Port-A-Bach

NZ Architecture firm, Atelier Workshop work to create an effective answer to the issues of portability, site access, robustness and security of large scale projects like home living. The team up-cycle containers like the Port-A-Bach prototype, which is not yet in production but a permanent display at the Puke Ariki Museum in New Plymouth. Atelier Workshop accept commissions however to design customised container living solutions. 

Port-A-Bach features room to sleep two adults and two children, with additional kitchen, bathroom and living areas. It is portable, secure and environmentally clean. It'd be great accommodation on land when planning to build and kept for visitors!!

The Home-Journal

So not much action has been happening by me over at The Home-Journal recently but this week I talk about dressing your home like you dress yourself. It's an interesting concept, but works...

Read it here.

Christmas Tree Alternatives

Christmas is so far away... but at the same time it's super close! At work we are planning Christmas set up for a week away! Ahhhhh! So crazy! But it's also making me so excited for Christmas. I don't know why, since i'll be working pretty much straight through with hopefully a week off in January to go camping with the family. But Christmas just means so much excitement... so i'm excited! Browsing Frankie the other day and came across these lovely alternatives to traditional christmas trees. Definitely an option for space-saving, small-living people.

Chiaozza

Brooklyn's small design studio Chiaozza is all about creating playful products for everyday life. And that is exactly how i'd describe these custom alphabet frames. The exploration of colour, shape and form are reflected in the functional sculptures. All work is done by hand, locally in New York. Love them!

Re.Cover

Illustrated by Brazilian Interior Designer Ana Strumpf for an art exhibition in Sao Paulo, these fashion magazine covers have been cleverly electrified. Each cover is created unique, using DecoColor pens and sharpies. 

Click here to see them all...

Cuixmala

Along the Pacific Coast of Mexico lies Cuixmala, a vast private estate featuring 25,000 acres of land on 3km of golden sandy beach. Originally a private home for family and friends, the estate is now used as a boutique hotel. What sets it apart is the surrounds to the hotel... an exotic animal preserve, a turtle sanctuary, a coconut plantation, and an organic farm where most of the food consumed at the hotel is grown. What a dream!

Tales You Lose

Often Instagram supports a self-obsessed type of world where people share an ideal picture of themselves for the world to see. Some accounts however are such a relief from this, like @zhion. This account features Brazilian designer, Andre Levy's ongoing art project Tales You Lose. Levy paints coins collected from his travels and turns them into tiny little treasures. He explains "I'm into painting coins and designing imaginary friends for myself." 

Aren't they awesome!!

Kari Herer

Portland based photographer Kari Herer draws on experience in fine arts and graphic design, along with a love for nature, to create clever and beautiful still life prints. These prints are available on etsy and are so affordable! Definitely adding one to my Christmas wishes...

Cereal Magazine's Forest Gallery Exhibit

Cereal Magazine is definitely a favourite of mine... Recently a competition was conducted where readers could submit their own photograph inspired by the theme forest to be considered for inclusion in the next issue of the magazine. After many incredible entries, 13 were selected for the exhibition (which took place in London last week) and to be included in issue 4 of the mag. A limited edition forest cover for issue 4 was printed with only 100 copies, where all proceeds from the project, including sales of the magazine and prints were donated to the International Tree Foundation.

Here are some of my favourite shots from the top 13. To see them all, head over here...

How to do nothing...

Doing nothing is something I struggle with... Actually to break it down I struggle doing nothing at home, in my house & I struggle doing nothing when people I know are around. For example, earlier this year when I was studying full-time at home, alone, I'd await the weekend to go out and do things. Jorge, however, felt completely the opposite... After finishing a working week of between 38-50 hours all he wanted to do on his weekend was sit at home and do nothing. 

I am happy however to go somewhere like the beach, park, or forest and do nothing there... 

Kinfolk have published an insightful article on The Idler: How to do nothing, written by Nikaela Marie Peters, which I thought I'd share some bits of...

"As people get older, they realise that time is more valuable than money. And finding more time to do absolutely nothing is perhaps exactly what we all need... 

It's the stuff of gods and infants -- the birthplace of great works of art, philosophy and science. The habit of doing nothing at all is super-important to our individual and cultural well-being, yet it seems to be dying in our digitized age... 

Far from laziness, proper idleness is the soul's home base. Before we plan or love or decide or act or storytell, we are idle. Before we learn, we watch. Before we do, we dream. Before we play, we imagine. The idle mind is awake but unconstrained, free to slip untethered from idea to idea or meander from potential theory to potential truth. Thomas Aquinas argued that "it is necessary for the perfection of human society that ther should be men who devote their lives to contemplation... 

Is true idleness a lost skill? How often do we sit, serenely unoccupied? How often do we walk, as henry David Thoreau advised, with no agenda or destination, present and free? What an uncommon sight: a solitary individual, his head not buried in a newspaper or laptop or phone, simply sitting -- his mind long wandered off... 

Productivity is not the only measure of time well spent. Some of the most important scientific innovations and inventions were 'happened upon,' unplanned, after years of unproductive, leisurely puzzling... 

I'm convinced that time spent idle makes for a healthier state of mind. We want less and are more at peace when we get it. We sleep better and work harder. Simpler things bring us joy. When we daily observe our immediate surroundings, we are more grounded in our context, more attuned to the rhythms of whatever season or place we are in..."