Design

The Creemore Farm [PLANT Architect] is a frugal renovation and 85 sqm extension to a turn of the century farmhouse north of Toronto, overlooking rolling hills and expansive views. The addition reorients the whole house toward the view, presenting tall panoramic corner windows in the sitting area at the ground floor, and the master bedroom at the second floor, both framing the vista to the Southeast — via ArchDaily

The Wrenchmonkees have just released a new machine into the wild. It’s a rebuilt 1974 Moto Guzzi 850 T and the lucky owner is a Norwegian called Pål, from Oslo. When he dropped off his Guzzi at the Wrenchmonkees’ workshop in Copenhagen it was yellow, so the bike was quickly stripped back to bare aluminum for a more classic look — via Bike EXIF

This 4 bedroom 3 bathroom home encompasses the feel of an ideal family beach retreat. The main concern when designing this home [Fuse Architecture] was that the clients wanted to fill the home with as much natural light as possible. The previously standing home was demolished in order to build a completely new design because the previously standing home was dilapidated and in need of significant repai — via ArchDaily

Just 88 sets are being produced -— each set comes packed in a special handcrafted wooden crate as used during the 1953 British expedition in which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to summit the might Mount Everest. The crate has four drawers, each filled with custom-made items commemorating the successful Everest expedition — and of course the 3 Rolex Explorer watches. The Rolex HT Explorer set costs about $40,000 — via Perpetuelle.com Watch Blog

Yes, you’re looking at a BMW S1000RR. The asymmetrical bodywork has gone, along with the oddball headlights and spindly mirrors. It’s an audacious dismantling of BMW’s superbike, and the perpetrator is Steve Culp of Shreveport, Louisiana — via Bike EXIF

ONG&ONG Architects have designed this house in Sentosa Cove in Singapore — via CONTEMPORIST

Some shelves can be reached from a floor, adjacent landing or triangle-shaped spiral stairs, but what about the rest? As it turns out, a remote-controlled chain hoist attached to a bosun’s chair (stable climbing harness) while readers ride up and down to retrieve volumes.

Sallie Trout went fairly far out of her normal interior, furniture, lighting and hardware design experience to create this towering family library right in the centre of her own home — via Dornob

Instead of waiting for your door handle to break on its own, then pulling wrenching it open, this clever grip skips straight to the toolbox for design inspiration.

Tirdad Kiamanesh of Tehran, Iran, envisions simple glossy metal, matte black or coated and coloured finishes for the attachment hardware as well as the rotating hand grip, making them a fit for any setting offbeat enough to handle them — via Dornob

Bob Rosinsky from Top Dog Imaging walks through the extraordinary process of restoring a badly damaged 1870s tintype using modern, high-tech techniques, such as a polarised strobe and ultra-high-rez camera. He hints at even more advanced techniques employing X-rays, UV and infra-red light — via Top Dog Imaging

Not exactly a giveaway, but this Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Charles R Perry House house in East Glencoe, Illinois is massively cheaper than the UK one we featured a week or so back – and cheaper than the majority on the market in the US too, especially with its newly-reduced price. Yes, even iconic architecture is suffering in the recession.

It was designed in 1915, but looks much more contemporary. If you knew no better, you would probably think midcentury, especially when you see all that wood on display throughout the interior.

The price? $550,000, which works out at a figure just short of £345,000. Which would probably get you a decent-sized semi-detached in a good area in the UK. Amazing. See the Rubloff Properties’s site for even more shots — via WowHaus

This house [Kavellaris Urban Design] is a critique and a response to the suburban housing vernacular and the planning laws that influence them. An endeavour to provide an alternative affordable housing to conventional European influenced copies of copies that proliferate throughout our sub-urban landscape. An area much discussed and debated in the last decade within our profession — via ArchDaily

Shelf-Pod is a private residence and study building, located in Osaka prefecture, Japan. The client owns an extensive collection of books on the subject of Islamic history, so he requested that we [Kazuya Morita Architecture Studio] create this building with the maximum capacity for its storage and exhibition — via Neatorama

But by the time volume production finished in 1955, the International was thoroughly outclassed. It was a good, honest bike that Norton should have killed off at least five years earlier. But even after the production line shut down, Norton carried on building the International to special order — via Bike EXIF

The owner requested a house in the trees. A small program [TOTeMS Architecture]: one bedroom, bath, living area with kitchenette, and a loft, is organized to provide privacy between a neighbouring property to the north, while offering broad views of the oak hammock, and Intercoastal Waterway. Glulam beams were selected for their ability to enfold the structure around the space. The laminated pine beams, which curve over the entire space, blur the distinction between wall and roof. The result is an open structure to the east and west, yet solid and private to the north — via ArchDaily

This classy 1976 CB550 café racer is a case in point, and comes from the East Third Motorcycle Club, a small NYC-based workshop. It was shop owner David Browning’s first build, and he put the bike together in his 4th floor studio apartment — via Bike EXIF

Andersson Wise Architects designed the Tower House in Austin, Texas — via CONTEMPORIST

This exquisite piece of rolling sculpture is Yamaha’s 1975 YZR500. It’s the OW23 variant, the machine that took Giacomo Agostini to the last of his incredible 15 World Championships — via Bike EXIF

Tell you what really annoys me — when estate agents market houses for knocking down. Not least, when it’s as interesting as Deodar in Trip Garth, Linton, Wetherby, Yorkshire.

Anyway, large house, large plot, sought-after location. Never going to be cheap. Offers are invited around the £1,300,000 mark. Find out more at Rightmove — via WowHaus