House renovation: does this one win?
Last month we looked at this Villeray house transformation that went all in for matte black minimalism, but now this TMR project says “hold my beer.”
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Kate
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dwgs 15:23 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
Blech. Looks like a poorly done early 70’s bungalow. The photographer sure loves that herringbone floor though.
Dominic 16:15 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
Looks very boring. 🙁
Kate 16:17 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
dwgs: The floor is the only thing with any life in the whole place.
Nice bathroom, though. And no breakfast bar, for once.
MarcG 16:24 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
But how will they eat breakfast!?
Blork 16:58 on 2020-07-13 Permalink
The floor is definitely the highlight. That said, it’s not really fair to judge the space based on these photos, because the photos are showing the space in its pure state, with very little furnishings, nothing on the walls, etc. The idea is to show a fairly objective rendering of the space without the subjective nature of personal decor. That’s not how it’s supposed to be lived in.
This kind of stark architecture can work well in some circumstances. Primarily that means a setting with a lot of natural exterior beauty, such as on a headland overlooking the ocean, or nestled into a clearing in a forest in the mountains. The idea being that all those windows are designed to highlight the beauty of the setting, even from inside the space. I say that and then I laugh at the kitchen shot, with those glorious floor-to-ceiling windows, but are they overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur, or the foothills of the Rocky Mountains? No. They look at a four metre-tall solid wall of hedge. FAIL.
Phil M 01:58 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
Some people like minimalism. Why can’t it be left at that?
Kate 08:40 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
Phil M, I’m just expressing an opinion. Architecture and design are just as legitimate an area for critical comment as movies, books and TV shows, it seems to me, and even more so for a blog like this which is, in a general sense, about living in a city. Changes in the urban fabric are interesting to me, but what mostly gets covered on sites like Dezeen is the trendy, cutting-edge stuff, which is always going to be a bit excessive and thus is leaving itself wide open for comment.
MarcG: The people living there would be fasting most of the time.
MarcG 09:10 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
Kate: That’s taking minimalism to the next level
walkerp 10:25 on 2020-07-14 Permalink
This is not minimalism. This is faux-modern status-driven tackiness whose real base is the cost of materials. Most of that stuff is composite garbage, gussied up to look fancy which will chip and fray fairly quickly and start to look both deteriorated and outdated and will thus need to be all torn out and re-renovated again in a few years. Taste is dictated by the renovation industry.