5 in Five - BEDMaR & Shi: Reinventing Tradition in Contemporary Living

Description

In this captivating collection of five houses built in five different Asian-Pacific countries, Argentinian-born designer Ernesto Bedmar explores his fascination with traditional architectural styles and reinvents them for the contemporary world. Using his deep understanding of the histories and building cultures of these regions, Bedmar seamlessly knits his designs into the environment of each site. The five houses, located in India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and New Zealand, demonstrate the flexibility of the designer's trademark tropical architecture and showcase a diverse set of modern forms that resonate deeply with the local landscape and make use of water as a unifying and harmonizing element. The book contains a wealth of drawings and plans that detail the innovative construction techniques, and the resulting houses are captured in a breathtaking series of photographs showing the use of spaces and materials as well as the spectacular sites on which they sit.

Darlene Smyth writes widely on design and architecture, and runs her own design practice, DLab3. Oscar Riera Ojeda is an editor and designer based in Philadelphia, Singapore and Buenos Aires.