Opera Mobile Holiday Home

Merus Winery

By: UXUS Design

Where: Napa Valley, California

I really like the lighting and colors that this "cave" provides. I also like the contract between the very modern, whimsical lighting the the very natural reminiscent of history cave like setting.

Suited Case

By: Erik De Nijs

I am not sure if this is completely useful, but the concept is cute.

Amphibian Pavilion

By: Peddle Thorpe Architects
Designed By: Antoine Damery
This amazing exhibition space was created for the 2012 World Expo in Yeosu, Korea. It is a floating exhibition space that allows for an unkown future. It is adaptive and reactive to its oceanic environment. It was inspired by the fluidity of oceanic organisms. You can see their work process in the upper left photograph. It is very very neat to see what a great firms concept process is. it looks like they were working with three different shape ideas and found the one that worked best with their program and then reworked it from there. They call this living architecture, which I am not sure is totally true. I think they just want to call it living cause the sea makes it move, but i think its big enough that nobody would really feel it. The massive space inside allows this structure to be used after the world expo is over.

Umarmung Floor Seating Sofa

By: Christoph Vogle

This looks so nice and comfortable. It is Umarmung because that means hug in German. It inspired by Sedia, which means proper sitting, and floor sitting culture in Japan. The chair is basically a backrest to support you when sitting on the floor. I really appreciate the graceful lines and curves of this seat.

Phildelphia Townhouse

By: Moto DesignShop

Where: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Pine Street

I probably wouldnt even have noticed this had it not been in Philly. Thought I would represent! And now I should say go Phils! Anyways, this home is based around a two-tier lift that lowers the parking space into a basement, Which shifts the second story garden to the ground floor. This allows the exterior space to always be at the center. The house, Which is made mostly of glass, is three bays deep, but is never more than two bays from the exterior, sunlight, and air. It uses an open straight stair and glass walls inside and out to blur the difference between the two. This townhouse really interested me because we had to do in Philadelphia for a Townhouse project sophomore year. What fun.

Float House

By: Morphosis
This new innovative housing design

is for the Make it Right Foundation
in New Orleans that Brad Pitt
formed. :) He is so nice. haha.

Morphosis created this with the help with graduates from the

University of California in Los Angeles. New technology allows this house to float when floods occur. The teams built on a prefab chassis using polystyrene foam coated in glass fibre reinforced concrete. Their plan is create 150 affordable, sustainable, storm-resistant houses. 150 doesnt really seem like alot, so I hope that the plan increses the amount of houses they are building. And hopefully affordable really does mean affordable and doesnt mean affordable for rich people. Clark construction, who are apparently very well know, are making these houses.

Field Chapel

By: Students at the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture and Ecker Architekten
Where: Boedigheim, Germany

This structure happens to be an open air chapel. A genius idea. Making a worshipping place open air would increase the worship experience ten fold I am sure. It would be easier to clear your thoughts and think about what Christ wants. It is made of recycled and renewable materials that were locally sourced and sustainably harvested.

By: YH2-Yiacouvakis Hamelin Architects

Where: Canadian Laurentians Forest

The beautifully perspective house is divided into three blocks that are linked by glass passageways. All of the blocks are in direct contact with the earth in some way. One block is the Entry Block for the kids rooms and family room. The second is the Daytime Block, which allows most of the light into the house with very large windows. The last is the Private Block. Bent Corten steel connects all of the blocks together and defines a series of outdoor settings like you can see in both of the pictures. The designer described this residence as "A forgotten shipwreck at the heart of the forest" It does remind me somewhat of a shipwreck in the forest. It is in the similar shape of a ship and the way the area around the house is cleared make me think that when it crashed there it smushed everything around it. I love this photograph of the outside of the house. It an awesome perspective.

Wall to Wall

By: Shay Alkalay and Yael Mer (Creator)

Designer: Established and Sons

Believe it or not this is actual wood flooring. It is oiled oak herringbone paronet brick flooring. Instead of using long strips of wood like usual wood flooring, they use pieces about a foot long in a herringbone pattern to create this look. This particular room has a 15 color palette. The special flooring with be in London until November 24, 2009 as part of a frieze art fair. In design, my professors have always taught me that people dont look at the floor, but what if you MAKE them look. The multicolored flooring would also help keep the dust and stains to a minimum, which is another concern in design with flooring, espeically in commercial flooring materials. This is a fun, colorful, and durable solution.

Ming Vase

By: Noam Bar Yochai

This vase came from a designer from Israel. It is a glazed earthenware piece like any other vase, but with small holes that allow technological light to shine through. So it is a mixture of old chinese craft and technology. I have never seen anything like this before and the process that it takes to make it seems grueling, making all the molds and stuff, yuck. But the finished product is pretty awesome.

Water Purification Island

By: Jakob Szczesny

Where: Warsaw

This contraption was created for the Synchronicity Architectural and Arts Festival in Warsaw. It its a water purification island that visitors help purify. The floating island allows visitors to purify the water through exercise. What an awesome way to help your body and environment at the same time. I hope this becomes a permanent structure there. I think it would be fun to go down and do some exercising outside while still helping the eco-system. Amazing. This is the kind of stuff we need to get people off their butts and helping the earth.

Polaroid Flower Vase

By: Jong Hwa-Jin

I am so happy someone else came up with a very handy, but very chic way to display pants. I was getting old of the regular old planter. I also really like that he uses the frame to make the plant seem alot more important. It is more of a design that way. Using this to highlight the thing that it is for. It is in the shape of an old fashioned instant polaroid photo. The plant grows through the overhead light on the vase. Very clever.

Lamp Bless You

By: Dima Loginoff

So cute! I think that this is so creative, fun, and quirky, but still has a very spiritual feel. The designer is russian, and uses the basic structure of a cross and the blessing ritual in religion to create this super fun light. A lamp that appears to be blessing you. It would be fun to have that to go sit and read the bible under!

Studio Weil

By: Daniel Libeskind
Where: Mallorca, Spain
For: Barbera Weil

This is a painting and sculpture studio, which makes sense because of the sculpturesqueness of this building. I also really like the light patches that create depth in the surface. The studio was built directly for Barbera Weil, who is a painter and a sculptor. The architect worked very closely with her to make the sure the building complimented and contrasted the artists work. I guess white was a good color to choose to do this complicated element.

Poltrona Frau Showroom

By: Universal Design Studio
I really like how the steps are attached and detached at the same time. I think this perspective of the stairs and showroom. It nice that they left negative space beside the stairs to use as a display area.

Vertical Village

This spectacular structure is from Graft Lab for Dubaih, India. Eventhough the facade looks a sparkling diamon, the facade is actually solar panels. The solar panels and other things allow the Vertical Village to achieve a LEED Gold Certificate. I heard that LEED is not much to think about. Its just a title, it doesnt really mean anything that great. If anyone knows anything about it, please let me know. I need to do more research on it. The building is a multi-purpose building, like many of the new architecture being created.

UN Memorial Space

The memorial building in to be placed in Chunjai, South Korea. I dont get why all the asian and european places are getting the cool architecture and america is not doing anything. ugh. sorry.. side note. It is designed by ACME. The space with house 1,500 person assebly hall, 2 conference halls, a theater, and exhibit space. The basis of the concept came from the UN intself. The UN is comprised of many nations, so ACME represented that by making a cube made up of many smaller cells. The cubes show the collective nature of the UN and also have various amenities and functions. The staircase, which I think is the most oustanding part of this building, runs externallly from a green roof. There are also open communal areas found in the struture. I think it was a great choice to 1) use outdoor staircases and communal spaces to bring all of the parts of the cube together with the world around it, bystanders can watch them and they can watch people on the street 2)use different colors in the staircase and communal areas to show their importance. I am also really glad to see a strong concept behind a project.

Container Tower

The sea container tower was suppose to be a landmark in Rotterdam. I have no idea where Rotterdam is actually, I wish I knew. If anybody knows where it is please fill me in, cause I am feeling very clueless right now. The structure was conceived of by NL Architects through a architectural and design competition for a new radar tower that could also function as a look-out/landmark. It was going to be made up of 2 rows of 25 stacked containers. However, it never was built because the company decided that the wind turbines which are right beside the tower would dwarf any sort of landmark that could be placed there. I dont get why they would have this competition and everything and not go through with it. I do like the idea of using something so industrial and useful to create something else. I guess thats what sustainability is all about!

Morph Chandelier

This mystical light, Seemingly floating in the middle of the sea was created by Alicja Wasielewski. She wanted to use inspirational Transformational elements. I think she did just that. She used the element of crochet and fibre optic techniques to create the wonderland of spirals. It almost looks like a start exploded and was held in time. I am not sure if this could be used anywhere other than as an instillation.

Water Wonen

This water structure is from NL Architects, which is a Dutch designer. They discuss the possibility of living on water or even land that is flooded. I really like the solution of flooded land. Going further with that idea, if the land gets flooded and the house starts floating that allows for moving scenery and a possibility of the house landing in a different area from the original ground. The material for the house must be very light to allow the complete house to float. I just really like the idea of a relocation due to natural causes, it would keep living in that place interesting. But i suppose that transportation to other places might be difficult. Maybe there could also be a motor on the floating structure.

Mustache Mug

These mustache mugs are in memory of my boyfriend. I hate them .. he loves them. I think this is a good compromise:)

KMA Street Games

These street games take place at the same time in three different cities in london: gateshead, sunderland, and middlesbrough, competing against eachother four consecutive nights. The physical movements of the players decide the outcome of the game. Kit Monkman and Tom Wexler (KMA) use technology where human movement triggers light effects. I think that is so fun! What a great way to unite different towns/areas in London. I wish that America would allow this sort of interaction, but there are so many restrictions in America I dont think this could every be possible. Its so sad.

Linked Hybrid

This future city skape by Steven Holl is planned for Beijing, China. This complex will house 750 apartments, shops, cinemas, a hotel, and school. The project is a three dimentional urban space where buildings underground, on the ground, and above ground are fused together. It is to promote interaction. I really like the idea of using the walkways between the building to build more relationships. Also, this complex uses up pretty much everyspace to build relationship. The roofs of the buildings and different shops are all green roofs, forming grassy knolls for people to meet and interact. They chose to place this in close proximity to the old city wall, which could either be a neat contrast, or an ugly contradiction. However, I guess that all of Beijing is just as contemporary as this complex. The buildinds have their inner windowsill painted colors like blue, yellow, and red. The colors create a neat pattern on the buildings depending on which way you are looking at them the colors will change. It keeps the buildings interesting, without being annoying. Also, because the buildings are so boxy, the connecting walkways are lit in fun colors and are not completely straight to give some variety to the shapes of the complex.

St. Bartholamew's Church

Being religious, and interested in designing churches, I think this image is incredibly interesting. I love the contrast between the old tatterted walls of the church paired with the stark white seating with a small cross in the back. It says that the chairs are made for the church and made to worship in. I think that these chairs are Panton chairs and are made to be very comfortable. I also really like the small accent of the pillow that picks up some of the reddish hues of the wall. Lastly, I just noticed that the flooring were carpets overlapping eachother. This gives the ultimate sense of comfort but still a sense of regalness, because of the red and golden hues of the rug. I dont know why but I love the combination of the overlapping rugs, perfectly aligned white chairs, and old crumbling wall.

Patrick Cox Store

The first thing that caught my eye about the Patrick Cox Store by Sinato, was the shapes and colors that the store used. I know the most contemporary design styles for stores is glossy neutral colors. The glowing, glossy white and gray surfaces make this stores for extremely cold. Like ice. I am wondering why he decided to use the cylindrical shapes for the display areas. Each upper cylinder corresponds with a lower cylinder. Also, the upper cylinders contain most of the stores light, so it creats a glow right at eye level, which I suppose is a good technique to keep it the brightest at the place where people will be seeing.

Michael Anastassiades

I am not sure what this piece is called, but it caused me to find this incredible designer Michael Anastassiades, who has an awesome last name! All of his works are simple but industrial. Please visit www.michaelanastassiades.com to view more of his creations. He only does lighting fixtures. His fixtures usually include metal bars and bare lightbulbs. He creates a elegance to the industrial age. One can see his works in stores like Swarovski and in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I hope to follow him more, and because he is such a new designer, only creating his company in 2007, work with him!

Low Light

This light comes from Anna Van Der Lei, a Dutch designer. It is so interesting how she thought to make this lamp. She noticed that because most lights are placed above it tends to bring our eyes down towards the light. The low light, she says, has the opposite effect. The bowl is made of porcelain and can be adjusted to be just above the floor to a couple inches above the floor. I think this could be a neat room seperater, having a few on each side while still being used as a lighting device.

Lightcatcher

This is the Lightcatcher at the Whatcom Museum in Seattle, Washington. It is design around a translucent wall that is 37 feet high and is 180 feet of a gently curving light fixture. In the day time it allows like into the interior spaces, while at night it glows from the interior illumination. I do like the idea of this color changing wall that is still funtional and sustainable at the same time, but the lines of the grid are really distracting me for some reason. I think they should have tried to find a softer color metal for the structure. In the daylight it looks angelic and soft, but at night it looks alot more edgy, which might have been what the architects, Olsen Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects, wanted.

Prefab Parasite

The aim for this "parasite" is to populate the unused urban spaces. It is described as growing on buildings, rocks, and bridges. It turns dead space into a lively private living space. This sustainable design is constructed by Lara Calder architects, found in Australia. Because it is prefab it can be easily placed in any place described above. The construction includes, a roof top terrace, a kitchen and dining room on the fourth floor, a living room on the third floor, a bedroom on the second floor, and the entrance is situated on the first floor. Both the bedroom and kitchen and dining have balconies. While it might look strange, and could be a bit strange for the owner, it is a good idea to use flat facades of buildings like bridges to form new housing units instead of taking up green space for new housing. The views that it creates are definately unique ones that most do not get and even though light only comes from one side of the house it seems like it would surround most of the rest of the house.

California Academy of Sciences

Another one from Renzo Piano. Are we beginning to see a theme here? Another green roof, 2.5 acre one to be exact! This building is the new California Academy of Sciences, Which is planned to house 38.000 animals. It is the only institution in the world that has an aquirium, natural history museum, living rainforest, and planetarium. Piano wanted to create this museum in the eye of the viewer, not for the things people will be seeing when entering. The entrance immediately opens up into a grand interior courtyard where one can see the undulating skylight. The skylights that Piano formed were inspired by the rolling hills of San Francisco. This picture does not do justice to what the structure size actually contains. It is a beautiful sustainable building used to learn about the nature that surrounds it.

Italian Man-made Volcano

I am so intrigued by this interesting architectural feat. I had to look twice at this photo just to make sure that it wasnt an actual volcano and how the heck Renzo Piano (architect) could envision and enact this beautiful structure. It lies in the town of Nola, near Mt. Vesuvius. Renzo calls this a "good volcano" due to the fact that the entire roof of this commercial structure is filled in with over 2,500 plants. The roof also is penetrated with multiple skylights that allow natural light into the building, as well as, solar panels to help power the business park. The solar panels double as windows because they are double-sided glass panels that absorb the suns rays as well as let light into the interior structure. At the center of the giant volcano is an outdoor stadium. The complex also houses various shops, restaurants, and even an hotel. This gives a sense of the incredible size of the "good volcano." The actual structure of this building are tree like metal beams with several beams coming off one large "trunk." I encourage you look up other photographs of this incredible structure.

Hack Chair

The name of this chair "Hack Chair" explains this chair perfectly. It looks like the designer, Ronen Kadushin, just carelessly chopped up some metal and lucked out making it look like a chair. Actually, the designer, who is from Berlin, used only one single sheet of metal, so it actually took alot of planning. I think that is one point of great design... taking something that is very complicated and make it look very simple and effortless. Obviously, this chair was not made to sit on. It would be a hard thing to place. I still have to think about where to put it.

Grow-ems

A modular art/plant growing system. How innovative! Monica Willemin design a space efficient way to bring the outside indoors. It uses a hydrophonic system to keep the plants growing and healthy. As well as, being a great art piece and environmentally friendly, the fresh growing plants will also be a natural air freshener in your apartment or business. Actually this type of planter would be great for gross dingy offices that use cubicles for employees to work in. This would bring a natural and fresh feeling to the area surroudning wherever its placed. The outer material should be kept a nuetral white, gray, or black so that the foliage inside will stand out.

Fold Out Shelving

This design is so simple it makes me wonder why nobody has come up with it already! The patterns, images, and colors are endless with this extremely flexible design. I would like to see it metals with neat surface patterns. Maybe even chain link or stamped metal. This design is by Mark Kinsley.

Fading Lamp

This "fading" lamp can be set to set many different moods. Having all the light bulbs showing gives an absolutely modern feel. One can also have all of them inside the shade to set the mood, while still conforming to a contemporary decor. Lastly, if one is having a dinner party one can put the bulbs in a certain like the photograph is showing. Bladine Didry created an interactive lamp that will most definately be a topic of conversation. This lamp would go great in a simple hallways, but can shine if presented in an open area where it can be seen clearly. Also, I think this lamp is its strongest when paired with multiple other lamps of the same type. Just one lamp would not give the effect that 3 or more can.

Cloudwalk Chandelier

This chandelier by Yu Jordy Fu was also for the London Design Festival in 2009. This chandelier is 9m long and is made completely out of hand cut paper! I can not imagine creating this masterpiece. He also did another instillation with hand-cut paper. The chandelier looks like complete chaos when looked at closely, but when admired from far away the pieces glide together and it just glows like a cloud. I think the lighting elements for this chandelier were placed strategically to create certain shadows in some parts and highlight others. A structure design around this chandelier could be very very interesting. One can definatley not just plop in a room, it needs a structure designed around it to give it the best possible glow.

Chair Arch

This chair arch was created for the London Design Festival. It was created by Martino Gamper. He used two over lapping arches, one very colorful the other in subdued colors. Surprisingly, chair arches are a part of British Victorian tradition. This is neat idea if ever needing to do something inspired by the British Victorian era. The chairs are Ercol stacking chairs.

I just think this is so cute. On Via Montepoleone they have a similar intervention only instead of carrots they have white cars surrounding the trees along the street.

Axolo's Exence

Designed by Giovanni Ronzoni, Luisia Frigeria, Fabrizio Proserpio this is surely a one of a kind Italian Design. It is very cool for me to discover Italian Designers, specially because I am studying in Italy right now. While the sink looks effortless and weightless, I have many questions about it: where does the water drain? How do items not fall off the edge of the counter? Does the counter really have enough space? While it is an incredible design I think making it a little longer might make it more functional. Also, if you could actually see the water draining without seeing the pipe work might make it even more interesting, but I suppose the mystery fits for the design right now. On another note a need idea for a sink might be to have an all glass base and have the pipes be crazy colors so they wouldnt be so ugly, so it would be an industrial feel, but fun.

Amsterdam

I found this image a short while ago and the only thing I wrote down about it was Amsterdam, so I am guessing this is found in Amsterdam. What a quirky, beautiful, fun idea. A friend of mine has dreams of owning a quirky coffee shop and I think that this different pattern wall surface is a great inspiration to what the wants. I dont know if I am too fond of the lamp, I think I would prefer a brightly colored resin chandelier, or have the walls be transparent, but still with pattern and have the walls light up through all the mess. So all the restaurant glows. The room does incorporate natural light through the higher windows, which I am sure adds a lightness to what could be a very heavy room. I would like to see the rest of this restaurant or whatever it is to see how they use the space and colors. I do not really like the seating they have chosen. I think a mix of older more comfortable booths might be more suitable. Or just older antique tables and chairs (not booths) to give a contrast to a very contemporary idea. The upholstery or color of the hardware could be a little off to keep in the quirkiness of the restaurant. Also, the pattern on the wall could be used to house shelving as well. Simple shelving that would follow the same shape as the squares and same color, just in 3D instead of 2D. The shelving could house small interesting trinkets that the customers of coffee could buy.