Hasta La Ideas

Yves Behar and his fuseproject crew are apparently preparing to branch out a from Bluetooth devices and boxy speakers in their work for Jawbone. Just before the weekend at TEDGlobal in Scotland, the company unveiled a new product called UP, a “cool sensing band” you wear on your wrist, which sends back information to your smart phone, tracking “movement, sleep and nutrition.” Were you not at the TED conference, that’s about all their letting on for now, other than a sign-up page on their site for getting more info as it’s released and this small post on fuseproject’s blog. But as the new product is set to launch “later this year,” we’re sure more about it will start making the rounds here shortly. Here’s a bit from the press release (pdf):

UP leverages Jawbone’s expertise and partner ecosystem integrating robust computing and sophisticated sensor technology in the form of functional jewelry. UP by Jawbone is a new system that tracks your movement, sleep patterns, and nutrition so you can live a healthier life. This new end-to-end system consists of a small wristband that monitors your activity 24/7, a mobile app that analyzes the activity, and an open platform that motivates you with personal and social recommendations and challenges tailored to your goals.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Back in May, you might recall, the American Institute of Architects continued their celebration of finally having seen an Architect Barbie brought to market after years of failed attempts by its members. At their annual conference, this year in New Orleans, the AIA hosted not just a workshop for 7 to 9 year old girls to both play with the new doll and to hear from a practicing female architect, but they also announced a contest to design Architect Barbie’s Dream House, seeing as its an association filled with people who do such a thing for a living, and if one Barbie should have an insanely well-designed house, it’s this one. The turnaround for getting designs in for the contest was quick, there isn’t really a prize to speak of, and Mattel has no plans to build the winning design, but the AIA still managed to get in close to 30 submissions. Now they’re asking the internet to vote on a winner from the five finalists. Voting runs until August 1st, and the winner will be announced the day after. It takes mere seconds to vote, and you don’t have to be an AIA member, so browse the finalists and chime in with your selection. If you want our opinion, we’re vying for Entry #30658049 because it has a hole outside of the exterior bathroom wall so that a giraffe can poke its head in. That seems vitally important.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

From L to R: Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham, Momoko Kishino, Hideyuki Nakayama, Jean Snow

Over the next week we’ll be giving you a 24-hour reminder to set your clocks for the live broadcast of this year’s inaugural Core77 Design Awards winners. Please note, all broadcast times and dates are Eastern Standard Time.

Jury Co-Captains

Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham
Co-Directors of Klein Dytham architecture (KDa)
Astrid Klein received her Masters degree from the Royal College of Art in London. After working for Toyo Ito in Tokyo, she and her partner Mark Dytham established KDa in 1991. The work of KDa has been the subject of numerous publications and solo an exhibitions of their work held at the Architecture Association in London and Gallery MA in Tokyo. Astrid is a frequent guest at international conferences on design and architecture and has lectured or held teaching positions at universities in Japan, the UK, the USA, Australia and throughout Europe.

Mark Dytham pursued an education in architecture to the level of a Masters at the Royal College of Art where he met Astrid. They moved to Japan in late 1980s. The urban energy and willingness to experiment that they found in Tokyo convinced them to base their practice there, despite hard economic times. Mark’s services to British design in Japan was honored by the Queen with an MBE (Member of the British Empire) medal in 2000. Mark has participated in numerous design-related events around the world and taught at a number of universities within and outside Japan. Still based in Tokyo, KDa’s current work includes projects for Google, Virgin Atlantic, Bloomberg, Selfridges, Uniqlo, Shiseido, TBWA / Hakuhodo and Vertu.

Jury Team

Momoko Kishino
In-Store Designer at Shiseido
Momoko Kishio graduated with an Interior and Architecture Major in 2002 from Kanazawa College of Art, School of Design. Since 2002 she has worked at Shiseido as a designer of window displays and department store counters.

Hideyuki Nakayama
Architect
Since the practice was established in 2007, Hideyuki Nakayama’s projects have been awarded and featured in a variety of publications. He has previously worked at the office of Toyo Ito & Associates where he was in charge of several projects including the Matsumoto Performing Arts Centre and Tama Art University Library. His work has been the subject of several exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including his most recent solo exhibition entitled little big house at AXIS gallery in Tokyo. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music since 2009.

Jean Snow
Design Writer and Executive Director of PechaKucha
Jean Snow has written for Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, I.D., Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired’s Game|Life, CNNGo and The Japan Times. He is also Executive Director of the PechaKucha organization; manager of the gallery space at Cafe Pause in Tokyo; Editor-at-Large at the online culture journal neojaponisme; the founder and editor-in-chief of SNOW, a web magazine covering art, culture, and design from Japan; and Editor-in-Chief of The Magaziner, a site that covers the convergence of magazines and digital media.

(more…)

Extreme cantilever alert! A four-storey block with a mirrored underside juts out from the top of a Berlin hotel, 25 metres above the ground (photos by Roland Halbe).

The huge cantilever comprises the upper floors of the eleven-storey NHow Hotel, which was designed by German architects NPS Tchoban Voss.

The end of the cantilever is fully glazed whilst the underside is clad in polished aluminium, creating a mirror that reflects the hotel roof below.

Part of the NHow chain, the 310-room hotel contains music facilities that include a ballroom and a sound studio.

Another Berlin cantilever by NPS Tchoban Voss was also featured on Dezeen this week – see our earlier story.

See more stories about cantilevers on Dezeen »

The following text is provided by the architect.

3873 Music and Lifestyle Hotel nhow Berlin
New four-star hotel

Aligning with the existing storehouses the four-star “nhow Berlin” Music Hotel by the Spanish nh-group is located between the River Spree to the south and Stralauer Allee to the north containing 310 rooms and two restaurants, a convention center including a ballroom, and offering a spa area and an underground car park.

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The structure of the building and the façade design refer to the situation of the building A huge cantilevered cube cites the motif of a crane cabin, whereas the façade’s surface mingles into the ubiquitous brown stone materiality at the formerly important city harbor of Osthafen.

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Divided into two blocks the volume accommodates seven floors forming each forming an open U-shape onto the water and connected via glass interstice.

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The western block is topped by four additional floors in a separate volume overpeering the banks. Here the exclusive nhow suite gives access to the roof terrace and has an optional connection to an in-house sound studio, cantilevered on about seventy feet and hovering eighty feet above the water.

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On street level a floor-to-ceiling glass band with large-size panels distinguishes the hotel from the neighboring old storehouses. The façade zone above is formed by perforated brick coat with irregularly arranged square windows.

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The chosen bricks vary in color as well as in their line-up adding a vivid optical brigo to the massive volume by an irregular surface. The fitted top levels (7th to 10th floor) wear a highly reflective aluminum cladding and allow splendid views to the southwest through an all-glass double façade.

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Sergei Tchoban, nps tchoban voss
Berlin:
design and construction planning (LP 1-4)
design and façade planning (LP 5)
Karim Rashid, New York: 
Interior design
Client: NDC Nippon Development Corporation GmbH
gross floor area: approx. 22.000 m²

See also:

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Hamburger Hof by NPS Tchoban Voss	Torreagüera Vivienda Atresada by Xpiral	MP09 Black Panther by GS Architects