When architects design a home for themselves, it’s always spectacular. Take a look at what architects Alastair Townsend and Kayoko Ohtsuki of BAKOKO Design & Development have done with this small 400 sq. ft. apartment on the outskirts of Tokyo. Guided by the idea of a clean, bright, modern home that serves as a place to work and a place to rest, Townsend and Ohtsuki created this modern-minimal flat with an optimum use of space. What makes the Matsudo mansion really unique are the small luxurious details – things such …

ModCell is a British company that has come up with a very unique product that mixes pre-industrial  straw-bale building with a decidedly post-modern sensibility – by creating a building technique using prefabbed panels incorporating sustainable straw-bales.

But because straw bale construction is so unfamiliar to many people, researchers at the University of Bath arranged for a demonstration straw house to be outfitted with sensors to show how the technique is safe and effective: you can contact Balehaus@Bath for details.
Because straw can be grown …

Here’s one of the more stylish and brilliant shipping container homes I’ve seen. Not only is it fashionably frugal – since shipping containers sell for a song, but this one is as cheerful as a bright red metal lunchbox.
The brilliant part? This 40 foot shipping container, which would normally be a very cramped 8 foot wide; travels as a crunched in unit, but…

…once it is in place you would just slide out the compartments to make a spacious and gracious shipping container home.
Each of the slide-out elements is outfitted as …

Up until now, concrete cracks have been the nemesis of the construction industry. In fact, there’s an old joke that there are two types of concrete. The first type is concrete that has cracked. The second type is concrete that hasn’t cracked…yet. But is there something new on the way?
Concrete “flatwork,” that is, concrete poured in slabs for floors, sidewalks, driveways, and roads, is particularly prone to cracking. It will shrink as it “cures” and crack. And it will continue to swell and shrink when it gets warmer or cooler …

This minimalist seating design furniture collection with simple, natural and organic design that called “Leaf” was designed by Mehtap Obuz of Demirden Design for ilio.This minimalist chair is made of oak and walnut with a natural finish, these wood seats will blend with your existing decor while standing out for their unusual shape and function. The Leaf chairs measure 45×50×36cm and 55×50×50cm,

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This minimalist seating design furniture collection with simple, natural and organic design that called “Leaf” was designed by Mehtap Obuz of Demirden Design for ilio.This minimalist chair is made of oak and walnut with a natural finish, these wood seats will blend with your existing decor while standing out for their unusual shape and function. The Leaf chairs measure 45×50×36cm and 55×50×50cm,

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Tags: furniture industry, zele blog, furniture industry news, zele company, furniture designs, new furniture designs, furniture products, designer furniture, custom furniture, furniture production

Technorati Tags: chair, Chairs, …

And not your fathers mobile home park either:

The owner purchased the site, formerly a RV campground, with the aim of allowing the landscape return to its natural state. It had been a flood plain meadow in an alpine river valley.
Then, the  concept was to have simple mobile structures able to roll into and set up on the site, yet to provide clearance for nature below each hut.
The roof is a butterfly roof for water conservation, a new design vernacular we are seeing more of. The Rolling Hut is sustainable in …

U of Kansas grad students have just completed their chic Buffalo House in Kansas City, Kansas, designed with a very elegant approach to sustainability.

We are seeing more climate conscious design in architecture: In this case; the rain screen.
A skin over the house is designed to manage and harvest occasional heavy precipitation, to provide protection from premature decay from moisture intrusion.
I like the way the rain-screen is carried up over the roof and mounted flush with the photovoltaic solar panels on the roof for a sleek look while also protecting the …

The deep Butterfly Roof

The traditional gabled roof that we are all familiar with was engineered to slough off snowfall. But in an uncertain post peak oil future of possible energy shortages and water shortages, more and more houses are showing up with roof-shapes engineered to harvest their own rainwater, and support solar power generation.

This creates a butterfly roof, the opposite of the traditional gable. Kangaroo House in increasingly drought ridden Australia has the same distinctive roof shape, for the same reasons.
This design for a zero energy house on the coast of …

Recently graduated from Sweden’s Konstfack University, Japanese designer Sachiko Segawa presents her final degree project Take Kagu. Its name literally means “bamboo furniture” and is inspired by Segawa’s childhood memories of a bamboo forest and a new material – bamboo plywood. Using this new bamboo material, the designer created several pieces of furniture which in her words should “create a bamboo forest feeling “. Though there are several problems with bamboo forests, continues Segawa, bamboo is regarded as very ecological and sustainable material. We sincerely wish good luck to this …