moderist living

A late addition to the previous rock wall post… How awesome is this?

Gotta say, I find this trend really exciting and quite possibly really irresponsible.  I love it.  Don’t think I would ever want one, though.  What about you?

(If that answer is, yes, here’s a source for holds.)

When I ran across more photos of Hakone Pavilion by Tezuka Architects (which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago) I began to wonder how many other fun and beautiful play spaces there are out there for kids.  It turns out there are a lot of them… and they’re amazing.  I can’t imagine the excitement that I would have had to be able to play in some of these environments.  Alright, yes, I would still be excited.  Wouldn’t you?

Hakone Pavilion | Tezuka Architects

Net Z33 | Numen

The Patient Gardener | Visiondivision

Magic House | Luckey Climbers

Columbus Commons | Luckey Climbers

Brumleby | Monstrum

BUGA 05 Playground | Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten

Who doesn’t love a nook?  A quiet little place where you can hide from the world and have a moment to for stillness and quiet?  A place where you can tuck your secrets away and keep them safe?  Or even just a place that’s just your sized when the rest of the world is so big.

This roundup of nooks serve all of those needs perfectly and show what you can do with an awkward or unsightly closet with just a little bit of power tool and upholstery know how.  What are you waiting for? Go forth – make nook!

Even big kids like nooks (particularly these, with their solar chargers and laxed views on posture.)

If you’re looking for amazing things to do with your kids in Japan…. look no further.  (Click pix for more info.)

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam Woods of Net Knitted Wonder Space 2009

This piece is the “sculpture forest at the Hakone Open-Air Museum which,

includes several sculptures that children can play on. These include the “Woods of Net,” created through a collaboration between an artist and a team of architects. The pavilion is made entirely of wood, using traditional techniques seen in Japanese temples. A huge, brightly colored net hangs down from the middle of the pavilion like a giant hammock.

On the Overnight Tour at the Enoshima Aquarium. (C)Enoshima Aquarium

The Sagamigawa River Festival; approximately 1,200 koinobori hang from wire strung across the river.

You can even tour ninja villages!  Awesome!

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a sucker for a great portrait.  I’d walk through the museums and look into the faces of people long dead and wonder what route they took to get to the studio.  Did they pass markets?  What did their shoes feel like? What did the roads feel like beneath their feet?  It’s such an exciting notion – to be transported in time to when the paint was fresh and wet.

But then there are some portraits make you wonder more about the artist.  portraits like these. Can you imagine deciding that you’re going to make photorealistic embroidery portraits?  Or use naked humans as your paint?  How about composing the heads of screws to create portraits?  I think they’re all amazing and beautiful and I hope you click through to learn more about the artists.

Cayce Zavaglia

detail of Sophie – Hand Embroidery: Crewel Wool and Acrylic on Linen, 14 x 35 inches – photo © Cayce Zavaglia

detail of Aunt Lin – Hand Embroidery: Crewel Wool and Acrylic on Linen, 16.25 x 29 inches
photo © Yatzer.com

Andrew Myers – Screw Art

Portrait of John. Dimensions 48 in x 48 in x 5 in. Medium: screws, oil paint and phone book pages

Portrait of Bill. Dimensions 24 in x 24 in x 4 in. Medium: screws, oil paint and phone book pages

Chris Dorosz – Paint Drop Sculptures

stasis 13

stasis 24 (jeff and sheldon with children)

 The ‘paint drop’ sculptures develop the idea of the ‘staple paintings’ further by trapping fallen paint drops in a grid work of clear vertical rods.  Through the viewer’s movements in aligning and de-aligning these pixel-like paint drops, full body portrait forms emerge and vanish.  By placing my subjects in a form of ‘stasis’  through the medium I mean not only to protect them for a little while, but alternately to underscore the tenuous nature of human physicality  where any moment life as we know it might just collapse into a pool of droplets or drift upwards into the atmosphere.

I hate that I don’t know who this artist is.  But I couldn’t leave it out. I found this image, uncredited, on Pinterest.  I think it’s amazing though.

I love books.  My ex used to confiscate my wallet before we walked into bookstores, not because he didn’t want me to spend the money but because he felt they might overrun us.  He had a point.

I think it was Cicero who said, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”  I agree.  They’re like my friends and I love them all piled up on top of each other.  I use them as furniture and decoration (see below.) I just kept thinking that there must be other amazing awesome solutions out there – cuz it’s a worse problem not to have books in your life than what to do with them once they’re there.

I also have this one architectural oddity in my house.  Yes, it’s a door that’s been cut out and turned into a bookcase.  Yes, it’s actually a functioning door too.  It leads to the attic.  Can’t say I recommend doing this – but it works for me and people are always asking about it.

I love the book room!  Why not use your books as a room divider?

How simple-perfect a solution is this?  Just take a wall get some 1x2s and glue a dowel on the front then sand/paint/mount and you have all those amazing children’s book illustrations as art and storage.

Love!  Love!  It’s just a bunch of tubing attached together.  Can you imagine this as a whole wall?  That would be so great!

This desk is built out of the only remaining books in a library that burned down.  They were repurposed when the library was rebuilt.  I love it!

The throne de bookage – it’s a library in a chair, otherwise known as the Bibliochaise.  What’s not to love?

Not terribly practical – but I could see it as the perfect solution for someone who was really into reading philosophy – just going round and round and round….

Who doesn’t love a playhouse?  There really is something about having an imagination and a place of your own to explore the world.  And if that playhouse was a work of art… where would your imagination go.

(Click on the picture for more info.)

I want to play in your rattan fort!

Not exactly a play ‘house’ but I’m in love with it anyway.  Maybe it’s a play house-boat with climbing wall – a pirate’s training camp as it were.

Can you imagine being the little girl who has this playhouse?

(I also want a to be able to slide out of my bed!)

This beautiful project is a baby book from Johanna at Hannamac.com.  This book that she made chronicles her pregnancy journey week by week as a story for her baby.  Such a lovely thing to do.

The best part about it is that she’s made it easy for you to make your own version of this book – just buy her template! It’s so worth the price and you can pick it up at http://blog.hannamac.com/7104-2/.

Like most women, I find really great storage solutions pretty darn near transcendent on the border of ecstasy. Form and function come together to house all your stuff so that it looks good and you can find what you’re looking for and, really, that’s just exciting.  Then you close the doors so that you don’t have to look at your stuff.

Is that where the art ends?  Can there be better way of integrating your stuff into your home that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional?  Yes!  There are a lot of cool design projects out there dealing with storage that are super exciting and functional.  Check these out!

From i29 in the Netherlands we get this crazy gorgeous space which turns your stuff into art through the use of small cutouts.

Affordable, recyclable and fun: these are Wallpockets from Ampersand.

.  

Also from the Netherlands we have Jenna Postma’s “Growing Up.”  It, “is a chair that needs your mess to create a comfortable seat. Clothes normally lay all over the floor, but when you throw them in the chair, it becomes functional and decorative.”

Another riff on the same concept is Object-E from South Korean designer Seung-Yong Song.  (He’s got a bunch of awesome furniture hybrids you should also look at.)

A bit sillier take on the same theme.  I can imagine a kid having the best time putting away his/her toys if the storage was as fun as the toys are.

I love the beauty and elegance of these two simple storage systems.  (Click on the pictures to learn more about them.) They would be so easy to make and live with. Can you imaging having a storage system that beautiful and flexible in your home or office?

I’m in love with this one too, the colors and spacing make what could be total chaos come together in a soothing and beautiful way.