In this movie by film studio Stephenson/Bishop, Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto explains how he tried to combine nature and architecture when designing this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, which is open for three more weeks in London’s Kensington Gardens.
Built on the lawn outside the Serpentine Gallery, Sou Fujimoto‘s cloud-like pavilion comprises a grid of white poles that ascend upwards to form layered terraces with circles of transparent polycarbonate inserted to shelter from rain and reflect sunlight.
“From the beginning I didn’t think ‘I’d like to make a cloud’,” says Fujimoto, explaining how he tried to design a structure that would fit in with its surroundings. “I was impressed by the beautiful surroundings of Kensington Garden, the beautiful green, so I tried to create something that was melting into the green.”
“Of course the structure should be artificial so I tried to create something between architecture and nature; that kind of concept has been a big interest in my career so it is really natural to push forward with that concept for the future,” he adds.
Fujimoto also speaks about how he wanted to combine inside and outside space within the structure. “The transparency is quite important for me because you can feel the nature, the weather and the different climates, even from inside the pavilion,” he says.
Fujimoto is the youngest architect to design a Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. “It is kind of a dream for younger architects to be selected so I was excited, but at the same time it was kind of a big pressure ,” he said. “But I started to enjoy the whole situation and the whole challenge and for me, it was was a nice experience for the project to be abroad in a different situation than Japan.”
Après la vidéo et les images dévoilant l’idée du projet « 3D Printed Room », le studio Digital Grotesque nous propose de découvrir la construction et la mise en place d’une pièce magnifique entièrement imprimée en 3D. Un rendu époustouflant à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.
Trentemøller: Lost As stated on the SoundCloud page for Anders Trentemøller’s record label, Lost In My Room, his newly launched album Lost, is “yet another fuck-you to whatever genre you thought you had him boxed into.”…
Le studio français Fink a récemment dévoilé son showreel 2013 résumant avec talent et dynamisme les différentes réalisations de l’année 2013. De belles références diverses et variées démontrant une maîtrise des effets visuels et de la 3D. A découvrir en vidéo, sur la bande son de Nosaj Thing, dans la suite de l’article.
A collection of 1950s and 1960s products by designers including Dieter Rams, Arne Jacobsen and Dietrich Lubs for German electricals brand Braun are on display at the new Paul Smith store in London (+ slideshow).
Audio 1 compact system with record player (white version), 1962, and ‘kangaroo’ system audio stand, 1967, by Dieter Rams at Paul Smith Albemarle Street
Collectors of Braun Design products das programm curated a selection of vintage Braun products in fashion designer Paul Smith‘s recently extended store on Albemarle Street in London’s Mayfair district.
Record player by Dieter Rams, 1960
The emphasis of the small exhibition, titled White, is mainly on audio products such as radios, turntables and speaker units.
Atelier 3 / L 40 compact system and box speaker by Dieter Rams, 1962
“We’re showing 45 pieces, mostly 60s audio but also including some classic household designs,” said das programm director Peter Kapos.
PC4 record player by Dieter Rams, 1965
Dieter Rams was appointed director of Braun’s in-house design department in 1960 and began applying the standards established by the Ulm School of Design a year earlier.
RT 20 tischsuper table radio by Dieter Rams, 1961
Under his direction the company became renowned for producing rational and functionalist designs, which are widely credited as Apple creative director Jonathan Ive’s aesthetic reference for the computer company’s products.
“The influence of Braun Design on Apple design is well documented,” Kapos told Dezeen. “From the 2001 iPod onwards, Apple has been helping itself to all kinds of bits and bobs, producing a curiously accelerated collage of Braun Design.”
L 460 wall-mountable round speakers by Arne Jacobsen, 1967
Other Braun Design members are also represented in the collection. The oldest piece in the store is Hans Guglelot’s combined record player and radio from 1955, and homeware designs by Reinhold Weiss and Gerd Alfred Müller are also on show.
G 11 table radio by Hans Gugelot, 1955
The items will be displayed in the recently opened store until 7 October and Kapos will be giving tours of the exhibition in its final week – more details here.
Audio 1 compact system with record player (white version), 1962, and ‘kangaroo’ system audio stand, 1967, by Dieter Rams
Amidst the architectural and cultural ruins of post-war Germany, industrial designers considered their role in the task of reconstruction. In 1953 the Ulm school of design opened. It taught that rationally organised objects of daily use might serve as models for a more rational social form and thereby guide the maelstrom of productive forces to a more acceptable result. They called this utopian project ‘systems design’. The following year, the Braun Company approached the Ulm school with a brief to modernise their audio line. Designers Otl Aicher and Hans Guglelot, lecturers at the school, established the Braun style and produced the blueprint for a comprehensively integrated programm of household electronics.
The Ulm school is represented in the exhibition by two pieces: Gugelot’s G 11 / G 12 record player and radio combination, issued in the 1955 the inaugural year of Braun Design, and Gugelot and Rams’ SK 4 phonosuper of the following year. This pair of foundational objects are the first encountered by the visitor.
Prüfplatte A 1, unattributed, ca 1960
An in-house design department was established at Braun in 1960; Dieter Rams was appointed its director in 1961. You can see from the pieces on the bridge shelf how the Ulm style was both retained and transformed in the products issued after the services of Ulm freelancers had been dispensed with. Post-1960 Braun designs remain orderly and rational, according to functionalist principles. But the first designs’ rather Scandinavian-modern references to nature are replaced by a more severe and emphatically industrial material vocabulary.
Just as important was the transformation in the interrelation of individual designs. The Braun audio designs of the 1960s were no longer conceived as single items related to others in the programm by a more or less common aesthetic. Now, the program was thought of as a single integrated system consisting of functionally compatible elements under a fully unified aesthetic regime. In this way the entire Braun programm of the 1960s unfolded as a unitary modular system.
KF 21 coffee machine by Florian Seiffert, 1976
The examples presented in the main space have been selected to express the formal and functional unity and systematicity of the 60s Braun program. The audio designs of this period, all by Dieter Rams, may be divided into two groups: light weight turntables, small radios and speaker units, and larger more substantial system elements. The largest of these at the far end of the room is the Audio 1 integrated system sitting on the ‘kangaroo’ modular stand. Despite the formal variety, the distinctive characteristic of 1960s Braun Design is its overarching coherence. It all ‘locks’ together.
It’s interesting to think that at this time Dieter Rams was also drawing furniture designs on the same principles for production and sale by Vitsoe, then Vitsoe+Zapf. The idea was that audio design, furniture design (and toaster design for that matter) should fuse into a single interlocked whole – a total rational environment that we might imagine extending outwards to the design of buildings, districts and cities…
KM 3 mixer system by Gerd Alfred Müller, 1957
Because space is limited the emphasis of the exhibition is placed on audio products. However, the Braun program of the 1960s also encompassed extensive kitchen, misc. household, lighter, dry shaving and photography ranges. The pair of ‘Das Braun Programm’ posters by the till presents something of this scope.
As in the audio segment, these products related to every other as parts of a rational, aesthetically unified whole. Indeed, the graphic design of these posters itself, in its systematic arrangement on a grid, contributes to this unity, as did the design of every other piece of Braun printed material from packaging down to guarantee cards and instructions for use – see as examples the KF 1000 headphone and MX 1 111 child’s toy.
ABK 20 wall clock by Dietrich Lubs, 1985
Presented on the bay of shelves are a few iconic examples of Braun household products. Of these, Reinhold Weiss’ HL 1 multiwind desk fan and KMM 1 coffee grinder are particularly important. Weiss joined the Braun Company as a graduate of the Ulm School in 1960 and continued to practice systems design according to its original idea. Ram’s designs tended to be simple cubular forms. A tension between rational rigour and idiosyncrasy in the arrangement of control elements provides ‘interest’. Weiss’ designs, on the other hand, are both more fully abstract and three dimensional. The device is broken down into functionally discrete units – base, stem, motor block, fan head, cowl – that are then articulated as sculptural elements, a series of volumes, densities, textures and masses. The result is at once functionally and constructionally concrete, and highly abstract.
It’s interesting to compare Weiss’ functionalism with that of his colleague Gerd Alfred Müller, whose iconic KM 3 food processor sits on the top shelf. Müller articulates the functional elements of the device – motorblock/gearing/tool – with great clarity as distinct strata imposed upon a flowing organic form, a horizontally ordered series of cuts. This form encloses the bowl; notice how its lip aligns with the top edge of the gearing block. A distinctive feature of 1960s Braun Design is the fine balance struck between difference and identity. Rams, Weiss and Müller drew up designs with very distinct characters that nevertheless belonged unambiguously to a single programm.
Tonearmwaage tone arm scale by Dieter Rams, 1962
The period of Braun Design is defined as 1955 – 1995, beginning with the first of the modernist designs and ending when Dieter Rams stepped down as Director of the Design Department. However, our exhibition focuses almost entirely on designs issued before 1968. In 1968 the Gillette Company acquired a controlling share in Braun and thereafter stopped the economically irrational practice of cross-subsiding product lines. In particular, profits from the dry shaving sector, which made up the largest part of company earnings were no longer permitted to offset losses incurred by the grandiose design folly that was the Braun audio program.
Interesting as it was, outside a small group of German middle class intellectuals there just wasn’t the demand for it. Post-68 Braun Design was increasingly led by market research, which very quickly brought about the demise of the functionalist adventure in systems design. To be sure, great designs still continued to be produced at Braun after 1968. See for example the astonishing KF 21 coffee filter on the plinth opposite the shelves. But these tend to stand out as singular designs. Shaped by marketing requirements, what remained of the programm increasingly found itself reflecting existing conditions. Perhaps, the expansive ‘kangaroo’ system stand (of which only a small part is shown here) represents the last attempt at designing in a truly utopian mode, that is, one that reaches beyond what presently exists to something qualitatively new…
Under the present stewardship of Proctor and Gamble, owners of the Gillette Company, Braun continues to extend the company tradition of offering products of the highest quality in terms of design and manufacture. Its offering is now almost entirely restricted to personal grooming. Recently, a number of interesting discontinued products of the Braun Design period have been re-issued. Amongst these are Rams’ DW 30 digital watch of 1979, Dietrich Lubs’ AB 30 vs alarm clock and Rams and Lubs’ superb ET 66 calculator. These are displayed for sale in the till area.
The design office didid planned a temporary showroom for the BAUKNECHT brand, taking place at Hotel ADLON in Berlin. For this purpose, the principle o..
London Design Festival 2013: Lebanese designer Najla El Zein has sent us this movie showing her 5000 spinning paper windmills being installed in a doorway at the V&A museum in London (+ movie).
In the movie, Zein says that the installation aims to make visitors feel and hear that they are transitioning between two spaces. “It defines an exaggeration of a specific sensorial moment that each one of us experiences throughout our daily lives,” she says.
“The wind portal tries to grasp and emphasise common emotions and senses that are often forgotten,” she adds.
The film also shows the designer creating each of the windmills by hand-folding paper and fixing them in place with hand-sculpted wooden joints. Each windmill is then attached to the vertical poles with 3D-printed clips.
A computerised wind system controls which windmills spin at any time by letting air escape through tiny holes in the uprights. “Different speeds of wind were programmed, resulting in different speeds, sounds and feelings,” explains the designer.
Later in the film, visitors can be seen walking through the two parted gates, which although static, appear to be shut when viewed from certain angles. “According to the angle you are positioned, one would perceive the gate as being closed. As soon as you approach it the gate seems to open up,” Zein says.
Photography and films are courtesy of Najla El Zein Studio.
Here’s a full project description from the designer:
The Wind Portal
The Wind Portal is a walk-through installation that represents a transition space from an inside to an outside area. It defines an exaggeration of a specific sensorial moment that each one of us experiences throughout our daily lives.
Wind and sound are the elements that makes us understand our environmental context.
The Wind Portal installation is shaped as a monumental gate of eight metre-high and composed of thousands of paper windmills that spin, thanks to an integrated wind system.
The aim was to make visitors feel, hear and become aware of transitioning through two spaces.
The wind portal tries to grasp and emphasise on common emotions and senses that are often forgotten.
Its architectural shape works as an illusion effect where, according to the angle you are positioned from, one would perceive the gate as being closed. As soon as you approach it the gate seems to open up.
The installation blends in different technologies and materials such as hand-folded paper windmills, hand-sculpted wooden joints, 3D printed clips, and a complex wind and light computerised system.
Different flows of wind are programmed resulting into different speeds, sounds and feelings. The light, which seems to play with the wind flow, gives us an impression of a breathing piece. Indeed, the gate breathes in and out, where wind is its main source of life.
Studio team: Najla El Zein, Dina Mahmoud, Sara Moundalek, Sarah Naim Lighting designer and automation: Maurice Asso and Hilights
Swedish firm Tengbom has designed a ten square-metre wooden house for students.
Linda Camara and Pontus Åqvist of Tengbom architects worked in collaboration with students from Lund University in Sweden to create the living unit, which is meant to be “affordable and sustainable”.
“Through an efficient layout and the use of cross-laminated wood as a construction material, the rent is reduced by 50 percent and the ecological impact and carbon footprint is also significantly reduced,” said Camara.
Inside the unit there is a small kitchenette with shelving and green storage cupboards, a small bathroom and a loft for sleeping that is accessed via small wooden steps fixed to the wall.
Two window shutters on the lower level can be folded down to use as a dining table and a desk. Under the loft area there is a hammock.
“The main issue was to design really smart units with no unnecessary space,” Camara told Dezeen. “Only well-designed space is afforded when designing for small living.”
The unit is constructed from cross-laminated wood that was sawn and shaped by timber firm Martinsons and mounted on site by Swedish building firm Ulestedt.
“Since this is a fairly new material on the Swedish market, we wanted to show the qualities, such as the possibilities to make the non-rectangular forms,” Camara said. “It is easier to make round corners than sharp 90-degrees.”
In 2014, 22 of the student units will be built and ready for students in Sweden to move into.
A student flat of only 10 square metres is currently exhibited at the Virserum Art Museum in the county Småland, Sweden.
Tengbom Architects has designed a student flat for students which is affordable, environmental-friendly and smart both in terms of design and choice of materials. The project is a collaboration with wood manufacturer Martinsons and real estate company AF Bostäder.
To meet the needs of students in a sustainable, smart and affordable way was the key questions when Tengbom in collaboration with students at the University of Lund was designing this student flat of 10 square meters. The unit is now displayed in Virserum Art Museum. In 2014, 22 units will be built and ready for students to move into.
To successfully build affordable student housing requires innovative thinking and new solutions. The area in each unit is reduced from current requirement, 25 square meters to 10 square meters through legal consent. This truly compact-living flat still offers a comfortable sleeping-loft, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden with a patio. Through an efficient layout and the use of cross laminated wood as a construction material the rent is reduced by 50 % and the ecological impact and carbon footprints is also significantly reduced.
Energy efficiency is a key issue when designing new buildings. Choosing right material and manufacturing methods is vital to minimise the carbon emission and therefore wood was chosen for its carbon positive qualities, and as a renewable resource it can be sourced locally to minimize transportation. The manufacturer method was chosen because of is flexible production and for it’s assembling technique which can be done on site to reduce construction time.
By exhibiting this well planned and sustainable student flat we want to challenge the conventional views and show new ways of thinking. What is good living? What materials can we use? To meet the future in a sustainable way we must be innovative in all aspects and have the courage to break new ground, says Linda Camara at Tengbom Architects.
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