Jalan Tanjung still closed to traffic

THE controversial Jalan Tanjung in Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, is still closed to traffic despite a call by Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim to open up the road a week ago.

The decision was made by the mentri besar on Nov 22, after meeting Bandar Utama City Corporation (BUCC) and Dijaya Corporation Bhd, who were the developers of Bandar Utama and Tropicana Golf and Country Resort, respectively.

The road was closed on Nov 16 because the piece of land in front of the 1-Tech Park, on which the road passes through, is owned by BUCC.

Residents from Tropicana and the surrounding areas want the road opened while Bandar Utama residents are lobbying for it to remain closed.

When met during Malaysiakini’s 10th anniversary dinner on Saturday, Khalid said there was still an ongoing dispute between the two developers involved.

“I will try to resolve it on Monday (today) when I meet the two developers, as I know one had taken the case to court,” Khalid said.

He reiterated that the road would be open for one-way traffic after he had clarified the issue with both developers.

“It will be open for two weeks to allow commuters to use it as well as to ease the heavy traffic flow from Persiaran Tropicana to Lebuh Bandar Utama.

“We will also be looking at the feasibility of widening Jalan Tanjung to four lanes,” said Khalid.

When BUCC closed the road on Nov 16, it also announced that it had filed a suit in court to protect its rights.

BUCC director Datuk Teo Chiang Kok said they wanted assurances that the request to reopen the temporary one-way access for two weeks should not prejudice their court case with Tropicana.

Therefore, they had sought from Tropicana for confirmation that the reopening of the road would not prejudice the court case.

However, according to Teo, Tropicana had replied with a solicitor’s letter dated Nov 26 that they were “not privy to the discussions between Khalid and BUCC.”

“We are ready to reopen the temporary access for two weeks but this current impasse has made it impossible for us to do so,” said Teo.

Teo added that since the agreement between BUCC and Tropicana was in dispute, “all traffic plying the route after the reopening of the temporary access constituted a trespass and they had asked the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) to take out the appropriate public liability insurance to protect these trespassers.

According to a Dijaya spokesman, there were no such conditions set during the Nov 22 meeting between the Mentri Besar, Dijaya and BUCC.

“We have no knowledge of these conditions so we cannot agree to them,” he said.

He said the public liability insurance was a request made to MBPJ and they had received a copy of the request.

Commenting on the court action filed by BUCC, he said neither their lawyers nor the company had been served the summons regarding the Jalan Tanjung issue.




Source : STAR

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A Fresh Start

A Fresh Start


Artistic vision comes naturally to architect and designer Ernesto Santalla. Those creative insights became particularly useful back in 2006, when he first glimpsed the plain, one-bedroom apartment in Northwest DC that he would ultimately buy. “I liked its quiet, park-like setting,” Santalla recalls. “It presented a clean palette to work on. I could see beyond it to how it could be changed to reflect my lifestyle.”
livingroom interior design, interior solutions, amazing homestyle, best furnitures, A frosted-glass wall screens the bathroom from the living room area, which includes an expansive sofa from Donghia, and a glass-topped coffee table.
A frosted-glass wall screens the bathroom from the living room area, which includes an expansive sofa from Donghia, and a glass-topped coffee table.

Luxury home, apartment accent, new design homestyle,A vivid accent wall provides the perfect backdrop for a custom-designed credenza, vases from Kose and a series of paintings in mixed media by John Dickson.
A vivid accent wall provides the perfect backdrop for a custom-designed credenza, vases from Kose and a series of paintings in mixed media by John Dickson.

Built in 1959, the high-rise apartment building once provided student housing for American University; though Santalla’s unit was updated in the early 2000s, the floor plan remained the same. Santalla describes the building’s architecture as “International style,” a modernist aesthetic that developed in the 1920s characterized by simplified lines, a lack of ornamentation and the use of glass and steel. Santalla chose to embrace the architectural roots of the building by adhering to these characteristics even while radically altering the look of the space.
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The L-shaped living room/dining room.

The 900-square-foot apartment includes a living/dining room with an adjoining kitchen, master bedroom and bath. In order to add visual interest and continuity, Santalla used the same dark-taupe paint and walnut millwork, interspersed with a warm white, on selected walls throughout the residence. In the living room, he painted an accent wall a vivid orange-red, and he stained all the apartment’s light oak floors a dark espresso color. In a corner of the dining area, he covered the space between windows with mirrored panels to create the effect of windows going all the way around, a characteristic of the International style. He also installed a mirror at the end of the bank of windows on one wall to create what he calls “the architectural trompe l’oeil effect of extending the windows even further.” Santalla placed a prized sculpture by Washington artist John Dreyfuss in front of the mirror so, as he says, “I can see it from both sides.”
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Santalla enclosed the kitchen and removed the upper cabinets to make the small space feel less crowded.



The greatest alteration to the apartment, however, occurred in the bathroom and walk-in closet. Originally, the space was piecemeal, dark and cramped. Santalla demolished the walls to create one room; by utilizing part of the front hall closet and reapportioning the area, he was able to construct a spacious combination master bath and dressing room. He replaced the wall between the bathroom and living room with frosted glass, which brings light in from the rest of the apartment but allows for privacy. Creamy limestone used on the floors, walls, shower surround and eight-inch-thick countertops lends the room a sleek continuity.

There was one design conundrum. The only entrance to the bedroom is through the bath, a setup that Santalla found unappealing. “I placed drapes across the shower and toilet so that it feels like you’re entering a foyer,” he explains, adding that he often uses drapes for concealment. The designer also removed the door between the bedroom and bath—but left the doorway—to add a sense of flow between the spaces.

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The bathroom.

Santalla carried the taupe color scheme and walnut millwork into the bedroom, where he painted two opposing walls and the ceiling to provide a unifying element to the room. Taupe draperies cover the bedroom closet doors and the windows opposite. Below the windows, walnut millwork conceals air conditioning ducts.

In the main living area, Santalla played with the idea of solid and voided space by enclosing the kitchen completely in walnut yet leaving the adjacent dining area open. He removed the upper cabinetry in the kitchen to make it feel more airy despite its enclosure, and painted it dark taupe. In the dining area, he dropped the ceiling and painted it the color of the kitchen, delineating the space yet leaving it open to the living room.
Bedroom interior design, new bedroom vision, best bedroom furnitures, best solutions, On the wall in the bedroom, Santalla displays a ceramic piece by Margaret Boozer and work by local artist Andrés Tremols.


On the wall in the bedroom, Santalla displays a ceramic piece by Margaret Boozer and work by local artist Andrés Tremols.

Santalla’s decorative vision also encompassed furnishings of his own design, including a dining table, credenza and desk on which high-gloss, white-lacquered surfaces rise over a rich African hardwood called Mozambique. “The idea behind the furniture is that it appears to float,” Santalla says of his pieces. In the living room area, comfortable chairs and a sofa by Donghia are grouped around a glass-topped coffee table with a chrome-plated steel base. A plush white wool carpet offers a strong contrast to the nearly black-stained floors. Original fluorescent lights have been replaced throughout with recessed and accent lighting. Against a backdrop of chromatic wall surfaces, an eclectic collection of modern art shows to great effect. Works by Andrés Tremols, sculptor Margaret Boozer, painter Kevin Tillman and others add the finishing touches to Ernesto Santalla’s own expertly rendered palette.
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LIVINGROOM HOME STYLE

Going Glam

While studying interior design in Boston, William Powell had a eureka moment. One of his instructors, a well-known designer, invited him for a drink after class. “She was one of those people you can never really read,” he recalls. “Professionally, you never knew if she loved you or hated you. I thought she was going to tell me to give it up.”
Custom furnishings upholstered in velvet, silk Robert Allen sheers and a Murano glass-beaded ceiling create a luxurious environment in the formal living room.

LIVINGROOM HOME STYLE

They sat down and she asked him, point-blank, “What do you think you’re doing” Powell nearly fell off his stool. “Studying interior design, I think,” he replied. “This is not for you in terms of training,” she said. “I have to tell you quite honestly: You already have the eye. You have the skill. You need to be out in the field working with clients. Just go for it.”
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VERSACE INTERIOR DESIGN

Powell left the university and never looked back. “I really appreciate her to this day because I would have gone through the program,” he says. “She told me it might have been detrimental for me to study because some of the disciplines they’d teach me would probably be in conflict with my style and what I was already doing.”
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LUXURY MODERN HOME STYLE

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Powell launched his career at Cartier, where he worked in human resources and executive administration. He and his partner, Richard Johnson, moved to Boston in 2002, when Johnson landed a position as chief financial officer for the Boston Ballet. In Boston, Powell enrolled in a few classes and began taking on interior design projects. He also completely overhauled the townhouse he shared with Johnson. Designed in a traditional, tailored style, the home was published in a national magazine.
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A COCKTAIL TABLE FROM THEODORE'S

Powell shifted his practice to the DC area in 2004, when Johnson accepted a post as COO/CFO of the Washington National Opera. Powell also immersed himself in the renovation of the condominium apartment he and Johnson eventually purchased in Arlington. His ambitious plan would replace the condo’s new but standard-grade appointments with completely customized fixtures and finishes.

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Dining chairs are upholstered in Brunschwig & Fils velvet.


The apartment greets guests with a heady mix of glamour and restraint. Gone are the original bare white walls, “orangy” oak floors and run-of-the-mill lighting. “It wasn’t the caliber of build that we thought we were getting,” explains Powell. “So I came in and I went backwards.” Before even addressing color schemes and furniture selections, Powell focused on basic infrastructure. “I replaced, literally, all of the hardware, flooring and carpet and all of the doors which are now solid core as opposed to hollow,” he says, “plus all the electrical.” He also installed new appliances and countertops in the kitchen and new vanities, fixtures and top-of-the-line tile in the bathrooms.
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A black-granite carpet surround and custom pillows embellish the media room.

From its gleaming marble floors to its enlarged crown molding, the finished apartment is a far cry from the original. “It is kind of my own little jewel box,” says Powell, reflecting back to his days at Cartier. Hints of sparkle in the chrome hardware, crystal accessories—and even in the Murano glass-beaded ceiling in the living room—play off luxurious silk and velvet upholstery.

Powell designed the main living area as a sophisticated environment for entertaining. “I think it’s very luxe, but comfortable at the same time,” he says. “I don’t think it’s overly ostentatious. I don’t want it to be unapproachable.”
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The master bath combines marble tile, custom vanities with black glass tops and polished chrome hardware.

Powell lavished attention on custom furnishings, fabrics and countless details, from the lamp shades he designed in silk with velvet trim to the buckles and accoutrements he added to the pillows, also of his own design.

A soothing color palette of blues, grays and black in the main living spaces gives way to a simple black-and-white scheme in the master suite. A custom black-lacquered bed is centered before a backdrop of hand-flocked velvet wallpaper from India and a black crystal chandelier hangs from a black-mirrored medallion. “I love the crispness and the play of just black and white,” says Powell.

Throughout the home, Powell had his Benjamin Moore paint selections custom-blended to achieve the effects he wanted. “All of the paints were darkened by 15, 25 or 75 percent because I just wanted the richness and the depth of color,” he explains. “I also had some fun with finishes. In the master bedroom, even though the walls are jet black, it’s jet black in a pearl finish so it gives them a sheen.”
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Powell designed the black lacquer-and-glass platform bed and the pillows in the master suite.


Powell and Johnson lived in the apartment throughout the design process, enduring “two years’ worth of plaster dust,” says Powell, who went to so much effort because he and Johnson planned to make this their home for the next 10 years.

Then fate intervened when Johnson got a call from the Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas. The opportunity for him to shape this new institution as vice president and CFO was too good to pass up, so Powell and Johnson are moving again. Powell is already planning the interiors of their new home in Turnberry Place. He will continue working with clients on the East Coast, while cultivating business out West.

Ironically, friends remark that Powell’s glamorous abode in Arlington was somehow a hint of things to come. “Most people say, ‘You’re so ahead of yourself. This is Vegas. This is what you need to be doing now.”


INTERIOR DESIGN: William Powell, William Powell Interiors, Inc., Arlington, Virginia, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Old World Modern

Old World Modern


When Mariana and Jack White moved into their 1988 center-hall Colonial in Fairfax Station, Virginia, they loved their home’s spaciousness and bucolic setting. Over time, however, their aesthetic changed and they began to feel that the house lacked the visual impact they wanted. The family room was dark; the living and dining rooms were a mishmash of colors. “We had what I called an Easter egg house,” Jack White recalls. “It was full of Colonial colors like blue and pink.” The Whites wanted to lighten the space, to create a more sophisticated palette. They also wanted the house to have a sense of architectural detail, yet feel fresh and modern.
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LUXURY HOMESTYLE

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MODERN HOMESTYLE DECORATION

To accomplish this challenging list of goals, the couple turned to McLean, Virginia-based interior designer Barbara Hawthorn, whose work Mariana White had seen in the pages of HOME & DESIGN. “I said to Barbara, ‘I need light,’” Mariana says. “She said with the right colors it would be sunny every day.”

The Whites put their faith in Hawthorn, who devised a plan that would emphasize the home’s classic lines while infusing it with a modern flair. As the designer explains it, Jack White had gone to Oxford and loved the ornate woodwork inside its venerable buildings. Hawthorn was inspired to create a space “reminiscent of Oxford, with a sense of Old World craftsmanship, but do it in a modern way.”
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HOMESTYLE ACCENT

The result is an interior in which intricate millwork and architectural finishes such as moldings, cornices and friezes all figure heavily into the design scheme. At the same time, clean-lined, simple furnishings communicate a more contemporary aesthetic and offset the elaborate backdrop of walls and trim.

The architectural finishes are particularly prevalent in the entryway, a two-story space that feels both airy and elegant. To achieve the effect they wanted, Hawthorn and her clients pored over catalogs, choosing a mix of Greek-, Roman- and Victorian-themed cartouches in the shapes of grape leaf clusters, flowers and acanthus leaves. “Each cartouche is different,” Hawthorn says.
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LUXURY HOME PLANS

All the decorative moldings in the entryway, and the door frames, were handcrafted by Warrickshire Woodcrafters of Reston, Virginia, using Indonesian mahogany. Hawthorn added large-scale dark-stained frames to the wide doorways leading into the living and dining rooms, integrating the existing window transoms above them into the design with faux-paint treatments. In fact, the interior doors in the foyer area are all “plain old builder doors,” says Jack White. Rather than replace them, Hawthorn saved money by having them faux-painted to look like heavy mahogany with an inlay of lighter fruitwood. “I had to find just the right value that was golden and had depth,” Hawthorn recalls. She turned to decorative painter Paul Levy for the job.
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BEST LIVINGROOM SOLUTIONS

Though the designer carried the Oxford theme into the rest of the house, the living and dining rooms were transformed largely through paint (trading the “Easter-egg” colors for soft creams), upholstery and new, more modern carpets. “We took the traditional furniture and reupholstered it in modern fabrics,” says Hawthorn. “They have beautiful pieces that weren’t showcased enough so I created vignettes with the furniture and their art to draw attention to them.” Decorative wood moldings over the fireplace in the living room were shadowed and glazed to bring them into relief.
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LIVINGROOM MODERN DECORATION

The family room, which adjoins the kitchen, underwent a major transformation. “We wanted to lighten the space and make it feel bigger,” Hawthorn explains. She replaced the traditional fireplace with a wider, more contemporary one, which has the effect “of making the room seem stretched out.” The new fireplace surround is made of eye-catching honey onyx and Walker Zanger glass tiles, and the hearth is limestone. Columns to either side are actually pull-out-drawers that hold videos. Laser-cut lattice doors above conceal a 62-inch TV.


The walls were painted a soft yellow and woven Conrad shades replaced the draperies so as not to obstruct the natural light. Wherever possible, Hawthorn installed LED lighting.

Prior to the remodel, knee walls had separated the kitchen area from the family room. Under the auspices of Cabin John, Maryland, architect Robert Wilkoff, these half-walls were replaced by columns, which served to open up the room. The door to the powder room was strategically moved out of kitchen view and tray ceilings trimmed with architectural accents were added above the dining and kitchen areas, along with chair rails and crown moldings to connect the family room and kitchen with the rest of the house. Wilkoff drew up an elevation of the family room area to show the Whites how the room would look.

Back in the entryway, a huge chandelier hangs from the second-floor ceiling. It epitomizes what Hawthorn was trying to create: a perfect balance of old and new. “It had to be simple so as not to interfere with the moldings,” she says. In its elaborate setting, it is simple and elegant and a little bit modern. “At night,” says Jack White, “the chandelier disappears, and all you see is lights.”

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