Morag Myerscough’s library pavilion

Graphic artist Morag Myerscough has created a pop-up pavilion to host an 18-week creative residency programme at the new Library of Birmingham.

Myerscough’s pavilion will host a new event each week as part of the library’s Discovery Season: an arts programme curated by Capsule to celebrate the opening of the £189 million building, which houses a recording studio, an outdoor amphitheatre and gallery space as well as more than 800,000 books.

Hand-painted in Myerscough’s bold neon style, it features a series of words designed to reflect the programme’s diversity and will sit in the building’s foyer.

Artists taking over the space between September and December this year include Brian Homer, who will display photos of local residents in a re-imagining of the 1979 Handsworth Self Portrait Project; paper artist Yvette Hawkins, who has teamed up with digital media artist Benjamin French to launch an interactive book browsing installation, and illustration collective Girls Who Draw, which has designed a museum of mythical creatures.

Capsule has also curated a ‘Discovery Trail’ – a series of artworks that will lead visitors around the library and to its various collections. Laura Kate Chapman has decorated the Children’s Library and will lead drawing workshops for families; animator Matt Watkins has created an animation based on images and characters from The Audubon Book of American Birds (apparently the world’s most expensive book) and Su Blackwell has designed a paper sculpture referencing the building’s Shakespeare Collection (below).

The trail and events are part of an initiative to make the library a cultural and social venue, says Capsule co-founder Lisa Meyer.

“The 18-week residency is really a statement of intent – it’s designed to show visitors that the building is somewhere to have fun and learn. We wanted to give a flavour of lots of different creative practices but we also wanted to celebrate the idea of people making things themselves such as publishing, drawing and bookbinding, and showcase a number of organisations in the region,” she adds.

Myerscough’s bright and cheerful designs have been applied to a series of public spaces in London and Birmingham – she worked with Vital Arts on transforming the children’s wing at the Royal London Hospital, and has designed large-scale wall graphics for schools in both cities – you can read an interview with her from the May issue of Creative Review here.

The library’s Discovery Season will open next week and runs until December 22. For more info, visit libraryofbirmingham.com

The September issue of Creative Review is available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money too. Details here.

Private House in Suffolk by Ström Architects

Following our interview with Ström Architects about the value of photo-realistic visualisations, the firm sent us a set of images by rendering guru Peter Guthrie showing a house proposed for Suffolk, England (+ slideshow).

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Two miles from the coast in the southern English county of Suffolk, the 2.5 hectare site is located in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and surrounded by farmland.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

British studio Ström Architects designed the house to be built over foundations of a previous structure that burnt down, beside an existing outdoor pool.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

It will be orientated at an angle to the ruins, to make a clear distinction between the two and to face the best views.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

“The building is set like this so that it can be read on its own and thus touch the existing site lightly,” said the architects.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Flooding is prevalent in the area so the home will be raised 1.5 metres off the ground, with a ramped walkway following the geometry of the old building connecting it to the garden.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

The design is long and thin to reference the local vernacular, with glazing along most of the west elevation. Dark wood panels will cover rest of this facade, while Corten steel is to clad the other three sides.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

All the rooms are on the ground floor apart from the master bedroom and bathroom, which will fit into the small volume on the roof. Construction is due to start later this year.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

The renderings were produced by visualisation artists Peter Guthrie, who is considered one of the leading exponents of photo-realistic architectural imagery. Guthrie is the mentor of UK architect Henry Goss, whose renderings of a proposed house in southern England stunned Dezeen readers earlier this month. Read our interview with Goss.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

Check out Goss’s renderings of another English house by Ström Architects and read the interview in which the studio claims that investing in quality computer generated imagery (CGI) is “more effective than advertising”.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects

We recently published an archive of all the most convincing renders on Dezeen, which includes CGIs of a Norwegian hunting lodge, the new National Gallery of Greenland and Renzo Piano’s The Shard in London.

See more hyper-realistic renderings »
See more buildings in Suffolk »
See more architecture and design in England »

More information from Ström Architects follows.


Private House, Suffolk, UK

The site is located in Suffolk two miles inland the coast, and lies within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site itself forms part of an overall land ownership of 2.5 hectares surrounded by agricultural land.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
Site plan – click for larger image

The current site has foundations, ruins and some low walls from a house that burned down eight years ago; there is also an existing outdoor pool. Immediately to the west of the pool and ruins, there is a small area of open grass that runs up to the edge of a beautiful copse of mature oak trees. The site is located on the edge of flood zone two and three, and requires a raised floor level 1.5 metres above the old cottage.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
Ground floor plan – click for larger image

The clients’ brief was for a country house – ‘a dream in a wood’, a peaceful place to relax, regenerate, and think of new ideas. The existing site with the pool, ruins and low walls has a very strong presence, and we wanted to keep this as an important part of the site. The design is linear and has picked up on the building form – the ‘long cottage’ found in the locality, and we see the design as an evolution of the longitudinal cottage.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
First floor plan – click for larger image

The building sits above the ruins and the edge of the pool, as to respect the current site, but also to deal with the raised floor level that is required, due to the potential flood risk. The building is also set like this so that it can be read on its own, and thus touch the existing site lightly. The building is orientated towards the west-south-west, and sits on an angle above the existing ruins facing the best views as well as creating a clear juxtaposition of geometry to the ruins.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
West elevation – click for larger image

A two-storey element punctures through the roof, and contains a master bedroom suite at the first floor. This is positioned towards the existing coach house, thus minimising the impact of the building on the more open site to the south. This two storey element is recessed from both the west and east facades as to reduce the scale and the appearance of the building.

Private House in Suffolk by Strom Architects
East elevation – click for larger image

The building is entered via a bridge that spans from higher ground and above the ruins. This sets up the whole philosophy of the house, even before you actually enter, as well as successfully dealing with safe egress form the house to higher land in case of a flood.

The post Private House in Suffolk
by Ström Architects
appeared first on Dezeen.

Software Programmer Schools Industrial Designers. This, Folks, is How You Design a Keyboard

code-keyboard-01.jpg

For many of us, keyboards are the most important input device we own. Bloggers, journalist and coders can’t get by with touchscreens. But one programmer, California-based Jeff Atwood, found himself continually dissatisfied with the physical design of every keyboard he used. So he teamed up with WASD Keyboards, a California-based producer of specialty keyboards, to design his own. And it appears to be pretty damned awesome.

Atwood might be a software developer, but he’s got the attention to fine detail of a great industrial designer. His CODE Keyboard addresses every one of his woes with materials, intelligent design and careful thought.

code-keyboard-02.jpg

Haptics. Atwood doesn’t like the spongy feel of pressing a plastic key attached to a rubber bubble. Heck, I don’t think any of us do, but he and Kwong actually did something about it. The CODE features mechanical keyswitches with a “solid actuation force.”

Materials. The keyswitches are mounted to a steel backplate “for a rock solid feel.” The keyboard weighs nearly 2.5 pounds.

User Experience. The steel backplate is painted white and the markings on each key are precisely placed to provide completely even LED backlighting. You can choose from seven different backlighting levels or turn it off completely, and the keyboard will remember your preference.

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Pirate Themed Scanner Hospital

L’hôpital presbytérien Morgan Stanley Children de New-York innove en réalisant une décoration en collaboration avec GE sur le thème « pirate » autour de son nouveau scanner. Une belle façon de rassurer les enfants, qui remporte l’adhésion des parents à découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.

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The Conference, Part Two: Phones with feelings, our multiple media personalities and more at Scandinavia’s largest technology and innovation conference

The Conference, Part Two


In Part One, we wrote about The Conference’s theme of taking grassroots action in media—people doing it for themselves. Another persistent subject, which kept rearing its futuristic head, was the concept of expressive technology. In contrast…

Continue Reading…

The True Story Behind Jeffrey Stephenson’s Art Deco ‘Flightline’ PC Tower, by Alfred Poor

AlfredEastonPoor-COMP.jpg

My grandfather, Alfred Easton Poor, was a New York City architect with many major projects to his credit, including the Jacob Javits Federal Building in Manhattan and the restoration and extension of the US Capitol Building’s East Front in Washington, DC. The Wright Brothers Memorial was his earliest major design win, and perhaps his most visible. One of my treasured possessions is a letter from Orville Wright to my grandfather, thanking him for a print of a photograph he had taken of the memorial.

It was a fitting project, as he was an early aviator himself. He learned to fly when in high school, but was too young to enter combat when the World War broke out. Instead, he went down to the Florida Keys where he taught pilots to fly floatplanes. For World War II, he was too old to fight, and spent at least part of the war overseeing aircraft production in Ohio.

AEPoor-WrightLetter.jpg

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“Working during an economic crisis is quite exciting” – Job Smeets

Movie: in our second video interview with Job Smeets of Studio Job, the artist discusses the recent economic crisis but claims that, unlike many in the “design art” world, his studio’s work has not been negatively affected by it.

"Working during an economic crisis is quite exciting" - Job Smeets
Job Smeets, founder of Studio Job

“I sometimes talk with young designers who are starting their careers; I would not like to be in their shoes,”says Smeets, who was speaking at Moooi’s Unexpected Welcome exhibition in Milan.

“Having said that, when I started Studio Job, I didn’t care a thing about the economy. I was involved in trying to make a statement in design or art.”

He continues: “But being in a crisis when you’re already ten years old is quite exciting. We had the big advantage of not having to slow down our business. There is still a lot of interest in our pieces.”

"Working during an economic crisis is quite exciting" - Job Smeets

Studio Job has been at the forefront of the “design art” world, where limited edition and one-off design pieces are sold to collectors as pieces of art, for over ten years. Smeets says that the marketplace has become much less crowded since the crisis.

“A lot of our colleagues in the art or design business have disappeared,” he explains. “They came up very quickly because they saw there was a market and they went away very quickly because they saw there wasn’t a market anymore. But Studio Job already had a body of work by then.”

"Working during an economic crisis is quite exciting" - Job Smeets

Being a small company with a worldwide reputation helped Studio Job steer through the crisis and take advantage of emerging markets in the east, Smeets claims.

“The market changed because, all of a sudden, the USA wasn’t the biggest market anymore. But we are a very small ship; we are lean and mean. A completely new market appeared in the Middle East, in Asian countries and in Russia.”

He concludes: “I don’t think our work changed [because of the economy], so that’s good.”

"Working during an economic crisis is quite exciting" - Job Smeets

All the designs featured in the movie are by Studio Job. Photography by R. Kot, D. Stier, L. Blonk, A. Blommers / N. Schumm, A. Meewis, Moooi, Lensvelt.

See more stories about Studio Job »
See all our Milan 2013 coverage »
Watch our Dezeen and MINI World Tour video reports from Milan »

The post “Working during an economic crisis
is quite exciting” – Job Smeets
appeared first on Dezeen.

Ask Unclutterer: One person’s gift is your latest frustration

Reader SK submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

We have recently moved into a smaller apartment and have uncluttered most of our belongings … My problem is that my parents recently gifted us a new vacuum cleaner, complete with cord, attachments, and replaceable belts. We are pretty happy with our little cordless rechargeable vacuum and told my parents so — bookending this information with thanks and appreciation to be polite. My dad insisted that this new vacuum is better — picks up more dirt, etc. We don’t really care. Normally, this is a no brainer, say thank you and quietly return the gift — but Dad comes up every week to watch my daughter and will notice and comment on the new vacuum’s absence. (Mom’s already said she’ll give me the receipt and it’s fine if we want to return it) I’ve already explained the no space situation, but he dismissed the concern. Returning this thing is going to cause some hurt feelings and awkward, difficult conversations — please help!

This is one of those situations where I can’t give you a “do this and be happy” response. But, I’ll give you some ideas that might be able to spark a solution that will be the right one for you and your family.

Option 1: Ask your parents to care and store the vacuum in their home since you don’t have the space in yours. You can borrow it when you really need it for twice-yearly deep cleanings or before a party, but the rest of the time your parents can benefit from having it and using it in their home. Since your dad comes to visit once a week, you must live close to each other, so transporting it shouldn’t be that big of deal. And, if your dad balks and says he already has a vacuum and doesn’t need this fancy one for his house, he’ll at least be more empathetic to your situation.

Option 2: Return it and immediately have a conversation with your dad explaining that you returned it and why. Offer to give him his money back. His feelings will be hurt, but he’s a grownup and will eventually get over it. You’re not returning his love, you’re returning a vacuum.

Option 3: Buck up and keep the vacuum. To find space for the new vacuum, go through your home and decide what you value less than your relationship with your dad, and get rid of that item and the rechargeable vacuum you currently own. Then, let go of your animosity. Use the new vacuum and think fond memories of your father and your relationship with him.

Option 4: Check the comments to this post for even more suggestions from our readers.

Thank you, SK, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. I’m honestly not sure what I would do in this situation. I hope that you find the right solution for you and your family.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Let Unclutterer help you get your home or office organized. Subscribe to our helpful product shipments from Quarterly today.

Foodscapes Photography

Après l’excellente série Bodyscapes, voici les paysages de Carl Warner basés uniquement sur des denrées alimentaires : biscuits, pain ou encore légumes deviennent montagnes, maisons ou visages. Le travail de cet Arcimboldo moderne est résolument féérique. Une très belle série à voir dans l’article.

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Coop Himmelb(l)au plans sports resort for abandoned Chinese quarry

News: Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au has landed a commission to design a winter sports resort and water park across an abandoned cement-mining quarry and lake near Changsha, China (+ slideshow).

Located at the Dawang Mountain Resort outside the city, the Deep Pit Ice and Snow World will be constructed from cliff to cliff across the old quarry, which itself will be transformed into an artificial landscape of islands, pools and pathways.

Dawang Mountain Resort Changsha by Coop Himmelb(l)au

Coop Himmelb(l)au‘s competition-winning proposals combine an ice world and indoor skiing centre with a large water park. Highlights will include a cantilevered outdoor swimming pool, set to form a 60-metre waterfall into the pit of the quarry, while an upside-down glass cone will bring light through the centre of the structure.

A 100-metre-high hotel will accompany the resort, on the opposite side of a large public plaza. It will offer over 300 rooms, boasting views towards Tongxi Lake and Dawang Mountain.

Dawang Mountain Resort Changsha by Coop Himmelb(l)au

Coop Himmelb(l)au is led by architect Wolf D. Prix. Past projects include a church with steel whirlpools on the roof in Austria and a contorted steel conference centre in China. See more Coop Himmelb(l)au projects »

We also recently revealed designs for a cave hotel underway in a water-filled quarry elsewhere in China. See more architecture in China »

Dawang Mountain Resort Changsha by Coop Himmelb(l)au

Here’s a project description from Coop Himmelb(l)au:


Ice World and Five Star Hotel, Dawang Mountain Resort
Changsha, China, 2013

The Deep Pit Ice and Snow World is located in the Dawang Mountain Resort Area near the city of Changsha. The project combines an Entertainment Ice World with an Indoor Ski Slope, a Water Park and supporting restaurant and shopping facilities with a total gross floor area of 120,000m².

The building volume is integrated into a beautiful landscape scenery and positioned directly on top of a historical cement mining quarry pit and lake. In the design solution towards the South and East, the existing quarry pit is revealed and the sculpted shell of the Snow and Ice World spans 170 meters from cliff to cliff over a sunken and hanging garden creating a new functional leisure space of islands, water, cliffside pathways and ramps connecting the building to this natural heritage. This unique framed open space in between architecture and landscape is also characterised through an impressive central glass cone providing controlled natural daylight down through the Ice World structure and on to the islands and water surfaces.

A cantilevered outdoor swimming pool is part of the Water Park attractions and creates a 60m high waterfall into the quarry pit. From the inside the leisure functions of the Snow and Ice World engage the space of the quarry pit with views through large glass façades to the natural cliff faces and hanging gardens, also with overviews to the water pools and islands below. At the same time visitors walking or standing on the Cliffside Pathways can also look into the building through the transparent façade; hence an interactive visual contact with the interior of the Snow and Ice World is created establishing more excitement and maximising the existing value of the industrial heritage.

A separate sculptural 100m high tower on the South end of the site hosts a 5 Star-Hotel and is connected to the Ice World via a Grand Garden Plaza. Arriving from the city of Changsha over Pingtang Avenue, the Hotel tower will be the most significant iconic landmark for the entire Dawang Mountain Tourism Resort Centre. It offers 270 high-class single and double bed suites, 60 Executive Suites with an Executive Club Lounge and a 6-room Presidential Suite, all with impressive views to Tongxi Lake, Dawang Mountain and into the Ice & Snow World. A spacious central Lobby around the tower core opens up into the service plinth containing a bar and restaurant on level one, flexible and multifunctional conference areas on level two and the fitness and spa and beauty facilities on level three. The façade of the Fashion Hotel Tower is a specially designed, highly economical system providing state-of-the-art sun shading, natural ventilation and a unitised, quick construction. The element façade system offers a maximum of flexibility to the inside room layout and allows a homogeneous appearance over the exterior facade.

The post Coop Himmelb(l)au plans sports resort
for abandoned Chinese quarry
appeared first on Dezeen.