Tips Interior Design

Rabu, 26 Oktober 2011

First Impressions

I was meeting with a client recently about a new home they are building and I was discussing my philosophy of the importance in creating an environment that nurtures and supports the needs and lifestyles of the occupants. There is so much more than meets the eye when designing a home. I am reminded by what I was taught by my feng shui instructor and mentor Grandmaster Professor Thomas Lin Yun: ‘when you enter a space it takes your body and psyche tens seconds to adjust to the space – either in a negative or a positive way.’ Our homes are living and dynamic vessels that either optimally support us, or support us in a diminished capacity. Is your home all it can be?

Photo: Patricia Gray Inc; Artwork: Martha Sturdy, Tom Burrows; Photography: Roger Brooks

PATRICIA GRAY INC is an award winning interior design firm in Vancouver. Here we write about lifestyle and
WHAT'S HOT in the world of interior design, architecture, art and travel.
2011 © Patricia Gray | Interior Design Blog™

Selasa, 25 Oktober 2011

A Perfect White Geranium

To my delight and surprise this morning I found this last perfect white geranium in my garden as the nights are turning cold and crisp and we are rapidly approaching winter. It is hardy and pure.

Kamis, 20 Oktober 2011

HOMEFRONT

In pursuit of happy endings……..

I have been published this month in HOMEFRONT magazine. Thank-you to Homefront’s Editor-in-Chief, Caroline Tapp-McDougall and writer, Lindsay Jackson.

Photos courtesy Natasha Duff of Meade Design Group

Click on the PDF icon to read the whole article.

Senin, 10 Oktober 2011

5 iPad Apps for Interior Design

I got a new iPad this summer as a gift from dear clients on the completion of their home and it has changed my life and the way I do business. No longer do I have to carry around my laptop – the iPad does every thing for me and more when I am out of the office that I used to bring my laptop for. With some clever apps I have a virtual box in my hands. These are some of the iPad Apps I am using that are proving to be indispensable:

1. Dropbox is a service that lets you bring all your photos, documents, and videos with you. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad. With the Dropbox app you can take everything that matters to you on the go. It is very easy to use – you just drag the file you want to transfer into the Dropbox folder on your computer and it almost instantly shows up on your iPad. Magic! You can share folders on line by giving others access by email. I have used it recently to transfer photos and drawings to a client and my contractor. It saves sending numerous emails and you can send high resolution images seamlessly.

2. Evernote turns your iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, you put it all into Evernote and it instantly synchronizes between all your devices – iPad, iPhone and Mac or Windows desktop. No more having to plug your devices into each other.

3. iBooks is an Apple app that comes on your iPad. You can read books on it much like Kindle, but what I really use it for in business is downloading PDF documents such as CAD drawings, specifications, manuals etc. What makes the iPad so unique is that you can enlarge just the areas you want to see by dragging your fingers over the screen – it works like a magnifying glass. I recently downloaded the PDF of my camera & lens manual and it is now always with me.

4. Flipboard was named Apple’s iPad app of the year and rightly so. It is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos, videos and updates on social media sites. It is now my preferred way of bookmaking and browsing my favourite websites.

5. Microsoft Tag lets you instantly connect to a whole new world of information. there is not need to type long URLs, you simply scan the Tag. Microsoft Tag multicolored barcodes transform traditional marketing, such as print advertising, packaging, LDC displays etc. into live links that immediately access info, videos, and other material online.

*Best of all Dropbox, Evernote, iBooks, Flipboard and Microsoft Tag are all free iPad Apps
Check out my Post on 5 iPhone Apps for Interior Design

Please let me know what iPad Apps you have found helpful by leaving a comment here.

PATRICIA GRAY INC is an award winning interior design firm in Vancouver writing about lifestyle and
WHAT'S HOT in the world of interior design, architecture, art and travel.
2011 © Patricia Gray | Interior Design Blog™

Selasa, 04 Oktober 2011

Interior Design Russia

Well I have just been published in Interior Design magazine in Russia. We really live in a global world and it is exciting to be so connected by the internet, blogging, Facebook, Twitter and all the new and evolving forms of social media. For those of you who don’t read Russian I have included a translation to English at the bottom of this article. Click on the PDF icon. You can read the magazine here. It is very interesting to see what the design trends are in that part of the world. I think that they are very contemporary and ‘cutting edge.’ My article starts on Page 90. Let me know what you think.

Click on the PDF icon to read the whole article with translation.

Rabu, 28 September 2011

Williams-Sonoma 5 Interior Design Blogs We Couldn’t Live Without

Thank-you Williams-Sonoma for picking this blog!
5 Interior Design Blogs We Couldn’t Live Without

By Jay Johnson
It’s easy to smell a phony when reading a blog; the words don’t ring true, they sound contrived, and the advice isn’t from the heart. But a great interior designer’s blog can be inspirational and helpful – and even funny. As bloggers, Irwin and I appreciate the extra work it takes to step outside of your everyday design projects and communicate to people you might never meet about what you love, what you hate, what resources you’ve just used on a job, and what elements of taste and style make you see the world in your own unique way. Here are some of our favorite interior designer blogs.

Patricia Gray This cleanly designed and beautifully photographed blog is the creation of a generous designer. Vancouver based Patricia Gray shares her keen eye for style, takes us on trips around the world (and points out her “favourites”), and points out the resources and materials that she enjoys using on a job. The latter is particularly useful for interior designers. It’s great to see a master designer work, look at resources as they appear in finished spaces, and get an analysis of why and how they function beautifully. You also get the bonus of a well-trained feng shui student, layered on top of the interior designer, and you can better understand why Patricia’s interiors exude calm, serenity, and strong flow.
Read full article

Jumat, 23 September 2011

Sky Village, Denmark

Right now, the housing market is slowing down, and developments focus more towards office-space. One that shows flexibility. Where offices can easily be transformed into housing - and vice versa. Where smaller units can be transformed into bigger ones - and vice versa.

By creating a tower that is a grid structure with a minimal pixel size, any configuration can be imagined and filled in. The grid-size of 7.8 x 7.8 m combines a good parking grid, a proper housing unit and office type (a unit of 7.8 x 7,8 x 4 m, approx. 60 m2 or 240 m3), that can easily accommodate a large variety of tenants, e.g. young people that want to live close to the city and starters in the office market. Small offices and home offices… a vertical SOHO! The units, or pixels, can also be joined together to form larger spaces to accommodate larger apartments, hotel rooms or offices.

A sustainable structure arises. The grid has been organized around a central core with lifts, stairs and shafts. The central core is divided in three individual cores that individually serve the apartments, the offices and the hotel and restaurant. It allows for deeper offices with cells and meeting rooms, and for deeper houses, or public functions like for example a library or a conference space. By varying the infill, less deep offices and houses can be created. By pulling away many pixels on the ground and lower floors, a more open plaza is created, while keeping some program on ground floor for lobbies and shops. By stacking the units more towards the northern side on top of the cube a taller building emerges with sunnier terraces with views to Copehagen city centre, Skåne, and the rest of the region. By opening the cube in the middle, a series of covered terraces is created to allow for communal outdoor areas for offices or public functions.

A sky village. The columns are clad with cast-aluminium panels. It serves both domestic and office purposes: individualized usages, natural ventilation, and maximum visibility from the sky towards the grounds. Where needed stability elements are diagonally positioned behind the façade. The tower continues underground with some small shops, the plant rooms and a parking garage. By using the identical pixel-unit sizes, the plaza obtains the same qualities and character as the rest of the tower. As if the tower is ‘emerging’ from the ground. This mixed use concept also demands for a mixed environment. The bench surrounds a protected play area, an outdoor fitness area for elderly citizens and picnic zones.

Location : Rødovre
Denmark

Site type : Urban

Building area : 22000 m2

A project by : MVRDV, ADEPT Architects

Architecture

Photo Gallery of Sky Village, Denmark