Category Archives: Tours

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Home Tours: Mygunya By The Circus In Australia

Video Leave a comment

The Local Project (February 20, 2024) – Located in Fitzroy, Victoria, Mygunya by The Circus by Matt Gibson Architecture + Design is an innovative home filled with character and texture. One of the great characteristics of the family house is how it is split into three separate pavilions and finished with a soft connection of glass between them.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Innovative Home 00:55 – The Original Integrated Brief and the Inspiration 01:44 – Behind the Brick Selection 02:34 – A Focus on the Landscaping 02:58 – The Material Palette and Key Features 04:07 – The Layout of the Home 05:19 – A Great Collaboration

The built connections bring in a wealth of natural light while also playing off the textures of the external materials, which are also used inside the house to add extra detail and idiosyncrasy that makes the family house what it is. Situated just across the road from Edinburgh Gardens, Mygunya by The Circus is in a heritage area that features a lot of Victorian and Edwardian buildings. After being approached by the clients, who had just bought the house, the team was given a brief that requested a contemporary home for a large family.

In answer to this, they increased the bedroom sizes and opened the architecture of the home to better integrate the interior spaces with the garden. In the conceptualization of the residence, Matt Gibson Architecture + Design revised three distinct pavilions that would come together as one innovative structure. The first pavilion is the original heritage Victorian-era home, while the second is the new contemporary building in cream brick by Brickworks and the third pavilion – to the west side – holds a north-facing family room and a series of individual gardens.

Cities, Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

Travel Guide: A One-Day Tour Of Madrid, Spain

Leave a comment

DW Travel (February 18, 2024): Madrid is one of the most visited cities in Europe and a popular travel destination for the LGBTQAI+-Community. The Spanish capital also boasts spectacular architecture, delicious cuisine and a relaxed, inclusive atmosphere.

Video timeline: 00:00 Intro 00:32 Churros 00:53 The Royal Palace of Madrid 02:22 Plaza Mayor 03:12 Retiro Park with Palacio de Cristal 04:20 Chueca district, Madrid’s queer neighborhood 04:44 Meeting @enriquealex 06:46 San Anton food market

Diana Piñeros shows you how to get the very best out of a day in Madrid: from the Royal Palace and the Plaza Mayor, to the queer-friendly Chueca neighborhood.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Architecture: Cliffside House In New South Wales

Video Leave a comment

The Local Project (February 16, 2024) – Cliffside by Thomas Hamel & Associates is an interior designers own home located on the South Coast of NSW, with an enchanting character and scenic setting that captures immediate attention.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to An Interior Designers Own Home 00:41 – A Magical Site 01:35 – The Evolution of the Style and Mood 02:13 – Robust Materials and Textures 03:53 – Blending the Old and New 04:33 – A New Passion for Gardening 04:52 – Favourite Aspects

Nestled amid boulders, Cliffside emerges as a dream home that caters to every need. Located an hour south of Sydney within the Royal National Park, the home boasts a layout that closely aligns with the owners’ preferences, yet it lacked a personalised touch to truly make it their own. To address this during the design process, Thomas Hamel of Thomas Hamel & Associates – who is also the client – focused on fulfilling his and his partner’s needs and desires for a residence that would serve as their forever home.

As seen in the house tour of an interior designers own home, the style and mood of the interior have evolved organically, shaped by the owners’ cherished collections of treasures and souvenirs. Drawing inspiration from the boulders and the coastal location of the beach house, Thomas Hamel & Associates curated a palette for the interior of Cliffside that harmonised with its environment. This led to the incorporation of cohesive materials throughout the home, such as custom-designed wallpaper from Los Angeles, imparting a natural plaster texture. Complementing this, the furnishings exhibit a similar sense of harmony, featuring rough-hewn timbers reminiscent of forest elements turned into sculptural pieces.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Architecture: A Cliffside Home Tour In Sydney

Video Leave a comment

The Local Project (February 9, 2024) – Grounded in simplicity, GB House’s proximity to Sydney’s Gordons Bay and the nearby precipitous cliffs means the surrounding nature is celebrated as an interior design feature.

00:00 – Introduction to the Cliffside Home 00:55 – An Exciting and Historical Brief 02:13 – The Layout and Walkthrough of the Home 04:28 – Key Materials and Special Aspects 05:21 – Incorporating the Rich Natural World 06:53 – Favourite Aspects

Inside a cliffside home, Renato D’Ettorre Architects creates a minimalist beach house with a strong sensorial and emotional experience through materials and spatial composition. The initial brief focused on bringing this bay inside the architecture of the home and creating an open family home with almost no walls, so you could glimpse the water and cliff faces at every turn. “It is the outside that we wanted to create the magic, not what we’re doing inside – the inside is a frame almost, to frame the view,” says Renato D’Ettorre, lead architect for GB House.

“The entry sequence is one of my favourite parts of the house,” says Renato. The path is deliberately placed to the south to make the entry elongated so that one is encouraged to slow down. “It is a sensorial experience – you can see the end of the pathway, the horizon, but before you get there, you have to navigate this pathway where you have a watercourse and perforated red terracotta breeze blocks on either side of you, before arriving at the front door,” says Renato. The perforations brighten inside a cliffside home with patterns of light, moderate the summer sunlight and enable airflow. In this way, lighting works in harmony alongside the materiality of the dream home.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Architecture Tour: ‘OG House’ In Halifax, Canada

Video Leave a comment

The Local Project (January 23, 2024) – OG House by Omar Gandhi is an architects own home in Halifax, the capital of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Defined by a deft understanding of light and form, it is a deeply personal home and a compelling piece of architecture, as seen in The Local Project’s house tour.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Architects Own Home 00:55 – The Family Centred Brief 01:58 – The Layout and Walkthrough of the Home 03:42 – A Focus on the Light and Sculpted Areas 04:28 – The Neutral Material Palette 04:59 – Customised Furniture Pieces 05:57 – Proud Moments and Favourite Aspects

As the project’s architect, Omar, says, the brief for this home was to create a house for his family as well as a new studio space for his budding practice. As it happens, his architecture studio grew rapidly over the course of the build, and as such, the ground floor studio space is now an extension of his original waterfront studio and a place to work on community projects with his team. This project illustrates a seamless understanding of how domestic and non-domestic principles can coexist within an architects own home.

The footprint of this house was heavily defined by the site and its setbacks from abutting properties and to the street. Cleverly, Omar has used these parameters to gently guide the architecture and ensuing build. In the house tour of an architects own home, Omar highlights the site’s various constraints, which have been reinterpreted as opportunities in designing a compelling piece of architecture. As Omar says, “the volume was resolved from the outset, so it became a process of articulation and sculpting, and in some cases, sacrificing overall square footage for moments of joy, delight and surprise.”

Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

Travel: 23 Most Beautiful Mediterranean Islands

Video Leave a comment

touropia (January 31, 2024) – One of the main places Europeans head on holiday, the Mediterranean is full of idyllic islands. Thought to number around 10,000 in total, their warm, sunny weather, sandy beaches and sumptuous food see many millions visit each summer.

Bordered by countless countries from Europe, Asia and Africa, the immense sea and all its islands have played a massive role in the history of Western civilization. Often boasting gorgeous scenery or crystal-clear waters, they’re the perfect place to relax and unwind in spellbinding settings. Here’s a look at the most beautiful islands in the Mediterranean.

Tours, Travel, Videos, Views

Winter In Switzerland: The Alpina Gstaad Hotel

Video Leave a comment

the Luxury Travel Expert (January 27, 2024) – A tour of the The Alpina Gstaad, one of the best 5-star hotels in Switzerland.

Video chapters: 0:00 Intro 2:19 Arrival 3:51 Porte cochere 5:37 Lobby (ground floor) 7:27 Lobby (first floor) 15:41 Boutique & jewelry 19:26 Suite 26:07 Spa 30:30 Indoor pool 39:27 Outdoor pool 45:55 Gstaad village 50:18 Megu Restaurant & Bar 56:01 Sommet by Martin Göschel Restaurant (one Michelin star) 1:01:51 Swiss Stübli Restaurant 1:07:17 Breakfast 1:11:29 Skiing

Built on five acres of the Bernese Oberland, The Alpina Gstaad promises two views: mountain and valley. The first looks onto Gstaad and promises snow-capped sightings of Spitzhorn and Oldenhorn, while the second delivers rippling hilltops and stretches of lake over Schönried village.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

San Francisco Design: A Tour Of Redwood House

Video Leave a comment

The Local Project (January 23, 2024) – Redwood House sits on a hillside in San Francisco’s charming Noe Valley. Originally designed in the 1970s by prominent local architect Albert Lanier, the house has undergone an extensive yet sympathetic renovation by Studio Terpeluk, ushering the home into a new epoch with integrity and vigour.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Art-Filled Oasis 00:46 – The History of the Home 01:43 – A Unique Layout 03:36 – The Textured Material Palette 04:25 – Favourite Moments 05:06 – The Sustainability Practices

“When I first walked into the space several years ago, I was completely enamoured with the scale, geometry and volume of it,” says architect Brett Terpeluk in this house tour. “There was something so peaceful, calming and embracing about the space that I felt immediately connected to the architecture.” Retaining this essence was essential to Brett and the clients, and, as such, the scope focused on “leaning up” the decor and interior design, enhancing the existing volumes and increasing the square footage, as documented in this house tour. As the architect says, the home’s unusual footprint and layout provided intriguing foundations from which to work.

“This house is very unique in that instead of having a monolithic house with a street presence and large backyard, it’s broken down into a series of courtyards and volumes.” This stacked approach to architecture results in a combination of moments enlivened by views of the cityscape and landscaping at the house’s edges. As well as sightlines, texture plays an important role in animating the architecture and interior design, which was an intentional move from the architect. The redwood remains a prominent feature and the staircase, which is profiled in the house tour, is one of Brett’s favourite moments for the “haptic feedback” it provides upon touching the handrail. The clients’ love of colour can be seen in the furniture and art, as well as in the tones throughout, notably the kitchen cabinetry.

sertions but also to original architect Albert Lanier’s design.

Art, Arts & Literature, Museums, Reviews, Tours, Videos

Museum Tour: ‘European Paintings – 1300 To 1800’ At The Met In New York City

Video Leave a comment

The Met (January 19, 2024): Join curators Stephan Wolohojian, Adam Eaker, David Pullins, and Anna-Claire Stinebring along with their special guests as they guide you through the newly reopened galleries dedicated to European Paintings from 1300 to 1800.

The reconfigured galleries highlight fresh narratives and dialogues among more than 700 works of art from the Museum’s world-famous holdings, which include recently acquired paintings and prestigious loans, as well as select sculptures and decorative art, showcase the interconnectedness of cultures, materials, and moments across The Met collection.