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The Stripe House is a modest, mixed-use home in the Netherlands. Designed by GAAGA, this three story house is named for the horizontal stripes carved into the facade on three sides of the structure. The groves were hand-carved into the plaster, creating a unique display of craftsmanship.  The ground floor of the Stripe House contains an office and patio. The second story houses the kitchen and living space; and the third floor contains the bedrooms. The structure has very few windows, but the windows it has are large and strategically placed. The stripe house is sensibly designed, but not at all short on character. I love the hand-made facade; it gives the exterior of the home a warm, tactile nature. This home is simple and precise, and a lovely example of minimalist living.

Lately I am much more interested in graphic design, so that is why today I bring you another piece of great minimalist rebranding for Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, in this case, a project developed by the Norwegian Neue Design Studio. Norwegian Shipowners Association has around 160 members – shipowners in the tanker and bulk transport sector, short sea sector and offshore activities. We wanted to create an iconic, simple and elegant identity that would communicate NSA’s universe as well as being serious, bold and forward-looking, showing NSA as a competent and global actor. Again I find this to be very effective work, with a great combination of simplicity and symbology, representing the open sea using just two rectangles in different blue tone colors. I hope to discover and share with you similar rebranding works that are just as impressive!

Hidden in the bustle of Brooklyn Heights is the lovely Steele Residence. This chic and modern home was designed by the New York based firm Resolution: 4 Architecture, or RES4 for short. The Steele Residence is a complete gut renovation designed to reflect the personalities of a recently retired couple. The central element of the 1650 square foot home is a utility core made of maple. This core contains the kitchen, mechanical room, and storage. The apartment rotates around this core- the public areas are closest to the core and the private rooms rest along the exterior walls. The manipulated ceiling further seeks to accentuate the apartment’s organization. The ceiling is curved so as to contain the private spaces along the edges and expand the public spaces against the core. The Steele Residence is the definition of modern Brooklyn living! It is a gorgeous renovation in one of Brooklyn’s great neighborhoods. While the aesthetic of this home appears quite minimal, it is not without decoration. Yet each decorative piece has been carefully chosen and placed, allowing the apartment to feel clean and effortless. Overall, the Steele Residence is full of character, comfort, and of course, style.

The sinuous and segmented design of the bridge winds above the valley, along a distance of about 220m. The central takes a path perpendicular to the line of the valley. The other two sections are inflected and oriented towards their anchoring points. The connection between the two points is no longer the shortest distance between them. The tense geometry of its layout interferes with visual orientation and with the perception of dominating heights of “serra da estrela”, on one side, and with the vastness of “cova da beira” on the other. This way the Portuguese architect João Luís Carrilho da Graça describes the Pedestrian Bridge Over The Carpinteira. He developed it with a double curve to increase delicacy of the plain and smart design, being less rectilinear. I also would like to emphasize the continuity of the line horizontal to the two central columns, which makes it more singular for me. The interior deserves a mention too, with a great finish made in a very resistant wood-polymer composite, hiding a smooth illumination at night that you can see through this video.

A simple yet elegant infographics project titled oceaniaeuropeamericasafricaasia by advertising creative Gustavo Sousa embodies more than just the intention of spreading awareness on global issues. It challenges our own knowledge of current affairs and assumptions of design and colors. Using the Olympic symbol of the 5 colored circles aptly in time with the 2012 summer games in London, Gustavo chose to depict current social concerns in a short video while categorizing a color in relation to each of the continents. As he mentioned in an interview: The rings represent healthy competition and union, but we know the world isn’t perfect. Maybe understanding the differences is the first step to try to make things more equal. What was most interesting about the project in addition to its minimalist style of presentation was that there was deliberately no graphics key given to which color represented which continent, which I saw as a test of the viewer’s own personal knowledge of the issues pertaining to each continent and was surprised by which ones I guessed right or wrong. Even though there has been some criticism about the accuracy of the statistics, the actual scale of the circles as it changes with each issue does not...

It struck me, reading Fast Company’s recent profile of Tadashi Yanai and his company Uniqlo, just how minimalist the Unique Clothing Warehouse really is. Yes, I’d be a fool to admit that the brand embodies the aesthetics of minimalism entirely (have one look at their website), but also wrong to omit the small and large ways that it is visually reductive (the much lauded Jil Sander collaboration proved its potential in this regard, and even today a customer could construct looks in a similar vein from what is currently available – I certainly do). But what really occurred to me, reading this article, are the ways in which the brand is practically minimalist. For whereas something like Jil Sander may look minimalist, actually owning and using the products reveal other ways in which it isn’t (how minimalist is it really to have dry-clean-only clothes or to wear such delicate fabricates amounting to deep care and deep pockets?) Naoki Takizawa, who previously worked as the lead designer for Issey Miyake, notes that [a]t Issey Miyake, it was about putting on more and more, and at Uniqlo, it’s about taking away. Cut, cut, cut! Speaking of an autumn/winter 2012 parker, Jeff Chu writes: But...

Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles for Good Design inspired the latest weather app, WTHR, by Visual Designer David Elgena. The identity of Braun products subtly come through with the classic minimalist forms, universal icons, intuitive display and clean, simple font. The drop shadows on the symbol displays and toggle button for temperature conversion add depth while using the app which makes the iPhone transform into another (Apple) product. For $0.99 at the App store, it sounds like a bargain. After all, how often do we really need to know that today’s highest temperature in was 70C at 2.20pm when conditions were partly cloudy at 83% humidity? Stop wasting time staring at weather radars and atmospheric pressure readings, you’re not an airline pilot…WTHR™ Indeed. Devoid of all unnecessary information stripped down to just what most people in moderate climates need, I think WTHR celebrates the trend of good design in a sensory-overload culture. Check out this YouTube video for a short demo.

Brainstorming in the offices of Agentur Loop, an Austrian Digital Advertising agency, might be the pinnacle of envy for most if not all creative types. Headquartered in Salzburg, huge chalk board walls display and incubate ideas that are supplemented by a table football (foosball), an electric guitar corner, socializing in the bistro and lounge areas, an outdoor grill and even a supposed soft-serve ice cream machine. Digital Candyshop indeed. Yet the minimalistic interiors are portrayed elegantly with its clean, modern design using just black and white in the architectural finishes, the furniture and even in the toys and peripherals. Full height walls of square glass blocks on the exterior let in a lot of light and give a sense of scale to the large open-plan commercial building where the agency resides in. Modular cushioned cubes of varying heights and adjustable configurations serve as seating within an interaction space, challenging the traditional form of communication that takes place with sofas or arm chairs. The supply of award-winning furniture designer Konstatin Grcic’s Chair One in black furnishes the bistro, tying in a modern and clean socializing space. In my opinion, short of a pool and a rock-climbing wall, the office has otherwise achieved a truly...

Berlin-based multidisciplinary creative hub HORT was charged with the daunting task of redesigning the identity of the icon of Modernism, the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. The new identity’s elements consisted of stationery, brochures, posters, tickets, website etc., but also the redesign of the signage of Walter Gropius’ famous Bauhaus building. Given this, the studio wanted to make it clearly distinguishable what is part of the original structure and what new additions had been made. They followed the premise of strict typography and minimalist layout, standardised formats and no color. The chosen corporate typeface was Courier, the most generic and incidental typeface, in consonance with the studio’s belief that a generic design would work best in order to make the distinction between old and new. An important alteration of Courier’s “A” letter was made, saluting Herbert Brayer’s existing logo on the façade of the Bauhaus Dessau building, and the new logotype is always set vertically. We decided to search for a solution that would relate more to the original ideas of Germany’s most influential Modernist school instead of relying on the visual clichés connected to Bauhaus – it seems almost impossible to use circle, square and triangle nowadays without it coming across...

This children’s book by Antonio Ladrillo is absolutely adorable. Ladrillo is an illustrator from Spain. The book “Oh! A Zig-Zag!” is in Spanish and is intended to teach children about shapes and color in a simple way. The shapes twist and turn around each other on each page, and the captains are short and playful. The book reads: Oh! A zig-zag! A square has four sides And a triangle has three We are lines And we like to follow one another We are curves! One, two, three, four and five Five circles! Balancing! We love corners We are always parallel We are tangled up Wave! I love how Ladrillo has turned such simple shapes into lovable characters. Perfect!

Bringing slightly different layer to today’s post with the Finnon Glen house in VIC, Australia designed by Doherty Lynch. Shortlisted for the Australian Interior Design Awards this year (among other excellent projects), I was mostly attracted to the balanced combination between architectural clarity and the ease of the furnishings. The result seems like a natural gesture by the designer without forced and unnecessary design features but with just enough visual interest  to please the eye. Moreover, this type of design allows flexibility and opportunity for the clients in their day-to-day lifestyle. Would love to hear your thoughts. Photography by Sonia Mangiapane