Reimagining the house
A designer has created a prototype for a house that plays with traditional ideas about what rooms should be used for.
SOME things in life don’t change. You sleep in the bedroom, cook in the kitchen, and eat in the dining room. And these rooms can be found in every house.
“When we buy a house, it was usually built 50 or 100 years ago,” says New York designer Todd Bracher. “It wasn’t designed for us.”
We put dining chairs in the dining room, because that is what one does .... But Bracher is turning these rules inside out and building a house that is different.
Bracher’s house does not have a bedroom with a bed in it. There is something like a kitchen, where books stand on the shelves alongside the spices, and there is a reading lamp by the sink.
“Food for the body and soul”, is how the designer describes it. There is no bathroom, but there is certainly a shower – outside, in front of the house. “The aim is to get back in touch with nature,” Bracher says.
The designer house is not – yet – for living in. Rather, it was an exhibit at the recent International Interiors Show (IMM) in Cologne, Germany, which commissions a designer every year to come up with a living space that challenges ideas about living and to build it, complete with furniture.
In modern living, rooms that previously had clearly demarcated functions are starting to flow into each other.
“The traditional subdivision between living room, bedroom, and kitchen no longer exists,” says Germany-based industrial designer Steffen Kehrle during a presentation at the IMM.
The same applies to furniture: “Furniture must adapt to the user’s demands, and not the other way round.”
An example is the idea of the sofa with two matching armchairs facing the television. This standard setup is now complemented by the chaise longue, long chair, divan, ottoman, and many other variations.
The variety is reflected in Bracher’s house, although in simplified form. The aim is to FRENCH carmaker Renault is celebrating 40 years in the world of Formula 1 with a “Yellow Teapot” in the team’s signature yellow, black and white colours.
It was in 1977 that the French carmaker entered the world of Formula 1, with a car called the RS01. This model had a turbo compressed engine, a first for Formula 1.
But, as with many trailblazing innovations, the RS01 encountered certain technical difficulties, and the yellow, black and white car would regularly pull into the pit lane streaming white smoke, a sign of engine trouble.
On seeing the smoking car go by, team boss Ken Tyrell dubbed it the “yellow teapot”, a moniker that stuck to become the nickname of the RS01. The car won its first Formula 1 victory two years later at the French Grand Prix in Dijon.
Renault is now paying tribute to this car and its difficult beginnings with the “Yellow pare down the complexity of contemporary living to its basic functions.
An example is the quiet room in Bracher’s house – dark but without a bed. Instead, there is a couch for lying down, and a chair and a floor cushion, allowing for a range of activities – simply relaxing, daydreaming, meditating. After all, the modern home can be designed to adapt to our needs. – dpa Teapot”, designed to celebrate the team’s 40th anniversary in Formula 1 racing.
The teapot will equip the kitchens of the L’Atelier Renault restaurant on the ChampsElysées in Paris from September. Forty limited-edition copies will also be available to
€129 buy, priced at (RM630), from the L’Atelier Renault store and e-shop at the website shop.atelier.renault.com.