The architecture and design blog

It looks like it was inspired by a Yogi’s nail bed. But it was an opening of the heavens that induced a brain storm, and in a flash, brighter than a lightening strike, the Spike Chair was conceived. Read more

Beautiful knives made from solid wood, each handcrafted in Kyoto, raises interesting questions both cultural and practical. The range is known as Fusion, a reference to the cultural influences exerted on the Italian designer, Andrea Ponti, whilst working in Japan. Read more

Photos: Jordi Bernadó andPedro Pegenaute.

The management of muck, in one form or another, is the essence of farming. But, for city dwellers, increasing urbanisation has broken the link between the food we eat and the land that produced it. City farms, designed to reintroduce this connection, if not entirely repair it, have traditionally been manifest as farms, muck and all, to provide an authentic rural experience for the town dweller. But the clumsily named Agriculture Interpretation Centre at Aranzadi Park, Pamplona. Spain, has been designed by Aldayjover Architects with a different approach. Read more

Photo credits: Frederik Vercruysse.

The “A” frame house has a long and arguably problematic tradition in timber construction. Whilst it is simple to design and build, the problem is that because the walls slope inwards, the usable area is greatly reduced, making the form fairly inefficient and the space oppressive to inhabit. Extending the house is however easy, as one can simply add another bay extruding the form lengthways.

But dmva did rather better than that when designing this tiny 29 meter square extension. Read more

Images: Snøhetta.

The long awaited extension to San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art has finally commenced. When completed in 2016, it will see the exhibition space more than double, and will provide seven floors of accommodation that includes better educational facilities as well as improved space for large-scale works.

The new building designed by the Norwegian architect Snøhetta is quite a contrast to the existing Post Modern building designed by Mario Botta. Read more