Boulders and pines surround High Desert Retreat by Aidlin Darling Design

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• Kitchen of the Week: 7 Design Ideas to Steal from deVOL’s Latest Showroom
• Eight chocolate-brown interiors that look good enough to eat
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• Reimagine the Outdoor Experience: Understanding Rooftop Deck Systems
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• Eight home interiors where mezzanines maximise usable space
• High/Low: Silver Pendant Light (with a $700 Price Gap)

Louvered skylights wash Oliveira’s 15 to 30 foot-long paintings with natural light, providing the only light needed within the space throughout the daylight hours. Benches and cushions are strategically placed to allow visitors to quietly view both the paintings and the adjacent landscape simultaneously. Exterior contemplation spaces are integrated into the use of the center, further intensifying the connection of nature, art and contemplation. These courtyards, coupled with the expansive glass wall to the east, allow visitors to view the paintings without accessing the building, effectively creating a sanctuary for the Stanford community day and night.

Kitchen of the Week: 7 Design Ideas to Steal from deVOL’s Latest Showroom

“We thought about the precedent of a cabinet of curiosities,” says Kent Chiang, principal and project architect at San Francisco–based Aidlin Darling Design. The firm reinterpreted 17th-century vitrines housing taxidermy and astrolabes into a 120-foot-long, S-shaped, compartmentalized, interactive display of the latest Google devices. Designed for an art collector, Art House doesn’t just make a statement, it creatively addresses several issues that plague San Francisco’s residential neighborhoods, namely its narrow lots and steep terrain. The house sits on a downslope with dramatic backyard views to the north, while the street side faces south, creating competing needs for light, privacy, and shade. How to fit it harmoniously into the eclectic streetscape was another challenge, given the client’s penchant for powerfully minimalist architecture. “We always ask, how can a singular gesture solve three to five problem statements,” says Josh Aidlin, FAIA.

Eight chocolate-brown interiors that look good enough to eat

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The home’s concrete plinth, steel and glass armature, and zinc skin respond to the site’s high-water table and resonate with its natural splendor. "The home expresses the clients’ very individual values while pleasantly surprising them on a daily basis," says Aidlin. The vertical layout of the home is driven by the relationship between the three generations that make up the household. The grandparents’ and three boys’ bedrooms are on the first floor, adjacent to a small family room.

The three floors are connected by a central, steel, switchback stair with floating wood treads that nestle between a three-story plaster wall and a three-story mahogany cabinet. "The clients requested the main stair be a heroic and sculptural experience," says Aidlin. "It is quite porous and captures dramatic views of the San Francisco skyline, and more intimate views of the rear garden, from its numerous landings." The top floor, where the master bedroom is located, incorporates south- and north-facing clerestory windows to bring additional natural light to the interior. The renovation not only accommodates the clients and their three young sons, but also two grandparents.

Roseland University Prep by Aidlin Darling Design - Architectural Record

Roseland University Prep by Aidlin Darling Design.

Posted: Tue, 01 Jan 2019 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Visitors gaze out through a whole wall of glass to the oak grove on the east. On the facing wall, Oliveira’s immense Diptych, depicting two outstretched wings, is naturally lit by a narrow skylight that runs the length of the painting. The dim interiors are further subdued by a plenitude of dark-stained oak, used for the flooring, slatted ceiling, and simple benches. In the main space, heavy rammed-earth walls, which range up to 2 feet in thickness, highlight the sedimentary layers of the soil that was used to form them. "While the wooden volumes house the critical program for the home, the entry sequence from garage to house is articulated by the orientation and form of two concrete entry walls," said Aidlin Darling Design.

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While the wooden volumes house the critical program for the home, the entry sequence from garage to the house is articulated by the orientation and form of two concrete entry walls. They are intentionally juxtaposed to create a void between them, ultimately guiding the occupant to the glazed entry of the home. The parallel concrete walls not only frame the entry and the dining room beyond but most importantly the heroic view to the East and the Coachella Valley below. The dining room flows out to a pool terrace through a sliding glass wall. To the right is the two-bedroom guest wing (hidden behind the forecourt wall) and a kitchen that opens to the terrace.

Eight home interiors where mezzanines maximise usable space

San Francisco firm Aidlin Darling Design has completed a low-slung home in California's Palm Desert that is intended to contrast the boulders and trees found in its remote setting. Shops, hotels, restaurants and points of interest for the home and garden obsessed on the go. Our Monday digest of helpful ideas and inspiration to improve your dream kitchen or bath. SOURCEBOOK FOR THE CONSIDERED HOMEThe one-stop sourcebook for the considered home, guiding readers artfully through the remodeling and design process. This webinar explores how integrating technologies into our daily routines can transform our work processes and AE firm’s culture.

Each year, the city hosts Palm Springs Modernism Week to promote its midcentury heritage and its preservation. "The structure would be exceedingly quiet and crisp in its geometry, intentionally contrasting the organic forms of the desert, and very low to the ground to minimize its presence," said the studio. Part of Aidlin Darling Design's brief was to protect the existing Pinyon trees that were found on site. This species of pine is native to the Southwestern United States, and can have a lifespan of up to 600 years.

The opposite wing contains the living room, which also spills onto the pool terrace, and the main bedroom suite, with a glass-enclosed bath that projects into the landscape. Josh says the program was fitted around the boulders “like Lego pieces,” and the negative spaces became as important as the volume. “The exciting part was coming as close as we could with the architecture to almost kiss the boulders. The materials of the home were chosen to quietly contrast with the lighter palette of the desert landscape.

Joshua Aidlin and David Darling began their partnership crafting furniture together in a San Francisco wood shop in 1998. Today, this history of craft and passion for shared making anchors our collaborative process. Our approach to each project is client and site specific, and includes open communication among clients, consultants, fabricators, and builders. An internationally renowned figurative painter, Oliveira joined the Stanford faculty in 1964 and taught art there for more than 30 years.