Category: Apartment

TecARCHITECTURE HQ

Constraints are good for design. Sustainable minimalism can be another set of constraints. Los Angeles and Switzerland-based tecARCHITECTURE firm, approach their projects with a strong green agenda. They have earned environmentally progressive credentials with their sustainable high-tech architectural practices.

TecARCHITECTURE Headquarter is designed as both a house and office by and for tecARCHITECTURE. It has four levels: an open floor office, on the lowest level, two rental apartments and a house for tecArchitecture COO Heiko Ostmann, on the upper levels. Geothermal energy, solar-powered lighting, a concrete open loft in the lowest level, and floor to ceiling windows with an extravagant view of Lake Constance — One super green package.

Environment and design. Apparently oh-so-difficult contradictions?

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Nacho Polo’s Private House

Nacho Polo has fashioned his own language for starkly white. He’s added a bit of drama to white while respecting its formal purity. He used white to create glowing brightness and accentuate the essence of his Nineteenth Century apartment, next to the Royal Palace Opera in Madrid.

Madrid-born and Miami-based designer and architect Nacho Polo’s apartment retains a classic mood, yet indulges minimalist cleanliness. “I could not live without a notebook with blank pages and a pencil to draw,” he claims. In a sense, he has treated his apartment as a white canvas, dripping sensual accents of black paint and classic elements of crown moldings and carpentry.

His collection of artless white frames is experimental drama. A type of highly colored minimalism?

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Copenhagen Penthouse

Some of us have entered the world of Art because we expect it to be liberaring and meaningful. We admire art in galleries and museums and have chosen a couple of art pieces we want to live with every day.

Copenhagen Penthouse by Norm Architects is a white space where you can create large art-hanging displays, highlighted by museum-quality lighting. All the lights are dimmable: an ideal setting for an art collection. Danish Architects Kasper Rønn and Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen call it “The intelligent house.”  iPhone users, this is for you. The penthouse owners, can control the lights, the fireplace and the air conditioning with a single touch on their iPhone. Authentically cool.

Is technology here to inspire us through art forms? I am always intrigued by our preference for noise. The show goes on.

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Flat #1

A staircase as an element of art is an incredible thing. Ecole’s Flat #1 striking floating stairs are composed of unsupported steel treads, magically connected to a wall. Like weightless piano keys, they create a flirty look to emphasize a shift from the living room to the owner’s private space. The stairs leave me intrigued enough to see what greets me at the top, without daring to look sideways or down.

The Flat #1 designed by French architecture and design studio, Ecole, occupies two top floors of an 18th century building in Paris. The space has been redesigned using a minimalist approach that contrasts beautifully with the 18th century building. It features art-gallery white walls, impeccable black accents and an open area to make the most of limited space.

A French twist on minimalist classics? Apparently, the Parisiens can balance the love of drama and a laissez-faire attitude.

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Kanye West apartment

Being a big-ass rapper doesn’t mean you cannot have an appreciation for minimalism; check out Kanye West‘s New York apartment!

West hired minimalist architect Claudio Silvestrin for the interior design of his new Manhattan loft. These renderings show the minimalist space as it was nearly completed back in January 2007.

To Silvestrin, minimalism is much more than a visual style – its’s a way of being:

It’s a reaction against todays’ noise and disorder. It’s the search for purity, cleanliness, the presence of space. It is the timeless quest for perfection.

I guess that’s exactly what Kanye West can use after a hard day of work.

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