This award-winning show garden by Melbourne-based Alison Douglas Design is just the inspiration I need for that awkward spot at the end of my garden. I just have to explain to my husband why I need to buy a large concrete culvert pipe.

PIPE DREAM is a hidden oasis in our busy city designed as an antidote to our epidemic of being time poor. The meditation moon gate/day bed, reflective water feature and fire pit are all created from concrete pipes. Concrete was chosen as a feature material to reference the ‘concrete jungle’ we inhabit… Pipe Dream is a place to stop, meditate, reflect and breathe. As this is easier said than done one might call it a ‘Pipe Dream’.

It’s the weekend and instead of spending this glorious summer day at the beach (at least here) some of us have to work. If my office was designed by Ilse Crawford I would probably never want to go home. You’d find me sleeping under my desk every night especially in this first workplace, a British advertising agency in a former 1960s British Rail maintenance depot. The second space is Studioilse‘s own offices. Both with lovely light pouring in through walls of windows and a relaxed, domestic scale.

Those doyens of dark, wizards of white, masters of all things French chic, Pierre Emmanuel Martin and Stéphane Garotin of Maison Hand have held us in thrall for many years. Kim and I love anything they create. The only niggle is whether we like their black décor more than their white décor. Perhaps we could settle on a little bit of both.

How clever… and stylish! Sliding timber screens of solid and perforated slats open up spaces or conceal the kitchen from the living area in this small apartment by Sydney-based Koichi Takada Architects.

They’re just too damn talented to limit it to two posts so I just had to dip back into Studio RO+CA‘s portfolio. Hip apartment living in Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro just meters from the beach. How hot! How cool! How jealous am I! A bachelor pad meters from Ipanema beach. Please!