Paris-based Nem Architectes has renovated a villa in Grasse, France, transforming it into a bright pink tourist destination named Domaine de la Rose for beauty company Lancôme.

The villa contains lounge and meeting spaces that can host perfume-making workshops, events and exhibitions, designed as a place where visitors can learn about the Lancôme brand and perfumery. Nem Architectes also added a perfume distillery and warehouse underground.

Surrounded by floral gardens used to make perfume, Domaine de la Rose is located on the Lancôme estate in Grasse, which is known as the world's perfume capital.

"The purpose of this design is to create a functional, practical, and sustainable building that can be both beautiful, contemporary and exemplary while showcasing the brand's luxurious and exceptional heritage and artistry," Nem Architectes told Dezeen.

The studio removed all buildings on the estate except for Domaine de la Rose, which was painted striking pink and reroofed with locally-made pink glazed canal tiles.

The villa is comprised of a pair of two-storey wings connected by a single-storey lobby. The upper levels of both wings open onto the roof of the lobby below, creating a terrace with views of the surrounding hills.

A path cuts through the centre of the building. One side features a circular tunnel entrance to the lobby, while the other entrance is sheltered by the terrace above, propped up by a column that appears like a stack of rocks.

Nem Architectes described its overhaul of the villa as a monolith, with a vibrant pink interior and exterior that stands out against the lush green landscape.

"It is a bold and striking sight, and it gives a tangible and unique form to the Lancôme brand," said Nem Architectes.

"The estate can also be seen as a living and sensorial experience for the visitors and guests," it continued. "Their visual, olfactive and acoustic senses are stimulated throughout the house and the garden, as they would be when using a Lancôme perfume."

Nem Architectes chose to renovate the existing building rather than build a new one for sustainability reasons.

The studio added lavender and rice straw in timber frames to the exterior, which was closed off with rigid wood fibre insulation boards to improve insulation.

"It was decided early on that the building should be rehabilitated as opposed to completely levelled and replaced with a new one," said Nem Architectes.

"This decision is in compliance with Nem Architectes and Lancôme's concern for sustainability, as it saves resources and energy while paying homage to the local architectural heritage."

Nem Architectes was founded in 2008 by Lucie Niney and Thibault Marca.

Other pink buildings that have been featured on Dezeen include a cultural institution in Lima that was renovated to have pink walls and an apartment renovation in Mexico with arched openings.

The photography is by Cyrille Weiner unless stated.

The post Nem Architectes flushes French hillside villa in pink for Lancôme perfumery appeared first on Dezeen.

An irregular roofline and pale pink walls feature on the exterior of a multi-generational co-living complex in New England that architecture studio French 2D hopes can "serve as a replicable model" in the country.

Described as "a typology-challenging" project, the Bay State Cohousing complex is located in Malden, a suburb in the Boston area.

It was designed by French 2D, a Boston studio led by sisters Jenny and Anda French.

Totalling 45,000 square feet (4,181 square metres), the complex contains 30 units and a host of shared amenities.

It is arranged in a C-shape formation around a courtyard on a .75-acre site, near a subway stop and downtown district.

The complex rises three levels and has a partly submerged garage. Irregular rooflines and volumes of varying heights give the building a sculptural appearance.

In contrast to many North American co-housing projects that have "horizontal spatial arrangements", the Bay State development is more vertical due to its compact site.

"French 2D built upwards, taking advantage of stacking and interlocking units, keeping private units small," the team said.

Exterior walls are clad in fibre-cement siding, in hues of vanilla and pale pink. Accent colours – including peach, lemon and sea foam green – adorn window frames, stair railings, doors and other elements.

The colour palette is meant to "echo and reimagine the Victorian-inspired 'painted ladies' found in neighboring historic homes," the team said.

Created to appeal to a broad spectrum of people, the units range from micro studios to one-, two- and three-bedroom units. In terms of floor area, the units range from 380 to 1,100 square feet (35 to 102 square metres).

Each dwelling has a bathroom, kitchen and living room-type space.

Communal areas include a dining room that can seat up to 100 people, a community pantry, workspaces, and outdoor terraces and gardens. There also are spaces for yoga, media and music.

The sunken parking garage is topped with a green roof. The development offers 50 parking spots, most of which are in the garage.

Residential units are arrayed along open-air walkways and single-loaded corridors, and half of them overlook the interior courtyard.

"To allow for visual transparency across the community, the designers eliminated double-loaded corridors, instead inventing arrangements in plan and section not typical of multi-family housing," the architects said.

Several intersecting paths enable residents to naturally connect and "intentionally come together for mutual care and support", the architecture studio added.

Similar to many condominium buildings, residents own their units and collectively own and manage the shared spaces.

What distinguishes Bay State Cohousing from a condo complex is the emphasis on community engagement and support, along with how the project was initiated, funded and designed.

"The North American co-housing model is a form of intentional community, often bringing people together around a common purpose, and is typically arranged as a collection of single-family homes surrounding a common house for community activities," the team said.

"The pooling of space and certain resources, while maintaining individual household ownership and separation of finances, encourages mutual aid and support between households, as well as the creation of broader extended families built upon friendship and choice," the team added.

The project was led by a group of diverse people from Massachusetts and elsewhere who desired a co-housing living situation. They worked collaboratively to find a site, hire an architect and help shape the design. The residents currently range in age from two to 90 years old.

"The project was envisioned through a participatory design process in collaboration with its residents — a multigenerational group of families and individuals seeking to develop alternative shared housing, support, friendship and collective values," said French 2D.

"The participatory design process emphasized mutual support and the central values of consolidating and sharing resources from land and energy to cars and material goods."

It is the first project of its kind in Malden following the passing of a co-housing zoning ordinance that French 2D helped initiate.

The studio said it hopes this project offers a "subversive counterpoint" to the traditional housing market.

"In a field saturated by profit-driven, multi-family speculation, this project finds resonance between client-led development and architect-led experimentation," said Jenny and Anda French.

"We hope this project can serve as a replicable model for alternative American housing."

High housing prices, combined with increased density and changing demographics, have spurred a growing interest in co-living arrangements in America and elsewhere.

Projects include a crisp white complex in Los Angeles by Bittoni Architects that features 23 furnished, rentable bedrooms and shared living spaces, and a small Denver development by Productora that offers eight units and shared amenities within striking blue buildings.

The photography is by Naho Kubota.

The post Massachusetts co-living building by French 2D is model for "alternative American housing" appeared first on Dezeen.

Peruvian architects Roman Bauer Arquitectos and ESArquitectura teamed up to design a cultural institution in Lima that includes a renovation and a new building with vernacular methods and pink accents.

The 640-square metre (6,900 square-foot) Instituto Francés de Estudios Andinos (IFEA) was completed in 2022 in the historic Barranco district of Lima for the French government.

"The project establishes formal relationships with the built heritage while emphasizing the intangible heritage – the knowledge and construction techniques perfected since pre-Hispanic times, disrupted by modernity to the point of near-extinction," Roman Bauer Arquitectos and ESArquitectura told Dezeen.

The IFEA headquarters comprises two structures in a narrow, rectangular infill property.

Along the street edge – set off from the sidewalk by a small entry courtyard – the administrative office building is in a preserved monumental house characterised by pink stonework.

The interior has been remodelled to hold four workspaces, a bookstore, a kitchenette and a cafeteria.

The existing open-air courtyard garden – accessed by a long corridor along the southwestern party wall – occupies the centre of the plan and serves as "a communal space for interaction and activities".

It is shaded by a large palm tree and features a long wooden bench and pebbled floor.

The second structure is new, tucked into the interior of the urban block.

The concrete base – formed with wooden boards salvaged from the site – serves as a protective box for over 80,000 volumes stored in the ground-floor library.

The double-height reading room is lit from above with a clerestory feature light and perforated wooden panels create a subtle pattern along the walls while concealing private multimedia rooms.

The flexible sliding panels can open the conference space into the courtyard for larger lectures.

A staircase from the courtyard leads up to a small patio and the upper-level research offices housing in rectangular volume.

The laminated wooden frame is filled in with prefabricated quincha panels – a type of wattle and daub that is traditionally composed of cane and mud. The quincha walls reuse soil and adobe from the site and use more straw to lighten and insulate the material.

In addition to the reuse of local materials with a low environmental impact, the traditional construction technique recognises the area's heritage and responds to the climate and seismic activity of the Peruvian coast.

The research offices are illuminated and naturally ventilated through slanted pyramidal roof forms called teatinas – wind and light catchers – that capitalise on the site's solar orientation and winds for a passive bioclimatic response.

"These devices, characteristic of traditional buildings in Lima, are adapted here to increase the perceived height of rooms without elevating the overall building height, in order to hide its presence from the street and not disrupt the presence of the heritage house," the team said.

In 2022, the design received the National Hexagon Steel Prize at the XIX Biennial of Peruvian Architecture and has been recognized as a finalist for the Oscar Niemeyer Panamerican Prize and the Quito Panamerican Biennial.

Other recent projects in Lima include a "pandemic-proof" school prototype with indoor and outdoor classes by Rosan Bosch Studio and IDOM and a monumental community library with concrete columns designed to look like stacked books by Gonzalez Moix.

The photography is by JAG Studio.

Project credits:

Lead architects: José Bauer, Augusto Román, Enrique Santillana
Design team: Ailed Tejada, Jimena de la Jara, Karen Canaza, Marcos Rafael
Clients: IFEA, French government
Structural engineering: Jorge Avendaño
Wood consultant: Luis Takahashi
Adobe and quincha consultant: Urbano Tejada
Acoustic consultant: Carlos Jiménez
Quincha consultants: Centro Tierra, Silvia Onnis, Gabriel Gómez
Constructor: Chávez Constructores
Site supervisor: Juan Carlos Balbuena

The post Lima cultural facility features pink walls and traditional construction techniques appeared first on Dezeen.

A curvilinear thatched hut has been paired with terracotta-hued tiles at the Amsterdam store for homeware brand Polspotten, which was designed by local studio Space Projects.

The studio created the store to straddle a shop and an office for Polspotten, a furniture and home accessories brand headquartered in the Dutch capital.

Characterised by bold angles and arches, the outlet features distinctive terracotta-coloured walls and flooring that nod to traditional pots, Space Projects founder Pepijn Smit told Dezeen.

"The terracotta-inspired colours and materials refer to the brand's first product, 'potten' – or pots," said Smit, alluding to the first Spanish pots imported by Erik Pol when he founded Polspotten in the Netherlands in 1986.

Located in Amsterdam's Jordaan neighbourhood, the store was arranged across a series of open-plan rooms, interconnected by individual geometric entryways.

Visitors enter at a triangular opening, which was cut away from gridded timber shelving lined with multicoloured pots that mimic totemic artefacts in a gallery.

The next space features a similar layout, as well as a plump cream sofa with rounded modules and sculptural pots stacked in a striking tower formation.

Travelling further through the store, molten-style candle holders and Polspotten furniture pieces were positioned next to chunky illuminated plinths, which exhibit amorphously shaped vases finished in various coral-like hues.

Accessed through a rectilinear, terracotta-tiled opening, the final space features a bulbous indoor hut covered in thatch and fitted with a light pink opening.

The hut provides a meeting space for colleagues, according to the studio founder.

"The thatch, as a natural material, absorbs sound as well," explained Smit.

Next to the hut, Space Projects created an acoustic wall illustrated with "hieroglyphics" of Polspotten products, which references the gallery-like theme that runs throughout the outlet.

"The store was inspired by Polspotten's use of traditional techniques combined with a collage of their reinterpreted archetypes," said Smit.

Elsewhere in Amsterdam, Dutch practice Studio RAP used 3D printing and algorithmic design to create a "wave-like" facade for a boutique store while interior designer Linda Bergroth created the interiors for the city's Cover Story paint shop to streamline the redecorating process for customers.

The photography is by Kasia Gatkowska.

The post Space Projects creates Amsterdam store with thatched hut for Polspotten appeared first on Dezeen.

Mexican architecture firm César Béjar Studio has sandwiched a minimalist pink house between two buildings in Culiacán, Mexico, while bringing light into its centre via atriums and voids.

Completed in 2020, Casa en Tres Rios is covered entirely in a pinkish-red hue, giving the building a starkly different appearance than its white and wood neighbours on either side.

"Willing to be the simplest household in the neighborhood, the house is free of the ornaments that the different materials tend to evoke," said architect César Béjar. "Its quality lies in being monochrome."

The 330-square-metre house sits on a long narrow plot, walled in on its longer sides by the adjacent structures.

Its front elevation comprises a door and a bi-folding gate at street level, which open onto a forecourt with space for parking, and a heavy cube-like volume lifted above.

The minimalist architecture and the bright render "breaks the surrounding plasticity through the contrast of colour, shape and texture", according to Béjar.

The upper portion includes a single opening, revealing a glass door that opens onto a small balcony.

This recessed, south-facing aperture is also partially open to another larger balcony and the sky above, but shaded by the overhang.

Due to the site constraints, the house features various courtyard spaces and voids that allow light into its central spaces.

"The two double heights intertwine and connect the whole house," said Béjar. "When entering and looking up, the gaze is lost and the house is prolonged, the feeling of narrowness is muffled and its condition finds freshness as a result of this spatial quality."

On the ground floor, the double-height living and dining area is positioned between the forecourt and a potted garden, while the kitchen faces onto this garden and a back patio beyond.

Pink render also covers the walls of these pockets of outdoor space, reflecting off the white interiors and imbuing them with a blush-like glow.

Meanwhile, a clerestory window at the top of another atrium in the home's core is tinted yellow, washing the spaces below in a sunny hue that contrasts the pink.

The effect is similar to that frequently used by famed Mexican architect Luis Barragán in his residential spaces.

"The atmosphere of the house comes from the colours," Béjar said.

"Between the pink of the patios that bounces and enters the house, and that of the direct overhead yellow light that combines with pink and averages the tones on these neutral surfaces."

One level up, a bedroom suite is located at each end of the house, while a platform-like living area in the centre overlooks the two voids.

A further bedroom and bathroom occupy the top floor, with access to the enclosed balcony at the front, and a studio space opens onto another larger terrace at the rear.

Béjar recently completed a minimalist beach house in Nuevo Vallarta, in collaboration with Fernando Sanchez Zepeda, and was part of the team that worked on the Ederlezi residence in Monterrey that is shortlisted in the urban house category of Dezeen Awards 2023.

Béjar is also one of Mexico's most prominent architectural photographers, and has captured projects across the country by firms including CO-LAB, Esrawe Studio, Zeller & Moye and 1540 Arquitectura.

The photography is by César Béjar.

Project credits:

Architects: César Béjar Studio
Builder: José Roberto Béjar

The post César Béjar Studio inserts minimal pink house into Mexican street appeared first on Dezeen.

Local studio Heryco has completed a renovation of a pink apartment building with arches influenced by the form of aqueducts in the city of Querétaro, México.

The 5,920-square foot (550-square metre) building was completed in 1994 two blocks from the city's iconic Querétaro Aqueduct.

Heryco converted the previous building into a restored apartment block that holds four spacious, three-bedroom apartments and a ground-floor architecture office that serves as the street-level connection and anchor.

"Our inspiration blends history and modernity, taking the curves of the building as a starting point and using the warm colors of Querétaro's traditional local quarry to create a contemporary and youthful space," the studio told Dezeen.

In order to achieve a monotone pink, the studio clad the structure in Nanocal-pigmented lime stucco across the facade and courtyards.

The local material blends in with the surroundings, resonating with colonial architecture and reinforcing the studio's "commitment to the local identity and culture".

Previously square windows were capped by arched steel frames that were painted one shade darker than the walls to create contrast.

The arched motif continues to the interior courtyard with curved portals and exterior window frames.

Greenery climbs up the pink walls and spills over the terraces, while white globe sconces illuminate the passageways.

The renovation revealed an outdated construction system – based on steel beams and lightweight concrete slabs – that limited options and prevented the studio from demolishing partition walls.

This led the team to search for ways to reinforce the building's structure and repair the corroded roof without making too many interventions into the floorplan.

"We managed to find an aesthetic solution by leaving the exposed steel beams uncovered, enhancing the spaciousness and natural lighting in the spaces," the studio said, noting that it also added steel details like a gate.

On the interior, the studio configured three interlocking, two-story apartments around a central stair corridor. The fourth apartment stacks on top of the others and holds the north end of the building.

The apartments are set up to be used as Airbnb rentals, and each of the terraces open views out to the surrounding landscape.

As part of the renovation, the studio also installed an efficient heating system, ensured optimal water pressure at all times and selected high-quality furnishings.

"To complement the modern aesthetics of the building, we integrated artwork by various Mexican artists, creating a unique and sophisticated atmosphere," the studio said.

Contrasted to the pink exterior, the architecture office is finished in white with off-white steel details and open wooden shelving. Globe-shaped lighting is suspended in the office.

The renovation gave new life to an existing building while preserving its historical details while adding accomodations in a reclaimed space.

The renovation also "reduces pressure on land use and prevents uncontrolled urban expansion".

Also in Querétaro, Cuartopiso and Barragán Arquitectos recently completed an apartment building with planted balconies and Reims 502 topped a basalt-clad home with a pool.

The photography is by Ariadna Polo.

Project credits:

Architect: Heryco
Lead architect: Luis Carlos Aguilar González

The post Heryco blends "history and modernity" in renovation of pink apartment block appeared first on Dezeen.

Architecture studio WXCA has extended the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, adding a low-lying wing with coloured-concrete walls that are imprinted with chevrons.

Named the South Building, the wing introduces another permanent exhibition space to the museum, as well as more areas to display its collection of over 300,000 artefacts.

The Polish Army Museum and South Building form a part of Warsaw Citadel, a 19th-century fortress in Poland's capital city.

According to WXCA, the design and colouration of the South Building draw on the existing brick buildings on the site, including the former barracks of the Royal Foot Guards.

"Warsaw Citadel is a pretty unique place – even though is located very close to the city centre, for the last 200 years the fortification has remained separated from the city and closed for residents and tourists," said WXCA partner Szczepan Wroński.

"The undergoing transformation is supposed to hand this place back to the people and create a place of culture, remembrance and recreation," Wroński told Dezeen.

The completion of South Building marks the end of the first phase of WXCA's extension of the museum, which will also include the yet-to-be-built North Building.

Together, the elongated, low-lying forms of the North and South Buildings will enclose the existing square on the site. The buildings were designed to evoke a disciplined battle array.

"Our concept reaches out to the 18th-century spatial arrangement of the Polish Royal Foot Guard barracks and centrally positioned square," said Wroński.

"The simple geometric and disciplined forms of the South and the North Buildings and their compact organisation from two sides of the square are reminiscent of a battle array layout in some way."

The main material used throughout the museum is concrete. It has a pink colouration that draws on the brick walls of the Warsaw Citadel.

To reduce the visual impact of the concrete, portions of the exterior and interior walls are imprinted with chevrons.

"We wanted to soften the monumentality of the building and create a surface for a sculptural play of light and shadow that changes depending on the time of day and thus alters the overall perception of the building," Wroński explained.

"The chevron pattern symbolically refers to military motives," he added. "We intended to make this subtle, indirect reference and let everyone have their own interpretation of the chevron form."

Once complete, the North Building will be of similar size to the South Building, but it will also contain an underground level. There will be an exhibition area, an auditorium and a shooting range for trying antique weapons.

Another element of the project is the creation of an underground parking lot, which is entered via a new gate to the Warsaw Citadel. This gateway punctures a historic brick wall and is topped by a green roof.

Other museums on Dezeen that are dedicated to army- and military-related collections are the stainless-steel National Museum of the United States Army by SOM in Virginia and the deconstructivist Museum of Military History in Dresden by Daniel Libeskind.

The photography is by Marcin Czechowicz.

The post Pink concrete forms "geometric and disciplined" wing of Polish Army Museum appeared first on Dezeen.

Architecture and engineering firm Yu2e has completed The Axolotl, a three-storey apartment building near public transit that is meant to be an "evolutionary hybrid of Los Angeles middle housing".

The building is situated on a rectangular property in the Los Feliz neighbourhood, described as a "middle density" area with many two-storey apartment buildings.

For the 6,750-square-foot (627-square-metre) property, local studio Yu2e conceived a multi-family building with seven rental units.

The firm's design draws upon two historic housing styles found in Los Angeles – the bungalow court, popular in the first half of the 1900s, and the dingbat apartment building, which proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s.

"Many architects in the 20th century had experimented with low-rise housing typologies that would not overwhelm suburban neighbourhoods while providing affordable housing options," Yu2e said.

"With characteristics taken from both bungalow courts and dingbat apartments, our project is an evolutionary hybrid of Los Angeles middle housing."

The wood-and-steel Axolotl building rises three levels and totals 10,900 square feet (1,013-square-metre) – the maximum allowed for this type of building per local rules.

The project was developed under the city's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) Incentive Program, which encourages the construction of affordable housing near bus and train stations. The programme was implemented following a measure passed by voters in 2016.

"It is intended to spur multi-family development near public transit by relaxing restrictions like required yards, along with parking and density maximums, in exchange for setting aside some of those units for lower-income households and tenants," said Yu2e of the programme.

Without the TOC programme, the building would have needed to have four apartments and eight parking spaces. The programme enabled the team to add three more apartments and incorporate just four parking spaces.

"Our design approach was to maximise the opportunities afforded by the TOC incentives to create more livable dwellings at a more affordable costs," the team said.

In terms of its shape, the building is a box with pieces cut away to form patios and balconies. The outdoor spaces help break up the massing.

"The tactical distribution of these decks throughout reduced the overall bulk and scale of the building, minimising impact to the street level and adjacent neighbours," the team said.

Exterior walls are clad in a mix of vertical fibre-cement siding and cement plaster.

The developer opted for a pink exterior to help enliven the neighbourhood, while also giving a nod to dingbats, which often had colourful exteriors. The project is named after a pink-hued salamander called an axolotl.

"We like to use fun and approachable names to rebrand our housing projects, as a foil to the typical opposition and criticism of housing projects," said architect Bill Tsui, founder of Yu2e.

Parking is found in the rear and is reached via a driveway that runs alongside the building. The parking lot includes an electric vehicle charging station and space for bikes.

On the opposing side are corridors that provide access to the apartments.

"The common-access corridor is designed to create a sense of community and shared space, by utilising alternating panels and openings in lieu of a typical dark and uninviting double-loaded corridor".

Five of the apartments have two bedrooms, and the remaining two have three bedrooms. One unit is reserved for a low-income tenant.

Units are efficiently organised in order to provide open layouts and to keep costs low. Windows and sliding glass doors bring in daylight and facilitate natural ventilation.

Interior finishes include drywall, white oak flooring, laminate cabinets and quartz countertops.

"Essentially, the material choices were made with resilience and low maintenance in mind," the team said.

"The dwelling units are at once cosy and livable, breezy with ample access to outdoors," the team added.

The building is near an earthquake fault, which is not uncommon in Los Angeles. In response, the building has a "mat" foundation that consists of a two-foot-thick (61-centimetre) concrete slab.

Other projects by Yu2e include a housing project in west Los Angeles that involved the transformation of two properties into a six-unit complex with outdoor space. The project made the longlist in the housing category for the 2022 Dezeen Awards.

The photography is by Taiyo Watanabe.

The post Yu2e draws upon historic styles to create pink housing block in Los Angeles appeared first on Dezeen.

A blocky pink form and curving glass walls define House R3, a residence by Bangkok studio PHTAA on a compact roadside site in Thailand.

Made from concrete, the 400-square-metre home features living spaces across five levels to maximise the available space for a family of five.

To give privacy from the nearby road, PHTAA infilled House R3's road-facing facade with concrete panels so that it is almost entirely solid.

Meanwhile, the opposite wall that faces a quieter street is lined with floor-to-ceiling glazing. On two levels, the glazed areas curve inwards to create a wavy facade.

"The concrete stair core in the back position of the home had to be solid due to building regulations," studio co-founder Ponwit Ratanatanatevilai told Dezeen.

"So we utilised that law to serve the purpose of mitigating the vibration and noise pollution originating from the road," he continued.

"The front part of the home contains all the living spaces and faces the smaller road in the peaceful village, so we tried to put the open windows on this side," added Ratanatanatevilai.

On one side of the building angled towards the main road, PHTAA added a triangular terrace that is cut into the main volume and bordered by angled windows.

"When viewed from the back, the exterior looks solid," said the studio. "Instead, it reveals an opening from the side of the building in a twisted form."

A pink-toned, slatted gate separates the home from the street and offers access to the ground floor. Here, there is a parking area for the family's two vehicles.

On the other side of the covered parking area is a circulation space with a curved concrete staircase and kitchen.

Personal living areas and bedrooms for each member of the family are arranged across the other floors, excluding the second floor where there is a living room.

House R3's bedrooms have matching plans and take advantage of the curved glazing, which punctures the rooms and frames views of the village below.

To provide privacy, curtains can be pulled around the curving glass walls, which open onto covered balconies on both levels.

The living room that takes up House R3's second floor has a straight, glazed wall on one side.

Its remaining walls are lined with wooden panelling as well as dark wooden joinery and mid-century furnishings that have been collected by the owner over time.

Other Thai homes recently featured on Dezeen include a home and music studio with raised living spaces and an inward-facing family home designed to prioritise privacy and airflow.

The photography is by Kukkong Thirathomrongkiat.

The post Curving glass walls puncture pink-toned house in Thailand appeared first on Dezeen.

London-based practice Studio Weave used pink concrete tiles to clad a clifftop house that overlooks the sea in South Korea.

Named Seosaeng House, the home is nestled into a hillside on the country's eastern peninsula and comprises three volumes arranged in a stepped formation designed to help the building blend with the hillside.

Aiming to reflect traditional Korean courtyard houses, Studio Weave arranged the blocks of the house in a C shape that encloses a central courtyard. The volumes were built on concrete platforms that rise up the hillside in one-metre intervals, following the natural slope of the site.

Large rectangular concrete tiles with a pink hue cover the home's exterior, each featuring a fluted form informed by the site's geology.

"The design stems from two sources: the topological and the cultural context," studio founder Je Ahn told Dezeen. "Essentially, the building draws from the Korean tradition of the courtyard house, translated onto the sloped site which has red-pink soil, resulting in a pink building which reflects the geology of the area," he continued.

"The undulating cladding borrows its tone from the surrounding soil, and seems to glow with red undertones in the sunrise."

Angular concrete walls run along the edges of the site, while a series of pitched roofs slope in the opposite direction.

"The roofs are a way of resolving both the desire to maximise views of the sea and the technical response to the high rainfall in that location during monsoon season," said Ahn.

In addition to drawing on the traditional courtyard house, the studio aimed to reference South Korean design by using local materials throughout the design and adding a steel bar to the deep roof eaves to be used for food preservation.

"Seosaeng House is inspired by Korean colours and textures and how traditional Korean buildings work, filtered through a contemporary sensibility," said Ahn.

"As people enter, they pass under the deep eaves and the covered canopy over the east and west facades. Under these eaves, we included a steel bar for hanging the dried foods, continuing a Korean tradition of domestic food preservation," he continued.

"The deep eaves also work to mitigate the location's subtropical climate by providing shade from the summer sun and protection from the monsoon rain."

Accessed through a set of sliding glass doors underneath the eaves, an open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area acts as the home's central living space.

Contained within the lowest portion of the home, the living room features large areas of glazing on either side that offer views into the courtyard and out to the ocean below.

Throughout the space, the studio created a sense of warmth with lauan plywood, an Asian timber typically used in Korean architecture. The material was used for the kitchen joinery, as well as on an L-shaped bench which has been set into a timber-lined recess in one corner of the room.

A plywood-coated staircase to the side of the seating area leads to the next raised volume, which contains an ensuite bedroom and dressing room.

A studio and additional bedroom were housed within the top block along with a second living space with expansive glazing that frames views of the surrounding landscape and central garden.

Designed in collaboration with Korean landscape designer Garden&Forest, the outdoor spaces feature native planting as well as broad trees that provide additional shading.

"Four sections of the site have been laid out and planted to maximise the different characteristics and mini-microclimates within the site topography," said the studio. "A rear rock garden is set with evergreen shrubs to protect the soil and house from water runoff, and provide colour throughout the year."

"The central courtyard offers a warm, humid climate suited to ferns and delicate flowers and deciduous trees to provide shading in summer, and allow warm winter sun to filter inside during the cooler months," it continued.

Founded in 2006, Studio Weave is a London-based studio known for its work on a diverse range of projects, including a timber artist's retreat added to the side of a cottage in Devon and a wood-lined community centre for an east London library.

The photography is by Kyung Roh.

The post Studio Weave nestles pink Seosaeng House into South Korean hillside appeared first on Dezeen.

Waterless swimming pools, fridges with 2D food and hand-painted sunsets feature in the set of the Barbie film, production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer tell Dezeen in this interview.

Longtime collaborators Greenwood and Spencer, who have worked together on projects including Joe Wright's 2012 film Anna Karenina, created the set to display an "authentic artificiality".

"Even though it is completely artificial and absurd, it has to be real. You have to believe it," said Spencer via a video call.

"Greta [Gerwig, director and co-writer of Barbie] wanted a world-building film, and that's what we do," she added.

Released in cinemas tomorrow, the highly anticipated Barbie is a live-action depiction of the iconic 1959 Mattel-designed toy doll starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken.

Greenwood and Spencer built the set for Barbieland, which plays a key role in the story, at Warner Bros Studios, Watford, in the UK.

On-screen, Robbie's character lives in a fuchsia-pink house with no external walls that was based on the original 1960s Barbie Dreamhouse as well as architect Richard Neutra's modernist Kaufmann House, built in 1946 in Palm Springs, California.

Among the house's design details is a striking spiral slide that leads from the roof to a flat blue swimming pool with no water in it, akin to a toy pool.

"What looks simple was not simple," quipped Greenwood, who explained that everything in Barbieland was made to be 23 per cent smaller in relation to the human actors to mimic the way in which a real-life Barbie doll is always "much bigger than her house even though it's built for her".

Continuing this theme, the designers combined 3D household objects such as oversized hair- and toothbrushes with decal stickers depicting playfully flat food containers stacked in Barbie's pink kitchen fridge.

"It was to try and get to the [idea of] what is it that's 'toy'? What makes it 'toy'?" explained Greenwood.

"If you actually scaled a lipstick to the size of Barbie's hand, kids would lose it," added Spencer.

The duo created various other design elements to reflect the fact that Barbieland is "a world with no air, water or electricity".

Barbie's house features a jacuzzi frothing with static pale pink bubbles made from materials including polystyrene that Spencer and her team suspended on wires to look as if they were frozen in the air.

Hand-painted skies, mountains and palm trees also provided the backdrop for the set, which becomes "two-dimensional" the further back you go, according to Greenwood.

"It's kind of artificially authenticated," she added.

"It was interesting to the eye, watching when Greta came on [set], and the actors – you did feel that they were in a toy world and it was like you were actually in the box," explained Spencer.

"It was like having a bath in colour," she continued, referring to the bright lighting used to illuminate Barbieland. "It was just the most stunning, you know, in the middle of the Watford winter – it was just amazing to be in that world."

Having never owned Barbies as children themselves, Greenwood and Spencer bought a Dreamhouse to examine before building their set, which also features a number of similar houses that belong to the other characters.

When creating blocky, geometric furniture for each dwelling, the duo took cues from the "classic, mid-century, strong shapes" of 20th-century designers such as Verner Panton.

"When you look at the classic shapes, they lend themselves to the silhouette, so when you're looking through the houses and you don't have walls and you've got this landscape beyond, you need a very strong shape that's going to say, 'table' – you don't need any kind of fuzziness about it," continued Spencer.

"And also because there's no electricity in Barbieland, the lamps – particularly his [Panton's] lamps – are so beautiful because they are like toys or sweets," she added. "It has to be appealing. The lamps have to stand alone as shapes, not sources of light."

Another playful touch was Barbie's wardrobe of meticulously arranged outfits in the form of a large box with a plastic covering that references toy packaging in a shop.

According to Greenwood and Spencer, their teams worked closely with the wider Barbie crew to unify the film's aesthetic – from costume designer Jacqueline Durran, who created the characters' vibrant garments, to hair and makeup artist Ivana Primorac, who was responsible for Barbie's wide-ranging beauty looks.

"You're making a statement with everything. Everything was doubly considered," reflected Spencer.

Considering the portrayal of gender dynamics in the film, the duo acknowledged the significance of the Barbie Dreamhouse being released in 1962, during a time when women's financial rights were still heavily restricted in the UK and the USA.

"She had more rights than any woman in Britain or America. She could own her own house, she could have her own car – she didn't need a man to sign anything," said Spencer.

"I was never aware of all that. I only knew the Barbie on the difficult journey we all know about," she added.

"I think the other thing that I never did that this film might do is maybe make it more acceptable to like Barbie, or to like pink, which we spent a lot of time not doing – particularly my generation was very scornful of Barbie in those days," considered Greenwood.

"What's fantastic about the film is that there's nothing nasty in it," she added. "There's a lot of goodness in the film, and without being preachy or anything, it's not twee, but it's great – there are no baddies in the film."

"I suppose the moral of [the film] is that you should be whatever you want to be," concluded Spencer.

"And don't be judged. If you like Barbie, great. And if you don't like Barbie, then great."

In the run-up to the film's release, rental website Airbnb unveiled a lifesize Malibu Dreamhouse in California with an outdoor disco and an infinity pool, while one of our latest lookbooks featured eight Barbiecore-style interior designs.

The images are courtesy of Warner Bros. Additional reporting is by Jennifer Hahn.

Dezeen In Depth

If you enjoy reading Dezeen's interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.

The post Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer design "absurd" set for Barbie film appeared first on Dezeen.

As the upcoming Barbie film has created a shortage of pink colour and launched a real-life dollhouse in Malibu, we gathered eight pink interiors to exemplify the Barbiecore aesthetic for this lookbook.

The pink hues that are usually associated with Barbie, a children's toy first launched by manufacturer Mattel in 1959, are influencing both clothes and interiors ahead of Great Gerwig's live-action Barbie film.

The style, which has become known as Barbiecore, can add a joyful touch of colour to otherwise pared-back interiors, or be used as a hyper-bright nod to 1980s opulence.

Here, we have gathered eight interiors where pink was used to give interiors additional warmth and a touch of whimsy.

This is the latest in our lookbook series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring rustic interiors, Wes Anderson-style interiors and welcoming wood-panelled dining rooms.

Minimal Fantasy, Spain, by Patricia Bustos Studio

The Minimal Fantasy apartment is anything but minimalist – instead, Patricia Bustos Studio aimed to create an "aesthetic madness" for the interior of this Madrid rental in a 1950s residential building.

The holiday home features 12 different shades of pink, with the entire living room covered in a pastel bubblegum pink.

"Pink vindicates the fall of stereotypes – everything is possible, nothing is planned or established and that's the beauty of it," the studio told Dezeen.

Find out more about Minimal Fantasy ›

San Francisco house, US, by Jamie Bush

A more discrete take on adding pink to an interior can be found in this San Francisco house by architect Jamie Bush, who gave it an overhaul using an eclectic array of furniture.

Bush added pink walls to the dining room, where they contrast against dark-wood vintage furniture and white details including a lamp and sheer curtains to create a playful, yet elegant atmosphere.

Find out more about San Francisco House ›

Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse, US, by Ken

The most Barbiecore interior of them all can naturally be found in the Barbie Malibu Dreamhouse, which is being rented out by the doll's boyfriend Ken on Airbnb.

Inside the California mansion, located beachside in Malibu, guests can enjoy pink rooms including the bright-fuchsia bedroom that has been decorated with cowboy hats, boots and cowhide rugs to add more "Kenergy".

Find out more about Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse ›

Mixtape apartment, Spain, by Azab

A dusky baby-pink kitchen decorates the Mixtape apartment in Bilbao, which was designed by architecture studio Azab.

The white and pink cupboards are boarded by light timber strips, and the appliances in the room have also been painted pink. A multicoloured floor with pale green and yellow as well as darker red herringbone tiles give the space a vibrant feel.

Find out more about Mixtape apartment ›

130-square-metre-house, UK, by Studiomama

"London's smallest house", a conceptual design by Studiomama, features an abundance of pink details throughout, including in its plywood-clad kitchen.

Here, the clever fold-out seating has been decorated with blush-pink cushions and pillows, with a pink cushion also forming a cosy backrest.

Find out more about 130-square-metre house ›

Moco Barcelona, Spain, by Isern Serra

A computer-generated image was transformed into a real-life interior for the Moco Barcelona store, a rose-coloured shop inside the city's Moco Museum.

Designer Isern Serra used pink micro-cement to achieve the same uniform, ultra-smooth surfaces as those of the computer-generated image, creating a dream-like interior filled with rounded corners and arches.

Find out more about Moco Barcelona ›

Pigment House, UK, by Unknown Works

London studio Unknown Works went all in on the pink for Pigment House, a Hampstead home that was renovated to add a pink-toned patio area.

While not technically part of the interior, it adds a splash of colour to the ground floor area, and is used for indoor-outdoor living in the summer months. The choice of pink was a reference to the colourful buildings of Mexican architect Luiz Barragán.

Find out more about Pigment House ›

Cats' Pink House, Taiwan, by KC Design Studio

This holiday home in Taiwan got its name, Cats' Pink House, as it includes cat ladders, a rotating carousel-shaped climbing frame and a fluffy pink cat swing.

KC Design Studio used a mineral-based paint to create the pink walls throughout the home, which also features a pink bathroom – with a pink cat litter box.

Find out more about Cats' Pink House ›

This is the latest in our lookbook series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring rustic interiors, Wes Anderson-style interiors and welcoming wood-panelled dining rooms.

The post Eight interiors where Barbiecore pink adds a playful touch of colour appeared first on Dezeen.

Following the news that Airbnb has created a life-sized Dreamhouse in Malibu, we've rounded up 10 buildings that prove pink facades aren't just for dollhouses – from a Chinese church to a garden pavilion in Somaliland.

Much like Greta Gerwig's upcoming Barbie movie aims to reframe how we think about the world's most popular doll, the projects featured below bring Barbie's favourite colour into unexpected contexts to subvert expectations.

In Fuzhou, an all-pink extension was designed to make a 1930s church feel more youthful while in Beirut, architect Nathalie Harb used a stereotypically loud hue to paint a pavilion meant for quiet contemplation.

Elsewhere, on the British Isles, a number of residential projects nodded to the colourful architecture of Mexico and the Mediterranean in the hopes of approximating their sunny atmosphere.

Read on for ten examples of nonconformist pink buildings from across the globe.

Seabreeze, UK, by RX Architects

The location of this holiday home in a designated conservation area on Camber Sands beach in East Sussex prevented RX Architects from experimenting with its scale and massing.

Instead, the British studio set out to create a sense of fun – and soften the building's overall visual impact – by adding pink pigments to its concrete finish.

"The pink is reminiscent of traditional Mediterranean beach houses with their natural pink plastered elevations," founder Rob Pollard told Dezeen.

Find out more about Seabreeze ›

Glossier Los Angeles, USA, by Glossier design team

One of the most well-known brands behind the millennial-pink frenzy of the mid-2o1os, Glossier recently opened a new store on Melrose Avenue following the closure of its previous Los Angeles outpost during the coronavirus pandemic.

The company's signature rosey colour palette extends across the entire shopfront, all the way down to the dramatically oversized signage embedded into the facade, which the team described as "the Glossier version of the Hollywood sign".

Find out more about Glossier Los Angeles ›

His House and Her House, China, by Wutopia Lab

This installation, created by Wutopia Lab for the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture in Shenzhen, explores themes around gender expression and gender roles.

As part of the event, the Chinese studio painted a pair of houses in contrasting pink and blue, filling one with meat and the other with flowers in a bid to question binary concepts of femininity and masculinity.

Find out more about His House and Her House ›

Huaxiang Church hall, China, by Inuce

Architecture studio Inuce set out to reflect the increasingly younger demographic of this church in Fuzhou when designing a new addition to the original 1930s building to house its growing congregation.

In this spirit, the fresh-faced extension (top and above) features a zigzagging roofline – with an amphitheatre for open-air services nestled amongst its inverted gables – while the walls are finished in pink pebbledash.

"This energetic and youthful colour complements the well-aged gravity of the old church's granite blocks and expresses the generational change in the congregation's development," Inuce principal Dirk U Moench told Dezeen.

Find out more about Huaxiang Church ›

Enrico Fermi School, Italy, by BDR Bureau

A pink-painted steel frame extends from the exterior facade of this renovated 1960s school building in Turin to accommodate a number of plant-filled open-air classrooms.

Adobe plaster in the same pastel hue was also applied to the existing building as part of a makeover by local firm BDR Bureau that also included the addition of a gym, auditorium and library.

Find out more about Enrico Fermi School ›

Silent Room, Lebanon, by Nathalie Harb and BÜF

Lebanese designer Nathalie Harb hoped to subvert expectations around pink being a loud colour when designing the Silent Room pavilion for Beirut Design Week.

The painted wooden structure provided a quiet place that visitors could access alone and for free, for up to 30 minutes at a time, acknowledging that silence in urban environments is often a privilege of the wealthy.

"The colour pink is a soothing colour," Harb told Dezeen. "Its hue is the closest to the skin or images of the embryo."

"And it is somehow a colour unexpected for silence, usually associated with more austere colours."

Find out more about Silent Room ›

Courtyard Pavilion, Somaliland, by Rashid Ali Architects

A "miniature botanical garden" filled with native plants is sheltered at the centre of this pavilion in Hargeisa, whose concrete canopy is tinged in the same hue as the region's reddish-pink sands.

Local studio Rashid Ali Architects conceived the structure as a homage to the civic role of trees in Somaliland, as "a space where stories are shared, ceremonies are held and disputes are settled".

Find out more about Courtyard Pavilion ›

Pink House, Vietnam, by 23o5studio

Two sisters cohabit inside this house in the Vietnamese city of Long Xuyen. The duo was also responsible for choosing the subtle pink hue of the pebble-wash walls, which feature on both the inside and outside of the building.

The home's connection to the outdoors is further reinforced via a series of planted patios and geometric openings, such as the circular void on top of the private swimming pool.

Find out more about Pink House ›

Pink House, Ireland, by Courtney McDonnell Studio

Clad in a pink sand-and-cement render, this extension to a 1930s suburban home belonging to a pair of travel lovers in Dublin was designed to embody the colourful approach of late Mexican architect Luis Barragán.

"We loved the idea of adding a coloured tone to the extension that would be unexpected and playful, but also add welcomed warmth against the typical grey Irish sky," architect Courtney McDonnell told Dezeen.

Find out more about Pink House ›

Quinta Amores, Mexico, by Ian Pablo Amores

The distinctive blush pink shade of this boutique hotel in San Miguel de Allende was custom-made and mixed on-site to match both the region's sunny climate and its Spanish colonial buildings.

"I made around 15 samples of colour and I saw that this type of pink was very special with the natural light of the site," architect Ian Pablo Amores told Dezeen.

Find out more about Quinta Amores ›

The post Ten all-pink buildings to rival Barbie's Dreamhouse appeared first on Dezeen.

Rental website Airbnb has created a video tour of the bright-pink Barbie Dreamhouse in Malibu, which features a full-size plastic toy horse and an infinity pool.

Set to be available on rental website Airbnb, the house sits on the beachfront in California and will be rented out by Ken, Barbie's partner.

"Placed perfectly above the beach with panoramic views, this life-size toy pink mansion is a dream come true!" Ken said in the Airbnb's listing.

Inside, Airbnb guests can use the doll's guitars and rollerskates, along with the cowboy outfits and hats that decorate the Western-themed bedroom, which has a bed with a scallop-shaped headboard.

The video showcases many of the smaller details designed for the house, including a vanity with a pink Barbie phone, perfume bottles and debit cards. On the deck outdoors, a barbecue is cooking plastic cuts of meat and a bright-pink slide ends in a pink pool.

An upcoming Barbie film was recently in the news as it made "the world run out of pink", while earlier this year we explored Barbie's Dreamhouse through the ages.

The video is courtesy of Hogwash Studios and Airbnb.

The post Take a video tour of Barbie and Ken's lifesize dollhouse in Malibu appeared first on Dezeen.

Rental website Airbnb has created Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse, an all-pink California mansion with an outdoor disco, infinity pool and Western-themed bedroom.

Located on the oceanfront in western Malibu, California, the lifesize dollhouse is being rented out by Barbie's partner Ken via an Airbnb listing written as if by the doll himself.

The house, which was previously listed by Airbnb for Barbie's 60th anniversary in 2019, has had a recent update to give it more "Kenergy" and mark Barbie making her live-action debut in the Barbie film starring Margot Robbie.

"We all have dreams, and Barbie is lucky enough to have a house full of them," Ken said. "But now, it's my turn, and I can't wait to host guests inside these one-of-a-kind – dare I say, one-of-a-Ken? – digs."

The large oceanfront house features a pink bedroom decorated with cowhide rugs, cowboy hats and horse-printed throws as well as a closet from which guests can borrow Ken's fringed cowboy shirts and his guitar.

Some of Barbie's clothing, including the iconic high-heeled pink shoe with a fluffy feather decoration from the movie, also hang in the closet.

At the centre of the building, on one of the house's many terraces, guests can make use of an outside disco dance floor in pink, purple and yellow with its own DJ deck.

"I've added a few touches to bring some much-needed Kenergy to the newly renovated and iconic Malibu DreamHouse," Ken said.

The Dreamhouse also has a bright-pink outdoor lounging area, an outdoor gym – complete with a barrel filled with "beefy body brine" –  a pink outdoor kitchen with a barbecue and an infinity pool.

Other details that nod to Ken's takeover include a Western-style swing door, decorated with an image of a horse and the words "Kendom Saloon", and a crossed-out "Barbie" sign above the outdoor kitchen that now reads "Ken".

Guests can enjoy nearby activities such as shopping, surfing and roller blading on the boardwalk, and will also get to take home their own set of yellow-and-pink Impala skates and surfboard.

Barbie's Malibu Dreamhouse will be available to book for up to two guests each on July 21 and July 22, 2023, with bookings opening on 17 July.

"All stays will be free of charge – because Ken couldn't figure out how to put a price on Barbie's Malibu DreamHouse – after all, Ken's thing is beach, not math!" Airbnb said.

The company will make a one-time donation to the charity Save the Children in celebration of the Barbie movie.

The film was recently in the news as it made "the world run out of pink", while a recent book explored Barbie's Dreamhouse through the ages.

The imagery is by Hogwash Studios.

The post Barbie and Ken unveil bright-pink lifesize dollhouse in Malibu appeared first on Dezeen.

A terraced landscape and dusty pink surfaces help to brighten Pigment House, a north London residence that has been renovated by local studio Unknown Works.

Located in Hampstead, the four-storey residence sits on a steep hillside with a garden that originally sloped up on all sides, which Unknown Works said left the interior dark and damp.

To brighten the home, the studio excavated a portion of the back garden and replaced it with a multi-level landscape that lets in more light and enhances its connection to the ground floor.

"The concept originated from the practical need for a more open day-lit living space that connects fluidly to the garden," studio director Ben Hayes told Dezeen.

"The transformation of the landscape was essential to unlocking this."

Arranged across multiple levels and stepped down from the top of the garden, the new terraced patio area is covered in textured, pink-toned surfaces chosen to reflect the colours of the surrounding plants.

"The choice of tones for pigments respond to the existing planting, the giant mimosa tree to the rear and red ivy all along the street," said Hayes.

It is also a nod to the colourful buildings of Mexican architect Luiz Barragan, which the studio said was informed by the homeowner's holidays to Mexico.

Pink concrete retaining walls surround the new levels of the garden, including the lowest courtyard, which features a built-in outdoor kitchen and a barbeque.

Down one side, a series of steps finished in the same pigment offer outdoor seating and leads to open spaces at the top of the garden, where softer landscaping accommodates safer play for the client's children.

"As retaining walls were required to stabilise the excavated ground, we expanded on the idea of a retaining wall becoming a more creative architectural element, embedding programmes into walls and exploring variations in the making process, playing with tone, casting, textures and form," Hayes explained.

Inside Pigment House, the studio aimed to open up the interior by joining the kitchen and living room, moving away from its original separated Victorian layout.

A glass roof stretches above the dining area and kitchen, letting more light into the previously dark interior.

The open living space extends towards the front of the house, where a bay window frames views of the front garden.

The pink-toned concrete floor is continued from the back courtyard into the home's interior to blur the boundary between the interior and exterior spaces.

Across the other three floors of the home are four bedrooms and three bathrooms that were lightly renovated, alongside a study, additional living spaces and hallways.

Founded in 2017, Unknown Works also recently completed a bright yellow cross-laminated timber (CLT) house extension, which was shortlisted for this year's Don't Move, Improve! award.

Other new London home renovations featured on Dezeen include a cross-laminated-timber home built between terraced houses and an Edwardian home renovated with mid-century features.

The photography is by Lorenzo Zandri.

Project credits:

Architect: Unknown Works
Design team: Ben Hayes, Kaowen Ho and Theo Games Petrohilos
Structural engineer: Bull & Bates
Interior designer: Unknown Works
Approved building inspector: Camden Building Control
Main contractor: Francisco Checa Romero/Grace & Wren
Kitchen: Alistair Fleming
Joinery: Joe Pipal
Furniture: Twentytwentyone

The post Unknown Works brightens Victorian townhouse with dusty pink extension appeared first on Dezeen.

Design studio Isern Serra has transformed a computer-generated image by digital artist Six N Five into a rose-coloured retail space for the Moco Museum in Barcelona.

Situated in Barcelona's El Born neighbourhood, the Moco Museum exclusively exhibits the work of modern artists such as Damien Hirst, Kaws, Yayoi Kusama and Jeff Koons.

The institution's eponymous concept store has a similarly contemporary offering, selling a mix of design, fashion and lifestyle goods.

Its surreal pink interior started out as a computer-generated image by Six N Five, a digital artist known for envisioning other-worldly dreamscapes in pastel hues.

Barcelona-based design studio Isern Serra then brought the image to life, using pink micro-cement to achieve the same uniform, ultra-smooth surfaces seen in the drawing.

"The Moco Concept Store represented an interesting challenge, as I had to combine the purpose of the store with actual architecture remaining true to our original dreamy world I had built in CGI," explained Six N Five, whose real name is Ezequiel Pini.

"But these concepts were able to go one level further, both in decisions and execution, thanks to Isern Serra who brought its extraordinary talent and experience."

The store's rosy interior can be seen through two large openings in its facade – one of them is rectangular, while the other is slightly curved and contains the entrance door.

A series of chunky columns run through the middle of the space. Surrounding walls have been punctured with arched, square and circular display niches, some of which are dramatically backlit.

Rows of shelves and a frame for a tv screen have also been made to project from the wall.

The store's largely open floor plan is only interrupted by a few pink cylindrical plinths used to showcase products, and a bespoke pink cashier desk with an integrated computer system.

Custom spotlights have been installed on the ceiling, along with a faux skylight.

An increasing number of creatives are making their virtual designs a reality.

Last year, digital artist Andres Reisinger collaborated with furniture brand Moooi to produce a physical version of his Instagram-famous Hortensia chair, which was initially a rendering.

The piece is covered with 20,000 pink fabric petals, emulating the almost fluffy appearance of a hydrangea flower.

In Sweden, designer Christoffer Jansson passed off a virtual apartment as an Instagram home renovation project.

The photography is by Salva Lopez.

Project credits:

Authors: Six N Five and Isern Serra
Builder: Tegola Rosso SL

The post Isern Serra turns renderings into reality to form pink Moco Concept Store in Barcelona appeared first on Dezeen.

The sets of Greta Gerwig's upcoming Barbie movie required such vast amounts of pink paint, they swallowed up one company's entire global supply, according to production designer Sarah Greenwood.

Speaking to Architectural Digest, Gerwig revealed that the team constructed the movie's fluorescent Barbie Land sets almost entirely from scratch at the Warner Bros Studios Leavesden – all the way down to the sky, which was hand-painted rather than CGI rendered.

"We were literally creating the alternate universe of Barbie Land," she told the magazine. "Everything needed to be tactile, because toys are, above all, things you touch."

To recreate the almost monochromatic colour palette of Barbie's Dreamhouses, the set design team had to source a bottomless supply of pink paint to cover everything from lampposts to road signs.

In particular, the production used a highly saturated shade by US manufacturer Rosco to capture the hyperreality of Barbie Land.

"I wanted the pinks to be very bright, and everything to be almost too much," Gerwig told Architectural Digest.

So much paint was needed, in fact, that Greenwood says the movie's production caused a worldwide shortage of that particular hue.

"The world ran out of pink," she joked.

Rosco later told the LA Times that the company's supply chain had already been disrupted when the movie began production at the start of 2022, due to the lingering aftereffects of the coronavirus pandemic and the winter storm that shocked Texas the previous year.

"There was this shortage and then we gave them everything we could – I don't know they can claim credit," Rosco's vice president of global marketing Lauren Proud told the LA Times, before conceding that "they did clean us out on paint".

Since stills for the upcoming movie were first released a year ago, the all-pink hyper-feminine "Barbiecore" aesthetic has infiltrated the design world, with Google searches skyrocketing and the term accumulating more than 349 million views on TikTok.

Earlier this year, Barbie manufacturer Mattel collaborated with Pin-Up magazine to release a monograph on the architecture and interiors of Barbie's Dreamhouse to mark its 60th anniversary.

"There have been so many books and entire PhDs on Barbie, but never really on her many houses and her furniture," Pin-Up founder Felix Burrichter told Dezeen.

"So we thought it would be a good idea to make one and treat it as a serious subject, in the same way that Barbie has been treated as a serious subject over the years."

The image is by Mattel.

The post "The world ran out of pink" due to Barbie movie production appeared first on Dezeen.

A husband-and-wife hotelier duo has renovated a hotel in a Venetian-style palazzo on the island of Capri, refreshing its pastel-pink facade and continuing the hue into the guest rooms.

Il Capri Hotel was built in the 19th century as a private villa in the Neo-gothic Venetian style before being transformed into a hotel in 1899.

Its current owners, Graziella Buontempo and Arnaud Lacombe, redesigned the interiors to reflect the grandeur of the property while imbuing it with a sense of contemporary chic.

The duo retained the building's signature pink-and-white facades, repairing and repainting them. They also chose to repeat some of the same hues and external architectural details throughout the interiors.

"Honoring the property's history and location, the hotel's colour palette is inspired by the pink found across the island of Capri and the striking volcanic reds of Mount Vesuvius," said the hotel team.

A bright red curved awning signals the hotel's entrance, located close to the town square in the centre of the famous Italian holiday destination, leading guests to a reception desk topped with reddish marble.

Room keys are stored individually in small arched niches within a wood-panelled wall behind, while local gifts are displayed on built-in shelves nearby.

The hotel's public areas feature checkerboard flooring, black lighting fixtures and red curtains to the match sofa cushions and rug trims.

A variety of antique furniture pieces were curated to make the lounges feel homely while artworks and photos were sourced from the personal collection of Buontempo, whose family has long associations with the island.

Archways divide various seating areas from corridors and one another, creating several distinct areas where guests can relax.

In the bedrooms, pink appears again as wainscoting and on upholstered headboards shaped as ogee arches.

The rooms include sisal floors and other natural materials and are simply decorated so that attention isn't drawn away from the views.

"Each of the 21 guest rooms pays homage to the culture of the island with decor imbuing a feeling of comfort, no-frills luxury and understated elegance," the hotel team said.

Il Capri offers several options for dining and drinking, many of which allow these activities to be enjoyed al fresco with views of the island's dramatic coastline and the Gulf of Naples.

These include the street-level Caprirama Bar, connected to the lobby and extended onto an expansive terrace with a herringbone-pattern tiled floor and groupings of terracotta plant pots, landscaped by garden designer Jonathan Froines.

The all-day restaurant Vesuvio also has a shaded outdoor dining terrace, where caned bistro chairs accompany wood-topped tables.

Sun loungers line up along the rooftop swimming pool, shaded by red parasols with crenellated white edges.

There's also a subterranean nightclub, Rumore, which is used as a cinema and an events space during the off-season.

A short boat ride from Naples on the Amalfi Coast, Capri is a popular destination for both Italian and international tourists.

Elsewhere in the country, recently opened or revamped hotels include the Palazzo Daniele in Puglia, the Condominio Monti in Rome, and the Aeon Hotel near Bolzano.

The photography is by Jonathan Froines and Marine Billet.

The post Il Capri Hotel receives pink-heavy revamp from Graziella Buontempo and Arnaud Lacombe appeared first on Dezeen.

Bubblegum-pink walls, floors and furniture create unconventional spaces for displaying art at this gallery in Paris designed by local studio Golem.

Headed by architect and artist Ariel Claudet, the practice was invited to design the interior for the Superzoom art gallery, which is located in the historic Le Marais district.

The gallery comprises three spaces arranged in an unusual order, with the gallery director's office at the entrance, a white-cube gallery space in the centre and an accessible storage space at the rear.

"We flipped upside-down the classic and elitist sequence of an art gallery, offering visitors a new pleasure-driven experience and the gallery managers three spatial tools for a large range of curatorial approaches," explained Claudet.

Superzoom's signature colour pink was used as the basis for the design, reflecting the vibrancy of the local nightlife and techno scene where the gallery mingles with artists and collectors, according to Claudet.

An integrated sound system hooked up to a vinyl record player provides a soundtrack of electronic music to enhance this connection.

By placing the director's bright-pink office at the front, Golem aimed to create an entrance that is warmer and more inviting than a typical white gallery space.

The "pink den" contains a built-in bench for visitors and a fake grass carpet that contributes to the warm, tonal aesthetic.

Visitors can continue through into a large and versatile white-walled gallery. This display area remains connected to the main spatial concept thanks to the pink openings on either side.

The final space within the gallery is a storage area with walls painted the same shade of lively pink. In a conventional gallery setting, this space would be hidden away. But here, it is open and accessible to visitors.

Each of the spaces in Superzoom's gallery can be used for exhibiting work, either independently or together.

For example, Golem suggested the white cube could be used for a solo show while other artists' work is presented in the director's office and storage space.

All of the furniture and the pink wall separating the white cube from the director's office are mobile and can be removed to create a larger space for exhibitions or parties.

Golem designed the baby pink table featured in the director's office as an emblem of the gallery that can be taken to art fairs or used for client dinners.

Claudet founded Golem in 2021 after working as an architect for practices including Rem Koolhaas's Rotterdam-based firm OMA.

Other all-pink interiors published on Dezeen include a fur-covered Balenciaga store in London and the Minimal Fantasy holiday apartment in Madrid.

The photography is by Cyrille Lallement.

The post Golem creates "pleasure-driven" pink interior for Superzoom gallery appeared first on Dezeen.

Moroso has opened a new showroom in Manhattan designed by Patricia Urquiola, marking the 70th anniversary of the Italian brand.

The 4,300 square-foot showroom (400 square metres) has a double-height space that was previously occupied by an art gallery.

Despite its scale, Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola sought to replicate the feeling of a home, by setting up the furniture in smaller configurations that could be seen in a living room or another intimate setting.

The space is located at 105 Madison Avenue, in central Manhattan. It replaces the brand's previous showroom in the SoHo neighbourhood, which opened in 2007.

"The new Moroso showroom in New York transcends the concept of the exhibition space," said the Italian brand founded in 1952 by Agostino and Diana Moroso.

"[The showroom] introduces visitors to the company through a series of appealing domestic settings in which interiors in restrained colours heighten the appeal of the furniture on display," Moroso added.

The team refinished the interiors with colourful pink finishes, new wooden floors and curved surfaces rather than corners.

"The interiors are reinterpreted with an emphasis on their gently curved contours and lack of sharp angles, while particular attention is paid to colour," said Moroso.

Large columns within the space were finished with shiny, handmade terracotta tiles, complementing the prevailing colour palette.

Along the walls at the periphery of the space, Studio Urquiola created plant-filled alcoves, which help break up the space into smaller sections.

"Everything is studied in detail, and even the lighting is designed to make the space elegant and welcoming, while plants and niches create focal points in the different rooms," said Moroso.

In addition to the main exhibition space, the showroom includes a smaller mezzanine at the back, where the brand can host architects or other design professionals for meetings.

The mezzanine space is divided into a lounge area, workstations and a glass structure with meeting rooms and a private office.

A blue staircase connects this level to the ground floor and to the cellar, which has larger pieces.

"Studio Urquiola’s architectural design alters the existing structure while maintaining its spatial characteristics, perfecting and emphasizing their soft, enveloping language with warm tones of terracotta and wood," said Moroso.

The inaugural collection on display at the showroom includes a sofa that is meant to look like moss-covered rocks by Sofia Lagerkvist and Anna Lindgren of Swedish design studio Front, and a series of colourful furniture that was designed by Patricia Urquiola called Pacific, which is finished in wool upholstery.

Patricia Urquiola founded her eponymous studio in 2001, with her partner Alberto Zontone. The studio takes on architectural commissions, as well as designing furniture, products, and exhibitions.

Other projects by the Spanish designer include the Haworth Hotel in Michigan, which was revamped to become a "design showcase" and a table with mix-matched legs for Cassina.

The photography is by Alex Kroke unless otherwise indicated.

The post Patricia Urquiola creates lofty showroom for Moroso in Manhattan appeared first on Dezeen.

Pink plastered columns and fireplaces surround this open-concept restaurant on Los Angeles' Melrose Avenue, which co-founder and creative director Sam Cooper coloured to match his childhood home.

Cooper and his business partner Sam Trude recently opened Great White Melrose as their third and largest location in the city, following outposts in Venice Beach and Larchmont Village.

On the site of a former laundromat, the 5,000-square-foot (465-square-metre) restaurant was designed by Cooper and his in-house team. Along with its casual menu by chef Juan Ferreiro, the space combines influences from coastal cultures in Australia, Mexico and Europe.

Dining is available on a partially open patio facing the street, beneath a roof of slatted panels between weathered timber beams.

Pink fireplaces face each other across this area, which is lit with a soft glow from large woven pendants found in Pakistan.

"Completely visible from the street, the open concept was developed very intentionally to create a relationship with the neighborhood, the antithesis of the way so many Los Angeles – and specifically West Hollywood – hospitality venues operate," said the restaurant team.

Guests arrive via a ramped cobblestone walkway that passes through a procession of pink arches, each draped in greenery and featuring sconces built into the plasterwork.

The colour was chosen to match the home where Cooper grew up in Australia, adding "a sentimental touch" to the project.

The reclaimed cobblestone flooring sourced from Germany continues inside, where pink is swapped for neutral tones and a focus is placed on craft.

A bar made from Portuguese limestone runs along the back of the space, with arched niches behind displaying wine bottles on wooden shelves.

On the main wall hangs a large painting by Berlin-based artist Danny Gretscher that brings hints of the colours found outside into the room.

Glazed doors with black metal frames concertina open to connect the indoor and outdoor areas.

Rattan chairs and brown-toned seat cushions found across both echo the laid-back style typically found at hospitality venues in the Mexican resort of Tulum.

"Our West Hollywood location is an extension of what we've found to be a successful formula that considers all of the necessary elements for an unforgettable dining experience," said Trude.

Great White Melrose combines "interesting art, design, architecture, music, and a variety of options as it pertains to both food and beverage that feature the best ingredients and an ever-growing list of talented makers", he added.

Melrose Avenue is a popular destination for tourists and locals alike, thanks to its wealth of boutique shops like Forte Forte, eateries such as the now-shuttered Auburn and design galleries including Francis Gallery LA.

"I have always enjoyed this part of West Hollywood, which seems to seamlessly connect all of the different worlds within it such as entertainment, nightlife, tourism, etc," said Cooper.

"There is a real energy about this space and the surrounding area and we are excited to tap into that with Great White Melrose."

Other hospitality projects to open recently in LA include Hotel Per La, designed by Jaqui Seerman in a neoclassical building.

Last year, we rounded up six of the best restaurant designs in California.

The post Great White Melrose in LA offers outdoor dining on a pink-plaster patio appeared first on Dezeen.

For our latest lookbook, we've cherry-picked 10 interiors clad in shades that recall Viva Magenta after American colour company Pantone named the bright pink hue as its Color of the Year for 2023.

Pantone describes Viva Magenta as "a brave and fearless red shade that vibrates with vim and vigour" and reflects current attitudes towards experimentation and fearlessness.

"It's assertive but it's not aggressive – we refer to it as a fist in a velvet glove," said vice president of the Pantone Institute Laurie Pressman.

Shades of bright pink magenta have been used by interior designers in the projects below to brighten up spaces in locations ranging from Copenhagen to Tokyo.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring homes with sliding doors, lounges with suspended fireplaces and cottage interiors.

Shoreline Waikiki, Hawaii, by BHDM

The interior of the beachside Shoreline Waikiki hotel in Hawaii has a flamboyant colour scheme, giving it a jubilant feel that matches the island's surrounding tropical flora and fauna.

Redesigned by US studio BHDM for the "millennial-minded traveller", the accommodation has a hot-pink carpet that stretches from the reception to the ground floor lounge and contrasts the brightly coloured yellow, teal, blue and red furniture upholstery.

Find out more about Shoreline Waikiki ›

Atrium, US, by Smith Hanes Studio

Rich tones of green, raspberry and gold collide with smooth terrazzo, shiny tiles and tropical wallpaper in Atlanta bistro and restaurant Atrium.

Local architecture studio Smith Hanes Studio looked to the lines, patterns and shapes found in colourful French cafes and art deco buildings for the space, which is filled with an array of large leafy plants.

Find out more about Atrium ›

Family Kitchen, UK, by Mizzi Studio

British design studio Mizzi Studio renovated this restaurant in London botanical garden Kew Gardens, creating a whimsical eatery that wouldn't look out of place in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film.

Designed to introduce young children to new foods, the space features playful decor such as an apple-shaped seat, giant timber-weaved fungi sculptures and a magenta-coloured Ethiopian Enset tree.

Find out more about Family Kitchen ›

Maggie's Centre, UK, by Ab Rogers Design

At this Maggie's Centre cancer treatment site in Sutton, England, patients can rest and convalesce in a pinky-purple-toned living area that studio Ab Rogers Design wanted to feel cheerful, yet sensitive.

"Believing in colour's sensual and psychological power, we coloured the surrounding rooms to suit the functions and activities they host," said Ab Rogers Design founders Ab Rogers and Ernesto Bartolini.

Find out more about Maggie's Centre ›

Rotazioni and Visioni by Patricia Urquiola

The rust, mustard, dusty pink, baby blue, yellow and caramel block colours and black lines in these rugs by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola contrast the circular openings that punctuate the walls in this pared-back room.

Made from Himalayan wool and silk, the soft rugs have been used to add depth and warmth to the space.

Find out more about Rotazioni and Visioni ›

Scape, UK, by Ab Rogers Design

A ribbon of magenta pink courses through the central areas of Scape, a housing block that Hackney-based studio Ab Rogers Design refurbished for students in London's East End.

Vibrant colour-coding knits the buildings’ internal parts together, while the bedrooms are informed by the sleeping quarters of train carriages, with space-saving furniture such as cupboards that double up as desks and seating nooks nestled in the windows.

Find out more about Scape ›

Toggle Hotel, Japan, by Klein Dytham Architecture

Sandwiched between a raised expressway, a railway line and Tokyo's Kanda River, Toggle Hotel was designed by Tokyo-based Klein Dytham Architecture to stand out from the neighbouring infrastructure.

Inside each of the rooms, which guests are able to choose based on their colour preferences, the furniture, bedding, carpets and soft furnishings are all coloured in the same shade.

Find out more about Toggle Hotel ›

Casa Lana, Italy, by Triennale di Milano

A plush pinkish-red carpet covers the floor of this model apartment, which was recreated within the Triennale di Milano as part of a permanent new installation.

Originally designed by Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass for a friend, Casa Lana is arranged around a wooden enclosure with built-in shelving and sofas.

Find out more about Casa Lana ›

Resa San Mamés , Spain, by Masquespacio

Valencia-based studio Masquespacio injected splashes of its signature colour-blocking style throughout Resa San Mamés, a 1,850 square-metre building that houses 351 students in Bilbao, Spain.

In the main lobby, millennial pink paint clashes with the crimson tiles that line the walls, while soft furnishings and partitions were used to define zones elsewhere on the ground floor.

Find out more about Resa San Mamés ›

Hayarden school, Israel, by Sarit Shani Hay, Chen Steinberg Navon and Ayelet Fisher

A rainbow of colours, including a bright pink that straddles fuschia and magenta, have been used to brighten up this two-storey school in Tel Aviv, which local designer Sarit Shani Hay, architect Chen Steinberg Navon and Ayelet Fisher overhauled in 2019.

Situated in Tel Aviv's Hatikva Quarter – a neighbourhood with a high number of asylum-seekers – the school has a house-shaped reading nook and colourful paintwork, which the team hoped would help to create an inspiring learning area for the children of refugees.

Find out more about Hayarden school ›

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring Bauhaus-informed interiors, homes in converted warehouses and neutral living rooms.

The post Ten interiors tickled pink with Color of the Year Viva Magenta appeared first on Dezeen.

A hot pink called Viva Magenta that is reminiscent of blush has been named as 2023 colour of the year by the American colour company Pantone.

Described by the brand as "an unconventional red for an unconventional time", Pantone's Viva Magenta 18-1750 is a vibrant pinky colour with hints of purple that belongs to the red colour family.

"It's assertive but it's not aggressive – we refer to it as a fist in a velvet glove," said vice president of the Pantone Color Institute Laurie Pressman.

"It's a brave and fearless red shade that vibrates with vim and vigour," Pressman told Dezeen. "Its exuberance promotes optimism and joy."

Pantone's trend-forecasting research department the Pantone Color Institute selects the colour each year. It said that this year's colour choice reflects the "rebellious" spirit of the time and the renewed interest in creative experimentation following the coronavirus pandemic.

"Audacious, witty and inclusive of all, Pantone 18-1750 Viva Magenta welcomes anyone and everyone with the same rebellious spirit," said the brand.

"Powerful and empowering, it is an animated red that encourages experimentation and self-expression without restraint; an electrifying, boundaryless shade that is manifestly 'out there' and is a stand-out statement."

According to Pantone Color Institute's research, magenta pinks are already popular among the fashion and beauty community. It expects the interior world to follow suit.

Earlier this year, Italian fashion house Valentino released a magenta pink coloured fall/winter collection and models have been wearing similar shades on their eyelids and lashes.

"It's a great colour for reflecting light, which gives it a sense of fantasy and glamour," trend forecaster and Pantone Color Institute member Jane Boddy said. "It's so flattering across all skin tones and all genders."

"Traditionally you would imagine this be a colour for the lips or the cheeks whereas now we're seeing it as a solid eye colour in a painterly stroke," Boddy added.

Although Viva Magenta is part of the red colour family, Pressman argued that the colour is not as expected or "aggressive" as traditional reds thanks to its pinky tinge. Red traditionally has connotations with rage and danger.

"When you think about a red, this is not the shade you're thinking about," she said. "You're thinking about more of a true red, a classic red or an orange-red, not really these pinky red tones."

According to Boddy, despite the bright pink being relevant to today's society, the colour is still rooted in nature, where it can be found in tropical flowers and insects.

"One of the biggest inspirations behind this was also the natural world too – you can kind of imagine these sort of colours in the natural world and it has a slightly exotic feel to it," said Boddy.

This is not the first time Pantone has chosen a pink as its colour of the year. For 2016, the colour company chose a markedly lighter pastel pink with rose tones called Rose Quartz alongside Serenity, a calming light blue hue.

Last year, it named Very Peri, a purple colour described by Pantone as "a periwinkle shade of blue" as its colour of the year.

The controversy caused by the brand calling it blue was criticised by interiors expert Michelle Ogundehin, who called time on Pantone's colour of the year exercise, writing in an article on Dezeen that "it's time to reconsider the whole colour of the year carnival".

The imagery is courtesy of Huge.

Dezeen is on WeChat!

Click here to read the Chinese version of this article on Dezeen's official WeChat account, where we publish daily architecture and design news and projects in Simplified Chinese.

The post "Brave and fearless" Viva Magenta named Pantone Color of the Year 2023 appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch studio Overtreders W has used hempcrete and reclaimed timber to create a demountable pavilion in Almere, the Netherlands, named The Voice of Urban Nature.

Enclosing a series of gardens, the pavilion sits beside the central square of Floriade – an international horticultural exhibition held every 10 years in the Netherlands.

Overtreders W designed The Voice of Urban Nature to represent the cities Almere and Amsterdam at the show.

It incorporates an exhibition by architect Kossmanndejong and series of gardens by designers Joost Emmerik and De Onkruidenier, which were intended to "give nature its own 'voice'" and spotlight how the cities are striving towards a greener future.

"The cities want to show how they work individually and collectively on the green future of Almere and Amsterdam, together with the power of nature and their citizens," Overtreders W told Dezeen.

"Almere and Amsterdam give nature its own 'voice' in their entry as an equal partner of humans."

The site of the pavilion is adjacent to the main square of Floriade 2022, which forms part of a wider masterplan for the event developed by Dutch studio MVRDV.

Overtreders W transformed its dedicated plot into an enclosed garden, which is divided into a grid of squares.

"We wanted to create an enclosed garden and therefore decided to spread out the design over the entire plot," explained the studio.

"Approaching the pavilion, it initially appears enclosed with minimal openings, but those who enter experience the light and tranquil walled garden beyond."

The Voice of Urban Nature's structure is built from a mix of pink-hued hempcrete and contrasting wood that is finished with a black coating of linseed oil and carbon.

Its framework is fully demountable and was built by construction contractor Fiction Factory using wood sourced from scrapyards and sawmills in the area.

Hempcrete, otherwise known as hemp lime, was chosen for the project as it is a biodegradable, durable and insulating material. To make it, hemp fibres are mixed with lime and water.

The hemp fibres used were also sourced locally, purchased from a farmer outside the city, and mixed with natural pink pigments from madder dye plants to give the final material a "contemporary look".

"Hemp lime is a biobased building material with a lot of potentials," said Overtreders W.

"[We] had been experimenting for some time to give the material a fresher and more contemporary look with natural pigments. This project was an opportunity to put those experiments into practice."

While constructing with hempcrete is not a new concept, the way it has been utilised at The Voice of Urban Nature is, according to the studio.

Overtreders W has applied the hemp lime within demountable wooden boxes, making easily demountable modules that can be reused. It is now developing the construction system, with the hope that The Voice of Urban Nature will become a scalable prototype.

"Overtreders W wants to further develop the demountable construction system of wooden boxes filled with lime hemp for use in temporary pavilions with a lifespan of approximately 15 years," said the studio.

"The Voice of Urban Nature then becomes a first step in a larger, scalable and more permanent development, something Overtreders W always tries with its built experiments."

Inside the pavilion are six gardens, each curated to a different theme to show the variety and potential of urban nature.

The landscaping by Joost Emmerik and De Onkruidenier strives to be organic and curved, juxtaposing the gridded form of the pavilion.

Winding between the plants is a pathway made from white oyster shells, reclaimed from local fishing industry waste.

The gardens feature QR codes leading to "audio encounters" or mini podcasts recorded by producers Jesper Buursink and Dina Kabba, which explain how people can commit to a greener future.

"From nature optimists, city tree planters, and material choreographers to a little boy who searches for herbs between paving stones: they all make the city a little greener," said Overtreders W, reflecting on the contributors to the mini podcasts.

"That enthusiasm is contagious and challenges you to contribute to or join one of the initiatives."

At the end of the festival in October, the pavilion will be demounted and transported to a new location to be rebuilt.

Overtreders W's hope is that two new pavilions will be made from its structure, one of which will be placed elsewhere in Almere and another in Amsterdam.

Founded by Reinder Bakker and Hester van Dijk, Overtreders W is a small Amsterdam-based spatial design agency that specialises in temporary structures and sustainable materials.

It recently collaborated with Dutch studio Bureau SLA to create Pretty Plastic, shingles that are made from recycled PVC windows and gutters. Other projects by the studio include the temporary RAUM pavilion in Utrecht, which employed the principles of a circular economy and a zero-waste barn and restaurant for a Dutch festival.

The photography is by Jorn van Eck.

Project credits:

Architect: Overtreders W
Client: Municipalities of Almere & Amsterdam
Exhibition design and art direction: KossmannDeJong
Landscape design: De Onkruidenier and Joost Emmerik
Construction and urban mining: Fiction Factory
Exhibition drawings: Paul Faassen
Gardener: Paul Casteleijn
Horticulturist: Blooming Business
Animation: Paul Faassen, Bas Mooij, Jonas Leopold

The post Pink hempcrete brightens demountable Floriade pavilion by Overtreders W appeared first on Dezeen.

US studio Architensions has designed an asymmetrical addition with pink tile and grey stucco called House on House for a home in Long Island that is meant to "subvert the typology" of the suburban dwelling. 

The project entailed the renovation and expansion of a compact, 1960s home in the suburban town of Babylon, New York.

The name stems from the addition of an upper-level volume that "looks as if another house has been placed on top of the house", said Brooklyn-based Architensions, which was founded by Alessandro Orsini and Nick Roseboro.

The project started in 2018, when the owner commissioned Architensions to update his 850-square-foot (79-square-metre) residence in a way that "reflected his adventurous design ambitions".

The client desired a larger, less introverted home that offered a feeling of porosity between the interior, the backyard and the neighbourhood.

"Rather uniquely, the client was not interested in approaching the project from the perspective of resale value," the studio said.

"The idea of the commodification of architecture as a real estate asset did not emerge throughout the development of the design."

After deeply researching the local area, the designers put forward a design that represents a juxtaposition of past and present and "challenges the cookie-cutter, single-family suburban typology typical of the surrounding area".

On the ground level, the home's original shape and grey vinyl siding were retained. Up above, however, the team added a sculptural, gabled mass clad in thick grey stucco and smooth ceramic tiles coloured pastel pink.

"In several places, the tile descends onto exterior walls of the original home in inverted arcs, arches and swoops, as if the new is slowly overtaking the old," the team said.

The street-facing side of the addition is carved away to form a semi-circular terrace – a subversion of patios found in the area, which are typically oriented toward the backyard.

The existing structure was also revamped inside; the kitchen and living room were opened up, and a study area and guest room were added.

A service core houses a bathroom, laundry equipment and a closet.

Windows and doors were repositioned in order to strengthen the relationship between inside and out.

These changes are hinted at on the exterior – as the windows were moved on the existing structure, the tiles from the addition were extended down.

"We introduced the ceramic tiles to establish the duality between new versus existing," said the studio.

A new, cylindrical staircase – its shape informed by space constraints – connects the ground level to the extension above.

"The stair needed to be compacted to save on space, but it also needed to be part of the layout as an element of separation, without being a wall," Architensions said.

Upstairs, one finds a primary bedroom held within a large, open space. The staircase serves as a partition between the sleeping area and the front patio.

The bathroom features a window bench and grey-and-white terrazzo. A "communal sink" – located in a niche between the bathroom and a walk-in closet – is meant to question "traditional concepts of modesty and privacy", the studio said.

The team used yellow throughout the interior to define spaces, emphasize transitions and brighten up the atmosphere.

"The interior was originally painted white, which conveyed a numbness, or fear of colour," the studio said.

As noted, the project was informed by extensive research, specifically in regard to the "cultural history and architectural taxonomy" of the surrounding area.

The home is near Levittown, a planned community of standardized, affordable homes that were built by Levitt & Sons, Inc between 1947 and 1951 – just after World War II – and served as a catalyst for suburban developments throughout America.

While these communities made home ownership possible for many Americans, they often were not accessible to Black or Indigenous families, said Architension.

Moreover, they tended to have "architectural features and layouts that fostered the isolation and introversion of the nuclear family, rather than community".

The designers noted that the wood-framed homes were made with industrial techniques that did not permit much customization. Generally, variation was found only on the facade via decorative elements influenced by neo-classical and Victorian styles.

While conceiving House on House, Orsini and Roseboro produced a taxonomy of architectural elements – such as windows, porches and roofs – typically found on suburban homes, which they would then hack and remix.

"In order to subvert the typology, we needed to become intimately familiar with it – then remix and subvert it," said Roseboro.

"We explored design solutions that addressed the existing home's relationship with the history, context and vernacular," added Orsini.

"We wanted to discover a new spatial paradigm that would link the architecture of the house to its social narrative."

Architensions has created a variety of projects in New York and beyond, including a tiny writer's studio in a Brooklyn garden and an installation at the 2022 Coachella music festival that looks like a giant, surreal playground.

The photography is by Michael Vahrenwald at ESTO.

Project credits:

Architecture: Architensions
Design team: Alessandro Orsini, Nick Roseboro, Anna Laura Pinto, Gerald Rubia, Giorgia Gerardi
Architect of record: Hany Rizkalla
Structural engineer: Seborga Engineering
General contractor: Thomas James Construction

The post Architensions places sculptural addition on top of a suburban New York home appeared first on Dezeen.

From the bubble-gum-coloured cabinets of a Tokyo apartment to the rosy mosaics found in a modernist Grecian villa, our latest lookbook rounds up 10 pink kitchens from the Dezeen archives.

Architects and designers often reach for different shades of pink when they want to add interest and personality to a functional space, such as a kitchen.

Sometimes this takes the form of isolated pops of colour, as seen below in the kitchen islands in a Minsk design office and a creekside home in Lithuania.

Elsewhere, all of the surfaces from the walls and floors down to the kitchen sink are finished tonally in different shades of pink, as evidenced here by two different Spanish apartments.

This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen's archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks showcasing home interiors that make use of statement windows, board-formed concrete and textured cork-covered walls.

Nagatachō Apartment, Japan, by Adam Nathaniel Furman

A saccharine, bubblegum-pink kitchen suite sits at the heart of this apartment in Tokyo by British designer Adam Nathaniel Furman, clashed playfully with stripes of "watermelon-green" vinyl flooring.

"A lot of the way I described the project as I was developing it was through taste and references to cooking and food, so that the colour scheme became a matter of choosing ingredients for a beautifully calibrated visual feast," Furman told Dezeen.

Find out more about Nagatachō Apartment ›

St Minas House, Greece, by Neiheiser Argyros

Neiheiser Argyros used playful colours and materials to complement the existing modernist details of a 1970s villa near Athens, which the architecture practice overhauled last year.

The kitchen's limited material palette of exposed brick and board-formed concrete was rounded off with unexpected touches, such as perforated aluminium cabinets and a dusty-pink mosaic backsplash with matching counters.

Find out more about St Minas House ›

Minimal Fantasy apartment, Spain, by Patricia Bustos Studio

All of the rooms and most of the surfaces in this holiday apartment in Madrid are finished in some shade of pink – all the way down to the kitchen sink.

Local practice Patricia Bustos Studio only broke from the colour scheme when it came to the cupboard fronts, which are interrupted by brass detailing and geometric shapes in denim and baby blue.

Find out more about Minimal Fantasy apartment ›

Mixtape Apartment, Spain, by Azab

Pale pink walls and cupboard doors help to jazz up this kitchen in a 1960s apartment, which Spanish architecture studio Azab has overhauled for a retiree in Bilbao.

Mismatched herringbone floor tiles tie the colour scheme together, bringing in little flavours of mint green and cherry red alongside a muted beige to match the timber trim on the kitchen frons.

Find out more about Mixtape Apartment ›

Studio11 office, Belarus, by Studio11

When designing its own workplace in Minsk, interiors practice Studio11 aimed to steer clear of the simple industrial aesthetic favoured by many design and architecture offices.

That meant juxtaposing the interior's raw concrete and plaster surfaces with vibrant accents, such as an abstract portrait by Belarusian painter Zakhar Kudin or a blush-coloured counter, which is set in front of the half-painted blue walls in the shared kitchen.

Find out more about the Studio11 office ›

Lerma workshop, Argentinia, by Estudio Nu

Argentinian practice Estudio Nu created this communal kitchen when dividing up its own design studio, set in a former dental mechanics workshop in Buenos Aires, in order to create accessible office spaces for other local creatives.

Here, speckled pink tiles were chosen to match the interior's muted material palette, which combines rippled glass doors with pale timber walls and concrete floors.

Find out more about Lerma workshop ›

Designers Remix showroom, Denmark, by Reform

Danish brand Reform, which specialises in customising IKEA kitchen suites, took inspiration from the colour schemes and gradients of makeup palettes when designing the break-out area of this fashion showroom in Copenhagen.

Here, kitchen fronts from Reform's Basis collection are finished in progressively deeper pastel shades ranging from peach to blush and dark rose, contrasted against a jet-black sink and tap.

Find out more about Designers Remix showroom ›

House and the River, Lithuania, by After Party

White walls, floors and ceilings create a bright, modern backdrop inside this creek-side house in northern Lithuania, with character added in the form of antique Soviet-era furnishings and splashes of unexpected colour.

Its monochrome kitchen is tucked under a mezzanine and punctuated by a salmon-coloured island with a terrazzo countertop in ballet-slipper pink.

Find out more about House and the River ›

Apartment in Born, Spain, by Colombo and Serboli Architecture

An arched, coral-pink volume squeezes in a second bathroom next to the kitchen of this compact apartment, which is set in a 13th-century residential building in Barcelona's historic El Born neighbourhood.

This same motif is repeated in the breakfast island with its curved worktop made of pink quartz and the matching rose-tinted dining table.

Find out more about Apartment in Born ›

Maison Pour Dodo, UK, by Studio Merlin

Pale, plaster-coloured walls and Douglas fir floorboards are contrasted against smokey blue cabinets inside this flat in London's Stoke Newington, which local practice Studio Merlin overhauled for founder Josh Piddock and his girlfriend.

The interior combines what Piddock describes as a "spectrum of storage", ranging from a hacked IKEA kitchen suite topped with a concrete Caesarstone counter to open, pantry-style shelves squeezed in above a small seating nook.

Find out more about Maison Pour Dodo ›

This is the latest in our series of lookbooks providing curated visual inspiration from Dezeen's image archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks showcasing statement windows, board-formed concrete and textured cork-covered walls.

The post Ten playful pink kitchens that use colour in unexpected ways appeared first on Dezeen.

A pink-concrete canopy shelters a seating area around a small garden at the Courtyard Pavilion in Hargeisa, the capital of the autonomous region of Somaliland, designed by local studio Rashid Ali Architects.

Hargeisa and London studio Rashid Ali Architects designed the pavilion as a social space, complete with a water fountain and a "miniature botanical garden".

Its design draws on the civic role of trees in the area and features native plants from across Somaliland, the region that declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Internationally, it is still considered to be part of the country.

"The tree has a unique role in the culture of Somalis," the studio's founder Rashid Ali told Dezeen.

"Historically it's a space where stories are shared, ceremonies are held and disputes are settled," Ali added."At the site, there once stood a famous acacia tree that formed a symbol of civic life."

"The structure attempts to pay homage to this beloved tree, by reimagining and reconstructing its former role in the city."

Located on a triangular site, the Courtyard Pavilion sits on a concrete base wrapped by a low wall. A small garden at its centre is surrounded by bench-like concrete seating and a public water fountain.

Thin columns support the pitched canopy above, shading the seating areas while allowing sunlight onto the garden through a large central void.

The distinctive reddish-pink colour of the concrete canopy and columns was drawn from the red sand found in the regions surrounding the city.

"The idea was to provide a durable and colourful form that gives a sense of permanence," Ali told Dezeen.

"Formally, there is also an oblique reference to the temporary wooden structures on stilts found in small villages across the region," the architect continued.

As well as referencing the previous tree on the site, Courtyard Pavilion aims to promote the need to sustain native plant ecosystems in urban areas.

"The idea of inserting plants in the heart of the pavilion is to offer experiential contrast to the immediate and surrounding city spaces, which can feed hard and noisy," Ali told Dezeen.

"Some of the plants will, over time, exceed the height of the canopy and further soften the intense mid-day sunlight through the void," he continued.

Rashid Ali Architects, formerly known as RA Projects, was founded by Ali in 2011. Previous projects by the studio include the refurbishment of a house owned by fashion designer Roksanda Ilincic that features a blue steel staircase designed to look "like a sculpture in a gallery".

The arrival of summer in the northern hemisphere has seen the completion of several other pavilion projects, including a tree-filled "floating forest" in Milan by Italian architect Stefano Boeri and London's annual Serpentine Pavilion, which was designed by artist Theaster Gates this year.

The photography is by Lyndon Douglas.

The post Rashid Ali creates pink-concrete pavilion with "miniature botanical garden" in Somaliland appeared first on Dezeen.

Designer Lara Bohinc has created a collection of curvy furniture that intends to celebrate the female form, which was on display as part of Milan design week.

Called Peaches, the handmade collection includes three pieces of seating by Bohinc that are available in shades of both bold red and dusty pink.

The Big Girl armchair is the largest piece in the collection. Characterised by bobbly, swollen-looking shapes made from a wooden and steel structure covered with foam and wool, the chair creates a cradle-style seat.

Also made of wood, steel, foam and wool, the Derriere armchair has a similar, low-slung shape while Peachy is a bulging pouf designed to echo the fleshy folds of skin.

Taking cues from the curves of the female form, the designer explained that she wanted to light-heartedly reclaim words regularly attached to women's bodies for the collection.

"Like much of my work, the design is playful and a little bit sexy so I wanted to ensure the names of each piece reflected that aspect of the design," Bohinc told Dezeen.

"The collection was inspired by bosoms and bottoms so I played with words that are often associated with these parts of the body and so we landed on Peaches for the overall collection name and Derriere, Peachy and Big Girl for the individual pieces."

Bohinc used eye-catching hues of red and pink for the furniture, which she said nods to the vibrant colours often found in her work.

"Red and pink are both very sensual, so it felt instinctive to initially present the collection in those two colours," she acknowledged. "Red is also my favourite colour."

While the seating collection is functional furniture, Bohinc explained that its curvaceous shapes were specifically designed to inclusively celebrate the many varied bodies women have.

"We often see the female form depicted in art, photography and design but so often based on a more slender silhouette."

"However, I was inspired by big voluptuous surfaces that represent and celebrate larger and more shapely curves of the female form."

Presented alongside three porcelain vases by Bohinc, Peaches was on display as part of an exhibition at design platform Alcova during Milan design week, which concluded last Sunday.

Bohinc is a London-based designer who is on the judging panel for the 2022 Dezeen Awards. Her first collection of chairs was informed by the shapes of planets and their orbits while she also previously created a series of interlocking boxes covered in traditional Japanese laquer.

The photography is by Rebecca Reid. 

Milan design week took place from 6 to 12 June 2022 in Milan, Italy. See our Milan design week 2022 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks that took place throughout the week.

The post Lara Bohinc designs voluptuous seating collection to be "playful and a little bit sexy" appeared first on Dezeen.

In this week's comments update, readers are debating Balenciaga covering its Mount Street store in London in bright pink faux fur and discussing other top stories.

To launch its Le Cagole collection, fashion brand Balenciaga has transformed its Mount Street store in London by blanketing the interior in bright pink faux fur.

"The line, which now includes multiple bags, wallet, and shoe styles, reinvents Balenciaga codes in the tradition of maximalist It Bags of another era," said Balenciaga.

"Looks like a unicorn sneezed"

Readers are torn. "Everything looks good in pink!" said Ken Steffes.

Muckers270 was less keen: "Looks like a unicorn sneezed. God help them if someone drags in doggy-doo or chewing gum on the sole of their shoes."

"How many muppets had to die for this pop-up?" asked Jack Oliver.

Christopher Laurence had more serious concerns: "Nothing like filling your store with a load of oil-based plastic fake fur for Instagram clicks. They've attempted to address it in the press statement, but it's not a real solution, the majority will end up in the skip."

"It'll all be in a landfill in three months," replied The Resistance. "It is a statement on climate change. Just the wrong one."

Is the fur-covered store too much? Join the discussion ›

Reader thinks apartment block is "ambitious" but "too aggressive"

Commenters are discussing an arc-shaped cluster of holiday apartments overlooking the Venetian Lagoon in Jesolo, Italy. The Building Descending the Stairs was designed by architecture practices ElasticoFarm and Bplan Studio. 

"I quite like the concept," said Bobby Dazzler. "I do however believe the horizontal elements/balconies are too fractured. Elongating these elements would create a more subtle form."

MKE Tom agreed: "It appears to be a lot of needless gyrations going on at many different scales."

"Ambitious form-making," concluded Heywood Floyd, "but in the end probably too aggressive. Stirling did it better 60 years ago anyway."

Is the apartment block "too aggressive"? Join the discussion ›

Commenter says "you can't make big claims about being carbon positive when you're relying on off-setting"

Readers aren't sold on claims that a Denver hotel named Poplus, designed by architecture firm Studio Gang, will be the "first carbon-positive" hotel in the United States.

"This looks fabulous in some images and terrible in others," said Archi.

"Off-setting with trees – come on!" continued Ima Nerdee. "You can't make big claims about being carbon positive when you're relying on off-setting. I was anticipating something innovative such as an activated lime facade that absorbs carbon by the ton."

Peter Wilson agreed: "The cynicism in describing this irredeemably ugly, context-devoid one-liner of a concrete structure as carbon-positive, because its developers say they are going to plant trees in some unknown location, is simply breathtaking."

What do you think? Join the discussion ›

Reader thinks we should put "barbaric" cow device "on a human and see how they like it"

Commenters are annoyed by the design for a methane-catching cow muzzle, which is among the winning projects of the inaugural Terra Carta Design Lab competition. The competition is run by The Prince of Wales and former Apple designer Jony Ive.

"Eat less beef," suggested Ken Steffes. "Unnaturally covering an animal's face is a problem looking for a solution. Let's just put this barbaric device on a human and see how they like it?"

"A cow needs its nose to eat," continued AM. "Otherwise, it does not know how or what to grasp with its tongue."

"Cows wearing masks and filters almost looks like a robotic cow now, the 'cow-borgs'," added Alex. "I wonder what animal rights foundations would think about that idea even if it isn't 'harmful' to a cow."

Are readers overreacting? Join the discussion ›

Comments update

Dezeen is the world's most commented architecture and design magazine, receiving thousands of comments each month from readers. Keep up to date on the latest discussions on our comments page.

The post Commenter calls fur-covered Balenciaga fashion store "the wrong statement on climate change" appeared first on Dezeen.

Fashion brand Balenciaga has transformed its Mount Street store in London, creating a maximalist look to launch its Le Cagole collection by blanketing the interior in bright pink faux fur.

To celebrate its popular Le Cagole bag, which references Balenciaga's maximalist It Bags of the past, and launch the line's collection of accessories and shoes, the entire interior of the store has been covered in fur.

The brand removed its accessories, ready-to-wear collections and permanent shelving from the store and installed temporary, metal fixtures – taken from the brand's previous projects and installations – throughout.

Balenciaga wrapped these temporary fixtures and displays in a fluffy, bright pink faux fur chosen for its maximalist look to tie with the Le Cagole bag identity.

"The line, which now includes multiple bags, wallet, and shoe styles, reinvents Balenciaga codes in the tradition of maximalist It Bags of another era," said Balenciaga.

"Le Cagole pop-ups are in keeping with this spirit, covered entirely with bright pink fake fur. Shelves, displays, floors, seating, and even racks in the open-plan kiosks are lined in pink."

The Le Cagole, which Vogue has dubbed the "new it-bag", was designed by Balenciaga's creative director Demna, who reinvented one of the house's most iconic bags – the Balenciaga Motorcycle bag.

First released in 2001 by Nicholas Ghesquiere, who led a 15-year tenure as creative director at the house from 1997 to 2012, the Motorcycle bag quickly became a staple of the 2000s.

Demna's Le Cagole collection, which was first launched as a collection of handbags, has now extended into a number of different bags, shoes and purses. It takes its name from French slang that refers to an "over-the-top attitude".

The pieces employ the same detailing, hardware and rivets as Ghesquiere's 2001 Motorcycle bag, which have been applied across a number of accessories including knee-high stiletto boots, mini-purses and oversized rhinestone-embellished handbags.

The fur-lined Le Cagole pop-up is open at Balenciaga's Mount Street store in London from April through until June 2022.

Balenciaga told Dezeen that the metal fixtures and displays would be reused for future projects, and it is looking into ways in which the fur can be repurposed and reused in different contexts.

"Each Le Cagole pop-up fixture base was made of reused metal from previous projects. After the faux fur is removed, the metal will be reused again for future projects," it said.

"We are currently researching the best way in which we can donate the faux fur so that it can be reused in manufacturing toys, for example."

For the fashion brand's Autumn Winter 2022 collection, the house created a "snow globe" where models walked the runway in a blizzard as a comment on both the climate crisis and the Ukraine war.

In late 2021, Balenciaga renovated its flagship store in London and debuted its "raw architecture" store aesthetic.

Photos are courtesy of Balenciaga.

Dezeen is on WeChat!

Click here to read the Chinese version of this article on Dezeen's official WeChat account, where we publish daily architecture and design news and projects in Simplified Chinese.

The post Balenciaga wraps London store in pink faux fur to celebrate its Le Cagole "it-bag" appeared first on Dezeen.

Mexican architect Ian Pablo Amores has completed a boutique hotel in San Miguel de Allende with a pink facade and a landscaped garden lounge.

The Quinta Amores hotel is located in the Los Frailes neighbourhood of San Miguel de Allende, a city in central Mexico that is known for its Spanish colonial architecture and cobblestone streets.

Five pink-hued buildings make up the resort, which was built on a rectangular lot filled with vegetation.

From the street, guests pass a gate into a reception wing, which has roof projection to provide shade and support a hammock.

The colour, which was prepared specifically for the hotel, was mixed on-site and chosen for its relationship to the colonial buildings of San Miguel de Allende.

"In the state of Guanajuato, you can see these colors (reds, orange, pink, etc) in almost every colonial building," Ian Pablo Amores told Dezeen.

"I try to relate the project with the context of San Miguel de Allende. I made around 15 samples of colour and I saw that this type of pink was very special with the natural light of the site," the architect added.

A lush courtyard has landscaped paths and a sunken conversation pit.

"The set is built around a spacious amenity that functions as a meeting point between families," said the architect, describing the courtyard as "a space that conveys a sense of belonging that accompanies the guest in his voyage through San Miguel de Allende."

Four suites make up the small hotel. Two single-storey rooms are at the front of the property, with another pair of two-storey volumes at the back that can accommodate families.

Each of the guest rooms has a private exterior space that is separated from the communal garden by a stone wall. These smaller courtyards are the main access to the guest rooms, and some of them include a sculptural stone bathtub.

The buildings' exterior surfaces are all the same pink colour, which provides some contrast to the courtyard's greenery and natural stone floors. The finish is a cementitious material similar to stucco.

Inside, the architects used a palette of warm wooden furniture, red tile floors, and simple white walls.

Ian Pablo Amores started his eponymous architecture practice in 2021 called Estudio Ian Pablo Amores and nicknamed Estudio IPA. The boutique hotel counts as one of his first individual projects.

Mexico has recently seen the construction of several smaller, design-forward hotels. Other examples include a hotel in Querétaro that was built within a neocolonial villa that belonged to a local philanthropist and the El Perdido hotel in Baja California Sur, which was made of rammed-earth walls covered in thatched roofs.

The photography is by César Béjar.

The post Ian Pablo Amores creates pink hotel with courtyard garden in San Miguel de Allende appeared first on Dezeen.

A "rather fabulous" fictitious muse influenced the design of this richly decorated bar and restaurant in Melbourne by local interiors studio Bergman & Co.

Dame recently opened in the IM Pei-designed Collins Place, a mixed-use complex in the East End of the city.

The concrete development was completed in 1981, so Bergman & Co looked to this decade for inspiration when devising a concept for the bar's interior.

"The narrative of Dame is centred around a fictitious 1980s muse; a powerful, well connected and rather fabulous woman," said the team, led by director Wendy Bergman.

The fictional character's power and femininity are reflected in elements like the curved bar counter, made from blush-toned marble.

Her portrait, painted by local Melbourne artist Stacey Rees, hangs behind the bar to tie the concept together.

Pale pink curtains divide the space from the building lobby and are draped dramatically to create an entryway.

Diners are presented with multiple seating options around the restaurant's glazed periphery.

Communal tables feature dark wooden tops and glass block supports, nodding to the gridded architecture of the setting.

Above, pendant lights created in collaboration with Melbourne design studio Please Please Please are delicately suspended like pieces of jewellery.

Banquette seating wrapped in dark textured fabric creates cosy booths, while more casual round tables are paired with wicker-backed chairs.

"A sumptuous banquette setting finished in rich, earthen tones creates a subtle sense of nostalgia, warming the building's otherwise restrained palette of architectural finishes," said Bergman & Co.

"Quilted upholstery and 1980s-inspired furniture complete the aesthetic tableau, offering an elevated, all-day dining space," the studio added.

Glossy red table lamps and pendants are also scattered through the space, uniting a palette that feels rich and warm against the building's grey terrazzo flooring.

Pink marble is similarly used at Melbourne's Pentolina restaurant, designed by Biasol.

Other dining and drinking establishments with notable interiors around Australia's second-largest city include Studio Esteta's Via Porta and Three Blue Ducks by Pattern.

The photography is by Eve Wilson.

The post Theatrical curtains drape around Dame bar by Bergman & Co appeared first on Dezeen.

The clean geometry of Dieter Rams' industrial designs informed Winter House, a virtual residence by digital artist Andrés Reisinger and architect Alba de la Fuente that exists in a pink-hued winter world.

Designed as a hideaway in a snowy forest, the two-storey house is characterised by floor-to-ceiling glass windows and rectilinear volumes.

Winter House is stacked on a large concrete slab to create a "floating floor", underneath which a glass box houses a chunky concrete staircase that leads visitors from the front door into the house.

A tubular pink elevator runs from the top to the bottom of the structure and can be seen through the house's glass facade.

Argentinian digital artist Reisinger created the house together with Madrid-based architect De la Fuente to reflect the early 1960s projects of industrial designer Dieter Rams, while also exploring winter in the metaverse.

"We wanted to picture what this time of year looks like in the metaverse, and so we gathered all the feelings that we associate winter with – mainly stillness and comfort – and transported them into this parallel reality," Reisinger told Dezeen.

The metaverse is an umbrella term for any virtual-reality space where users can interact in a computer-generated environment such as the snow-covered landscape designed for Winter House.

Reisinger explained that the house's expansive windows intend to connect the inside and outside spaces, all of which have been rendered with a subtle splash of pink.

The virtual residence features a selection of minimalist furniture arranged in open-plan rooms that nod to modernist interior design.

An angular fireplace is suspended from a skylight in the living room, which has low-slung pink sofas and sleek, light-grey floors that add a wintery feeling to the interior.

"I like to use furniture as the protagonists of my spaces," Reisinger said. "I always push reality to a limit where it feels slightly distorted, but not explicitly – I only want to add a light touch of oddness, to unsettle viewers."

The digital artist explained that Winter House is a virtual residential project that can be applied to any metaverse, and is the second house of its kind that he has designed in collaboration with De la Fuente.

Designing virtual houses for the metaverse is no different to ones in the real world, Reisinger said.

"It's the same as for the physical world: these houses are designed to live in and use as curated spaces to showcase ourselves," he explained.

"I truly believe that we can use the metaverse as an exploration territory to apply successful outputs to our beloved physical world," he added.

"I see terrestrial nature and the metaverse as travelling in the same direction, not in opposition or contradiction."

Increasing interaction with the metaverse could even lead to a stronger relationship with nature, according to Reisinger.

"I envision that if we can transfer a good portion of our interest in buying material objects to the metaverse, then we’ll be able to strengthen our relationship with nature in our physical world," he said.

Reisinger revealed that Winter House is at the forefront of a new metaverse architecture company that he is spearheading with other creative partners, but said further information on this is not currently available.

After rising to prominence on Instagram through his distinctly dream-like renderings, Reisinger has completed a number of other virtual projects. These include the sale of a collection of virtual furniture that fetched almost $70,000 at an NFT online auction.

An armchair from the collection, called Hortensia, was recently made into a physical object with the assistance of Dutch design brand Moooi.

The renderings are courtesy of Andrés Reisinger and Alba de la Fuente.

The post Andrés Reisinger and Alba de la Fuente design modernist house in frosty metaverse landscape appeared first on Dezeen.

British studio RX Architects referenced Mediterranean beach houses when designing Seabreeze, a coastal holiday home in East Sussex that is covered in smooth pink concrete.

Located on Camber Sands beach in England, the dwelling is designed for a couple with three children who wanted to replace a house that previously occupied the site.

Provided with an open brief, Rye-based RX Architects used the opportunity to create a playful dwelling for the family with an interior that could adapt to their changing needs.

However, as the home is on a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) – an area designated for conservation – the scale and massing of the home were restricted by planning guidelines that only allowed a "one for one replacement".

"The intention was to create a comfortable and fun house that they could enjoy both as a couple, and with the family – as well as being adaptable as the children get older," explained the studio's founder Rob Pollard.

"They gave a very open brief which was great, however, given the very sensitive nature of the site, the overall scale and massing was limited," he told Dezeen.

Externally, Seabreeze is distinguished by its flush facade, with windows that are designed without ledges to prevent the collection of sand.

Sealed with durable microfibre concrete, which is coloured with pink pigment, the exterior helps the house to withstand high winds, moving sand and salt air.

"The neighbouring properties require significant maintenance due to the extreme weather, and the driving sand which quickly works its way into the building fabric and begins to deteriorate it," Pollard explained.

"The external material choice was selected as a way to combat this, by removing any junctions or material changes at eaves or ridge level to create an entirely sealed and wrapped facade."

The house is also designed without gutters, as these could get blocked by sand. Instead, water is encouraged to run off the house into the sand where it naturally drains away.

Due to the deliberately simple form of the house, RX Architects used the pink pigment in the concrete finish to soften its overall visual impact.

"We experimented with various samples, but wanted something that softened the look which could be harsh," reflected Pollard.

"The pink is reminiscent of traditional Mediterranean beach houses with their natural pink plastered elevations, and this particular colour offsets against the ever-changing sky to give both a subdued appearance on overcast days and a more vibrant appearance on brighter days."

Inside, Seabreeze comprises an open-plan living area with large windows overlooking the beach, alongside three double bedrooms, two ensuite bedrooms and a family bathroom.

There is also a small spa, which includes a steam room, a sauna and a plunge pool.

The main bedroom is complete with a window seat, which was designed to give users the feeling that they are hovering over the beach with uninterrupted views out to sea.

This window is also positioned to perfectly frame the sea when viewed from the bed.

Like the exterior, all of the home's internal finishes are chosen to be hardwearing. However, they are also intended to offer warmth and tactility.

These include smoked oak cladding, terrazzo flooring that emulates beach pebbles and textured natural lime paint on the walls.

Outside, the house is complete with a wooden deck that leads onto the sand dunes and the sea beyond.

This is partially bordered by a curving wall made from weathering steel, designed to hold back sand and protect the terrace.

The Seabreeze house is heated and cooled using two 90-metre-deep ground source heat pumps, along with a mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system (MVHR).

According to the studio, this helps to maintain a comfortable interior environment in tandem with the thermal mass and energy efficiency of the building envelope.

RX Architects was founded in 2016 by Rob Pollard and Derek Rankin. Other projects by the studio include Druim, a house on the Rye Nature Reserve that is clad in larch and incorporated part of an unfinished building.

Other pink homes featured on Dezeen include a converted winery in Portugal by Extrastudio, a Vietnamese residence by 23o5studio with geometric openings and a townhouse in England designed by Office S&M.

The photography is by Richard Chivers.

Project credits:

Architect: RX Architects
Contractor: Coast View Properties
Joinery: Chartwood Design
M&E: Baltic Heating
Kitchen: Portrait Kitchens
Tiles: Mandarin Stone
Sanitary Ware: Vado

The post Pink concrete covers "fun house" on English coast by RX Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Birch plywood sufaces and a pale pink sofa feature in a members-only spa in Manhattan's West Village designed by architecture studio Büro Koray Duman for a celebrity trainer.

The spa is found inside the S10 "cult gym" belonging to trainer Stephen Cheuk, whose clients include musicians Diplo and Joe Jonas. The facility's name comes from the level of body fat – sub 10 percent – that Cheuk advises for his male clients.

The fitness club is spread across two levels in an old manufacturing building in the West Village.

The ground level has a 600-square-foot (56-square-metre) coffee and smoothie shop, while the basement level holds a gym and recovery spa totalling 7,200 square feet (669 square metres).

While designing the project, local firm Büro Koray Duman sought to maintain industrial qualities while producing a serene atmosphere within the spa.

"The overarching design goal was to create a calming, soothing and light-filled space to contrast the rawness of the gym," the architects said.

A staircase and elevator lead down to the basement level, where visitors encounter a lobby with a white marble desk and a slatted wall made of Baltic birch plywood. Behind the slats is the facility's name rendered in laser-cut, opaque plexiglass.

Just off the foyer is a rectangular fitness room, which features a black-and-white colour palette and square columns wrapped with mirrors.

The foyer also provides access to the spa, which is L-shaped in plan. Members travel down a corridor and pass by lockers, changing areas, bathrooms and massage rooms.

Upon turning a corner, they discover an airy common space lined with six private spa rooms. The space is adorned with a pink 1969 Verpan Cloverleaf Sofa by Danish designer Verner Panton.

Underfoot is white flooring, and overhead are half arches intended to offer "a sense of progression and arrival", the architects said.

Similar to the lobby, the team used birch plywood for doors and wall panels. Spa room doors are marked with a number made of black film and inserted into wooden slots.

Above the doors are arched openings infilled with polycarbonate, enabling light to pass through.

Each spa room has its own steam shower, infrared sauna and soaking tub. Design elements include warm-toned cedar steps and clear glass with a translucent film.

Throughout the subterranean spa, the team put a special focus on lighting to make up for the lack of windows.

"Lighting was the most important element of the project," the architects said. "We offset bright LED strips from polycarbonate-panelled walls for the space to appear as if it were filled with natural light."

Büro Koray Duman also designed the fitness club's coffee and smoothie bar, which was completed after the project's photo shoot.

Based in New York and Istanbul, the studio has a diverse portfolio of projects that includes a Brooklyn apartment with staggered bookshelves and a Greenwich Village pizzeria with an open kitchen and volcanic stone shelving.

The photography is by Büro Koray Duman.

The post Büro Koray Duman creates airy spa for underground S10 gym in Manhattan appeared first on Dezeen.

Oversized signage, large props and pink hues feature in Glossier's new location in Los Angeles, designed by the beauty brand's in-house team.

L-shaped in plan, the store stretches along Melrose Avenue and West Knoll Drive in West Hollywood. It sits a few blocks from Glossier's former LA store, which was shuttered in 2020 due to coronavirus.

For the new space, the company's in-house design team turned to classic Hollywood studios for inspiration. The first reference is visible on the shop's eye-catching exterior.

"Taking up almost the entire block, the store features gigantic, billboard-like Glossier lettering on its facade – the Glossier version of the Hollywood sign," the team said.

The designers also made sure to incorporate the brand's signature pink hues.

"Pink is our brand colour, and though the shade varies per store based on what fits the space and concept best, we always include it in our palette," the team said.

The LA store contains three distinct areas, each with product displays and bespoke elements.

Upon entering, visitors encounter a large globe made of polished chrome and set atop a rounded podium. Up above is an "LED oculus" with images of varying sky conditions.

Surrounding the "Glossier Globe" is amphitheatre-style seating made of three types of Portuguese marble in pink and grey hues.

"Marble was an important material in the design of the space, giving it a sense of monumentality and permanence while still feeling like an inviting communal gathering space," the team said.

Beyond the entrance are two product areas. One is square-shaped and features an 18-foot (5.5-metre) ceiling and makeup testing tables, complete with Glossier's signature "You Look Good Mirrors".

Standing in one corner is an enormous rendition of a grooming pomade, called Glossier Boy Brow, that nearly reaches the ceiling.

The other product zone features pink counters with skincare and body products. In the centre of the room is a circular "wet bar" wrapped in brushed aluminium – a material meant to contrast with the store's plastered walls.

Other design elements inside the shop include concrete flooring and a floral arrangement by Brittany Asch of LA-based Brrch.

"Her work is beautiful, artful and modern – and melds really well with our spaces," the team said.

The store also features non-structural, fluted columns made of cast fibreglass. The columns rise up through a dropped ceiling with round cutouts.

Passing through the openings is ethereal light from LED fixtures with custom brightness and temperature settings.

The store has no traditional checkout counters. Instead, customers tell a roaming staff member, called an Editor, which products they would like to purchase, and the information is entered into an iPad.

"Guests' names are then called and they are invited to pick up their order from a counter that is toward the back of the room," the team said.

The shop also has an outdoor area called Glossier Alley, which opened last Friday. The space is stocked with lush topiaries, a coffee bar and cafe, and a large surrealist marble fountain created by local artist duo Haas Brothers. The company plans to offer concerts, farmers' markets and other events in the space.

Launched in 2012 as an online company, Glossier opened a shop two years later, located within its New York headquarters designed by Rafael de Cardenas. In 2018, it unveiled a three-storey store in Soho designed by Gachot Studios and PRO. It also has created a number of pop-up shops.

After shuttering its brick-and-mortar locations in 2020 due to the pandemic, the company is starting to reinvest in its physical presence.

This past summer, it opened a permanent store in Seattle adorned with pink decor and a sculpture that sprouts artificial mushrooms. The company will open shops in London and Miami within the next few months.

The company prides itself on taking an experimental approach to its shop designs.

"As a digital-first company, Glossier has had the freedom to be experimental in retail," the team said. "Our stores have never been about just selling products, but inviting everyone to participate in a new kind of beauty experience – one that facilitates people-first beauty discovery, and Glossier, in 3D."

The photography is by Glossier.

The post Glossier's Los Angeles store takes cues from Hollywood studios appeared first on Dezeen.

Everything is pale pink in this monochromatic loft extension designed by Emil Eve Architects for a house in east London.

The London-based studio has used colour blocking to unite the various elements of the Narford Road loft, including surfaces, furniture and joinery.

Studio co-founder Emma Perkin said the aim was to create a "sense of calm" in the space, which will be used as a bedroom.

The clients, a couple with two young children, wanted a room that would feel like a sanctuary, allowing them to leave the chaos of family life downstairs.

"Their brief to us was to create a space that was serene and grown-up, intended purely for the adults," Perkin told Dezeen.

As the house is located within a conservation area, the loft extension had to be designed with minimal visual impact. The architecture studio did this by designing a mansard roof, which replaces the butterfly roof that previously topped the house.

With its projecting windows, the mansard form helps to maximise the feeling of space and light within the room.

Bespoke joinery also helps to make optimal use of space.

Emil Eve Architects designed built-in wardrobes and a window seat, which create a full-height dressing area on one side of the room. The other side of the room is framed by slatted panelling, which integrates storage and a bedhead.

The pale pink – a Little Greene paint shade called China Clay Mid – colours almost everything in the loft, with only a few exceptions.

The wooden flooring is left natural, while handles are finished in polished brass.

"We explored several material palettes but settled quickly on the idea of colour blocking, to create a sense of calm and draw all the spaces together," said Perkin.

"The clay-pink colour was selected as it transformed beautifully in different light and weather conditions, holding the shadows created by the slatted joinery and the forms of the space."

Some other colours and textures are introduced within the en-suite bathroom, which is tucked neatly into the corner of the space.

Graphic black and white terrazzo floor tiles feature alongside pale-toned plaster walls. The room also boasts a large skylight, located above the walk-in shower.

Perkin co-directs Emil Eve Architects with partner Ross Perkin. Other recent projects by the studio include a converted warehouse apartment in London's Clerkenwell and a farmhouse extension in Wiltshire.

Photography is by Mariell Lind Hansen.

Project credits

Architect: Emil Eve Architects
Project architect: Emma Perkin
Contractor: Tuga Contractors Ltd
Building control: Quadrant Building Control
Ensuite specialist plasterer: MUD Finishes
Terrazzo tiles: Mosaic Factory
Ash flooring: Woodflooring Engineered Ltd
Paint: Little Greene
Sanitaryware: Lusso Stone
Lights: Árturo Alvarez, Flos, Tom Dixon

The post Emil Eve Architects creates "sense of calm" in pale pink loft extension appeared first on Dezeen.

Vietnamese practice 23o5studio has completed a home in Long Xuyen city featuring pink pebble-wash walls inside and out, cut through by geometric openings and planted patios.

The Pink House was designed for two sisters who chose the distinctive colour of its rough exterior and interior surfaces.

Triangular slices through the walls and a large circular void topped with plants above a swimming pool draw light into the 290-square-metre home. These openings carefully control views to create spaces of "serenity, silence and intimacy".

"The project focuses on exploiting areas of light and transitions in modern living spaces," said the studio. "The spatial experiences are continuously evolving."

On the ground floor, an open plan living, kitchen and dining area sits between a small planted garden to the south and the swimming pool to the north.

Emphasising a strong connection to nature, a wall of sliding glass doors seamlessly connects the external pool and internal living area, as well as allowing sunlight to shine through the circular void as it moves throughout the day.

"A large opening with space connecting the sky and the building has a metaphorical and evocative connotation of the small image of man before the vastness of nature," said the studio.

At the southern end of the home, the main staircase sits within a double-height area between two plant-filled voids, illuminated by a small round skylight in the roof.

On the first floor, a main bedroom with an en-suite glazed bathroom block sits to the east, and an additional bedroom, bathroom and laundry room sit to the west. These are separated by a central corridor that frames views out to planted roof areas.

"The project is designed along the vertical axis of the plan, with the bedrooms having their own space and differences in feel," said the studio. "Each hidden corner in the house is a place to contemplate and enjoy nature."

A planted balcony surrounding the large circular void overlooks the spaces below. A metal staircase leads up to a roof garden, which remains sheltered by high parapet walls cut through with triangular and circular openings.

The pebble-wash finish has been used across both the interior and exterior walls, paired with granite floors to create what the studio calls an "ambiguity of usage" throughout, with rooms easily able change their function.

The Pink House was recently longlisted in the rural house category of Dezeen Awards 2021.

Other Vietnamese homes to recently complete include a residence with a perforated ceramic brick exterior by Vo Trong Nghia Architects and this townhouse with arched living spaces by Sanuki Daisuke Architects.

The post 23o5studio completes textured Pink House in Vietnam appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio Archmongers has used a colour palette of yellows, browns and pinks in a renovation of a Victorian terraced house in north London.

Called Mount View, the project involved overhauling the ground floor of the family house, to create a spacious kitchen and dining room connected to the garden, and converting the basement into a guest suite.

Externally, these renovated spaces are all clad in handmade tiles, in a pale pink shade that complements the building's red brick walls.

This ties into a 1970s-style palette of warm, pastel tones, inspired by the client's memories of their childhood home.

"Our client had a particular love for subtle warm colours, drawing references to her time growing up," said Johan Hybschmann, who co-founded Archmongers alongside Margaret Bursa.

"She came to us with this great sense and interest in colour harmonies," he told Dezeen, "and we found a way to meaningfully apply a suitable palette to the full house, which works well with the existing details and original materials."

Originally the house only had a half-height basement that could only be used for storage.

After unpinning the original walls, it was possible to turn this into a studio flat with 2.6-metre-high ceilings and a separate entrance.

On the ground floor, an extension to the rear of the building creates space for the new open-plan kitchen and dining room.

The floor level here has been lowered, giving the room high ceilings and allowing activity to flow out into a sunken patio.

The pink tiles cladding these two revamped areas were custom made specifically for this project by Cotswolds-based manufacturer Tiles of Stow.

Some of the tiles include a vertical ridge, which gives texture to the facades.

It is a material that Archmongers has become familiar with, having used it for previous projects such as Clock House.

The idea is to reference the tiles used in various Victorian buildings, from pubs to schools, but to give them a modern feel that follows architects like Alvar Aalto.

"We've used tiles as a facade material for a few of our project as they are very hardwearing, add colour and texture, and reflect light very beautifully," said Hybschmann.

Tiles also feature in other areas, including the sunken patio, which is surfaced with a square, dark tile. Meanwhile, the family bathrooms feature a square pink tile, which is contrasted by various coloured taps.

In the kitchen, a yellow-toned kitchen features alongside a green vinyl floor. This space is filled with natural light, thanks to four skylights integrated into the roof.

The works also included an expansion of the hallway, incorporating built-in storage with scallop-fronted doors.

"Working with a house of such generous proportions revealed so much about the original intentions of Victorian design. Building on this framework and being able to create spacious additions to unlock the house was a fun challenge," added Hybschmann.

"We've created beautiful yet practical light-filled spaces that give the house a contemporary feel."

Photography is by French + Tye.

The post Pale pink tiles create distinctive new facade for London terrace renovated by Archmongers appeared first on Dezeen.

Office S&M has completed a colourful extension to Overcast House in north London, which features on-trend hues such as Millennium Pink and Mint Green.

Local studio Office S&M, which is headed by architects Catrina Stewart and Hugh McEwen, added a ground-floor kitchen extension to the Victorian terraced house in Haringey.

As one of the clients works as a colour consultant the well-lit space was designed to double up as an area to meet with clients.

This replaced her south-facing studio at the front of the house that had variable sunlight conditions that made it hard to maintain colour consistency while working or holding meetings.

Part of the brief for the Overcast House, therefore, became about creating a space with even light that could be used as both a kitchen for entertaining and an artist's studio.

"Creating a well-lit space that is shielded from direct sunlight was an unusual challenge," Office S&M pointed out.

"Our response makes use of north light in the new extension, through carefully shaped roof lights which shield the windows from direct sun."

A saw-tooth roof of the kind typically found in industrial buildings or art galleries incorporates north-facing roof lights that let in even light throughout the day.

The timber-framed extension spans the full width of the house and looks out onto the garden through large glazed doors. A flat roof light set deeper in the plan provides an additional source of daylight in the new space.

The exterior of the new addition is clad in brightly pigmented concrete blocks that were custom made by London firm Mortise Concrete. The blocks have a U-shaped profile that creates shadows and adds visual interest to the facade.

"Starting from the profile of an extruded clay drainage channel, the new blocks create modelling on the rear facade even though there is no direct sun, and continue the investigation of indirect lighting which is being tested inside the extension," the architects explained.

Unsurprisingly, given the client's profession, the colours and materials used in the new interior are carefully considered to ensure they perform both functionally and aesthetically.

Gold-leaf tiles used for the kitchen splashback create a warm and even light that is complemented by shades of green applied to the countertops and painted surfaces including the supporting structural beams.

"Discussions about colour were key to the development of the project, and elements of the house are picked out in trending colours," said Office S&M, adding that it used hues recently named as colours of the year by American colour company Pantone.

"The steel is Neo-Mint, the colour of 2020, and the colour of 2018, Millennial Pink, is used in the bathroom," the studio pointed out.

"The green is used to soften the beams within the domestic space, while the small bathroom uses colour blocking and vertical patterns in pink tiles to visually enlarge the space."

In addition to the open-plan kitchen, which can accommodate a table seating ten people for consultations, the project also involved the creation of a shower room to help future proof the house.

Office S&M is based in Hackney in north London and splits its time evenly between projects for public and private clients. It often experiments with colours and materials to create spaces that elevate the everyday experiences of its clients.

The studio's previous projects include the creation of a pink and green house on an infill site in north London, and the renovation of another London property that features scale-like shingles and brightly coloured window frames.

Photography is by Megan Taylor.

The post Office S&M uses "trending colours" for characterful extension to colour consultant's home appeared first on Dezeen.

Design practice Mizzi Studio paired pink terrazzo with emerald-green velvet and timber to form the bold interior of restaurant Barbajean in Malta.

Serving a menu of modern Meditteranean dishes, Barbajean occupies a prominent corner property in the village of Dingli.

The quiet village sits at the highest point of Malta, and has uninterrupted views out across the ocean towards the uninhabited isle of Filfla.

Mizzi Studio's founder, Jonathan Mizzi – who is from Malta – designed the restaurant so that it pays tribute to Dingli and its scenic landscape, but also "injects [the village] with new life".

"Working within the village's particular urban fabric was a key inspiration for us," said Mizzi."We wanted to create a restaurant that would stand at the core of a quintessential Maltese village experience."

The baby-pink facade of Barbajean has been made to include architraves and coloured doors– two elements that Mizzi says can be seen on the exterior of a typical Maltese home.

Emerald-green timber doors have been built into the facade's trio square openings. Each opening is surrounded by a chunky pink-terrazzo architrave, created by Maltese surface manufacturer Halmann Vella.

The pink and green colour scheme continues inside the restaurant. Rose-coloured terrazzo lines the wall behind the drinks bar, which has been punctuated with three arched niches.

Liquor bottles and glassware are displayed inside the niches, illuminated by neon-pink strip lights that have been installed overhead.

Rosy terrazzo has also been used to craft the surfacetop of the bar counter, the base of which is made from fluted timber that's been stained green. Just in front is a row of pink high chairs with tubular brass frames.

A lengthy seating banquette upholstered in emerald velvet winds its way around the opposite side of the room, accompanied by pink terrazzo tables inlaid with flecks of Guatemala Verde marble.

Directly above are a series of prints by Maltese illustrator Ed Dingli, which depict quotidian scenes of life in the village.

In between the prints are custom-made light fixtures designed by Mizzi Studio, which feature curling brass stems and spherical bulbs.

Surfaces in this area of the restaurant are painted a pale mint shade, but another dining nook that lies towards the rear of the plan has been given a cosier feel with dark-green walls and wooden floorboards.

Mizzi Studio was established in 2011 and has offices in both London and Valletta, the capital of Malta. Barbajean isn't the only hospitality space that the studio has designed – last year it completed works on The Serpentine Coffee House in London's Hyde Park.

The venue boasts glass walls and a gold, undulating roof that's meant to resemble the shape of a stingray.

Photography is by Brian Grech.

Project credits:

Stonework: Halman Vella
Brass fabrication: Anvil and Forge
Joinery and upholstery: Construct Furniture
Custom print artwork: Ed Dingli
Branding: Steves and Co

The post Mizzi Studio uses pink and emerald green for Barbajean restaurant in Malta appeared first on Dezeen.

From homes with peach-coloured walls to rose-tinted shops and restaurants, we've rounded up 10 interiors projects to make you think pink in our latest Dezeen Lookbook.

Cats' Pink House, Taiwan, KC Design Studio

This holiday home in Taiwan is all pink – even the basketball court. KC Design Studio created the house by the sea for a client who owns several cats, so the interior includes pink cat ladders and a fluffy swing for the feline companions to recline on.

Find out more about Cats' Pink House ›

The Daily Edited, Australia, Pattern Studio

Pattern Studio created a shop in Melbourne entirely in the signature colour of lifestyle brand The Daily Edited.

Blush-coloured walls are complemented by pale terrazzo floors and slabs of Norwegian rose marble.

Find out more about The Daily Edited ›

Ecnesse, China, by Penda China

Penda China used a rosy colour palette to create cosy cave-like interiors for high-end beauty salon Ecnesse in Beijing.

The rounded edges of the pink furniture echo the arched mirrors and doorways, which can be screened off using deep red velvet curtains.

Find out more about Ecnesse ›

Waterfront Nikis Apartment, Greece, by Stamatios Giannikis

Colourful flamingo-coloured walls are a standout feature of this apartment in an art deco building in Thessaloniki.

Architect Stamatios Giannikis, who hosts dinners and exhibitions in this apartment he designed, chose the pink walls to enhance the views of the sea from beyond the balcony.

Find out more about Waterfront Nikis Apartment ›

His House and Her House, China, Wutopia Labs

Part house, part installation, His House and Her House is a pair of structures that Chinese studio Wutopia Labs used to explore ideas around gender.

The feminine side of the project is painted entirely in pastel pinks, featuring billowing pink curtains across the facade and a patio filled with pink rock salt instead of gravel.

Find out more about His House and Her House ›

Minimal Fantasy, Spain, Patricia Bustos Studio

This striking holiday rental apartment in Madrid is decorated in 12 different shades of pink. Patricia Bustos Studio wanted to create something on of a kind, using bubblegum hues, satin sheets and surfaces with iridescent sheen.

"Pink is already the colour of a whole generation," said the studio. "The generation of the brave, those who are not afraid of change."

Find out more about Minimal Fantasy ›

Specus Corallii, Italy, Antonino Cardillo

Specus Corallii, or The Coral Cave, is a music room in Sicily that's decorated in homage to the shell imagery associated with the city of  Trapani.

The walls are covered in rough plasterwork that has been painted a muted pink to create a grotto-like interior, complemented by slabs of honey-coloured limestone.

Find out more about Specus Corallii ›

The Olive Houses, Spain, by Mar Plus Ask

The Olive Houses are a cluster of off-the-grid guesthouses in Mallorca designed as a retreat for artists and writers seeking a place to create free from interruptions.

Architecture studio Mar Plus Ask built the retreat around the boulders that litter the ancient olive grove, plastering the walls in a pale-pink stucco chosen to complement the delicate green leaves of the trees.

Find out more about The Olive Houses ›

Humble Pizza, UK, Child Studio

Child Studio created interiors for this vegan pizza restaurant in London that pay tribute to 1950s greasy spoon cafes.

Candy pink walls and furnishings highlight the pink Formica tables and countertops, all the flatware is pink and pink newspapers are used as decoration as well as reading material.

Find out more about Humble Pizza ›

Angle + Eart St Studio, Australia, by BoardGrove Architects

Three different tones of peach were selected by BoardGrove Architects to decorate the interiors of this shared office space in Melbourne. The trio of colours subtly differentiates between the front of house, workspaces and back of house zones.

See more Angle + Eart St Studio ›

The post Ten pink interiors that range from rose blush to bright coral appeared first on Dezeen.

British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes has designed a pink and ruffled version of IKEA's famous Frakta bag as part of her upcoming collection for the Swedish furniture retailer.

Called Karismatisk, the bright pink carrier bag features shoulder straps and curved frilly edges.

Frakta bags are normally blue with IKEA-branded straps. Shoppers can purchase them at the till to take their shopping home with them, and their waterproof, durable and roomy nature means they are cherished and repurposed regularly.

Previously Virgil Abloh and Hay have given the bag makeovers, while a rainbow edition was created for Pride month.

"The Frakta bag is IKEA!" said Rhodes.

"The bag could not be left out of the Karismatisk collection and I was so excited to have my take on one of the most famous and identifiable IKEA products."

Rhodes is recognisable for her shocking pink bob – matching the bag – and colourful design aesthetic. The ruffles on her version of the bag were inspired by the back of pillows she owns.

She began designing fashion and textiles in the 1960s, rising to fame for her take on the British punk scene in the 70s and dressing the likes of Diana Princess of Wales and Freddie Mercury.

"The IKEA team really get the Zandra Rhodes aesthetic, and because of this we just bounce off one another," said the designer.

Set to drop in September 2021, the full Karismatisk collection will include 26 objects for the home in Rhodes' signature bold colours and patterns.

"It is wonderful being able to go all out with both patterns and colours," said IKEA's in-house designer Paulin Machado.

"Zandra is phenomenal at this, this simmering stew of bold patterns and bright colours that cooks up to something tantalising and beautiful. I want, like, all of it!"

IKEA's polypropylene Frakta bag is so ubiquitous that it has even had some highbrow copycats. Balenciaga brought out a blue leather tote bag that looked strikingly similar, prompting IKEA to release a handy spot the difference guide to telling the two apart.

Photos courtesy of IKEA and Zandra Rhodes.

The post Zandra Rhodes gives IKEA Frakta bag a pink and frilly makeover appeared first on Dezeen.

Patricia Bustos Studio channelled "aesthetic madness" to create the striking bright-pink interior of this rentable apartment at the heart of Madrid, Spain.

Locally-based Patricia Bustos Studio applied 12 different shades of pink throughout the Minimal Fantasy apartment, which is meant to offer a bolder take on the typical holiday rental.

"We wanted to do something eye-catching and not go unnoticed, since in Madrid the offer of vacation rentals is enormous and you have to differentiate yourself if you want to have a recurrence in the rentals," the studio told Dezeen.

The 55-square-metre apartment is set inside a 1950s residential building that's a stone's throw away from Madrid's lively Puerta del Sol square.

It formerly played host to just one bedroom and one bathroom, but Patricia Bustos Studio reconfigured the floor plan so that it can comfortably accommodate slightly larger groups of holiday goers.

There are now two bedrooms and an additional bathroom. The kitchen has also been separated from the living area so that, if necessary, it can sleep another two guests.

With structural changes out the way, the studio set about creating the apartment's stand-out interior – which is almost exclusively pink.

"Except for the distribution, which had to be practical, the rest of the project has been an aesthetic madness to take the visitor out of their comfort zone and make them dream," explained the studio.

"Pink is already the colour of a whole generation... the generation of the brave, those who are not afraid of change," it continued.

"Pink vindicates the fall of stereotypes – everything is possible, nothing is planned or established and that's the beauty of it. There are no rules, or rather that everyone has their own."

In the living area, bubblegum-pink paint has been applied across the walls and ceiling. A flecked pink laminate covers the floor and a chunky L-shaped plinth that winds around the corner of the room, topped with plush pink sofa cushions.

Guests can gather for meals around the oval-shaped pink dining table, which is surrounded by dining chairs upholstered in metallic pink fabric with an iridescent finish.

The monochromatic colour scheme is interrupted in the adjacent kitchen, where the cabinets are covered in a mixture of blue, pink and gold geometric shapes.

Worktops are lined with glazed, blush-pink tiles.

These same tiles have been used to clad the side tables and supporting mattress base in one of the apartment's bedrooms.

In the other bedroom, the mattress is pushed up against a scalloped pink headboard. Textural interest is added throughout by baby-pink lamé soft cushions and faux-fur throws.

Arched sliding doors can be drawn back to reveal pink-tile bathrooms, complete with pink-frame vanity mirrors and shiny pink shower curtains.

Other than a few spherical pendant lights, trailing ivy plants and neon art piece, Patricia Bustos Studio hasn't incorporated a lot of decoration in the apartment.

Some elements, like the stepped blocks which display books and other trinkets, are meant to riff off La Muralla Roja – a housing development designed by Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill in 1968, distinguished by its maze of interlocking stairways.

"[Bofill] creates a mysterious and infinite space with the perfect transformation between 2D and 3D, and with several elements that play with the optical illusion," added the studio.

Several other architects and designers haven't shied away from making extensive use of the colour pink – last year, Child Studio covered the interior of a vegan pizza restaurant in London with candy-pink Formica.

Mar Plus Ask also washed the walls of a cave-like guesthouse in Spain with blush-pink stucco.

Photography is by JC de Marcos.

The post Minimal Fantasy holiday apartment in Madrid is almost completely pink appeared first on Dezeen.

Craggy boulders jut through walls in these off-grid guesthouses that architecture studio Mar Plus Ask has built in Mallorca, Spain, for creatives in need of a quiet escape.

Tucked away high up in Mallorca's Tramuntana mountains, The Olive Houses are run year-round by Mar Plus Ask as a silent refuge where solo architects, writers and artists can stay free from interruption.

The pair of off-grid houses are enclosed by a dense grove of thousand-year-old olive trees, which at points is interrupted by huge boulders resembling "natural monumental sculptures".

Keen to leave this rugged terrain largely untouched, Mar Plus Ask set about designing two modest structures – one that accommodates sleeping quarters, the other cooking facilities – that look like homes in the surrounding landscape.

"Our first reaction was that only if we could come up with something that would add something in a respectful and beautiful way, would we ever consider building," explained the studio, which is led by Mar Vicens and Ask Anker Aistrup.

"However, it was calming that the functions we were looking to build wouldn't be much different than those of the existing structures found in the area."

One of the houses is partially embedded into an existing stone terrace, which the studio hopes will help the structure keep cool during the warm summer months.

A sliding teakwood door can be pushed back to reveal a grand arched entrance. Inside, the house has a series of smooth, sloping surfaces similar to those seen within a cave.

The walls, floor and ceiling have been exclusively rendered in blush-pink stucco, as the studio felt the colour was complementary to the pale green shade seen on the underside of an olive tree leaf.

A corner of the house has been built around a craggy boulder that the studio left in situ, illuminated by a skylight directly above.

"To us, the stone became a piece of art – suddenly the house was more about sculpting its backdrop and being its lightbox," explained the studio.

Just beside the boulder, an overhead shower has been fitted, while a single bed lies on the other side of the house. Outside there's also a large sink, the basin of which is formed from rock.

Mar Plus Ask created the second house by renovating a dilapidated shed on site that was once used to store tools.

Surfaces throughout are instead covered in deep-purple stucco, a hue that the studio thought was more akin to the dark, glossy topside of an olive leaf.

The structure was initially deemed too narrow to hold cooking facilities but the studio ended up carving a wide opening into one of its 60-centimetre-thick walls, which is able to accommodate a chunky prep counter and a sink.

As guests will be living off-grid, they will simply have access to two gas burners and a wood-fire oven – water, like that used to service the shower and sink in the first house, is sourced from a nearby spring. This house also includes a toilet.

Mar Plus Ask was established in 2015 and works between offices in Copenhagen, Berlin, Mallorca and Valencia.

The studio's Olive Houses project isn't the only place where creatives can go to clear their heads. Back in 2016, Andrea Zittel launched Wagon Station Encampment – a campsite near Joshua Tree Park, California, where artists and writers are allowed to play out their "desert fantasy".

The site includes 10 sleeping pods, a communal outdoor kitchen and open-air showers.

Photography is by Piet Albert Goethals.

The post The Olive Houses are off-grid retreats hidden in Mallorca's mountains appeared first on Dezeen.

Peter Morris Architects has revealed the design for a pair of houses in north London, which will have a facade made up of pink arches "absolutely everywhere".

Cloud House, which is actually a pair of three-storey homes united behind a pink-arch-covered facade, is set to be built in Gospel Oak after winning planning permission earlier this month.

Peter Morris Architects designed the pair of houses, one of which will be its founder Peter Morris' own home, to bring an element of fun to the street it will be located on.

"The goal was to create a building that would bring joy and delight to the neighbourhood," Morris told Dezeen.

"Something that would feel like a surprising treat for anyone who came upon it, as well as to create a beautiful home for my family to live in, alongside one for someone else to buy."

The home will be built between a heritage-listed school and a modern, brick home on a street that has buildings in a variety of architecture styles.

It was the arches at St Martin's Church, which stands opposite the site and was referred to by architectural writer Nicholas Pevsner as "the craziest of London's Victorian churches", that informed the houses' many arches.

"I know it's not generally a very fashionable idea in architecture, but I love the idea that a building can be decorated on its outside as well as on its inside," said Morris.

"The arches on The Cloud House mostly aren't structural, but their decorative sculptural quality informs the whole look and feel of the building."

"Once I'd had the idea of exploring the arch shape which appears both in the interiors and exteriors of St Martin's Church opposite, it made sense to modernise and simplify that shape and then use it unapologetically, absolutely everywhere."

Morris arranged the pink arches, which will cover all four facades of the house, through a process of trial and error.

"More than three years ago, when I first began the drawings, I started to play around with the pattern of arches. I staggered them, cut them in half in places, doubled them in size in others," explained Morris.

"Some were solid, others became glazed. I added circular windows in various spots. The decision not to flatten the top of the arches was key, as that created the curves in the balustrades," he continued.

"The design happened like a game of consequences. Each decision changed the design, but at every stage, the house grew curvier and prettier and managed to reinforce the original concept, which was to create a joyful building that would surprise and delight."

Both of the houses have been designed as upside-down homes, with bedrooms on the lower floors and living spaces on the upper floors. Each house will be topped with a roof terrace and the large one will include a plunge pool.

The arched forms on the houses' facade will continue within the homes, which will include arched doorways and barrel-vaulted ceilings.

Both the exterior and interior colour scheme for the homes was drawn from the Art Deco architecture of Miami. On the facades, pale pink arches will be combined pale green metalwork.

Inside, the floors will be made from pale-blue poured resin, pink and white marquee stripes will run across the walls and ceilings and the kitchens will be emerald green with black and white terrazzo worktops.

"The buildings in the street range from red brick to yellow brick, with various buff tones in between, not least in the ragstone facade of the school next door and the church over the road," said Morris.

"It isn't a street with just one colour, so the choice of pale pink render with a yellowy hue complements the other buildings, without trying to match them," he continued.

"Once we'd chosen the pale pink tone, it felt right to pair it with pale green metalwork – they're colours that I've always loved, and they remind me of our honeymoon in Miami."

Morris believes that the colourful, fun architecture will be appropriate for a family home.

"I like fabulous spaces that are a joy to look at and a pleasure to inhabit, buildings that make you feel good and prompt a smile," he said.

"I think that spaces that make you feel a little bit like you have to be on your best behaviour can, of course, be wonderful, but this was about making a home for my family – a place for laughter and creativity and daftness. I crave more diversity in design."

The bright home is one of many colourful buildings that are being built in London as part of a trend called New London Fabulous, which was identified by designer Adam Nathaniel Furman during Virtual Design Festival.

The post Peter Morris Architects covers Cloud House in pink arches appeared first on Dezeen.

A school from the 1960s in Torino, Italy, has been updated with a pink steel and adobe plaster extension designed by architecture studio BDR Bureau.

Called Enrico Fermi School, the facility is a school for 11 to 14 year olds in Torino's Nizza Millefonti district.

BDR Bureau won the competition to remodel the school in 2016. The Turin practice added a gym, auditorium, cafe and library.

A pink-painted steel frame extending from the exterior facade creates open-air classrooms and outdoor corridors for the students to enjoy.

Pink mesh stretches between the steel pink beams, like an aviary. Functioning as a safety rail, it also gives the facade a texture that is complemented by the rough and smooth adobe plaster of the exterior walls.

Pale decking forms the floor of these balcony areas, which are decorated with pot plants.

"We wanted a project able to dialogue with the existing building and revolutionise its function at the same time," said Alberto Bottero and Simona Della Rocca, who founded the practice in 2016.

"New spatial elements, transparencies and additions reinterpret the original structure with the aim of opening the school to the city."

Many of the new facilities are open to the public, so the ground floor was remodelled to act as a civic centre for pupils and the local community.

The gym features a pastel-hued interior, with a pale pink textured datum and teal-blue chairs.

A circular curtain rail hangs from the ceiling in the all-white atrium so that an area can be easily partitioned off for informal meetings or lessons. Different sized stools and benches can be moved about to set up different seating arrangements.

A bright red steel staircase enclosed by mesh runs from the ground floor atrium to the second story.

Classrooms feature white walls with floor-to-ceiling windows and pale wood detailing. Wooden shelves line the walls and pale blue curtains can be pulled across to section off larger classrooms into different spaces.

Wheeled tables can be moved about easily for different desk formations.

Pale pink has featured in the colour schemes of several school projects recently.

Architecture studio Felt used pale pink concrete for the floors of a school in Belgium, and Bak Gordon Arquitectos added pink shutters to the facade of a Swiss school.

Photography is by Simone Bossi.

Project credit:

Client: Fondazione Agnelli, Compagnia di San Paolo
Architect: BDR Bureau
Structural and executive planning: Sintecna
Mechanics and electrical advisor: Proeco
Sustainability and acoustics advisor: Onleco
Furniture design: BDR Bureau
Construction supervision: Sintecna
Art direction: BDR Bureau
Project manager: FCA Partecipazioni

The post BDR Bureau gives 1960s Italian school a pastel pink makeover appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish designer Francesc Rifé has created a distinctive interior for a shoe store in Mallorca, using shades of soft pink and pale grey.

The ASH Mallorca store in Palma features curving concrete surfaces and suspended black shelves, set against a backdrop of soft pink curtains.

There are few other elements in the 95-square-metre space, ensuring that shoes are able to stand out.

"A conscious and austere selection of materials defines the shape and configuration of space," said Francesc Rifé Studio.

"The hardness of the concrete gives way to the softness of the fabric, and the virtues of the curved lines compete with bold footwear proposals with a great personality."

The ASH Mallorca store is organised over two levels. On the ground floor, a central walkway is framed on both sides by raised concrete platforms.

Slender shelves are set above these platforms, supported by black steel tubes that extend from floor to ceiling.

A curved staircase leads down to the basement. Although this element was already in place before the fit-out, its smooth shape matches the curves of Rifé's design.

The basement has a more free-flowing layout, framed by a large S-shape in the floor plan. Shelves and curtains follow the same line, and the effect is emphasised by spotlights in the ceiling.

On both floors, storage and checkout areas are concealed behind the pink curtains, so as not to disrupt the aesthetic.

Rifé's studio describes the mood created by this textile as "romantic and lively".

"A light pink textile layer unfolds over the body of the shop and emotionally connects the ground floor with the basement," said the studio.

"The lightness of this main element generates constant and spontaneous movements throughout the project," it added.

Concrete cylinders function as additional display stands, while larger pink cylinders provide seats.

Concealed lighting elements feature everywhere, helping to make each element feel impactful. "The light source is always hidden to focus all attention on whatever it is lighting," said the studio.

Francesc Rifé Studio has completed various stores for ASH, including spaces in London and Shanghai.

Other projects by the studio include a serene clinic, a market-style restaurant and a food research studio for Ferran Adrià's El Bulli Lab.

Photography is by David Zarzoso.

Project credits:

Interior design: Francesc Rifé Studio
Technical lighting: Arkoslight
Construction: Montaggio

The post Francesc Rifé pairs raw concrete with pink fabric in ASH Mallorca shoe shop appeared first on Dezeen.

Cats' Pink House is a holiday home in Taiwan that includes cat ladders, a rotating carousel-shaped climbing frame and a fluffy pink swing for the owner's feline companions.

KC Design Studio made everything pink, even the basketball hoop and court for the human occupants.

The three-storey house by the sea is a place for the client to "relax and have fun with her three cats on holiday" said the studio.

A whole room on the second floor is dedicated to the cats, viewable from the master bedroom via a wide picture window.

Pink cat ladders lead up to a writing desk and connect to ledges running around the room.

"The owner can do what she likes to do and play with the cats at the same time," said KC Design Studio. "She can also stay in the master bedroom to observe the cats' moves next door before going to sleep."

Another vantage point for the cats is a large metal spiral staircase that hangs from the ceiling. This cat tree rotates like a carousel for extra feline enrichment.

Pink fuzzy cat beds litter the floor, and a swing with a seat covered in pink fluff hangs from the ceiling, for human or cat enjoyment.

In the master bedroom, a walk-in wardrobe is divided by floor-to-ceiling pink glass. Across the landing the bathroom opens onto the cats' room.

White terrazzo with large flecks of pink and grey forms a plinth that serves as the bathroom floor and the half-wall separating the bathroom. Pink glass, which can be dimmed for privacy, tops this plinth.

Small white tiles line the back wall, with a circular mirror and a hanging globe light over the sink. A pink kitty litter box is tucked under the floating bathroom counter.

Larger square pink tiles continue across the bathroom floor, under and around the stand-alone bath and rose-gold shower.

KC Design Studio used mineral-based paint to achieve the desired pink hue for the walls of the holiday home.

Downstairs on the first floor, the owner's collection of figurines are displayed on rose-gold shelves in arched niches. Podiums dotted around the room display some of the larger art pieces.

A kitchen with a breakfast bar is tucked under a built-in archway lined with curving panels of wood, with the ends painted to match the terrazzo used upstairs.

Pepto-bismol pink stools sit along the breakfast bar, which has a curve carved into the underside.

Another kitchen island turns into an oblong dining table topped with white marble.

A long, low pink bench upholstered with pink velvet has matching rounded edges. Three pink velvet chairs with high rounded backs sit on the other side, under the arch niches.

A seating area with an L-shaped sofa sits across from the dining area.

The guest bathroom is screened by a gauzy pink curtain and features a recessed sink that's been painted to look like stone.

Outside, a triangular space surrounding the plot has been turned into a basketball practice area.

The hoop backboard is pink, and stylised markings have been painted onto the floor in candy-colours.

On the roof, there's a room outfitted in more sombre tones, finished with dark wood floors and grey concrete surfaces.

Dark metal shelves line the walls and more figurines sit on matching metal podiums, their chrome surfaces reflected in a mirrored back wall.

This room opens completely to a decked rooftop terrace.

KC Design Studio is based in Taiwan and recently completed a house with bespoke space-saving furniture.

Other residential projects for clients who want to include their pets include a house in Beijing designed around the needs of a dog with joint disease, and an apartment in Hong Kong that keeps their pet parrot and cat separate at all times.

Photography is by Hey! Cheese.

Project credits:

Client: Ms Yeh
Interior design: KC Design Studio
Lead designer: Kuan-huan Liu

The post Pink holiday home by KC Design Studio features dedicated cat room appeared first on Dezeen.