Beautiful Mid Century Remodeled Home

Built in 1947, the pristine three-bedroom home is nestled into a large lot with a backyard pool and guest cottage. A striking midcentury, the home sits tucked away on a gated, oversized lot in the tree-lined Chandler Estates neighborhood. Architect Leonardo Chalupawicz redesigned the home in 1997, and it recently underwent another transformation in 2020 by its current owners, Nicky Buerger, an interior designer and stylist, and Steve Clarke, a creative director at an advertising agency.

For the remodel, the couple sought to “create a serene yet practical environment,” while retaining the original midcentury aesthetic.  To optimize natural light, the couple fine-tuned the 2,300-square-foot home with an open, free-flowing layout. Upon arrival, a generous foyer leads to a sun-filled sitting area, and the kitchen and living room lie just around the corner.

Exposed beams span the merged living spaces, complementing the refinished hardwoods and wood-framed French doors that line the back wall in the dining area. Original redwood beams and vintage plywood were repurposed to make new furniture—including bookcases and a bench—to create a connection to the home’s past life.

The home’s three bedrooms are located away from the living areas. The primary bedroom suite offers pool views, a fireplace, dual walk-in closets, and a spa-style bath. The two-and-a-half additional baths are outfitted with designer finishes and original glass blocks that channel daylight.

In the backyard has a lush lawn along with a swimming pool and secluded guest cottage, which features a bedroom, bathroom, and well-equipped kitchenette. By infusing warm, soft textures throughout the property, the cottage has a tranquil, restful space that flows seamlessly from indoors to out.

Beautiful Axiom Desert House

Based on the Axiom 2110 and featuring the Turkel Design signature post-and-beam construction and an open great room breezing out to a private courtyard, the 2,080-square-foot Axiom Desert House draws from the lifestyle and culture of Palm Springs—seamlessly blending indoor and outdoor living while incorporating innovative and energy-efficient products and systems throughout.
axiom desert house 1Recently completed in February 2019, Axiom Desert House, Featured Home at this year’s Palm Springs Modernism Week—turns heads as a stunning, systems-built jewel that is now the private residence of designers Joel and Meelena Turkel, as well as a Living Lab for Turkel Design. The home’s open plan, indoor/outdoor flow, and thoughtful use of sustainable materials are a testament to modern prefab, celebrating transformative design that is simple, elegant, and replicable.
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axiom desert house 3axiom desert house 4Many cultures feature houses with rooms grouped around a private courtyard: this is a take on that venerable tradition. Passing through a flat-roofed entry, the space expands as you encounter a high, beamed ceiling, sloping upward to 12 feet. This is the great room – 40 feet in length, it opens directly onto the walled courtyard through glass panels that slide away into hidden pockets. An especially admired feature of the room is a 4-by-12-foot window-seat extending into and overlooking the courtyard. This too has operable glass panels that tuck away into pockets: a charming place to lie down—even sleep—“half-in, half-out.”

axiom desert house 5axiom desert house 6axiom desert house 7axiom desert house 8Master suites occupy both ends of this “L” shaped home, each with private access to the courtyard; an ideal arrangement for a shared vacation home, in town or out. While being careful to ensure privacy, the outward facing walls stop short of the overhanging roof, bringing in balancing light and capturing expansive outward views.
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A custom daybed in the living room becomes part of the outdoor furnishings when the Marvin lift and slide doors are open. (Click to view video)

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The children’s room features fold-away bunk beds and an Oslo Sofa wall bed system (not shown) by Resource Furniture

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To receive invitations to open houses and design events at Living Lab,join the TD Community here, and follow on Facebook and Instagram to stay up-to-date on all of their projects across the U.S., Canada, and beyond.

Beautiful Interiors

Little Venice Residence by Originate + GL Studio is exquisite. Formerly two adjoining townhouses, this stunning mid-19th century property in West London was completely restored by Originate Architects and GL Studio. Now a Victorian stucco-fronted villa, the original features were reinstated and married with contemporary elements to fulfill the needs of modern family. The details are gorgeous!

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The restoration process included the installation of new fireplaces and arched openings in keeping with the historical period. New joinery units were designed by Originate using a unique finish to enhance the natural grain of the timber, while a fairly neutral colour palette was chosen to complement the client’s extensive collection art and furniture collection. In particular, a love of mid-century design that can bee seen with the iconic Pierre Jeanneret chairs, a beautiful Jorge Zalszupin table, and the Carl Hansen & Søn’s reissue of the Hans J Wegner CH22 lounge chair from 1950.

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Images via Orginate and GL Studio

Beautiful Koenig Mid-Century Restoration

Designed by Pierre Koenig in 1954, this iconic L.A. house was carefully restored to pay homage to the Koenig’s distinctive style.
The Scott House in Los Angeles’ Tujunga neighborhood – the fourth house designed by American mid-century modern architect Pierre Koenig – was lovingly restored to stay true to its mid-century roots. The house was commissioned in 1953 by Edwin and Aurora Scott, a chemist and his wife who were looking for a home that would allow them to enjoy the indoor/outdoor lifestyle of Southern California. After purchasing a plot of land in Tujunga with 270-degree views of the city below, the Scotts set out to find an architect to design their home.

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By chance, they drove past Koenig’s Case Study House #1 in Glendale, which Koenig was using as his own residence at the time. The Scotts were so impressed by the house, that they rang the doorbell, met Koenig, and asked him to design their new home.

In 2014, Nikolaus Kraemer and Heather van Haaften, a couple who are passionate about midcentury-modern architecture and furniture, purchased the Scott House from Aurora (who was 94 years old at the time) and sensitively restored it in a way that would reflect the property’s roots.

-couple-nonetheless-haEdwin Scott and his son Mike in front of the Scott House in 1956. 

“We knew of Koenig’s work when we first saw his iconic Stahl House. Heather and I were intrigued by his accurate rationale of steel being not just something you can ‘put up and take down,’ but a way of life,” says Nikolaus, who compares their serendipitous acquisition to “owning an original Warhol, Lichtenstein, or Ruscha.”

Though they were grateful to be able to purchase an iconic residence directly from its original owners—rather than one that had been altered by numerous people—the couple nonetheless had to invest a lot of time and effort in renovating and reviving the architectural gem.

“Midcentury-modern homes can suffer from too many ambitious owners trying to improve their homes. Mostly, these attempts do more harm than good, and can even distort the original design,” says Nikolaus.

The house’s flat-roof structure had substantial damage that needed to be addressed. A few years after the house was built, a leak developed in the roof, so Edwin Scott had poured a four-inch layer of light concrete on the metal roof panels.

midcentury-modern-homesmodern 7modern 6modern 5Like many of Koenig’s Case Study Houses, the Scott House is an architecturally simple, L-shaped structure made up of straight, clean lines. Plenty of floor-to-ceiling glass walls link the interior spaces and visually connect the house with its surrounding environment. A bright and expansive central living area is anchored by a dividing wall and a two-sided fireplace. Sliding glass doors connect this central living space to other parts of the house. The kitchen connects to two dining zones: an indoor dining area with a small round table, and a larger “winter garden” dining space with a rectangular table. Full glazing on their exterior walls of the two bedrooms bring in tons of light and allow guests to feel a sense of being immersed in the outdoors.

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Nikolaus and Heather hired Urban Innovations, Inc. and MIM Construction Inc. to work on the renovation. When the project began, they discovered that the electrical and plumbing systems were also in bad condition.

“The roof was in such bad shape that our contractor Meir Manor from MIM Construction suggested it might be cheaper to replace Koenig’s signature metal ceiling rather than try to fix it. That, of course, was out of the question.  Eventually, Manor and his team found an effective and affordable way to save the original roof by gluing zinc patches on top of the hundreds of holes, filling them up with Bondo, a putty that’s normally used as an anti-rust treatment for cars. He then sanded the entire bottom part of the ceiling to smooth it,” says Heather.

The construction team then rust-proofed the roof by painting it with two layers of heavy-duty primer and a coat of white paint. They replaced all the electric and plumbing systems, as well as the glass panels. They also upgraded the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, driveway, and lighting.

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With many of its structural details still intact, the Scott House is an authentic example of Koenig’s architectural legacy.

“With the help of Urban Innovations, Inc. and MIM Construction, the home was brought back to its original state. It now represents the best of Pierre Koenig’s original plans and design, enriched with the amenities of a contemporary 2017 living standard.

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Beautiful Villa Savoye

As a monument to modernism, the building possesses a poetry and sensitivity full of idealism. The careful composition of living space and intention to harness natural light, not to mention the building’s iconic aesthetic, still define modern architecture.

villasavoye_landscapeThe Villa Savoye, built in 1929 in Poissy, a rural area outside Paris, was Le Corbusier’s answer to a French country house. Given relatively few constraints by the Savoye family, Le Corbusier designed a building to embody the architectural theory he had evolved in practice and in his book, Towards an Architecture 1923. He was inspired by both the classical forms of ancient Greek architecture and the modern technologies that were shaping the world such as automobiles, airplanes and ocean liners.

villasavoye_landscape2.jpgThis project was the last in a series of private homes known as the ‘white villas’ built by Le Corbusier and his cousin and partner Pierre Jeanneret, which introduced a new form of luxury in which space itself, and its capacity for leisure, were the valuable commodities.

Of these, The Villa Savoye perhaps best embodies Le Corbusier’s architectural manifesto, the five points of architecture. The first, pilotis – slender pillars which raise the building off the ground, opening up more space for gardens and cars, made possible the second, a façade free of its usual load bearing function. Walls were no longer supporting structures but ‘membranes.’ This allowed the unimpaired design of the third, an open plan interior, and the fourth, ribbon windows to flood the interior with maximum light and to illuminate it evenly. A sliding window system patented by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret was intended to offer superior ventilation, as well as give access to the fifth, a flat roof which could serve as a terrace. A curved solarium crowns the structure, the brightest increment in the layered design. This symbiotic relationship of these five features gives some insight into what could otherwise be a somewhat alienating notion of Le Corbusier’s, the famous concept of a house as ‘a machine for living.’

villasavoye_landscape3-outdoor.jpgUnfortunately the Villa Savoye presented its residents with its own host of problems, despite its pioneering design. Each autumn, as the windows ushered in a warm vista of seasonal colour, the family would write repeatedly to Le Courbusier, begging him to make ‘habitable,’ what proved to be a damp and chilly building. They complained of ‘raining’ in the hall, on the ramp and in the bathroom. The loud drumming of rain on the bathroom skylight kept them awake at night, heat escaped through the long stretches of glazing and the heating system was both insufficient and a further cause of flooding.

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Much of this was perhaps due to the fact that the technology involved was not fully developed at the time. As a monument to Modernism, the building possesses a poetry and sensitivity full of idealism. The careful composition of living space and intention to harness natural light, not to mention the building’s iconic aesthetic, still define modern architecture. Nonetheless, the discomforts they had suffered ultimately led the Savoye family to decide against restoring the property after the 2nd World War, when it was seized by German forces. About to be demolished by the local authorities to make way for a school, the building was rescued by architects and academics including Le Corbusier himself. Now a museum, restored closely to its original state, Villa Savoye is one of 17 of Le Corbusier’s buildings declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Credit: readcereal.com/

Beautiful Pink House

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The Pink House, otherwise known as The Spear House, is one of the best known and most photographed residences in Miami, Florida. It is a quintessential symbol of modernism and sits at the edge of Biscayne Bay in the older Miami suburb of Miami Shores, is intended as an urban house within a suburban context. Rigorously conceived as a study in different planes, the house is painted give shades of pink, ranging from deep near-red to pale pink, which heighten the illusionistic perspective of the house and define the series of planes. Pink was chosen because it seemed to be the most tropical of all colors and at the time was rarely used. Many factors make the house interesting bit its controversy has all the intrigue. designed by Laurinda Spear and Bernardo Fort-Bescia of Arquitectonica for Spears’ parents in 1976, it’s a series of planes and framed views designed to maximize East/West breezes.

The Pink House, Miami Shores, Florida, 7800

Although the house was initially conceived as an object standing on its own, the west façade, facing the city, is scaled down; its dimensions diminish to relate to other houses on the street in an almost mathematical cadence. The east façade, designed for long-distance viewing from Miami Beach and the bay, is scaled so that it looms large. The approach is through a tropical grove — almost a tunnel– which opens to a geometric landscape with palm trees spaced regularly in a carpet of pavers.

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The house has a precise sequence: the façade, the courtyard, and then the rooms, each framing a different view of the bay. The house encloses a swimming pool, which, along with the living areas, is the piano, one level above ground. The house in narrow — only 18 feet wide — to capture the bay breezes and daylight as well. The Spear House is more rigorously mathematical than Arquitectonica’s later work, yet in many ways it is seminal, establishing a number of paths of inquiry that the firm has pursued consistently, including color and cadence.

The Pink House, Miami Shores, Florida, 7800

Its color statement received a lot of attention in the late 1970s when it was built.
Neighbors were disturbed by the 5 shades of pink, which were chosen to reflect
the tropical climate and were rarely used at the time. Ultimately a grove of trees
were planted to shield the house from the street.

The Pink House, Miami Shores, Florida, 7800

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Beautiful Shades of Red in Architecture

Projects to Fall in Love With on Valentine’s Day

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 ‘André Malraux’ Schools in Montpellier / Dominique Coulon & associés

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Bridging Teahouse / FR-EE / Fernando Romero Enterprise

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LightPathAKL / Monk Mackenzie Architects + Landlab

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Vanke Pavilion – Milan Expo 2015 / Daniel Libeskind

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Cuadra San Cristobal / Luis Barragán

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BBVA Bancomer Tower / LEGORRETA + LEGORRETA + Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners

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Red Wall / 3Gatti Architecture Studio

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Instant Red / Wutopia Lab

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Couch / MVRDV

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La Muralla Roja / Ricardo Bofill

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 Nestlé Chocolate Museum / Rojkind Arquitectos

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Museum of Rock / MVRDV + COBE
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Red Ribbon Park / Turenscape
Read more these project here

 

 

Beautiful Red Interiors

I’m personally not a huge fan of red when it comes to interiors but it can be used to make a powerful statement in subtle and not so subtle ways. Check out how these designers who love red have incorporated this fiery and beautiful color into their homes.

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There are instances, such as this Victorian farm house, where red is the perfect color.

primary-coloured-houses1.jpg…or sometimes you just want to have fun with it. 

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These walls are covered in Graniplast, a tinted acrylic finish. Nathan Pereira Arquitectos y Diseño advised on the facade, floors, and finishes. Designed by Vanessa Clark.

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Red gives a bathroom and modern appeal. This bathroom features Chromtech tile, a Toto toilet, Kohler vanity, and powder-coated steel countertop.

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Red is perfect for a comfy kitchen nook. Eazy side chairs by Whiteonwhite line one side of the custom-designed table by LOT-EK. Castore suspension lights by Michele De Lucchi for Artemide hang above, and a custom rug by Liora Manné lies below.

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Red is one of those colors where “less is more” often makes a bolder statement. Largely white monotone, the kitchen introduces a pop of red through the glossy AGC kitchen backsplash. Red Piston stools by Shin and Tomako Azumi complete the space.

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Red is often used in commercial spaces. In Situ Design and Lilian B Interiors adapted a six-story brownstone in midtown Manhattan into a boutique hotel with 33 guest suites. Each floor received what the designers call a “visceral” color treatment using Benjamin Moore paints, including Outrageous Orange.

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I love this red Eames chair. Magenta Togo sofas by Ligne Roset, a red Eames molded plywood chair, provide seating around the hearth.

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Red used as a fun, happy accent especially when it comes to kids. E27 pendant lamps from Muuto a with matching red locker storage. The inside of the front door is painted bright green.

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Designer Harry Bates designed a simple cedar house for a young family in New York in 1967. Forty years later he updated the place for its new owners. The addition of bright red cabinetry in the kitchen introduces a contemporary style without losing the rustic, vintage quality of the space. 

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Red can be interpreted as masculine or feminine. I love this distressed red couch;
mixed with the industrial surroundings it adds a beautiful layer of texture.

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This bedroom features bright red bunk beds for a dormitory-like experience and can be
paired with adjoining rooms for larger groups of guests.

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The kitchen’s red Venetian plaster walls makes for a nice textural detail. 

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Two great examples of how red is the perfect color for modern door.

To learn about these products visit Dwell

 

 

Beautiful Scandinavian Design

I am so enamored by this this classic Scandinavian apartment belonging to designer Hanne Bloch featured on Bo Bedre. The mix of mid century furniture, rustic materials and design simplicity blends so beautifully together. The Serge Moille lighting fixtures, the classic white tufted mid-century modern lounger, the Eames dining chairs — all of it works perfectly together. And the dark stained hardwood floors work sets everything off perfectly!

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Beautiful iPhone Photography

I’ve become mesmerized lately by following the
magical work of Richard Koci Hernandez.
H
is photos tell a magical, mysterious story and
I can’t get enough. Every day I look forward to his
latest post on Instagram. Take time to enjoy it.
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“The more often we see the things around us – even the beautiful and wonderful things – the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds – even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.”
Joseph B. Wirthlin

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“Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time.” Albert Camus

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“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

Beautiful Inspiration

French designer Ora-Ïto has developed a conceptual
trainer with curved veneer sections to reference the
work of Modernist furniture designers
Charles and Ray Eames.

Really, Seriously?
I’ll take the chair over the shoes any day.
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