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Luxury design by A-Cero – House 10 in Madrid

We have recently reviewed the contemporary house design by A-Cero, which was built quite recently. The following house is another masterpiece by this famous Spanish studio. It refers to the end of 2008, when it was built in Madrid’s La Finca residential area along with many other unique houses, all designed by A-Cero. This huge house features sweeping light concrete exterior with sharp edges, making it look generous and even larger than it is and giving the contemporary feel. It would probably look unwelcoming and cold, if not the careful and well-thought design of the surrounding landscape and outstanding illumination, making the house shine like a gem at night. The interior complements the extraordinary architecture, at the same time providing the diversity of styles for different rooms, depending on their purpose.



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Rivermouth Landscape in Carmel, California by Bernard Trainer

The first thought you may have when seeing this pictures is how well this house’s design integrates into the surrounding coastal foredunes. But this is rather an excellent example of landscape design, where the surrounding atmosphere of wild coast was created after the house was built. This isn’t one of the common cases of contemporary landscape design when short-cut grass on the neat hills struggle to create geometric perfection. All the plantings were carefully selected to emphasize the Californian oceanic view toward Point Lobos and yet brighten it up. The result is beautiful on the verge of reality – unusual flora lit by the sunset light sometimes makes you feel like you are dreaming.



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Form Follows Function Sofa: All Functions From A Single Line

This sofa was made by Daan Mulder for the young talent exposition in Netherlands. This designer has graduated as the interior architect this year and his graduation work is full of organic and liquid shapes, just like this new project of Form Follows Function Sofa. The idea was to make a solid sofa where all functions and shape would originate from a single continuous line. It’s actually hard to believe that the result is welded of three bent steel plates, because there are no visible seams or they are very well hidden by finishing. We are not sure however how comfortable the steel sofa can be, but in this case comfort was a necessary sacrifice in favor of design.



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9 Hours Capsule Hotel in Kyoto by Design Studio S

Capsule is a popular type of hotels in Japan and nowhere else, it’s kind of a Japanese national invention that attracts quite a lot of tourists who want to get some extraordinary experience. But still such places are mostly inhabited by businessmen, who were too late for the last train and have no other way to get back home. All of such hotels are usually located near the train stations or in the entertainment area. The idea of capsule hotels is that you rent a small 1m-1.5m-2m capsule where you can sleep or read the book. It’s perfect if you need to simply sleep over and don’t want to pay for the ordinary hotel room.

9 Hours is one of the most beautiful capsule hotel – since it’s opening in December 2009 the Design Studio S has been awarded many times for the best design for Asia. We would give them a separate Home Reviews award for the outstanding info graphics.  The interior of this building resembles the images imposed by many movies about the future. It’s extremely strict and sober, consisting only of the basic shapes and colors.



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Mural Azur Fresh Interior Theme by Jorge Aguilar

Jorge Aguilar is a very talented artist that seems to enjoy experimenting very much. His web site here has a large set of mind blowing art pieces but what interests us the most is this great project, when he had a hand in interior decorating. Considering how talented Jorge as an artist, it’s not surprising how stylish and holistic his interior is. We only see one wall with the shelves and couches here that complement each other very well, but this theme could easily be extrapolated and build up to a very fresh and modern residence design. Of course the rest of the interior would have to be less detailed to avoid driving it’s inhabitants crazy by the riot of colors.



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Groovy Fridge Magnets for Apple iPhone and iPad fans

Apple products’ design has achieved immense popularity since the first iPhone hit the shelves a couple of years ago. Nowadays their products are used by millions of users and probably there isn’t a single person in the whole world that has never seen the iPhone and never heard of the iPad or iPod. This is why it’s so trendy to decorate literally everything to make it look the way they do. Jailbreak Toys released a set of iPhone accessories to decorate your fridge and make it look like giant new model with built-in refrigerator. We call it the iFridge. Of course these magnets can be used to make any metal surface look funny and we think that they are good as small gifts. The set comes at $12.99; two year contract is not required.



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Australian Architecture – House 6 by BKK Architects

This huge contemporary house is located on the semi-desert coast of Australia’s Western Port Bay. It’s driveway faces a rather concise facade with sloping porch which gives the feeling that this house was created out of a hill. But this expression changes as soon as the one steps in. Extensive inner spaces frame wonderful views of the sandy flat and the ocean to the north from the house. House interior echoes with it’s outside look, in some ways sacrificing warmth to the practicality and contemporary look. However the wooden elements of decor and the fireplace in the focal point of the house make it a little more welcoming.



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Contemporary interior with a natural spirit and warmth

We’ve found this cool interior on the web a couple of days ago and we loved it from the first sight. Think of how cozy and warm it would be to hide there from the freezing cold Ottawa’s winter outside. Charming cats all over the place unwittingly show how comfy this residence is. We especially loved the shelf on the fifth picture and the variety of pictures and paintings on the walls. The kitchen stools look extraordinary, just like many other furniture pieces in this place, actually. The interior gets completed by the set of pillows and a couple of animal skins.



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