Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Glam Glass House is a Monumental Luxury Retreat

Posted: 02 Mar 2013 10:00 AM PST

An elevated glass koi pond, a sleek suspended porte cochere and the semi-circular facade of this luxury home in South Africa are dramatically framed by towering beams. Glass House by Nico Van Der Meulen Architects is a dynamic space full of transparent walls, with an open interior that welcomes in sunlight and views of the tranquil backyard.

The suspended glass and steel portico leading into the structure has a cantilevered effect thanks to narrow steel supports and vast expanses of glass. An above-ground koi pond set in a reflecting pool serves as both a dramatic focal point, and a means of regulating temperature in both summer and winter.

The glass doors of the lanai can all be opened, blurring the transition between the interior spaces and the large swimming pool and gardens outdoors. This luxury home also features an art gallery, gym, a basement garage with parking for twelve cars and a main suite with a built-in kitchenette and a transparent glass bathroom with automatic blinds that look translucent from outside, but still allow views from within.

The heated pond continues from the outside of the home to the inside, where it is topped with glass and a stainless steel staircase illuminated with blue LED lights.

Subtle, this monumental house is not; its size and complexity borrows from the over-the-top aesthetics of the 1980s, and some aspects of it recall more commercial structures. Taking elements from luxury residences of Johannesburg from decades past, the design of the Glass House fulfills the owners’ request for glamour.

Turn Negatives Into a Positive With This Clever IKEA Hack

Posted: 01 Mar 2013 10:00 AM PST

If you are wondering what to do with boxes or drawers overflowing with old film negatives, this clever project takes care of them while giving your home a bit of personalized mood lighting.

The project, from Claire Chauvin of Poopscape, uses the ubiquitous (amongst IKEA lovers, anyway) IKEA Grönö lamp. All you need is one of the under-$10 lamps, some Mod Podge or other decoupage glue, and a bunch of your old film negatives.

The negatives should be easy enough to find if you’re a memory hoarder like most of us. With almost everyone using digital photography these days, most of those old negatives have been relegated to storage because you can’t bear to part with them – they are reminders of special times, after all.

Before starting the project, you should definitely convert your negatives to digital so you can always hold onto the images. Then, follow the detailed instructions over at Poopscape to create your own one-of-a-kind photo negative lamp.

The finished project is truly stunning. The light shining through the negative strips brings the images to life and calls to mind old movie projectors and photography studios. Head over to Poopscape for the full, detailed instructions on making your very own film negative lamp.

Good Looking Cooking: 7 Superb Designer Kitchen Setups

Posted: 28 Feb 2013 10:00 AM PST

The main design elements of the household kitchen have remained more or less the same for many decades, but the Philippe Starck collection from Warendorf are surprisingly fresh and different.

The Starck collection takes kitchen design in a rather unexpected direction. The collection features the combination of kitchen functions with elements of different rooms.

In one design, the kitchen takes on the functionality of a library as well. The inclusion of tall shelves and even a rolling library ladder give the kitchen dual purposes as well as an unusually sophisticated aesthetic.

Another of Starck’s designs includes a rotating tower kitchen which contains everything one needs to have a fully functional kitchen: water, a stove, a fridge and a microwave are all contained in this tower kitchen design, along with plenty of storage space.

The kitchen designs from Starck and Warendorf go to show that even small-space kitchens can be eye-catching and completely functional.

Comments system

Disqus Shortname