Hope all is well. We would like to share with you one of Paul McClean’s recently completed projects, located in Los Angeles. The interiors were designed by Lynda Murray, LMID, Inc.
Photographed by Jim Bartsch.
A captivating site looking east towards the San Gabriel mountains with a unique view of the Hollywood sign and the Griffith Observatory, the firm’s clients wanted a family home for themselves and their three children. Because the usable area of the site was somewhat limited and restricted by planning ordinances, they needed to place a substantial part of the program below grade. It made sense to locate the main living spaces and the parents’ suite on the upper level and locate the three children’s rooms as well as a family play area and media space in the basement. The most pressing design challenge was how to get enough light into the lower level while providing privacy from the street and access to the view. The design solution involved creating a central lower-level courtyard with a bridged connection to the main entry above, focused directly on the view of the Hollywood sign in the distance.
The house is separated from the street by a series of stone walls with only a small break on axis with the entry bridge. Entry is through a metal gate and along a tall water wall overlooking the central courtyard and leading to the glass bridge. Upon entering, the living area looks directly out over the pool with the kitchen and dining family space to the left and the main bedroom wing to the right. The living area contains a unique bar area with an aquarium back drop and a clear glass floor to the wine cellar below.
The bedrooms on the lower level all look out over a central landscaped courtyard, with a sliding glass wall that combines the outdoor garden with the family room in pleasant weather. The lower level includes a gym and wellness area in addition to the wine room, with its glass ceiling to the bar area above. Since space is at such a premium, parking for the property is accessed by a ramp and located below the rear garden and pool area.
A palette of natural stone and soft wood tones, accented by black steel windows and trim, creates a warm and inviting series of contemporary spaces, with a seamless connection to the surrounding garden and hillside spaces.
McClean’s eponymous firm is one of the leading contemporary residential design firms in Southern California. Paul has become the go-to architect for celebrity clientele such as Beyoncé, Jay Z and Calvin Klein. With projects ranging in size from 3,500 to well above 50,000 square feet, McClean’s homes are tailor-made to harmoniously fit his clients’ varying lifestyles. Although based in Southern California, the firm is busy working on homes throughout the United States and abroad.
Olin Bar & Kitchen occupies the ground floor and lower level of an Art Deco building that once housed a puppet theater.
Olin’s main level features a bar, a kitchen, public restrooms, an entryway, an exterior storefront, canopies, and a take-out window service area; the lower level consists of kitchen-prep and storage areas, an office, and employee restrooms.
After establishing several successful restaurant concepts in Las Vegas, Holly and Shawn McClain of the McClain Group set their sights on their home base, Detroit. They engaged local firm McIntosh Poris Associates to design a street presence and interiors for Olin Bar & Kitchen, a new Mediterranean-American Brasserie located in Downtown Detroit. Olin is at once a cozy neighborhood hang-out and a sophisticated dining destination. It simultaneously captures the history and modernism of the city through a balance of upscale industrial finishes and eclectic design choices. The result is a fun and funky restaurant space that attracts both locals and out-of-town guests who prefer a local dining experience in an era inundated with chain concepts.
The idea of this reform was, on the one hand, to relocate the living room and turn it into the heart of the house along with the kitchen and dining room, generating a single large common space that would open completely to the garden and, on the other hand, generate a vestibular space of arrival and circulation that will work in a very fluid way. Both ideas are formalized with a set of curved walls that in the case of the large common space zoning their various functionalities and, in the case of the lobby, gently and dynamically direct towards the bedrooms located at the ends or towards that main space of the house in the center. Finally, the master bedroom has also been conceived as a unique space whose protagonist is a central piece of curved glass shower.
Istanbul has been bursting with specialty coffee shops, and one of the brands leading this charge is Petra Roasting Co. Becoming very popular shortly after opening up their first location, Petra Team partnered with Geo_ID for a striking space in the vibrant business district in Maslak which would represent flourishing identity of Petra Roasting Co. and a new generation of coffee in Istanbul.
Located in the laneway of downtown Taipei, A Table is an experimental private kitchen and bar that injects new functions and energy into the frame of the old square. Take the six-meter solid wooden table as the main axis of the space, and place it with the 45-degree angle of the table heart.
The front yard, backyard, kitchen, sofa area and other areas are born.
In the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory directed by Tim Burton, we witnessed a journey of imagination full of tasty stimulations. Cheese, with its tiny holes and color of yellow, is comparable to the rich and mellow flavor of chocolate. By choosing this delicacy as the main concept to design “The Dessert KITCHEN”, Towodesign produced chemical reactions among food, visual impression and emotion, and created a unique space that provides fantasy experiences.
This site used to be a dressed timber factory with dusty atmosphere where sawdust, wood pulp, waste products of woodworking and huge machines were placed in the loud environment. It has now become a warehouse for storing goods where only silence, darkness and smell of abandonment remained. The factory was moved to the new site not far away as the business grew. The old site turns to be a medium-size office with less than five staff members.
Botanica is a food and lifestyle concept created by Heather Sperling and Emily Fiffer. Equal parts restaurant, publication and market, Emily and Heather asked FreelandBuck to design their first brick and mortar location. The site, located on Silverlake Boulevard in Los Angeles, was selected because of its multiple building layout, opportunity for exterior dining, and generous, high ceilings.
Adjacent to Suzhou Canal which has inherited the cultural context of the South of the Yangtze River for thousands of years, the project features elegant and humanistic aesthetics, and fully shows people's imaginations and pursuit of an elegant lifestyle.
The smell of books, the coordinated combination of terrazzo and wood, and subtle detailing, together create a soft, elegant and harmonious atmosphere in the overall space, with fascinating texture.
This delightful little locale where the culinary workshop takes place has a particular volume in which everything relates to the central cast-iron column that presides over the premises. From the bleak light that seeps through the two façade openings and in from the backyard, we can see the powerful brickwork walls that reveal the constructional history of the building located in this historic city, in Boteros Street, an old word meaning wineskins were sold there and whose etymology is partly recovered with this locale’s latest venture.
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