Hasta La Ideas

“Ladies and gentlemen, design is a popular subject today. No wonder, because in the face of increasing competition, design is often the only product differentiation that is truly discernible to the buyer.” That this sentiment came from Dieter Rams comes as no surprise. What’s striking is the date of his remarks, delivered to an audience at Jack Lenor Larsen‘s New York showroom in December 1976. He ended on a cautionary note: “I imagine our current situation will cause future generations to shudder at the thoughtlessness in the way in which we today fill our homes, our cities, and our landscape with a chaos of assorted junk,” said Rams. “What a fatalistic apathy we have towards the effect of such things. What atrocities we have to tolerate. Yet we are only half aware of them.” The full transcript of this disturbingly prescient speech is now available online thanks to Vitsœ, for whom Rams designed the eminently modular 606 Universal Shelving System in 1960. The big occasion is the legendary designer’s birthday: he was born 80 years ago today in Wiesbaden, Germany. Celebrate by treating yourself to Sophie Lovell‘s masterful monograph Dieter Rams: As Little Design As Possible (published last year by Phaidon) or a gorgeous poster of Rams’ famous “Ten Principles for Good Design,” available exclusively from Fab.com.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Skyscrapers in Seoul: this skyscraper with a pointy midriff is the second of two stories about buildings designed for the Yongsan International Business District in Seoul, South Korea, by architect Daniel Libeskind.

Harmony Tower will be located in the north-eastern corner of the new commercial district next to another skyscraper designed by architect Dominique Perrault and will contain offices on 38 of its 46 floors.

Sheltered gardens will line the southern and eastern facades, offering views out towards the nearby Han river.

The base of the building will also taper inwards to create a larger area of landscaping around the entrance.

See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects commissioned by developer DreamHub.

Here’s some more information from Studio Daniel Libeskind:

Harmony Tower

Harmony Tower, a project that is part of the new Yongsan International Business district (YIBD)development in Seoul, is an iconic, 21st century sustainable office tower that is 46 floors.

The design for the tower is inspired by YunDeung, traditional Korean paper lanterns. The concept is to create a tower as a faceted lantern, whose multiple planes reflect the sky and the earth and capture the light on its differing angles, creating a glowing gateway and beacon in the YIBD site.

The sculpted tower is subtly shaped by the urban context. The tower tapers at its base to create a feeling of space and openness for the pedestrian plaza. The form then reaches out in the middle of the tower to maximize the floor plates and Han River views and to create a sense of scale marking the gateway from the western entrance to the site. The tower then tapers back and up to its top to allow the most light and air onto the other towers around, creating a strong ascending peak to the tower. The tower form creates multiple perspectives, like a sculpture in the round, with an ever changing public profile responding specifically to the site.

The tower contains unique vertical winter gardens on the south and west facades, providing users access to natural ventilation and planted park settings at each of the 38 office floors. The gardens not only act as a special amenity to all the tenants, but also a buffer to the direct sunlight hitting the glass building. The gardens function as open, park space within the building, but also help to reduce the heat gain and allow the building to function more sustainably. Harmony Tower is a state of the art workplace, interweaving themes of nature, sustainability, and efficiency in a faceted, sculptural form.

Location: Seoul, South Korea
Building size: 100,000 sq.m
Structure: Concrete central core and floor slabs with steel columns and mega bracing
Client: Dream Hub, AMC – Yongsan Development Co., Ltd.

Structural engineer: ARUP
Mechanical / Electrical / Plumbing engineer: ARUP
Landscape architect: Martha Schwartz Partners
Lighting designer: Focus Lighting
Status: In design

Skyscrapers in Seoul: the first of two stories about buildings that architect Daniel Libeskind has designed for the Yongsan International Business District that he masterplanned for Seoul, South Korea, features three towers inspired by the movements of a Korean Buddhist dance.

Named Dancing Towers, the 41-storey skyscrapers will each have a curved body that the architect likens to the twisted sleeves of traditional Seung-Moo dancers’ costumes.

All three towers will be positioned on a single podium, which will house the shared foyer for 834 apartments on the upper storeys.

Just like SOM’s proposals nearby, the towers will contain structural columns within their curtain wall facades, so as not to interrupt the spaces within.

See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects commissioned by developer DreamHub.

Here’s a project description from Studio Daniel Libeskind:

Dancing Towers

Dancing Towers, a project that is part of the new Yongsan International Business District YIBD development in Seoul, is a mixed used development that consists of three 41 story residential towers,( a total of 834 total residential units) with amenities, retail, parking and a connecting commercial podium base.

The design for the Dancing Towers is inspired by the traditional Korean Buddhist Dance known as Seung-Moo. The subtle rotation of the towers creates the illusion they are dancing, as inspired by the long sleeves of the Seung-Moo dancer’s traditional costumes, gracefully propelled by the dancer’s movements. The towers are engineered with a unique structure of a central concrete core and alternating cantilevered fin walls to support the floors that create column free buildings that allow the forms to ‘dance’ and twist while opening up panoramic views from the apartment interiors.

While creating an interrelated composition, the location of the three towers in the site and each tower’s rotations are oriented to create maximum light and views toward the water, the YIBD project, the city of Seoul and the mountains beyond for the residents.

Location: Seoul, South Korea
Building size: 265,000 sq.m
Structure: Concrete central core with cantilevered concrete fin walls and floor slabs
Client: Dream Hub, AMC – Yongsan Development Co., Ltd.
Structural engineer: ARUP
Mechanical / Electrical / Plumbing engineer: ARUP
Landscape architect: Martha Schwartz Partners
Lighting designers: Focus Lighting
Status: In design

The National Stationery Show is the ultimate destination for a lot of small papergoods companies. At the show, they’ll be exposed to buyers, media and potential partners from across North America—contacts that could determine the future of their creative business enterprise. Happy Cactus Designs is a new company, less than a year old, and this is their first time at the big show. Proprietor Brannon Cullum has a good post on the Happy Cactus blog about her road to the NSS.

The name of a stationery company can go a long way in helping the success of a brand. The name should communicate the aesthetic style, appeal to its audience and denote quality. The Happy Cactus name suits the friendly illustrative style of their cards. Brannon explains the name:

So just where did the name for the design studio originate? While living in New York City, Brannon bought a tiny one-inch tall cactus to remind her of her Texas roots. With loving attention (and a lot of sunlight), the little cactus grew into a thriving plant…a very happy cactus indeed! Now in Texas, the happy cactus is enjoying the warm Texas sun. Just like the plant, Brannon’s goal for the studio is to take her tiny seed of an idea for a paper goods company and grow it into a line of products that bring color and happiness to everyone. 

Best wishes, Happy Cactus, and all the new companies debuting at the show!

Skyscrapers in Seoul: American architects Skidmore, Owings & Merrill have designed a skyscraper with glazed triangular facets for emerging commercial centre the Yongsan International Business District of Seoul, which we’ve been focussing on this week.

The Diagonal Tower will be a 343-metre-high office block on the north-eastern side of the district where fourteen other architects are also proposing high-rise developments.

Structural columns will be concealed within the building’s faceted glass skin, while a series of shading fins will help to reduce solar gain.

A web of netting will cloak a double height entrance lobby at the base of the tower, which will lead up to over 145,000 square metres of open-plan offices, a fitness centre, a cafe and a lounge in the penthouse to be shared by all the offices.

A small auditorium will be housed in an adjacent glazed cube covered in matching netting.

See more stories about the Yongsan International Business District, including a slideshow of all the projects within the masterplan designed by Daniel Libeskind for developer DreamHub.

SOM are also the architects of the tallest building in the world right now, the Burj Khalifa, which you can see images of here.

Here’s a more detailed explanation of the Diagonal Tower from SOM:

Diagonal Tower, Yongsan International Business District

Seoul, South Korea

Diagonal Tower is a 343-meter-tall office building in the Yongsan International Business District, a commercial and mixed use district planned for the center of Seoul, South Korea. The 62-story tower provides over 145,000 square meters of open office space, two double-height sky lobbies with a cafeteria and fitness center, and a penthouse executive lounge.

The project also includes two retail pavilions and a multifunctional auditorium, cubic in dimension, directly to the west of the tower. Diagonal Tower is distinctive for its rotated profile and integrated, energy-efficient enclosure. The tower commences at grade with a conventional square floor plate, which is rotated 45 degrees at one third the height of the tower and then rotated again at two thirds the height of the tower.

The resulting geometry offers varying octagonal floor plates and engages nearby landmarks. Instead of penetrating the interior of each floor plate, structural columns are integrated into the skin of the building. A megaframe carries loads diagonally along the folded edges of the tower’s faceted geometry and is supplemented by a set of vertical columns running along the facade at 12 meter spacing. The structural diagonal grid mitigates wind and seismic forces and uses 25% less steel than a conventionally framed building.

Sun shading fins, placed diagonally on each facet of the tower, vary in depth and spacing to achieve ideal shading targets. Overall, the repeating modularity of the structural and exterior wall profiles define a strikingly sculptural silhouette against the Yongsan skyline.

The ground floor lobby at the base of the tower is clad in a cable net wall, minimizing the appearance of the tower’s structural supports and creating a grand and inviting entrance to the building. The ceiling of the lobby slopes up and away from the core wall to hide the transferring columns, which allows the lobby to remain column-free with the exception of four corner piers. The piers, sloped ceiling and core walls are all clad in the same grey stone, providing the impression of monolithic stability at the base of the tower.

The building façade consists of a custom unitized curtain wall system with thermally broken aluminum framing and two-sided structurally-sealed, triple-insulated low-E glazing. Floor to ceiling glass units extend seamlessly to cover both vision and spandrel areas, and are broken only by a narrow horizontal track at each floor for the attachment of curtain-wall supported, aluminum fin shading devices.

Structural columns are integrated into the skin of the building; this effort not only creates an uninterrupted expanse of open space at each floor, but also intelligently balances the window-to-wall ratio to improve the building’s thermal performance. The tower will also be one of the first office building in Seoul to employ an integrated chilled beam cooling system.

Located to the west of the tower, a perfectly cubic 40m x 40mx 40m glass auditorium provides multifunctional space that can transform to offer a variety of spatial configurations. The exterior façade’s cable net wall system minimizes the wall’s structural members and exemplifies the concept of a pure glass volume. This concept is reinforced by the frit pattern on the glass, which not only reduces direct solar insolation, but also softens the cube into an abstract and ethereal volume, preventing it from becoming sterile and un-inviting.

An iconic solid mass is present within this ethereal glass enclosure; depending on the event within, this solid mass can open up and become transparent, offering passers-by views of the events inside. The openness on all four sides of the cube provides visual and physical connections to the Diagonal Tower, retail pavilions, and adjacent buildings.

Two small retail pavilions along the glass shaft boxes and trees of plaza landscape create neighborhood-scale spaces on the otherwise vast plazas between buildings, offering pedestrians and passers-by an attractive and friendly environment.