Beautiful Europe
Month: March 2016
Turn an IKEA Lamp into a Remote-Controlled Death Star Lamp
Instructables user AudriusA1 shows us how to create this unique ceiling lamp that sort of looks like the Death Star from Star Wars.
Mobile lingerie shop by SAW and MOA designed to travel across the US
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for in DC: Peak bloom for…
It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for in DC: Peak bloom for the cherry blossoms has arrived at the Tidal Basin, and it is gorgeous! Photo courtesy of Buddy Secor. 🌸
Baca completes flood-resilient home beside an Oxfordshire brook
This larch-clad residence by floating architecture specialists Baca Architects is raised above its flood-prone site in Oxfordshire, England, on wooden blocks and an elevated deck (+ slideshow). (more…)
Selected Wildlife
Kermode “Spirit” Bear by Paul Burwell
Kermode “Spirit” Bear walking along a log over a river in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada. These bears are not albinos. Rather, they are a black bear that carries a resesive gene that causes about 1 in 10 bears to be born with white instead of black fur. They only live on the west coast of Canada and there are only about 500 of them in existence.
House in Stravanger / Austigard Arkitektur
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
- Architects: Austigard Arkitektur
- Location: Stavanger, Norway
- Architect In Charge: Austigard Arkitektur
- Design Team: Tor O. Austigard, Hildegunn Slotnæs
- Area: 80.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2015
- Photographs: Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
- Architects: Austigard Arkitektur
- Location: Stavanger, Norway
- Architect In Charge: Austigard Arkitektur
- Design Team: Tor O. Austigard, Hildegunn Slotnæs
- Veneer Sheets: Oslo Finerfabrikk
- Area: 80.0 sqm
- Project Year: 2015
- Photographs: Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
From the architect. The interior spaces are sculpted to form a varied sequence of spaces, with emphasis on the changes between light and dark spaces as well as between open and intimate spaces. In a small house it is also important to pay attention to all the small “bonus” spaces, such as window sills for sitting in. The interior is all wood, ranging from dark pine floors to light beech walls.
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
The house has utilized regular building methods easily available, and despite its is high material and spatial quality it is completed at a normal building cost.
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
Nordic cities have a long tradition of building austere, small, wooden houses, packed together in tight communities with building densities that match even today’s modern metropolises. Especially in coastal Norwegian towns, where this house is situated, resources have been scarce, and this way of building has for centuries been maximizing energy efficiency, access to daylight as well as controlling small-scale outdoor local climate in a harsh climate.
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However, the past half-century has seen the Nordic countries shifting its mainstream housing production to, on the one side, detached houses on large plots in suburbia, and on the other side, large-scale housing schemes. Judging from a half-century of experience, none of these two go well with climatic requirements or community building, which the Nordic society and welfare state is reliant on.
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
This calls for a revival of the small-scale, high-density, Nordic urban house typology. In the town of Stavanger, this house alone has attracted a lot of attention, and is now spurring a revitalized focus on this typology, in politicians, bureaucrats and developers.
© Austigard Arkitetur AS + Emile Ashley
Beautiful Pictures
Lake Tahoe – California – USA (by m01229)
This week, researchers planned the “death of traffic lights” and Apple downsized its iPhone
This week on Dezeen: Apple’s new iPhone came under fire this week, while MIT researchers proposed a system for driverless cars that could spell the end for traffic lights. (more…)
Sig Nordal 