On a steep slope in Mosman, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, TKD Architects were asked not just to design a six-bedroom family home that took advantage of the views, but also to take charge of the interior architecture and styling – from the furniture and flooring right down to the artwork, bedding and even the cutlery. All their Shanghai-based clients needed to do was unlock the door and walk into their completely finished home.
Category Archives: Tours
Scotland Views: What To See And Do In Glasgow
DW reporter Hannah travelled to her home country of Scotland to give you her bucketlist of everything you need to check out in the city of Glasgow! When you think of Glasgow, the first thing that comes to mind is probably cold and rainy weather. But despite that, Scotland’s largest city is a vibrant, cultural hub. It’s a UNESCO City of Music, and has one of the best live music scenes in the UK. Which of Hannah’s travel tips is your favourite – the museum, the deep-fried Mars bar or the music scene?
Glasgow is a port city on the River Clyde in Scotland’s western Lowlands. It’s famed for its Victorian and art nouveau architecture, a rich legacy of the city’s 18th–20th-century prosperity due to trade and shipbuilding. Today it’s a national cultural hub, home to institutions including the Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet and National Theatre of Scotland, as well as acclaimed museums and a thriving music scene.
Travel Guide: 36 Hours In New York City (Fall 2022)
36 HOURS – New York City
By Becky Hughes Photographs by Karsten Moran
Friday – 3:30 p.m. Get a bird’s eye view of the city

Pack in 400 years of history at the Museum of the City of New York in East Harlem ($20 suggested admission), opposite Central Park at the top end of Museum Mile. Its ongoing exhibition, “New York at Its Core,” will give you a glimpse of the neighborhoods you’ll encounter this weekend, and an overview of the many eras of the city’s development, including its few decades as the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, its 19th-century shift to an immigrant hub, the growth of the city’s park program after the New Deal and the birth of the punk and hip-hop subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s.
6 p.m. – Go grand in Midtown

To the dismay of the too-cool-for-school set, Midtown is having a moment. Rockefeller Center is enticing popular restaurateurs with real-estate deals, aiming to draw locals and tourists alike. One glamorous newcomer is Le Rock, a French brasserie (from the owners of the popular TriBeCa restaurant Frenchette) with a sleek Art Deco design and a pricey (around $200 for two without drinks) menu of chilled oysters ($24 for a half dozen), bison au poivre ($60) and a long list of natural wines. For a night of grand Manhattan opulence, you’re in good hands. Other notable arrivals in the area: Detroit-style slices at Ace’s Pizza, Italian dining with outdoor seating at Lodi (a Times food critic’s favorite) and the 11-seat Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar.
Saturday – 10 a.m. Have a morning nosh

The real breakfast of champions is a pastrami, egg and cheese sandwich ($12.50) at Frankel’s Delicatessen & Appetizing in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There may be no better representation of New York deli cuisine than the happy marriage between the Jewish staple meat, and the bodega and coffee-cart hero, the bacon, egg and cheese. If securing a window seat is a bust, the benches of McCarren Park across the street are calling your name. And for breakfast dessert (you’re on vacation!): Peter Pan Donut & Pastry Shop. You might recognize the bakery from the 2021 movie “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” but regulars know it for the unparalleled blueberry buttermilk doughnuts ($1.75).
11 a.m. Shop by the skyline
From Greenpoint, the northernmost neighborhood in Brooklyn, the views of the East River are unbeatable. Follow Noble Street all the way to the end, and you’ll find Greenpoint Terminal Market, a marketplace of vendors, every Saturday and Sunday, rain or shine. You’ll get a top-tier view of the Manhattan skyline while you sift through racks of vintage clothes, tables of art and jewelry, and maybe get a really bad portrait made ($5) to commemorate the day. For a little more shopping, try Big Night, a “shop for dinner, parties and dinner parties”; Dobbin St. Vintage Co-op for vintage furniture; and the mini-Japanese market at 50 Norman for housewares by Cibone and customized dashi packs from Dashi Okume.
1:30 p.m. – Dive into NYC ephemera

Hidden away from Williamsburg’s chain coffee shops and boutique gyms is City Reliquary ($7 entry) a tiny, colorful storefront wedged between buildings on Metropolitan Avenue. Inside is a quirky and fascinating collection of New York artifacts curated by this not-for-profit community museum and civic organization. Packed (really packed) into two small rooms, you’ll find defunct subway signage, souvenirs from New York World’s Fairs, samples of rocks from far below the city and an astonishing amount more. Look for the many iterations of paper deli cups, including the iconic Anthora cup (designed by Leslie Buck in the 1960s), which you’ll still see at diners and bodegas today.
6 p.m. – Dine in the heart of the Village

Greenwich Village cynics will complain about its restaurants: Lines everywhere, many cash-only and littered with celebrities and the rubberneckers that follow. For first-time Village diners, though, Bar Pitti unfailingly delivers an entertaining night out. Get there around 6 p.m. (with cash — no cards accepted) and there should be a short wait. Order the eggplant Parmesan if it’s on the chalkboard of specials ($14.50), pappardelle in a pink cream sauce ($23.50) and a bottle of Lambrusco ($50). The best Italian food in New York? It’s probably not the best on its block. But the brash-yet-somehow-charming service, prime location and killer people-watching makes Bar Pitti a true New York affair. For a more relaxed alternative, Malatesta Trattoria has an excellent tagliatelle ragu ($17, cash-only) and a lower-key ambience.
To state the obvious: You can’t see New York City in 36 hours. You could easily fill a couple of days eating your way down one street in Jackson Heights, Queens, or spend an entire weekend uncovering corners of Central Park. This guide is not designed to check landmarks off a list, but rather to offer visitors one slice of life in New York (minus the laundry schlepping and skyrocketing rent). Below you’ll find a subterranean piano bar, a hidden garden, market shopping against the backdrop of an unbeatable skyline and some big-picture and hyperlocal history to bring you a little closer to feeling the gestalt of the city.
Read more at The New York Times
Tours: Pepper Tree House In Unanderra, Australia
Creating a sustainable extension for the family home of client and builder Souter Built, Alexander Symes Architects motivates sustainable living through every detail. Featured as part of The Sustainability Series, Pepper Tree Passive House is a personal project crafted between cousins and sees the extension explore a passion for passive house and sustainable living.
Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction 00:41 – Unanderra Country 01:12 – The Builder and The Owner 01:42 – Building Around The Pepper Tree 02:17 – A Walkthrough Pepper Tree Passive House 02:56 – A Two Fold Concept and Brief 03:22 – Exploring The Concept of A Passive House 03:43 – Using Resources In Respectful Ways 04:00 – Wood Is Good 04:31 -Using Minimal Intervention on The Existing Home 04:59 – The Challenges Faced 05:20 – The Positives of Being The Building & The Client 06:00 – Moments To Celebrate
Following a twofold brief, Alexander Symes Architect created an office space, guest house and entertainment area with recycled and renewable materials that echo the ethos of likeminded sustainable buildings. Extending the family home over a slopping landscape and around a tree protection zone, both architect and builder worked cohesively with each other to reflect the positive aspects of sustainable design. What transpired from this effort was an office space, living area, kitchen and guest living space that wrap around the home’s namesake, the pepper tree.
Covered by the canopy of the pepper tree, the garden was transformed, seeing hand-poured pavers lead guests up towards the passive house. Evidence of the passive house concept is also seen at the home’s entrance; wood and convict bricks are used similarly throughout the interior design, seeing sustainable living enhanced through natural thermal heating and cooling. Due to its north-facing position, the convict bricks add a thermal structure throughout, soaking up the natural heat of the sun, whilst the shade of the canopy does the same in the warmer months.
From planning to building to completion, Pepper Tree Passive House passionately showcases the skillset required for sustainable living, alongside Souter Built’s philosophy for sustainable building. Through the architecture and design choices, guests and clients alike can see firsthand how using recycled materials, instead of depleting natural resources, can leave a better footprint for the future of sustainable buildings.
Exhibition Tour: ‘Golden Boy Gustav Klimt’ (2022)
Walk through our exhibition ‘Golden Boy Gustav Klimt. Inspired by Van Gogh, Rodin, Matisse. Explore how Klimt developed his unique style and how the Austrian artist was inspired by the work of Van Gogh, Toorop, Rodin, Whistler, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Matisse and many other artists. Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is one of the most fascinating artists of western art history. He is world-famous for his golden and decorative paintings and his portraits of strong women. But who was this ‘golden boy’, and what is the story behind his talent?
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
From 7 October 2022 – l8 January 2023
Travel: Exploring The City Of Prague, Czech Republic
Prague is one of the most-visited cities in Europe. Before the coronavirus pandemic, overtourism was a real problem here: It was often so crowded that it was almost impossible to move around the historic Old Town, as well as around Charles Bridge, Hradcany Castle Hill, and Wenceslas Square.
What’s it like today, after the pandemic, and what ideas are there for tourism in Prague in the future? DW’s Nicole Frölich visited the Czech capital, and was surprised at what she discovered. Have you ever been to Prague?
Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic, is bisected by the Vltava River. Nicknamed “the City of a Hundred Spires,” it’s known for its Old Town Square, the heart of its historic core, with colorful baroque buildings, Gothic churches and the medieval Astronomical Clock, which gives an animated hourly show. Completed in 1402, pedestrian Charles Bridge is lined with statues of Catholic saints.
Paris Exhibitions: ‘Claude Monet – Joan Mitchell’
The exhibitions “Monet – Mitchell” create an unprecendented “dialogue” between the works of two exceptional artists, Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Joan Mitchell (1925-1992).
“The dialogue Claude Monet – Joan Mitchell” will be introduce by the “Joan Mitchell Retrospective”, enabling the public in France and Europe to discover her work.
The “Monet – Mitchell” exhibitions present each artist’s unique response to a shared landscape, which they illustrate in a particularly immersive and sensual manner. In his last paintings, the Water Lilies, Monet aimed to recreate in his studio the motifs he observed at length on the surface of his water lily pond in Giverny. Joan Mitchell, on the other hand, would explore a memory or a sense of the emotions she felt while in a particular place that was dear to her, perceptions that remained vivid beyond space and time. She would create these abstract compositions at La Tour, her studio in Vétheuil, a small French village.
MONET – MITCHELL
Exhibition – 05.10.2022 to 27.02.2023

Travel Tours: A Day In Salzburg, Austria (4K)
Salzburg, city, capital of Salzburg Bundesland (federal state), north-central Austria. It is situated in a level basin on both sides of the Salzach River near the northern foothills of the Alps and the Bavarian (German) border. The historic centre of the city, with its rich mix of art and architecture, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996.
Salzburg was originally the site of a Celtic settlement and later of the Roman town of Juvavum. About 700 CE the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and the Nonnberg Nunnery were founded there by St. Rupert. Salzburg was made a bishopric by St. Boniface in 739 and was raised to an archbishopric in 798. Its archbishops were acknowledged as princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1278, and the city became the seat of their powerful ecclesiastical principality. Among the most notable of the prince-archbishops were Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (reigned 1587–1612), who brought Italian Renaissance architecture and styles to the city, notably by offering commissions to the Italian architect Vincenzo Scamozzi for public squares, a cathedral, and other buildings; Markus Sittikus von Hohenems (reigned 1612–19), who continued to rebuild the city with another Italian architect, Santino Solari; Paris, Graf (count) von Lodron (reigned 1619–53), who founded the city’s university (1622); and Leopold Anton von Firmian (reigned 1727–44).
Filmed in October
Home Tours: Turramurra Threads, Sydney, Australia
As the soothing colours of its interior spill into the garden space, Turramurra Threads feels deliberately nestled into its outdoor complement. Crafted by Benn + Penna, the calming family house is filled with a sense of peace resulting from its understated design.
Video timeline: 00:00 – An Introduction to the Calming Family House 00:30 – Location of the Home 00:43 – The Clients of the Project 01:23 – The Original House 01:51 – The Architects Brief 02:05 – Connecting the House to the Garden 02:25 – Using a Neutral Palette and Natural Materials 03:14 – The Importance of Light in the House 03:45 – The Large Skylight 04:07 – The Arch in the Living Room 04:24 – The New Extension of the Home
Surrounded by charming heritage builds on the northern outskirts of Sydney, Turramurra Threads reimagines an existing Victorian construction. The design brief called for the historic front windows and delicate ceiling detail of the calming family house to be retained whilst an extension be added to the rear, celebrating established architecture in unison with modern amenity.
Featuring the original façade, the calming family house captures a simple spatial plan, directing residents from the old structure into the new. A secondary living space and master bedroom sits perpendicular to the entrance corridor, which leads onto three bedrooms and a study. Beyond, the extension forms a primary living pavilion, opening at its far end to reveal the garden. Rays of sunlight penetrate the calming family house from three points of entry, indicating a studious approach to natural lighting and building materials.
The beams enter from a small pocket garden that serves as a transparent border between the historic and additional architecture and a large skylight positioned on the southern slope of the roof. Enhancing the functionality of a heritage home, Benn + Penna creates an open interior design that engages the garden space. Turramurra Threads is built to embrace the natural surrounds, using its subtle properties to establish a calming family house.
Tour: Scarborough Béton Brut, Christchurch, New Zealand Concrete Design
October Project of the Month | Scarborough Béton Brut | Young Architects.
Raw concrete, extensive glazing, and timber accents dominate the design of this home nestled in the hills above Christchurch’s seaside suburb of Sumner. Perched on the edge of a dormant volcano on a 30 degree slope, the form hasn’t been compromised. The structure emerges from the landscape in cubed sections.
To view the full project, click here: https://archipro.co.nz/project/scarbo…