People who know me also know that one of my favourite TV shows (probably even my most favourite one) is Eureka. The series is set in a fictional top-secret government-run town — Eureka, that is — inhabited entirely by scientists and geniuses developing all sorts of technological innovations, from tiny gizmos to major scientific experiments, and usually also causing some almost catastrophic accident on every episode. The problem generally gets solved somehow by Sheriff Carter, one of the few non-genius residents the town.
So when I bumped into an article about an underground bunker house on Crookedbrains earlier today…
…the first thing I thought was “OMG, it’s S.A.R.A.H. with a classical twist!“.
If you’re wondering who or what S.A.R.A.H. is, that’s because you’ve never watched the show (shame on you!): S.A.R.A.H. (which stands for “Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat”) is
an artificial intelligence that runs Sheriff Carter’s household. Acting as both surrogate wife and mother, S.A.R.A.H. handles all the daily chores, helps Carter’s daughter Zoe with schoolwork, and also provides emotional companionship.
S.A.R.A.H. was designed to be the ultimate computer, perfect in every way and with many human qualities. Of course, those qualities often include some human weaknesses — including vanity, jealousy, and of course, the occasional bout of pouting. Her interests include reading, board games, and watching television. Fascinated by human nature, her favorite programs are Lab 27 and The Jerry Springer Show.
Below, a couple of blueprints of S.A.R.A.H.’s plans:
A few design sketches:
And some pics of the interiors:
(images via @_S_A_R_A_H_’s twitpic — yes, this house even has a twitter account…)
Officine Farneto is a former barrack — designed in 1932 by Enrico Del Debbio — converted into a cultural venue, although this is just the latest of a series of adaptive reuse programmes: in over three quarters of a century it’s in fact been used as a factory, then as offices, and it’s now turned into a conference venue and showroom.
Set within Monte Mario park, the venue preserves its original “industrial archaeology” outlook as a wrapping to the new contemporary design features added by the recent refurbishment programme by Architettare.it.
Facilities include a bar area, a bookshop, artists’ studios, a roof garden area, a fully equipped 130 seats conference room and an overall “event area” which can welcome up to 1600 people.
Since 2003, Chicago based ICARCH gallery’s been periodically launching art/concept design competitions for “a house for [insert name of personality of choice here]“.
Below you can see sample entries from past competitions for a house for Fernando Pessoa, one for Albrecht Dürer, one for Michelangelo Antonioni and one for Ingmar Bergman:
Ongoing competitions are for a house for Frédéric Chopin, one for Akira Kurosawa, one for Albert Camus, another one for Anton Chekhov…
Then they came up with a brilliant, contemporary idea: why not design a house for Lady Gaga, too?
Please send icarchgallery@yahoo.com ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme. You can send your work to this e-mail address. The deadline is June 1st, 2010. There is an entry fee of 50$ (25$ for students) payable by PayPal to admin@icarch.net. We will display all the works received on our website: www.icarch.net. We will also forward them to Lady Gaga, for her consideration. And we hope that if one proposal matches “her essence and her spirit,” (as apparently the dress that Armani designed for her did), she will build it! We are almost sure of it! We suggest you choose a real location for your proposal, since we think that this potential client will be quite able to build anywhere in this world. Let’s get Lady Gaga interested in architecture! We think she might enjoy our provocation very much, since architecture is supposed to be “frozen music.” So let’s bring together Dance and Music and Architecture through an adventurous, forward looking and exciting house for the ever changing Lady Gaga!
The history of Zenden Hotel dates back from the Sixties, but it was in 2009 that Dutch studio Wiel Arets Architects transformed these three townhouses in Maastricht into a real designer hotel.
The interiors are almost entirely white (with Corian “furniture” integrated into walls), although each of the nine rooms are unlike the others; in the basement there’s a swimming pool (under an original mediaeval vault).
Hotel Zenden
St. Bernardusstraat 5
Maastricht, The Netherlands
phone: +31 (0)43 3212211
email: info@zenden.nl
(photos by Jan Bitter and Joao Morgado, via Contemporist)
Fiona Davies has always been passionate about interior design. Choosing to leave her career in television, she decided to pursue her love of design, and went back to college to train for a Foundation Degree in Interior Spatial Design at the University of Plymouth.
Now Fiona seeks to share her enthusiasm for good interior design through her work at Flame Interiors. As an Interior Designer, Fiona works with close attention to detail as she considers form, function and the optimum use of space, in order to produce the best possible design solutions for her clients.
Ripahotel, in the heart of the Trastevere district, in Rome, is a design-in-progress hotel: the building was designed in 1973 but the hotel has been continuously redesigned in recent years by King Roselli Architetti, to match both customers’ demand and technology requirements.
From the designers’ website we learn that
…the project has evolved over the years as a series of interiors in an existing residence hotel of the 70s and its gradual conversion to a 4 star all suites hotel. The entrance lobby is developed as a single fluid space connecting the entrance to the reception desk crossing the entrances to the restaurant (to the right) and the conference room to the left.
The hotel has 120 rooms, divided in seven types, plus three conference/meeting rooms, a mini-gym and an in-house bar/restaurant.
Palazzina Grassi is a 16th century building on the banks of Canal Grande in Venice, right next to Palazzo Grassi, turned into a designer hotel: Emanuele Garosci hired starchitectPhilippeStarck to design interiors of his first hotel in Italy.
Result in pictures below:
The hotel maintains its original façade, of course, and quite rightly so. Central colonnade of the building has been restored while further columns are modernised, resulting in a pleasant contrast between contemporary and classical Venetian architecture.
Mr Garosci explains ideas and aims for his hotel in the video below:
There are 16 rooms plus 6 apartments, and no reception desk in the hall; the hotel also encompasses a restaurant with a view on the canal, of course. Most of the hotel furniture is designed to measure by Starck (who also designed the hotel logo) and then handmade by artisans, masterfully mixing together traditional elements and materials of Venetian craftsmanship (including Murano glass and mirrors, and coloured Venetian plaster) with contemporary materials and design.
Palazzina Grassi
San Marco 3247
30124 Venezia
Tel: +39 041 5284644
Fax: +39 041 2410575
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