The 3 Best YouTube Channels For Interior Design Lovers
These channels on the video platform unpack of-the-moment architecture and interior design.
These channels on the video platform unpack of-the-moment architecture and interior design.
IF A PICTURE IS worth a thousand words, what does a seven-minute video weigh in at? In the case of these three YouTube channels, the answer is a lot of home-design advice and inspiration. Sweeping house tours canvas chic dwellings both inside and out. Brainy architects and creative interior designers guide your visit and share their motives and insights. Here, some details on our three favourite accounts.
What started as an Instagram account dedicated to celebrating standout Australian residential design—with a focus on modernist-inspired contemporary homes—has evolved in the past year into a YouTube channel called The Local Project. “Illustrating the architecture and design of a project will always be at the crux of our video content, but there seems to be a real appetite for seeing and hearing from the people behind these projects,” said Local Project founder and director Aidan Anderson.
In a typical clip, Sydney architect James Stockwell talks us through the rationales and execution behind his firm’s Bunkeren (Danish for “bunker”) project, a concrete dwelling that seemingly floats on the edge of a rocky forest just south of Newcastle, in New South Wales. Integrated into the landscape, the home has planted roofs that cater to the family’s love of gardening and cooking, explains Mr. Stockwell, while noting the virtue of concrete in the fire-prone bush: “[Avoiding] the risk of burning down is a pretty big relief for families.” High-quality production and editing, as well as involving music, make these 8-minute experiences more like movie shorts than videos.
The videos from heritage fabric and wallpaper purveyor F. Schumacher are ultimately promotional (its products make not-terribly-subtle cameos), but like the New York company’s email mailings, the clips on the Schumacher1889 channel are well-presented and engaging.
Six-minute house tours sweep through projects like Atlanta interior designer Beth Webb’s glass-walled Brays Island, S.C., retreat and Jenny Holladay’s grand millennial-inflected Chicago townhome, but the educational how-tos and entertaining In the Bag series are also a plus. In a clip from the latter, bicoastal designer Mary McDonald rifles through her leopard-printed Dolce & Gabbana purse, digging out design tools like fabric swatches (from her Schumacher collection). Her most unexpected possessions are two striped paper straws, one blue and white, one red and white, that she defends. “Aren’t they cute?” Then, holding them side by side vertically, she outlines her vision: “Look. A whole room after this. Painted. On the doorways.” A telling glimpse into the creative process.
Fans of Never Too Small, a YouTube channel dedicated to small-format architecture and design, describe watching the company’s videos as a “meditative experience,” said Australian creator Colin Chee. “There is a simplicity in the way we produce, and our shooting style is purposely still.” The intention: to give the audience time to absorb and appreciate ingenious design, like that of a 581-square-foot London apartment by British architecture firm Craft Design.
The seven-minute films also give the dwellings context. The Craft Design apartment, for example, is one third of what was once a single-family home in the jumping Camdon neighbourhood. “Amy Winehouse used to live literally around the corner,” the architect-homeowner tells us.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
Audible alerts at the gate call out travellers trying to board earlier than they should
TUCSON, Ariz.—Passengers in Boarding Group 1 were filing onto American Airlines Flight 2721 to Dallas Friday when an ominous sound went off at Gate B11: dip-dip-dip-DOOP. The gate agent delivered the bad news. The passenger was in Group 4. She asked him to wait his turn.
The same sound—the last-gasp sound from AirPods running out of juice, or sad “Game Over” music for an old videogame—went off minutes later. Dip-dip-dip-DOOP.
“You’ll be boarding with Group 5, sir,” the agent said. Five more passengers were turned back before Group 2 was called.
American Airlines is cracking down on line jumpers. All major U.S. airlines do their best to maintain boarding order since priority boarding is a perk for frequent fliers , credit-card holders and big spenders, and is often available for purchase. But American is the first to develop an automated system that instantly flags offenders.
The airline is experimenting at gates in Tucson, Albuquerque, N.M., and Washington, D.C., as part of a broader upgrade to American’s boarding technology. The airline has tested the alerts on more than 4,500 flights this month and will expand to several more cities this year, with an eye to taking it systemwide if no major issues, such as slower boarding, arise at larger airports. The airline says early feedback from fliers and gate agents has been encouraging.
The idea for automated policing grew out of complaints from travellers fed up with line jumpers and the employees who feel their wrath. In particular, top-tier frequent fliers gripe about too many passengers in the first boarding group, says Preston Peterson, American’s managing director of customer experience.
Group 1 is reserved for travellers in first class, certain business-class tickets and American’s executive platinum status. Active duty military members with military I.D. are also allowed. Groups 2 and 3 are similarly elite.
“They’ve earned that [priority] boarding group and they want access to it,” Peterson says.
The biggest perks, of course: plenty of overhead bin space and no worries about the dreaded threat of gate-checking your bag.
The new system promises smoother boarding for passengers and gate agents. I flew to Tucson International Airport to try it out. I put the airline’s traditional boarding to the test at my departure gate in Phoenix. Could I slither into an earlier boarding group? I was in Group 4 but breezed right through with Group 2.
Gate agents tell me it’s hard to monitor passengers’ group numbers manually, big plane or small, especially with boarding-pass readers where travellers plunk their phones face down.
American isn’t telling passengers about the test before their flights, and that’s on purpose. It doesn’t want them to change their behaviour simply because they’re being watched.
Chad Vossen, a 46-year-old chief creative officer for a video-marketing company in Virginia, knew nothing of the test until he and a colleague tried to board in Group 6 instead of Group 8 for a flight to Phoenix. They had done it on other American flights and others, in hopes of avoiding gate-checking their camera equipment.
His first thought when the dip-dip-dip-DOOP went off: “Wow, that doesn’t sound good.”
Vossen says it triggered the sounds losers hear on “Hollywood Squares” or “ The Price is Right .” (American says the sound effects are generic videogame clips and is still testing different sounds.)
He stepped out of line and laughed about getting caught. Vossen says he sees the change mainly as a way to get travellers to pay up for priority boarding. He’s unlikely to pay, but says he will probably finally sign up for American’s loyalty program. Members get complimentary Group 6 boarding regardless of status. That’s one group ahead of regular Main Cabin customers without status.
Peterson, the American customer-experience executive, believes most passengers aren’t out to game the system.
“I think most people just see a line and go, ‘Oh, we’re boarding,’” he says.
About one in 10 passengers on American’s test flights have boarded out of order, the airline says. Not all want to cheat the system. Some are travel companions of those with better boarding positions. American’s policy allows them to board together if they’re on the same reservation but didn’t assign the same boarding group. (The alert still goes off, but the agent can easily override it.) And the airline says its system doesn’t flag pre-boarders, like those with wheelchairs.
Exceptions excluded, I counted as many as seven passengers on one flight boarding in the wrong group; on another, it was zero. That math no doubt changes at a busy hub like Chicago or Dallas. So does the potential for tension.
The passengers I saw seemed to take the ejection in stride, moving aside and waiting for their group. One even apologised to the gate agent.
The test is already having an impact beyond the walk of shame. Peterson says the airline has noticed some passengers jumping out of line after seeing fellow fliers turned away. He says he witnessed the same thing at a non-U.S. airline that began policing boarding groups.
Peterson’s ultimate goal: zero boarding group alerts. “I don’t want anyone to be dinged,” he says.
For now, passengers should expect a cacophony at American gates employing the new tech. Not all alerts will send you to the back of the line. Hear a slot-machine-like sound when you scan your boarding pass? You’re probably seated in an exit row.
Even if you get the dreaded you’re-in-the wrong-boarding-group alert, it could be a mistake. A passenger in Group 8 was taken aback Friday afternoon when it sounded on her flight to Phoenix.
“That did not sound good at all,” she said to the flight attendant.
“You failed at ‘Pac-Man,’” the agent joked.
She was in the right place. The agent hadn’t yet flipped the switch in the app to her group.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.