Fab Designer: Flora Grubb

Flora Grubb's nursery and shop just outside San Francisco is a gardener's heaven. This chick is cool. A landscape designer by trade, Flora's shop features chic garden accessories, furniture and, what else, flora. I've loved her color combinations and affinity for architectural/sculptural plants for a while now and just had to post these pics I spied on her blog. This image I adore- love the color combinations, mix of textures, and, of course, I love succulents!



Tilandsia 'Wall' at the Bardessono Hotel in Napa Valley- love the simplicity, bringing the outside in, the whole sublime yet freakish look of the thing.



When it comes to residential design, I love color. There's nothing like a potted masterpiece flanking a doorway and I love the height and architectural look she's going for. You probably wouldn't think of bright orange pots to complement a purple exterior, but the quirkiness totally works. Check out Flora's website for more inspring photos.

Rustic Affinity

While perusing Architectural Digest online, I came across an image gallery of some of the magazine's most exotic featured homes. This image of a haveli in India totally caught me. I love the rustic, whimsical facade- it reminds me of the feeling you get when reading a great book and you feel totally transported into the pages. What makes it for me (and this is funny because I have my degree in Landscape Architecture), is the lack of landscape. I love the little trees flanking the doorway and the bright red gate- the haveli would emote a much different feeling if it was covered in foliage, a style we're so familiar with in Hawaii. I imagine a clawfoot bathtub, sipping orange spice tea and laying on a double chaise on the roof watching the sunset. There's just something so amazing about this image and though I've never really had an interest in venturing to India, this makes me want to jump on the next flight out.

Pacific Modern: The Bible of Kiwi + Oz Architecture

A couple of years ago I came across Pacific Modern and just had to have it. When I first went to New Zealand in 2002 I was struck by the country's modern design aesthetic. Sure, I apprecited their victorian style wood cottages circa the early 1900's, but I definitely was not expecting to stumble upon a fully functioning 'Pacific Modern' aesthetic! From Auckland to Queenstown, I love Kiwi architects' use of wood, steel and concrete in combination, synthesis, actually, resulting in modern linear structures that actually take on an easy, beachy, calming effect. Author Raul Barreneche puts it this way:

[Sometimes these are crisp residential designs rendered in the most modern forms, while in other cases architects draw on local cultural or vernacular building materials, such as stone or wood, to create houses that, while still undeniably modern, are very much of their place. But the most ambitious and innovative of these projects all maintain a strong design sensibility that transcends geographic borders.]

If you're wondering, 'what the heck is New Zealand and Australian architecture?', I highly suggest Pacific Modern. We'll discuss highlights in a few...

Fearon Hay Architects, New Zealand

The first time I saw images of Fearon Hay's Shark Alley House in a 2005 edition of Architectural Record, my jaw dropped to the floor and it took all my might to pick it back up. The quintiscential modern New Zealand house- low profile, pocket doors all around, the almost seamless blending of inside and out. Here's what Architectural Record has to say:

To make the journey to Shark Alley House, you travel by boat or light aircraft some 56 miles northeast of Auckland to Great Barrier Island (also known as Aotea), New Zealand. Then, after a spin on the island’s serpentine main road, you need tides low enough to let your four-wheel-drive vehicle continue over sand dunes and splash right across an estuary. With only 900 permanent residents and no electrical grid or public water-supply system, this mountainous, 110-square-mile landmass remains mostly rugged and untamed. Its dense bush, rare fauna and flora, and spectacular white sand beaches are “still quite undiscovered even by New Zealanders,” according to Jeff Fearon of Auckland-based Fearon Hay Architects, designers of Shark Alley House. Even the house’s owners, he adds, found their 30-acre site on an isolated cove “a bit by mistake.”

Truly one of my favorite New Zealand architecture firms, check out the rest of their portfolio here.