Isn’t it beautiful?

See the whole article here

This is the recently opened Maritiem & Jutters Museum (Beachcombers and Sailors Museum) on the island of Texel, The Netherlands. It’s a great building I think.

The architects Mecanoo from Delft have provided the building with four interlinked, playful roofs. The thought behind this is that the peaked roofs, which seem to stab from the sea as waves above the dike, blend into the village roofs.

I see this farm many times on my daily walk with the dogs. Not very a very interesting building but I thought the shape of the roof would make a nice picture in the misty morning light. The farm is a typical farm from the northern region of The Netherlands, where I live.

This is a typical Dutch biking path in an even more typical Dutch landscape, under very Dutch skies. Often I walk along this canal with my 2 dogs … not seeing anybody for miles …

House 2.0

Inside a whole tree was used instead of a girder, adobe walls instead of plaster and on the outside the house has a charred-wood facade.

Reused timber

Charred wood for the siding

It’s clear that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill eco-house.

Read more here.

With the snow please …

… the woodstove…

… and the lovely simple kitchen.

Waldhaus is a design by Atelier-ST

Via FreeCabinPorn. This site has great images of cabins  and was a tip off from 13Threads.
Thank you Lois!

She just realised FOLDING FOR PEACE, a paper garden in Nagasaki, Japan.

“An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. Inspired by this popular belief, the garden Folding For Peace is the physical remain of a wish for world peace. All the plants that compose the garden are folded out of white paper.”

The projects of Anouk are very divers. They range from fashion projects like this SEASON CHANGE dress …

to  fairytale like WINTER & SUMMER bridges …

The realisation of the bridges is planned for the end of 2012 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

More info on Anouk Vogel

Recently this former neglected home which is situated in Rotterdam, The Netherlands won The Lensvelt Architect interieurprijs 2011 prize. Because of this I looked into the project again and for the first time saw pictures of the interior. All in all a wonderful gem …

The architect of the Black Pearl is also the occupant of this extraordinary house in Charlois. The black-oiled facade contrasts sharply with the adjacent houses.

Existing windows are painted and new windows cut out.

The house was renoveted in 2010 and is an original stacking of several functions: studio, home and an exceptional roof garden.

The design is by architect and in this project also client Studio Rolf.fr in collaboration with Zecc Architects.

And look at it now … The natural site has been dramatically urbanized and modernized, while keeping the ecological processes and natural services of the site intact.

Qinhuangdao City decided to build a “Red Ribbon” spanning five hundred meters, which integrates the functions of lighting, seating, environmental interpretation, and orientation.

It is made of fiber steel, and lit from inside so that it glows red at night.

While preserving as much of the natural river corridor as possible during the process of urbanization, this project demonstrates how a minimal design solution can achieve a dramatic improvement to the landscape.

Please click here for the complete article and more images.

And not only fabrics, MEG O’HALLORAN DESIGN is a collaborative design-make studio specializing in modern furniture, carpets, and upholstery fabrics.

Leading lady Meghan O’Halloran was trained as an architect at Cornell University in Ithaca NY and this is what she says about her work:

 “How do we work? Hands On. We like to make paper models, draw sketches, and build things. Not everything comes from a computer, and not everything comes without it. We seek balance in our designs. Traditional in some regards, and unexpectedly modern in others.”

MEG O’HALLORAN DESIGN has a beautiful website and also a shop

Ps What type of Artifort do you think we have in our living room?

The site of Wee House is a big inspiration for me. Most of the houses they build have clean lines, timeless quality and basic shapes.

The very basic shape of this beautiful barn house for instance. Very easy to see another brooch in it don’t you think?

If you click over here you’ll find more great photos of this house.

In Belgium and French, en route on our holiday we saw many more of those walls. The walls sometimes have fantastic patterns and are mostly made of slate, although I think the blue tiles are made of copper.

I think it was Erica Hogenbirk, who pointed out to me that the blue wall was probably somewhere in Belgium. So she was right about that! By the way; Erica is a Dutch knitwear designer and makes wonderful products of wool and other materials. Please take a look in her Etsy shop.

On to the walls again… In the previous post with the photo of the blue wall I told you about my inspiration and that I was pretty sure that one day the Blue wall photo would become a brooch.

And here they are…made of cherry wood, silver and copper.

and one made of ebony, silver and copper rivets…

Soon they will be placed in our online store .

Photo of slate tiles by: Durley Beachbum