Tag Archives: midcentury design

This Neutra-inspired tiny modernist home features a 30-foot-long wraparound glass facade

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N1 is a tiny modernist home defined by a 30-foot-long glass facade.

The possibilities of tiny homes are endless. It seems like every layout, every facade, every aesthetic has been done before. Even so, the tiny home archetype encourages designers and architects to test their own creative potential. Inspired by the modernist architecture of Richard Neutra, Kelly Davis of SALA Architects designed a 500-square-foot, flat-roofed residence that’s defined by its 30-foot-long glass facade. Tiny home building company ESCAPE constructed the prefabricated tiny home called N1 in an effort to design their first midcentury building.

Designer: ESCAPE

Clad with metal and glass, N1’s transparent facade is meant to bring residents closer to the surrounding outdoors. While the wraparound glass facade supplies the home with an air of elegance, its primary purpose is to break the barrier between indoor and outdoor spaces while providing the home with practical solutions to natural weather conditions. The home’s gray metal siding and white poly roof covering are, “very strong and highly reflective so that it prevents heat buildup,” as ESCAPE founder Dan Dobrowolski explains.

Inside, the home maintains an open-floor layout that’s finished in bright maple wood paneling for a warm contrast to the home’s reflective exterior. From the floors to the walls, ESCAPE builders wrapped the home in warm maple tones to evoke Scandinavian-inspired design. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows also collect pools of natural sunlight that help brighten the home’s interior walls further.

Concealed storage compartments and seamless doorway transitions, like built-in cabinetry and sliding wooden doors, help preserve the home’s open feel. The kitchen is combined with the dining area, which rests just next to the living room where residents can enjoy a sectional sofa, a coffee table, and large television. The main bedroom can be found just beyond the living room behind sliding maple doors and a second bedroom is kept near the home’s front door and laundry area.

The post This Neutra-inspired tiny modernist home features a 30-foot-long wraparound glass facade first appeared on Yanko Design.

This DIY tiny home on wheels is a modernist haven inspired by desert architecture!

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Lola is a tiny home on wheels that’s part of designer Mariah Hoffman’s larger multi-disciplinary design studio and brand Micro Modula, one that explores “home, place, and the self.”

There hasn’t been a more opportune time for tiny homes on wheels to take the spotlight. In an effort to feel closer to nature and embrace more eco-friendly lifestyles, we all seem to be downsizing these days and itching to travel without leaving our home comforts behind.

Enter tiny homes on wheels, small living spaces stripped down to their bare essentials that can move anywhere the wind blows, so long as there’s an open road. Joining the movement, self-taught spatial designer and overall creative, Mariah Hoffman planned and constructed her own tiny home on wheels called Lola.

Over the span of five years, Hoffman gradually transformed an old utility trailer into a 156-square-foot mobile tiny home. Born out of a daydream to build her own home, Hoffman built Lola to “learn all the necessary skills for [her] personal and creative survival.”

Particularly spurred by the essentialist edge of desert modernism, Hoffman turned to construction materials that aesthetically met the bill and also provided some functional elements for the home to brace the seasons as well as the local critters.

Located in sunny San Diego, Lola’s external facades are sided with exterior-grade, Shou sugi ban plywood that was chosen for a minimalist, charred black profile and for its resistance against damage brought on by bugs, fire, and the weather.

Outfitted with solar panels for electricity and power, Hoffman positioned Lola “so that [the] largest windows face North/South to maximize passive solar,” which means, “the low winter brings bright morning days,” as she describes in an Instagram post.

To complement the home’s dark exterior, Hoffman clad the open-plan interior walls in light-toned birch panels. Merging the bright walls with exposed black-steel structural framing, Hoffman planned the interior in honor of the midcentury design that helped inspire Lola’s final form.

Then, throughout the home, Hoffman integrated multifunctional furniture and hidden storage spaces to optimize the available living space, helping the tiny home on wheels to not feel so tiny.

Designer: Mariah Hoffman x Micro Modula

Mariah Hoffman planned and built Lola over the span of five years. 

Lola was transformed into a tiny home on wheels from a disused trailer.

The post This DIY tiny home on wheels is a modernist haven inspired by desert architecture! first appeared on Yanko Design.

The 1976 Apple computer-I can now get a custom made bespoke, midcentury luxury case it deserves!

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It’s hard to imagine Steve Jobs selling his Volkswagen Type 2 Microbus to help fund and produce friend, Steve Wozniack’s hand-built and custom-designed Apple Computer-I back in 1976, but that’s how the story goes. The Apple Computer-I, more casually called Apple-I, is a desktop computer that’s hardly in circulation today due to its discontinuation with Apple-II’s debut. Wozniak and Jobs first sold Apple-1 as only a bare board, a single-etched and silkscreened circuit board, with no electronic parts so that consumers could build their own computers, only needing an additional television set and keyboard. Today, Sweden-based designer, Love Hultén builds his own re-interpretation of Apple-1, or rather a midcentury display case to cradle the old tech relic, and calls it Aple.

Aple is a bespoke, made-to-order, battery-operated display cabinet that encases original, ‘Woz-built,’ Apple motherboards from 1976 or later. Unlike Apple-I’s consumer products, Hultén’s display case comes equipped with a fully integrated keyboard and monitor protection framing that’s hand-constructed out of either black walnut or old growth teak wood. The wooden monitor housing perches above the display cabinet on an angled mount carved from the same wood as the rest of the case. On the display case’s right side, a pull out drawer reveals the motherboard’s circuitry. Mostly enclosed, Apple-I’s circuit board can be magnified by looking through the case’s plexiglass dome, resembling a crystal ball cut in half, which Love Hultén might have included to evoke 1970s era mysticism. The backside of Hultén’s Aple unveils a retro, standard switchboard that deepens the product’s tribute to the technology of yesterday, eliciting curiosity for all the functions and hidden features to be unlocked.

The development and story of Apple-I are just as exciting today as years ago and Love Hultén is giving the tech giant’s initial success a brand new stage. Love Hultén is known for taking timely products, like tropical-themed synth players and portable, arcade-period gaming consoles, and turning them into artfully funky displays that give the designs of yesterday a timeless fit for today. Be sure to check out the rest of Love Hultén’s work and hey, if you ever find yourself with one of the six operating Apple-1’s in circulation today, send it over to Hultén for a modern-day facelift, he knows what to do.

Designer: Love Hultén