Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Converted Loft Goes Back to the Future with Classic Style

Posted: 30 May 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Starting out with a spacious, previously industrial loft, Belgian company Dethier Architectures created a unique apartment that was inspired by a classic piece of American design. Before its conversion, the loft in Liege, Belgium was an industrial-scale bakery.

Not wanting to live in a space that looked like the typical converted loft, the client was open to a radical treatment of the wide open home. The architects made a bold decision to insert a space-age-type object in the middle of the loft’s volume, effectively creating a new space while segmenting the rest of the loft.

The dazzling object was heavily inspired by the iconic Airstream trailer designed by William Hawley Bowlus. It is a shiny metal pod that contains two bathrooms, a toilet, the heating and ventilation systems, and some extra storage.

On one side of the pod, a built-in TV – hidden behind sliding aluminum doors – designates the living room. Three small porthole windows allow bright green and orange light to shine through, creating a sharp contrast both to the aluminum surface of the pod and the white interior of the loft as a whole.

All of the other areas of the home are arranged neatly around the striking central piece. Where walls may have created a rather claustrophobic feeling in the loft, the shiny metal object placed in the middle of the home seems to actually add size by inventing a light and airy living space.

The spacious terrace enhances the home by offering an extension of the living space and a connection to a more natural aesthetic. The terrace is visible through an arched glass door at one end of the loft; once outside, the terrace nearly doubles the living space and provides a natural-feeling contrast to the sleek, modern interior.

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8-Way Transforming Table is Poetic Geometry in Motion

Posted: 29 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT

Mathematician Henry Dudeney spent his life inventing puzzles to confound and educate the world, but he never would have guessed that his most famous puzzle would one day be turned into an exceptionally fascinating piece of transforming furniture.

Dudeney’s puzzle described a way to turn an equilateral triangle into a perfect square by breaking the shape into four distinct pieces. By rearranging the pieces, one shape becomes the other. Design firm D*Haus has taken that puzzle and created the D*Table, a coffee table that can be arranged into a triangle, a square, and six other shapes in between.

The hinged table reveals new surfaces, drawers and storage spaces each time it is rearranged. These spaces and surfaces are hidden within other configurations, creating a magical kind of transformation that, with each move of the hinged pieces, invents an entirely new piece of furniture.

The poetry of this transforming table makes geometry into an everyday experience. Although most of us don’t rearrange our entire living rooms every day, the D*Table allows owners to create unique shapes to meet different needs, change the look of the room, or open up new storage spaces easily.