Aujourd´hui Valéry: fevereiro 2013

quinta-feira, 28 de fevereiro de 2013

What can be a better getaway than being surrounded by the glory of the snowcapped Swiss Alps, tucked away inside eco-tourism domed pods high on the mountain?

Welcome to the Whitepod Resort in the village of Les Cerniers, Switzerland.

The resort is located high on the mountain at an altitude of 1700m. The lodge can accommodate 80 guests in dormitory type rooms, and also has a Swiss restaurant, the Restaurant de l’Alpage, wghich offers local cuisine throughout the day. The camp of the 15 domes surround the chalet and provide more luxurious, personal spaces for guests.

Perched on wooden platforms, all pod igloos come with wood-burning stoves, organic luxury bedding and full services bathrooms. In addition, they are green and eco-friendly, and has 7km of ski slopes with private ski lifts! And for those who are ski bunnies, Whitepod also has a spa.

For those looking for a personalized ski experience, two private lift installations can be opened both day and night for a safe skiing experience. The resort boasts “excellent snow conditions” from December through March. There’s also a special mini-lift available for beginner skiers.

In addition to skiing, Whitpod Resort also offers snowboarding, cross-country skiing, paragliding, snowshoeing, sledding, ski touring, and hiking with a mountain guide. Nearby (less that 30 minutes away) guests can find the additional activities of swimming, ice skating, golf, thermal baths and more.

Les Cerniers is located in the Dents du Midi, which is less than two hours from Geneva Airport. To reach Whitepod Resort, there are many options including car transfer, bus, train, and car hire Switzerland.

Pods run from CHF 400-550 depending on the day of the week, and will certainly be a getaway that will take you far from your worries.

CLICK HERE for the Layover Guide to Zurich, Switzerland

Swiss Alps Holiday House_by AFGH

This spectacular villa is situated at snow-hills in Switzerland. The building was arranged on the periphery of the property so that the distance to the neighboring houses was as large as possible and so that the option of constructing another building could be left open.

The concrete cellar anchors the building in the sloping terrain and houses the entrance area and the technical servicing, on top of which is the wooden volume of the building which appears something like a ship. This floor juts out to a great extent towards the east so that a covered, protected entrance is created.

The concrete chimney of the open fireplace rises like a mast out of the cellar, and together with a concrete wall forms the bracing backbone behind which the two single-flight staircases connect the 3 storeys.

On the ground floor is a large living room spread over two different levels and with different ceiling heights.

The deliberately low area containing the kitchen in fact creates a spatial feeling like that generated in the low parlors in mountain huts.

The 5-meter long fixed-glazed panorama window, which frames the breathtaking view like a picture, nevertheless introduces a contemporary modernity. The polygonal plan form makes a differentiated spatial division possible and gives the open fireplace its particular status at the widest spot in the room.

Villa Bio_by Cloud9

A studio called Cloud9 designed a suburban house of the future—it also happens to be sustainable. The villa is situated a little over an hour outside of Barcelona in Llers ((hometown of everyone’s favorite mustachioed surrealist, Salvador Dali), in an alien cube set within a garden courtyard, quietly plotting the next design revolution.

The area reads like a textbook Mediterranean suburb and feels oddly similar to California’s faux-Mediterranean enclaves—from the gleaming new terra-cotta tiles and white stucco walls down to the perfectly manicured lawns, swimming pools, nosy neighbors, and stringent normativa.

The Villa Bio is trapped in a contextual oxymoron—given the neighbors, it’s utterly out of place, but one look at the natural surroundings tells you which house fits right in.

The sloping coiled snake of a plan, with underground garage and a 50-foot cantilevered section, is no small feat of engineering. The result is economical, beautiful, and environmental. The Villa Bio is a firework of astute solutions that exemplify what the sustainable suburban home of tomorrow can be today.

Cloud9 are interested in the performative dimension of nature—how it grows, lives, and transforms. They strive to cultivate this organic dimension. Indeed, the Villa Bio’s shape grew directly out of the land, echoing the sloping hillside forest that sits beyond the property line—and honoring the client’s request for a home without stairs to accommodate his two young children and disabled father.

The slope is re-created for the rising section that leads back to the front of the home (now at an elevation of almost ten feet). Step out onto the hydroponic rooftop garden and the sloping spiral plan takes one more elongated spin, terminating atop the master bedroom.

The aromatic garden is one of the home’s prime sustainable features—absorbing excess runoff and protecting the house from the tramontane, a strong wind that blows in the region.

Entering the unfurling inner space, one is struck by the harmony of the whole. Light pours in through large windowpanes at the front and the back of the building. Light amplifiers in the ceiling are equipped with energy-saving sensors that reproduce the chromaticity of daylight. This unique harmony gives birth to buildings that are bold and livable and, above all else, fuse effortlessly with their environment.