Husband and wife, Kathryn Robson and Chris Rak, founders of the Melbourne-based Robson Rak architecture and interior design practice, have recently completed their most demanding and ambitious project to date. It is a dream project in many ways as Robson Rak was commissioned to create not just the house but the interiors as well.

The dramatic Stone Soul House is a six-bedroom family residence partly blasted into the ground. It is approximately 900 square-metres (9,688 sq.ft) in size and covers three levels.

The House is massive, not just in size but in presence. At first glance, it brings to mind a fortress, a monument or an art museum. It exudes permanence and solidity. All of this is part of the brief as the family, consisting of a couple with four children, was looking to re-house itself in a home that reflects their current family-centered life and also meets their potentially multi-generational future needs. They wanted that sense of permanence and also a feeling of belonging to the surroundings.

We wondered how a family could have nothing they wanted to keep, that they could allow designers, no matter how suited to the task, to choose everything. “Our clients had some sentimental items and art that is in the home but they had previously not really invested in beautiful furniture so now was the time,” Robson Rak told The Cool Hunter. “It was also important to them that the furniture be the correct scale and complete the whole story of the design concept.”

While the house is large and monolithic, the family’s living spaces have a human, intimate scale. In addition, each area has softening features such as rounded openings and corners, arches, curved staircases and bookshelves, soft furnishings, greenery, and views of the nature outside.

The drama really does start at the entrance where the designers commissioned a multi-hued work by Hong Kong-born, Melbourne-based John Young Zerunge to contrast the fossilised stone walls. Titled “Aleph Spring 2021”, the artwork layers colours and images onto a dream-like, soft surface. The combination of stone and brick, art and softer features is apparent throughout the house.

The entrance space is a chamber flanked by two basement courtyards that allow the tops of mature plane trees to grow though the levels so that as you enter the front door at ground level, the first thing you see is treetops. Not something you’d expect to reveal itself from the stony façade.

Much of what is in the house was custom-created by mainly local craftspeople, artisans and trades. Everything from door handles to lighting, from tables, seating and rugs to staircases and pools was specifically designed by Robson Rak and created for the Stone Sould House.

The top floor houses the bedrooms, each with an ensuite bathroom, plus a large library and reading room. The basement includes a gym, guest rooms, the two terraces and a rumpus room.

As the family entertains large groups of guests frequently the designers focused on the flexibility of spaces as well as emphasizing the sense of reveal and drama in the more public areas.

In the entertainment hub on the main level, we especially love the pivoting, elongated-oval-shaped, bronze-framed glass screens. The screens can shut off or connect the sitting area and the kitchen. The sitting area in turn connects to one of the outside terraces and the lawn beyond, helping bring the outside in. Stone and brick arches also lead into this area, drawing the visitor in and revealing one surprise after another.

But in the end, the home like a home. Surprisingly, it does not feel cold or distant. And as the family and the designers firmly agreed on and insisted throughout the process, Stone Soul House was designed for a busy and active family, not as a show space or showcase.  Tuija Seipell

Images by Shannon Mcgrath

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We love bakeries. And we especially love bakeries with a true sense of design and style. We have written about bakeries for almost two decades and we continue to look for fresh ideas.

In the Mi Pan Bakery project, we love the candid admission of the designers that they recognized they could not create a design that was too modern, too funky or too different as it might turn people away and intimidate tradition-loving customers who are not used to “designer” bakeries. Yet the designers also wanted to evoke a distinctive feeling of newness and freshness to update the image of the 40-year-old brand.

For four decades, Mi Pan has been a bakery for everyone, for young and old. It was important for the brand to remain an “everyone’s” bakery, to not appear snobbish or pretentious. And as bread is an integral part of many Mexican traditions and celebrations, it was important to continue the open-to-all and part-of-everyone’s-life brand values.

The work was completed by Concentrico, an interdisciplinary collaboration studio of architects and designers, based in San Pedro Garza Garcia, Monterrey, Mexcio. The studio is led by creative director Alejandro Peña Villarreal who was also the head architect of the Mi Pan project. Other key project leads were architects Ana Rebeca Mata and Jose Maria Cuevas and industrial designer May Cisneros.

To understand the project’s connection with the near and distant past of Mexico, the designers at Concentrico not only analyzed the history of the brand but also the visual and practical traditions and customs of Mexican bakeries in general.

As a result, the bakery’s promise “Siempre bueno masa a migaja” – always good from dough to crumb – remains unchanged and it is also highly visible on the back wall of the store. The aprons of the staff carry the message “Prueba el Pan de Verdad” – Try the real bread.

The overall ambiance of the bakery is open and clean, warm and inviting, but it is not cozy or homey. There is a sense of production and large scale with metal trays, rows of shelving and large displays.

There are few visual or physical barriers between the customers and the bakers, and the active production pace of a busy bakery is openly visible to all. At the exit, customers will encounter a display of the traditional celebratory breads, Rosca de Reyes and Pan de Muertos.

“Rosca de Reyes” (kings’ wreath) is a Mexican traditional celebratory bread wreath enjoyed with family and friends on “Dia de Reyes” on January 6^th (Epiphany Day or Kings Day). A small plastic figurine is placed inside the wreath symbolising baby Jesus. The person who finds the figurine is expected to throw a fiesta and serve tamales for everyone on” Dia de la Candelaria” on February 2.

“Pan de Muertos” (bread of the dead) is an essential part of a “Dia de Los Muertos” (celebrated in October or November) home shrine or ofrenda. The bread’s purpose is to nourish the dead who visit the land of the living on that day. Tuija Seipell

Images Jose Miguel Gonzales/Apertura Studio, Juan Pablo Tavela/Jpark Studio

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Rehousing their Michelin-starred restaurant Äng into a starkly minimalist glasshouse is the latest development at Ästad Vingård winery . The owners, the Carlsson siblings, continue to tick off all the correct trend boxes at their winery in southwestern Sweden.

Yes, a winery in Sweden. In fact, there are more than 40 wineries in the Scandinavian country and at five hectares (about 12.5 acres), Ästad is one of the largest. But even it sells its wines only on-site at the moment, chiefly because the state-owned and -operated Systembolaget holds the country’s strict alcohol-selling monopoly.

But back to the trends at the Ästad estate. Daniel Carlsson and his siblings, Linda Persson and Mattias Glamheden, all with their families, are the third generation of Carlssons on the farm. It started as a traditional farm, was transferred into an organic dairy farm by their parents, Rolf and Ann-Catrine Carlsson, and since 2009, part of the estate has been developed into an organic winery, spa and restaurant.

So, trendwise, we are already ticking off second-generation organic farming, organic wine, winery as a destination, and winery as a wellness destination connected to other attractions, such as a spa and conference facilities, that draw the modern, affluent clientele.

The Äng restaurant’s first iteration was an upscale, experimental add-on to an on-site bistro. By 2021 Äng (Swedish for meadow or field)  had earned its first Michelin star and was starting to really attract attention. So, as a natural progression of estate’s continuing development, Daniel Carlsson felt it was time to give the restaurant a place that fit the bill.

Daniel’s vision and design for the new home of Äng focuses on the views, which is why a multi-level glasshouse is, in a way, an obvious, solution, although an unusual one. The ground level of the unassuming glasshouse includes a bar, a lounge and a small kitchen. The below-ground level includes a windowless wine cellar, another lounge and a large , natural light-filled dining room. The lower level is built into the sloping hill and opens up to the expansive views of the pond, lakes and beech forests of the Åkulla nature reserve in Halland.

Ticking off further trend boxes, the restaurant offers a 17-course tasting menu that varies based on what is locally available, some of it on the estate, and in season. And it all is, of course, paired with the estate’s wines, currently mainly sparkling and white wines from the Solaris grape.

Further trend points are given for the furniture that Daniel selected to use for the project. He was initially drawn to the minimalism of the Japanese wooden-furniture manufacturer Karimoku’s N-DCo1 dining chair that is part of the company’s Case Studies series and was designed by Copenhagen-based Norm Architects together with Tokyo-based Studio Keiji.

This initial contact led to all of the players collaborating and creating new and potentially permanent pieces for the Case Study collection. In the end, Norm ended up handling the entire interior fit-out of the project with Daniel Carlsson. They adjusted the material palette, proportions and tones of several existing Case Study pieces.

These include the Norm’s N-CCo1 club chair that was transformed into a love seat for the cellar lounge, while the A-So1 two-seater sofa has been down-sized and the N-STo2 table increased in size to become a dining table. New items for the project include a serving trolley and a small table.

What is best about the Ästad Vingård and Äng is not all of the trend boxes that have been ticked off but the sincerity and uncompromising passion with which the owners pour their energies into this unlikely wine yard. And the future looks bright as the fourth generation of Carlssons is already involved in the business. Tuija Seipell

Images: Jonas Bjerre-Poulsen

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Great things take time to develop. The secondary home in Montecito, California, planned and completed over a period of a decade by of Los Angeles-based architect William Hefner and his late wife, interior designer Kazuko Hoshino, is a perfect example of this.

The extended design and construction period allowed the ideas to mature, unexpected methods and materials to present themselves, and the decisions to gel for both. Eventually, the long incubation time resulted in a relaxed holiday retreat that feels both new and old, both modern and traditional.

It is not a house but a compound, a set of low wood and stone buildings rather than one sprawling house or a multi-story structure. In some cultures, compound-living is a cherished tradition that gives different generations or branches of a larger family both together-time and privacy. In others, having separate functions of a household in separate buildings is a long-held tradition.

In the case of the Romero Canyon compound the process began in 2008 when Hefner and Hoshino bought an overgrown one-acre parcel of land in the lush Romero Canyon area of Montecito. The site had a 900-square-foot (84 sq.metre) 1930s shack and even older stables that had been converted into a guest house.

Busy with their growing architecture and design practice Studio William Hefner in Los Angeles during the recession, California-born Hefner and Japan-born Hoshino, who was pregnant with the couple’s son, Koji, decided not to rush with the renovation as this would be their secondary residence in addition to their Hancock Park principal home.

They called it a personal experiment in ideas for modern family living. Initially, they thought they’d just renovate the shack and add something to it, but they eventually felt they wanted a more meaningful expression of what their fantasy of a “cool hunting lodge” would be. The construction process started in 2013 and took three years.

Their Romero Canyon compound now extends to 6,000 square feet (557.5 sq. metres) of living space. A large central square is flanked by the L-shaped main building and separate buildings for various activities.

The principal house includes an open-plan living room, dining room, kitchen and a game room, all connected through breezeways. The pool house serves as a spacious guest house that also became a favourite “holiday house” for the owners who felt that when they stayed in the guest house, they were on a real holiday. The smaller stone building functions as a gym

The main house, the gym and the guest house overlook the pool and gardens and all have views of the surrounding mountains as well. Large decks are accessed by full-height glass doors to further blur the line between inside and outside.

The materials used throughout are local. For example, the main house is clad with chunks of the Santa Barbara sandstone found on site during the excavation for the foundations and the pool. All spaces are also under-furnished on purpose to allow the oak floors, stone detailing and stained cedar accents to shine. The rustic hunting-lodge atmosphere is emphasized by five wood-burning fireplaces.

We love the low profile and human scale of the entire compound. Both indoors and out, everything is built for living, for real people to relax and enjoy. Tuija Seipell

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Masseria Belvedere is an expertly restored Italian 16^th century masseria now functioning as a sophisticated guest house for up to 16 people. Located in the Puglia region, Masseria Belvedere drew our attention because of its elegant, low profile. Another redeeming quality that is even more significant than the low profile is the complete lack of distracting modern embellishments.

The architects have allowed the original natural stone walls to continue to speak the loudest. Everything else, including the gorgeous – and very modern – infinity pool stays discretely in a supporting role. Architects Nicolò Lewanski and Federica Russo, partners in Lecce, Puglia-based Valari have taken an enlightened, unintrusive approach that has not only produced a cohesive, well-functioning new whole but has also created a lasting legacy for the handsome compound.

A masseria is a fortified farmhouse built in the 16^th century on the estates in the Puglia region of Southern Italy. Usually, it consists of a pair of buildings running along two sides of a central high-walled courtyard.

The Masseria Belvedere property extends over a hectare and a half of land that faces the Adriatic coast and includes an ancient olive garden. The structure is L-shaped with the original two-level farm house forming one wing and the restored stables the other.

The architects decided right from the start that they would not increase the vertical mass of the buildings. Rather, they would focus on the horizontal. The result is not only an unintrusive overall profile, but also a set of gorgeous terraces, lawns and al fresco dining areas and, of course, the beautiful infinity pool.

Another aspect of the architects’ approach was to not attempt to define the function of each segment or area of the compound, either inside or outside. Instead, things are left open, often unfurnished and, in a sense, undefined, although everything is clearly walled and segmented.

We love this feeling of possibility and openness. This is not a place where one must accomplish or strive and where every space has a set function in which one must participate. This is what we call an authentic, relaxing atmosphere. Limitless opportunities when the environment presents no demands on its inhabitants.

The eight bedrooms of the complex are located in the 500 square-metre (5,382 sq.ft) main farm house. Most of the living areas and public spaces are in the former stables. Both structures are characterized by the original vaulted ceilings, exposed natural stone and a subdued colour palette.

Masseria Belvedere is situated in the d’Itria Valley in the province of Brindisi. The closest airport is the Brindisi Airport about 20 minutes’ drive away. The closest shops are in the ancient Roman port town of Carovigno, about seven minutes’ drive from the masseria. The beaches of Torre Santa Sabina, the resort town of Specchiolla and the Torre Guaceto Nature reserve are all within 10 to 15-minute drive away as well.  Tuija Seipell

Images: Lorenzo Zandri

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Can Brut is a family villa on the island of Ibiza located on an 85,000 square-metre cove plot overlooking Spain’s Balearic Sea. The plot overlooks a relatively secluded cove with a small beach and a lovely swimming and snorkeling area favoured by locals on the otherwise rather touristy island of Ibiza that is one of the main Balearic Islands in addition to Majorca, Minorca, Carbera and Formentera.

The house was designed by Amsterdam, Paris and Ibiza-based Framework Studio founded by self-taught Dutch designer, Thomas Geerlings. The key characteristic of the villa is the use of local materials, including beautiful traditional stonework on the house and on the extensive garden walls. In its materials, features and contents the villa is clearly local but it is also eclectically modern and global.

Outside, the dramatic pool is lined with the green Verde Lapponia stone from Norway with the edges and decks clad with limestone. Wood and stone dominate the material palette inside and out, with vintage finds, impressive pieces of art and crafts reflect the owners’ respect for detail, traditional skills and unique pieces.

Most of the rooms have views of the pool and the century-old Ibizan Sabina juniper trees, once plentiful on the island and because of their incredibly hard core, often described as reflections of the hardy and noble character of the people of Ibiza.

Framework Studio’s senior architect and interior designer Alexandra Ramos has described the goals of this project as being comfort and simplicity. They have achieved both, and by peppering the interior with a mix of vintage finds, they have lifted the rustic local material and design language up to a contemporary and timeless one.

The white entrance hall has curved ceilings that echo traditional local building methods. The living room features the deliciously pillowy vintage sectional sofa by the Viennese group, Wiener Werkstätte (1903-1932), flanked by the vintage Conoid lounge Chair by George Nakashima, a Vincenzo de Cotiis coffee table and a unique dark-wood wall panel by the Italian artist  duo Giovanni “Nerone” Ceccarelli and Gianni Patuzzi known as Gruppo NP2 (1962-1974).

The kitchen was custom-designed by Framework Studio using oak, gunmetal and Travertino Romano stone. The kitchen accents include a Allan Gould-designed mid-century modernist lounge chair circa 1950s and one of the Arno de Clercq wooden Senufo stools that appear in several rooms of the villa. The main bathroom’s material palette echoes the kitchen’s with its gunmetal fixtures, oak vanities and Travertino Romano stone.

The dining room’s  dominating piece is the bulky wood table crafted by the late Brazilian architect Jose Zanine Caldas (1919-2001) that is surrounded by vintage Pierre Jeanneret (1896-1967) chairs. Tuija Seipell.

Images by Cafeine – Thomas de Bruyne

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When Rustic Canyon house was completed in May 2018, one of the residence’s redeeming qualities already then was the surrounding nature. As the 4,100 square-foot (381 square-metre) private home is located in California, the trees and vegetation have done what they do in warm climates: they have grown tremendously and now obscure the modernist white house almost completely. Oaks, sycamores, tea trees, melaleuca trees and several other local pant species are growing on the property in a relaxed, semi-wild manner.

The Pacific-coast-facing lot is situated in the Santa Monica Mountains in Rustic Canyon by Rustic Creek. Rustic Canyon is the name of both the canyon and the residential neighbourhood in eastern Pacific Palisades, on the west side of Los Angeles. It is an area that boasts many impressive residences including those designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Craig Ellwood and Richard Neutra.

The family home of this feature was designed by Los Angeles-based Walker Workshop, established in 2010 by Noah Walker. Walker led a team of specialist that included Elena Baranes and Nicholas Katona.

The client, Lisa Petrazzolo, shares the house with her two young daughters. Petrazzolo completed the interior design of the home herself with art provided by Creative Art Partners. Lisa Petrazzolo was often seen at celebrity events especially when she was married to American actor Reid Scott (2004-2007.)

We love the residence’s low, elegant profile and its minimalist, white-stucco exterior that echoes the hacienda-style of the area’s houses that was dominant in times gone by. The compound’s central building houses a large living space and a cathedral kitchen. From this central structure four distinct wings spread out housing four bedrooms and the garage. The four walls of the south-facing kitchen are made of glass and it boasts a 15-foot-high (4.6-metre) ceiling.

Another beautiful feature of the residence is the high master bedroom with its floating ceiling and large skylight. – Tuija Seipell

Images Joe Fletcher

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The structure housing the 589 square-metre (6,340 sq.ft) café on the weather-beaten, rugged beach is elegant in its low minimalist profile.

The café extends into three separate buildings. The central entrance space houses a bakery and a coffee bar. Angled on both sides are two separate seating areas, each with incredible views of the beach.

Minimalist black, white and natural slate hues dominate all three areas with the bakery mostly slate-grey and one of the seating areas almost completely black with long tables and low-hanging lighting. The overall elongated, low-slung design language draws the eye to the windows and to the rugged scenery outside.

The boxy shape of the structures and the rigid shapes of the windows and long tables are softened by rounded details, such as the hanging light fixtures, chair backs and the edges of the lower tables made of bulky, dark slabs of wood.

With the dark minimalist interiors and the indoor pathways flanked by rock-filled “wells” there is a definite Japanese sensibility to the seating areas. We love the drama created by letting the spectacular views dominate the rooms.

Matter Better (mttb) was in charge of branding, concept design, schematic design, working drawings and design supervision of this project.

Images: Yongjoon Choi

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‘Woman Smoking at The Window’ by UK photographer Diana Sosnowska is a carefully staged photographic self-portrait taken in the artist’s former apartment in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the eve of the pandemic’s spread throughout the UK in 2020.

Inspired by midcentury fashion and aesthetics, the photographer references the paintings of Edward Hopper and pays tribute to his 1961 work ‘A Woman in the Sun’. Like Hopper’s piece, the central figure gazes outside the frame while gently illuminated by the muted light of the otherwise bleak grey horizons, both literal and metaphoric.

This dull but yellow light casts an ineffable aura around the subject, only compounded by her averted posture. The melancholy mood which permeates the composition is further emphasised by a restrained palette of soft yet nostalgic tones. The viewer is placed in the middle ground, occupying the void between artist and subject, a voyeuristic role assigned to us by the photographer and cued by her oft symbolic use of windows. Sosnowska invites the viewer to collect her carefully staged details and weave them together to form a narrative. Available to purchase online here

The characters UK photographer Diana Sosnowska embodies in her photographic self-portraits aren’t randomly pulled from the ether. Her heroines are meticulously constructed from disparate sources.

They can be infused with the pathos of one of Euripedes’ heroines or drawn from an episode of the Twilight Zone, but always fabricated in a midcentury aesthetic from whence she draws so much inspiration.

Staged in a lake-side cottage in Florida, ‘At the table’ consciously references artist Edward Hopper’s 1914 painting ‘Soir Bleu’. Similarly to Hoper’s piece, ‘At the Table’ has a central theme of melancholic detachment represented in the central figure’s aversion to the viewer’s glare. We see Sosnowska using her familiar stylistic trope of a window in the frame to highlight the viewer’s voyeurism, a subtle reminder that we’re looking in but are also detached and removed from the subject. By placing this disconnect between us and the subject, the photographer creates the space for the viewer to invent their own narrative.

Available to purchase exclusively online here.

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Toronto-based restaurateur Matty Matheson is known for many things but subtlety is not one of them. He swears, huffs and waves his hands, and his many tattoos, beanie cap and unkempt beard, he looks slightly dangerous. And it is obvious that he likes it that way. Matty Matheson is a brand.

But there is one important thing for which you cannot blame him and that is lack of passion. His infectious enthusiasm and fervour for his latest restaurant Prime Seafood Palace in Toronto’s West Queen West is both delightful and genuine. And, in a way, the new restaurant is off-brand for Matheson. And he likes that, too.

For six years he and architect Omar Gandhi have worked on every little detail of the restaurant that serves not just seafood but also steaks and an ambitious menu of vegetables.

Matheson admires iconic steak houses, but he also has an affinity for basic family restaurant chains including the Canadian The Keg. But the most palpable features of his latest restaurant are based on his memories of his grandfather’s Blue Goose restaurant, still operating in Prince Edward Island. Matheson himself was born in Saint John, New Brunswick 40 years ago.

He also selected an architect that is not known for restaurant design. His choice, Omar Gandhi, is a fellow Maritimer based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Toronto. Together, before deciding on anything at all, they wanted to scrutinize and analyze each aspect of the restaurant from their individual and common perspectives, and infuse their reverence of artisanship, exquisite quality and warm, welcoming comfort.

But the comfort of Prime Seafood Palace is far from that of a comfy greasy spoon. Instead, its welcoming ambiance is created by an elegant mix of Maritime, Scandinavian and Japanese minimalist design. The key components are wood, leather and brass. Each material was chosen for its propensity to accumulate a lovely patina that will eventually create a sense of ageless beauty.

And as Gandhi is quick to point out, in the end, the key player is light. The way the light is diffused by the brass screens and horizontal maple slabs evokes an atmosphere of warmth and an ever-changing mood.

The square building itself is a non-descript red-brick barn that is now painted white with black rims. Inside, the most striking attribute is the heigh of the main space emphasized by a huge barrel vault made of maple wood slats weighing more than 900 lb in total.

The airy space configuration includes four booths, a few tables and a bar. In addition, there is what Matheson calls The Cottage, with its wood-burning Jotul stove stacked wood and lambskin-covered chairs.

Every item is either custom-created for the restaurant, or sourced specifically to fit the design criteria. Custom furniture was created, for example, by Coolican & Company and custom pendant lighting by Concord.

Matty Matheson is known as the winner on TV Show Burger Wars, for hosting Matty and Benny Eat Out America with record producer Benny Blanco, and his Viceland cooking show It’s Suppertime!. He also has two New York Times-bestselling cookbooks, and two other restaurants, Matty’s Patty’s and Fonda Balam both also in Toronto’s Queen Street West area. In addition, he has an online store, matheswoncookware cookware line and popular YouTube and Instagram accounts. He is involved with several cooperative endeavours, creates pop-ups for fun and for profit, and is a frequent guest on TV shows including Jimmy Kimmel Live! and cameo in catfishing adventures with Bon Appetit’s Brad Leone. – Tuija Seipell

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