Little Windows

 

No points for guessing where in the world this house is located!  Clever clever design.  This house is designed by Takeshi Hosaka architects for a deaf couple with small children.  The open spaces without walls allow for visual communication through sign language.  200x200mm small windows to the facade allow sunlight into the space whilst keeping privacy in the overcrowded neighborhood. The openings in the floor provide openings for the indoor tree and also for light, and for sightlines for communication.

Seriously, what's going on with indoor plants?  I see them everywhere I look! Love it.

via Architizer

Hôtel Americano

Well this isn't helping my latest obsession with dreaming about a trip to New York City!  Hôtel Americano just opened last month in the West Chelsea neighborhood which is apparently a district that has been one of the last to transform from its industrial past.  So I guess it's a little undiscovered still so you can feel like you're one of the locals a little bit.  And it's right near the High Line Park, this is looking dangerously good.  I didn't look at the price, that would probably spoil the dream!

From the website:
'Hôtel Americano is designed by New York-based Mexican architect Enrique Norten, principal of Ten Arqitectos, the first recipient of the Mies van der Rohe Award for Latin American Architecture.'
Interiors are by MCH.
Found via Design Hotels.

Plant Life

I've been going mad for plants lately!  Have you also noticed that plants have been incorporated in architecture, furniture and in interiors?  I love it! I've got air plants and a hanging string of pearl plant in the bathroom and others in the lounge room and kitchen.  Living on the third floor in an apartment means this is my garden, inside.  I'm not a green thumb at all but I'm trying this time!

Here is a little collection of images, with the last being a light I designed and fabricated for the Lightcycle competition by Electrolight a few months ago.  It's an air plant on a black wire frame and shade.  The air plant requires no soil and gets nutrients from the air, pretty clever.  Just needs a spritz of water every now and then.  Even I can do that!