Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Simply Monumental: Stoic Underground Estate in Greece

Posted: 11 Sep 2012 10:00 AM PDT

[ Filed under Ultramodern & in the Architecture category ]

Clean lines, solid materials and a sense of permanence surround this partly-subterranean house on the Aegean Sea. Large areas are reserved for ramps, decks and pools to engage the beautiful outdoor settings on all sides.

Traditional stone and white stucco tie the building into the place, but the modern cubes and rectangles make this clearly a work of contemporary construction at the same time.

Designed by Deca Architecture, there are comforting accents to the austere structure, too, like a natural-wood canopy and wooden benches with copious cushions in one of the outdoor deck areas.

Keep Going - Check out this Great Related Dornob Article:

Underground Home Design: How to Build & Bury a House

Underground Living: Buried Secrets of a Stone Desert Home

[ Filed under Ultramodern & in the Architecture category ]

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Really Robust: Earthquake-Proof Desk Survives Smash Tests

Posted: 10 Sep 2012 04:00 PM PDT

[ Filed under Furniture & in the Desks category ]

It is one thing to have a great theoretical design concept – say, a table or desk that might save your life in an earthquake or other building collapse – and another to build and test a real-life prototype.

A student and professor pair, Arthur Brutter and Ido Bruno, started with the classic advice of hiding under one’s school desk in an earthquake, but asked how safe a proposition this really is.

To see how their own variant would work, they dropped a thousand-kilogram weight on it – sure enough, it deformed but did not break, effectively protecting the person stowed away beneath it.