Wrought Iron design
Glamour in the kitchen with wrought iron design
Cooking up some West Coast glamour in this kitchen
KELLY DECK
Clients often want us to play it safe when it comes to kitchens. A show kitchen, however, is an opportunity to (as the management consultants say) “blue-sky” it – take risks, play with new ideas and transcend limitations. My team recently got to do just that at Vancouver’s Interior Design Show West, which took place at the end of September.
Our goal with our 400-square-foot kitchen, installed on behalf of Aya Kitchens, was to demonstrate that elegance and timelessness could still crackle with vitality and unpredictability. Rather than recite old pieties about good design, we hoped to generate discussion around what makes a space unique.
The kitchen was a hit; all weekend the space hopped with curious Vancouverites asking about what we’d done. Here are fo
As we do with televisions in living rooms, we hide the fridge in nearly every kitchen we design. This time, it seems, we were especially effective. (The fridge is in the left tower of cabinetry, on the back wall.) We designed the space to have the Gaggenau appliances be inconspicuous. The fridge happens to be so well-designed – with no awkward projections of exposed vents – it became nearly invisible.
(If you’re wondering, the wall oven is below the range; the dishwasher and the wine fridge were both in the island; and a microwave, considered unnecessary in a show kitchen, was left out.)
The lone appliance we wanted to draw attention to was the range. A beautiful blend of stainless steel and wrought iron, with gold burners, it appears perfectly contextualized beneath the gold hood fan.
from theglobeandmail.com
Vesci home : wrought iron design
7 De Vesci Terrace, Monkstown, Co Dublin
Two-storey over garden level, double-fronted, period house overlooking De Vesci gardens with rear mews and garage.
This house, in the heart of Monkstown, has been renovated but retains period features including cornicing and fireplaces.
At 407sq m (4,390sq ft) it has a drawing room, dining room (both opening on to wrought-iron balconies), a study, four bedrooms, kitchen, garden room, pantry, utility and family room. It has a courtyard garden.
There is also a one-bed mews.
from irishtimes.com
Wrought iron ornaments at the London Design Festival
Planting the Flag
By JULIE LASKY
APOLOGIES to Milan and Tokyo. Regrets to Stockholm and Paris. Forgive me, Eindhoven, Berlin, Barcelona and, most particularly, New York. But London is the design capital of the world.
Ounce for ounce, bloke for bloke, Britain produces better designers and design impresarios than anywhere else. They build retail emporiums, as Sir Terence Conran did. Or revolutionize household appliances, like Sir James Dyson has done. Or dream up impeccable furniture, as Jasper Morrison has. Or construct toasters from scratch by smelting their own ore and cooking their own plastic, like Thomas Thwaites did, a feat he undertook for his 2009 thesis project at the Royal College of Art.
And if the London Design Festival, a 10-day program of some 200 events, including exhibitions and studio tours, which ended on Sunday, failed to express the full radiance of contemporary British design, blame it on growing pains. Having just marked its 10th year, the festival is poised between being a regional showcase bubbling with spontaneous interventions and a smooth international canvas.
Once a satellite (or several of them) swirling around an annual trade show called 100% Design, the festival now extends from Ladbroke Grove in West London to Hackney in the east. You need an hour on the tube simply to travel its breadth.
Yet despite the scale, and the presence of more than 300,000 visitors, the London Design Festival is apparently still too small for many members of the British design elite.
To be sure, celebrities like Mr. Morrison and Sir Terence were visible. As were Tom Dixon, who organized a group of international design exhibitions near his canal-side studio at Portobello Dock, and Thomas Heatherwick, who had a popular one-man show at the Victoria and Albert Museum. (Mr. Heatherwick may be best known for designing the caldron for the 2012 Olympic Games, a rosette of 204 copper flambeaus that rose and converged like petals in a fiery dahlia.)
But only glimpses, if anything, were seen of work by renowned London-based designers and studios like Ron Arad, Ross Lovegrove, PearsonLloyd and Doshi Levien.
“Everyone with half a brain still launches in Milan,” said Caroline Roux, a writer for The Financial Times and other publications, referring to the international furniture fair held in Italy every April.
The London event offered many bright moments, like patchwork seating and floral wallpaper by the bespoke furniture company Squint Limited and an exquisite group of lamps by the Greek-born designer Michael Anastassiades. (The lamps, which will be produced by Flos, stood on three-pronged bases that resembled birds’ feet and were lighted with big glass bubbles that looked as if they were attached to their brass stems by little more than spit and static.)
But this festival was not the place to go for revolutionary ideas. Nor, despite all the Britishness on view in the form of ceramics, metalwork and a positively druidic devotion to hardwoods, was it simply a distillation of a regional design character.
What it offered, which was fascinating and redeeming in every way, was London itself.
Still glowing from the energy poured into the Olympics, London harmonized with the installations stuffed into its storefronts and leftover spaces. From the crooked houses of a revitalized East End to the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, which has become a revolving showcase of contemporary design and craft, new goods basked in venerable niches, mixing it up with Turners and cobblestones.
DOWNING STREET was not open for public viewing of this eclecticism, but the Victoria and Albert Museum was. For the last few years, the V&A, that warehouse of historical spoils that sprawls like a gorgeous beached whale in West London, has been the design festival’s nominal home. Dozens of exhibitions related to the event, grand and tiny, could be found there — if you managed to get hold of a map showing their whereabouts. “We’ve almost run out,” said a woman at the information desk when she handed one to me. “Would you mind returning this when you’re done?”
I might have been better off without it. En route to displays like a collection of smartly sustainable wood chairs by Royal College of Art students and one of courtyard benches commissioned from international designers by the British company Established & Sons, I stopped at exhibits of wrought-iron ornaments, Elizabethan miniatures and Buddhist shrines. Imagine what I would have seen without any direction.
And so it was throughout London: even if the festival fare was hard to find or disappointing, you were sure to stumble on something else worth looking at. A daylong conference called the Global Design Forum, for instance, was a slog (most presenters were limited to an awkward 10 minutes, too short or too long, depending on the speaker).
But attendees could marvel at the construction zone known as the King’s Cross neighborhood and admire the new campus of Central Saint Martins art school, where the forum was held. This proto-Brutalist building, converted from an 1851 granary, had a sea of end-grain wood flooring and a foyer where an Airstream trailer was inconspicuously parked.
to be continued
from nytimes.com
Wrought iron for interior and exterior lighting products
Interior and exterior lighting product manufacturer has launched a new array of products called Summer 2012 interior collections.
The new collection is noted for its elegance and adaptability to any environment. The design of the new collection roots inspiration to the stars, nature, tattoos and some classical elements, and imbibes the signature artistic style. The collection includes Copperfield, Pearson, Drift, Rhodes, Chime and Tattoo.
Copperfield is a handcrafted light, which features starburst design. The material assortment for this light includes wrought iron and metal mesh shades. The light has a burnished copper finish. Copperfield is offered as a chandelier, sconce and pendant.
Pearson is a rectangular light, which boasts contemporary design. It has a natural look of silver mica glassware. Troy is offering Pearson as pendant and sconce light.
Drift, offered as a chandelier, pendant and sconce, is a new light that features white pearl glassware, hand-forged iron, driftwood made out of bronze with silver leaf, and natural Manila rope.
Rhodes light has a classic design, which has been recreated in white. The Chime light is noted for its overlapping ovals that create a playful piece. The ovals are made of hand-worked wrought iron and charred copper. The lighting has hardback linen shade and is offered in two variants as sconce lighting.
Tattoo has intertwining hand-forged iron, which makes a bold design statement. The light has contemporary hardback linen shade and is available as a sconce.
Wrought iron for a “medieval castle” in Washington
Become king of the castle: The Washington home that lets you live out your medieval dream for $2,500-a-month
By Snejana Farberov
Hardwood floors, central heating and other tropes of modern living may be nice, but who of us hasn’t dreamed of dwelling like a 13th century duke, surrounded by rough-hewn stone, wrought iron finishes and turrets?
Those of us who still fantasize about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table may now live out their medieval fantasies for the relatively modest price of $2,500 a month.
If you have a taste for the Dark Ages, but you happen to live in a country that was only settled in the 17th century, than the Gate Keeper’s Castle in Gardiner, Washington is the place for you.
The faux-medieval chateau is only one of the many unusual homes in the aptly named Troll Haven development sprawled out on 150 acres of land.
‘Designed and built from a dream,’ the home’s website proclaims, adding:
‘Looking upon the structure, flights of pure fantasy and imagination dazzle the mind. Dungeons, feastings, daring lovers, sieges, bards, mystery and wonder are grown when stepping into this magical world.
‘An age of bygone kings, magicians, giants, dwarfs, sorceresses, elves and trolls. Through the doors, chivalry is born and romance has its origins in this magical world.’
The extensive castle, whose architectural style could be described as medieval-chic, has five lavishly appointed bedrooms, whimsical detailing heavy on dragons and trolls, stained glass windows and vertiginous staircases.
The quirky home also comes with a four-car (or horse) garage and breathtaking views of Discovery Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Like any medieval castle worth its name, the rental property comes with a dungeon, complete with some naughty features sure to make maidens blush.
The décor is heavy on swords, mace and shackles reminiscent of S&M paraphernalia which could be found throughout the underground space, including in the three bedrooms, Jacuzzi and steam shower.
from dailymail.co.uk
