Matt from The Mincing Mckingbird and The Frantic MeerkatThe Mincing Mockingbird was next to our booth so it was inevitable that one of Matt’s digital prints on wood has made a home with us. There’s a current exhibition of original paintings at Henry Road and prints available on etsy.
The Tecnológico de Monterrey is emerging as a leading design education institution in Mexico. The school is coordinating a design conference, called Design Addict, from October 13-15, in conjunction with Hewlett Packard, Glocal Design magazine, and Masisa. Speakers at the 3-day event include Karim Rashid, our own Michael DiTullo of frog, Don Lehman of HLB, Alberto Villarreal, Antonio Aguilar of Electrolux, and Matali Crasset. Most of the speakers will also be giving intensive 3-hour workshops as well. If you are looking to vacation in Mexico during October, register for the conference… I’m no accountant, but it might be a tax write-off…
Shigeru Ban Architects have designed temporary homes for Japanese disaster victims inside a chequerboard of stacked shipping containers.
Above and below: prototype unit
Once the Multi-storey Temporary Housing is constructed it will provide 188 homes in Onagawa for those left homeless by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
The containers can be placed on unlevel terrain or narrow sites and should be able to withstand future earthquakes.
Containers can be stacked up to three storeys high, with open spaces between each apartment.
The architects, who have constructed one prototype apartment, suggest that temporary residents may choose to stay in the containers permanently.
Since the disaster in Japan, Dezeen has published a few projects by designers to raise money for victims – see all the stories here.
Another recent story on Dezeen features shipping containers that provide a sea-facing observation deck – click here for more stories about container architecture.
Images are from Shigeru Ban Architects
Here’s some more information is proved by the architects:
Multistorey Container Temporary Housing
Temporary housing are starting to be deployed disaster areas.
However, the number of the amount of housing required is insufficient. The main reason is that most of the damaged coast areas are not on level terrain.
Usually, temporary housing is suitable for flatlands, and providing the required number of units is difficult.
Click above for larger image
Our project to Onagawa, Miyagi prefecture is to use existing shipping containers (20 feet) and stack them in a checkerboard pattern up to three stories.
Click above for larger image
The Characteristics of multistory temporary housing:
» shorten the construction period by usage of existing containers
» possible to build up tp 3 stories and to be build in narrow sites or slope lands
» placing containers in a checkerboard pattern and create a open living space in between
» excellent seismic performance
» can be used as a permanent apartment
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| Housing for New Orleans | Sand-bag houses by MMA Architects 3 | Pallet House by I-Beam |
Cursive DesignChicago-based Sarah Fox and her partner Jon of Cursive have had a busy season of craft fairs. Cursive’s jewellery can also be found at Orange Beautiful in Chicago, The Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco (both of whom stock UPPERCASE) and Anthropologie stores. (I wish they would stock UPPERCASE!)
Continuing the eBay trawl for purpose-built furniture, I came across some smaller pieces that hold drawers. This first box caught my eye because it’s kind of like a Systainer for the Amish. I can’t decide if it’s furniture or a toolbox, but the idea of having drawers you can move over to your project holds a certain appeal.
I have a feeling this piece is a one-off, because the design is peculiarly inconsistent—while there’s decorative trim around the top and bottom edges, the square cut-out for the handle is a bit too austere to match. The chunky handle does seem good and functional, but I’d prefer there were handles on the side instead, so that you could have three of these and stack them. But perhaps I’m just projecting modern tool storage principles on an object coming from a time when you only needed six small drawers (it’s double-sided, see the mirror shot) to hold your stuff.
This next item might not be purpose-built for sewing at all; I thought it might be a jewelry box.
We interview an award-winning chef on bringing his distinctive Peruvian cuisine to L.A.
In the summer of 2009 chef Ricardo Zarate found a daring way to share his bold Peruvian flavors with Los Angeles. After many years cooking in elegant restaurants in London and Southern California, he surprisingly opened Mo-Chica in Mercado La Paloma, a food court near USC. With a menu that honored his traditional Peruvian roots and showed off his immense creative talent, he amazed local food scene devotees and eventually won many culinary accolades including Food and Wine Magazine’s “Best New Chefs of 2011” award. Zarate was also at the helm of the most coveted kitchen space in L.A. for four months in 2010, when he coordinated the myriad chefs cooking special menus at the revered experimental Test Kitchen.
Now with his beautiful new Beverly Hills restaurant Picca and a new Mo-Chica location opening in downtown L.A. later this year, Zarate has not only taken the city by storm with his masterful cooking and dynamic flavors, but has also helped put Peruvian ingredients and flavors in the mainstream spotlight.
We recently caught up with Zarate at Picca and talked about his mission to bring Peruvian food to the world stage and his devotion to Aji Amrillo. Our interview and his recipe for ceviche follow.
I came to L.A. because I had already been here and really liked it, and there is so much Latin culture here. Los Angeles is a difficult city to open a new restaurant, it is very competitive but one of the main things that drives me is challenge. Since the year 2000 I knew I wanted to open up a Peruvian restaurant—I had a vision that it was going to happen. I hope that in 20 years Peruvian food will be recognized as Japanese food is now. That’s my goal. People used to think of Japanese food as exotic and rare, and now it is part of world cuisine.
I was very surprised and happy. The reason I opened Mo-Chica there is because I am very stubborn. I opened the restaurant during the worst time in the economy. In 2009 it was hard to get anyone to invest even one dollar. For me, my vision was ‘this is my only opportunity.’ I had to jump into the storm and try to survive. Peruvian food has always been there and now people are starting to pay attention. It was the right moment to do it.
In California, people like Mexican and Latin food. In terms of flavors, people here also like the umami flavors in Japanese, Italian and Mediterranean food. Peruvian dishes have all of these flavors on one plate. That is why I think it is going to be popular. You go to a Japanese restaurant and have very clean, nice ingredients. You eat Mexican and the food is very spicy. Mediterranean has the freshness. With Peruvian you can play with all of that on one plate, since the cuisine has Chinese, Japanese, African, European and Peruvian influences.
In my family we have descendents from the Incan on my mother’s side. Many of the ingredients we are using are in there, like sun-dried potatoes and the many types of corn like cancha, mote and choclo. We also have the Aji amarillo and Aji Panca chiles and herbs like Huacatay. A few weeks ago I went to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market and we found Huacatay. I was so excited!
Aji amarillo is my favorite ingredient. If somehow that ever disappeared, Peruvian food for me would disappear. That’s how much I love it. I use it in many different ways. You can take out the seeds and make it mild or keep them for a spicier effect. It marries so nicely and is so flavorful, we put it in the cheesecake here and also started mixing it with miso…Right now we are importing then from Peru. My goal is to grow them here. We are working on it with a local farm. It’s tough. We have been trying since last year. Some of the plants died. In others attempts, the flavor was not right. Finally I received a phone call three weeks ago that the plants are doing well. Hopefully we will have the locally grown ones soon.
Another ingredient I would like to bring here is the Peruvian lemon. The flavor of the lemon is different than those grown in California. The Peruvian ones look like limes, but the skin is very thin. The flavor has acidity, but it is not as strong as the lemons here. When I use local lemons, I have to play a lot to balance the flavor.
Yes, in my country anticuchos is traditionally a street food of grilled food on a skewer. Beef heart is the number one most popular ingredient for anticuchos that you will find in Peru. We also cook stomach, tripe and many other ingredients.
First of all, it is fresh ingredients. The second thing to consider is the balance of flavor. For me it needs to be balanced with a kick. All the ingredients need to marry together. The kick can be chile, spices or garlic. Ceviche is a dish that needs to have power.
The most simple one is my favorite—sea bass, lime, onions, garlic, cilantro and for chile I would use Aji amarillo or Rocoto.
For the ceviche sauce:
1/3 cup pure honey
4 garlic cloves
1/4 red onion
4 sticks of clean celery
1/8 lb fresh seabass
1 cup lime juice
½ cup coconut milk
1 tbs Aji amarillo paste
For the ceviche:
1 lb fresh seabass, diced
½ red onion, sliced
1 tbs cilantro, sliced
Red serrano chili (to taste)
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Notes: Aji amarillo paste is a yellow Peruvian chili paste that you can find in different Latin markets. You can substitute the serrano chili for either jalapeño or habanero chilis to taste.
Exploring undiscovered art scenes in small towns around the globe
The first in a series of shows exposing smaller towns as undiscovered creative hubs, “My Winnipeg” highlights noteworthy artists inhabiting the world’s coldest city. Put on by Paris’ Maison Rouge Gallery, each exhibit is twofold, serving as both broad studies of the selected city’s overall culture and as work relevant to the international contemporary art scene.
My Winnipeg raises questions about how Winnipeg, Canada may have influenced each artist, in terms of climate, geography and history. Could its impossible weather— comprised of harsh, long winters, floods and mosquito-invaded summers—be behind the sleepy state-of-mind imprinting some of the work? Is its location in the middle of an Indian territory the key to many of the artists’ relationships with mythical spirits? Does the city’s former post as a cosmopolitan trading center influence its current surge of dynamic creativity?
Challenged with how to turn this ethnological approach into an art show, the gallery supplys meaningful background information while allowing the works to speak for themselves, devoid of local particularities. In the end, the artists appear to share similar concerns about society as their peers do in bigger metropolises.
Works by artists like Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Wanda Koop, Kent Monkman, Bonnie Marin and Diana Thorneycroft span all mediums—from painting to performance art—to create a definitive visual statement about their native town. Standing out among them is Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin’s 2007 documentary, also dubbed “My Winnipeg.” The film taps Winnipeg’s folkloric history, featuring beautifully hallucinatory images, speaking to Maddin’s sentiment that cinema is a haunted media since it shows people and things which are not really present.
“My Winnipeg” is currently on view at Maison Rouge and runs through 25 September 2011.
Israeli designer Rachel Boxnboim has cast a ceramic tea service inside fabric moulds.
Watch this movie on Dezeen Screen »
Called Alice, the pieces retain the texture and seams of the fabric from which they were formed.
Boxnboim pours the liquid clay into stitched moulds and gradually syringes it out again, leaving a thick layer clinging to the inside of the fabric.
The cloth burns away when fired, leaving the delicate ceramic vessels behind.
Boxnboim developed the process while studying at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
Photographs are by Oded Antman.
Here are some more details from the designer:
My work started with my decision to saw a kettle. I took the measurements from my mothers old tea kettle and when i was finished – i had a mould.
In this project I made a connection between a soft material (fabric) and a hard material (ceramic), perpetuating and preserving the properties of the fabric. The ceramic takes on the texture of the fabric and the appearance of the seams, and looks like a kind of hardened textile.
The utensils are useful and contain an element of surprise.
The work included trying out different patterns and different fabrics, the form of the utensil being determined by the pattern, or considerably influenced by the fabric, and changing from utensil to utensil.
Materials and technique: porcelain; sewing and casting.
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| Drink Link by Joon Lee | Teapot/cup by Louie Rigano | Blaue Blume by Undergrowth Design |
I love how Jen’s shirt fabric looked with the current issuePlease subscribe to UPPERCASE magazine; it’s an independent magazine supported by readers and subscribers. Back issues of #6, #8 and #9 are still available, the rest are sold out! (Less than 30 copies of issue #6 remain.) Thanks!
In 1998, the School of the Visual Arts in NYC held a symposium on Paul Rand, the preeminent designer of logos such as IBM, ABC, and UPS. A extremely limited edition book of Rand quotes on design was given out to attendees. For the first time, the book is now available in PDF form here courtesy of Steven Heller.
Highlights from the book include:
Good design adds value of some kind, gives meaning, and, not incidentally, can be sheer pleasure to behold; it respects the viewer’s sensibilities and rewards the entrepreneur.
To design is to transform prose into poetry.
What the designer and his client have in common is a license to practice without a license.
There are designers with a sense of humor and there are those without. Given the same content, the success is in the delivery. Groucho Marx can make anything funny, while others with similar material might just be tiresome.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
