its achievement. The structure of the volume is resumed to masonry walls and reinforced concrete. Installations are apparent and performed without interference. After that the finishes are simple: monolithic concrete flooring and white Portuguese Stone. The walls without finishes are ready as it built. A single exception: the wall with books, finished with time and history. We find this home truly spectacular and educational from all points of view. But we just have to wonder how long it would take to clean it up from top to bottom.

Astounding Villa Featuring Exotic Design and Incredible Views of the Bay

2011-01-25T20:29:00.000-08:00

Located on the hillside of Corossol, St. Barts, this next villa, named Casaprima, is an outstanding contemporary villa that offers incredible panoramas of the bay. At night, the luxurious yachts anchored in the port shine their lights in the direction of the villa, accelerating the felling of a perfect holiday. Casaprima incorporates minimalist design into an exotic setting, making the living areas an enchanting place to enjoy a cup of happiness next to the shore. The villa can be rented and enjoyed by those who are willing to pay the price. It has 2 bedrooms inside the main building, complete with king size beds and another bedroom in a separate bungalow with its own kitchen and bar. Other features of the house include a cosy and bright living room, a gourmet kitchen and an amazing terrace with views of the bay. Large windows and sliding doors allow the landscape to take your breath away from any corner of the villa. The exotic wood found all over the house, combined with the fresh, frisk air of the breeze, offers the amazing connection to nature needed for a perfect vacation.

2010-10-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

My English Fix….

So I haven’t done a story on one of my favorite styles of architecture which is old English villas, manors or castles ~ In which some have been sitting vacant without anyone to call them home….Have been preoccupied with other things lately and just didn’t have the time to sit down and write about one of my great love affairs with the amazing architecture of a era where attention to detail was so amazing….So it is a dreary rainy Monday morning and I thought what better time to sit and write a story about one of my passions….So as I’m researching I find this story about an amazing mansion called Alder Manor…..so along with some of the details from that story is my story on this grand ol piece of English architecture !!

Who knew that a near replica the Clue mansion exists, empty and forgotten, in Yonkers?

Not to be mistaken with Boddy Manor, the above is actually Alder Manor, one of the most amazing places. It’s located in Yonkers, and, unbelievably, it’s completely vacant and has been left to decay for years.

Alder Manor was built in 1912 by William Boyce Thompson, an extremely successful copper magnate. Boyce hired architects to design a 72-room country estate for entertaining (he lived in New York City at the time) on 22 acres of hilltop land in then rural Yonkers. After the death of he and his wife, the mansion fell into ruin as it was traded between owners who had no use for it. Finally, in the past few years, it was purchased by Tara Circle, an Irish cultural group that is dedicated to restoring it.

When you first enter, you find yourself in the enormous Front Hall, with a huge grand staircase off to one side

Off of this in the south-west corner is my favorite room, The Library:

Oh what a wonderful place this must’ve been to cuddle up on a cold winter night by the fireplace and read one of the many books that line these amazing bookcases….

From a distance, the room looks like it’s in excellent condition. It’s only when you get a little closer that you realize how much restoration is needed. Wood is rotting, the paint is fading and chipped…This ceiling picture gives you a better idea (all in all, a great candidate for restoration):

Next door to the library is what I imagine to be the Ballroom, with rich reds and blues complementing the mahogany woodwork:

A beautiful painting aligns the mantle and you can tell just how much attention to detail that was used in creating this beautiful home…..I wonder if there were any secret passageways hidden away in this mansion, as the English had a knack for doing so ?

There is an indoor pool on the second floor. wow imagine crystal clear blue water and how amazing it would’ve been to take a dip in this pool right before bedtime or to wake you up in the early morn !!

An organ sits at the stair landing of the second floor which connects to pipes way up on the third floor! It’d be awesome to hear this echoing throughout the manor.

There are tons of artistic details to be found everywhere, like this bit of a ceiling painting:

A perfect gazebo, along with a pool: Imagine this in beautiful spring time ~ what a wondrous place to sit and read and enjoy the surrounding beauty ~!!

A beheaded eagle greets you when you enter through the back: But a greeting just the same ;)

A Greek theater, where plays and other entertainments were once performed:

another outdoor pool !!!

So once again I exit the doors through the snapshots of this beautifully made mansion, wondering what will become of her wonderfully made walls….I think back to a time when so much love and care must have been given to her upkeep…..and I am saddened that such a lovely piece of architecture once again sits abandoned and alone………;(

via

http://loftylovin.tumblr.com/ 10/04/2010

2010-10-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

The American Cement Building Los Angeles. It has been converted into loft apartments and work space. I could just imagine what it would be like to live there, to have shadows of big X’s cast across your living room floor. Amazing.

Vessel USA Inc. has recently introduced Malcolm Leland’s X00 (zoo) industrial design bookends. This new design was inspired by Los Angeles’ famous historical American Cement Building on Wilshire Blvd. In 1961 Malcolm was commissioned by the architect to produce a sculptural façade made of reinforced concrete which had never been done before at that time.

2010-10-07T08:42:00.000-07:00

House on the Island of St Lucia in the Caribbean….

The Island of St Lucia in the Caribbean is a great place to build a dream home. The any hilly sites afford superb views of sea, and the climate ensures that any garden becomes a bountiful and colorfull tropical splendor. The owner of this house on the coast was inspired to commission its building by his chosen architect’s own house in Barbados. The owner’s mother, an experienced designer of Caribbean interiors, was on hand to advise on the choice of colour, furniture and decoration, ever mindful of the need for simplicity.

Open walkways, guarded by wooden pillars and handrails, curve around the site, allowing cooling sea breezes to penetrate the rooms. The open beamed ceilings look appropriately casual and almost everything is white; built-in seating and much of the furniture is painted white, and white fabrics have been used for cushions and on the beds. The only colour to be seen, apart from the natural wood tones of the bedsteads and some carved Asian furniture, is a riot of yellow-and-blue tiling in the bathroom, shiny copper pans in the kitchen and blue-and-white table-settings.

VIA ~ ZEOPOT

2010-10-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

Ok so I really love the look of interiors that use old trunks and/or suitcases in their design, so I wanted to share a few designs that I found…..

Design Miami , Dutch designer Lotty Lindeman has a collection of suitcases that can be combined for use as a cabinet in the home.

In a Louis Vuitton store at the Century City mall, this was a window display. I love the idea that you could even take a shoe box, paint it white, and then add the details of an old suitcase. And voila, you have cool, modern storage that hearkens back to days of old.

There are even suitcases that are wall stickers , shown above ~ by Ferm Living

there are bathtubs made to look like a leather trunk….this one is made by condor….love the look of this one !!!

The very talented Sarah from a beach cottage blog has some very cute ideas for using suitcases as furniture rather than hiding these away. The best part - it’s so cheap. If you don’t already have a suitcase, you can track some down from your local op shop. Then use as a coffee table in your lounge room, a side table in your bedroom or to even plant some herbs! For the adventurous - check out Sarah’s tips on painting your suitcase white!

Here is a modern creation made of leather briefcases from the talented Maarten De Ceulaear, who you may know for the pile of suitcase armoires.
Old trunks and suitcases seem to add so much character to a room and if your style is eclectic it is easy to find the perfect spot to add it to your wonderfully designed room…..so take a look at the following photos and see just how creative you can be with these old vintage finds from, thrift stores, flee markets, garage sales etc….

And my favorite (below) is this wall filled with old suitcases and trunks….by Zachariah and Gail Rieke at their home/ studio/ gallery
in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

So the next you happen to walk by one of these wonderful old pieces, think what possibilities they may hold in designing the perfect space….

2010-09-21T21:59:00.000-07:00

Located at the mouth of the Little Cottonwood Canyon just south of Salt Lake City, Utah, The House is sited on a steep and rugged foothill and takes full advantage of its spectacular mountainous environs. With a low profile and its emphasized horizontality, nearly half of the three-story house is buried below grade to reduce its apparent mass and respect the natural terrain.

The selection of materials indigenous to the mountainside are collaged together to reflect the primitive and natural beauty of the terrain through the use of exposed structural steel, architectural concrete, native rock, cedar, and glass mosaic tiles, whose colors are reminiscent of the earth’s minerals. This house designed byGrunsfeld Shafer Architects.

2010-09-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

The particular design shows the great transformation of modern house design. The design transforms the concept of the particular living space. The previous usage of the house is as painting office. BogermanDill transforms the house into residential living place called House Pinck-Heerkens. Some alterations keep the easy room arrangement of the previous office becomes the great cozy living space of the newhouse building. The house perhaps would become the new renovated house comfortable design in Netherland with some thoughtful minor adjustment from office into family residence. This is the house modern transformation in Amsterdam to give better atmosphere to the family from the functional office interior building.

loftylovin

2010-09-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

loftylovin

loftylovin — Designed by�Tighe�Architects.

2010-09-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

loftylovin — Designed by�Tighe�Architects.

new to blogger...

2010-07-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well a little about my blog...I started loftylovin on Tumblr and had great success with it...so I decided to expand my blog over to blogger as well.... So if you love lofts, open space living designs, unique architecture, come follow me and enjoy some amazing interiors and wonderful visionaries...

check out loftylovin on tumblr as well....

http://loftylovin.tumblr.com/

2010-07-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

Dynamic, Flowing Spaces Define a House Outside Columbus Architecture by Bart Prince

Remember the amazing indoor pool from yesterday’s post…. well here is the amazing home it belongs too….

Prince, who avoided interior walls for the public spaces, defined the central, spiral staircase with bowed laminated-pine beams. Throughout, explains the architect, “beams carry the structural loads but also designate spatial separations between areas.”

“We wanted everything to be transparent, not translucent,” Prince says. “There are almost no blinds, draperies or brise-soleils.” Windowpanes, which cover three quarters of the exterior, enclose the storm room. Glass guardrails “join the spaces visually.”

Beams radiate from a central column in the main living area. Above it is the storm room; below, accessible by a ramp, are the pool and garden area. Inside the column are the house’s mechanical and electrical systems. Sandstone quarried on-site was used for the fireplace, at rear.

The curvilinear glass-and-copper-clad residence “had to be beautiful from the air, since Steve comes in by helicopter.”

via ~ architecturaldigest

2010-07-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

B&N wall designs…

Forget boring paints and outdated wallpapers, this decorative wall paneling by B&N is a new unique way to bring some exciting decorative patterns to your home. ‘Iconic’ paneling is true to its name, giving your walls some well-deserved star power with its carved patterns that range from abstract, to birds and blooms, to traditional to contemporary designs. And its make is as unusual as its look – this wall paneling is produced using a unique method of formed laminate over carved wood, which gives you that sculpted look along with durability that lets you saw, screw, nail, glue or mount it to suit your specifications. Then just paint as you please, add shelving, accessories and hardware, and you’re good to go. Behind their chic aesthetics, these decorative wall panels are also available with LEED-qualified, fire-rated or water-resistant cores. For more details visit B&N.

2010-07-29T14:00:00.001-07:00

My English fix for the day….

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while have probably already figured out that I have an on going love affair with Old English architecture. I think they had this open space, loft like home living down along time ago. So in this article once again I travel to jolly old England to bring to you yet another architecturemasterpiece….

photos ~ The collective

(most of these vacant home are used for photo shoots, films, etc in England)

Location:

LONDON - South East

Half Tudors, half Stuarts; beautiful large country house with greenhouse, many formal gardens and a stream are just a few things that can be said about this amazing piece of English architecture..

With it’s beautiful stone exterior and u shape design this mansion quietly sits waiting for someone to come along and bring life into these wonderful walls…

When you walk in it’s door you find this amazing room, rich with wood trim and walls, a balcony, and windows that reach for the sky, “now tell me they were not loft living already in this room”…lol

The stairway all curved and floors made of concrete tiles, were just another sign that their architecture juices were flowing way back in time…

So take a walk through history with me in the following photos and tell me what you see…A home made with brick for the front and side and stone in the back…Wood, concrete, high ceilings, large windows, exposed pipes on ceilings, beams on ceiling…. and tell me what elements were not used that you would find in our love for open space living, loft living today~ all these architecture features are ones we love to recreate in our interior designs….

2010-07-29T13:58:00.001-07:00

My pick for cool house of the day….

ČERNÍN (CZ) - Nine years of joint discussions, reflection and designing have gone into HŠH architekti’s Villa Hermína – a supremely individual solution tailored to a specific client.

Villa Hermína has had a long genesis. It began back in 1999 with an exhibition project by HŠH architekti at Prague’s Jaroslav Fragner Gallery. The Space House exhibition addressed the theme of space as an essential constant in the process of designing and understanding architecture. The architects behind the exhibition – Petr Burian, Petr Hájek, Jan Šépka and Tomáš Hradečný – presented six houses, each demonstrating a different spatial concept, in order to emphasize the importance of space inarchitecture. It is their belief that space is often neglected in contemporary design in favour of other architectural elements such as light or materials.

And it was precisely this approach to design that captivated the future Villa Hermína client, Michal Čillík. It should be noted that at turn of the century there were still not very many good quality family houses being built in the Czech Republic. Mostresidential construction at that time consisted of substandard catalogue housing, which appealed to many inexperienced customers because of the relative ease of buying a home and the quick construction time. But it resulted in large tracts of suburban residential development without any input from architects or urban planners.

Villa Hermína is a small family house at the very end of the little village of Černín. Though not immediately obvious, the central theme of the building is the internal spatial arrangement. The entire interior is one open, continuous space. This unconventional layout originated with the client who, as an ardent film lover, wanted a special room for screening films. This eventually became the starting point for thearchitects, who were inspired to design a ‘home cinema’ by the natural incline of the land. It was from this that the entire concept for the building gradually developed. The slope on which the house stands determined the incline of the two internal ramps, which are the defining feature of the living space. The steep 21 per cent gradient also added an experimental dimension to the design.

The lower of the two ramps is fitted out as a screening room with small, suspended armchairs, whereas the upper ramp offers a never-ending cinematic panorama of the nearby Brdy Hills through a large picture window. This solution does not allow for the placement of standard furniture but this merely serves to amplify the intense spatial experience, the awareness of every movement as well as the mutual proximity of family members.

The remaining area between the inclined segments on the entrance floor is occupied by a kitchen-dining area; the children’s room and a study are on the lowest level, where there is also a spacious technical room underneath the ramp. The master bedroom, which is in fact no more than a bed, is on the highest level, where it cantilevers over the upper ramp like a ski jump. The bathrooms are situated on each floor in the straight parts along the front wall of the house.

The limited internal colour scheme is dominated by a distinctive green shade applied to the floors and parts of the ceilings, which references and continues the green vegetation in the adjacent garden. Because of the significant inclination of the ramps it was not possible to use standard floor coverings; the chosen anti-slip flooring is normally used in sports facilities. The rest of the area is in muted grey tones – a neutral backdrop for residents and visitors alike.

The internal spatial composition also affects the external form of the house. Each wall is perforated by only one opening, and the sloping roof follows the same inclination as the ramps. However, the non-traditional look of exterior owes as much to the sprayed polyurethane coating, which is both thermal insulation and rainscreen, and which has deliberately not been smoothed over. The rather unusual shade of pink is intended as a reference to the architects’ favourite building, the cavitation tunnel (1968–1975) of the Versuchsanstalt für Wasserbau und Schiffbau (Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Shipbuilding) in Berlin by the architect Ludwig Leo.

Villa Hermína’s owner did not view the construction of a family home merely as a means to creating a home, but rather as the creation of an original work of art. And he managed to find just the right architects for this task.

via ~ a10.eu magazine

2010-07-29T13:57:00.001-07:00

Brown/Saide Residence by BNOdesign

Taking cues from a Palladian villa, the U-shape plan centers on a double-height salon overlooking a courtyard and lush landscaping. One wing houses the sprawling master suite. The other wing encompasses the breakfast room and service areas, followed bythe sunroom, which functions as a quasi pool house. Capped by hipped roofs, both ends of the U are articulated to look like freestanding pavilions.

The shag anchors an artful mix of furnishings upholstered in white faux leather ornately carved Portuguese style vintage wooden chairs, boxy custom sofas and club chairs. The monochromatic scheme lets you appreciate the furniture more sculpturally. indeed, the decor is almost entirely white, from this room’s marble topped Eero Saarinen side table, acrylic light towers, and throw pillows covered in Mongoilan lamb to the master bedroom’s monumental headboard. The designers even powder coated every screw and faucet in the house.

Source : BNOdesign