This is a contemporary house, created by the Architecture bureau called Bembé Dellinger Architects, and is a perfect example of a open-space, modern architecture and living space.

Description made by architects:

A house, south of Munich, in a traditionally grown, 100-year-old garden suburb. The plot was large and it was possible to spread out. A totally transparent ground floor with a clearly protruding upper level. The view is focussed on the garden, not the neighbours. The upper storey is a simple white tube with a saddle roof built without disturbing flashings and a flush roof covering made of white fibrous concrete.

The official website of  Bembé Dellinger Architects – here.

Whenever you want to add some exclusive look to your furniture collection you can check this ultra modern retro sofa from Leolux, called The Morena sofa. This designed is signed by Stefan Heiliger, and is described as a “sculptural form melting towards the floor”. Nothing boring can be found in the lines of the design. It’s asymmetrical unusual shape is giving it some retro touch, making it cozy for any size group.

Available in leather or fabric upholstery in a variety of colors, this sofa is the picture of contemporary comfort and modern style. Check the official website at Leolux.

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Dining room table centerpieces can be instant focal points in the room.  Whether elegant or casual, the centerpiece reflects the mood of the room or helps to create one.  Using one bowl centerpieces for the dining room table are especially easy.  They are inexpensive and easy to create, plus they can quickly be changed out to fit holiday decor or dinner party themes.  When thinking about designing a one bowl centerpiece, use the ideas below to get started.

The Bowl

Choose a bowl that is versatile enough to coordinate with a variety of holidays and decorating ideas.  Although the basic decor of the dining room is unlikely to change from season to season, the added holiday accessories may alter the decor slightly.  Choosing a bowl that matches the room during all of its holiday transitions will keep clutter down and make it easy to switch from season to season and back again.  Opt for a neutral bowl material like ceramic, glass or wood for the most versatility.  Also consider the width and depth of the bowl.  For a small dining room table, a smaller, but taller bowl would look great.  However, for a longer dining room table, a wider, shallower bowl would work better to fill the space.

Holiday Centerpieces

Using a bowl to create holiday dining room table centerpieces is a great way to accent holiday themed items while adding color and visual interest to the room.  Glitter hearts amidst white votive candles would create a beautiful and elegant centerpiece for the Valentine’s Day dinner table.  For the spring holidays, a bowl filled with colorful eggs atop a bed of Easter grass and accented with blooming spring flowers would highlight the season and coordinate with most any color decor.  A bowl filled with fall leaves, acorns and scented pine cones would bring the outdoors inside the dining room for the fall season.  Mini white lights and round glass ornaments also serve as excellent decorations for a one bowl centerpiece, as they can be coordinated with a variety of decors and colors.

Everyday Centerpieces

For the everyday dining room table centerpiece, fill a bowl with colorful glass pebbles and flowers.  Whether the flowers are real or silk, they add color and life to any room setting.  If flowers do not match the look and feel of the room, opt for an eclectic collection of items that coordinates with the color scheme in the dining area.  For example, if the color scheme is a contemporary grey, opt for items that coordinate in greys, blacks and whites.

A one bowl centerpiece for the dining room table provides a brilliant focal point that is easy to create and easy to maintain.  Choose a bowl that is versatile enough to work with many looks and throughout many seasons.  Be sure that the accessories in the bowl add visual variety and coordinate with the look and feel of the room.  Be creative when designing a one bowl centerpiece and enjoy the striking effect of it on the dining room table once it is completed.

WallDecorandHomeAccents.com is online store specializing  in  products from  tropical wall decor to outdoor wall art.

While most people tend to focus on the paint or wallpaper in a room, then on furniture and accessories, floors seem to be an afterthought in a living room. Unless you give some thought to the flooring in the living room, it could take away from the beauty of the room, robbing it of harmony or causing people to miss the real focal points. Selecting the perfect carpet for a living room can be based on several factors, depending on your needs and budget considerations.

Before choosing the right carpet, make sure that you have measured the living room, and written down the dimensions exactly. It helps to make a rough sketch of the floor’s shape, so that you can note any odd dimensions or unique factors such as doorways, odd corners or angles, and stairs/obstacles that need to be avoided. Take this information with you when you shop, so you can be sure to get the right amount of carpeting for the room.

Your budget has to be the biggest affecting factor when you choose carpet, since it can be very expensive, based on the name brand you choose. If budget is not a big consideration, it is easy to choose from the most popular name brands, and the look and feel of the carpet can become your primary considerations. For most of us, though, budget is a huge issue, and it is more interesting to save money on the flooring and add more to the decorating or furniture budget for the living room.

Selecting the perfect living room carpet can be based solely on brand name. Some can be quite expensive, depending on how much carpet you need, and where you purchase it.

You can buy high quality carpet in a wide variety of places, depending on the cost and brand name you are hoping to find. Home improvement stores sell a variety of quality carpet brands, and offer a huge selection of color and texture options. Some locations will also install for a fee, making the job much easier for you. If you have an area with an awkward shape, a large room, or a very small room, it may be best to add the extra fee and let a professional do the installation so that your new carpet looks even better in your living room.

The last part of selecting the perfect carpet for your living room is correct installation. In many cases, the carpet store offers installation for a nominal price or you can catch a sale the offers free installation. Carpet can be installed by a DIY homeowner, but in most cases the expense of renting the proper tools and the potential of ruining the carpet does not make this a cost-effective option, especially if the store offers a guarantee on proper installation.

Selecting the perfect carpet for a living room can be fun and interesting, as there are many brand names, colors, and textures to choose from. Proper installation will give the room a finishing touch, and bring together the rest of the decor. Elegance and style can be displayed very well in the simple carpet choice for your living room.

Today I felt like jumping (uhhh, and I actually jumped) while I walked down to work (I don’t usually feel this way when I have to work). Don’t know if that ever happened to you, since this is a childish thing to do, but good moods are something we all should take advantage of.

Since a good mood  can start from basically anything, like from a nice designed interior, the following artist will probably make you feel like a child again with her work. Maria Yasko of Moscow, Russia took on an interior design project for a family entertainment Center that was motivated by the collection of Moomin books, by Tove Jansson, a Finnish novelist.

Guess what she did! She actually took the illustrations from these books and gave them life in a few fantastic spaces. Talk about utopia living, check these spaces out! Ludic is what you’re probably thinking, and you’re probably right.

The children’s play hall  takes you back to the realm of a winter wonderland fairytale.

The recreation area is full of energy and those abstract doorways add a wonderful touch of adventure!

The cafeteria hall is nothing but stimulative and inviting for guests. The design elements are so simple, yet so effectfive. This is exactly the kind of place that would make any child eat his veggies, and well behave!

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Sometimes it’s just like searching for a needle in a haystack: if you’ve ever googled for free and quality 3D models for your next interior scene, you know exactly what we talk about. Of course there are a lot of artists that like to create their own 3D objects, and have full control, but sometimes there is no physical time for that, and you just want a certain model of chair, or table or what not, and you search high and low for it.

In this context, we found appropriate to present you a round-up of websites that provide 3D Models supplied directly by the manufacturers, so you will have the scaled objects, and some times even textured the way they are supposed to. In addition we will provide some of our own models soon just for good will, and as a thank you to all of our readers.

1. Alias Design

2. Andreu World

3. Arketipo

4. Artek

5. Artemide

6. Artifort

7. B & B Italia

8. Bo-Ex

9. Bulo

10. Cappelini

11. Casamania

12. E-Interior

13. Emeco

14. Erik Jogensen

15. Flying Architecture

16. Fritz Hansen

17. il Loft

18. Kinnarps

19. Kler

20. Luceplan

21. Matrix International

22. Moooidownload

23. MOROSO

24. Paolo Lenti

25. Vileroy & Boch

Some websites require registration, also they might be in some foreign language, but I’m sure you’ll manage. Remember these are all free resources that you can use at will.

Since these are indeed warm times that we live in, and every once in a while a nice bath is welcomed, we found appropriate to feature some of the best bathtub designs out there. The freestanding bathtubs that you might have seen on archtopia in the past, are some of the most appreciated nowadays, but what you’re about to see will inspire you even more.

1. Egg Tub by Rexa Design

2. Bathtub Aquarium

3. Le Cob Bathtub

4. Leggera Bathtub by Gilda Borgnini

5. Ocean Shell Tub

6. Oversized Bathtubs – Vaseli

7. Ravello & Amalfi tubs by Victoria & Albert

8. Rectangular Bathtub

9. Whirlpool Glass Bathtub

10. Wooden bathtub from Laguna

Hope you’ve enjoyed this collection of bathtubs, and if you found others that we can share with our other readers, please feel free to share them in the comment section bellow. You can also share your own design. Feel free to use our Contact form.

Cheers

a book by Allan Brito

Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery will be featured here at Archtopia for a while, and it describes the power of Blender 3D in Architectural Visualizations. You will see how to use the final models to create simpler scenes for use in 3D games, where real-time rendering is necessary. You will also see how to use them to create the sets for animated movies.

About Blender 3D

Blender 3D is a open-source 3D graphics suite, that is capable of modeling, rendering and animating 3D environments, and one of the best parts about it, is that you can download it for free at: http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/. Another cool thing about it is that the installed program it’s only 10 MB, and not only that,
but it can run on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX.

About the Author

Allan Brito is a Brazilian architect who specializes in information visualization. He lives and works in Recife, Brazil. He works with Blender 3D to produce animations and still images for visualization and instructional material.

Besides his work with Blender as an artist, he also has substantial experience teaching 3D modeling, animation , and multimedia at Mauricio de Nassau College.

He can be reached through his website at http://www.blender3darchitect.com, where he covers the use of Blender
3D and other tools for architectural visualization.

Although this is a detailed guide, is far from being full of useless blabbering, and it goes straight to the point, taking you from a to z, from installing Blender and understanding how it works to the post production editing of the final images with another awesome yet free software: GIMP.

Not too long ago, you probably saw a review of the SketchUp 7.1 for chitectural Visualization here, and while SketchUp is a different animal with tremendous power, we feel that Blender has been avoided for far too long, and the truth is that it can easily be measured with SketchUp in many ways. More about that, after the brief presentation of the chapters.

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blender and Architectural Visualization

This chapter will cover the basics on Architectural visualization, the hardware and software requirements for Blender, tools for visualization, and CAD and 3D-Architectural modeling and resources.

Chapter 2: Blender 3D: Quick Start

Starting up with the interface of the software in Windows, and the customization power of the interface. Blender can be a quick tool if you know the keyboard shortcuts, and this is exactly what Chapter 2 covers.

Chapter 3: Modeling

You will learn about mesh primitives, operations such as extrude, subsurf modifier, smoothing faces, grouping and proportional editing.

Chapter 4: Modeling for Architecture

Architectural modeling is all about proportions, and precision. This chapter will teach you how to work with layers, and how to create the basic objects we use everyday in architectural modeling, like walls, openings, floors and lining, etc.

Chapter 5: Modeling Details

Yes, believe it or not, GOD is in details, and this chapter will demonstrate how you can model windows, and doors with the amount of detail you want

Chapter 6: Modeling Furniture

Here you have the option of modeling, of using predefined objects from a library. Also if you really want to create your own designs, there are two sub-chapters that will cover modeling a chair and a sofa. [sample chapter here]

Chapter 7: Materials

If you lack experience with materials, than this chapter will cover this subject. Materials of course will give life to your scene, so learn this fast, and learn it well.

Chapter 8: Textures

Working with textures can be nerve wracking, and can kill your mood if you don’t find what you want, or can’t get the texture to map on your object in the desired manner. This chapter will clear things for you.

Chapter 9: UV Mapping

what is UV mapping, and why should you care? well, the fact is that no matter what texture you use, if you don’t map it the right way, it will look awful and un-natural to everyone.

Chapter 10: Light Basics

Light will get the best out of your materials, and this chapter will teach you how to use different types of lighting like: Lamp, Sun, Are, Spot, and will show you a simple exercise for best results.

Chapter 11: Radiosity and Ambient Occlusion

For some this might be new terms, but rest assured, this chapter covers all you need to know about this sort of rendering.

Chapter 12: Global Illumination with YafRay

YafRay, just like Blender, is a open source external render, which works great with Blender. Some say it’s the external software that presents the best integration with Blender.

Chapter 13: Animation for Architectural Visualization

If you’re a big animator, then this will give you all you need in order to create the best animation for you scene, from describing Keyframes, to Interactive Animation.

Chapter 14: Post-Production with GIMP

You surely heard about Photoshop, but I’m not so sure you heard about GIMP, and that’s a shame, because this software can help you adjust your image in a few mouse clicks. This chapter goes in depth explaining post production techniques.

Conclusion:

Blender 3D is a powerful tool when you can master it, and the libraries that you can find for it are in constant growth, so this can be a great option if you’re trying to achieve great results with a free software with powerful features, and minimum hardware requirements.

To get you free sample chapter CLICK HERE!

You can find the book on the official webiste of PacktPub, or on Amazon.

Leave your impressions in the comment section bellow.

Architecture-Viz is the home base of two of our friends, and ex-university colleagues. Their work become more and more surrealistic and original. The two architects behind the projects will soon make a big name for themselves with their work and approach. They use Cinema 4D in conjunction with Vray for C4D, and as you will soon see, they master them. Photoshop too. You can check their official websites here: a-viz.com, randari.wordpress.com

Also, we want to show you what they’re capable of. Here are a few of their projects:

© A-viz | mcub | 3f-studio

© A-viz | mcub | 3f-studio

© A-viz | mcub | 3f-studio

© A-viz | mcub | 3f-studio

© A-viz | mcub | 3f-studio

Yep, these are all renderings, believe it or not …

If you want to see more firms that do a great job at rendering, leave a comment in the section bellow.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

As the world evolves, human need for light is changing, is growing and it’s all justified since we need clarity, warmth and certitude. The Wall Lamp created by Arturo Alvarez, called Guau, is a mood creating lamp that will illuminate your space in a creative, original and funky style. The lamp features a flat adjustable shade tht you can move or rotate in various positions to direct the light wherever you like. You can see it in more detail on the Arturo Alvarez official website.