The OZ Residence in Silicon Valley, California, designed by Swatt | Miers Architects captures the essence of casual California living with open planning, rich natural materials, and strong visual connection to beautiful gardens designed by landscape architect Ron Herman. The owners, a young couple with two young children, wanted their home to have a casual, barefoot feel, like a vacation destination. Their 2.8 acre site, with gentle slopes to the south and mature landscaping on all sides was the perfect setting to create a home that would fully engage the beautiful landscape. The 10,000 square foot home is organized into a ‘L’ shaped plan with 2 wings joined at a two-story great room. Sheathed in mahogany boards and fully glazed on two sides, this beautiful volume pierced by a floating glass bridge both connects and separates the family and sleeping wings on either side.

The north side includes a motor court, adjacent to an entry courtyard of rectangular stepping- stones over a shallow reflecting pool.

With ceilings and two walls of Honduran mahogany, and two walls of floor-to-ceiling glass, this space recalls the indoor-outdoor lobbies of grand resort hotels in the South Pacific.

The east wing includes the kitchen and family room on the ground floor, with children’s bedrooms located on the upper level. The south wing consists of an office, media room, and guest suite at the lower level, with the master suite located on the second floor. Connecting the two wings is a living / dining ‘great room’, fully glazed on the north and south sides.

A giant heritage oak tree, centered on the main terrace opposite the living room, has been preserved as a special focus, viewed from the entry and main living spaces.

Accessed by glass doors from the living and dining areas, the media room, and the kitchen and family rooms, the south side of the house has been designed for family living, with generous stepped terraces, lawn play areas, a barbeque patio, and a swimming pool.

Photos: Tim Griffith

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The Residence in Kifissia is designed by Tense Architecture Network, situated in Kifissia, Greece. The residence’s plot is small and an adjacent building almost blocks the southern sun. The main part of the field should remain free and become the residence itself: an austere prism, centrally supported, hovers above the liberated ground. At first, an area was defined: a cubic shell of plants creates a limit for the house. In order to reside, ones withdraws in. Three metallic columns support a net of inox ropes where plants have already started to climb in order to generate a volume equally important to the house’s prisms.

When the plants are grown the green screen will be penetrated only by the black central column of the concrete shelter. The basalt-watery surface on which it is based reflects the light in the interior. Exposed concrete is dark tinted where a greater depth, a sense of anchoring was necessary. Artificial light is cautiously managed in order to protect the night and the intimacy that dim light offers.

The shell remains intact towards the main facade. The public image of the residence will eventually recede behind the plants and the house will claim the whole field. The vigorously detached prism lets the sun enter and functions as a shelter: living space lies beneath. When the sliding panels retreat, the merging with the garden is complete.

The space that the elevated prism creates is the main compositional gesture. The manner that this gesture is performed is crucial: it is the manner through which the hovering prism is supported by the central column. A calm tension is realized, a simple yet clear correlation of forces. The synergy between structural and architectural design gives a residence where the shell is not more important than its field. Those are juxtaposed: one to one.

Photos: Filippo Poli

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This incredible loft space has been designed by Daleet Spector Design in Marina Del Rey, California. With an eclectic, industrial, modern design style, the home features charming details with high ceilings and a bold color palette. The flooring throughout the main living spaces is polished concrete.

The rolling island has been custom designed to fit the space. The unique light fixture hanging from above is from Restoration Hardware.

The unique wallpaper featured in this bathroom is refreshing and playful, its hand silkscreened using water based inks on recycled paper by artist Geoff McFetridge for Pottock.

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Singita Boulders Lodge overlooks South Africa’s shallow Sand River in the middle of a 33,000 acre territory that boasts the highest concentration of wildlife in all of Kruger National Park. The luxury lodge offers twelve sumptuous, authentic and refined suites offer stunning views of the banks of the river Sand. Each boasts its own pool and private terrace, guaranteeing you total harmony with nature. You will quickly find that midday hours are best reserved for relaxing by the pool to beat the heat.

The Singita Sabi Sand Game Reserve is home to high concentrations of lions, rhino, buffalo, elephant, and leopard. You’ll get the chance to track them with knowledgeable guides in the mornings and evenings, when they’re most active. When you get back from your safari, you will find a delicious African inspired gourmet meal waiting for you to enjoy in the shade of centuries-old trees. The lodge also boasts Africa’s finest bush cellar where you can enjoy an exclusive wine tasting. The lodge even offers a fully equipped gym (with a full view of the savanna) and a diverse menu of spa treatments, including traditional African treatments and hot stone massages.

Nightly rates for this exclusive luxury lodge starting from USD $2,867, from here.

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House on the house or Forum Limbach is an old farm house in Limbach im Burgenland, Austria designed by Looping Architecture. The farmyard was expanded by an architecturally exciting chapter; the annex serves as a discussion forum and venue. On top sits the upper storey as “house on the house” with the principal’s private rooms. The new building, fitted into the historically grown farmyard structure, closes the rural square edifice and at the same time opens up the previously enclosed inner yard. This apparently contradictory double function is made possible by the building’s clever horizontal bisection. The “house on the house”, entirely clad in a red polyurethane skin, faces east-west, the necessary rotation out of the original property’s axes emphasizes that it is a newcomer in the conglomerate. It is accessed via a self-supporting stairway quoting the ladders which belong to the farmyard image. In the farmyard’s biography, the annex project marks a visionary new beginning without overwriting the property’s naturalness.

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Grey Loft is the brilliant reconstruction of an existing attic apartment in Ostrovského, Prague, Czech Republic by design studio OOOOX. The designers slightly modified the 1,097 square foot (102 square meters) layout, especially in the bathroom where they connected the glazing to the bedroom. The center box with bathroom and toilet is separated distinctly by colored dark pearl paint. The other spaces throughout the apartment are bright in color with various hues of gray in accents walls and furnishings, bleached wood floors, industrial light fixtures and a stainless steel center island in the kitchen.

Photos: Martin Zeman

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Are you feeling challenged by trying to figure out how to adorn an empty wall? Make a charming and simple graphic statement by inexpensively decorating with maps. Whether you select a topographic map from USGS, a vintage print of your favorite city, a collection of National Parks maps, a subway map, nautical chart, a wall-size illustration of the world or an historic map, they are all fascinating to study and can bring a graphic punch to any space yet at the same time make it more personal. Try adding a collection of small framed maps to rolling relics from primary school to oversized maps or wallpaper maps, a collage of maps to triptych maps, there are so many variations that can applied to your decorating scheme. Check your attic for old maps, or frame one from a travel brochure or transit map. We have gathered together some inspiration for you to create the look in your own home. Here are some sources of where you can obtain some maps, WardMaps, National Geographic Store, Rand McNally , V & J Duncan, Argosy Book Store, and Natural Curiosities.

This map covers and entire wall and its size draws attention away from the fact that the room is only as wide as the bed is long.

This oversized map from IKEA serves as a large and worldly headboard. The mother of the boy who sleeps in this room, Interior Designer Jeanette Van Wicklin, says “Whenever we’re stumped by a geography question, we say, ‘let’s go look at the big map!’”

Go local to celebrate your part of the world. This beautifully rendered triptych lets guests learn more about the geography and ecology of the region they are visiting.

Remember these roll-down hanging maps from elementary school? This one is enhanced by the butter yellow walls and the vintage-style pendant light.

Photo Sources: 1. Jeffers Design Group, 2. & 3. Dufner Heighes Inc, 4. Echelon Custom Homes, 5. & 6. Erika Everett Design 7. Grace Home Design, 8. Julie Ranee Photography, 9. Kate Jackson Design, 10. Lucy Interior Design, 11. Margaret Donaldson Interiors, 12. Melanie Morris Design, 13. Mosaik Design & Remodeling, 14. Pinterest, 15. TAS Construction, 16. Tiffany Farha Design, 17. Tim Barber LTD Architecture & Interior Design, 18. Tommy Chambers Interiors, 19. Trade Mart Interiors, 20. Van Wicklen Design, 21. Wallpapered, 22. Wind and Willow Home, 23. ZeroEnergy Design, 24. Sandvold Blanda Architecture + Interiors, 25.  Ana Williamson Architect 26. Beekman Lane, 27. Benedict August, 28. Bosworth Hoedemaker, 29. Pinterest, 30. Dahlia Design, 31. Design Nehez

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Casa del Acantilado is a bright white house nestled on a cliff in Calpe, Alicante, Spain by architecture studio Fran Silvestre Arquitectos and features an 18 meters long balcony that stretches out towards the Balearic Sea. The home is comprised of 2,604 square feet (242 square meters) with the living rooms and bedrooms contained within the protruding upper level, offering panoramic views through a completely glazed facade. The entire structure is composed of concrete, but the walls are coated in stucco to create the clean white aesthetic.

From the architects, “We like the virtue of architecture which makes possible constructing a house on air, walking on water…An abrupt plot of land overlooking the sea, where what is best is to do nothing. It invites to stay. A piece that respects the land’s natural contour is set in it. Above, a shadow, the house itself, looking calmly at the Mediterranean. Under the sun, the swimming-pool brings us closer to the sea, it becomes a quiet cove. In the inflection point, the stairway proposes an evocative path, a garden in the basement…

Due to the steepness of the plot and the desire to contain the house in just one level, a three-dimensional structure of reinforced concrete slabs and screens adapting to the plot’s topography was chosen, thus minimizing the earthwork. This monolithic, stone-anchored structure generates a horizontal platform from the accessing level, where the house itself is located. The swimming-pool is placed on a lower level, on an already flat area of the site. The concrete structure is insulated from the outside and then covered by a flexible and smooth white lime stucco. The rest of materials, walls, pavements, and the gravel on the roof… all maintain the same color, respecting the traditional architecture of the area, emphasizing it and simultaneously underlining the unity of the house.”

Photos: Diego Opazo

Casa del Acantilado | House on the Cliff by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos on Vimeo.

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Morukuru Lodge tucked away in the heart of the Madikwe reserve and, one of the largest reserves in South Africa, is named after the lofty trees which lend it their shade. Enfolding guests in peace and comfort, three superb villas accommodates families and groups of friends who wish to spend some special time together, far from everything, on an exclusive-use basis. The stone and timber villas are meticulously decorated, and open out onto immaculately preserved luxuriant nature: the perfect place if you want to observe wildlife and the numerous “Big Five” animals on the reserve. Airy bedrooms feature a fireplace for chilly nights and large, insect-screened sliding doors opening on to tree-shaded private balconies.

Spacious bathrooms have deep baths with a view of the bush, and both inside and outside, monkey’s eye-view private showers for an unforgettable bush experience. An additional four junior guests can be comfortably accommodated in the kid’s room, where they have access to recreational facilities. The superbly appointed living area offers fine dining for a complete party of ten, with cuisine prepared to your taste and requirements by your personal chef. Guests can also have breakfast in the morning sunshine to the accompaniment of cackling Wood Hoopoes, lunch ‘al fresco’ in the shaded garden, or dinner by starlight and candles on the broad pool deck overlooking the fast-flowing Marico River.

To stay at this spectacular lodge, prices range from $1,908 – $2,857.81 per night for four guests and $5,618.57 per night with a four night minimum for peak season for six adults and four children, from here.

The heated infinity pool is surrounded by comfortable loungers for relaxing, bush-view siestas after a dip in the cool water. A wooden veranda surrounds the lodge perimeter, providing quiet nooks for the private bush showers, leading to a romantic riverside raised walkway. On moonlit nights, dine around a crackling bonfire in the boma and on chilly nights or lazy days, savor the welcoming peace of the luxurious indoor lounge area, with its deep, comfortable couches, night-time crackling fire and panoramic daytime view of the bush and passing wildlife.

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The clients were not in the market for a new residence but when the wife noticed an open house sign she couldn’t resist checking out this condominium in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. One glance over of the light-filled space which occupies one floor of an Art Deco building with views of every San Francisco landmark from the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz and they were sold. After purchasing the property, designer Candace Cavanaugh was hired to achieve their vision of a quietly elegant decor that focused on the views and provided for a suitable backdrop for their abstract art collection.

The apartment had not undergone any renovations in almost 40 years. The designer worked in collaboration with architect Gary Jerabeck of Architectural Development and contractor Design Line Construction. The space was transformed, leaving the original footprint intact, the project entailed a complete remodeling including new fixtures, tile, hardware, moldings, lighting and wallpaper throughout. The designer also raised the ceilings in the foyer, living room, dining room and library, creating architectural interest that has been further embellished with hand-wrought detailing and moldings.

Cavanaugh repurposed a guest bedroom into a cozy home library and office for the husband (shown above). The space features a distinct masculine neoclassical theme with custom cabinetry finished in a black wash to allow the wood grain to show through; the library shelving is in a classic X-motif and strong statement fabrics such as the zebra-patterned linen velvet chairs by Ralph Lauren and mohair by Christopher Hyland, have been used to highlight the space.

Color choices were selected by using San Francisco’s legendary sunsets and ethereal rolling fog as a continuously changing backdrop, selecting a quiet palette of soft grays, golds and charcoals and translated them into opulent finishes and textural fabrics, with artworks and accent pieces providing pops of color.

The panoramic bay views are the main attraction in the formal dining room. The other units in the building all feature breakfast nooks in the kitchen, but the architect chose to extend the dining room to provide a multipurpose space that encompasses the view.

The homeowners can pass through from the dining room to the butler’s pantry and into the kitchen where a gallery of satiny-back cabinetry with antique mirrored panels frames a scenic bay view. The designer’s choice of opulent finishes, such as the glossy black subway tiles by Waterworks, imparts glamor, while her deer-leg bar stool design is an unexpected design choice in this space.

Photos: Matthew Millman

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