Hasta La Ideas

I love seeing how UPPERCASE magazine inspires creativity in others. Katrina of PuglyPixel is offering up these free downloads of beautiful hexagon patterns inspired by the magazine’s colour palette. If you haven’t visited PuglyPixel, be prepared to spend some quality hours looking at eye candy and learning a whole lot about blogging, web design, digital art, photoshop… Is it a great resource!

If you want even more, she offers premium access to special downloads and “blog bling” as she calls it. It’s an innovative way to earn a living as a designer. Kudos!

Run in place: A rendering of Monica Bonvicini’s glass and stainless steel sculpture commissioned for London’s Olympic Park. (Courtesy Olympic Delivery Authority)

It’s shaping up to a be quite a year for Monica Bonvicini. Next month, the Venice-born, Berlin-based artist’s video “No Head Man” (2010) will be shown in the Venice Biennale just as one of her sculptures debuts in Venice at Glasstress 2011, where artists, architects, and designers ranging from Zaha Hadid to Pharrell Williams will express themselves in glass. Meanwhile, over in London, the Olympic Delivery Authority has tapped Bonvicini to create a new permanent piece of public art for the city’s Olympic Park. She had something of a running start on the commission. “Exactly 10 years ago, I had a solo show titled ‘RUN, TAKE one SQUARE or two’ which included the song ‘Running Dry’ by Neil Young and reminded people of the famous Velvet Underground song ‘Run Run Run,’” says Bonvicini. “When I was asked to submit a proposal for the Handball Plaza in the Olympic Park, I was inspired by the many uses of the park and it was a natural choice to return to these works and the word ‘run.’” Her glass and stainless steel sculpture, which will be installed later this year, consists of a trio of thirty-foot-tall letters that spell “run.” Their mirror-like surface will change throughout the course of the day, and come nightfall, glow with internal LED lighting. We see a Nike commercial in its future.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has added stacked layers of white marble to create a podium in this Romanesque church in France.

The marble strata step up and down, with a still pool of clear water created in one sunken area.

The alter and ambo are made from a coloured mineral material, similar to the existing interior of the church.

Photography is by Felipe Ribon.

More projects by Mathieu Lehanneur on Dezeen »

Here are some more details about the project:

St Hilaire church in Melle by Mathieu Lehanneur

Mathieu Lehanneur has converted the choir at St Hilaire church in Melle in the Deux-Sèvres department (France). The designer has enhanced the Romanesque building with a very mineral look, a surge of white marble that he imagines “prior to the construction of the church. A mineral presence justifying that the church was built there. Reflecting the extreme care paid to the telluric energy of stones and territories in the building of Romanesque churches, this place of worship would have been built on this specific area for the discernable energy that emanates from it.”

An architectural gesture equally paradoxical and strangely distinguishable which will undoubtedly mark an important milestone in the development of religious works. The white marble creates a homogenous mineral block formed from successive strata which seem to recall the sedimentary formation of the basement. The liturgical furniture (altar and ambo) is made from coloured alabaster, close to the colour of the original stone of the church. The result is a visual impact, one of Lehanneur’s trade secrets, this time using the purity of the geological chaos to highlight the perfection of the Romanesque geometry.

The complicity between the church and this mineral mass is completed by the baptistery hollowed out from the same material. The water that it holds appears to be from the river which runs below the church: the ultimate linking of the building with its environment.

A scenario inspired by the topology of the place, just like a ‘box’ sunk into the sand, the church in fact gives the impression of nestling in the landscape. It’s not just a building placed on the ground but part of the region and reveals itself to visitors as they descend. The main idea of the project was then to accentuate this sensation of progressive discovery and taking root in the land, “I imagine that when this ‘box’ was sunk into the ground as if pushed by an invisible, maybe divine hand, it revealed the geology of it, the visible aspect of a mineral and massive form: a revelation which seems anterior, and not posterior, to the construction of the church.”

This play between anterior or posterior construction allows a relief to be produced which creates a natural hierarchy between the celebrant and the congregation. It simply uses then the site’s topology in order for a better comprehension. An organic architecture which is not though a break with with the liturgical codes and conceals symbolic invariants like the eight sided baptistery or the altar built at the junction of the transept.

See also:

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The JWT Agency by Mathieu Lehanneur	Studio 13/16 by Mathieu Lehanneur	L’Atelier des Enfants by Mathieu Lehanneur

What’s better than profoundly happy homegoods? Profoundly happy homegoods procured at a significant discount, of course. And potter-turned-lifestyle brand Jonathan Adler promises plenty at his upcoming warehouse sale, a three-day savings bonanza featuring brand-new merchandise including furniture (which consistently wows us), rugs, lighting, pillows, and accessories at discounts of up to 70% off retail prices. Beginning Friday morning at 10 a.m., the Jonathan Adler warehouse in Bushwick, Brookyln will welcome bargain hunters to browse what is billed as the “best selection ever.” Come with a truck, plan for a pick-up, or pay cash for furniture delivery. Cross your fingers for a cut-rate Peacock Lollipop Holder (every desk needs one!) and click here for the full scoop on the sale.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Minneapolis-based art and design studio ROLU (aka rosenlof/lucas, aka ro/lu) focuses on “landscape-related work and furniture.” We got a glimpse of their work at Pin-Up’s Nightstands exhibition, but “Primarily Primary (After Carol Bove, Scott Burton and Sol LeWitt)“—pair of chairs and a side table—was one of my personal favorites from Noho Design District.

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