Enjoy the Present

“Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present,

which very few of us do.” - Jean de la Bruyere

I posted this photo on my tumblr page and couldn't resist sharing it here as well.  When you stop to smell the roses this summer, definitely stop and smell the hydrangea too!

Photo by Max Kim Bee

Another Gorgeous Garden

As most long time readers know, I'm obsessed with gardens.  Kind of funny considering how much I hate bugs and even more so spiders.  But as a city dweller, I long to be able to see greenery outside my window and to take a walk in nature whenever I desire.  I do try to take advantage of Central Park but I have to share that with about 18 million other people.  Probably why I fell in love with Bella Pollen's English country garden when I first spied it in Vogue.  You can read the entire article here.  Bella and her husband fell in love with it too when they first saw it but it took many years of work to restore it and the neglected house to an inhabitable state.  I'm sure the final result more than makes up for all the hard work.  Just another reminder to get out and smell the roses this weekend!

Photos by François Halard

Modern verandas- A new Australian species hits the market

Modern Verandas

When you use the word “veranda”, there’s a natural mental association and vision of the old style verandas of yesteryear. That image is rapidly becoming out of date as a new breed of designs rolls out. Verandas these days are true architectural achievements, extremely stylish, and far more importantly, fully functional extensions of the living space of the home. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Australia, where the veranda has been a design icon for over a century.

The reason for Australia’s “veranda-consciousness” is simple enough. The old Australian homes used to have all round verandas as a defence against the glare and heat of the Australian sun. Verandas have remained a preferred architectural option ever since the mid-1800s, and a combination of a booming housing market, CAD design and consumer demand has generated a vast new range of veranda concepts.

Designs galore

It has to be said in all fairness that the Australian designs do include some real innovations. The modern Australian version of the veranda can be quite spectacular, and these things are big. They may not be quite ballroom size, but they’re pretty close, and the sheer amount of covered space they create can be quite a surprise.

Design and materials quality are extremely high, and there’s an obvious element of true craftsmanship in both. What may stun some viewers is the versatility of the designs. There are thousands of possibilities, all of this standard, and some designs include excellent lighting through the roof of the verandas, a design innovation in itself. These “skylights” come in a range of options of tinting and shading, and are designed to deal with the sun while ensuring proper lighting.

Lifestyle and functionality

Anyone who knows anything about the Aussie preference for an outdoor lifestyle built on to big homes will appreciate the cultural values, too. If you were deliberately looking for an expression of the “parties, barbecues and good living” motif of Australian folklore, you couldn’t go past the new veranda styles as an expression of that culture.

These new verandas really are something special in lifestyle design, and they include a very high level of functionality as well. The materials are tough, weather-resistant, and top quality. If you’re living in a place like Queensland, for example, with its unpredictable weather and tropical heat, you need something big and tough as a veranda, able to stand coastal winds, the occasional deluge, and hot, strong sunlight during summer. The Australian climate can literally bleach and desiccate most external structures. Top quality materials and good designs have allowed these sometimes huge structures to do their job and survive the toughest conditions.

Verandas on the market

The Australian verandas have another aspect which might surprise some foreigners. You can simply pick up a phone or get online and choose a veranda for your home like shopping for groceries. They’re easily available to be installed directly. This is a consultative process, and the main issue is the sheer number of choices. After you’ve made up your mind, the installers will build a veranda for you, and you’ll find yourself with a whole new home lifestyle on your hands.

Dream Vacation Destination

I just realized that it's June and I don't have a vacation planned yet!  I do have some work trips on the agenda but that's different.  I long for a week where I can really relax and recharge my batteries.  I saw grand hotel Villa Feltrinelli on Luxury Culture yesterday and felt relaxed just looking at the photos.  As their website states, Villa Feltrinelli has been painted by Winston Churchill, written about by D.H. Lawrence, and even visited by James Bond.  The hotel is located on Lake Garda in Italy and apparently there isn't much to do but swim, play tennis and explore the surrounding towns.  Sounds perfect to me! 

Parisian Dream

I'm swamped with work so until I can take a breath and write a post, I encourage you to head over to The New York Times. I loved the story of a designer who bought a little house in Paris.  It's also a great reminder that it's never to late to make your dreams come true. 

Chic in Barcelona

I always think it's sweet when my readers send me links to something they think I would like.  They are usually correct and I have to thank Pablo for alerting me to this great apartment.  It was designed by Ana Ros and although it looks French, is actually located in Barcelona. If you speak Spanish, you can read more details about it online at Nuevo Estilo.  I absolutely love the turquoise commodes that flank the fireplace but would probably switch out the contemporary sofa if it were my home.  But I wouldn't change a thing about that terrace.  Enjoy!

Photos from Nuevo Estilo

The new Australian homes A whole new class of design

Australian Hhomes

The new homes coming on the market are a true departure from the “El Cheapo” designs of the past. These are real designer homes, excellent quality and they’re Big with a capital B. They represent totally different living spaces and environments from their predecessors and they’re built to provide a different lifestyle. The modern Australian home comes with a lot of smart features like a

retractable awning, high tech house control systems in big hybrid open plan and CAD-based partitioned interiors.

The new interior architecture and designs

The new interiors are really advanced designs, using a range of options to provide a good, well-insulated environment from the Australian sun and dealing with the issues of coastal design as well. This is a revolution in a way, because in the past the interiors were “conveyor belt” BV designs, not particularly original, using low grade materials and cost-based, meaning great for developers’ bottom lines, and not much else. The stampede to better quality housing is a clear indicator that the end of that type of building is here to stay.

The days of shoddy mass-produced homes are well and truly over, and the days of unfussy homebuyers are also gone, from the look of the housing market. Quality is taking over, and materials are now an essential part of Australian home design. The new interiors usually have extremely high quality hardwood or tiled floors, top quality carpets, best practice environmental management, and a stream of extras which didn’t even exist when much of urban Australia was built in the 70s and 80s.

The new exteriors- Designer materials and ideas all the way

It’s fair to say that the exteriors have also had a drastic makeover. Much of the technology creating the fabulous new sunscreen blinds also didn’t exist during the building booms of the past. That’s one of the reasons the new buildings are so conspicuously different. The other reason is that the new environmental control concepts now extend outside the building, using the big sunscreens to deal with heat and light much more efficiently.

The new buildings really are a different species. They’re geared to a different world. The modern home can be huge, containing many features which older homes simply didn’t have and some which didn’t even exist in theory before. Something as basic as air conditioning, for example, was previously a “turn it on and hope for the best” technology. Now, it’s a science, with programmable units saving megawatts every day thanks to better environmental controls built in to the design.

The big new exteriors are unprecedented in design terms. It’s a whole new class of design technology, reinventing exteriors as living spaces and simultaneously dealing with a lot of issues which have plagued Australian home design since the colonial era. Designer materials and much better approaches to environmental management have produced an entirely different type of building.

This technology, from the sunscreens to the interior design concepts, is only in its infancy. In ten years, it’s completely changed the face of urban Australia. The future definitely isn’t going to be dull.