Category: Photography

Designed by Olivier Marty and Karl Fournier, the duo behind architecture practice Studio KO, ‘Villa E‘ is a minimalist piece of art standing among the spectacular nature.

With offices in Paris, London and Marrakesh, Studio KO realizes architectural projects in various locations around the world. With their artistic vision and minimalist approach, Marty and Fournier create contemporary houses that, while poetically exposing surrounding nature, blend into the landscape without too much intervention. A fortress-like ‘Villa E’ in Morocco was made from locally sourced Oika stone on the outside, whereas the interior features pale timber flooring and full height steel pivot windows. A rigorous and peaceful residence, it combines natural materials with contemporary style to respectfully enrich the surrounding landscape.

All images © Dan Glasser

Born in Belgium and growing up in Southern France, photographer Annelie Vandendael exposes the real nature of her subjects in a series of vibrant images and playful compositions.

“I depict the human being rather as a piece of nature than as an object.”
Listing image-making as one of her main passion, Vandendael received a master degree in photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. After finishing her studies, she was invited to ‘La Fabrica’, the Benetton Communication and Research Center in Treviso, Italy. Acting against the unified approach sometimes observed in fashion photography, Vandendael shows her subjects exactly as they are, letting the authenticity of their bodies speak for themselves. “I depict the human being rather as a piece of nature than as an object,” Vandendael says. To create her lively imagery, the photographer uses Hasselblad camera, which enables her to achieve the most realistic effect.

Made in collaboration between designer Marta Ayala Herrera and architect Cito Ballesta, ‘Entreplanta Lighting’ is a series of dynamic industrial lamps dedicated for a cultural center in Madrid, Spain.

“The hardest design is that of simple honest products.”
With each piece made of folded and lacquered micro-perforated sheets, the lamps recover a low-end industrial material and give it a new sense and presence. Situated in Madrid’s cultural center ‘La Casa Encendida’, they were made as a part of the project of the Entreplanta, where space is intersected with furniture. The series comes in three different models which, when combined, create different codes that bathe the space with continuously light. Positioned to explore the X, Y and Z axes, they animate the space with its various volumes. Herrera says: “The hardest design is that of simple honest products. To achieve this you must use sober and really sensitive intelligence. We should judge objects as a part of a full sensuous experience because design is what connects people with their own reality.”

For photographer Lorenzo Scudiero the medium of analog photography has become an exciting way tell a story, because he knows “that it is near to what he perceives.”

Born and raised in Rovereto, a small city located in the North of Italy, Scudiero grew up surrounded by a stunning landscape at the southern edge of the Italian Alps. Creating peaceful images showing the harmony of nature and young people searching for adventure, he decided to go on a two week road trip across France together with five other friends going from coast to coast…

“It seemed to me as I had been living in a dream for whole two weeks.”“We wanted to see the real France, to explore the landscape and discover the places hardly visible on the main roads. This is why we travelled by camper, from the Canyon du Verdon to the Rustrel Desert going up then to the wonderful Paris and the cliffs of Normandy. It seemed to me as I had been living in a dream for whole two weeks. We did not plan the travel following a scheduled time because we wanted that the events and the new acquaintances would lead us towards our targets in a natural way.”

Located in the Xuhui district of Shanghai, the tea house in Li Garden was developed by Chinese architect’s office Atelier Deshaus. The building owns a large courtyard towards the entrance gate and sits in the northwest corner where a paulownia tree grows.

Atelier Deshaus used the space around the paulownia by cutting the volume facing the tree into an L-shape, creating a small backyard that functions as an outdoor room complementary to the tea house. The typical perception of a small and light tea house was retained by the 60mm steel tubes that have been incorporated in square cross-sections all over the building. Around the edges of the pavilion, a steel construction forms a bench that crosses the threshold between inside and outside, appearing to hover above the ground. Ribbed glass was used for clerestory windows and incorporated below the bench seating. The roof is made of steel insulation boards fixed by an anti-ribbed steel panel to keep the roof smooth. Black steel permeates through the building which contrasts the warm timber flooring and joinery, as well as the white-painted ceiling.

The small housing units called MINIMOD have been designed by Brazilian MAPA Architects. Constructed from four modules, namely, bedroom, living room dining room and bathroom, which also contains a kitchen, they present a simple but contemporary dwelling. Individual possibilities of rearranging the modules, create various ways of spatial arrangement.

The first prototypes of MINIMOD, back in 2009, were located in Catuçaba, the Brazilian remote. One was set on top of a hill and the other next to a beautiful pond. In order to create the best interaction with nature and the surrounding, the first house was built cross-shaped whereas a more linear order was used for arranging the second one. Since then, MAPA has expanded the idea of portable shelters. Right now the architects are planning to branch out their housing concept to North American and European market.

The units present an alternative to the traditional construction method, based on prefabricated house technique. Using its unique-in-Brazil CLT Wood-Technology combined with sustainable materials, the architects set new standards in architecture and design.

Photographer Catherine Hyland has been travelling the mountains of China and Mongolia to capture its vast, nearly uncanny and empty tourist destinations. Shot on film, Catherine’s large-format photographs show the impressive landscapes together with their barren tourist-targeting additions, contrasting the natural and manmade elements.

“The aim is to shine a light on both the strange and sublime nature of these spaces.”
The dusty mountainous pictures feature gradated colours and uniformly earthy-brown tones. For her latest series named “Universal Experience”, the artist deals with themes of nostalgia and abandonment, capturing giant Buddhas located in small desolate villages in rural China and expansive mountainscapes with barely any visitors. With the focus on historical importance or natural splendour, each photograph contains the significance as a place of beauty and grandeur. The project highlights the fact that landscape is seen primarily as a cultural construct and only secondarily as a natural phenomenon.

Vancouver, Canada-based design firm Matthew McCormick Studio created Halo, a modular lighting system. The bold lamps can be arranged in multiple ways, filling the room with pleasant warm light.

Keen on being top of the line in shape and form, the designers created an illumination system with contemporary design combined with technical understanding of technology and manufacturing. Initially Halo started as a graphic rendition of effervescence. As a result McCormick Studio designed a light installation which at the same time functions as an art piece. The company’s philosophy is to allow the creative process to be informed by curiosity and refined by engineering. All of the illumination modules are hand finished and come in the following materials: brass, copper, nickel and 24 karat gold.

Spanish firm Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has developed one of its signature white residential designs for a client in Los Angeles. Located high up in the exclusive Hollywood Hills, the yet-to-be-built minimal home is positioned at different levels in order to frame the horizon of both the city and the ocean.

Known for its minimal architectural style with simple but dramatic forms, Fran Silvestre Arquitectos imagined a monolithic piece, hanging from topography and opened to the distant landscape. When viewed from the access street at the top of the site, the house appears as a simple low cuboid with an opening at one side. This single-storey block would have a double garage and two staircases, one inside and one out, leading down to a larger level hidden from sight. The terrace would feature a swimming pool and a kitchen area partially enclosed by the overhanging volume above. To reach the private studio, the client would have to walk outside and around to the far side. The minimal stylistic direction repeats oneself in the interior, featuring clear and white colors with very little furniture.

In Osaka’s charming neighborhood Nakazaki, among many old houses turned into small business, stands an exceptionally small hair salon with modern and minimalist interior.

A one-room space, the Hair Salon is located at the end of a narrow alley that seems to be frozen in time – with old Nagayas (terraced houses), potted plants and laundry drying around, it has a unique atmosphere. Although a very small, the salon includes both the space for cutting hair and a Japanese-style room for styling kimono. The interior floor, finished with the same material as the driveway, creates a continuous concrete surface that connects the interior with the exterior. “I expect this hair salon to have a natural flow between the outside and inside, keeping it open and light to the street, while retaining a comfortable private atmosphere for the guest,” says Shimpei Oda, the architect responsible for the project of the renovation.

All images © Norihito Yamauchi