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Diogo Aguiar Studio has realized this Zen and Minimalist Pavillion House based in the mountains of Guimarães. To extend the existing granite wine cellar, the architects created a first-floor extension in wood. This minimal module associates the five feng-shui elements, wood, water, earth, metal, and water.

The purpose of this construction was to create a harmonious and comfortable shelter in the middle of the vineyard. Pavillion House is open to the surrounding, but in the meantime, it is cozy space allowing a quiet retreat.
A texture is conceived by covering the wall with vertical wooden slats. Ceiling and floor stand in a dark palette that defines both as an absent matter, while helping to rescue the exterior landscape, emphasizing its mutant presence in the inner space.

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The word Kerterre is a Breton term that means “from the land.”
This ancient concept was brought up to date and adapted almost 20 years ago by a French piano teacher, Évelyne Adam.
The three-meter diameter domes are a call to live closer and connected to nature.
Those zen and minimalist shelter feature 100% natural and biodegradable but so resistant at the same time.

The Kerterre, Feng-Shui house is made of hemp, slaked lime, and hemp. Those materials mixed become stone and more resistant with time.
In contrast to urban sprawl and the concreting of everything that separates us from nature, it is a question here of integrating into it by disturbing the environment as little as possible.

Kerterre is affordable Feng-Shui habitats, which create space chi or qi, the energy of the universe.
The Feng-Shui Kerterre habitat reunites the five elements:
Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Like Yin and Yang, each ‘element’ defines themselves. Wood is used to make furniture. Inside the Kerterre, you are directly in contact with the earth, as you can choose not to add anything like the foundation and keep the soil alive, or you can either cover it with stone or other natural material, which will allow keeping the connection with the earth. Fire is used for eating and cooking. Water can be recover condensation, rain, from a nearby spring.

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El SykesKo is a British artist who explores what for some people who would be called a dark universe.  The philosophy behind his representations of death are, from my perspective, is quite ironical. Each of his sculptures is meticulously assembled.  Each element is added with particular attention to detail to bring humor and lightness to what frightens so many people: “death.” According to El Sykesko, death could be approached with more fun and grace. After all, isn’t death a liberating passage and life merely a step?  With these sculptures, El Sykesko questions our perceptions of what may seem dark to us.  Each skull is pure and minimalist.He recovers or transforms accessories, fabrics found in his garage or flea markets, to bring them a second life, and coat these skulls. Because of his sculptures, El SykesKo confronts us with taboos and makes death, part of our daily life.  Each skull has all a story to tell. Look at them into details, and you’ll be able to see what their life they had.

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Katzura Imperial Zen Buddhist villa is built between 1579 and 1629 by Prince Toshihito and Kobori Enshu, a tea master and garden designer.
From 1631, the villa i named a “palace” and no longer just a villa.
Katzura Zen palace’s gardens are considered a masterpiece of Japanese gardening.`
The buildings are among the most significant achievements of Japanese architecture.
Prince Toshihito, from an early age, was very familiar with the Tales of Genji, Poems of Past and Present.

Those tales inspired him in all his creation around Katzura Imperial Zen Buddhist villa .
Katsura Imperial Villa is a place that gives a dazzling perspective to contemplate the moon.

It is a harvest which allows you to connect with nature, elements in all its candor.
In 1579 Toshihito purchased the land on the south bank of the Katsura River, the district of the novel, the “Tales of Genji.”
The prince made his mind to construct a villa inspired on passages from the novel.
However, because Prince Toshihito required wealth and resources, the first constructed villa was similar to “a teahouse.”
The construction of the villa began after the marriage of Tokugawa Kazuko to Emperor Go-Mizunoo, whose Toshihito contributed.
As Prince Toshihito became a more significant figure in public life, more guests came to visit the Katsura Imperial Villa.

Katzura Imperial Zen villa Teahouses

Teahouses are perfect illustrations of how Zen Buddhism has affected the landscape and architecture.
Tea ceremony, carry out at the pavilions, is an essential part of Japanese society.

Tea ritual’s Influence – Wabi-Sabi

The tea ritual is a spiritual ritual used as a “transformative practice.”

Wabi

The ritual begets aesthetic, the principle of Wabi-Sabi.
‘Wabi’ represents the inner, or spiritual, experiences of human lives.
Its meaning refers to quiet or sober refinement or subdued taste “characterised by humility, restraint, simplicity, naturalism, profundity, imperfection, and asymmetry.”
‘Wabi’ emphasises clean, elementary, unadorned objects, and architectural space.
‘Wabi,’ honor the mellow beauty that time and care impart to materials.

Sabi

‘Sabi,’ on the other hand, represents the outer, or material side of life.
Formerly, it meant “worn,” “weathered,” or “decayed.”
‘Sabi’ represents the emptiness.
It is considered the most effective means of spiritual awakening while embracing imperfection.
It honoured as a healthy reminder to cherish our unpolished selves, here and now.
It is just as we are—the first step to “satori” or enlightenment.
Five distinct teahouses are all separated from the main building. They are isolated from everything but in touch with the surrounding nature.
The teahouses features picturesque materials such as bark-covered wooden supports or irregular shaped wooden pieces as extensions of the natural world.
The tea ceremony aims at connecting the spiritual and the natural.
To feel connected to nature, apertures and bays in the pavilion are at eye level when sitting.

Katzura Zen villa Construction

Tatamis covers all the surfaces.
They used Natural stones” of about forty to fifty centimeters in diameter.
The Katzura zen villa is built on stilts allowing to avoid the floods of the Katsura river.
Beam made of sandstone between one and two meters above the ground. Solid walls isolate the basement at the garden level.
For this kind of filling, the mud is made of a mixture of earth and straw.
It is then applied to a bamboo structure with a coating of finish tinged with iron oxides or covered with stretched wallpaper.

Carpentry and roofing

: On a classic wooden structure is laid a small framework hidden by the ceilings.
After a ceremony, the carpenters pose the purlins and rafters.
The sewer and ridge strips reinforced by a dozen thickness of these boards gives them the impression of having a high thickness.

Ceilings

Thin and light planks of wood laid on exposed joists, except in the reception area of ​​the emperor, who has a lacquered coffered ceiling.
Prestigious rooms and corridors feature doors made of a single board chosen for its beauty.
Doors of several boards close the service rooms.
The translucent sliding partitions have a frame and a lattice covered with white rice paper let the light come through.
In the living rooms, the opaque partitions consist of a frame with lath covered with several layers of paper, the last one is opaque. All the fittings are in bronze.
A succession of “open galleries,” overhanging the garden, connects the three pavilions.
At the same time, it serves as an interface between the interior space of the noble’s rooms and the outdoor space of the gardens. Large openings punctuate the length pierced galleries or corridors. External partitions covered with paper, which let the light of day, some being sliding, constitute the openings darken the corridor.

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Based in the north of Tokyo, the Ryōan-ji zen temple is built in 1450 by renown landscape designer Hosokawa Katsumoto, deputy to the Shōgun, during Japan’s Muromachi period.
It is part of UNESCO World Heritage, being one of the historic monuments of ancient Kyoto.
Ryōan-ji means literally: “Temple of the Dragon at Peace,” and belongs to the Fujiwara clan.
The zen temple is a subdivision of the Myōshin-ji school of the Rinzai, which is a specific branch of Zen Buddhism.

Ryōan-ji,’ Zen Temple, Karesansui Style

Ryōan-ji zen temple evokes its famous stone garden, Karesansui style, which is considered a masterpiece of Japanese Zen culture.
The stones are positioned in a way that it is not possible to see the fifteen stones at once from any point of view.

Ryōan-ji zen garden is a minimalist representation and stylised representation of landscape through arrangements of rocks, water features, moss, pruned trees, and bushes.
The small number of stones is a novelty compared to the other dry gardens of this period.
Gravel represents ripples in the water and rocks mountain.
The rocks gardens imitate the essence of nature, allowing you to meditate about the real existence.

If the zen garden is so pleasant to contemplate, it because our subconscious grasps the pattern of the surrounding.
Zen gardens are created to reconnect with nature allowing us to listen to the sound of the earth and the stones.

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As a Zen and minimalist artist, Veronica Mar takes her inspiration in nature. Veronica Mar’s work creates sculpture with harmonious shape, clear, straight lines.
She created Autumn Leaf inspired by a leaf falling from and tree and flying, such as a melody in the air. Autumn leaf by Veronica Mar exists in Cast bronze sculpture plated in 24K gold, in aluminum, in Iroko wood and.

The swing autumn leaf by Veronica Mar is available in our store.

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