Breezeway

A refreshing soaking tub sits sandwiched between the main residence and guest suite.

Tucked away from street view, the OCM House runs east to west to optimize north-facing views of the lawn and garden. The home is designed to embrace the outdoors and is within walking distance of rivers and beautiful beaches.

The walls and parts of the roof are original to the structure. The steel-framed windows and openings are new.

The sense of the outdoors is particularly strong in the central atrium; the space is awash in light and shadow.

Architect Bruce Bolander made the most of a limited footprint in a house he designed in a Malibu canyon. With the small bedroom unable to accommodate any "normal" size desk, the architect designed a very thin custom steel desk where resident Heidi Wright works. The floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors from Metal Window Corporation open the entire corner of the room up to the outdoors. “The mountains across the way are almost like another wall—they contain the space to the point that you feel like you’re in a much bigger space, that you’re part of the overall landscape,” says Bolander. Photo by J Bennett Fitts.

The Oosten, is a new block-long luxury building in South Wiliamsburg, Brooklyn, designed by acclaimed Dutch architect Piet Boon with architecture by think! Architecture. The development just unveiled a 5,098 square foot duplex penthouse designed by Toronto-based boutique design studio, Abraham Chan, that features five bedrooms with en-suite baths and stellar views. Conveniently designed in the living room of the penthouse, is a wet-bar with custom cabinets and a granite backsplash.

Add a wet bar. The merry making isn't complete without refreshments, so consider including a place separate from the kitchen where guests can linger and chat.

Connected to the kitchen by a flight of stairs, the bar features cohesive custom fittings and furniture by Eginstill. Each living area flows freely into the next, in effort to “make the space as open as possible, just like it used to be when it was a sugar refinery” says van Hulzen. “We wanted to [return] the building to its old glory.”

An expanse of windows along the transparent, glass-filled southern facade keeps the main living area well-lit during the day; a grid of Buschfeld Shop-V 100 lights illuminates it by night.

A cooktop and refrigerator from Gaggenau, Bulthaup cabinets, a Miele oven, and an Asko dishwasher outfit the all-white kitchen, which is located on the entry-level floor.

The other structure, lined in plywood, recalls the simplicity of New Zealand’s traditional bachs, or seaside cabins. Oiled jarrah eucalyptus clads the kitchen alcove. In the bathroom, Vola’s Arne Jacobsen tapware joins an Architec basin by Duravit.

In the downstairs bathroom, the semigloss wall tile is from Daltile; the floor tile is by Deko. - Santa Monica, California Dwell Magazine : July / August 2017