February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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As design visualization software becomes more ubiquitous and easier to use, the novelty of digital form for the sake of digital form is wearing off. These exponentially evolving conception and fabrication techniques can now be applied to existing design problems that do not traditionally involve digital technologies bring a fresh perspective to an established craft. At San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Design, the exhibition Data Clay: Digital Strategies for Parsing the Earth looks at the ways in which leading researchers and practitioners are experimenting at the intersection of digital technology and ceramics. This range of diverse products and sculptural forms are based on design, art, and architectural sensibilities. Curators Del Harrow and Joshua G. Stein explain that these new artisans are drawn to clay's unfamiliarity at a larger scale and its unique material properties that make it more difficult to predict, including slump and shrinkage. While it is not as easy to work with as more stable materials such as concrete, engineered wood, and steel, the clay enables has more potential for experimentation when it comes to translating the digital to the physical. ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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Trespa® Meteon® is a decorative high-pressure compact laminate (HPL) with an integral surface manufactured using Trespa’s unique in-house technology, Electron Beam Curing (EBC). The blend of up to 70% wood-based fibers and thermosetting resins, manufactured under high pressures and temperatures, yields a highly stable, dense panel with good strength-to-weight ratios. Trespa® Meteon® stands out in vertical exterior wall coverings such as façade cladding, balcony paneling, sunblinds, as well as horizontal exterior ceiling applications. Trespa® Meteon® panels are perfect for use in innovative and functional ventilated façade systems. Used on its own or as a highlight in combination with other materials, Trespa® Meteon® determines the look and underlines the qualities of a building. The unique properties of Trespa® Meteon® panels make them highly durable. That is why Trespa is offering a ten-year conditional warranty on its product. Trespa® Meteon® architectural panels are available in a wide choice of standard colors and effects. To create façades that are even more individual and expressive, Trespa® Meteon® panels can be custom-made in special project colors. The entire Trespa® Meteon® product range — in all types, sizes, thicknesses, finishes and colors — is available with PEFC™ or FSC™ certification upon request, in restricted quantities and ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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The rapid urbanization and modernization of China is best seen in this image of Shanghai, where the agricultural and fishing village, across the river from the historic city center, has been transformed into one of the world's most advanced metropolises in just a couple of decades. The shock to the system that comes along with this kind of economic change can be hard for the built environment to handle — both in the way it facilitates growth and how it absorbs the new types of urbanism. Image via weburbanist.com Given the country's aggressive approach to razing and redeveloping dilapidated, outmoded residential structures despite their cultural importance, architects and citizens alike are looking to rethink the blunt mandate of modernization. Beijing-based People's Architecture Office has devised a system that allows old homes to be updated without compromising their historical structures. This solution preserves the rich history of China while bringing living conditions up to contemporary standards. PAO deployed a working scale prototype of the modular system in Dashilar, a historic district, during Beijing Design Week last September. Before. After. The "Courtyard House Plugin" is made form prefab, composite panels ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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Matt Fajkus Architecture is an award-winning and licensed architecture office that welcomes residential and commercial projects, both small and large. We work with all budgets with competitive design fees. The design work of MF Architecture is based on the belief that each project is unique, as it should be driven by the client, the site, and functional requirements, rather than a singular, preconceived aesthetic. The firm aims for clear and simple solutions to complex problems by blending expertise as well as experimentation. As a young and energetic collaborative, the firm is simultaneously an academic think tank, directly connected to theoretical and technological research at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, while also practicing as an office deeply focused on realizing exceptional buildings. MF Architecture possesses advanced knowledge of sustainable design principles, including energy-efficient strategies, passive daylighting, and intelligent material choices to promote healthy indoor air quality. The office believes that the current sustainability-driven era is the most all-encompassing movement since modernism, as it reaches to all scales of design including lifestyle choices. Thus, the firm is driven by the optimism that we live in an ideal time to affect positive change locally and globally, all accomplished by ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is pleased to announce the 14 recipients of the 2015 Young Architect Award. AIA defines “young” in reference to years in practice rather than the age of the individual — the award can go to any AIA member who has been licensed for 10 years or less, regardless of age. The awardees are recognized for demonstrating exceptional leadership and making significant contributions to the profession in an early stage of their architectural career. Each of the 14 young architects will receive the award at the AIA 2015 National Convention and Design Exposition, set to take place in Atlanta from May 14–16 of this year. The award, now in its 22nd year, will be presented to: Poydras Residential Tower Jose Alvarez, AIA, of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Alvarez holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad Jose Maria Vargas in Caracas and a Master of Architecture from Tulane University. He has called New Orleans home for the past 17 years, working for Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, where he is credited to some of the firm’s most iconic and challenging projects to date, including the New Orleans BioInnovation Center (NOBIC); the Shaw Center for ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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The building’s 1950s vintage-inspired interior is both functional and welcoming. The approach to its design is simple and straightforward and favors an honest expression of materials and tectonics. The four-level flexible office space holds most of the usual workplace amenities, such as individual offices, conference rooms, and rest areas. It manages to register visual and physical permeability with glass partitions and captures engaging views across the space. It establishes a spatial coherence and promotes social cohesion by providing communal facilities — an angular wooden counter actually serves as the backbone to the design as it encourages gathering and interaction. The use of a bold color scheme explicitly communicates the company’s identity, works as a means of way-finding, and ensures that each area within the building works with one another to create a unified whole.
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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It's a damn shame that the precipitation that punished NYC yesterday is of the slushy, truly misery-inducing variety — because somehow last week's underwhelming dusting somehow warrants a city-wide snow day but we find ourselves trudging through a city covered in slick, gray nastiness. Still, we can't help but dream of a proper winter wonderland (looks like Chicago and Boston saw more of the white stuff) and the recreational opportunities that snow brings: sledding, playing beer pong in an empty street, or building a snow fort. If you chose the latter, then you are a brave soul. It is not easy to make a good fort, especially one that will be big enough for any substantial activities. Maybe you aren't old enough for the kind of adult fun pictured above — or (more likely) you are too old for it. Either way, the time-honored fort-building techniques developed in driveways over the last millions of years have produced ingenious and not-so-ingenious ways of making snow-forts. But with a little patience and a few buddies, you will get it figured out in no time. Winter is still in full swing, so here are a few of our favorite tips and tricks for ...
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February 3, 2015, 4:14 pm
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How would it be if I grew up in that place? How it would be to know a friend since I was a little kid? A generously sized field that included a wall, two staircases, and granite columns, between the construction that would serve the future, an imaginary house in their intentions, were the starting points. The house would have to be developed on two platforms. Superior as a point of arrival to be showed to the square, leaving it breathing before a permeable seal. Another inferior, trusting privacy and silence where the word comfort stands. Panels and doors to discover spaces, details of simplicity, views, light, and visual relationships between floors. The various perspectives of housing became evident as well as a block of ostentation, which levitates between light and dark, between strains, solids and voids that enhance the volumetry.
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut’s fantastical structures and futuristic urban landscapes are not to everyone’s liking, but one thing is for sure: They always get the internet talking. His latest images are a case in point, portraying Paris as an über green metropolis, populated with vertical farms, towers powered by photosynthesis and apartments made up of tessellating honeycomb modules, fused with traditional residential blocks. © Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Via designboom Inhabitable bridges soar across the Seine, whilst tree-like structures entwined with mangrove plants spiral overhead. Weaving between the luscious high-rises, a spiderweb of monorails completes Callebaut’s outrageously utopian vision of sustainable architecture and infrastructure. Given Parisian resistance to tall buildings following the debacle that was Tour Montparnasse — a tower voted the second ugliest building in the world on Virtual Tourist in 2008 — it seems far-fetched in the extreme to imagine that the concept designer’s forest of skyscrapers could possibly become reality, no matter how green they may be. © Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Via designboom Nevertheless, much of Callebaut’s work is intended to get people talking about environmental issues within the built environment, and on this point alone, his renderings must be ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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The 950-square-foot Wicker Park store uses a curated material palette and thoughtful lighting design to differentiate the experience of serving coffee from those being served. With a material palette of Douglas fir, concrete, and white quartz, the café’s interior contrasts with the sleek modern texture of the base building’s façade. Douglas fir is used throughout the store and finished in different ways to define space and function. Pickled vertical slats line the café walls creating a soft warm shell while ebonized and oiled wood defines the various functions within the space. Conceived as a matryoshka doll, the coffee bar is nestled inside a Douglas fir volume whose ‘top’ has been lifted. The ‘top’ is set at eight feet high, providing a more intimate experience between barista and customer. Highlighting the lab-like quality of Intelligentsia’s process, white quartz countertops and an illuminated polycarbonate ceiling create the lining inside the nesting doll and further distinguish and define the coffee bar.
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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On April 24th, 2013, the building known as Rana Plaza, located in the town of Savar, Bangaladesh, collapsed. The structure housed clothing factories and shops crammed into poorly planned space where around 5,000 people total were employed. The factories in the building supplied garments to companies including Benetton, Primark, and Walmart. Cranes were brought in to assist in the cleanup effort. The work day began as it would, but with a hint of anxiety owing to the fact that the building had been evacuated the previous day due to structural concerns and cracks in the wall. Workers nevertheless filed into the building that morning because factory managers had threatened to withhold their wages if they did not show up for work. Shortly before 9 a.m., a tremor that witnesses said felt like an earthquake rocked the building as it collapsed around its occupants. Rescue personnel arrived on the scene and attempted to find survivors and remove them from the rubble. The collapsed building remained unstable, a pile of concrete rubble, clothes, and machinery. Authorities needed to move as quickly as possible to find survivors, meaning that rescue efforts were dangerous and involved long, grueling hours of ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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This eight-unit residential building is situated on an edge between high- and low-density developments in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. This project is a redesign of our Greylock proposal. During the review process for Greylock, the community expressed a strong desire for a smaller-scale building and for the preservation of the two existing structures on the site. The proposal incorporates the existing structures and transitions between them and the adjacent larger-scale neighborhood.
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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Twice every year, fashion houses and ateliers reinvent themselves for the runway. With traditional shows largely appropriated by the mainstream — see Zoolander — contemporary designers are expected to curate a novel experience that not only debuts the latest styles of that season but also offers spectacle and context through set design. Paris Fashion Week presented a plethora of outstanding set designs to showcase with the spring 2015 haute couture collections. Among the best were Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld with his exotic paper terrarium and Giorgio Armani’s oriental-inspired, bamboo-lined catwalk, not to mention the OMA-designed Prada show. But perhaps the most architecturally interesting set design seen last week was Raf Simon’s runway maze of white scaffolding for French fashion house Christian Dior. Photo via The New York Times Photos via The Guardian His spring collection, shown Jan. 26 at the Musée Rodin, comprised a series of 1950s-70s couture made futuristic with ribbon-ringed pleated skirts, sequined minidresses, clear plastic coats, and boldly patterned bodysuits. Descending from the mezzanine on a floating staircase, models sporting the stunning designs took to the pink-carpeted stage against a geometric backdrop of skeletal lines, the ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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U-Color is a series of inkjet and cold-glazed porcelain tile available in over 60 standard colors. U-Color was inspired by the industrial wooden floors of the 1970s and is an artisan product. U-Color is available in four field tiles (Neutro, Grigio, Biondo, and Bruno) and 60 cold-glazed standard colored tiles (U01 through U60). Custom colors can be produced for larger orders that meet established minimums. Tile size is a nominal three inches by 12 inches. Tiles are rectified and mono-caliber. The four field tiles of U-Color (Neutro, Grigio, Biondo, and Bruno) are suitable for interior and exterior walls and floors, including medium commercial traffic flooring applications. The 60 colored tiles of U-Color are suitable for interior walls and floors, including residential and light commercial traffic flooring applications, or may be used as an accent.
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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An IKEA video game, huh? Initial reviews say its more frustrating than IKEA IRL, with the potential to make you break down or bring your relationships to ruin — just like assembling the real thing. I wanted a piece of it. My editor advised me to spend a significant amount of time with it for a proper review. At first, it seemed like an epic task, like the time Caity Weaver spent 14 hours at TGI Friday's eating mozzarella sticks. I braced myself for some kind of mind-bending, eye-watering marathon test of endurance. Once I'd downloaded the game, I dove right in. It's a little glitchy, so you have to choose "Windowed," or it will reset the whole thing if you try to exit. But what I found inside was actually quite pleasant, a living room set to breezy music that makes you feel like you are in a 3D-modeled oxygen bar. I was prepared to give it my best honest effort. Spoiler alert: This soon became impossible. Play begins with a box of parts dropped on the floor, along with a picture of the finished product. However, this picture disappears as soon as you get ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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This 4,600-square-foot two-story residence on a flat, semi-urban site in the design district of Los Angeles, Calif., provides new vistas to the city and landscape beyond. The residence is compact, yet designed to create a sense of expanded volume. A double-story central volume curves through the house, creating extended views and maximizing daylight from the skylight and sunshade above. A sculptural stair punctuates the sinuous movement of the house, while a glass bridge reconnects the two upstairs wings. An elegant palette of contrasting materials contributes to the expansive feeling of this home. The backyard has a courtyard feel and a curved pool echoes the form of the central volume drawing attention through the house.
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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Flying will never be the same again: SkyMall, the off-the-wall in-flight shopping catalog of things you don't need, has filed for bankruptcy. It was the staple of long flights where you could find the wackiest products, like the Solafeet Foot Tanner or Hovertrax, a pair of Segway roller blades that you didn't need, but you wanted. It is not clear if the retailer's demise is the extension of America's dying-mall crisis, just extended to the Sky(Mall), or if there was some kind of cultural shift away from ordering in-flight when you could wait until you were home and get it cheaper on Amazon. Whatever the case way, SkyMall will be missed. In tribute to our lost boutique of the friendly skies, here are our favorite architectural products from SkyMall. All images via SkyMall Umbra Fish Hotel Fish Bowl This fish bowl was modeled after a "contemporary condominium," with sleek white walls and asymmetrical windows. Bonus: Multiple units can be stacked to create a condo complex, and you can be a fish landlord! Empire State Building Statue The American Architectural Association calls the Empire State Building the most beloved structure in America, and ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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In January 2015, I-WAY, a unique venue dedicated to high-end car simulation located in Lyon, France, presents its biggest innovation since the opening in 2008: F-18 Super Hornet plane simulators. After the US Army’s, they are the most advanced plane simulators in the world and are now available to the public. French designer Cyrille Druart, architect of the original building, redesigned a large space, plunging the three jewels in the dark. “The way the building is designed allowed us to have a direct view from the upper level over the new simulators. A concrete wall was opened and a 20-foot-long glazed surface installed.” The advantage is twofold. On one hand, the direct vision informs visitors of novelty and also creates a new dimension, the 23-foot wall being previously windowless. The interior is made of a concrete wall in front of which are aligned the new simulators. LED lines echo the wall, indicating directions, and spotlights enhance the space. “The original idea is from Pierre Nicolas, the company’s CEO. He wanted to create the same excitement we did six years ago. We have integrated the F-18 simulators in the most discrete and uniform possible way, as if they had always been ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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When Walter Dorwin Teague designed the Texaco gas stations for the Texas Centennial fair in 1935, he sought to redefine the experience of a road-trip pit-stop. They were white with forest-green streamline stripes and made the experience of filling up almost seamless, like a NASCAR pit row. The storied industrial designer emphasized usability, but other companies attracted motorists through means other than hardcore modernism. Case in point, Quality Oil built several Shell stations in Winston-Salem, N.C., that are clamshells-as-advertisements, hailing customers through their distinctive shape and bright colors. Image via Atlas Obscura The station is literally a logo-become-a-building. The figurative form and bright primary coloration effectively render it an example large-scale graphic design. In contrast with Teague's Texaco stations, the building serves as the sign, while Teague's more traditional architecture was essentially a decorated shed. The Shell Station incorporates proper architectural proportions and detailing, applied to a more straightforward building. (Texaco's logo was also designed by Teague and attached to a pole.) Walter Dorwin Teague-designed Texaco Station. Image via luckymojo.com Like many mid-century filling stations, they are not gas pumps any more: As with Googie stations (Modernist icons of yesteryear), the clamshells ...
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February 4, 2015, 4:39 pm
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NYLO New York City is the first luxury hospitality brand located in the quintessentially New York neighborhood the Upper West Side. Stonehill & Taylor’s architecture and design team led the complete renovation of the property with a boutique approach inspired by the historic location. Coupled with the NYLO brand’s industrial look, the design team reimagined the public spaces to reflect the energy and colors of New York’s Jazz Era, a nod to the thriving clubs and speakeasies of the 1920s, venues synonymously linked to the uptown locale. The team worked to revive the dynamism and elegance of this era in their design, offering locals and tourists alike an experience authentic to NYC. The design team utilized the existing outdoor space as well as a variety of underutilized rooms to completely reorganize and expand the public areas. The lobby has four distinct areas loosely partitioned to give a sense of action while offering intimate settings. The apothecary-styled reception area features shelving and artifacts reminiscent of the personalized service of this age; the Conservatory provides a space to enjoy live jazz over drinks, a mood set by a polished red piano, wood paneling, tufted seating, and metal finishes; the Library offers a ...
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As design visualization software becomes more ubiquitous and easier to use, the novelty of digital form for the sake of digital form is wearing off. These exponentially evolving conception and fabrication techniques can now be applied to existing design problems that do not traditionally involve digital technologies bring a fresh perspective to an established craft. At San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Design, the exhibition Data Clay: Digital Strategies for Parsing the Earth looks at the ways in which leading researchers and practitioners are experimenting at the intersection of digital technology and ceramics. This range of diverse products and sculptural forms are based on design, art, and architectural sensibilities. Curators Del Harrow and Joshua G. Stein explain that these new artisans are drawn to clay's unfamiliarity at a larger scale and its unique material properties that make it more difficult to predict, including slump and shrinkage. While it is not as easy to work with as more stable materials such as concrete, engineered wood, and steel, the clay enables has more potential for experimentation when it comes to translating the digital to the physical. ...
Trespa® Meteon® is a decorative high-pressure compact laminate (HPL) with an integral surface manufactured using Trespa’s unique in-house technology, Electron Beam Curing (EBC). The blend of up to 70% wood-based fibers and thermosetting resins, manufactured under high pressures and temperatures, yields a highly stable, dense panel with good strength-to-weight ratios. Trespa® Meteon® stands out in vertical exterior wall coverings such as façade cladding, balcony paneling, sunblinds, as well as horizontal exterior ceiling applications. Trespa® Meteon® panels are perfect for use in innovative and functional ventilated façade systems. Used on its own or as a highlight in combination with other materials, Trespa® Meteon® determines the look and underlines the qualities of a building. The unique properties of Trespa® Meteon® panels make them highly durable. That is why Trespa is offering a ten-year conditional warranty on its product. Trespa® Meteon® architectural panels are available in a wide choice of standard colors and effects. To create façades that are even more individual and expressive, Trespa® Meteon® panels can be custom-made in special project colors. The entire Trespa® Meteon® product range — in all types, sizes, thicknesses, finishes and colors — is available with PEFC™ or FSC™ certification upon request, in restricted quantities and ...
The rapid urbanization and modernization of China is best seen in this image of Shanghai, where the agricultural and fishing village, across the river from the historic city center, has been transformed into one of the world's most advanced metropolises in just a couple of decades. The shock to the system that comes along with this kind of economic change can be hard for the built environment to handle — both in the way it facilitates growth and how it absorbs the new types of urbanism. Image via weburbanist.com Given the country's aggressive approach to razing and redeveloping dilapidated, outmoded residential structures despite their cultural importance, architects and citizens alike are looking to rethink the blunt mandate of modernization. Beijing-based People's Architecture Office has devised a system that allows old homes to be updated without compromising their historical structures. This solution preserves the rich history of China while bringing living conditions up to contemporary standards. PAO deployed a working scale prototype of the modular system in Dashilar, a historic district, during Beijing Design Week last September. Before. After. The "Courtyard House Plugin" is made form prefab, composite panels ...
Matt Fajkus Architecture is an award-winning and licensed architecture office that welcomes residential and commercial projects, both small and large. We work with all budgets with competitive design fees. The design work of MF Architecture is based on the belief that each project is unique, as it should be driven by the client, the site, and functional requirements, rather than a singular, preconceived aesthetic. The firm aims for clear and simple solutions to complex problems by blending expertise as well as experimentation. As a young and energetic collaborative, the firm is simultaneously an academic think tank, directly connected to theoretical and technological research at the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture, while also practicing as an office deeply focused on realizing exceptional buildings. MF Architecture possesses advanced knowledge of sustainable design principles, including energy-efficient strategies, passive daylighting, and intelligent material choices to promote healthy indoor air quality. The office believes that the current sustainability-driven era is the most all-encompassing movement since modernism, as it reaches to all scales of design including lifestyle choices. Thus, the firm is driven by the optimism that we live in an ideal time to affect positive change locally and globally, all accomplished by ...
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is pleased to announce the 14 recipients of the 2015 Young Architect Award. AIA defines “young” in reference to years in practice rather than the age of the individual — the award can go to any AIA member who has been licensed for 10 years or less, regardless of age. The awardees are recognized for demonstrating exceptional leadership and making significant contributions to the profession in an early stage of their architectural career. Each of the 14 young architects will receive the award at the AIA 2015 National Convention and Design Exposition, set to take place in Atlanta from May 14–16 of this year. The award, now in its 22nd year, will be presented to: Poydras Residential Tower Jose Alvarez, AIA, of Eskew+Dumez+Ripple A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Alvarez holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad Jose Maria Vargas in Caracas and a Master of Architecture from Tulane University. He has called New Orleans home for the past 17 years, working for Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, where he is credited to some of the firm’s most iconic and challenging projects to date, including the New Orleans BioInnovation Center (NOBIC); the Shaw Center for ...
The building’s 1950s vintage-inspired interior is both functional and welcoming. The approach to its design is simple and straightforward and favors an honest expression of materials and tectonics. The four-level flexible office space holds most of the usual workplace amenities, such as individual offices, conference rooms, and rest areas. It manages to register visual and physical permeability with glass partitions and captures engaging views across the space. It establishes a spatial coherence and promotes social cohesion by providing communal facilities — an angular wooden counter actually serves as the backbone to the design as it encourages gathering and interaction. The use of a bold color scheme explicitly communicates the company’s identity, works as a means of way-finding, and ensures that each area within the building works with one another to create a unified whole.
It's a damn shame that the precipitation that punished NYC yesterday is of the slushy, truly misery-inducing variety — because somehow last week's underwhelming dusting somehow warrants a city-wide snow day but we find ourselves trudging through a city covered in slick, gray nastiness. Still, we can't help but dream of a proper winter wonderland (looks like Chicago and Boston saw more of the white stuff) and the recreational opportunities that snow brings: sledding, playing beer pong in an empty street, or building a snow fort. If you chose the latter, then you are a brave soul. It is not easy to make a good fort, especially one that will be big enough for any substantial activities. Maybe you aren't old enough for the kind of adult fun pictured above — or (more likely) you are too old for it. Either way, the time-honored fort-building techniques developed in driveways over the last millions of years have produced ingenious and not-so-ingenious ways of making snow-forts. But with a little patience and a few buddies, you will get it figured out in no time. Winter is still in full swing, so here are a few of our favorite tips and tricks for ...
How would it be if I grew up in that place? How it would be to know a friend since I was a little kid? A generously sized field that included a wall, two staircases, and granite columns, between the construction that would serve the future, an imaginary house in their intentions, were the starting points. The house would have to be developed on two platforms. Superior as a point of arrival to be showed to the square, leaving it breathing before a permeable seal. Another inferior, trusting privacy and silence where the word comfort stands. Panels and doors to discover spaces, details of simplicity, views, light, and visual relationships between floors. The various perspectives of housing became evident as well as a block of ostentation, which levitates between light and dark, between strains, solids and voids that enhance the volumetry.
Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut’s fantastical structures and futuristic urban landscapes are not to everyone’s liking, but one thing is for sure: They always get the internet talking. His latest images are a case in point, portraying Paris as an über green metropolis, populated with vertical farms, towers powered by photosynthesis and apartments made up of tessellating honeycomb modules, fused with traditional residential blocks. © Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Via designboom Inhabitable bridges soar across the Seine, whilst tree-like structures entwined with mangrove plants spiral overhead. Weaving between the luscious high-rises, a spiderweb of monorails completes Callebaut’s outrageously utopian vision of sustainable architecture and infrastructure. Given Parisian resistance to tall buildings following the debacle that was Tour Montparnasse — a tower voted the second ugliest building in the world on Virtual Tourist in 2008 — it seems far-fetched in the extreme to imagine that the concept designer’s forest of skyscrapers could possibly become reality, no matter how green they may be. © Vincent Callebaut Architectures. Via designboom Nevertheless, much of Callebaut’s work is intended to get people talking about environmental issues within the built environment, and on this point alone, his renderings must be ...
The 950-square-foot Wicker Park store uses a curated material palette and thoughtful lighting design to differentiate the experience of serving coffee from those being served. With a material palette of Douglas fir, concrete, and white quartz, the café’s interior contrasts with the sleek modern texture of the base building’s façade. Douglas fir is used throughout the store and finished in different ways to define space and function. Pickled vertical slats line the café walls creating a soft warm shell while ebonized and oiled wood defines the various functions within the space. Conceived as a matryoshka doll, the coffee bar is nestled inside a Douglas fir volume whose ‘top’ has been lifted. The ‘top’ is set at eight feet high, providing a more intimate experience between barista and customer. Highlighting the lab-like quality of Intelligentsia’s process, white quartz countertops and an illuminated polycarbonate ceiling create the lining inside the nesting doll and further distinguish and define the coffee bar.
On April 24th, 2013, the building known as Rana Plaza, located in the town of Savar, Bangaladesh, collapsed. The structure housed clothing factories and shops crammed into poorly planned space where around 5,000 people total were employed. The factories in the building supplied garments to companies including Benetton, Primark, and Walmart. Cranes were brought in to assist in the cleanup effort. The work day began as it would, but with a hint of anxiety owing to the fact that the building had been evacuated the previous day due to structural concerns and cracks in the wall. Workers nevertheless filed into the building that morning because factory managers had threatened to withhold their wages if they did not show up for work. Shortly before 9 a.m., a tremor that witnesses said felt like an earthquake rocked the building as it collapsed around its occupants. Rescue personnel arrived on the scene and attempted to find survivors and remove them from the rubble. The collapsed building remained unstable, a pile of concrete rubble, clothes, and machinery. Authorities needed to move as quickly as possible to find survivors, meaning that rescue efforts were dangerous and involved long, grueling hours of ...
This eight-unit residential building is situated on an edge between high- and low-density developments in Boston’s Allston neighborhood. This project is a redesign of our Greylock proposal. During the review process for Greylock, the community expressed a strong desire for a smaller-scale building and for the preservation of the two existing structures on the site. The proposal incorporates the existing structures and transitions between them and the adjacent larger-scale neighborhood.
Twice every year, fashion houses and ateliers reinvent themselves for the runway. With traditional shows largely appropriated by the mainstream — see Zoolander — contemporary designers are expected to curate a novel experience that not only debuts the latest styles of that season but also offers spectacle and context through set design. Paris Fashion Week presented a plethora of outstanding set designs to showcase with the spring 2015 haute couture collections. Among the best were Chanel’s Karl Lagerfeld with his exotic paper terrarium and Giorgio Armani’s oriental-inspired, bamboo-lined catwalk, not to mention the OMA-designed Prada show. But perhaps the most architecturally interesting set design seen last week was Raf Simon’s runway maze of white scaffolding for French fashion house Christian Dior. Photo via The New York Times Photos via The Guardian His spring collection, shown Jan. 26 at the Musée Rodin, comprised a series of 1950s-70s couture made futuristic with ribbon-ringed pleated skirts, sequined minidresses, clear plastic coats, and boldly patterned bodysuits. Descending from the mezzanine on a floating staircase, models sporting the stunning designs took to the pink-carpeted stage against a geometric backdrop of skeletal lines, the ...
U-Color is a series of inkjet and cold-glazed porcelain tile available in over 60 standard colors. U-Color was inspired by the industrial wooden floors of the 1970s and is an artisan product. U-Color is available in four field tiles (Neutro, Grigio, Biondo, and Bruno) and 60 cold-glazed standard colored tiles (U01 through U60). Custom colors can be produced for larger orders that meet established minimums. Tile size is a nominal three inches by 12 inches. Tiles are rectified and mono-caliber. The four field tiles of U-Color (Neutro, Grigio, Biondo, and Bruno) are suitable for interior and exterior walls and floors, including medium commercial traffic flooring applications. The 60 colored tiles of U-Color are suitable for interior walls and floors, including residential and light commercial traffic flooring applications, or may be used as an accent.
An IKEA video game, huh? Initial reviews say its more frustrating than IKEA IRL, with the potential to make you break down or bring your relationships to ruin — just like assembling the real thing. I wanted a piece of it. My editor advised me to spend a significant amount of time with it for a proper review. At first, it seemed like an epic task, like the time Caity Weaver spent 14 hours at TGI Friday's eating mozzarella sticks. I braced myself for some kind of mind-bending, eye-watering marathon test of endurance. Once I'd downloaded the game, I dove right in. It's a little glitchy, so you have to choose "Windowed," or it will reset the whole thing if you try to exit. But what I found inside was actually quite pleasant, a living room set to breezy music that makes you feel like you are in a 3D-modeled oxygen bar. I was prepared to give it my best honest effort. Spoiler alert: This soon became impossible. Play begins with a box of parts dropped on the floor, along with a picture of the finished product. However, this picture disappears as soon as you get ...
This 4,600-square-foot two-story residence on a flat, semi-urban site in the design district of Los Angeles, Calif., provides new vistas to the city and landscape beyond. The residence is compact, yet designed to create a sense of expanded volume. A double-story central volume curves through the house, creating extended views and maximizing daylight from the skylight and sunshade above. A sculptural stair punctuates the sinuous movement of the house, while a glass bridge reconnects the two upstairs wings. An elegant palette of contrasting materials contributes to the expansive feeling of this home. The backyard has a courtyard feel and a curved pool echoes the form of the central volume drawing attention through the house.
Flying will never be the same again: SkyMall, the off-the-wall in-flight shopping catalog of things you don't need, has filed for bankruptcy. It was the staple of long flights where you could find the wackiest products, like the Solafeet Foot Tanner or Hovertrax, a pair of Segway roller blades that you didn't need, but you wanted. It is not clear if the retailer's demise is the extension of America's dying-mall crisis, just extended to the Sky(Mall), or if there was some kind of cultural shift away from ordering in-flight when you could wait until you were home and get it cheaper on Amazon. Whatever the case way, SkyMall will be missed. In tribute to our lost boutique of the friendly skies, here are our favorite architectural products from SkyMall. All images via SkyMall Umbra Fish Hotel Fish Bowl This fish bowl was modeled after a "contemporary condominium," with sleek white walls and asymmetrical windows. Bonus: Multiple units can be stacked to create a condo complex, and you can be a fish landlord! Empire State Building Statue The American Architectural Association calls the Empire State Building the most beloved structure in America, and ...
In January 2015, I-WAY, a unique venue dedicated to high-end car simulation located in Lyon, France, presents its biggest innovation since the opening in 2008: F-18 Super Hornet plane simulators. After the US Army’s, they are the most advanced plane simulators in the world and are now available to the public. French designer Cyrille Druart, architect of the original building, redesigned a large space, plunging the three jewels in the dark. “The way the building is designed allowed us to have a direct view from the upper level over the new simulators. A concrete wall was opened and a 20-foot-long glazed surface installed.” The advantage is twofold. On one hand, the direct vision informs visitors of novelty and also creates a new dimension, the 23-foot wall being previously windowless. The interior is made of a concrete wall in front of which are aligned the new simulators. LED lines echo the wall, indicating directions, and spotlights enhance the space. “The original idea is from Pierre Nicolas, the company’s CEO. He wanted to create the same excitement we did six years ago. We have integrated the F-18 simulators in the most discrete and uniform possible way, as if they had always been ...
When Walter Dorwin Teague designed the Texaco gas stations for the Texas Centennial fair in 1935, he sought to redefine the experience of a road-trip pit-stop. They were white with forest-green streamline stripes and made the experience of filling up almost seamless, like a NASCAR pit row. The storied industrial designer emphasized usability, but other companies attracted motorists through means other than hardcore modernism. Case in point, Quality Oil built several Shell stations in Winston-Salem, N.C., that are clamshells-as-advertisements, hailing customers through their distinctive shape and bright colors. Image via Atlas Obscura The station is literally a logo-become-a-building. The figurative form and bright primary coloration effectively render it an example large-scale graphic design. In contrast with Teague's Texaco stations, the building serves as the sign, while Teague's more traditional architecture was essentially a decorated shed. The Shell Station incorporates proper architectural proportions and detailing, applied to a more straightforward building. (Texaco's logo was also designed by Teague and attached to a pole.) Walter Dorwin Teague-designed Texaco Station. Image via luckymojo.com Like many mid-century filling stations, they are not gas pumps any more: As with Googie stations (Modernist icons of yesteryear), the clamshells ...
NYLO New York City is the first luxury hospitality brand located in the quintessentially New York neighborhood the Upper West Side. Stonehill & Taylor’s architecture and design team led the complete renovation of the property with a boutique approach inspired by the historic location. Coupled with the NYLO brand’s industrial look, the design team reimagined the public spaces to reflect the energy and colors of New York’s Jazz Era, a nod to the thriving clubs and speakeasies of the 1920s, venues synonymously linked to the uptown locale. The team worked to revive the dynamism and elegance of this era in their design, offering locals and tourists alike an experience authentic to NYC. The design team utilized the existing outdoor space as well as a variety of underutilized rooms to completely reorganize and expand the public areas. The lobby has four distinct areas loosely partitioned to give a sense of action while offering intimate settings. The apothecary-styled reception area features shelving and artifacts reminiscent of the personalized service of this age; the Conservatory provides a space to enjoy live jazz over drinks, a mood set by a polished red piano, wood paneling, tufted seating, and metal finishes; the Library offers a ...