Tag Archives: Tours

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

California Architecture: Modern ‘Moon Retreat’

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The Local Project (October 24, 2023) – Believing that architecture is about creating something permanent, Butler Armsden Architects built Valley of the Moon Retreat as a beautiful modern home that is everlasting.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Beautiful Modern Home 00:48 – A Countryside Location 01:35 – Belonging to the Landscape 02:32 – The Layout of the Beautiful Modern Home 04:39 – The Exterior Material Palette 05:22 – Preserving The Surrounding Landscape 05:36 – Designing For Climate Changes

After remodelling the client’s city dwelling, the architect was tasked with creating a family holiday residence in Glen Ellen, a place the clients could retreat to and escape city living. As one turns onto the narrow driveway, the house tour begins with a picturesque trip to the modern abode. The architecture and interior design enables the family to create lasting memories whilst being connected to nature, which completely surrounds the beautiful modern home.

Nestled between the trees, the residence blends seamlessly into the landscape. However, as the house tour reveals, the façade of the beautiful modern home is relatively closed off until the breezeway is opened up to expose the valley beyond. As one walks through the breezeway, the large courtyard opens up to expansive vistas of the valley beyond, with a pool that offers an additional reflection of the natural surrounds. The architect ensures the family can either entertain and find moments of respite by introducing separate cabin-like pavilions that can be opened up or closed.

Cities, Tourism, Tours, Travel, Views

Travel Tour Of Scotland: “36 Hours In Glasgow”

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The New York Times (October 19, 2023) – Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, crackles with character. It’s a hub of grass-roots energy where  art shows, plant sales and film screenings pop up in tenement flats, railway waiting rooms and disused buildings. 

Here is the itinerary:

Friday

Burrell Collection

People look at artworks on display in a museum with walls that are painted a dark teal. Framed paintings are at eye level, and larger geometric works hang in a row farther above.

3 p.m. Wander through woodlands to a world-class museum

Start your weekend at the Burrell Collection, a glass-roofed art museum that rises out of a meadow in the city’s southern Pollok Country Park like a vast, gleaming greenhouse. The 9,000-piece collection was donated to the city at the close of World War II by William Burrell, a Glasgow shipping merchant, and opened in this specially commissioned building in 1983. The free-entry museum reopened in 2022 after a six-year refurbishment of its red sandstone, glass and wood interiors. Though it is busy, the Burrell offers a peaceful immersion in an unmistakably personal collection, drifting from Degas and Rembrandt to tabernacles, tulip-motif textiles and ancient Chinese roof tiles. The tapestries are especially wonderful, including the palatially sized “Wagner Garden Carpet” made by master weavers in 17th-century Iran.

Saturday

Papercup

Diners inside a cafe sit at small wooden tables. On the wall is a large mural of a blue rose painted in the style of traditional tattoo art. A banner across the rose reads:

10 a.m. Grab a brekkie roll, then discover a Glaswegian jungle

If it’s not raining, take advantage of clear skies with a botanic stroll in Glasgow’s affluent West End. Grab breakfast at Papercup, a small and friendly cafe that has original period details, like egg-and-dart molding and an ornate ceiling rose. Try the brekkie roll with a sausage patty (£5), or eggs on toast with a side of vegan haggis (£8.50). From the cafe, wander to the Glasgow Botanic Gardens, either directly, along Great Western Road, or take the more meandering Kelvin Walkway down by the River Kelvin, crossing the blue, steel Botanic Gardens Footbridge to emerge into the scented gardens on the other bank. Enter the domed Kibble Palace, a spectacular glasshouse in which to explore a jungle of orchids, begonias and ferns, among other leafy treasures.

Hoos

The inside of a home goods store. Blankets, cushions, candles and more are on wooden shelf displays.

12 p.m. Browse Scandi home goods and woolly Scottish knitwear

Glaswegians have an appetite for sustainable shopping and for secondhand goods of all stripes. Hoos, next to the Botanic Gardens, stocks chic Scandi home goods, while the Glasgow Vintage Co., farther along Great Western Road from Papercup, has a thoughtful selection of second-hand Scottish knitwear alongside show-stopping coats and dresses from the 1970s. Up the hill on Otago Street, above Perch & Rest Coffee, Kelvin Apothecary sells a nice range of gifts including handmade Scottish soaps and wooden laundry and cleaning tools. In the cobbled Otago Lane is the chaotic Voltaire and Rousseau secondhand bookshop, with teetering, vertical book piles. Unlike many Glasgow shops, this store isn’t the most dog-friendly, because of the resident cat, BB, who supervises from his perch at the till.

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Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Architecture: Art-Filled New Zealand Home Tour

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The Local Project (October 17, 2023) – As we venture Inside an art-filled home grounded in ideals of permanence and resilience, it is evident that Zed House signifies the prospect of rebuilding through an examination of the past and planning ahead for the future.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Art-Filled Home 00:48 – Designing A Legacy Project 01:37 – The Z-Shaped Layout of the Home 02:03 – A Nostalgic and Personal Brief 02:40 – A Walkthrough of the Home 04:38 – Building for Changes in Climate 04:57 – The Material Palette 05:32 – Incorporating Aspects from the Previous Homestead 06:12 – An Enduring Family Home

The expansive, single-storey, red-brick home references the original residence that was destroyed in the 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, and is injected with art, nostalgia and childhood memories. Originally owned by the client’s parents, there was not much remaining of the original architecture, except for the gardens, which have been tendered to and reintegrated into the landscape.

As such, the client wanted a family home that would retain as much of the original house as possible, such as arched windows. Zed House receives its name from a distinct floor plan, which snakes around the site and forms the letter ‘Z’. Although the house is single storey, it boasts generous spaces, as seen in the house tour. Inside the art-filled home, one will find a deeply considered floor plan where a low-entrance front door contrasts with the vaulted ceiling within, which is close to four metres high, creating a sense of compression and release.

A juxtaposition between the casual arrangement of the kitchen, family and living rooms with the more formal dining and living area at the edge of the northern wing offers a dynamic balance inside an art-filled home. The sunken family room is relaxed and comfortable, whilst the other living area is more sophisticated, with green accents that echo the greenery of the natural surrounds. A gallery-like hallway with concrete walls houses the bedrooms and other smaller rooms.

Arts, Culture, History, Traditions, Travel

Culture: In The Footsteps Of Poets In Ronda, Spain

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A horse-drawn carriage in Ronda
A horse-drawn carriage in Ronda

“I have searched everywhere for the city of dreams,” he wrote after wandering far from Paris to overcome writers’ block, “and found it here, in Ronda.”

German poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1913)

The Times and The Sunday Times (October 15, 2023) – Walking in the footsteps of poets on a new cultural trip, James Stewart takes a wander from Ronda and gets spectacular scenery and ancient traditions all to himself.

Rupit
Rupit

Teetering at the edge of the Tajo river gorge, Ronda, 90 minutes’ drive west from Malaga, remains the most spectacular urban setting in Europe. Its cat’s cradle of white streets is haunted by the ghosts of Moorish princes, soundtracked by the strum of guitars and the tinkle of fountains.

The Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park
The Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park

If you’re in the mood for romance, nowhere in Spain comes close, Ernest Hemingway reckoned. He’s still right, so long as you’re happy to share your precious moment with massed day-trippers from the Costa del Sol. Expect visitor numbers to grow again when a £1.1 million suspended gorge walk, the Camino del Desfiladero del Tajo designed by the architect behind Malaga’s Caminito del Rey, opens later this year.

Even so, what everyone is really coming to Ronda for – to inland Andalusia – is Old Spain. You won’t find it written on signposts but, like the crackle of duende during a flamenco concert, you’ll know it when you experience it. It’s the country of pueblos blancos and half-remembered battles and scenery of savage beauty; the one that attracted Grand Tour visitors such as Disraeli and Irving long before anyone had thought of the Costa del Sol.

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Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Architecture: A Modern Garden Home In Sydney

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The Local Project (October 10, 2023) – Inspired by the nearby waterways and bushland, Downie North creates a garden home that not only exists in conversation with the surrounding landscape but also provides a sense of retreat.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Garden Home 01:15 – The Layout and Walkthrough of the Home 03:02 – Landscaping Features 03:28 – Utilising Concrete Throughout 03:54 – Raw and Primal Materials 04:56 – Control of The Light 05:24 – Rewarding Aspects of the Design

Defined by a gradual reveal of interior spaces, Castlecrag Courtyard eloquently encapsulates slow living. Located on the ridge of Castlecrag, a harbourside suburb just north of Sydney’s CBD, Castlecrag Courtyard features a northerly aspect and a sloping site to the south. As such, the challenge of this project was about maximising sunlight and privacy whilst opening up to the 180-degree city and harbour views.

The garden home features a north-facing courtyard, which allows natural light to enter the interior living spaces whilst creating private external areas. The house tour reveals an architectural layout that encourages circular movement, meaning one is always met with changing views. The home is made up of three levels, and, upon arrival, one is met with a bush path before entering the ground floor, which contains the main living and kitchen areas.

#GardenHome #Nature #TheLocalProject

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Sustainability: ‘Immersion House’ Tour In Melbourne

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The Local Project (October 8, 2023) – Venturing inside a breathtaking sustainable home obscured behind cascading garden walls, Immersion House is a hidden oasis in the middle of Melbourne’s inner-west suburbia. Creating a family home that offers a sense of refuge,

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Breathtaking Sustainable Home 00:52 – An Inner-City Location 01:07 – Taking Inspiration from A Family Sanctuary 01:32 – The Seamless Indoor Outdoor Connection 01:54 – A Rich and Natural Material Palette 02:18 – Utilising the Versatile Tongue & Groove Boards 03:47 – Satisfying Aspects of the Design 04:18 – Proud Moments

Matsouri Architects defy the conditions of the corner block location through a series of unique and enveloping experiences. Located on a corner site that slopes gradually towards the back and in a quiet residential area in the inner-western suburb of Melbourne, Australia, Immersion House is a direct response to the client’s very strong brief to have a private sanctuary while retaining aspects of the original heritage home.

This brief was the inspiration behind Matsouri Architects’s architectural approach – creating experiences and spaces so the occupants could have a sanctuary to raise their family and live in the house they always envisaged. Inside the breathtaking sustainable home, the integration of interiors with the surrounding nature is key to the home’s immersive effect. On the first floor, one feels a sense of being perched above the street, implanting an almost subterranean feel. The connection between the indoors and the outdoors feels seamless and natural; there is a view towards nature from every part of the house and a strong sense of a singular indoor and outdoor space in the way that one almost doesn’t detect what is inside and what is outside when all the doors are folded back.

Similarly, a rich and natural materiality inside the breathtaking sustainable home becomes fundamental to creating this sense of sanctuary and immersion. The use of natural and textural materials such as concrete, timber and steel feel elementally connected to the surroundings. This minimal decor and palette have a quality that ties it all together and imbues the home with a sense of harmony and creates a space that feels all-enveloping. A key aspect of this raw materiality is the use of rich timber as a key material inside the breathtaking sustainable home.

Art, Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Museums, Tours, Videos, Views

Museum Exhibition Tour: ‘Manet/Degas’ At The Met

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art (October 6, 2023) – Stephan Wolohojian, John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge, and Ashley Dunn, Associate Curator, explore Manet/Degas. This exhibition examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in modern art history: the close and sometimes tumultuous relationship between Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

Manet/Degas

September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Manet/Degas - Yale University Press London

Born only two years apart, Manet (1832–1883) and Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists who worked to define modern painting in France. By examining their careers in parallel and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged. Through more than 160 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists in the context of the family relationships, friendships, and intellectual circles that influenced their artistic and professional choices, deepening our understanding of a key moment in nineteenth-century French painting. On view: September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Mid-Century Modern: Merricks House Tour

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The Local Project (October 6, 2023) – Merricks House is a mid-century modern home that presents a bold response to a rural site in Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula – a coastal, countryside oasis.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Mid-Century Modern House 00:45 – The Perks of Building Your Own Home 01:29 – A Rural Area 01:53 – A Simple Family Focused Brief 02:30 – A Walkthrough of the Home and the Elements 03:32 – Bringing the Outside In 04:04 – Compromising on Light 05:04 – Simple and Well-Thought Out Details 05:47 – Caring for the Landscape 06:39 – A Successful Outcome

Sitting on the edge of a forest, Aktis Architects works alongside the challenges presented by the site and a linear arrangement of spaces, creating an equally robust yet elegant farm home that connects and contrasts the quintessential Australian landscape it sits within. Built for the Director of Lexicon Constructions, the brief called for a mid-century modern family house that was linear in form and worked to encapsulate a strong sense of togetherness.

Approaching the mid-century modern home, one is met with a modest elevation composed of two raking roofs, each perched above a masonry box. A gravel driveway meanders through dense planting to arrive at a porte cochère lined with vertical timber cladding. The house tour reveals a linear arrangement of spaces inside, so the need for circulation areas and corridors is redundant. The concrete frame structure is defined by a geometric architecture, whilst circular windows contrast the geometry of the home and add a sense of playfulness.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Home Design: An Enclosed Courtyard In Australia

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The Local Project (October 3, 2023) – Tapping into Western Australian sensitivities, Enclosed House II is a hidden Italian-Inspired family home that evokes a purity and sense of harmony reminiscent of the desert.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Hidden Italian-Inspired Family Home 01:12 – A Very Desirable and Hidden Location 01:48 – A Walkthrough of the Home 02:47 – Enabling The Space To Function As One 03:18 – The Customisation of The Vitrocsa Products 04:08 – A Reduced and Harmonised Material Palette 04:26 – Relating to Country Through Materials 05:40 – The Misconception of Minimalism 06:20 – Providing A Sense of Security and Privacy

Seemingly impenetrable, the raw, textural retreat the home provides is achieved through an innovative approach to materiality, light and space. Tucked away behind a river, the location of the hidden Italian-Inspired family home is one that is immediately desirable, set on a busy street with a strong suburban feel. The design responds directly to the bustling streetscape in the way that the architecture of the home draws on privacy – there is a visceral sense of security and solitude established from arrival.

Upon entering, one is met with a stark walkway with robust textural walls that frame the process of entering. This sets the scene for the earthiness one can expect from the rest of the home. At the end of the entrance is the main living space, which, in a moment of surprise, appears as a large empty void. The space extends to the kitchen and the courtyard and is transformable, eloquently merging the indoor and outdoor due to the intelligent Vitrocsa window systems.

The raw earthiness and connection to land that is felt throughout the hidden Italian-Inspired family home derives from a considered materiality and minimal furniture. There is a reduced spectrum of materials used, seeing a harmonised palette and muted tonality connect seamlessly. Timber and natural materials dominate the interior design, and there is a strong connection to the colours and textures of the Western Australian landscape, specifically the red sand of the outback.

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos, Views

Architecture: A Modern Home In Pacific Palisades

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The Local Project (September 26, 2023) – On the hills of Pacific Palisades, in Los Angeles, is Palisades Residence by Abramson Architects, a breathtaking modern home with sweeping views of the canyon backdrop. As the house tour begins from street level, the house opens onto a one-storey main level before descending to the second floor.

Video timeline: 00:00 – Introduction to the Breathtaking Modern Home 00:59 – The Riviera Neighbourhood 01:12 – The Layout of the House 01:35 – A Walkthrough of the Home 04:03 – Designing For A Dynamic Climate 04:53 – A Simple Material Palette 05:09 – A Collaborative Process

Journeying further, the main level opens to reveal the living space with dropped ceilings that at first obscure the top of the canyon. However, as the house tour moves further into the living area, the interior design opens up with the ceiling, lifting to gift the occupants breathtaking views of the canyon. From the entry way, the architects have designed a tall space with concrete walls and split skylights, which have been designed specifically to allow light to reflect and bounce into the breathtaking modern home.

The upper level contains the primary suite, which has its own his and hers bathrooms and dressing rooms. Additionally, this level contains the kitchen, dining room, living room and the covered outdoor space that leads to the outdoor entertaining areas. From here, the house tour leads down to the second level where additional living spaces are placed – these three secondary suites complement the interior design of the breathtaking modern home.