While designers and architects alike are touted for their bold ideas and forages into new and different as a refreshing change with the emphasis placed on the big changes of sightlines and first impressions it is the small details that make a project really work. It is the sum total of all the details that transform a room from a lovely room with heavy drapes to a Victorian design masterpiece. The aged wood fence simply looks like an old fence in need of paint without the added details of the wagon lawn center piece and oaken barrel planters. It is these small details that are often missed when engaged in a design project on your own. The outcome will be pleasing in most cases, but it will still be missing something.

The difference boils down to commitment. When a designer or architect set out to do a new project, they are committed to a vision and end result. Everything they do and plan is with a single purpose of continuity and congruity throughout the entire project or house.

When an individual tries to do the same thing, they like the look and are striving to achieve that but different factors come into play. The bookcase handed down from their grandmother has to stay regardless of style. They have always liked the convenience of the cupboards in a certain way so it is decided to replace them in the correct material but not to remove the island even though attempting a rustic colonial look. These things will have a definite effect on the overall look and feel but in fairness if the object of the project is both look and something that still feels like your home then it is forgivable.

Areas that still need to be worked on are the other little details that complement the design scheme. You will never be able to hit the nouveau design you are trying to achieve in a bedroom or sitting room using heavy draperies for window treatments and it will not be "right" as long as you leave the 6" heavy carved wood crown molding. This brings you back to the commitment of a designer. You will need to commit to changing the room not simply new furniture and draperies if you want to get it all right.

In kitchens, order the cabinets to match the look you are looking for, but do not forget to order the cabinet hardware that complements that look. Chromed handles and hinges do not work with oak once you have changed to a slate floor and a visit to the handle store is in order. The light fixtures are obvious but often overlooked. If wanting a modern and contemporary dining room, you will need to change ort the hanging chandelier with a more contemporary lighting fixture. These are the little details that will change the outcome from "very nice" to "wow".

With a nod to urban design finding its roots in the masculinity of the Industrial Revolution, Riven Oak is the latest design range from Indigo Furniture. As you might expect from a brand that has found its way onto the album cover for Muse's epic "Black Holes and Revelations", Riven Oak is something out of the ordinary. British furniture design at its best.

Built from oak beams produced at a traditional family run sawmill on the Baltic coast and hand forged cast iron, Riven Oak is the ultimate blend of rural and urban; the rustic 'raw' finish, complete with saw marks blended with Indigo's trademark industrial robust design gives this modern design a timeless beauty.

Feeling that the uniform perfection achieved with modern precision equipment was not in keeping with their vision, Indigo Furniture instead tracked down a war time Ripsaw and refurbished it, bringing it back to full working order and using it to give Riven Oak it's characteristic circular saw marks and 'one of a kind' finish.

Indigo prides itself on what it describes as "furniture that's built for life" – presumably referring to their high quality design and hand finished production, along with their fifteen year guarantee, though this motto seems also to speak to the feel of this furniture; that it is design with living in mind – practical and beautiful in equal parts, with the natural beginning of each piece ever evident in the careful retention of character flaws in timber, the uncompromising rawness of the materials.

For those concerned that hardwood furniture is not exactly eco-friendly, take comfort in the fact that Indigo Furniture take care to replace the trees they use in their furniture and on top of that, work with The Woodland Trust to do their bit for the environment. They have planted over 6000 trees to date above and beyond replacing the resources they take to make their furniture. Design with an eco-edge is just another example of the ways that Dave Castle and Mike Gregory bring traditional furniture making into the 21st century.

Stunning modern furniture design doesn't need to be all about carbon fiber and utilitarian minimalism; with Riven Oak, Indigo Furniture has proved that contemporary design really can be 'built for life'.

In the ex industrial area "Fluid-o-tech", 10.000 square meters enclosed in a refined architectural casket host the new center of Milan fashion designed by architect Giuseppe Tortato. An ensemble of buildings, all different, but united by a common architectural expression and a careful choice of materials, develops around unpredictable courtyards and patios.

courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

The great commercial success that has characterized the recovery of the Ex Richard Ginori insudtrial area, where fashion and creativity have found the perfect place to create showrooms and ateliers, quickly saturated the 60.000 sqm of the district, creating the need to find new areas of development. With this in mind, just opposite the main entrance of the ex Richard Ginori, plant in Morimondo street n. 23, the Duemme sgr real estate fund has given birth to a new estate and planning bet.

courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

The challenge was to create spaces that could tell and represent the uniqueness of their users, request that characterizes the world of creative and design in general. As always in Giuseppe Tortato' projects, the design philosophy aims to offer attractive and livable spaces, enclosed in elegant architectures.

courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

The main materials are glass, concrete, steel and wood, but processed in ever different ways. The rest is entrusted to the sunlight, democratically distributed to all, with small and large patios onto which the high windows overlook. Simple concepts that do not exclude research and experimentation, a connecting element in Morimondo 23 .

The request of the municipality to maintain the geometry and the skyline of the old factory, has created the need to reinvent the 150 linear meters of the front overlooking the street.

courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

The intuition was to develop a brick building of the early twentieth century in that will be totally restored, transforming it into the hub around which the two wings develop. The two wings, separated from the brick building, are characterized by an antithetical approach to each other relatively to the road: in the first wing an airy facade the airy overlooking on Via Morimondo and Richard Ginori is privileged, with large white glazed steel portals; in the other wing the language is more intimate. During the day the relationship with the internal courtyards is more intensive, while at night it transforms into a lantern, a landmark that characterizes the whole area.

courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

The latter front, in particular, has a design history linked to the characteristics of the original front, featured by high walls and prefabricated reinforced concrete that the municippality required to retain in their appearance but also in their mediocrity. “With this background there was a serious risk of compromising the architectural outcome of the entire project, and then we decided to create something special,” says Giuseppe Tortato.

The high walls remained, but after the “cure” they appear as a sort of concrete barcode with variable tones of gray, characterized by the inclusion of filled glass cubes of different sizes, designed in cooperation with Seves company, a leader in the production of concrete and glass, which has collaborated with most important international architects in the development of special tailormade pieces.

+ All images courtesy Giuseppe Tortato

Located on a long, thin lot surrounded by rice fields, this combined residence and dog salon has a symbolic shape that turns the building itself into a sign for the business. The dog salon occupies the part of the building adjacent to the main road, with bathrooms and kitchen in the center so as to be easily accessed from both the shop and the residence, while the family’s relaxation space? the living and dining room? is located further towards the back. Because the line of sight extends unbroken from the shop entrance back through the garden, the space feels larger than it actually is. The architects kept both cost and space under control with features such as concrete floors and plywood ceilings, while still creating a relaxed, open home.

courtesy Naoko Horibe, photo by Yuko Tada

courtesy Naoko Horibe, photo by Yuko Tada

courtesy Naoko Horibe, photo by Yuko Tada

courtesy Naoko Horibe, photo by Yuko Tada

+ Project facts

Design to completion: September 2010-October 2012
Location: Usa-Shi, Oita
Primary usage: Residence and dogsalon
Structure: wooden construction, single story above ground
Family structure: Mother with a child
Site area: 325.41 m2
Building area: 66.25 m2
Total floor space: 66.25 m2

Architect: Naoko Horibe
Photographer: Yuko Tada

+ All images and drawings courtesy Naoko Horibe, photo by Yuko Tada