Design

Monovolume Architecture + Design have completed the House M in Meran, Italy — via CONTEMPORIST

You don’t often see Yamaha’s SR250 customised in the west, and certainly not to the radical extent we’re looking at here. This is the Winning Loser, the first El Solitario motorcycle to be built from scratch, and one that still has pride of place in David Borras’ Galician garage — via Bike EXIF

Lisbon-based custom workshop Maria Motorcycles is turning out some very sharp bikes indeed. Like this latest build, a 1994 Ducati 750SS called Italian Sniper — via Bike EXIF

Vo Trong Nghia Architects have designed Stone House in Dong Trieu, Vietnam — via ArchDaily

MB&F‘s newest sculptural masterpiece, the Horological Machine No.5, harks back to ’70s super cars. Sporting a slender and aerodynamic body easily read without taking one’s hands off the wheel—the precision crafted timepiece comes complete with a chassis, aerodynamic body and rear flaps akin to those on the 1970 Mustang, and tells time on a dashboard — via Cool Hunting

The Cariblanco is based on the Suzuki GN series, and designed by Arnau Sanjuan Román — who helped design the Bottpower Moto2 race bike while at Anime Design in Spain. Román is developing a family of custom motorcycles with Costa Rica Hot Rods for the Central American market, and this is the prototype, a lightweight blend of street tracker and cafe racer — via Bike EXIF

Originally a church built in 1908 and converted to a library in the 1970s. From 2009 to 2011, owner Mario Kalpou worked with interior designers Hecker Guthrie to transform the library into its current incarnation as a restaurant in Cronulla, a suburb of Sydney, Australia — via CONTEMPORIST

This is an alliance between Roland Sands Design and Technics, the DJ and audio technology brand. Sands’ brief was to evoke the style of Technics’ ubiquitous SL-1200 decks, familiar to everyone in the business of spinning records. He chose a 2010-model XL883 Iron Sportster as his starting point: part of Harley-Davidson’s Dark Custom range, it’s designed to evoke the dirt tracks and drag strips of the 1950s. Sands, however, has pushed the XL883N in an entirely new direction — via Bike EXIF

Peter Kostelov has refurbished a fifth-floor Moscow apartment — via Dornob

Kawasaki has aligned itself with the English workshop Spirit of The Seventies, and commissioned a custom W800 for its stand at the UK’s Motorcycle Live show — via Bike EXIF

Axel Budde’s Hamburg workshop, Kaffeemaschine, has finished his seventh custom build, Caffettiera d’oro — meaning golden coffee machine. But ‘caffettiera’ can be a nickname for an old or derelict vehicle, too, he says. I like the double meaning — via Bike EXIF

Ever fancied living underground? Well, this Pauline Karminski-designed earth-sheltered house in Elham Valley, Kent doesn’t quite offer that, but you suspect it gives a hint of what it might be like.

Designed for the architect’s own occupation back in 2009, the house takes full advantage of its location, blending into that rural setting and offering up those amazing views of the rolling countryside beyond. It took Pauline Karminski 12 years to find the perfect location — and I think it’s fair to say that she chose well.

The asking price is £900,000 — via WowHaus

Takeshi Hirobe Architects have designed the Villa SSK in Chiba, Japan — via CONTEMPORIST

In this renovation from Dublin based architecture firm Peter Legge Associates, a pair of dilapidated cottages have a glass entry connecting the two into one larger home — via Home Design Find

Italian automotive designer Paolo Tesio has reworked Ducati’s iconic Monster into an even more desirable machine, transforming its looks with remarkably few modifications — via Bike EXIF

In a world of dumbed-down, down-right boring playgrounds, the colourful, architectural masterpieces of Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam stand apart. The Japanese artist knits her amazing projects by hand — her most famous project, for example, inside the Woods of Net Pavilion at the Hakone Open Air Museum in Japan, took her about a year to complete — via ArchDaily

Steve McQueen’s 1970 Husqvarna 400 Cross is going under the hammer at Bonhams’ annual Las Vegas Motorcycle Auction in January — via Steve McQueen motorcycle

MARC Architects have designed the Villa S2 in the IJburg area of Amsterdam, The Netherlands — via CONTEMPORIST