Reduction by Design

A bridge, a canal, a sky.



We probably see a thousand raw master strokes of design daily: The way a building meets the sky, the way a cluster of streetlights, wires, and telephone towers meet, how an orange bridge meets a blue sky and still water. The challenge is clearing away the surrounding noise and finding the purer signal.



The art of design is both a matter of collection and subtraction and the resonant harmony in-between.



Often the answer is the simple one; Simple it may be, but not unconscious.



Chaos will find us soon enough. For now, let's just enjoy the quiet.

Lighting Strikes

Al fresco refreshed.

The Halley 4150 by Spanish designers Jordi Vilardell & Meritxell Vidal.

A registered original design available only from Barcelona-based Vibia.

The Allure of Blunt Forces II

Is blue the master of a white room?



A whisper of earth tones, breaths of beige and moss green converge with a slightly more assertive cold gray at the boundaries. Accents of dark Rembrandt browns in the table and painting; the muted flatness of the wall hangings; the lines of the floor seem to rise into the chairs, resting as cozily as spoiled house pets. But before the chorus of earthen tones can resonate within us there's the delectable shock of royal blue.





Tones and textures repeat here and there, echoing and resonating. Ornamental trees stand like a parenthetical borders and yet they too must nearly bow before the royal blue ottoman.



Then, turn a corner and discover an alternate universe: The blue, softened now, captures the wall and bows in deference to the white cube in the fore; a canopy chair, a beige screen, and a white canvas all serve as precise support to cube's dominant white.

(Pictures from the British magazine World of Interiors. Respect.)

Rustic Redefined

Remaking nature has almost surely been a human preoccupation since our ancestors first dragged their hirsute knuckles groundward. Despite humankind's best efforts, technology‒as sexy as it is‒still has a long way to go to prove itself nature's equal. (Granted, nature had a good head start.)

Two architects who seem to understand this well are Argentinians Martín Fernández de Lema and Nicolas F. Moreno Deutsch.
















Their project in Mar Azul (completed in 2007), a forest near the seaside resort area of Villa Gesell 400 km outside of Buenos Aires, mingles the mechanic with the organic in a manner as comfortable and unassuming as humanly possible.

For more on this and other architecture to overload you senses visit ArchDaily.