Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Tokyo Urban Farm: Eat While Watching Your Food Grow

Posted: 19 Mar 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Offering some green relief in a dense and brightly-neoned cityscape, these mini urban farming cubes add visual relief and interest but also provide a functional habitat supplying an adjacent restaurant.

Simple iron frames enclose full glazing on all sides so passers by or diners can watch from any side. The growing plants within provide shade and configure exterior space for the restaurant-goers as well.

Crafted by ON Design Partners, the plan and materials are relatively simple but a useful prototype for those who would seek to add urban greenery with more than one purpose in mind.

Reality Glitch: Digital Distortion in Physical Furniture Form

Posted: 18 Mar 2013 04:00 PM PDT

Art imitates life … and sometimes furniture copies computer errors. Yes, you are seeing these images right: they depict an actual piece of carefully carved furniture, not a photo file gone wrong.

Ferruccio Laviani created this off object using CNC processes – hand-cutting such an object would be nigh on impossible. Make from oak, it looks delicate, intricate and solid, up to the points where distortion takes over and sharply (literally, so be careful!) bends and twists it an improbable angles.

From the press release: “Echoes of faraway places and Oriental elements are glimpsed in the "disorienting" design of this storage unit, which seems to have been "deformed" by a strong jolt or by swaying movements. Although it appears to depart from the aesthetics of the past, in fact it draws upon ancient knowledge in the use of carving and fine wood workmanship.”

And where does it fit within the canon of tradition and style? “The appeal of this extraordinary piece of furniture lies in its ability to overturn and question classical stylistic principles such as purity, cleanness and symmetry, while evoking a comforting feeling of deja-vù and a sort of primitiveness, matched by unquestionable craftsmanship.”

Hidden Hemloft: Secret Treehouse in the Woods of Whistler

Posted: 18 Mar 2013 10:00 AM PDT

A would-be early retiree, a forbidden tree in the back country amid some of the most expensive houses in Canada, and a chance meeting in the forest – all pieces of a strange tree-house puzzle.

Joel Allen went from software engineer to carpenter as he transitioned from a high-pace technology job thought to be the road to early retirement and into a more contemplative and slower lifestyle.

Sites and materials found and gifted helped get this project off the ground (quite literally) – as did help from architect friends through the design and construction process, particularly given the complex geometries involved.

The results? A dwelling of dubious legality after a volatile departure from the daily grind … yet somehow stress-free despite that. Lofted off the forest floor, it has little-but-enough space, basic amenities and lovely operable skylights.

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