Sabbe Interior Design [the blog]: Bringing the Outside In: Residential

Quick Note: and a new mission statement

I realize that most of my blog readers are probably far more interested in residential design over commercial design. Most of you are not looking for ideas for your next corporate headquarters building. But being a commercial designer, who fancies herself dabbling in residential one day...I plan on fully subjecting you to both:) I promise you will benefit from both and hopefully have an enriched appreciation for the overall built environment. My hope is that from reading my blog you are able to notice good and bad design in everything you see. I am not referring to good and bad in regard to personal style (i.e. one loves the color purple, another hates it). Good aesthetics are in the eye of the beholder (most of the time). I am speaking more about creative and smart uses of materials, great detailing, balance, proportion, and lighting. These are things I notice everywhere I go.

I can be so inspired by a storefront design that I have to go home, get my camera, come back and be the weird girl (who promises she is not a terrorist) trying to consume every square inch, in hopes that I don't forget about it when the next project comes along.

On the flip side, I can be completely turned off, from an otherwise fantastic design, if I notice the base lines around the room do not line up (i.e. if a 6" high wood base is smacked directly next to a 3" tile base in the middle of a wall, that's bad and a professional designer should know better than that)

Understanding design is a blessing and a curse. It's something that gets inside your head and you will never again look at the built environment the same. My hope is that my blog helps design become a part of your everyday lens. And when you see something and you think that is good or that is bad, you will be able to back it up with a because.....

AND back to the regularly scheduled post...

Bringing the outside in is a concept Californians are no stranger to.

Richard Neutra was a pioneer of this look with his design of the International Style Kauffman House in 1946.

This one is by far my favorite of this set. See how the geometry of the countertop plays on the geometry of the second story slab...which appears to be a bridge with the HVAC system built in....look how the two doors align perfectly from the first to second floors.... and those stairs...are you kidding me!