Where Design and Interiors Meets Happiness and Wellbeing
Now that autumn is here with colder weather and the nights drawing in earlier, doesn’t this room look like a snug place to hibernate for a while?
This cosy looking bedroom with its sloping wood-beamed roof is one of the five star rooms at the Lloyd Hotel Amsterdam.
It is an unusual hotel, with an even more surprising history, as I discovered.
Chedva is a design journalist, blogger and consultant. She writes the popular interior blog Rooms and Words. Her blog features design trends, interviews with designers, and plenty of beautiful images that will give you inspiration for your own decorating projects.
It was a love for home decor blogs and magazines – but most of all for design – that originally led her to start Rooms and Words. And she has also contributed to various magazines including Go Style, Rue and Heart Home Magazine.
Based in Tel Aviv, Chedva is a mother (who has learned to survive on little sleep!) a bookworm and twitter junky. All of this gives her an original voice and fresh style perspective. She shares with us here some of her own design inspirations and styling tips.
Christoph Schindler and Margarita Salmerón
Margarita Salmerón Espinosa is one half of the Zurich based architectural partnership schindlersalmerón. Born in Valencia, Spain, she studied Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Between 1998 and 2004 she worked as an architect at MVRDV in Rotterdam, Meili Peter in Zurich and Herzog & de Meuron in Basel. As well as her work for schindlersalmerón, Margarita is a contributor to the magazine Mundo Hispánico, where she writes about issues related to architecture and design.
Together with partner Christoph, they design and develop innovative – yet simple – modern furniture and home accessories in which the focus is the interrelation between form, function, tool, and material. Their best-selling Kleiderleiste Slimline Coatrack still belongs to the very few furniture products successfully implementing mass customization principles.
Holly Palmer is the designer of the original and playful Tea Cup Stool. She graduated from Bucks New University, UK, in 2008 where she studied Contemporary Furniture and Product Design.
Here she tells us the story behind the design of Tea Cup Stool, the process involved in manufacturing it; and reveals to us the designers who have inspired her.
You may have recently heard designers talking about biophilia or biophilic design.
If you were wondering what they mean, here’s a short introduction to explain the concepts. Learn how biophilia can benefit your home and wellbeing. And get some tips on how to bring some biophilic design into your home.
Let’s start at the beginning:
What is Biophilia? And Why You Need Biophilic Design in Your Home
How to use Biophilic Design in Your Home to Increase Happiness and Wellbeing
How Biophilic Design Could Help You Sleep Better
Why do we Find a Room With a View so Appealing?
Bringing more nature and greenery into your home and life is very much at the core of the principle. Discover why it’s not just another interior trend, some of the benefits of having plants in your home. How nature can inspire and even make your home feel more luxurious.
Why Plants Are More Than Just an Interior Trend
10 Good Reasons to Have Plants in Your Home
The Secret to a Luxurious Home
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The tallest hotel in London is set to open on 6 May.
Shangri-La Hotel, At The Shard, London will occupy levels 34 to 52 of the glass-clad skyscraper. And will actually be the tallest hotel in Western Europe. Offering the most breath-taking views of the city, it will unfold in all directions to reveal iconic landmarks such as the River Thames, Tower Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral and Big Ben.
Open plan living has been a popular choice in home design for several years now. But there is something to be said for the new trend for broken-plan living. It gives us different areas to break off into when we want a bit of quiet time and privacy. In addition, it adds element of mystery when you can’t see the entire layout of a home all at once. And as a result, can make a home appear to be more spacious.
That’s exactly what happened with the renovation of this exquisite minimalist apartment in the heart of Turin, Italy. The home forms part of a Palace dating back to 1800 close to the historic Piazza Castello. Here, broken-plan living and warm minimalism were brought together in a design that combines open areas with walls and sliding doors to provide both space and privacy – and a very unique mezzanine home office space.
During the summer months, it’s such a pleasure to be able spend more time outdoors and make the most of the warm weather.
Whether you have a garden or balcony, what could be nicer than sitting and relaxing outside with a book, spending a balmy summer evening entertaining friends or having a candlelit dinner for two? And even if you have only a small outdoor space, it doesn’t have to preclude you from enjoying it to the full.
There are design lessons and tricks you can learn both from Scandinavian homes, where great value is placed on spending time outdoors. And also from Mediterranean regions, where the outside living space becomes an extension of the home during the summer.
So here are some ideas on how you can maximise your outdoor space, use it to its full potential and turn it into your own little oasis.
A few days ago I had a rare treat – and a very special day trip. I went on my first ever visit to Dublin (together with my parents), to see the city where my mother spent much of her childhood.
It was still dark when we left London and as we flew towards the coast of Ireland morning was just breaking.
When autumn arrives and the weather cools we tend to spend more time indoors. So it’s a great time to do some little interior projects in your home.
If you’re a book lover, you’ll know that there’s no better way to escape for a few hours that to loose yourself in the pages of a good book. So why not turn an area of your home into a cosy reading nook; where you can relax on a comfy chair surrounded by some of your favourite novels?
