A beautiful collection of images in a well designed immersive web environment.... it reminds me of a class at SCI-Arc, Seeing LA (which no longer seems to be part of the curriculum). Actually, Piperboy reminds me of the damned over achievers in my class who always went above and beyond not only capturing some of the nicest images, but blew everyone else away with their presentations... the ones from who the rest of us would steal inspiration.

I always enjoy seeing another designer's perspective and understanding of physical environments. Thanks for sharing, Piperboy.

Link: Piperboy's travel scrapbook
Via: Coudal

"The Spring Chair's single part form minimizes weight and material waste. Its ergonomic design is contoured to the body. The strength and flexibility of bamboo create a gentle rocking action in a sled-based chair.

Link: Adapt Design
Link: Materials

The thoughtful integration of architecture into the landscape through the use of materials and geometry is effective and beautiful. Moving away from the house, the geometry loosens and the design transitions gracefully to a more naturalistic state.

Firm: Daniel Weinbach & Partners, LTD

"Sapporo units can have wheels for the units with 1 or 2 highs. The dimensions of the system are the same."

Link: Stua
Designer: Jesus Gasca

"When we think of the gardens of Southern California, we tend to think of the enormous semiarid landscapes of the Huntington and Rancho Los Alamitos, often built on the sprawling grounds of former ranches. But there is another garden tradition in Southern California: the modest, rectangular suburban plots designed by the most famous architects of mid-century modernism: Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, Gregory Ain, Raphael Soriano, Harwell Hamilton Harris, A. Quincy Jones, and John Lautner. These architects saw the garden as an outdoor extension of the space of the houses they designed, rather than a neo-Spanish fantasy to be added later by a "landscapist." Their modern gardens made use of low-maintenance, drought-resistant plants, and made room for informal outdoor living by children and adults with an emphasis on recreation and exercise."

"Glidehouse 2 builds on the successful approach of the Glidehouse to offer affordable clean, green living on an urban lot. The 2-story Glidehouse is designed for smaller or urban lots, but also can be deployed to help preserve views from a hillside. The second story can orient the bedroom windows at the ends, or facing out. The Glidehouse 2 stacks two modules, each 15'6" x 54', to create a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bath, 1,674 sf home. A basement/garage foundation can also be easily engineered."

Link: Glidehouse 2 (LiveModern)
Related: Glidehouse (Land+Living)

Designers: Dirk Wynants & Xavier Lust
Link: Extremis

The answer may not be as surprising as this fact quoted in the article: New York City has 5 million trees.

Link: Environmental News Network

The screen is made up of rotating translucent resin panels mounted on stainless steel rods. So nice.

Link: em [collaborative studio]

Acclaimed furniture designer George Nakashima (1905-1990) made boldly original pieces prized for their superb craftsmanship and their organic use of the natural lines and grain of wood. Today his beautiful creations are avidly sought by private collectors and are housed in museum collections all over the world. This survey of Nakashima's life and work-written by his daughter, the noted designer Mira Nakashima-is the most revealing look we have ever had at this woodworking genius and his profound influence on contemporary design. Mira Nakashima chronicles not only the furniture designs for which her father was best known, but also his equally fine work as an architect. Wonderful modern craft furniture

"There is nothing to be invented in our visual world, it's all there. I shy away from photographing glorious sunsets, flowers, animals and beautiful things (or people). I find myself again and again looking at ordinary everyday objects, at garbage, old things, discarded junk, stuff lying around and at the man in the street; looking at things really close up and trying to find beauty in their colour and form. Sometimes I find that beauty, more often I don't. Now and then I am satisfied with what I have photographed, occasionally very satisfied and sometimes... well, I just start again and continue looking."

Could this be the perfect place to showcase your Vitra Miniatures?

UPDATE: MocoLoco has found additional pictures of the dollhouse.

Via: NY Times (Registration Req'd)

This chair is made of paper. Yup. The Honey Pop chair designed by Tokujin Yoshioka is created from a two dimensional build up of 120 pieces of glassine paper which are glued together and precisely cut. The structure is then "opened" forming a strong three dimensional honeycomb structure. The chair is custom molded by the shape of the person who sits on it and comes in three sizes, large, medium and child. Plus it makes a crunching sound when you sit on it... and that's just cool.

Link: Tokujin Yoshioka Design

Link: Snowlab Design

Link: Fine Gardening's Guide to Pronouncing Botanical Latin

Link: Archinect
Link: 9th International Architecture Exhibition - METAMORPH

Available in white oak, macassar ebony, ebony veneer, douglas fir, walnut, and zebrawood. Resin colors are available in red, blue, white and yellow.

Designer: Derek Chen
Link: Urbana Design

"A reincarnation of the classic wing chair, made for the future. This recliner is made for serious cocooning and is the closest you can get to weightlessness. The upholstery in the Wing Chair is made by open cell visco-elastic foam, developed by NASA and used in all space crafts since the 70s. The foam adapts to your body shape and temperature leaving you in cosmic comfort. This is also probably the biggest single piece of bend wood ever used to create a chair. It's covered in thick layer of superb Lauro Preto veneer. Supplied with ottoman and a pivot safe glass holder."

Link: Reeve T. Schley Furniture Design

MPries is a regional chain in Austria's Tyrol valley, and many of the 30 different architecture firms they have worked with are Tyrolean natives. MPries does not have set corporate design guidelines allowing each store to be site specific and unique.... and sexy.

Link: MPreis
Via: Guardian Unlimited - Happy shopper

Update 10/31/05: Seeing MPreis (L+L)

Customizable lighting fixture that allows original visuals and colors to be slid in between the acrylic boards.

Designer: Fernando Campana
Designer: Humberto Campana
Link: Edra

"In a return to its roots, German furniture company Vitra is readying a new line of domestic furnishings, Vitra at Home. Available in Europe in October and the U.S. in January 2005, the debut collection includes new designs by Jasper Morrison and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, as well as revived classics by Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Verner Panton, and Isamu Noguchi, among others.

The line is driven by an aesthetic Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum calls “collage design”: a mixing of different styles, authors, and time periods. By being showcased in this manner, the collection's new and old pieces take on fresh and unexpected meanings."

Link: greggman.com

The Midwest was the heart of America's prefab-housing industry during the first half of the 20th century. Aladdin Homes of Bay City, Mich., is usually credited with pioneering mail-order sales of pre-cut, relatively easy-to-assemble kit houses through its catalog, another innovation. Popular models included the Pomona, an Arts and Crafts bungalow that would have looked at home on any of the tree-lined streets of that Southern California city.

Renewable energy supporters cheered when John Kerry, in his Democratic convention acceptance speech, called for an American energy future that relies on our "own ingenuity and innovation and not the Saudi royal family."

Maybe grass-roots America understands already. Coast to coast, for example, states are setting minimum percentages of renewable energy -- solar, wind, geothermal -- that they require utilities to achieve. About half the states are funding energy efficiency programs.

We saw John's work at CA Boom and we were impressed with the quality and craftsmanship. His work is shown at Silho in Los Angeles.

Link: Silho Furniture

Designers: TRUCK Product Architecture
Link: Tambour Table

Recently, Greg completed the plans for his latest project, the Porch House.

"The Porch House leads a double life. During the winter it is a cozy two bedroom cabin. During the summer it is a weekend retreat able to accommodate many friends and guests. The entire ground floor of the cabin is designed as one big screened in porch, with sleeping areas and a summer kitchen which allows you to move your life outside for the summer months, hence the name Porch House. So despite the size of the house, during the summer months the number of people that can be accommodated can be quite large. These summer living spaces are made to drink in the scenery and make life at this retreat as different as possible from your daily life back home. Think of it as a machine for unwinding!"

Architect: Greg La Vardera
Link: Porch House
Related: Deck House (MocoLoco)

"[It is in his Vermont studio that] Nori ultimately finds solace and peace. Perhaps a painter might trap the elements in the flat of a canvas, but Nori's wall sculptures tame the elements in three-dimensional form. His carpenter beginnings lead him to make furniture as art and then art as furniture, and the evolution continues. Whether he is cutting, planing, carving, sandblasting, burning, or pressing his native wood, Nori looks to redefine his understanding of nature, the raw force at odds with the terrible beauty of a striving humankind. Nori is on the edge of the woods, looking out to us and bringing us the secret of the forest."

Link: Nori Morimoto