with travel restrictions helping to keep us all safe we aren't able to reach the
beautiful small spaces we want to share with you so we're doing something a bit
different we're collaborating with our friends favorite architects designers
and youtubers who share our passion for small living to offer you a little
inspiration during your time at home this is small
living a special lockdown series from never too small in this episode Pilon
from pylons kitchen in vancouver share some simplified but delicious Thai
recipes Jason from Plant Society in Melbourne shows us how to look after our
plants in small spaces and minimalist Bonita Larson in Stockholm shares her
tips and ideas on how to organize and decorate our tiny space whether you're
quarantined south isolating or social distancing please take care of yourself
your loved ones and your community
coming up architect Brad swats talks to our london-based contributor Celeste and
answers some of our audience questions
Hi there, today I'm with Brad Swartz the director of Brad Swartz architecture.
He's no stranger to Never Too Small having already had a couple of projects
featured on the show before. Namely the Darlinghurst and Elizabeth Bay apartments
And just recently we have featured your Boneca apartment
which is actually one of our highest viewed projects. How are you Brad?
I'm good thanks. How are you? Yeah I'm really well, thank you, really well
I know you've come on the show before and sort of talked about your projects
but today we'd really like to speak about you all sort of journey through
architecture. We have a few questions from the audience here, we had a lot of
comments on our call-outs for questions and so it's been really hard to narrow
those down. And one of those is, tell us about the kinds of projects that you
work on, are there some stark differences between designing for tiny spaces or
small apartments considerably different to sort of larger projects?
There's obviously differences but the design process I think is still the same
looking at what's important to you know our clients or whoever is going to be occupying
the space what the values are. And then looking at different ways and different
options to skin it, so when you're doing you know four-bedroom house or a studio
apartment. You still want to look at the different ends of the spectrum and see
which ones work and something in the middle. It's an iterative
process no matter what the scale is for us. hat design values or what values do
What design values or what values do
you bring to your architectural projects. I mean something that's been
important to us is creating spaces that are calm and comfortable to be in. Have a
longevity in their design, so something that's not you know necessarily
following a trend but something that's going to be a little bit more time less
something that will age well and part of that is sort of a
sustainability approach so to do something well and we do it right the
first time and the client can come in and put their own furniture and artwork in
and it becomes their space. Like the same way in art galleries sort of you know white
backdrop for artwork can be inhabited by one person but in
five years, ten years, twenty years time, whenever they decide to move
out the next person can come in and it becomes their space.
How do you work with smaller
spaces when considering light and well I guess cross ventilation too, would
be really important. A lot of the smaller spaces are primarily in in a
lot of ways we do as an interiors project but we take a really
architectural approach to them so we'll still think about them in terms of where
the lights coming from what cross ventilation opportunities we have
sometimes when you're restricted in a small space we can't build out you can't
make it physically bigger. It's about creating a good sense of space so you
know maybe being able to see the extent of the apartments or be able to have
more light coming in or lighter finishes. You know it's a bounce light into the space.
Materials are a huge part of what we do, part of that is about bouncing light
through the space. I think materials definitely can play a part in creating a
sense of luxury and I don't think that necessarily means you need to spend a
fortune of money to do it but it's thinking about what are those materials
in the apartment, or your space, that you touch day to day. Do you have
quite simple you know cost-effective joinery but then have a beautiful marble
bench top. Kind of finding the right balance there
can really make a big difference. I think it's important to not discount the value
in having a sense of luxury inside a small apartment because it shouldn't be
a compromise I don't think
Brad walk us through your
design process and how you present your concepts to clients
Well our presentation tool and our design tool are one and the same, we kind of like to
design everything in 3d which allows us to pick up on things that don't quite
feel right it becomes a really good way to show somebody, our clients, what we
were thinking when we have some crazy idea of a timber hallway to enter in
through the house so you can sort of move through the
different spaces and start to understand that materiality in the relationship
between things. Where things are going to end up going if things line up
correctly or not it also is kind of key to try and minimize any surprises
further down the trail. Being successful in executing your design.
Brad thank you so much for joining me today it was fantastic to hear your insights and,
hear more about your design process. Really great to chat and you know have
opportunity to talk to you.
Hi everyone my name is Pialin and welcome to
this special lockdown edition so this cooking segment is a collaboration
between never too small and my youtube channel pylons kitchen and since
everybody's sheltering in at the moment we've got some simple and easy Thai
recipes for you to try that have all been modified for lockdown so I will be
talking you through all the steps from over here in Vancouver Canada and never
too small will be doing the actual cooking from all the way in Melbourne
Australia alright let's get started
first we need the curry paste now Panang curry paste can be hard to find but we
can make our own simply by taking store-bought red curry paste
and adding some ground cumin ground coriander and a little bit of smooth
peanut butter mix up together and there you have it
for the meat I love beef for this but you can do this
with pork or chicken as well you want to choose a tender cut and slice it thinly
mix it with a touch of fish sauce and some cooking oil the oil will help the
beef separate more easily when you go to cook it
now for the curry sauce bring some coconut milk to a boil and let it reduce
until it's thick and creamy we're going to use this fatty coconut milk to saute
our curry paste add the curry paste and keep stirring it for a few minutes until
it gets really nice and thick and you should be able to smell this from way
across the room add some brown sugar and
then roughly tear some kaffir lime leaves into the pan and cook it for a
minute or so you can find kaffir lime leaves fresh frozen or dried but if you
can't get to the store and don't have any don't worry about it now throw in
the beef and toss it with the curry paste you want to separate the pieces
quite quickly so they will cook evenly once the beef is about halfway cooked
add some more coconut milk and serve just until the beef is fully cooked you
don't want to overcook the beef at this point if it looks a little dry
and you want something a little more saucy you can definitely add a splash of
water if you want you can add some red bell pepper for some color and then take
it off the heat now because some brands of curry pastes are saltier than others
you want to give it a taste before you finish and if it needs more salt you can
add a splash of fish sauce you can garnish it with some julienned kaffir
lime leaves if you have some and you definitely want to serve it with some
hot Thai jasmine rice the curry sauce is so luscious and bursting the flavors of
herbs and spices and that beef is so tender and juicy and this is definitely
one of my go-to weeknight dinners so I hope you give it a try the full written
recipe will be on my website hot Thai kitchen calm and if you love Thai and
Asian food check out my youtube channel pylons kitchen all the links you need
will be in the description box below take care stay safe Sawadee kha
hi i'm jason chong co-founder of the plant society and today i hope to
inspire you to bring more plants into your home
if you live in a space or for really harsh light somewhere like about honey
or also a really bright windowsill or even a top floor apartment you might
want to incorporate some arid plants so cacti and succulents are really great
for that we've got a few here which some of my favorite we've got crassula which
come in a whole family of them this is actually quite a small form but creates
a smaller plant for a benchtop we've got a brain cactus so you can start getting
some interesting forms as well and I am drawn to Silver's in terms of texture
similarly here we've got an old lady cactus making it old man's cactus as
well but these grow really tall and have a fluffy nature to them and then we've
got a rain for a succulent but they're just as Hardy we've got rhipsalis which
comes in a small form and then we've got another cross hauler here which will
keep cascading as well arid plants are really Hardy plants especially if you
have a busy lifestyle they require less watering and bright light and not as
much care so with watering always watering from the top but just remember
arid plants come from a desert or a dry climate so they don't like too much
water for these guys we're probably watering once every three weeks or so
but they can last for a few months without water how we're watering is
simply through the top there and just letting it drain through till it drips
out the bottom and then you stop watering so you can see it dripping and
that's when I'd stop watering it's really important not to let your arid
plant sit in a pool of water or grow a saucer but let them drain freely because
what they do is absorb the moisture in their foliage
and they like to dry up cacti and succulents don't like too much
fertilizer but you are it is okay don't fertilize a little bit we're sprinkling
like so and then watering it in once again I typically don't do a liquid
fertilizer for your arid plants but you can do that in the growing season once
again so it's spring to summer but I'll show you quickly
easy it is to propagate cacti and succulent I don't think you have to
spend a lot of money on plants but really start collecting cuttings from
friends and family also your neighbors we're simply trimming off the branch
there and then cleaning off these little shoots here one thing it's important to
do with the cast iron succulents is let this wound heal and dry up you can
simply leave it to dry out or if it's a hardy type of succulent you can just
plant it straight into soil so straight in here and then pushing the soil around
so this it's holding the cutting in place we'll take another cutting and
don't be scared about where you've cut it will cause the plant to branch out
which is really great to build up density with your plants and so once
I've done that I simply water in and then let it drain ups and that will take
a few months to actually root into the soil and grow into a plant like this
within six months or so another way you can propagate if they're a bit more
temperamental and do you need a dryer in between is you can simply trim that off
for these wounds it's good to store them for around two weeks or so and what I
typically do is wrap it in newspaper or old paper like so
and then just store it in a cool dry place for the wound to heal over thanks
for tuning in to learn more about greenery within your home if you are
after more information head to our website it's www plants a calm day you
my name is Benita Larsen I'm from Stockholm Sweden I create videos for my
namesake channel on minimalism organization and the Scandinavian
lifestyle I'm excited to be making a series of
videos in collaboration with never too small when you're in charge of a shops
window display you have three seconds or less to catch the attention of a
passerby so you need to create something with impact that draws the eyes to
display grouping the idea of grouping items together is for the viewer to be
able to catch everything at a glance at home you can use grouping to give you a
less cluttered look on a mantelpiece or on top of a cabinet or countertop
podiums and shops and trays at home are great for defining the groupings odd
numbers a great trick when displaying and grouping is to use odd numbers if
the amount is 7 or less if you do even numbers your eye will want to group the
items two by two any number above seven and it's too much to pair into two so
then it's fine to go even if something feels off try adding or subtracting one
so the number of items is odd and it might do the trick
triangle composition the triangle shape is pleasing to the eye and automatically
leads the eye from point to point and makes a group of items feel harmonious
in-store and at home choose items of different heights or stack items to
create the height difference don't spread out too much
let the items be connected by overlapping them slightly within the
group both sideways and depth ways also allow for some space around your
triangle don't be afraid of the negative space not every surface needs to have
something on it
for more videos like this visit my channel Bennett Alhassan where I share
all things Scandinavian from my apartment here in Stockholm and beyond
next episode will speak to Nikolas gooning and share some more ideas for
your time at home subscribe to the channel and click the bell to receive
updates on our next episode for more detail on the features within
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