Architect Barbara Weiss likes to do things a little differently. Indeed, the last time we caught up with her was at her upside-down house: a converted pub in Westminster, central London, where she lives on the secluded top floors and sleeps on the lower floors (yes, it’s as brilliant as it sounds). This time, she’s giving us a tour of her latest self-designed home, which she’s aptly titled the inside-out house.
Tag Archives: Homes
Smart Homes: Do Smart Locks Increase Security?
Can smart locks provide more than convenience? Do they actually increase the security of your home? WSJ asked Marc Tobias, a lock security expert, to test out the Nest x Yale Lock. Photo: Cesare Salerno
Analysis: Is America In Another Housing Bubble?
Home prices in the U.S. have climbed at a record pace during the pandemic. The median home price reached over $363,000 in June 2021, a 23.4% increase from 2020. Many of the houses are being sold above their asking price, often entirely in cash with bidding wars becoming the new norm to weed out the competition. So is America currently in another housing bubble and what are the signs that can help investors predict an oncoming crash?
Scottish Country Houses: Ardhuncart In Alford
Ardhuncart Estate has been owned since 1952 by Col Harold Phillips, who bought the estate that straddles the River Don in the foothills of the Grampians as a summer retreat for his wife, Georgina (later Lady Kennard), and their five children.
For the Phillips family, Ardhuncart was a much-loved holiday home, where they fished for salmon and sea trout, shot grouse on the Ardhuncart moor, played tennis and hosted parties at Ardhuncart Lodge, a manageable, 5,400sq ft, nine-bedroom country house built in the Arts-and-Crafts style in 1901.
Front Covers: Country Life Magazine – August 25
Books: ‘Contemporary Japanese Architecture’
The contemporary architecture of Japan has long been among the most inventive in the world, recognized for sustainability and infinite creativity. No fewer than seven Japanese architects have won the Pritzker Prize.
Since Osaka World Expo ’70 brought contemporary forms center stage, Japan has been a key player in global architecture. With his intentionally limited vocabulary of geometric forms, Tadao Ando has since then put Japanese building on the world’s cultural map, establishing a bridge between East and West. In the wake of Ando’s mostly concrete buildings, figures like Kengo Kuma (Japan National Stadium intended for the Olympic Games, originally planned for 2020), Shigeru Ban (Mount Fuji World Heritage Center), and Kazuyo Sejima (Kanazawa Museum of 21st Century Art of Contemporary Art) pioneered a more sustainable approach. Younger generations have successfully developed new directions in Japanese architecture that are in harmony with nature and connected to traditional building. Rather than planning on the drawing board, the architects presented in this collection stand out for their endless search for forms, truly reacting on their environment.
Presenting the latest in Japanese building, this book reveals how this unique creativity is a fruit of Japan’s very particular situation that includes high population density, a modern, efficient economy, a long history, and the continual presence of disasters in the form of earthquakes. Accepting ambiguity, as seen in the evanescent reflections of Sejima’s Kanazawa Museum, or constant change and the threat of catastrophe is a key to understanding what makes Japanese architecture different from that of Europe or America.
This XL-sized book highlights 39 architects and 55 exceptional projects by Japanese masters—from Tadao Ando’s Shanghai Poly Theater, Shigeru Ban’s concert hall La Seine Musical, SANAA’S Grace Farms, Fumihiko Maki’s 4 World Trade Center, to Takashi Suo’s much smaller sustainable dental clinic. Each project is introduced with photos, original floor plans and technical drawings, as well as insightful descriptions and brief biographies. An elaborate essay traces the country’s building scene from the Metabolists to today and shows how the interaction of past, present, and future has earned contemporary Japanese architecture worldwide recognition.
Scottish Baronial Estates: Abbotsford House – Built By Sir Walter Scott (1820’s)
Damian Barr explores Sir Walter Scott’s impressive home, Abbotsford, which is full of a fascinating mix of items owned by the famed Scottish novelist, poet, playwright, and historian.
Abbotsford House was built by Sir Walter Scott as his grand home in the Scottish Borders. The property, set on the banks of the River Tweed, was bought in 1811 and then modified to the tastes of Sir Walter Scott. The writer died here in 1832, and the house was opened to the public just five months after his death.
The rooms that you visit today have been left virtually untouched since his death and a visit to Abbotsford House gives you an intimate insight into the personality and interests of this great man. Some of the most interesting aspects of the house are the personal collections of Sir Walter Scott which include unusual items such as the weapons of Rob Roy, the case book of Napoleon, and even a bullet and piece of oatcake taken from the site of Culloden Battlefield.
Visitors can see Sir Walter Scott’s Study, Library, Drawing Room, Entrance Hall, small Armoury, and the Dining Room where he died on 21st September 1832. The dining room contains paintings of several generations of the Scott family. Unfortunately, the last of his bloodline died in 2004 and the care of the house has now been taken over by the Abbotsford Trust.
Design: ‘Cocoon Cottage’ In New York By Architect Nina Edwards Anker
After earning her doctorate at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and working in Norway’s capital as a teacher and research fellow, architect Nina Edwards Anker came home to the U.S. with a refreshed perspective on environmental sensitivity. When the opportunity arose to build an eco-cottage on family land in Southampton, Long Island, Edwards Anker’s thought experiments resulted in a 1,738-square-foot vacation home completed in 2017, made striking for the combination of curved, shingle-clad walls that meet planes of glass, with some cast in bright, unexpected color.
English Country Estates: Flete House In Holbeton
Twelve glorious acres of manicured grounds surround partly Elizabethan Flete House, former seat of the Mildmay family, which overlooks Ermington and Dartmoor, enjoying ‘probably the finest situation in Devonshire’ according to Cornish poet and historian Richard Polwhele (1797).
At Holbeton in the South Hams, not far from Georgian Modbury, it was used as a maternity hospital in the Second World War and has now been converted into 29 apartments, retaining the principal rooms (library, dining, drawing and billiard rooms and others) for communal use, exclusively for over 55s.
Previews: Country Life Magazine – August 11
SPA TOWNS: A mineral-laced spring could lead to a profitable resort for Georgian landowners. Clive Aslet dips into spa towns.
HOT AIR BALLOONS: Levi jeans, Van Gogh’s head and a dinosaur — they’ve all taken flight through Cameron Balloons in Somerset.
WALTER SCOTT: Despite inventing the historical novel, Walter Scott’s books are often left on the shelf. Why is that, asks Jack Watkins, on the writer’s 250th anniversary.
CARLA CARLISLE: Carla on dogs raging at the dying of the light.
GREEK ARCHITECTURE: Marking the 200th anniversary of the completion of St Pancras Church, Harry Mount considers the 19th-century enthusiasm for Greek architecture.
INTERIORS: Romantic sash windows have their fans and detractors.
LUXURY: Hetty Lintell is by the pool.
CHILLI: Tom Parker Bowles was drawn into the chilli’s fiery embrace from a young age.
ELTON HALL: Tilly Ware visits the transformed historic gardens of Elton Hall in Huntingdonshire, where much of the past is a mystery.
