Hasta La Ideas

Yesterday, in anticipation of statewide “New York Remembers” events, Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled the official 9/11 Memorial Flag, “a long-lasting symbol of our respect for those who were lost on September 11th and our resilience in the face of tragedy.”

The symbols on the flag evoke what was lost on September 11th and what still endures. The 40 yellow stars represent the fatalities from United Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The five-sided figures represent the Pentagon, where 125 people died. At the center of the flag are the Twin Towers, where the greatest loss of life occurred that day.

Sunday, of course, marks the tenth anniversary of the day that has come to define the current era of U.S. politics. The flag will be flown at the State Capitol in Albany and the memorial at the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan.

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A pair of wooden bicycle frames recently turned up in the ol’ inbox, I can’t help but take the opportunity to compare and contrast the two designs.

The “Wooden Bicycle” is the first product from
Flat Frame Systems, who eventually hopes to produce furniture as the company grows. Their first offering was actually inspired by a television program that Chief Designer Michael Cubbage saw as a child, featuring a futuristic motorbike that had a flat frame as opposed to tubes. (Since then, he’s honed his design skills as a technical illustrator and car stylist for GM South Africa.)

The product description notes that “a wooden bike is the most comfortable bike to ride, as it is slightly flexible,” and that it is at least nominally more sustainable that metal bicycles: lest we forget how plants work, the designer reminds us that “while the tree was growing it was absorbing carbon dioxide.”

While the frame itself is based on a traditional diamond frame, notable features include a thicker head tube and seat tube, not to mention the flattened seat- and chainstay clusters. As with Jose Rivera’s “Ice Cream” flat-pack bicycle concept, it is unclear to whether this there is a functional reason for the skeumorphic form; if not, it might as well look like this.

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Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year’s Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Felix Chun Lam & Joe Kenworthy
Location: Richmond, Canada
Category: Furniture/Lighting
Award: Student Notable

Alcove

Alcove is a ceiling storage partition intended for seasonal items in small homes. The concept is to utilize the ceiling in such way that the unit becomes a part of the architecture. Soft lighting and minimal form interplays to create a functional aspect to the ceiling without compromising floor space.

Like all other design projects, our project began with market research to see what existing products are already out there. We looked extensively into resource furniture and “space-saving” solutions, and analyzed it critically against our own criteria. One particular example that we looked into was Murphy-Beds that claim to free up space when the bed is hidden away into the wall. This naturally means that the space in front of the wall will always need to be clear in order for the system to be effective. And according our brief and criteria, that is not using the available space to its best potential.

Another example, elevator bed rides on the similar principles as Murphy beds except the bed elevates into the ceiling. The nature of the stationary time that beds take makes this type of “space-saving” system ineffective because during the time not in use, the area will always need to be free. This market research helped us further identify the problem, the opportunity and challenges. Low res prototyping and iterations helped us pin point concept that fulfill our criteria and weed out the impractical ones. Because one of our goals for the design is to allow it to become apart of the architecture, we moved quickly into full scale iterations to get the feeling in terms of scale and spatial qualities. We are certainly no contractors and engineers; therefore, we relied primarily research on existing mechanism that can cater to our design and make it a reality.

During the prototyping process, with a little modification to existing parts we have replicated what we envision the design to achieve. Our design process isn’t complete without a thorough process of user and ergonomics testing. In a six participant focus group, we gathered data points that support the feasibility and acceptability of the concept. After a working prototype was completed we held a user trial to test the practicality and ergonomic factors of the prototype. All in all, the outcome of the design came from rigorous testing, trial and error and endless critical questioning.

Core77: What’s the latest news or development with your project?

Several investors who wanted to further develop and commercialize our idea have approached us. Of course our project is in its infancy stage and there are practicality and engineering issues that still need to be worked on and resolved. We realize that the project still has deficiencies as pointed out by the jury team. However, we’ve also realized, as well as pointed out by the jury team, that our project has set precedence of an unconventional categorization of the furniture and storage design. We will continue to explore the possibilities of this “usual” category with hopes that it will shed light on solutions that will solve common problems society will encounter.

What is 1 quick anecdote about your project?

When working on a project that involves the ceiling, make sure you have a ceiling to work with. Our studio at the Emily Carr University has particularly high concrete ceilings with a variety of vents, pipes and cords winding their way throughout. So if you were not one of our fellow ID classmates or faculties from ECU, you wouldn’t know that we actually had to construct our own functional floating, suspended ceiling in order to accommodate our project. When looking back at the project as a whole, the building, constructing and receiving permission to proceed with the ceiling, was almost more work than building our actual project itself. We always joked how if we knew in advance that dealing with the ceiling was this much work, we would have picked a much smaller venture to tackle. After this project, we finally understand why few people play around with the ceiling, it is truly one back breaking nut to crack! Technical difficulties and engineering complexities discourage many keen designers and inventors to tackle problems with the ceiling.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

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American movie director David Lynch has completed a nightclub in Paris that’s inspired by and named after Club Silencio from his 2001 film Mulholland Drive.

Members descend six flights of stairs to the basement of 142 rue de Montmartre, a former publishing press where Emile Zola printed his famous headline J’accuse in 1898. The location is steeped in history: 17th century playwright Molière was reportedly buried there and socialist leader Jean Jaurès was murdered just across the street in 1914.

The curved walls are lined with wooden blocks coated in gold leaf and Lynch has furnished the bar with his own chair designs. The venue incorporates a cinema, a stage, a forest-like smoking room and a library. It will host films, art and performances in a program developed with Lynch.

Silencio opens to members on 6 October and membership will cost between €420 and €1500.

Here are some more details from the club’s owners Savoir Faire:

Situated in the heart of historic Paris, 142 rue Montmartre is a mythical address that was once home to two influential leftist newspapers, L’Humanité and L’Aurore, which was famous for printing Émile Zola’s “J’Accuse.”

Today, Arnaud Frisch, manager of the Social Club and the music production company Savoir Faire, endeavours to give this abandoned landmark back its soul with the opening of SILENCIO, a club whose interior was designed by multidisciplinary artist David Lynch.

While its name offers a sly allusion to the club from the director’s 2001 Academy Award nominated film Mullholland Drive, SILENCIO in Paris stands alone as the realisation of his vision for a unique club experience.

The 2,100-square-foot space consists of a series of intimate rooms, each dedicated to a certain purpose or atmosphere, including a live stage with a reflective dance floor, an intimate art library, a cocooned sitting lounge, a spacious 24-seat cinema scheduled by MK2, and more.

Each room evokes Lynch’s visual style through an incisive composition of architecture, furniture, artwork, texture and lighting, a look he achieved working with designer Raphael Navot, architectural agency Enia and light designer Thierry Dreyfus.

Lynch also created three original furniture designs showcased at SILENCIO: “Black Birds” a series of asymmetric faceted black-leather seats and tables; “Wire” a collection of welcoming seats and sofas; and an ergonomic cinema seat that refines the movie-going experience. In addition, the main entrance hall, bar and lounges all feature carpeting with edging designed by Lynch. All furniture and materials were made-to-measure especially for SILENCIO by craftsmen from prestigious firms such as Domeau & Pérès and Ateliers Gohard.

SILENCIO is open daily from 6pm to 6am. Until midnight, the club is reserved exclusively for cardholders and their guests, who can enjoy unlimited access to concerts, films and other performances.

See also:

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Dude Cigar Bar by Studiomake	M.N.ROY by Picault and Godefroy	Paramount by Tom Dixon