blue skies and blossom

the blue skies have gone, and so has all the blossom. it's a little grey and windy and rainy here at the moment - hope it's better at the weekend.




we wanted to thank David from yhbhs (again) for his lovely words on his blog about our latest commission and our rust console - you are too kind, thankyou David. and also to thank Catherine for mentioning us on her lovely tumblr page - thankyou Catherine.

hope you all have a lovely weekend.


{credits}

image: blossom copyright © pachadesign 2010

square slate coffee table

a few pictures that we took last week of our last commission - one of our square slate & oak coffee tables. we delivered it on tuesday and linda & ian were delighted with it. the piece of cornish slate that we used was beautiful, really unusual markings - subtle streaks of light & dark with tiny gold flecks of iron pyrites (fools gold) here and there.
more details below and on our website here - hope you like it.






square slate & oak coffee table

sustainably sourced cornish oak - treated with an eco hard wax oil
cornish slate - protected against stains with an eco sealant
glues used are non-toxic & solvent free

made to order - click here for more info


{credits}

pachadesign {website}

images: square slate & oak coffee table by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

erratic posts & foals

there may be a few erratic posts from us over the next week or so. we are pretty busy at the moment, loads of stuff happening and some new things to organise too. we shall keep you posted.

there are waves finally, so glenn is happy - that's keeping him going.

and this foals song is keeping me going at the moment .... really looking forward to their new album (may 10th). and their new website is beautiful! I know the new website is online now but if you are going to visit it, you should start here first. the jigsaw images (with little snippets of each song from the album & some lyrics) were put online a day at a time, back in march and then finally, after all 10 images, you could enter the new site. a beautiful idea, we think.




the changing images on the first page are beautiful and we love the photographs on the band section of the gallery. if you click on the total life forever album cover you can listen to a preview of each song.




start here first. enjoy.


{credits}

foals {website}
not sure who took all the beautiful images (maybe the band members ?) but if anyone knows, please let us know, thanks.

currently loving

how was your weekend ? hope you had a good one. ours was spent gardening and sowing lots more seeds - veggies and some flowers too this time. ox eye daisies because they are just lovely, meadowsweet because we love the scent and tagetes to plant in amongst the vegetables - which, incidentally, have the coolest looking seeds ever.

a new collection of things we are currently loving for this monday - click on the links below to visit the websites and enjoy.




companion parrot by tithi kutchamuch - jewellery from the second generation of "a secret friend": bronze, silver, aluminium {website}
catherine willis - wall of the perfume rings, the batons de parole, the grapefruits. some of catherine's latest pieces, we are big fans of her beautiful work. {website}. and see more on david's blog {here}
leila arzaghi - trace of memory, objects, yarn. fragile, beautiful and fleeting moments of time in the form of objects and jewellery. {website}
peter nencini - beautiful hand werk boxes containing a set of materials & forms for abstract play - we want one of these! {website} {blog} found this morning via the always inspiring lee from 2 or 3 things.

days like these

days like these are made for:

film and holgas
sunlight, flooding through windows
leaves, gentle breezes & cloudless skies




enjoy your weekend


{credits}

image: days like these 2 copyright © pachadesign 2010

100 days: sketched in marble by william peers

a while ago now, we mentioned (on our old blog) that we had been to visit our friends Sophie & Wim at their lovely home, for the viewing of the first of Wim's sculptures for his upcoming exhibition 100 days: sketched in marble. Wim carved 100 sculptures in 100 days and we were invited to see day 1 to day 30.

all 100 can now be seen at the John Martin Gallery in London from tomorrow 23rd april through to 15th may {details, credits & links below}.




from Wim's website:

100 days – 100 sculptures: By setting a boundary – restricting the time allowed for each piece, and therefore, the size of the work – there is a strange liberation. The constants of time and material also lend the series a unity: the sculptures are linked by their common constraints. William Peers writes: "The other motive is to explore the area between figuration and abstraction. I began as a figurative artist twenty years ago, but then had a sudden and complete move towards abstraction. I am left with a sense of a gulf between the two disciplines. This series of sculptures is an attempt to investigate unfinished business."

100 days: sketched in marble by William Peers opens 23rd April - 15th May at the John Martin Gallery, Albemarle Street, London.

{credits}

William Peers {website}
John Martin Gallery {website}
photography by Pooch (Peter Purtill) {website}

curiousa and curiousa

we didn't get time to post anything on the blog yesterday - we are working on a couple of new things that are taking longer than we thought and we're making the most of this lovely weather by sorting out our veggie garden in the evenings. hope you're having as much sunshine as we are at the moment.

we thought we'd show you one of the designer makers work that we liked when we visited the Midcentury Modern show a few weeks ago. we were only passing through London briefly but wanted to check out the show so had a very quick look around. the show is a really nice collection of cool retro finds but also has new work from designer makers.


we were really taken with these glass lamps made by Esther Patterson of Curiousa & Curiousa.
in her bio, Esther says that her work is an expression and reaction to childhood memories - she has a passion for visual expression mixed with an intrigue of the natural world. as well as creating surface designs on fabric that are then used on vintage furniture, she creates lighting from cast bone china and hand blown glass. her poems and drawings are printed onto fabric and sometimes sandblasted onto the glass shades.




you can see more of Esther's beautiful work on her website {here}.

{credits}

Curiousa & Curiousa {website}
images: 1. glass table lamp & tulip glass table lamp 2. handblown glass ceiling light. 3. baby's head ceiling lights. 4. hand blown glass ceiling shades.

sunset

a bit of a late (and short & sweet) post from us today. hope you had a lovely weekend. the sun stayed out here for us all weekend and our veggie garden is coming along nicely, we got loads done. we'll take a few pictures to show you over the next few weeks.

so, a good weekend for us but ............ the surf is still flat.

{credits}

image: sunset copyright © pachadesign 2010

flat

hope you've had a good week. we've been lucky - the weather here is simply beautiful, it feels like summer, which is probably why all I can think about is gardening and growing things. Glenn feels like surfing, especially in this gorgeous weather, but it's totally flat! So he is finishing off a lovely coffee table commission (we'll show you some pictures of it next week) and then he's promised to make me some seed boxes from old pallets so I can grow some salads, herbs and pea shoots - Alys Fowler style {here}. we're liking Alys and her retro dress sense, losing herself in her lovely edible garden with her wellies and her little dog Isabel.




enjoy your weekend, wherever you are. if you get time, read this article {here} from drift about the lovely Johnny Abegg - we think he's an inspiration and a very cool chap.


{credits}

image: flat copyright © pachadesign 2010

andrea cochran landscape architecture

we recently discovered the beautiful landscape architecture of Andrea Cochran and fell in love with her use of grasses, old olive trees and rusty metal. We love rusty metal and use it in our own work in our furniture designs and sometimes for mirrors too and have always thought it looks stunning in nature. We are also a little obsessed with grasses and Andrea Cochran uses them beautifully. Her work combines perfectly colour, texture, shape & light.

The firm, based in San Francisco, have some great projects on their website but one of our favourites is Stone Edge Farm in Sonoma, California. The site includes a drought tolerant meadow planted with 4 types of grasses in layers (pink muhly, atlas fescue, slender veldt & little bluestem), California bay trees, oak & buckeyes, beautiful old olive trees and some stunning structures.

There are more images of this project & others on the firms website and they also have a book out - Andrea Cochran: Landscapes published by Princeton Architectural Press - we will definitely be buying this book.

{credits}

Andrea Cochran Landscape Architecture {website}
Book available at Princeton Architectural Press {website}

images: 1 & 4. Vicky Sambunaris. 2. Marion Brenner. 3. Emily Rylander.

new on our website

we have just added the new off-set oak & slate sideboard to our website (the one we told you about here) - click here to visit the page. and we thought we would add it to the new homepage too.

hope you are enjoying your wednesday.






{credits}

pachadesign {website}

image: pachadesign website april homepage copyright © pachadesign 2010

seedlings

we've been catching up on sowing seeds ready to plant out in our veggie garden (we're a little bit behind with a few things - we usually have lots of seed trays on the go by now). so, yesterday we did trays of beans (climbing, dwarf & borlotti), cavolo, 3 types of tomatoes, chilli's, leeks and courgettes. And we managed to plant some red onoins in the garden too. we are tempted to get one of the little paper pot makers {here} for when all the seedlings need to be seperated.

or we could grow seedlings in manga comics ......... did anyone else see this article on notcot about manga farming ? it's an art installation by Koshi Kawachi of radish seedlings that have been grown in manga comics. seeds, comic books, water, sun & air. we think it's beautiful.

you can see more images on Koshi's website and there is an interview with him on shift magazine.


{credits}

Koshi Kawachi {website}
shift magazine interview {here}
found via notcot {website}

currently loving

collection 4 of things we are currently loving {credits, info & links below, as usual}. hope you enjoy these, let us know.

and a big, big thankyou to Catherine at London Lisbonite - we did an email interview with her which is now on her blog {here}. Catherine has featured our work before and we were delighted when she asked if we would answer a few questions for her blog - take a look. Thanks Catherine.





decaARCHITECTURE - stunning architecture from a team of international young architects based in Athens {website} image © decaARCHITECTURE
Lindsey Adelman Studio - new cluster chandeliers with cast bronze links, hand-dyed rope, and hand-blown zanfirico globes by glass artist Nancy Callan {website} image by Joseph de Leo
Thomsen - simple and elegant clothing from Paris, with beautiful photography by Olivier Culman for the fall/winter 2010 campaign {website}
Persephone Bookcase - walnut bookcase by Matthew Hilton. Limited edition of 5 - part of the current show "The Artist's House" at The New Art Centre, Roche Court, Wiltshire {website}

sideboard commission

how was your weekend ? we hope you had a lovely one. it was beautifully sunny and we spent the weekend here with my brother & his girlfriend - catching up, surfing, sitting on the beach, reading mags and relaxing in our garden.
sunday afternoon we spent sowing seeds in our veggie garden - broad beans, peas, mange tout, potatoes, onions, carrots, beetroot, spring onions, radishes, cress, spinach are all in - fingers crossed we get a good summer this year. loads more seeds to sow, but we'll save that for another time.

we promised you a while ago we'd show you a couple of images of a sideboard commission we had been working on. deborah and stephen bought one of our slate & oak dining tables with benches and wanted a sideboard for the same room, so we designed this especially for them. the piece is made from sustainably sourced Cornish oak with Cornish slate for the top and black metal handles. It has an off-set piece of oak on top that aligns with a fixed panel of oak on the front of the sideboard, so the design compliments their dining table perfectly. We'll be adding this piece to our website soon.

{credits}

pachadesign {website}

images: oak and slate sideboard by pachadesign copyright © pachadesign 2010

deadlines and deliveries

what a week we have had - and it's sunday already. we've missed a few days posting (sorry about that) but a couple of deadlines crept up on us all of a sudden, so everything else had to wait. we had to deliver work to a gallery in St. Ives at the start of the week and had a lovely day looking around galleries in Newlyn and Penzance. Newlyn Art Gallery's exhibition was Subterrania - a solo exhibition of large scale photographic works by Fiona Crisp and also Ceramics in the Studio by Jason Wason. The gallery is beautiful inside and the view from the studio is stunning.



we also popped into Badcocks Gallery in Newlyn, as our good friend Paul Anderson has a selection of new sculptural pieces in their latest exhibition, along side work by painter Jeremy Le Grice. The exhibition is on until april 28th.





{credits}

Newlyn Art Gallery {website}
Badcocks Gallery {website}
Paul Anderson {website} {blog}

top images: newlyn art gallery copyright © pachadesign 2010
bottom images: Badcocks Gallery

seeds

we've started planning our veggie garden for this year - digging over the beds, working out what's going where, sorting out seeds. we can get a little obsessed with planting seeds. growing stuff from seed is magical. which is perhaps why we think this is so stunning ...........




.......... the UK Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai is the Seed Cathedral designed by Heatherwick Studio. It's 20 metres high and is made up of 60,000 transparent fibre optic rods. Each 7.5 metre long rod has one or more seeds enclosed at it's tip - 217, 300 seeds in total. The fibre optic rods gently sway with any wind movement and draw daylight into the interior to illuminate it during the day, while light sources inside each rod makes it glow at night.



Heatherwick Studio designed the pavilion to explore the relationship between nature & city and to encourage visitors to look again at the role of nature and wonder whether it could be used to solve the current social, economic and environmental challenges of our cities.

the beautiful photography is by Daniele Mattioli and you can read more about the Seed Cathedral on yatzer.

{credits}

found via yatzer {here}
photography by Daniele Mattioli {website}
Heatherwick Studio {website}
UK Shanghai Pavilion {website}

thankyou

thankyou to everyone that came to visit our open studio this easter weekend. we had a good 3 days and the rain managed to hold off until today (it's pouring down here now). the studio will be back to the workshop in a day or two and we will have to get back to work, but, for now, thankyou to all of you that came to see us - we shall let you know when our next open studio is soon.

{credits}

image: pachadesign studio copyright © pachadesign 2010

enjoy your weekend

hope you are all having a lovely weekend. ours started with heavy rain and a power cut!, exactly what we didn't need for our easter open studio. but the sun came out and our power came back on, just in time, and it's been a good day so far. fingers crossed for nice weather for the next couple of days too. our studio will be open again tomorrow & monday - 10.30am to 4pm.





a few links we found this week that we liked, enjoy.

a lovely little video found over at of paper and things.
some more beautiful photography by fanny at les contours du silence
a very cool van giveaway (7 minutes - watch the video here)


{credits}

image: willow and blue copyright © pachadesign 2010

another house within a house

tuesdays post reminded us of another house within a house that we saw a while ago that we thought was just so lovely - we're sure some of you have seen this before.

the old pigsty, originally built in 1780, had a wood framed inner house built & put into it creating a house within a house. we love this kind of architecture - so often old buildings are renovated and then lose everything that was lovely about their weathered history and decay. we are not against mixing brand new materials with old (you only have to look at our own work to see that) but it's when the old is completely lost that we find it a little sad. building a new structure and placing it inside the old one, like this pigsty, is a lovely solution.




we're sure there must be other places like this - where the skeleton of the building has been kept intact and a new structure has been built inside. please leave us a comment if you know of any, thanks.


{credits}

fnp - architektur {website}