Aileron

 This is a bit different from my regular posts but since I actually work as an Interior Designer for 40 hours a week it seemed fitting to share.
About a month ago the design group from my office took a field trip just north of Dayton to a place called Aileron. Its difficult to explain but is basically a place to work but unwind from the norm. It was created by a man who used to own the Iams pet food line after he sold it and wanted to do something for businesses. We were there taking in the designs.

This is the main lobby (oh and Andrea is going to love me for posting this:) and then if you turn around...

 you see these stairs leading to the lower lobby. The day we went was obviously during the winter and the outside was just a vast sea of snow, but during the rest of the year they have beautiful reflecting pools outside these huge expanses of glass.

 and then this is the lower lobby with wood burning fireplace and all. It was very cozy on a cold day!

This is looking back up the fireplace wall. These are limestone bricks from what I could tell. Very soft to the touch and then inspirational words in place of some of the stone.

These next pictures were from the "dream" room. I would have stayed here all day. Three sides of the room are glass and the whole space is actually cantilevered off the building. (that means there is nothing holding it up like columns or a wall below for you guys that are looking at me like I am smart....I am not, I just went to school for this stuff so I can use big words and sound smart :) All of my large vocabulary relates to architecture.

The carpet is plush, the chairs are plush, the room is designed to feel like a cloud and even these curtains make me want to curl up and never leave. Look at all the fun nubbies!

 There is a wrapping wall (no that's not a technical term but at least I didn't make up a word....just a term!) that is a cloud graphic with a chalkboard for ideas.

 and I loved this ceiling detail

Okay, done with the dream room. This little piece was in a hallway and I loved the idea here. If you look closely, the log looks like it continues right through that pane of glass. In all actuality it is cut but what is neat is that at one point it was one tree but now the part that is outside is weathered by, well, the weather and the part that is inside is "weathered" by people touching it. Neat to see the difference! (Oh, on a side note, this place won a LEED certification. It sits on a lot of acres and most of the trees that were cut were used for construction. There are many other things that make it a LEED building but that pertained to this log that I was talking about and I can't get too far off topic!)

And this last picture you have to look far in the distance to see the "aileron" sculptures. I will leave it to you to google that word and find out what it means. These sculptures actually wave or flap when the winds are strong to imitate a bird in flight. Pretty cool!