Cedar Vessels by Yasutaka Shimizu

Akita Cedar Wood Pitchers, cups by Yasutaka Shimizu.

Travel: Vorstadt 14 in Zug Switzerland

The building in the old town of Zug at Vorstadt 14, whose architectural history dates back to the 15th century, has recently been carefully renovated. Modern quality complements real history, tradition meets with avant-garde.

Originally a private residence, the building has been given a new identity which, under the name Vorstadt 14 combines temporary home style living with vibrant culture. The three units FACE , BRAIN and SOUL, for individual let, all offer an exclusive environment for art and design.

FACE is a flexible platform which features changing exhibitions from within the art and design area and is available to guests as a room for apéros, meetings or banquets. BRAIN is a modern business suite and offers quality and comfort in an historic environment. SOUL is a private apartment full of history and stories. It is opened for special occasions and for exclusive weekends.

Vorstadt 14, Zug, Switzerland

388 at Three Hundred Eighty Ten

388, in HTML, by Andrey Yazev, Three Hundred Eighty Ten

Wooden Birds by Sanna Annukka

In Karelia there was an ancient belief in the Sielulintu or Soul bird. The Sielulintu was thought to deliver the soul to newborn babies and also to transport the soul to the afterlife at the moment of death. It was believed the Sielulintu protected a persons soul at it’s most vulnerable; when dreaming, and it was tradition to keep a carved wooden bird by the bedside to keep the soul safe during sleep.

Wooden Birds, by Sanna Annukka

Photography: Antarctic Research Bases

Wired magazine has published images of Antarctic research bases. Engineered for long-term habitation in the most extreme conditions, many are built on stilts, so they don’t get buried in the snow. If there were more bases, it would make for an interesting typology, like Canada’s disappearing Wheat Kings.

Photography: Antarctic Research Bases, via: Wired Magazine

Danish Pavilion at EXPO 2010 Shanghai by BIG

The Danish Pavilion is a monolithic structure in white painted steel which keeps it cool during the Shanghai summer sun due to its heat-reflecting characteristics. The roof is covered with a light blue surfacing texture, known from Danish cycle paths. Inside, the floor is covered with light epoxy and also features the blue cycle path where the bikes pass through the building. The steel of the facade is perforated in a pattern that reflects the actual structural stresses that the pavilion is experiencing making it a 1:1 stress test.

“Sustainability is often misunderstood as the neo-protestant notion “that it has to hurt in order to do good”. “You’re not supposed to take long warm showers – because wasting all that water is not good for the environment” or “you’re not supposed to fly on holidays – because airtraffic is bad for the environment”. Gradually we all get the feeling that sustainable life simply is less fun than normal life. If sustainable designs are to become competitive it can not be for purely moral or political reasons – they have to be more attractive and desirable than the non-sustainable alternative. With the Danish Pavilion we have attempted to consolidate a handful of real experiences of how a sustainable city – such as Copenhagen – can in fact increase the quality of life.”
- Bjarke Ingels

Danish Pavilion, EXPO 2010, Shanghai, China, by BIG, Photography by Iwan Baan
via: Arch Daily

Juuri by Sarah Böttger

Offenbach College of Design graduate Sarah Böttger has created a series of containers made of mouth-blown glass with segments connected by plastic rings.

Juuri by Sarah Böttger

House 6 by Marcio Kogan

The House 6 project was thought out after the client had made an important request. The family wanted a covered external space to be used for everyday living. This space should be used to organize all the social life of the house. The Brazilian tropical climate suggests ample use of these solutions in vernacular as well as in modern architecture. Beginning from the colonial, Brazilian architecture has usually incorporated a space that was known as the veranda. Verandas are covered linear spaces in front of the living room and bedrooms which act as the intermediary between the interior and exterior.

In the House 6 project, the idea of the veranda has been reinvented. The veranda is not exactly in front of the living room, disposed longitudinally, but, rather, perpendicular to it. The wooden pillars that give support to the structure and the clay tiles of traditional verandas have been substituted by modern pilotis that support a volume of flat slabs. The veranda of House 6, nonetheless, still remains an open space and, simultaneously, opens to the garden and the pool. It is a living room, a TV room and an extension of the internal kitchen.

This space, then, structured the entire architecture of the house, organized in two transversal volumes and an annex in the back that holds a home office. The lower volume houses the utilities, the kitchen and the living room with door-frames that can be recessed into the walls, and thereby entirely opening the internal space to either side. This sets the cross-ventilation and an unfettered contiguous view of the garden. The upper volume has the private area of the house with the bedrooms and, on the third floor there is a small multiple-use living room alongside an upper deck.

Architecturally, the space of the veranda, located under the bedrooms, would have a low ceiling-height, to create a warm feeling. The sum of the structure of the two perpendicular volumes and the living room ceiling-height would result in a very high ceiling. Thus, it was decided to make the living room lower in relation to the veranda and the garden. This result made it possible to have a house with elongated proportions and the viability of a covered external pleasant space to be used on both warm and cool days in the city of São Paulo.

Furniture: Diz Armchair, Oscar Chair, Mole Easychair, Mocho Side Table, by Sergio Rodrigues.

House 6, São Paulo, Brazil, by Marcio Kogan, Photography by Rômulo Fialdini
via: Contemporist

Can’t get enough of homes designed by Marcio Kogan?
More Daily Icon posts: Panama House, Beach House, Casa Mirindiba, Osler House and Casa Corten.

Sax by Alain Monnens for Vertigo Bird

Lamps from the Sax family represent an alternative to all surfacemounted downlighters. Its 26 different variations cover the entire spectrum of lighting-design requirements. The choice of different light sources means that this model also boasts a wide range of applications.

Sax, by Alain Monnens, for Vertigo Bird

Pillar by Brad Ascalon for Bernhardt Design

Comfortable is not the first word that comes to mind when describing modern chairs. Merging clean lines with soft interiors can be difficult to achieve; however, through the vision of young American designer Brad Ascalon, uniting these seemingly contradictory qualities has been accomplished. Ascalon’s Pillar chair provides a comfortable experience, while remaining true to the purity of line associated with modernism.

To make the chair more inviting, the seat, sides and back are shaped to form an interior cocoon while the exterior remains clean and crisp. Ascalon believes if the chair were visually, as well as physically comfortable, it would have appeal to both commercial and residential audiences. “Pillar has a curvaceous residential quality on the interior, while remaining true to the disciplines of modernism on the exterior. It is elegant, inviting and has presence in its simplicity,” says Ascalon

Pillar, by Brad Ascalon Studio NYC, for Bernhardt Design