Casa dei Poeti / Stromboli

 via 2hands-design

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Terunobo Fujimori´s houses

A modern eccentric with an architectural sensibility drawn from ancient Japanese traditions, Terunobu Fujimori designs projects that are exercises in playful experimentation and sophisticated craft.

A longtime professor at the Institute of Industrial Science at the University of Tokyo, Fujimori came to designing late—he got his first commission at age 44, 19 years ago—but he has since conceived some of Japan’s most startlingly original buildings, on average one per year.

Little about the way Fujimori works is conventional. He doesn’t have a firm per se but rather recruits promising graduate students to help him flesh out the details of each project after he’s done all the drawing. He makes his architectural models by hacking tree stumps into abstract, sculptural shapes using a chainsaw. Galleries abroad have offered to buy them, but he refuses. And when he’s completed the final drawings for a project, he invites his clients to his weekend house in Nagano for a little ceremony he’s devised. Sitting in his private Too-High Tea House, perched 20 feet in the air and wavering on two forked tree trunks, he hands them a hand-rendered version of the final plans. “If they don’t like my design, I shake the building!” he says, laughing heartily.

Fujimori hires professionals to do all the structural and electrical work on his buildings but handles many of the interior finish details himself, with a motley group of volunteers that he calls the Jomon Company—so named for the Neolithic period of Japanese history and for the primitive tools they use to give Fujimori’s interiors a warm, roughed-up feel. When the structure is nearly complete, this loose collective of close friends—a painter, a novelist, a book publisher, a sake brewer, a priest—gather to do whatever unusual task Fujimori has set aside for them: planting hundreds of leeks in individual pots atop a gabled roof; weaving a bamboo screen for a copper-plated pottery studio; or cutting irregular chunks of wood with stone-carving tools and embedding them in a tea house’s vaulted ceiling. “Instead of playing golf that weekend, they work,” says Fujimori, hastening to add, “I never pay them. If you pay, it’s labor!”

Fujimori clearly relishes his iconoclast role, even as he receives increasing recognition and respect as a designer: At the 2006 Venice Biennale he exhibited his unconventional architectural models, and in 2007 the Japanese publishing company Toto released a monograph of his work. But increasing fame and more prestigious commissions don’t mean he’ll change his unconventional working methods anytime soon. He’s spent the past several years roaming the globe for new ideas, applying his historian’s mind to collect inspiration from ancient models: mud architecture in Mali, adobe buildings in the American West, and the famous Caves of Lascaux in southwest France. These spare,  stripped-down structures remind us that we all share primal instincts that can be aroused and satisfied through design: for shelter, warmth, and community. Fujimori may dismiss sustainability as a side note in his buildings, but his modern interpretation of the Neolithic captures a truth too often lost in our scramble for eco-credibility: Working with nature is sometimes the most radically green approach an architect can take. 

via dwell

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Hiepler Brunier Landscapes

david hiepler, was born on the 1st of august in 1969 in lank-latum. he grew up in düsseldorf and basel, switzerland. From 1992–1994 he studied photography at lette-verein, berlin. Since 1996 he has been working with fritz brunier.

Fritz brunier was born on the 20th of march in 1972 in krumbach. He grew up in bad wörishofen. From 1992–1994 he studied photography at lette-verein, berlin. Since 1996 he has been working with David Hiepler. Hiepler, Brunier, is working for numerous international clients, advertising and design agencies, for a lot of great magazines and some architects. Their uncommissioned work has been shown in many galleries and museums all over europe.the work of hiepler, brunier, recieved more than twenty awards, e.g. at the adc in germany and in the usa, the one show in new york, the new york festivals, the lead awards in germany and the cannes lions.  via obsessivecollectors

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Walstrom House Jonh Lautner

John Lautner was a California based architect that built very inspiring public buildings and private residences. The Walstrom house was constructed in 1969 into the side of a hill in the Santa Monica mountains just outside of Los Angeles. My main interest in this home is of course the use of wood, but also the asymmetrical structure. via wanken

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Palmyra house/ Studio Mumbai

Located outside of Mumbai on the Arabian Sea, Palmyra House was built as a refuge from the bustle of the busy city. The 3000 sq ft. house consists of two wooden louvered structures set inside of a functioning coconut plantation. Anchored to stone platforms, the structures overlook a network of wells and aqueducts that weave the site into an inhabitable whole. Living room, study and master bedroom are contained in the north volume, while the south volume contains the kitchen, dining, and guest bedrooms. Set in the plaza between the buildings, the pool provides a channel for swimming, with expansive views of the sea to the west and views into a dense foliage of palms to the east.

Structural framing for the house was built of ain wood, a local hardwood, and was constructed using traditional interlocking joinery. The extensive louvres were handcrafted from the outer part of the palmyra trunk (a local palm species). Exteriors are detailed with hand-worked copper flashing and standing seam aluminum roofs; interior surfaces are finished with teakwood and India Patent Stone, a refined pigmented plaster. Locally quarried black basalt was used to construct the stone plinths, aqueduct walls and pool plaza. via archdaily

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