Douglas Newby Insights - Page 39
Architectural Continuity
Just like in the Dallas Historic Districts, one house is probably not a historic landmark, but the collection of houses is historically and architecturally significant. Here, these Basque, indigenous style, 18th century houses looking over the sea reflect the region. I have often wondered why the architectural continuity of historic homes is charming when architectural conformity of new houses is monotonous. One reason might be that a collection of historic homes have stood the test of time, they have architectural merit that goes beyond architectural fads or trends. Now, even houses built in the 1980s and 1990s are being torn down because styles have transitioned. Finding a home built in the 1970s is even more rare. Another reason why the architectural continuity of a collection of historic homes resonates is that their design had a purpose besides just looking good. In overt and subtle ways the architecture that survives reflects the environment and provides the elements that make us happy in a home. In the photograph, the corner room that supplemented my even more primitive beach home is not a palace. However, it overlooks the sea in two directions, exterior doors and windows are kept open capturing the breezes and the sweet sounds of the surf. In some ways, the simpler the building, the easier it is to transition to nature, land or sea.
#HomesThatMakeUsHappy #Indigenous #Architecture #Architect #18th Century #Ciboure #SaintJeanDeLuz #Beach #Jogging #Swimming #Bay #Historic #Collection #HistoricDistrict #HistoricArchitecture #Design #Art #Hotel #Basque #BasqueCountry #BasqueArchitecture #Dawn
Beach Towel Summer Home
Many have summer homes that are more expensive and larger than their primary residence. Some summer homes are architect-designed, some are indigenous simple houses built by local craftsmen. For me, I like the position of the drifting cowboy, a home is where you put down your blanket. When a summer home is a beach blanket, the construction is simple. The materials and site are still important. A beach towel can embrace many of the tenets of a home that makes us happy. The summer home pictured is comprised of two overlapping Artiga beach towels sited on sand near the top of a slight incline, out of danger from high tide. Sun shines in from four different directions, gentle breezes sweep off the sea. This is a good example that the amount of land that one’s home is on is not as important as what it is next to or across from. Here, the sea is in front, the Pyrenees are the backdrop, with 15th to 19th century Basque homes making up the architectural landscape, punctuated by fishing boats departing and arriving. This summer home is sited in a friendly neighborhood where people run, walk, play or un-self-consciously sunbathe. The site is connected by bike paths, walking paths, boardwalks, and is within a kilometer of Le Kaiku, a fabulous Michelin Star restaurant, a fish market, fruit, cheese and meat markets, and a boulangerie. And best of all, a beach towel summer home is affordable. A place to eat, sleep and read. Post is tribute to sept 4 release of book Joyful @ingridfetell
#JoySpotting #SaintJeanDeLuz #Artiga #DonutPeaches #Vilebrequin #Mirabelle #ReineClaude #SummerReading #GolfDardree #SummerHome #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #EndOfSummer #SecondHome #LeKaiku #Ciboure #Architecture #Architect #IndigenousHome #Art #Summer #Beach #IndigenousArchitecture #SimpleHome #BasqueCountry #BayOfBiscay #Design
Modern Vignette
A triumph of this modern home is finding a way to site it on a topographically challenging triangular lot and provide a large home with the proper width and depth. A creek running through the lot increases the complexity. This is an example of how Sebastian Construction Group can elevate the exquisite design with their ability to execute this elaborate project. The entire house is splendid and this vignette nestled into the trees gives one the vibe of the house. In the future I will be posting additional contributions of John Sebastian and the Sebastian Construction Group to architecturally significant homes. Hopefully, this series of projects that they have worked on provides an insight on the importance of the contractor and the contributions a contractor can make that culminates in an architecturally significant home.
#Architecture #Architect #Modern #Design #Art #sebastianconstructiongroup #Landscape #LandscapeDesign #Topography #Creek #Trees #UniversityPark #Architecturally Significant #architecturallysignificanthomes @SebastianConstructionGroup #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #ModernHome #Dallas #City #DallasModernHomes #Contemporary #ContemporaryHome #View #Windows #Open
Contemporary Landmark
The feature of a landmark is that it is easily recognized from a distance enabling one to establish a location. Often the term landmark is used just as a compliment. This modern home designed by the late Bill Booziotis, an incredible architect and person, along with his colleague architect Jess Galloway, and built by the Sebastian Construction Group, overlooks a cliff and the Trinity River. The home really is a landmark. It is an architectural landmark illuminating good architecture from a distance. It is also a classic geographic landmark allowing one to find their bearings in relationship to the Trinity River and downtown Dallas. This was an architecturally significant home the moment it came out of the ground.
#BillBooziotis #Concrete #Eaves #View #Architect #Architecture #Modern #ModernHome #Contemporary #ContemporaryHome #Art #TrinityRiver #PathToTrinityGroves #AIADallas #City #Dallas #Urban #OakCliff #Neighborhood #Overhang #Topography #Windows #Steel Structure #pathtotrinitygroves #ArchitecturallySignificant #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #Cliff #Downtown #Design
@SebastianConstructionGroup @yagul22 #sebastianconstructiongroup
Open, Private, Cool
The Edward Durell Stone designed home is almost magical. One can stand in the middle of the home and look outside in all four directions. The exterior of the home is wrapped in glass, allowing 360º outside views. And yet one feels a sense of privacy because of the brise soleil that embraces the home. This provides the first layer of privacy. The pair of carved wood screens found on both sides of the public rooms create another layer of privacy. One can see out but people cannot see in. The interior pools are cool! They are dramatically and aesthetically cool, and the water is cool. Interior water features and pools are traditionally problematic. Here architect Russell Buchanan and interior designer David Cadwallader were able to recreate and accentuate the original design of Edward Durell Stone that included these interior pools of water because of the construction competence of the @SebastianConstructionGroup. The pools were engineered and cooled to provide the visual and emotional appeal of the water without any undesirable side effects.
#EdwardDurellStone #Interior #InteriorDesign #InteriorPool #ArchitecturallySignificant #Architect #Architecture #Design #InteriorDesigner #Contractor #MidCenturyModern #MidCentury #1960s #BriseSoleil #CarvedScreens #modernarchitecture #homesthatmakeushappy #FloatingDiningRoom #Open #OpenFloorplan #Dallas #City #PrestonHollow #ModernEstateHome #Contemporary #Engineering #Construction @cadwallader_design #sebastianconstructiongroup
Architecture Exposed
A barn is a big part of Texas architecture. It often made up part of the compound of original pioneer Texas homes. One of the things I love about barns is when the architecture is exposed and unadorned. Architects David Williams and O’Neil Ford made a point of showing the intimacy of the architecture and the craftsmanship with the exposed beams, woodwork, and metalwork in their Texas Modern homes. While a barn sounds like a simple structure, here you can see how elegant the architecture of a barn becomes. One can also see another kind of example of the precision of Sebastian Construction Group that allows the structure to become the decoration.
#Architect #Architecture @SebastianConstructionGroup #InteriorDesign #Design #Barn #BarnArchitecture #StructureAsDesign #Texas #TexasArchitecture #TexasModernArchitecture #Art #Wood #ExposedArchitecture #UnadornedArchitecture #Contractor #Construction #sebastianconstructiongroup
Secondary Structure Vies for Primary Appeal
Architect Svend Fruit @Bodron+Fruit designed this pool house. The visual presence of this small structure fills the acreage of the adjacent Philip Johnson-designed modern house. The juxtaposition of the tightly orchestrated horizontal lines of the landscape and house, with the arched façade wrapping around the two-story modern primary house is visibly exciting and cohesive. The differing styles and sizes of these buildings are harmonious as they project modern architecture as it relates to the site and each other, and their respective era on this one project @SebastianConstructionGroup was able to execute the dynamic renovation of the existing architecturally significant home and next to it build a new architecturally significant modern pool house. The quality of construction also helps visually tie these two structures together.
#PoolHouse #SvendFruit #Architect #Architecture #ModernDesign #Contemporary #Pool #Landscape #Glass #Windows #View #SecondaryStructure #EstateHome #ArchitecturallySignificant #PrestonHollow #Dallas #City #Neighborhood #Art #ModernHouse
#Design #art #estate #sebastianconstructiongroup
Hotel Room Envy
Even before I knew that this was the hotel room where Bette Davis made her home, it is the only one I can remember looking up at and thinking with a bit of envy this looks quite fabulous, I think I could love living there. At different times in my life I stayed in iconic historic hotel rooms. As a child, I stayed in the penthouse suite of the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel. Some years later, I stayed in the penthouse suite of the Waldorf-Astoria, and other hotels, like my favorite the Carlyle, in rooms where dignitaries had once stayed. However, it was this simple-looking room that caught my attention. It was at the top of the hotel, but only a few floors high, so it still related to the street when one is on the balcony. This corner suite, surrounded by balconies and French doors, provides many views, of the river below that runs through San Sebastian, a full view of the beach and sea, the plaza below, and even the fireworks display of the annual International fireworks competition.The curved balconies that related to the city and provided beautiful distant views, suggested a home that could make one happy. Quite inadvertently sometime later I was assigned this room. Yes, it did make me happy.
#SanSebastian #Pintxos #Architect #Architecture #Plaza #Sea #Beach #River #Iconic #Penthouse #BetteDavis #BetteDavisSuite #Design #Style #View #SeaView #HomesThatMakeUsHappy #Balcony #BalconyView #Plaza #HotelMariaCristina
@HotelMariaCristina #Hotel #HotelAsHome #BasqueCountry #HistoricArchitecture #History #Spain
When a Hotel Becomes a Home
I have often wondered how someone of great wealth, fame, privilege, and adoration decides to make a hotel a home. How do they decide which city to live in and which hotel? Is a hotel a home, a way to put down roots in a peripatetic life, or does it give one a sense that their life without roots continues? The hotel suite in Hotel Maria Cristina with this view was selected by Bette Davis where she lived much of her late life. Walking distance to the Pintxos restaurants and bars in the old city, views over the river, to sea, and a plaza with hills in the background, I imagine, are some of the reasons she picked this hotel for her home.
#SanSebastian #BetteDavis #BetteDavisSuite #Pintxos #Suite #HotelSuite #SeaView #View #Plaza #SaintSebastian #Statue #Sea #Beach #CityBeach #River #Architect #Architecture #Design #Style #City #Home #OldCity #Historic #HistoricArchitecture #Balcony #HotelMariaCristina @HotelMariaCristina #HotelAsHome #Hotel #Spain
Bette Davis Eyes Share a View
My favorite room in San Sebastian turns out to be the favorite room of Bette Davis. Until I was assigned this suite, I was unaware that this was where Bette Davis made her home for much of her late life. Fittingly, the Hotel Maria Cristina celebrates Bette Davis’ affection for the hotel and the room she made home by naming the room after her and displaying iconic images of Bette Davis here. One only needs to stand on the balcony or look out one of the windows wrapping around the suite to be able to see the views Bette Davis’ eyes captured.
#BetteDavis #BetteDavisHome #SanSebastian #HotelMariaCristina #HotelAsHome #Hotel #homesthatmakeushappy #BetteDavisEyes #Window #Portrait #FrenchDoors #Balcony #Sea #River #View #City #Spain #BasqueCountry #Design #InteriorDesign #Art #HollywoodStar #History #Architecture #HotelSuite @HotelMariaCristina #Photography #PortraitPhotography #HistoricArchitecture #History