Longman & Eagle is a popular Chicago restaurant and bar that has received accolades from notable publications including GQ and Esquire, and has even received a Michelin star. Now, the restaurant is embarking on a new path, as a hotelier. Six rooms above the restaurant have opened to guests. Designer Cody Hudson continued the theme of the restaurant upstairs, with cushy chairs and stainless-steel fixtures. Other features include mattresses made of organic soy, Apple TVs, and tokens that are good for a whiskey downstairs. [click to continue…]
In Atlantic Beach, New York, many aging houses, fixtures of the community, have been replaced with larger modern houses. There are fewer and fewer Spanish, Tudor, and Art Deco style houses from the 1920s and 1930s. In an effort to reclaim some of the classic architectural cues of older homes, Belmont Freeman Architects designed the Kowalewski Residence to recapture some of the Art Deco heritage of the Atlantic Beach community. The 3,600 square ft. house is the primary residence for a family with two small children, so it’s designed with an open plan for casual living. The layout also maximizes the house’s connection to the outdoors. The structure is steel with light-gauge metal framed floors and walls. The exterior includes the use of stucco, black slate, stainless steel and glass. [click to continue…]
The Lighthouse is a residential project by Linebox Studio that achieves the elusive balance of being ultra modern and warm. The latter was an important element for the family of five that wanted the home to be inviting. The Lighthouse is 4,500 square feet and features a sticking façade which was oriented north to preserve privacy. The elevated great room with its 22-foot high ceilings, warm maple floors (all floor have radiant heating), and crisp white walls is uncluttered and absent of visible light fixtures. The project called for both intimacy and connectivity, and the home certainly achieves this goal. [click to continue…]
Blue Sky Homes tapped o2 Architecture when setting out to develop their latest prefabricated prototype home. The 1,000 sq-ft home is located in the Mojave Desert region at 4,000 feet above sea level. The home was designed to be sustainable, modestly scaled, and it’s also to be a prototype for an entire prefabricated line of homes. Its design is flexible enough to easily adapt to a variety of site conditions. It’s composed of pre-manufactured wall panels and standardized building components. Interior spaces are defined by the placement of storage cabinetry, eliminating interior framed walls. The prototype also includes solar technologies that provide electricity, hot water and space heating. What you see here was also completed after a construction schedule of just 8 weeks. [click to continue…]
Most sporting arenas aren’t considered aesthetically beautiful monuments. But the all-new Amway Center is Orlando, Florida, may change that view. Designed by Kansas City-based architecture firm Populous, this arena is immediately striking thanks to its 180-foot spire, which towers over the main entrance. This tower is also illuminated all day every day by 176 LED light fixtures and is wrapped in a steel frame that contains stainless steel mesh within. According to Brad Clark, a senior designer at Populous, this tower is very noticeable because of the way it reflects light, “And because it’s an oval shape, as it extrudes up the side of the tower, you’re looking through the mesh to the backside of the mesh, on the other side of the oval.” The Sky Bar nightclub resting atop the tower gives visitors the ability to see this striking architectural element up close. [click to continue…]
Designed by Lawrence Architecture, this West Seattle district residence is primarily comprised of three building materials – concrete, steel, and glass. The end result is a 3,800 square foot home that is very modern. A large concrete wall essentially separates the home into two main sections, where a garage, entry and service spaces are on the side that faces the street, while the main living space is on the other side. This setup was chosen to maximize privacy. The wall itself houses stairs with cantilevered steel treads. Above, a sweeping, arching roof sites atop the wall and is supported by steel frames and triangular steel trusses. As for the main living spaces, the master bedroom is a loft above the kitchen, while other rooms are at basement level to maximize daylight. [click to continue…]
Ever wondered what the most expensive personal home looks like? Well, that title goes to Antilia, which is the home of India’s richest man, businessman Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire Chairman of Reliance Industries. In addition to featuring 600 full-time staff members, nine elevators, three helipads, an air traffic control facility, and a yoga studio, this humble home is also setup to house Ambani, his wife Nita, and their three children. And in case you’re curious, Antilia is named after the mythical island in the Atlantic, Antillia. For more details on this amazing home, check out the infographic below. [click to continue…]
Avenue Road is one of Canada’s premier venues for classic and contemporary furniture designs. As such, its showroom had to be ultra sophisticated to match its products. But while the former Consumers Gas Company building, which was built in 1907, still looks dated and conservative on the outside, the interior is more akin to a modern art gallery. Designed by Yabu Pushelberg, the interior features a luminous main gallery that glows under the main skylight. The simple and symmetrical interior of Avenue Road is intended to fuse a showroom and a gallery, and it has certainly succeeded. [click to continue…]
Many barbecue joints in the U.S. have a very similar look and atmosphere. But for Barbecoa in London, the look is much swankier than what you might expect. Inside a sexy new building designed by French starchitect Jean Nouvel, the restaurant’s interiors were designed by Tom Dixon’s Design Research Studio. Despite serving what some consider low-brow food, the restaurant itself is anything but. The restaurant features 200 seats spread over two stories, and it provides views of St. Paul’s Cathedral. The price of creating this bastion of low-brow food: $4.8 million. [click to continue…]
An existing ranch style home in Leawood, Texas got a modern facelift with the help of Hufft Projects. The task was to mix some of the old style with new additions. The result was the addition of a box-shaped volume added on top of the old structure. This addition was especially welcomed by the two family members at the residence, two young boys, who now have a large playroom and two bedrooms to enjoy. Architects also created a new kitchen island and opened-up the living, dining, and kitchen areas for a more open space. [click to continue…]
