Hasta La Ideas

Situé à l’intérieur du W Hotel Montreal, ce « Wunderbar Lounge » est un espace de détente pensé par BPC. Avec d’excellents choix de design ainsi qu’un jeu de couleurs du plus bel effet, cette création inspirée par les quatre saisons est à découvrir grâce aux clichés de Stéphane Groleau dans la suite.

Walls surrounding this property showroom in Chongqing, China, were designed by architects PURE Design as triangular planes with origami-like folds (+ slideshow).

Located on the side of the hill within the Hong’en Temple Forest Park, the Chongqing Greenland Clubhouse comprises two storeys, which include a boxy lower level with transparent glass walls and a more sculptural upper level clad with zinc.

The sloping ground allowed PURE Design to add entrances on both levels of the building. On the lower floor, visitors arrive at a reception area for the sales centre and offices, while the upper entrance leads into an exhibition gallery.

A river runs past the south elevation, so walls are glazed on both levels to afford views out across the water towards the city skyline.

A spiral staircases connects the levels, plus the lowest floor opens out to a patio seating area on the east side of the building.

The building will initially function as a sales centre for the Chongqing Greenland Real Estate Development Company, but could be converted for use as a restaurant and clubhouse in the future.

Construction in and around China has led to the construction of a number of new showrooms for property developers that we’ve reported on, including an extremely pointy pavilion in Tianjin and a building with a rampart-like facade in Singapore.

See more new architecture in China, including a 300-room hotel in one of the country’s oldest cities.

Photography is by Shu He.

Here’s a project description from PURE Design:

The clubhouse is located halfway up the south side of the mountain in Hong’en Temple Forest Park, Chongqing, facing the Jialing River. It is one of twenty-three commercial buildings, initially used as a real estate sales centre for the Greenland Bund Center project. Designed as a medium for dialogue between the river and mountain, the spatial experience through the building reflects the unique qualities of the dynamic terrain.

Due to the one storey height difference between the mountainside entrance and the terrace overlooking the river, the building is composed of two floors. The second level consists of the main entrance, and is primarily used as the real estate exhibition space, containing multimedia presentations and a river view experience. The first floor functions as a sales centre, containing models of the properties and sales spaces. It is also connected to the model homes.

In terms of architecture, the form of the first level is conceived from a glass box, pristine and sturdy. On the second level, the side facing the mountain utilizes stretched triangular shapes to create an undulating contour line, echoing the silhouette of the mountains. Additionally, the heavy gray colour of the external zinc cladding integrates the architecture with the city. In contrast, the surface facing the river is tranquil and lithe, reminiscent of a crystal case; its translucency presents little disturbance to the river scenery while allowing a complete view of the river from the interior of the building. On this basis, the visitor is led on a winding path containing seven different experiences from the second floor entrance to the first floor terrace. Let each visitor experience the beauty of the medium between the site and its surroundings, composed of an infinity pool, river, triangular form, courtyard, and crystal case.

Above: exploded axonometric diagram

Project: Chongqing Greenland Clubhouse
Location: Chongqing, China
Completion: September 2012
Area: 1100m2
Client: Chongqing Greenland Real Estate Development Co.
Design Firm: PURE Design LLC.
Structural Engineer: Shanghai Baoye Construction Group Corp.
Landscape Design: Collective Landscape Design LLC.
Interior Design: MoHen Design International

Above: site plan – click for larger image

Above: lower level plan – click for larger image

Above: upper level plan – click for larger image

Above: long section – click for larger image

Above: cross section – click for larger image

The post Chongqing Greenland Clubhouse
by PURE Design appeared first on Dezeen.

Do you love books? I mean, do you love books with paper pages? Do you enjoy the feel of turning the pages? Do you relish that experience? While digital books offer the same content as their paper counterparts, the experience is not exactly the same, is it? You can’t smell the paper. You can’t feel the paper’s texture. I used to think that it was these nuances that made books so difficult to let go. But, could it be more than that?

The author of the blog Epic Writer summed up the complex relationship she has with books (and that many people have with books) in her post Show Me Your Book Clutter:

The problem is I have so many books I want to read. Or, that I need to read. It’s funny how varied the genres are–from reference to family history to novels to religious to just about everything. Aside from my cluttered side table, I have digital and paper clutter where I have recorded books I want to read. From my “wants” list on Goodreads.com to titles scribbled on scraps of paper, I am overwhelmed with the amount of books I will get to someday. Even with feeling almost buried by it all, I have no desire to change. I love books. I want to see books everywhere.

I also discovered that how one selects a book to purchase seemed almost as important as the book itself. From Dell Smith’s post on the blog Beyond the Margins, The Psychology of Books: Why We Read What We Read:

Buying and reading books are deeply emotional and personal acts. Your choices of reading material are based on an intricate and truly limitless combination of marketing influences and mercurial emotions. This goes for both buying books and deciding which book to read next. Two different things, but closely related as each is influenced by a mysterious algorithm of instinct and urge, want and need, stimulus both external and internal. Your desire to buy and read a book uncovers the dark hinterland of your soul. Your choices are often a reflection of your id.

Clearly, people love books and everything about them. But, it is possible keep a reasonable number so that they don’t contribute to the clutter in your living spaces. As challenging as it may be to let your books go, if they are truly meaningful to you, you won’t let them languish haphazardly on bookshelves and nightstands. Otherwise, they would simply be taking up space and you wouldn’t benefit from having them.

And, if your books feel like old friends, then it would seem like a one-sided relationship if they simply lay about your home, untouched and waiting to be read someday. Most people tend to interact with their friends, to call them on the phone, and even meet them for coffee. So, instead of waiting for some far-off day to eventually read (or finish) that book that you will probably never read, why not pass it on to someone else who would appreciate it? Like an interesting movie or new restaurant, books are meant to be shared with others. When you share (let go), you’ll be creating new memories (that you can capture with pictures or record in your journal).

The books you choose to have in your life can indeed be very meaningful to you. They may very well be an extension of who you are, of who you aspire to be. You can honor them by being selective about the ones you purchase and by keeping your collection in order. Then you wouldn’t have to choose between enjoying them and having a uncluttered space.

Need help getting organized? Buy the DRM-free audiobook version of Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week today for only $8.99.

Disney Studios présente le trailer du prochain film d’animation « Planes », reprenant l’univers visuel de Cars dans le domaine aérien. Dans ce film 3D dont la sortie est prévue le 9 octobre, le petit avion Dusty va devoir surpasser sa peur de l’altitude pour évoluer au sein des avions les plus rapides au monde.

It has been said over and over again that we now live in a service economy. For most developed countries, that means more than 70% of their GDP is driven by the service sector. For the not so developed ones, the number can range from 60–70%—still pretty high. In fact, the lowest sector-based GDP income countries are Saudi Arabia (31.1%) , Indonesia (38.8%), United Arab Emirates (39.8%), China (44.6%) and Iran (48.2%). Meanwhile, the rest of the globe is running more than half of its economic machine solely on service oil.

Before you act surprised about China being on the lower-end of this list, I should add that they expect a 4.5 points increase on their service sector GDP by the end of 2015. That, in numbers, is huge. This is not a coincidence—rather, it is a pattern that runs on top of every economy that is serious about putting itself on the development runaway. There’s a clear product-to-services economic shift taking place and it is silently, or not so, affecting the way we live and work.

In some ways, we do know what that means. Metaphorically speaking, it means that we are becoming a software-based economy while industry steadily moves away from its manufacture smoky days and grabs a slice of the digital-era pie in nearly every sector. It also means that we, as consumers, are more willing to trade possession for access and that we expect to engage in relationships instead of short-term transactions when we buy.

What about design?

Economical shifts are not new to design. In fact, industrial design was born out of a shockwave caused by the mother of all economical shifts: the Industrial Revolution. The early Bauhaus movement was about creating a new breed of professionals called industrial designers. These were people who could both look back at the artisan mindset and look forward to the new industry, not aside or against it. In order to do that, this new breed had to integrate arts and business thinking, yes, business thinking, as production was the imperative business model those days. Ok, let’s call it “production thinking.”

Despite the recent explosion of fancy design suffixes, real design was never alienated from business. No, I’m not talking about art or the shallow exploration of design in advertising. Instead, real design, since its early days, has always been about bringing a human perspective to any system in order to find opportunities to create positive impact, and, at the same time, keep a steady and sharp eye on business profitability and/or execution viability.

Returning to the present, we are now living the next shockwave. I’m talking about an economy that has moved from the commercialization of hard-goods to a more dematerialized state where people exchange electrons and borrow thing from one another instead of owning it—an economic system where it is possible to thrive whether or not you sit at an industrial plant. A system where David-like startups are seriously threatening gigantic marble dinosaurs by rethinking the way they serve their customers.

Alright. It is what it is, and gosh, thanks for the most of it. But that being said, what are the new skills and knowledge we are going to need in order to keep designing for this new world?

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