Design

This Japanese house is as easy-looking as it gets – at least from the outside. This modest-seeming project is stunningly executed, using minimal materials with a strategic precision that surpasses their ordinary potential and just keeps going — via Dornob

The Swiss watchmaker has issued another iteration of its cash-cow — the Bell & Ross BR 123 Vintage Original Carbon automatic pilot’s watch.

The model has undergone a number of face-lifts, and now its 41.00 mm round case is delivered in a black PVD-coated stainless steel — via World Watch Review

The New World Centre, part of the New World Symphony America’s Orchestral Academy, opened its doors this week. Located in the heart of Miami Beach, the music education and performance facility is the first purpose-built home for the New World Symphony founded by artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas.

In terms of design the building’s exterior portrays a quiet, almost tamed Frank Gehry. The rectangle shaped white building expresses Gehry’s well known bends and folds within its interior — glimpses of which are visible through the main entrance east facade 80 foot high glass curtain wall — via ArchDaily

Like the Italian Officine Panerai, the Swiss watchmaking brand Breitling keeps distancing from the overwhelming monopoly of ETA and gradually substitutes their ebauches with its own in-house Caliber 01 automatic movement. The Breitling Montbrillant 01 Chronograph watch is one of those old models getting equipped with a brand new heart — via World Watch Review

Bedat & Co has an interesting history for not being such an old brand. Life, lost, and then reborn, the brand today is now trying to attack Cartier’s market share for women’s pieces. During the brand’s former life (and potentially again in its future) it had a few men’s models as well.

With a sort of cushion shaped case that had a round dial, the watch comes in a few flavors. There was a power reserve model, and one with a bit date, as well as this most basic version that happened to also be a limited edition model. This is known as the Ref 878 series of Bedat & Co No 8 men’s watches. Each of the versions (a few steel, gold, and maybe a platinum one) were offered as a limited edition of just 878 pieces — via A Blog to Read

The Shaft House, designed by Atelier rzlbd, is an unexpected and exciting spatial experience that survives the limits of our ordinary living spaces. The two and a half storey detached house reevaluates functional arrangements within a narrow building while creating bright and airy spaces. Affordability is a value that the building successfully owns by integrating well thought low-cost strategies in the design process; from purchasing a modest lot of about 20 feet wide to choosing sustainable and cost efficient materials. Aluminum siding, untreated wood and recyclable rusted steel for the exterior of the house not only help reduce the costs of the design but t also tried to make a statement on organic behaviors of buildings by changing color while aging along with the house — via ArchDaily

One of the largest global coatings manufacturers with nearly 10,000 employees worldwide, Valspar Corporation has its roots in Minnesota Paints, a small company started in the 1800s. Valspar outgrew its former factory buildings—with their block-long mural that acts as a local landmark—and decided to move further into downtown Minneapolis to two floors of the Ameriprise Building — via ArchDaily

Shaped largely by the site, the Glenbrook Residence, designed by David Jameson Architect , is conceptually a courtyard inserted between two heavy walls. Threading the walls through the treescape to create distinct yet connected structures allows the house to be divided spatially into the most public, most private and a living pavilion that can become either or both. The residual in-between spaces create outdoor rooms that engage the building. — via ArchDaily

This is the Tsovet SVT-AT76, one of those rare pieces that manages to be functional as well as fashionable. Measuring 47.8mm by 14.3mm and weighing 140g, it’s sizable yet seems even larger due to the squared-off case and vertical sides. The high-contrast dial can be read across the room, though if you’re like me the ‘0’ instead of ’10’ might cause a double take. I’ve seen some dials that used zero-prefixed numerals for double digits all the way around; this is the first I’ve seen to abbreviate the ten — via A Blog to Read

The average American will produce something like 20 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year; however, in Sweden the average amount is something like six-eight tons (or tonnes) per year.  So when several companies join forces to put a four-person Swedish family on one-ton-per-year lifestyle, perhaps there might be something for us to learn from the experiment.  That experiment is the One Tonne Life project — via Jetson Green

Andre Kikoski Architect has designed a corten steel facade for the Wyckoff Exchange, a live music and performance venue in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York — via CONTEMPORIST

This is a proposal of the house, designed by Shigenori UOYA, Miwako MASAOKA, Takeshi IKEI, on general-purpose system for contemporary Kyoto. We planned this house on surveys and studies of the urban structure of Kyoto-city — via ArchDaily

A concrete rectangle hovers in the air, implausibly balanced feet above the ground on just four stilts. And as if the curiously gravity-defying qualities of the exterior aren’t enough, the entirely unexpected interior looks as if it must belong to another building. Take a peek inside Single Family House St Joseph by Vienna architecture firm Wolfgang Tschapeller Architekt — via WebUrbanist

I’ve always thought the early 70s Ducati 750 GT was a looker. That silver frame, the flat seat, the hint of metalflake in the paint and the upswept exhausts: it’s the archetype of the classic retro style so popular today. The round case GT was designed by Fabio Taglioni, and was also the first Ducati to feature the now-familiar L-twin motor. The images here show a 1972 model; after being restored, it spent ten years in a shed, unridden. A few days ago it was wheeled out, the dust was brushed off, and it was taken to the Toulouse studio of French motorcycle photographers Guerry and Prat. As you might expect, they’ve done a superlative job — via Bike EXIF

Joyous turquoise ocean and white sand makes the perfect setting for the Racha, a small eco-luxe hotel on a tiny island South of Phuket in Thailand. Instead of a giant building, less intrusive small villas dot the grounds.

The resort is entirely constructed of whitewashed concrete, set off with heavy teak accents framing doorways and some of the windows — via Home Design Find

This is a pure silver ring from Alchemy Gothic, made to order for Manillusion only. Complete with rubber hose and slave ring. We have only two rings, in two different sizes, 11,5 and 9,5 US ring size — via Manillusion

Located within the Ozark Mountains the Blessings Golf Clubhouse and Guardhouse, designed by Marlon Blackwell Architect, is a stand-alone structure set at the base of the hill, with a footprint minimally contacting the land. Acting as a type of covered bridge from the north-facing mountain ridge into the Osage Indian archaeological preservation zone the building creates an entry portal that operates as a breezeway framing the eighteenth green. Conceived as an animate form, the building receives the visitor beneath its cool and shaded underbelly, not unlike the clefts and caves found in the nearby hills — via ArchDaily

This is certainly going to be a great year for the refreshed Portofino range of entry-luxury watches. Besides the dressy Portofino Dual Time and the Portofino Hand-Wound Eight Days, the Swiss watch brand has also presented a face-lifted IWC Portofino Automatic watch (Ref. 3565).

Previously available in a rather bulky 38 mm case, the face-lifted version of the watch now comes in a larger more slender-looking 40-millimeter body — via World Watch Review