SMALL LIVING ep.1- Small Spaces Lifestyle Show LOCKDOWN SPECIAL

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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