Design

Petre Island (sometimes called Petra Island) is an 11-acre, heart-shaped island 47 miles from Manhattan. While Wright hand-picked the site himself in 1949, and drew up plans for a 5,000 square foot dream house the following year, budget concerns forced him to scale down his vision, resulting in the construction of a smaller guest cottage.

Fast-forward 53 years later, and the island’s new owner, John Massaro, decided to make those long-sitting plans reality; he hired architect and Wright scholar Thomas Heinz, who used ArchiCAD to model aspects of Wright’s design that weren’t obvious from the original renderings and updated the house with some modern amenities.

While the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation refuses to accept the house as authentic (they even tried to sue Massaro for claiming so), that hasn’t stopped AHALife, the web site featuring the island for sale, from proudly selling the spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house for US$19,900,000 — via ArchDaily

This 1,200 square-foot home was built with six used shipping containers in Felton, California.  Designed by Modulus, the home was the subject of a 2012 Citation Award from the Santa Clara Valley chapter of the AIA.  The architect camped on the site to study light and other characteristics, according to Dwell, and designed the layout to reduce construction grading.  The containers were left exposed but painted, and the walls were covered with drywall for a clean interior look.  Inside, an atrium was used for light and to radiate heat throughout the home — via Jetson Green

This Le Mans resto-mod comes from the Brooklyn-based workshop Moto Borgotaro, and they’ve done a fine job in accentuating the charm of the original — via Bike EXIF

The vertical loft was built in Rotterdam by Dutch architectural firm Shift. It was part of the restoration of an old, historical house in the middle of the city. Shift’s had the idea to replace the central house’s wall with a beautiful, minimalist three-story-high bookshelf that hides the building’s main structural element — via Gizmodo Australia

Swiss-based brand Techné has just unveiled the Merlin, a slim quartz watch with an oversized dial which offers outstanding legibility. Taking its inspiration from the earliest military timepieces, the Merlin is 38 mm wide and features a dial that is 21% wider than the average — via Watchuseek

Yamaha knows that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it. But the XJR1300 is also ripe for a makeover, so the Japanese factory called in the Wrenchmonkees. The result is MonkeeFist, the first in a series of Yard Built Specials commissioned by Yamaha from leading custom builders — via Bike EXIF

This project [Madhav Joshi and Associates] is a co-ed residential school with a CBSE curriculum educating 240 students per year. It spreads over 10 Acres of land. The school has two parts; residential cluster and academic cluster. The residential cluster comprises of 10 dormitories, 5 studio apartments for warden, residence for the principal and student’s centre. The academic cluster consists of 14 classrooms, 3 laboratories, 2 teacher’s rooms and 2 toilet blocks. Catering Centre with dining hall and adequate service areas have been provided. Presently, the total construction area is 6200 sqm — via ArchDaily

Usherwood, in Abinger Hammer, near Dorking, Surrey, was designed in 1934 by Amyas Connell and Basil Ward, later to become the Connell Ward and Lucas Partnership. The name, incidentally, is down to the first owner. That was Tom Usherwood, a commercial artist and friend of one of the architects.

The house looks in need of some updating, but as this is grade II-listed, you will have to be sympathetic (which is no bad thing). If you want to put in a bid, the price is £595,000 — via WowHaus

The BMW R80/7 was built by Luka Cimolini in his garage in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Luka’s original plan was to customize a Dnepr, but documentation issues put paid to that. So he snapped up a 1977 R80 in the UK and shipped it to eastern Europe — via Bike EXIF

From the Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia comes this intriguing open-sided house located in Ho Chi Minh City. A vertical garden provides nature’s climate control, through the cooling effect of greenery filtering the breezes — via Home Design Find

For the last three years, Oechslin has been removing extraneous mechanical parts from another complicated Ochs and Junior watch, the Anno. This has a very clever annual calendar complication that displays the day, date, and month without traditional numerical day or date displays. Instead, the annual calendar shows the date on a large outer spiral, and month and day on smaller inner dot displays. Everything is surprisingly readable, once you get the hang of it at least — via HODINKEE

The shape-shifting D*Haus by UK designers David Ben Grünberg and Daniel Woolfson morphs and rotates to remain comfortable during all hours of the day, and all seasons. Designed as an homage to mathematical geometries, the experimental residence changes into eight different configurations — via WebUrbanist

The Buell Blast tends to polarise opinions; Erik Buell himself symbolically crushed one at the end of the production run in 2010. And even some owners have mixed feelings, like Ben McKee of Oxnard, California. The stock Blast did have some issues — namely the frame, wheels, rear suspension, hand and foot controls, exhaust and intake systems, tank and bodywork, riding position, lighting and some of the electrical system, he says. Other than that, the Blast was an amazing bike.

Ben decided to remove those troublesome items. Finding himself left with just the 492cc motor and not much else, he searched around for a vintage machine with a similar configuration for inspiration. And happened upon the 1911 Excelsior, which had a 500cc de Dion single cylinder engine and also sported a belt final drive — via Bike EXIF

Lucernitas House [01 Arq] is divided into two areas: the private where the bedroom are and the public where the lounge, dining room and services are located. The strategy poses a volume on one level that solves the linear program, allowing all venues have view to Cerro Chena and north orientation — via ArchDaily

BlueCat Motors of St Paul, MN is the kind of motorcycle shop that every town should have. It’s run by enthusiasts who are comfortable working on both vintage and modern machinery. BlueCat often resurrects older bikes, and this beautiful 1974 Honda CB450 K7 is a prime example — via Bike EXIF

Ireland’s creative community got together to release a lot of pent up anger and sadness through the medium of the A3 poster, all in aid of Temple Street Children’s Hospital.

Ad creatives, designers, animators, directors, illustrators and more took time out to dress up their favourite worst feedback from clients, transforming quotes that would normally give you a twitch, into a diverse collection of posters — via Sharp Suits

Best known for its custom cars and a client list full of Russian oligarchs, Vilner occasionally turns its hand to custom motorcycles. And this is the latest creation from the Bulgarian company, a Triumph 1050 Speed Triple called Bulldog — via Bike EXIF

A cursory glance at the Vulcain Nautical Cricket might leave you scratching your head. Seemingly random numbers litter the inner dial space, there’s a long aperture revealing even more numbers. It’s a lot to take in right off the bat and can be intimidating to the casual wearer. What’s all this about? These arrangements of numbers are decompression times for divers descending to depths beyond 20 meters. Again, useful stuff for divers in the 60’s or those who go deep sans dive computer. Turning the crown at 4 o’clock adjusts the long aperture on the inner dial, revealing different sets of numbers that correlate necessary decompression times based on the depth of your dive — via HODINKEE