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Swidget Modular Smart Outlet

Google might have given up on the idea of modular smartphone, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be other modular things. Swidget, which started life as a Kickstarter campaign, is a modular outlet concept that’s unlike any other smart outlets out there.

If you don’t know what they are, smart outlets are plugs that can communicate with your smartphone in order to control it.

To be clear, smart outlets aren’t a novelty in this day and age. There are excellent choices already available for the smart home-savvy, like the Belkin Wemo Insight Switch. Some people also prefer the Insteon On/Off Outlet. The point is, there are already lots of options.

Swidget, however, is the first one to feature modular outlets. That’s just a fancy word meaning you can take individual pieces and shuffle them around as you please. More notably, Swidget outlets offer more than just basic controls like turning devices on or off. The platform includes a ton of modular inserts that perform a variety of functions.

There’s a modular inset for motion sensing. Then one for detecting carbon monoxide levels in a room. There’s also a modular insert that checks the temperature and humidity of a given area. You’ll find a security camera modular insert as well, and of course, a USB charger. So on and so forth.

The idea is you’ll be able to quickly swap between these modules with minimal friction. The best part? They’ll come in both Wi-Fi and Z-Wave versions. The Wi-Fi ones are designed to work directly with the companion Swidget app. The Z-Wave ones, however, require a compatible smart home hub like SmartThings.

LEARN MORE

January 30, 2019 / Comments Off

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Petre Island On Lake Mahopac

There’s a funny thing they often say about New York. That the only trees you’ll ever find in the city are in Central Park. It’s funny, of course, but it’s also terribly wrong.

Beyond the grime, noise, and filth of the bustling urban metropolis, you can score this million-dollar idyll smack dab atop this private island in Lake Mahopac.

Petre Island is a rare piece of property. Not just because it’s a private island located in one of the most expensive states to buy property in, but because it’s got houses made by a legendary architect.

On the edge of the ten-acre, heart-shaped Petre Island sits two houses made by none other than Frank Lloyd Wright. The first one, a guest cottage, was built in 1950 and has three bedrooms and a single bathroom. The other, a main house, was finished in 2007 and has four bedrooms.

The main abode was finished well after Wright had died, of course. But it retains all of Wright’s architectural peculiarities and genius. That explains the organic integration of the site’s natural rock, built-in furniture, and multiple cantilevered decks.

Since this is a private island, the purchase comes with a private beach, a tea house, dock, and a rooftop helipad. That should get you from Petre Island to New York City in just 15 minutes. That is if you’re not too queasy aboard helicopters.

If you’re interested about living in isolation at the gorgeous Petre Island, contact Douglas Elliman Real Estate. Prepare to cut a check for $12,900,000, though.

Yours For $12,900,000

Photos courtesy of Douglas Elliman Real Estate

January 30, 2019 / Comments Off

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Inflatable Chairs By Mojow

Here’s something you don’t really see everyday: inflatable chairs. The clever folks at Mojow have figured how to make inflatable couches look stylish in a way that doesn’t erode their utility.

Thing is, inflatable anything isn’t so appealing aesthetics-wise. They’re pretty cool on paper, sure, but as decorative fixtures, they’re kind of a hit and miss. Which is why Mojow’s approach is notable. By making some of the inflatable sheets transparent, the company added flair to otherwise plain-looking and dull furniture.

They come in different colors: pink, blue green. They also come in various iterations, including a single-seater, an elongated couch, and even a sleek ottoman. The base are flat-pack seats. The cushions are either opaque or transparent, depending on what works better for you.

Surprisingly, these cushions are pretty robust, able to support, depending on the configuration, about 265 to 529 pounds.

The best thing about them is their customizability, As great as they look already, interior designers at heart can go to own and add all sorts of things on top. Throw on a touch of leather, for starters. Or maybe a plaid fabric or a coloured fur to give them a bit more oomph. The world is your oyster.

The blending of metallic frameworks and inflatable components isn’t a novelty, to be clear. But Mojow has injected the concept with its unique and potent sense of style, practicality, and utilitarianism. Without going overboard, most notably. The result? Chic-looking living room fixtures that are useful, durable, and with easy upkeep.

CHECK THEM OUT

Photos courtesy of Mojow

January 26, 2019 / Comments Off

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Snowman Glass World Resort

If Finland is you next destination and you don’t have any plans for lodging yet, look no further than the Snowman Glass World Resort.

Sitting in the quaint and cozy city of Rovaniemi, this hotel shelters adventurers with its plethora of luxury glass igloos. Finland has sort of been leading the charge lately when it comes to winter travel accommodations. Just like the Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort that went viral a couple of years past, Snowman Glass World is perfect for folks waiting to witness the Northern Lights.

The winter resort, open just this month in Santa Claus Village, is the most luxurious take on the genre yet. Here, there are standalone Scandinavian-style apartments affixed with modern architecture and furnishings. For each cabin, there’s a living area, a modest-sized kitchen, and an upstairs bedroom. Topping it all off are floor-to-ceiling windows for your full view of the snowy landscape and the Northern Lights.

It’s a bit odd that there are private terraces in the hotels given that you’ll be staying here in winter. But here you’ll find a private hot tub and an en suite sauna. Both should keep you pretty warm and snug during the cold season.

Staying at the glass apartments will run you around €496 per night. That’s a pretty penny to spend on accomodation, of course. It does, however, include Wi-Fi. Plus, you’ll get all-day entrance tickets to Snowman Ice World. And there’s free breakfast in the resort’s Restaurant Ensilumi. If you’re headed to Rovaniemi for vacation, then you really shouldn’t miss this experience.

BOOK HERE

Photos courtesy of Snowman Glass World

January 24, 2019 / Comments Off

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Up Your Shelving Game With The Tylko Type02

Shelves. One of the most essential pieces of furniture any person must have in their arsenal, and yet one of the hardest indoor fixtures to pull off.

There are so many kinds of shelves, from regal to urban to downright eccentric. Stripped down to its core, though, a shelf is all about making room for stuff in the most efficient way possible.

If you’ve simply run out of shelving ideas, consider looking at the Tylko Type02 shelves. These aren’t just your typical shelves, for one. Tylko actually lets customers adjust and personalize Type02 shelves down to their centimeter, the style, the finish, and all sorts of other tweaks. You can literally spruce it up with fine-grained details to get the perfect shelf in your mind.

You can even use Tylko’s augmented reality app to check whether a style will work in your living spaces.

Tylko did a lot of research for its latest shelf collection. The company sought to improve not just the look, but also the functionality of these storage savers. Tylko created new combinations to choose from, and refined the doors and handles to be more ergonomic. Adjustable legs were developed to ensure there would be no uneven shelves, even on spaces with weird floors. There’s also a much wider gamut of color options available.

Assembling them is also much easier now. Customers don’t even need to bring out special tools to fix up these shelves. They’re even easier to build than your typical flat-packed furniture with color-coding, factory-installed connectors.

Type02 shelves are excellent, well-crafted, stylish, and idiot-proof. What more could you want from shelves, really?

START CUSTOMIZING HERE

Photos courtesy of Tylko

January 23, 2019 / Comments Off

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Get Rid Of Pests With The Goodnature A24 Automatic Trap

We all have our fair share of experience dealing with pests as they invade our homes. We are talking about the four-legged kind that squeaks and wreaks havoc wherever they choose to nest. Sure, you can contact specialists to take care of the problem, but the professional fee is often insanely expensive. On the other hand, you can go the traditional route and use various means available to eradicate these vermin. There are so many ways to go about it, but the Goodnature A24 is something else entirely.

Over the years, there’s hardly any revolution when it comes to dealing with rodents and other similar pests. Old-school methods might work the first few times, but as these intelligent animals learn, it loses all potency. However, even if it is successful, the aftermath eventually becomes a chore as you need to clean up, bait, and reset everything.

Now here where the A24 comes into play. This compact device offers convenience for the user and dispatches pests as humanely as possible. It means that rats, mice, and other similar rodents are instantly killed. Moreover, it eliminates the need to reset the trap after each kill. The innovative system uses a small CO2 canister to deliver the fatal blow and self-reset afterward.

It’s a weatherproof and compact product that uses a long-lasting bait to lure vermin to their deaths. Since it does not use toxins or electricity, the Goodnature A24 can last longer than what’s available. Each CO2 canister can eliminate up to 24 pests before it needs a refill. All that’s left to do is to clean up the carcass or let the scavengers do the work for you if it’s installed outside.

Images Courtesy Of Goodnature

Upgarde Your Arsenal Here

January 22, 2019 / Comments Off

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Droplet Teardrop Trailer

Trailers do not necessarily have to be small, cramped, and lacking in essentials that make outdoor living comfortable. They can have a full kitchen and a bed too, just like the Droplet Teardrop trailer.

This makeshift shelter fits a queen-size bed in a bright and airy wood laminated interior fitted with windows on the front and both sides. A ceiling yachting latch even lets in more air and sunlight, while the tints on the windows maintain privacy.

This trailer also has enough storage spaces to keep electronic devices, clothes, and more. There are two cabinets and a couple of shelves at the foot of the bed. Meanwhile, pullout drawers accessible in the makeshift kitchen can store cooking and eating utensils.

Just like traditional campers, the back opens to reveal the cooking space, which is equipped with an acrylic countertop with LED lamps, a two-burner propane cooking stove, a 12-volt slide-out fridge, and a hand-pump-operated water system.

This droplet trailer uses aluminum composite and wood fiber frame for its exterior. It is compact enough at 6.6. feet wide, 5.5 feet high, and 13.5 feet long. A car with a towing capacity of 1, 100 pounds like the Honda Civic can easily tow this trailer at its weight of 950 pounds.

Get Your Own Trailer Here

Photos Courtesy of Droplet

January 12, 2019 / Comments Off

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Levimoon: The Moon On Your Bedside Table

Look at your bedside table now. Or if you’re not in bed, imagine what it looks like. Your keys are probably on it. A wireless charger is propped up on top of some nonfiction paperbacks. There’s a ceramic cat figurine. A water bottle. Most importantly, a lamp.

But it’s just the average, everyday lamp, we bet. It’s not like the Coocepts’ Levimoon, which puts a ultra-realistic replica of the moon right on your bedside table. It levitates, too, just so you know. And rotates. And lights up in mid-air. It’s probably to coolest lamp you’ll ever see.

The Levimoon is attached to a base made from walnut wood, while the moon itself is a 3D printed PLA replica complete with surface detailing. It boasts its own internal lighting system care of LED lights and a 1,500mAh battery within. Through its special levitating base, the Levimoon is able to hover in mid-air.

So how, you wonder, does it light up when it’s not attached to anything?

Well, the base also acts as a contactless charger for the battery inside the moon, which in turn powers the entire lighting system. There’s a built-in switch for turning the light on or off, and you can even hold your finger against the switch to adjust its brightness. At the lowest setting, you’re looking at about 100 hours of illumination, which drops down to just 10 at maximum brightness.

The Levimoon is available in two variants, one’s 5cm, the other 20cm. The former will run you $290, while the latter will run you $360.

BUY HERE

January 8, 2019 / Comments Off

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A House Covered In Corrugated Aluminum

Japanese architectural firm and design studio Arbol has a single-story home in the city of Takarazuka whose primarily monolithic design cues still imbue a sense of natural space. That’s a hard dichotomy to achieve, but Arbol’s skilled designers managed to do it.

The structure features a sloped roof that descends from north to south, wherein you’ll find an open courtyard that’s fenced with metallic pillars.

Featuring an L-shaped plan, the house features very simple divisions. The first space, for instance, is the living room, which then leads to a private are where the bedroom lies. A bathroom sits in the middle for easy access, regardless of where you’re coming from. There’s a kitchen peninsula for cooking purposes. This space loosens into the living room for a sense of openness and breathability.

The real highlight here, of course, is the slanted ceiling covering the courtyard. It’s supported by what at first looks like sticks but are actually thin pillars. This simplistic approach evokes traditional Japanese architecture, making for a fragmented but soft and practical aesthetic overall.

Those aforementioned elements come together in the minimalistic garden that reminiscent of the highly unique Japanese gardening concept known as “hakoniwa” or box garden, adding a much-needed splash of invigorating color to the mostly stark-white space.

Also of note are the corrugated aluminum walls, which break the monotony and add texture to the largely monolithic walls. It’s a simple but really smart design, and we’re excited to see what else Arbol Design comes up with in the future.

ARBOL DESIGN

Photos courtesy of Arbol Design

January 7, 2019 / Comments Off

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Punta Sirena Hotel

In case you’re bound to Chile for your next vacation, the Punta Sirena is the hotel to beat. This quaint little beachfront retreat stands on stilts overlooking the great Chilean ripples, its rustic charms infusing the traditional surf resort with a fervid, summery vibe.

The T-shaped hotel is composed of intersecting rectilinear buildings, which is unlike most hotels that stand upright. This prevents visitors from having exemplary views of the surrounding landscape from above, of course. But it does ensure the property itself doesn’t stand out like a sore thumb when you look at the beach from a distance.

Make no mistake, though. You’ll still get impressive eyecandy. The rooms are laid out parallel to the beach, and they all feature picture windows so that all customers get a clear view of the ocean. We’d argue this layout is better since it clears up all feeling of distance between you and the beach.

But perhaps the most impressive thing about this hotel is that it’s made entirely out of eucalyptus and pine. It gives the building an intensely native atmosphere. Not only is it a testament to craftsmanship, but its also a commitment to geographical synergy, ensuring that the outdoors is astutely integrated into indoor comforts.

If you’re feeling hungry, there’s a restaurant below that will serve local food as you dine against the oceanic backdrop. And if you’re feeling a wee bit adventurous, you can join local thrills such as wind surfing and kite surfing. All are welcome, even neophytes. There’s a on-site school where beginners can learn the ropes.

BOOKING DETAILS

Photos courtesy of Punta Sirena

January 6, 2019 / Comments Off

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La Valise Tulum

Either you wait the winter out through gritted teeth, your body constantly yammering from the extreme cold of the coming season, or you can escape from the cold dread and head to the La Valise Tulum, a beachside retreat in Mexico’s Tulum municipality.

As the town skirts the lush Caribbean coastline of the country’s Yucatán Peninsula, you’ll find it hardly surprising that the luxurious hotel offers startling views of the Caribbean Sea. Here, nature takes the spotlight. Rooms are styled like huts and there’s practically little to no barrier between the moment you jump out of bed and the instant you dip your toes in the pristine, rippling waters.

Even lying down inside your hotel room for some much-needed respite isn’t without added delight thanks to the handmade Palapa roofs, and suppose you feel the need to get up and walk around in the wee small hours, you’ll find comfort and historical charm in the form of Mexican artifacts and objects peppered about.

A lot of rooms boast their own terrace, even, complete with a hammock paving the way for serene and limpid views of the at once distant and up-front Caribbean while you simmer under the sun, piña coladas at the ready.

If the above doesn’t look like the perfect vacation to you, we don’t know what is. This is the essential paradise you’ve been dreaming about as you sit alone within the cold, gray-pressed walls of your office. Put those papers down, cash in those unused vacation leaves, and fly to La Valise Tulum as soon as possible. You can thank us later.

PLAN YOUR STAY HERE

Photos courtesy of La Valise Hotels

January 3, 2019 / Comments Off

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The Rimrock House

We’ve written aplenty about cliffside homes. There’s just something about the precariousness of these structures that evince some otherworldly charm. It’s as if they’re little dollhouses perched on huge boulders. But enough waxing poetic.

Today’s cliffside house is from from Seattle-based design firm Olson Kundig. What makes this house particularly special is it’s not just lavish and luxurious. It has those qualities, sure. However, it also quite unique in that it takes great effort to bridge the surrounding natural landscape unto itself.

Sitting on a bluff in Washington, the Rimrock House treats the cliffside it sits on not just a location, but also a part of the whole atmosphere. It bridges over a natural wash while maintaining the seam just below the house, which animals use as a path to move between the mountains and the river. The house has a glazed facade above the winter snow, letting enormous amounts of natural light while also providing exemplary views of the outdoors.

The T-shaped structure is aptly named a “rimrock” because of the way it straddles two sides of wash a top a stable outcropping of tough, slow-cooled volcanic basalt. Rimrocks are one of the most magnificent and fascinating geological occurrences here on Earth. And what a delight it is that Olson Kundig found a way to implement that phenomenon into a functional space.

The overall design of the Rimrock House deserves mention because it reverses what we expect architectural elements do. The upper part, for example, is typically transparent. Yet, it’s actually very private thanks to the large amount of glazing. In effect, you get a house that transcends the boundaries of design, and one that also takes nature into account.

MORE INFO HERE

Photos courtesy of Olson Kundig

January 1, 2019 / Comments Off

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Santa Clara 1728

In the heart of the Old quarter in Portugal sits a quaint little hotel called the Santa Clara 1728. Cinched inside an 18th century palace, the space has been completely renovated with modern furnishings. Yet one look inside shows you that it still takes great lengths to pay homage to the building’s historical charm.

Each room is so bright during the day it’s as if the sun itself came down and kissed every single one. But the serenity doesn’t stop there. You’ll also find that the entire atmosphere is beset with calm. There are large windows, sections of exposed concrete, pale wood, and soft, neutral tones throughout the whole room that allows you to bask in a headspace of peace and zen.

Outside, views of the Tagus River will greet you in the morning, and all six suites get this exemplary view. That and a terrace overlooking the property’s private garden abundant in lush, vivid greenery.

And if somehow you begin to feel a bit sheltered staying indoors, a rich and diverse cultural experience awaits you upon stepping outside. The Feira da Ladra flea market is just nearby, and so are ancient castles, 17th century monasteries, and a whole slew of shops, museums, and other places of recreation. If that ain’t your thing, you can always just stroll through Lisbon while talking to locals and taking Polaroids of every little thing you see.

At the end of the day, you’ll have the comfort of Santa Clara 1728 to fall back to no matter how tired you get.

BOOK HERE

Photos courtesy of Silent Living

December 29, 2018 / Comments Off

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The Coastal Pavilion Retreat In Coles Bay

The Freycinet National Park in Tasmania is one of the most beautiful places for retreat and relaxation in the whole planet, especially if you’re looking to detoxify your body of the ills and troubles brought about by living in the city for so long.

Make no mistake, though. This place isn’t just for taking a break from the city life. Instead, it’ll actually help you reconnect with nature on a molecular level, and perhaps even usher you to a new understanding of what it means to be outdoors.

One of the best tourism fronts in the area is Freycinet Lodge, and they run the Coastal Pavilion in Coles Bay, which sits on the east coast of Apple Isle. It’s a retreat that perfectly integrates man-made comforts into the forest setting.

It’s not that large, it should be noted, but its relatively quaint space makes the whole area feel more personal and less convoluted. You’ll find a king bed, a huge deck with a hammock jutting out just below it, an outdoor bath, and more. The point of this space, apart from connecting with nature, is for guests to have as much privacy as possible and immerse themselves in the outdoor life for as long as they need.

The Freycinet National Park in general is one of those “you must go see before you die” type of places, and we’re not exaggerating when we say that it is simply one of the best retreat locations if you ever find yourself sick of the city life. Suppose you’re planning to go, you should really consider booking a stay in Coastal Pavilion.

SEE MORE HERE

Photos courtesy of Freycinet Lodge

December 29, 2018 / Comments Off

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The NoMad Hotel Comes To Las Vegas

NoMad has finally opened up shop in Las Vegas, marking the third properly in the luxury hotel collection thus far. If you’ve already been in Las Vegas, you probably know just how many hotels there are in Sin City. However, very few of them offer something for folks who don’t want the standard Vegas treatment.

Enter NoMad, which delivers a much more refined option than the usual fare. Hidden inside Park MGM, the NoMad hotel obviously has its own casino inside, but it’ll be unlike the hundreds, if not thousands, of casinos you’ll find peppered throughout the city. It will have a much more intimate affair with a focus on high limit Roulette, Blackjack, and Baccarat. You’ll also be served crafted cocktails from Leo Robitschek, and be able to bask in an ambience inspired by European casinos.

The NoMad Hotel is fairly large. There will be 293 rooms available for booking, each one designed by legendary architect Jacques Garcia. They’ll contain, among other things, custom furnishings, curated artwork by Paris design studio, be-poles, and freestanding pedestal bathtubs. The smallest one will have around 406 square feet of space, while the priciest ones can reach a whopping 2,000 square feet of luxurious space.

The hotel’s restaurant is scheduled to open in November. It will mainly serve American dishes, courtesy of chef Daniel Humm’s menu. The NoMad Bar will also offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There will also be live jazz in the evenings. You can check out NoMad Las Vegas’ website now to see rooms available for booking.

BOOK HERE

December 29, 2018 / Comments Off

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SJA III Cabana

We’ve written plenty about Casas de México here at Men’s Gear, and for good reason. The works that come out of this Zapopan architectural firm in the never fails to impress or widen our understanding of architecture.

One of its newest masterpieces, the SJA III Cabana, is another example of just how exemplary Casas de México is in terms of integrating different spaces together to make an architecture based on harmony, not opposition. As such, the SJA III is a beachfront cabana that invites the outside in. It’s smack dab in the slope of a rugged hillside that overflows with vegetation. You essentially have a front-row seat to watch incredible views of the Pacific Ocean’s rippling waters.

And as much as it welcomes the surrounding nature, the SJA III also manages not to disrupt the beauty of the entire landscape. Both the cabana and the swimming pool are deliberately designed to look like they’re part of the natural space.

The cabana boasts a unique, unconnected roofing structure. It integrates a palapa redesigned into a cover, extruding from the mountain out toward the ocean. The swimming pool is another highlight, featuring large boulders that make it seems like a miniature pond.

You can sneak in the observatory that overlooks the majestic ocean at daytime for amazing views of the sun. Or you can check the stars at nighttime. It’s a place to relax and contemplate about our space relative to nature. A space complete with ivy draperies to help eke out the inner zen in you that aches for peace and calm.

SEE MORE HERE

Photos courtesy of Casas de México

December 29, 2018 / Comments Off

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Plume SuperPod Mesh Wi-Fi System

Plume’s new SuperPod mesh Wi-Fi system gives you powerful tri-band Wi-Fi, MU-MIMO data streaming, increased data rates, and an extra LAN port. It’s a step up from the decent but lacking Plume Adaptive Wi-Fi System of yesteryear.

The SuperPod comes bundled with three hexagonal pods that you plug directly into an outlet. When plugged in, they provide coverage for the average three- to four-bedroom household, with each pod delivering 30 to 80 feet of Wi-Fi connection. Each pod is a AC3000 tri-band router boasting one 2.4GHz band, two 5GHz bands, a quad-core processor, and a Bluetooth radio. Each has two gigabit LAN ports, a tiny status LED, and a two-prong plug.

Like the original Plume devices, the SuperPod uses Plume’s Adaptive Wi-Fi technology that analyzes a household’s network. Why, you ask? Well it does this so as to optimize bandwidth allocation based on client demand. However, you’ll have to pay a separate fee to get extra features. These include things like like parental controls, guest networking, internet speed testing, device monitoring, and many others. You can pay a yearly fee of $60 to get these extra features. Alternatively, you can pay $200 upfront for a lifetime membership. That’s of course on top of the SuperPod trio’s cost, which will run you $400.

If you do purchase it, you can easily set up the mesh Wi-Fi network using the Plume companion app, available for both iOS and Android. Aside from setup, it will also allows you to monitor a bunch of different stats, like your network status, network speed, daily reports, and information about connected devices.

GET IT HERE

December 27, 2018 / Comments Off

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Payette Lake Cliff House

This waterfront vacation retreat is a rejuvenating reprieve from the troubles of city life. Head over to to Idaho and see this quaint, wood-clad home from McCall Design and Planning. You’ll love the fact that it sits on a rocky cliff that overlooks Payette Lake.

The exterior features mostly teak over a rainscreen system. But you also have thermally broken steel windows and natural zinc aged prior to installation. The designers wanted to keep the ruggedness of the home as much as possible. They wanted it to remain as congruous to its surroundings as possible.

Everything, right from the entrance — a warm wood front door on the middle level that loosens into a an open vestibule, which leads to the dining area on one side and the living room on the other — to the wrap-around picture windows that allow the main social areas to peek outward into expansive landscape vistas, has been meticulously implemented to have as deep a connection to the outside as possible. Which is why the house itself features a zig-zag plan, for all the rooms to have views of the wooded scenery and make the people inside them feel “as though you’re outside,” according to the designers.

Inside, you’ll find plaster-finished walls that create a soft, mottled finish. This serves up a sharp and welcome contrast to the space’s sharp steel lines and wooden elements. The centerpiece is a circular staircase made from bent I-beams and wood.

The Payette Lake Cliff House is one of the finest examples of architecture that integrates the outside into the inside instead of putting barriers between human living spaces and nature.

SEE MORE HERE

Photos courtesy of McCall Design and Planning

December 27, 2018 / Comments Off

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A House With Its Own BMX Ramp

“I ordered a ramp with a side of house.”

That’s BMXer and visual artist Ooti Billeaud speaking about turning his lifelong dream — to have a BMX ramp in his own backyard — into reality. It took him over five years to finish the house he dreamed up. Now it stands proudly in the historic Bywater district of New Orleans. No other house will ever be like it, at least not within Billeaud’s vicinity.

Here’s how it all happened. Originally, Billeaud wanted to build the BMX ramp first before the actual house. However, city authorities told him that if he did that, they would be forced to confiscate his land. As a recourse, he built a small house first then started working on the BMX ramp.

Fast forward to today. Billeaud now gets to live his childhood dream the minute he jumps out of bed, looks out the window, and sees that humongous BMX ramp in his backyard, ready for some BMX action. It might have taken over five years to build, sure. But for Billeaud, he’d been dreaming of this for 22 years.

“It’s surreal to accomplish a goal you’ve been directly working your ass off towards for 5 1/2 years and wanting for 22 years.” According to Billeaud, this is one of those ideas where he really didn’t think about the level of work that was going to be involved.

“I have this bad habit of grossly underestimating the amount of time, energy, and money it takes to do things in general,” he says. “It’s almost like I get so psyched on whatever crazy ass idea that pops into my head that my subconscious keeps me from truly considering what’s involved.”

As crazy as this idea was, it’s now true. Props to Billeaud for never letting the kid in him disappear.

SEE IT IN ACTION HERE

Photos courtesy of Ooti Billeaud

December 23, 2018 / Comments Off

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The Lighthouse Office

The Lighthouse Office is a quaint little office space from Los Angeles studio Knowhow Shop. It’s marked by a bizarrely alluring polygonal exterior. Suffice it to that it’s truly one of the most unique spaces we’ve ever seen.

The design isn’t just for show, though. The micro-building’s lightweight prefabricated panels were assembled with minimizing environmental impact in mind. The structure’s asymmetric windows pave the way for more natural light to come in. In effect, you don’t really need to turn on lights at daytime. This also makes for a warm and wonderful glow after sundown.

The structure sits on industrial casters originally made to support roll-off dumpsters — this means the office can travel. And details like the custom-made skylight that blends traditional boatbuilding materials with details borrowed from a car sunroof take this place from experimental to exemplary. But it was quite a challenge to build, according to Knowhow Shop. The studio had to rethink — if not completely wipe clean — their old ways and approach the project in an entirely different light.

“Our intent was to build this project entirely by ourselves from ground up, not only due to financial constraints but as a proof of concept for a contemporary micro-building.” This is, however, a project they wouldn’t have been able to simply hand off to a contractor then call it a day.

“So we bypassed the normal methods of architectural production, and relied on the most experimental potential of our design/build model.”

The result, as you can clearly see above, is an office space that allows light in just as much as it wields it, showing us an exciting new possibility in contemporary architecture.

http://www.knowhowshopla.com/projects/lighthouse-office

Photos courtesy of Knowhow Shop

December 22, 2018 / Comments Off

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