Kitchens with breakfast bars feature in today’s lookbook, which showcases ten interiors from Dezeen’s archive.
Breakfast bars are multi-functional, bar-height counters where people can perch on bar stools to socialise or dine.
An informal alternative to the dining table, they can also be used for working from home, helping to make the kitchen a multi-purpose space that can be in use all day long.
Breakfast bars often make efficient use of space, combining with kitchen islands or peninsulas to provide storage and prep space.
This Dezeen Lookbook is the latest to feature design ideas for kitchens. Others explore kitchens with islands, light-filled kitchens, terrazzo kitchens and green kitchens.
Here are 10 examples of breakfast bars selected from Dezeen’s archive.
Le Littoral, Canada, by Architecture49
The upstairs living space at this holiday rental in Québec by Architecture49 features a long, narrow galley kitchen with an island that doubles as a breakfast bar.
Backing onto a staircase, this offers guests emerging from the ground-floor bedrooms a convenient point to stop for coffee before heading to the living and dining area beyond.
The long, black island features a niche that allows stools to be partially tucked away to increase circulation space.
Find out more about Le Littoral ›
Holiday home, Chile, by 2DM Arquitectos
The open-plan kitchen of this angular home in Chile by 2DM Arquitectos features a V-shaped worktop, with the narrow peninsula serving as a breakfast bar.
The worktop is made of chunky, oiled hardwood while the bar stools have matching tractor-style hardwood seats.
Find out more about the holiday home ›
Apartment in Born, Spain, by Colombo and Serboli Architecture
Colombo and Serboli Architecture installed a playful open-plan kitchen with a round-ended peninsula as part of its conversion of an old apartment in Barcelona’s El Born district.
The terrazzo worktop overshoots the narrow rendered plinth, creating a breakfasting area furnished with two Revolver bar stools designed by Leon Ransmeier for Hay.
Find out more about Apartment in Born ›
La Nave, Spain, by Nomos
The terrazzo-topped peninsula in this open-plan kitchen in Madrid rests on a complex frame constructed from pine struts. This holds an open storage shelf – a typical feature in traditional Spanish kitchens, which often feature open shelving concealed by curtains instead of drawers and cupboards.
Two wooden artists’ stools with adjustable-height seats provide seating at the bar. The raw, open-plan apartment is in a former workshop in Madrid and was designed by Spanish architect Nomos.
Find out more about La Nave ›
Mantelpiece loft, Sweden, by Note Design Studio
Note Design Studio created this loft apartment in Stockholm, inserting a mezzanine into the double-height space beneath a soaring mansard roof.
The compact kitchen is tucked beneath a bedroom and features a breakfast bar set into a terrazzo peninsula that also features a sink, allowing a single breakfaster to wash up their crockery without leaving the Sequoia bar stools designed by Torbjørn Anderssen & Espen Voll for Magis.
Find out more about Note Design Studio ›
Penthouse M, Australia, by CJH Studio
CJH Studio’s redesign of the interior of this penthouse in Gold Coast, Australia features a breakfast bar that is placed against a window to make the most of the view.
The narrow, freestanding bar is made of wood, adding a touch of warmth to the neutral tones of the kitchen, which features beige wall tiles and travertine flooring.
Find out more about Penthouse M ›
Island Rest, UK, by Ström Architects
Island Rest, a low-slung holiday home on England’s Isle of Wight by Ström Architects, features a kitchen island deep enough for a row of bar stools to tuck underneath.
Made of white solid-surface material, the breakfast bar contrasts with the black kitchen and offers a more informal option than the huge wooden dining table behind, which is set with eight classic Wishbone chairs designed by Hans J Wegner for Carl Hansen & Søn.
Find out more about Island Rest ›
Holiday home, England, by Turner Works
Architect Turner Works converted a barn in Devon, England into a holiday home featuring an open-plan kitchen and diner overlooking a wildflower meadow.
The unusual kitchen layout features storage, prep space and appliances arranged along a wall plus a substantial island set at 90 degrees, forming a T-shape.
A shallow breakfast bar has been carved into one end of the island, which has a stainless steel counter above white storage units. The adjoining dining area features a double-length table with refectory-style seating.
Find out more about the holiday home ›
Family apartment, Canada, by Future Simple Studio
This apartment renovation in Montreal by Future Simple Studio has an asymmetrical kitchen consisting of units arranged against an angled wall plus a tongue-shaped island, which doubles as a breakfast bar.
The island is topped with polished granite and clad in white-painted cement blocks. The worktop cantilevers at one end, creating enough space for two Form bar stools designed by Simon Legald for Normann Copenhagen.
Find out more about the family apartment ›
Klinker apartment, Spain, by Colombo and Seboli Architecture
Colombo and Serboli Architecture updated this Barcelona apartment to include a compact open-plan kitchen made of russet-painted MDF.
One half of the short, broad island hosts a hob, which is ventilated by a dramatic stainless-steel extractor, with storage set below the counter.
The other, free-floating half of the island serves as a breakfast bar with room for two. It is supported by a steel column in one corner and features plenty of legroom beneath.
The apartment is too small for a dining table so the breakfast bar acts as the main eating space.
Find out more about Klinker Apartment ›
This is the latest in our series of lookbooks providing curated visual inspiration from Dezeen’s image archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks showcasing peaceful bedrooms, calm living rooms and colourful kitchens.
The beauty of Spain’s Aragon province informed the earthy colour palette, natural materials and curved forms used in this fine-dining restaurant interior by Valencia studio Masquespacio.
Located in the city of Huesca, Pukkel serves up a menu of healthy food and, according to the owners, aims to offer “a sensorial experience beyond the gastronomy.”
Pukkel is a fine dining restaurant
The interior uses a palette of natural materials and colours and undulating, textured forms that are intended to reflect the beauty of the nearby Pyrenees mountains and surrounding countryside.
“After doing a workshop with [Pukkel’s owners], Jorge and Mikel, we immediately proposed to work with 100 per cent natural materials and integrate nature into the space,” said Christophe Penasse, co-founder of Masquespacio.
Textured surfaces reference the nearby Pyrenees mountains
As well as the natural landscape, the designers wanted the interiors to reflect the restaurant’s healthy cuisine.
“We investigated the province of Huesca and started to discover the beauty of the mountains and parks in its surroundings,” added Masquespacio creative director Ana Hernández.
“We definitely found the reference we were looking for and that fitted perfectly with the healthy lifestyle concept from Pukkel.”
The design studio selected different tones of brown, white and green that are used alongside gold accents, which it said add a “little bit of sophistication” to the space.
The restaurant’s layout follows the curved lines and circular forms of the booth seating to create a winding pathway through the space. According to the designers, this is intended to create the feeling of walking through the forest or mountains.
Dark green is combined with lighter tones
This curved path is further highlighted by the colour of the floor tiles, which change from natural terracotta to glazed green or white in the different seating areas.
Uneven surface finishes such as rough stucco, ceramic and terracotta tiles are used to reflect the textures and forms found in nature. The terracotta tiles on the floors, bars and the undulating tiles on the walls were designed specially by Masquespacio for Pukkel.
Terracotta tiles wind through the space
The stucco seating booths feature integrated planters filled with plants and flowers that will change depending on the season.
Other restaurants designed by the studio include the Milan outpost of Italian fast-food chain Bun, where it selected a lilac and avocado-green colour scheme to create a youthful yet “sophisticated” interior, and a tropical sushi restaurant in Valencia, Spain, that mixes Japanese and Brazilian-inspired design elements.
Design and architecture agency Studiopepe references Milan’s offices and metro stations in its revamp of the fourth floor of the city’s renowned luxury department store La Rinascente.
The fourth floor, which is home to the store’s womenswear department, has been reimagined by the Milanese studio using bold graphic elements and pop colours.
The interior is dotted with colourful accents including changing rooms encircled in orange curtains (top image) and Rodolfo Bonetto’s Boomerang armchair (above)
Studiopepe, founded in Milan in 2006 by Arianna Lelli Mami and Chiara Di Pint, conceived the space as a series of zones subtly organised by functions and visual references.
1980s Milanese workplaces as well as the city’s rationalist M1 metro stations – the latter designed in 1964 by Italian architects Franco Albini and Franca Helg – were among the studio’s inspirations.
A system of curved plexiglass shelving meanders through the womenswear department
“The use of graphic elements and pop tones echoing Milan street style convey a new genderless approach to retail design,” explained the studio.
“Colour is conceived as an architectural tool – an intense emerald green, silver and black create an unusual palette animated by hints of coral and bright yellow tones.”
The department is accessed via a bright yellow staircase
The steel tubes – which are used to clad display columns and create table legs – are a direct reference to the city’s underground stations.
Materials such as satin steel, plexiglass and terrazzo are paired with experimental materials with contrasting textures such as Silipol – a material which was originally selected by Albini and Helg to cover the Metro stations’ walls; Alusion, the stabilised aluminium foam that is used to clad the city’s Fondazione Prada; and Milleform, a bio-based cotton acoustic tile.
To create a domestic feel, the space is furnished with a mix of bespoke rounded furniture and display cabinets, as well as classic design pieces like the Boomerang armchair by Rodolfo Bonetto.
Curved satin plexiglass shelving systems that display the store’s trainer offering also serve as space dividers.
The department’s distinctive circular changing rooms are enclosed in orange curtains made from structured leather – a feature that Studiopepe said nods to the textile folding doors often used by Italian architect Gio Ponti.
Studiopepe used contrasting textures throughout the interior
A previous incarnation of La Rinascente’s fourth-floor womenswear department was designed by Japanese studio Nendo. Designed in 2013, the studio drew upon architectural elements observed while exploring Milan to create a calming, neutral space.
The studio said that it was “inspired by the unexpected encounters with shop windows, courtyard gardens and public squares that come from wandering Milan’s back streets.
Mint green and burgundy are among the hues incorporated into a Montreal co-working space that Canadian firm Ivy Studio designed to “stand out from its competitors.”
The office is located on the second floor of a 743-square-metre building in Verdun, one of city’s trendiest neighbourhoods. The space formerly housed a Jiu Jitsu gym and a beauty salon.
Spacial co-working office includes mint and burgundy hues
This is the first location for the new co-working brand Spacial. Local practice Ivy Studio was charged with designing a flexible work environment for up to 120 people.
“Being the first of its brand, this space had to stand out from its competitors by offering a unique vision for co-working,” the team said.
The project was designed by Ivy Studio
The team divided the rectangular space into two distinct zones.
The front portion encompasses public areas that are largely used for informal working, socialising and relaxing. In the rear, the team created a more private area with about two dozen rentable offices in varying sizes.
Throughout the space, contemporary finishes and decor are paired with original building elements, such as exposed ceiling joists and brick surfaces.
In many areas, the team coated the walls with an off-white plaster and covered the floors with light-grey terrazzo. Much of the furniture is black, although dashes of colour are sprinkled throughout.
Dashes of colour are set against monochrome walls
Upon entering, one encounters a rounded reception desk made of zinc with a rainbow-coloured finish. Hanging on a wall is a blue, circular mirror – one of several rounded elements in the venue.
To one side of the foyer is a lounge and a trio of conference rooms, each with a wall-mounted screen.
Brick walls feature in the office
“In the conference rooms, televisions are camouflaged in front of matching, circular black mirrors, each backlit to put forward the white-washed brick wall,” the team said.
To the other side of the foyer is a second public area. This one encompasses a kitchen and dining space, including private booths that are well-suited for small groups.
Bathrooms have black ceramic tiles
The kitchen features curved cabinetry with a glossy mint-green finish, and a backsplash and island covered with Rosso Levanto marble. The base of the island is made of stainless steel, which mimics the chrome planters found throughout the office.
Situated near the kitchen are the bathrooms, which have black ceramic tiles and matching plumbing fixtures.
The reception area has a blocky glass brick wall
Behind the reception desk is a glazed-block wall that separates the public zone from the private offices, while still enabling light to pass through.
The offices are arrayed along corridors with tile flooring and brick walls. Both fixed and sliding glass panels enclose the work spaces. A dark burgundy hue was chosen for the carpeting and mullions.
Skylights bring extra light into the office’s interior
To ensure the private area felt bright and welcoming, the team installed 20 skylights above the corridors.
“With the exposed brick walls, sandstone floor tiles and abundance of natural light pouring into the hallways, the general feeling resembles that of working in an exterior courtyard,” the team said.
Other co-working spaces in Canada include an office designed by Henri Cleinge within Montreal’s old Royal Bank, and a women-only space in Toronto that was designed by MMNT Studio to feel peaceful yet playful.
Twenty interior design students at New York City’s Pratt Institute present their final projects in Dezeen’s latest school show.
From a building that could purify contaminated floodwater to analysing how to improve user’s airport experiences, these projects by undergraduate and postgraduate interior design students at Pratt Institute explore how interiors affect our environment and behaviour.
“The Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Interior Design at Pratt Institute has consistently ranked as the top interior design programmes in the United States and are considered to be some of the most prominent and influential. The courses prepare students to engage in critical inquiry and exploration – skills that establish them as innovators having an impact on the profession, the discipline and research on the interior environment.
“The programmes are architecturally oriented with emphasis on spatial articulation. They are designed to guide students in generating creative solutions by understanding craft, light, colour, and material research. Through theoretical and applied research, the curriculum addresses emerging and innovative technologies, interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainable practices. Both degrees focus on larger issues of ethical and social responsibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion through an understanding of global cultural history and its context.”
Solitary Living and Social Interactions in Urban Community by Bingyu Hu
“With different scales, functions and degrees of transparency, interior spaces serve as containers to protect privacy, stimulating communication and participation. As a result, they respond to individual’s lives while fostering community interaction.”
“Activating Boundaries addresses the way generic airport experiences have become passive due to the overwhelming amount of stress placed on users throughout their journey. The effects of these emotions leave the user searching for entertainment from the consumerism offered post-security check.
“Based on research, the stress users undergo are elevated in periods of waiting and delays when the presence of large lines appear. Is there an opportunity to repurpose these boundaries? Can stressors be transformed into a sensory experience? How can we transition from the independent isolation of travelling to experience the journey of travelling together?
“This thesis allowed me to investigate the future of design amidst a global pandemic that has altered the way we perceive space and people. It investigates reconnecting people with each other.”
Harvesting Water: Reimagining Environmental Waters as Constructive Materials in the Resilient Coastal Interior by Kats Tamanaha
“By 2060, an estimated 13 million Americans will be displaced due to rising sea levels and coastal flooding. This thesis explores the possibilities of tidal, flood and stormwater as ‘materials’ in our built environment. Here their potential is shifted, from substances that destroy to resilient tools used to manage flooding.
“Water within the built environment is hidden, hyper-controlled through intricate plumbing systems and filtered for use. Water within the exterior is uncontrolled and often feared. Floodwater is contaminated, picking up traces of where it has been and what it has touched. As sea levels rise, areas formerly at risk for 100-year floods will soon be submerged at high tide. How can the interior adapt to embrace the new reality of water rather than avoid it?
“My project embraces the future of permanent tidal flooding. The building passively phytoremediates toxic water while creating an adaptive form of the interior. It explores possibilities of tidal, flood, and stormwater as tools for long-term, in-place resiliency in coastal communities facing an increasing risk of flooding.”
“Fragment / Reconcile addresses the complexity of living in a post-conflict, economically deprived community that struggles under the burden of the past. Following the events of the troubles and the death of a dominant industry, an entire generation is coming of age in Derry who have to navigate insurmountable unemployment rates and forge a path to peace with little to no outside support.
“To help mitigate the most pressing issue for youth in Derry, I proposed an incubator and teaching facility to build community resilience through a network of small businesses. The centre would provide the resources currently lacking to retain their workforce and make upward mobility possible within the city.
“Growth is made possible by the incubator’s interactive and reflective practices. It engages with the community on a macro scale while also encouraging individual healing on a micro scale. As the user moves through space, it transitions from a collaborative environment to a self-reflective one. An archive becomes the basis upon which to preserve and reflect the collective memory of the people it serves. By being informed by the past, they can move towards the best version of their future.”
“This project puts forward new ways to inhabit in-between space. By breaking down interior elements one by one, a layering of interior and exterior space emerges and reinvents traditional spatial constructs.”
“This thesis focuses on the home as a ‘central agent of change’ in response to the remittance between the Salvadoran-American transnational identity. Here, remittance signifies the value of a cultural currency by forming a multi-generational landscape of retraced rituals and reassembled emblems.
“At the beginnings of a discourse, there is an agency in how the home responds to generational, cultural, psychological and environmental issues to constantly shape, design and re-examine contemporary living.”
“The Nest is a didactic and prototypical full-time detention centre designed for male adolescents who have committed minor crimes. It is a critique of the current antiquated prison form in New York City. It explores educational, healing, and therapeutic spatial relationships and rethinks surveillance in order to reform negative behaviours and support mental health issues.”
“Moments of Movement investigates how interior space can directly affect one’s bodily awareness and interactions with the environment. Rather than habitually moving through space, space can be designed to heighten our awareness of our body and its relationship with the material world.
“The intention is to bring more awareness and appreciation to those small, everyday events that we often perform on auto-pilot. Although we tend to seek out spectacular events, life often happens in those everyday moments in-between. Rather than rushing past them, the users are prompted to slow down and experience those moments.
“The thesis proposes that the body will be part of a network where interactions and movements through thresholds directly affect the environment. By augmenting thresholds within a parking garage and adding screens, mirrors, enhanced lighting, walls and monitors, body movements will be figured as the form-making material of the project. As the body moves within and between various garage zones, it becomes part of a network and explores the relationship between the environment and agency.”
Building Within Memory: Strengthening Place Identity in Deteriorating Environments by Claire Riordan
“Place-identity is defined by a person’s cognitions about the physical world around them. At their core are a person’s environmental past, made up of places, spaces and characteristics that have shaped their biological, psychological, social, and cultural needs.
“This thesis analyzes how the changing built environment can be used as a tool to reveal layers of place-identity. The mutual experience of change over time will inform the connection between the physical body and the spatial body, resulting in a stronger sense of self-identity.”
“Through the theory that performance exists every day, stage fright occurs in domestic, banal settings. In this project, customers in a retail furniture store become performers during their perusal of the staged vignettes by subverting social thresholds and design standards, new social and physical relationships form, alleviating the stigma of stage fright.
“Set in the theatrical and historical furniture showroom – ABC Carpet and Home – the staged sets which aim to present a home setting are critiqued as performative. Hired performers act out different domestic activities and shoppers find themselves crossing the threshold from audience to performer. In their attempt to look at the furniture, test it and imagine it in their own homes, they become part of the performance.
“An open floor plan allows for programmes to cross over, as a bed becomes a seat in a dining setting. Some toilets are for show, while others have working plumbing. The sets have spotlights, curtains and a fly system that allows for changing scenes, as furniture flies overhead, adding a theatrical quality to the performance.”
“This thesis explores a shared harmonic environment for residents and tourists. It uses performance rituals to create a prototypical system for cultural interaction and social harmony in creative cities of music evaluated by UNESCO.
“Spatial devices create new relationships between tourists and residents, combining with daily events such as dining or lounging, and cultivating cross-cultural understanding through the universal language of music and integrating it into the celebration of rituals such as holidays and food.
“The rituals will create a specific spatial quality by increasing culture experiences by controlling the sound transparency and visualizing the vibration of sound.”
“Curating Urban Wormholes explores the city through a new lens: by inserting cinematic experiences in sidewalk freight elevators that connect invisible, disparate moments in the cityscape. The elevators function as portals to parallel universes providing a social and cultural exchange between program and user.
“The project was inspired by the loss of authentic cinematic experiences due to the pandemic and the heterotopic quality of underutilized niches in the city.
“The network of temporary cinematic installations in sidewalk freight elevators reengages the city by activating unused, ‘other’ spaces, unlocking the city’s true potential. The curated serendipity of the wormholes invites the rediscovery of the urban landscape.
“These wormholes have a nodular quality that gives them an existence of their past the time of their installation, allowing them to leave behind traces in the urban fabric that add to the layered experience of the city.”
Beneath the Surface: An Inquiry into Boundary as a Didactic Threshold to Promote Awareness by Nella Gray
“Beneath the Surface explores ways to create tension within layers of interior design to provoke awareness and empathy for evasive issues.
“This project questions the separation of people from systems of production and waste as it enables apathy towards the concealed relationship of consumption and environmental degradation.”
“Borrowing existing materials inherent to the New York City subway station, such as the 3×6 tiles, the project will manipulate the surfaces of the City Hall Station to become an interactive, acoustical field of sonic densities. This experiential-interactive installation intends to address the notion of speed by making the acoustic field and the different paces of the city visual. In other words, rendering auditory data points visible to understand the functioning of NYC.
“The exploration is towards creating an interactive instrument activated through the movement of the users and the train in relation to the parallax effect.
“City Hall Station is underneath the City Hall Park, and the entrance is through the park. It is a loop station for Train Six: The station has existing skylights to the park’s surface.
“The project will be taking a material inherent to the subway station and recreate exposed surfaces in a different function, colour, and densities of tiles to highlight the notion of speed which could be experienced visually and acoustically.”
Pools Under Pavement by Michael Antonio Warren (MFA Interior Design) A Void: Rising Sea Level by Seung Heon Lee (BFA Interior Design) Implicit Bias by Xinxiao Hui (BFA Interior Design) Weaving Connectivity by Xiaoke Li (MFA Interior Design) Breathing Rules by Yang Pei (MFA Interior Design) Haptic Therapy Centre by Honghao Chen (BFA Interior Design)
The portfolio and thesis presentations of the Pratt School of Design MFA and BFA Interior Design Class of 2021 can be found on Pratt Institute’s website.
Partnership content
This school show is a partnership between Dezeen and The Pratt Institute. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
Architecture firm Limdim House Studio has renovated the Brown Box apartment in Vietnam adding curving walls, tiered cornices and terrazzo surfaces that aim to create a “calm” and “gentle” space.
Limdim House Studio reorganised the previously “commercial” two-bedroom apartment by removing walls to convert it into a spacious one-bedroom home named Brown Box.
Top: a curving arched wall divides the open plan living space. Above: terrazzo was used throughout the apartment
“The idea comes from the byname of the owner of the house, Ms Brown,” studio founder Tran Ngo Chi Mai told Dezeen. “Since she also loves the colour brown, our idea was to create a living space as gentle and calm as this colour itself.”
“[We] processed the space with the aim of creating a new colour, a new breath to get rid of the boredom in commercial apartments.”
The island is blanketed in terrazzo
As part of the opening up of the home, the studio removed existing walls and added curving partition walls in their place.
The curved walls were surrounded by stepped cornices as a modern take on crown mouldings that remove the harshness of corners in the open-plan kitchen diner.
The studio added new partition walls
The studio used a natural colour palette throughout, employing light browns, beige and wood tones to create a peaceful yet sophisticated look.
“We choose tones around brown and beige,” explained Chi Mai. “when designing with this colour tone, we want the apartment to be peaceful, plain and still full of sophistication.”
Circular furnishings and motifs reference the design of the apartment
A rounded island at the centre of the kitchen diner was clad in pale terrazzo to provide additional counter space in the one-wall kitchen.
An arched niche frames a sink, terrazzo countertops and a row of taupe brown overhead cabinetry which was arranged in a semicircle to fit within the alcove.
Terrazzo slabs extend across the floors of the apartment and to the living space which is zoned by floor-to-ceiling Melaleuca wood cabinetry and wooden furnishings.
The ceiling above the living area has a curved design and merges into an arched wall that visually separates the living area from the kitchen diner.
The bedroom has a light and airy look
“We use terrazzo all the way from the kitchen island, like a stream going down the floor and spreading everywhere,” said Chi Mai.
“Choosing this type of material helps the colour in the house to become light and soothing.”
“Physically, Terrazzo has good hardness, just enough gloss, and more heat dissipation than wooden floors, so it creates a cool feeling, especially in tropical areas.”
An arched niche houses a mirror and a reading chair
An arched doorway leads from the open-plan living area to the bedroom space. Its walls were covered in a grey plaster-like finish providing a textural quality.
An en-suite next to the bedroom was fitted with a free-standing terrazzo bathtub below a large circular window that looks into the bedroom.
Redbrick tiling was used in the en-suite
“The important thing when designing a space, in our opinion, is to create a new, sophisticated and especially to bring comfortable feeling to the owner,” said Chi Mai.
“If the owners come back after a hard days work, they don’t enjoy the life in this space, this space will forever be just a place to provide basic needs like eating, sleeping and that will be our failure in this project.”
A large circular window connects the bedroom and en-suite
Limdim House Studio is an architecture, design and interior design practice based in Vietnam.
Other Vietnamese projects include this apartment by Whale Design Lab which references the work of Louis Kahn, along with this holiday home that has a thatched roof.
HomeForest, an app that uses smart devices to bring the restorative effects of nature into the home, has been named as the winner of the inaugural Davidson Prize.
The contest called for ideas for how the home can adapt in response to the rise of home-working, following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Selected for the £10,000 prize ahead of two other finalists, HomeForest explores how technology can be used to bring the wellbeing effects of biophilia into the home, particularly for people who are living in cities with limited access to green space.
It aims to recreate the experience of “forest bathing”, a practice of walking in nature to restore mental wellbeing, known in Japan as “shinrin-yoku”.
HomeForest offers the experience of biophilia to those living in cities
The project was developed by architects Haptic, visualisation studio Squint/Opera, sound designer Coda to Coda, bio-design specialist Yaoyao Meng and poet LionHeart.
Their concept imagines a “digital toolkit” that works with mobile and connected home devices, mapping a user’s home and their daily habits in order to create a digital twin of their living and working environment.
It then overlays sensory experiences “such as the call of birdsong, the smell of rain and projected imagery of a forest canopy” into the home, to create the feeling of a natural environment.
The system uses mobile and connected home devices to understand the user and their home
The system would integrate an air-quality monitor, ASMR-stimulating audio and gobo lighting, allowing it to follow both the natural rhythms of the day and the changing seasons.
“Inspired by research on the positive wellbeing benefits of biophilia and in particular the concept of forest bathing, HomeForest’s digital toolkit works with perception and sensory stimulation to conjure a sense of boundary-less nature in the home,” said the project team.
It offers sensory experiences to create the feeling of a natural environment
Launched in 2020 by the Alan Davidson Foundation, the Davidson Prize is an annual award to explore different aspects of the home through the lens of design. It was set up on the wishes of its namesake, architectural visualisation pioneer Alan Davidson, before his death from motor neurone disease in 2018.
HomeForest was selected for the inaugural edition of the prize by judges included architect Alison Brooks, Narinder Sagoo of Foster + Partners, designer Thomas Heatherwick, Dezeen columnist Michelle Ogundehin and Museum of the Home director Sonia Solicari.
Brooks said the project was “like us playing music which feeds our soul”.
“HomeForest brings a more immersive, sensory connection to nature which I find super interesting,” she said.
The system follows both the natural rhythms of the day and the changing seasons
According to Marie Chamillard, a representative for the Davidson Prize, the project would have resonated well with Davidson.
“He was an early adopter of all things digital, he loved trialling new things that would blend discreetly into his home and enhance the atmosphere. He would have absolutely used this,” she added.
Matthew Giles Architects used white oak joinery and different floor levels to break up the open-plan ground floor of this redesigned and upgraded six-bedroom house in Wandsworth, London.
The Victorian terraced house belongs to a young family that wanted to create a home that was more suited to entertaining and having relatives stay over.
A small rear extension was added
Originally a four-bedroom house, London practice Matthew Giles Architects was asked by the owners to add two bedrooms and a basement for services and storage.
The family wanted to enhance the connection between inside and outside, as well as improve the light flow and visual connections throughout the house.
To create extra space, the architects added a side-return and a small rear extension with a Corten steel roof, a loft extension and a basement floor. These additions increased the internal floor area from 155 square metres to 216 square metres.
Light and neutral tones define the home
“With a small courtyard garden at the rear, the size of the ground floor extension was designed to strike a balance between internal space gained and loss of garden,” Giles told Dezeen.
“Although modest, the ground floor extension acts as a tool for enhanced light flow throughout the ground and basement levels. The vaulted side extension provides much-needed height to create a sense of light and space.”
A reading nook has been created on the ground floor
The interior is finished with a neutral palette of raw materials such as timber, stone, concrete, timber and brick.
On the ground floor, at the front of the house, a new parquet flooring draws the eye through the lobby towards the light from the garden at the rear. Varying floor levels have been used to divide the narrow space into three distinct zones.
White marble surfaces were used in the kitchen
The first is an entrance area that faces onto the street, the second serves as a reading nook with white oak joinery and railings, and the third is a sunken kitchen and dining space that looks out over the garden through full-height glass doors.
The kitchen features Douglas Fir timber cranked beams, timber cabinetry, white Carrara marble surfaces and exposed London stock brickwork that covers the sidewall.
“The kitchen acts as a point around which other activities flow,” said the studio. “The exposed beams create an enhanced light quality and sense of order when looking along the length of the house towards the garden and framing views as you move through the house.”
Polished concrete floors were installed in the kitchen and dining area and on the adjoining external terrace to help blur the boundaries between inside and outside.
Parquet flooring adds texture to interior spaces
“The design has been executed so that in all areas there is an intimate connection with nature,” explained the architects. “Seated within the lofty, vaulted dining space the view out is framed by two in-situ cast concrete columns that are filleted to broaden the view.”
The basement houses a playroom area, a new ensuite bedroom and a utility room that is brightly lit by openings in the floor above and a capping skylight. The skylight also creates a visual connection between the playroom and the kitchen.
Neutral tones also feature upstairs
“This sectional approach adds a sense of drama,” said the practice. “The shadows drift down the brickwork wall and clouds are framed in the skylight two storeys overhead.”
The restrained colour and material palette is continued in the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms with the addition of Tadelakt polished plaster in the bathroom.
A skylight floods the basement with natural light
Matthew Giles founded his practice in 2020 after 12 successful years in collaboration with architect Tom Pike.
As half of Giles & Pike, he completed a number of residential projects across the capital, including a stepped glass extension to a house in Putney, the conversion of a Victorian workshop into a home and a timber-clad residence designed for a tiny plot.
The mid-century architecture and roadside diners of the American west informed the interior of this nostalgic hamburger restaurant in Paris designed by CUT Architectures.
Located in Paris’s Citadium – a multi-brand department store on Boulevard Hausmann that is focused on lifestyle, streetwear, and sneaker culture – PNY Citadium is the hamburger chain’s seventh opening in the city.
Top image: yellow booth seating has a mid-century look. Above: marquee lettering announces the menu
Paris studio CUT Architectures – which previously designed PNY’s first, second, third and fourth outposts – was invited back to create this location around the theme “electric tropical diner”.
The interior, which features neon tube lighting, aluminium walls and embossed stainless steel, seeks to capture the “vivid and unique” energy of America’s West Coast.
Bar stools are paired with circular tables
In particular, the architects looked to the mid-century architecture of Venice Beach in Los Angeles, the Palm Springs’ houses of Albert Frey, and Palm Desert sunsets.
Set out over 75 square metres, the 51-seat restaurant is headed up by a curved crenellated aluminium bar that lines the back wall.
The back of the bar is clad in aluminium while overhead a retro lightbox sign that displays the menu wraps around the top.
The crenellated aluminium bar reflects light across the restaurant
“The place is conceived as an architectural parenthesis set in the Citadium; a roadside diner whose bar is clad in crenellated aluminium like a longhaul truck crossing the United States,” said CUT Architectures.
“The back bar is dressed in embossed stainless steel with a radiant pattern that increases the reflections.”
Seating is laid out over a series of classic diner booths with banquette seating, as well as a series of tall bar tables and stools.
The booths are positioned along the entrance to the department store and lined with large circular glass panels, lit by rows of warm neon tubes that fade from yellow to orange and pink.
Sun-like panels were placed at the ends of tables for privacy
Designed to recall the setting sun on the Pacific Ocean, the panels provide privacy for diners and create a visual boundary between the restaurant and the rest of the department store.
“To achieve the specific hues and quality of light we wanted we used old school signage neon tubes instead of LED lights,” the studio told Dezeen.
Sunset hues reflect off the surfaces
The bases of the taller tables are made from large steel cylinders lacquered in a faded yellow hue.
The cylinders pierce through glossy white circular tabletops to create planter centrepieces that are filled with arid vegetation native to the Californian desert.
Other sunset-informed eatery designs include designer Yota Kakuda’s sunset-hued counter installed within a Tokyo cheese tart shop.
While in a Hong Kong cafe, architecture firms Studio Etain Ho and Absence from Island pay homage to Australia’s spectacular sunsets with a terracotta colour scheme and semi-circular forms.
Architecture studio VATRAA has won a Don’t Move, Improve! award with this London council house renovation featuring pink-toned plaster walls and an oversized window.
Called Council House Renovation, the project involved a full refurbishment and remodelling of the two-bedroom home in Bermondsey, south London.
An oversized window creates transparency from front to back in the Council House Renovation
VATRAA‘s client wanted a warm, contemporary interior that gave her more space but without an extension that would disrupt the appearance of the council estate, which was built in the 1980s.
Instead, the architects aimed to create spaciousness within the small, 76-square-metre flat by making only minimal interventions.
The architects created a warm and contemporary look
Seeing the opportunities the small seven-by-seven-metre footprint presented for enhanced front-to-back transparency, the architects swapped out an ornamental bay window for a larger clean-lined square one.
It forms a new aesthetic feature and frames views of the evergreen front garden.
Ceiling joists are exposed in the living room
Another key feature is the textured, dusky pink-coloured walls.
This effect is created with what VATRAA describes as a “banal” plaster, British Gypsum Multifinish, avoiding the cost and resources of wall paint altogether.
VATRAA applied the plaster carefully to achieve a textured and slightly reflective finish that responds well to daylight, creating different moods and effects at different times of the day.
Teamed with white ceilings and white-washed oak floors, it forms an aesthetic backdrop to the client’s collection of art and design objects.
There are white-washed floors and white ceilings
For the floor plan, VATRAA were guided by the existing stairs and heating source, a pre-feed water tank that is part of a communal system.
To take advantage of its heat, they placed the laundry room around it so clothing would air-dry faster, and the bathroom directly above so the floor tiles would be warmed without additional heating.
An angled pantry optimises the space under the stairs
Each of the other spaces is given its own atmosphere according to function.
The architects made the entrance lobby grander by opening the ceiling to the pitched roof and incorporating the old external loggia into the interior.
The kitchen has bespoke furniture and cabinetry
In the living room, they exposed the previously concealed structural joists in the ceiling, making the 2.4-metre-high space feel loftier.
In the dining room, they created an angled pantry feature that makes the most of the awkward space underneath the stairs and added bespoke solid oak dining furniture.
Different qualities of light create different moods in the house
Upstairs, the two bedrooms are finished in calming all-white to create a contrast to the stimulating warmth of the downstairs living areas.
“The morning transition between the night and day zones becomes an event, giving the homeowner a sensation of energy, immediately as she steps into the stairwell and descends to the ground floor,” said VATRAA.
“With thoughtful decisions fully grounded in the context we operated in, we managed to turn a nondescript ex-council house into a home with a distinctive character, now proud to tell its story through space, light and materials.”
The upstairs bedrooms are a contrast in clean white
VATRAA was founded in 2018 by Anamaria Pircu and Bogdan Rusu, who are based across London and Bucharest. They completed the Council House Renovation in 2020.
It was named the Don’t Move, Improve! Compact Design of the Year alongside Two and a Half Story House by B-VDS Architecture, another project in a council estate.
