As Miami heats up with art and design happenings, writer Nancy Lazarus looks to Art Basel’s home country for a look at how W Hotels is schussing into the ski resort market.
Ski-in and ski-out access is de rigueur among alpine enthusiasts, particularly those who trek to the vast, steep slopes of Switzerland. The new W Verbier and The Residences at W Verbier offer just the ticket for avid downhillers and après-ski fans, with a prime location at the base of the mountain’s Medran gondola. Though to get there they may have to navigate past St. Bernards, either via the St. Bernard Express regional train or the Great St. Bernard Pass mountain road.
The W brand’s first Swiss property covers all terrains, with state-of-the-art lodgings, spa, restaurant, bars, and cafe. Much like Verbier’s four valleys ski area, the W resort is laid out in a series of four chalet-style wooden buildings interconnected by glass atria that feature climbing walls. W’s parent company, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, worked with Les Trios Rocs, the owners of the luxury development project.
“We wanted to bring the location to life in a W way,” said Ted Jacobs, W Hotels’ VP of global design, during a recent stateside press preview. The brand partnered with Dutch design agency Concrete Architectural Associates on the lodgings and with Spanish Michelin-star chef Sergi Arola on the cuisine. continued…
Manchester branding company Squad has designed an identity and brand guidelines for a flood awareness campaign launched by the Environment Agency.
Squad founders Robert Gray and David Barraclough were asked to create a flood awareness brand identity – much like the Fire Kills and Think campaigns – and create a set of guidelines that can be used by local organisations and support groups to raise awareness of flood safety in high risk areas.
The company devised a brand message, Floods Destroy – Be Prepared, and a logo featuring a thin blue line which represents a waterline. The line can also be applied to stationery, stickers and images.
“The agency’s brief was to create a simple idea that can be used by third party organisations such as charities and local support groups who don’t have access to art studios or professional printers” explains Gray. “Flooding is a very local issue, but they wanted to create a national identity for flood awareness, rather than have these groups create their own disparate materials,” he adds.
The wording of the campaign message is based on research conducted in local communities: the tone had to be serious but less severe than fire and road safety campaigns, says Gray, as while flooding does kill, the damage it causes is often to homes and possessions.
The straight blue line has been used to dramatic effect in sample imagery created by Squad which features stock shots retouched using basic editing tools.
“We limited ourselves to the standard tools people were likely to have available – most won’t have a big photography spend,” says Barraclough. “We’ve already seen people apply their own effects online and on Twitter, and they seem to have really embraced the idea. We hope people will continue to use it – we wanted to create a platform for action, rather than a pristine brand image,” he adds.
“It’s been very different to a lot of projects we’ve worked on – most are structured around bought and paid for media but for this, we came up with the idea and have tried to inspire people about how to use it,” adds Gray. “It’s a very grassroots model, which proved quite an interesting learning process for us and interesting in terms of how future public awareness campaigns could be structured,” he adds.
Since the campaign launched last week, the Environment Agency has set up a Twitter hashtag #floodaware, allowing other groups to post their own imagery and information. The Met Office and The AA have also begun to use the logo and blue line in flood communications, says Barraclough.
While it would have been nice to see even more creative produced for the campaign, Squad has designed a simple, effective set of guidelines that should help local groups and residents deliver more coherent communications in areas where flooding is a real concern, and the brand message is clear, concise and memorable.
Classic sports cars appear to be frozen as they explode in this series of images by Swiss artist Fabien Oefner (+ slideshow).
Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé (1954) image from the Disintegration series
Oefner deconstructed scale models of 1950s and 1960s sports cars and photographed the parts individually. He then digitally arranged them to create an image that makes it look as if a life-sized car is exploding.
Jaguar E-Type (1961) image from the Disintegration series
“What you see in these images, is a moment that never existed in real life,” said Oefner. “What looks like a car falling apart is in fact a moment in time that has been created artificially by blending hundreds of individual images together.”
Ferrari 250 GTO (1962) image from the Disintegration series
The artist sketched where the individual parts would be placed before each model, containing over a thousand components, was taken apart piece by piece. Titled Disintegration, the series includes a 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé, a 1961 Jaguar E-Type and a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.
Sketch for the Disintegration series
To set up the shots, Oefner arranged the pieces with fine needles and string to create the right angle. He photographed each of the components then combined the pictures to form a single image using Adobe Photoshop.
Making of the Disintegration series
“These are possibly the slowest high-speed images ever captured,” he said. “It took almost two months to create an image that looks as if it was captured in a fraction of a second. The whole disassembly in itself took more than a day for each car due to the complexity of the models. But that’s a bit of a boy thing. There’s an enjoyment in the analysis, discovering something by taking it apart, like peeling an onion.”
Ferrari 330 P4 (1967) photograph from the Hatch series
The photographs are currently on display at the M.A.D Gallery in Geneva, Switzerland, along with another series by Oefner called Hatch. This set features images in which a 1967 Ferrari 330 P4 appears to have just broken out of a shell like an egg hatching.
Ferrari 330 P4 (1967) photograph from the Hatch series
These images of “the birth of a car” were created by filling a latex mould of the model Ferrari with a layer of gypsum to produce a series of shells. The shells were thrown at the model or dropped on top of it, with the aim of capturing the smashing so the car looks like it is breaking out from it. A microphone was connected to the camera to trigger the shutter to close at the exact moment of the shell breaking.
Ferrari 330 P4 (1967) photograph from the Hatch series
“I have always been fascinated by the clean, crisp looks of 3D renderings,” said the artist. “So I tried to use that certain type of aesthetic and combine it with the strength of real photography. These images are also about capturing time: either in stopping it as in the Hatch series or inventing it as in the Disintegrating series.”
The exhibition continues until May 2014. Here is some more information from the artist:
Mind-blowing images by Fabian Oefner at the MB&F M.A.D. Gallery The MB&F M.A.D. Gallery is delighted to present a series of prints by Swiss artist Fabian Oefner. Fabian has carved out his reputation by fusing the fields of art and science, creating images appealing to heart and mind. He is constantly on the lookout for capturing life moments that are invisible to the human eye: phenomena like sound waves, centripetal forces, iridescence, fire and even magnetic ferrofluids, among others. The artworks on display at the M.A.D. Gallery from Fabian’s series are mind-boggling. The three images of the Disintegrating series are exploded views of classic sports cars that Fabian has painstakingly created by deconstructing vintage roadster scale-models, photographing each component, piece by piece in a very specific position, to create the illusion of an exploding automobile.
Ferrari 330 P4 (1967) gypsum shell
The three other images on exhibition form his Hatch series, which explores the theme ‘the birth of a car’. Inspired by a picture of a hatching chick, Fabian decided to show a manufactured object being born just like a living organism – in this case a Ferrari 250 GTO breaking out of its shell, to create a witty high-octane take on the beginning of life. While both series feature cars, they both also involve fooling the observer into seeing the images as computer-generated renderings rather than the real photographs that they are.
Ferrari 330 P4 (1967) making of Hatch
Fabian says: “I have always been fascinated by the clean, crisp looks of 3D renderings. So I tried to use that certain type of aesthetic and combine it with the strength of real photography. These images are also about capturing time: either in stopping it as in the Hatch series or inventing it as in the Disintegrating series.” Fabian Oefner’s artwork will be on show at the M.A.D. Gallery in Geneva starting on 27 November until May 2014. Disintegrating in detail Fabian Oefner explains that photography usually captures moments in time; but his Disintegrating series is all about inventing a moment in time. “What you see in these images, is a moment that never existed in real life,” says Oefner. “What looks like a car falling apart is in fact a moment in time that has been created artificially by blending hundreds of individual images together. There is a unique pleasure about artificially building a moment… Freezing a moment in time is stupefying.”
Scale model Ferrari with gypsum shell
The images show exploded views of classic sports cars: intricate scale models of an eye-wateringly beautiful Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé with gullwing doors (1954); an iconic sleek, black Jaguar E-Type (1961); and a curvaceously sensual Ferrari 330 P4 (1967). Fabian first sketched on paper where the individual pieces would go, before taking apart the model cars piece by piece, from the body shell right down to the minuscule screws. Each car contained over a thousand components. Then, according to his initial sketch, he placed each piece individually with the aid of fine needles and pieces of string. After meticulously working out the angle of each shot and establishing the right lighting, he photographed the component, and took thousands of photographs to create each Disintegrating image.
Artist Fabian Oefner
All these individual photos were then blended together in post-production to create one single image. With the wheels acting as a reference point, each part was masked in Photoshop, cut and then pasted into the final image. “These are possibly the ‘slowest high-speed’ images ever captured,” says Fabian. “It took almost two months to create an image that looks as if it was captured in a fraction of a second. The whole disassembly in itself took more than a day for each car due to the complexity of the models. But that’s a bit of a boy thing. There’s an enjoyment in the analysis, discovering something by taking it apart, like peeling an onion.” However, he adds: “The hardest part was actually setting up the camera, lens and light, because the biggest frustration is when you can’t get any beautiful image out of it!” Hatch in detail With Hatch, Fabian Oefner presents his interpretation of how cars might be ‘born’. The first two images show a Ferrari 250 GTO (1962) – again a detailed scale model – breaking out of its shell. The third image shows one of the empty shells left behind among several others yet to hatch. Fabian started by making a latex mould from the model car, which was then filled with a thin layer of gypsum to create the shell. Several dozens of these shells were made in order to complete the next step: smashing the shell onto the car to create the illusion of the vehicle breaking out. This step had to be repeated a great many times until the desired results were achieved. To capture the very moment where the shell hit the model, Fabian connected a microphone to his camera, a Hasselblad H4D, and flashes, so that every time the shell hit the surface of the car, the impulse was picked up by the microphone which then triggered the flashes and the camera shutter. Representing a car as a living, breathing organism that has been gestated is a neat twist on car conception; it could be said Hatch is to the automotive world what a stork is to delivering babies.
This is a true story. Descriptions of companies, clients, schools, projects, and designers may be altered and anonymized to protect the innocent.
Editor: After a nasty paycheck surprise, suddenly underpaid “Family Man” has to figure out where he went wrong with his new employment contract. Has he screwed himself and his family, or are they getting screwed by the company?
It was well after closing when I got to the office, so everyone else was long gone. I flipped the lights on, headed over to my desk and ripped the drawer open. There was the contract. I pulled it out, slammed it down on my desk and started reading through it, to see where I’d screwed up. To be told you were going to be paid an annual salary only to have some clause slipped under your nose in the contract stipulating you’d instead be paid hourly wages—this made me angry, and I had to figure out where I’d make the mistake so that I’d never make it again.
I spent fifteen minutes going through the contract from top to bottom, and could find no such clause. So I read through it again. And again. Then, a fourth time.
There was nothing in the contract like that, no clause, no loopholes. It was totally straightforward. I was supposed to be paid $85,000 a year in biweekly installments, no ifs, ands or buts. So I had read the thing correctly the first time. That made me breathe a sigh of relief since it meant the error wasn’t mine, but my anger shortly returned. The boss was shortchanging me.
I went home that night angry, and when my wife asked me what was wrong I lied and said I had to learn some new software for work that was giving me a headache. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her how much less money we were going to have, not until I talked to the boss and figured out what the hell was going on.
Emmené par la chanteur Hannah Reid, le groupe London Grammar nous offre une superbe interprétation du morceau Nightcall de Kavinsky. Un clip, composé d’un plan-séquence très réussi agrémenté de quelques effets spéciaux, réalisé par André Chocron à découvrir dans la suite en vidéo.
Today’s standard format for cookbooks is a recipe for ultimate intimidation: a mathematical formula accompanied by beautiful, close-up photographs of the prepared meal taken on a DSLR camera. With such detailed requirements and high expectations, novice cooks might bemoan their shameful results and…
L’illustrateur et graphiste britannique Chris Anderson a répondu à la demande de la marque The Chimp Store en rendant hommage aux modèles de sneakers les plus connus de la marque Adidas. En reprenant notamment la Stan Smith pour en faire une représentation en carton, ces créations d’une grande qualité sont à découvrir dans la suite.
Portuguese studio Tiago do Vale Arquitectos has renovated a townhouse in Braga that was built as a servants’ house in the late nineteenth century and modelled on the style of an Alpine chalet (+ slideshow).
Tiago do Vale Arquitectos overhauled all three storeys of the Three Cusps Chalet, which was originally built at a time when a number of migrants were returning to Portugal from Brazil and were commissioning grand houses influenced by trends from across Europe and South America.
Now transformed into a light and modern home and workplace for a couple, the old house forms part of a row of three properties that were built to house the servants of a nearby palace, combining typical Portuguese materials and proportions with Alpine forms and details.
“In general everything is original, or reconstructed as the original, which required the elimination of many unqualified more recent add-ons,” the architects told Dezeen.
A vivid shade of turquoise differentiates the building from its neighbours, while decorative eaves and stonework have been restored around the edges of the roof and windows.
“We used a combination between the colour palette of the nineteenth century – pastels were quite popular at that time and in this region – and a sensibility to harmonise it with the street at its present state,” said the architects.
Unnecessary partitions and extensions were removed from the interior, creating open-plan spaces that are defined by the position of a central staircase that had previously been boxed in.
At street level, a large split-level space with a white marble floor can function as either a shop or office. A large glass partition fronts the staircase on the left-hand side of the space, revealing the route up to the domestic spaces above.
This staircase narrows with each flight of stairs, intended to emphasise how the degree of privacy increases on the upper levels.
The first floor sits just above the ground level at the rear of the building, which created an opportunity for a small outdoor deck. A kitchen and dining area are just in front, while the living room is positioned opposite.
The final storey accommodates a large bedroom with simple furnishings, as well as a timber-lined dressing room that contrasts with the clean white aesthetic of the other rooms.
Here’s a project description from Tiago do Vale Architects:
The Three Cusps Chalet
Historical context
In the second half of the 19th century Portugal saw the return of a large number of emigrants from Brazil. While returning to their northern roots, specially in the Douro and Minho regions, they brought with them sizeable fortunes made in trade and industry, born of the economic boom and cultural melting pot of the 19th century Brazil. With them came a culture and cosmopolitanism that was quite unheard of in the Portugal of the eighteen-hundreds.
That combination of Brazilian capital and taste sprinkled the cities of northern Portugal with examples of rich, quality architecture, that was singular in its urban context and frequently informed by the best that was being done in both Europe and Brazil.
Built context
The “Three Cusps Chalet” is a clear example of the Brazilian influence over Portuguese architecture during the 19th century, though it’s also a singular case in this particular context.
Right as the Dom Frei Caetano Brandão Street was opened, a small palace was being built in the corner with the Cathedral’s square and thanks to large amounts of Brazilian money. It boasted high-ceilings, rich frescos, complex stonework, stucco reliefs and exotic timber carpentry. In deference to such noble spaces, the kitchen, laundry, larders and personnel quarters, which were usually hidden away in basements and attics, were now placed within one contiguous building, of spartan, common construction.
Built according to the devised model of an alpine chalet, so popular in 19th century Brazil (with narrow proportions, tall windows, pitched roofs and decorated eaves), the “Three Cusps Chalet” was that one building.
Due to the confluence of such particular circumstances it’s quite likely the only example of a common, spartan, 19th century building of Brazilian ancestry in Portugal.
Siting at the heart of both the Roman and medieval walls of Braga, a stone’s throw away from Braga’s Cathedral (one of the most historically significant of the Iberian Peninsula) this is a particularly sunny building with two fronts, one facing the street at west and another one, facing a delightful, qualified block interior plaza at east, enjoying natural light all day long.
At the time of our survey, its plan is organised by the staircase (brightened by a skylight), placed at the centre of the house and defining two spaces of equal size, east and west, on each of the floors.
The nature of each floor changes from public to private as we climb from the store at the street level to a living room (west) and kitchen (east) at the first floor, with the sleeping quarters on top.
Materials-wise, all of the stonework and the peripheral supportive walls are built with local yellow granite, while the floors and roof are executed with wooden beams with hardwood flooring.
Architectural project
Confronted by both its degrading state and degree of adulteration, and by the interest of its story and typology, the design team took as their mission the recovery the building’s identity, which had been lost in 120 years of small unqualified interventions. The intention was to clarify the building’s spaces and functions while simultaneously making it fit for today’s way of living.
The program asked for the cohabitation of a work studio and a home program. Given the reduced area of the building, the original strategy of hierarchising spaces by floor was followed. The degree of privacy grows as one climbs the staircase. The stairs also get narrower with each flight of steps, informing the changing nature of the spaces it connects.
A willingness to ensure the utmost transparency throughout the building, allowing light to cross it from front to front and from top to bottom, defined all of the organisational and partitioning strategies resulting in a solution related to a vertical loft.
The design team took advantage of a 1.5 m height difference between the street and the block’s interior plaza to place the working area on the ground level, turning it westward and relating it to the street. Meanwhile, the domestic program relates with the interior plaza and the morning light via a platform that solves the transition between kitchen and exterior. This allows for both spaces to immediately assert quite different personalities and light, even though they are separated by just two flights of stairs.
The staircase geometry, previously closed in 3 of its sides, efficiently filters the visual relations between both programs while still allowing for natural light to seep down from the upper levels and illuminate the working studio.
The second floor was kept for the social program of the house. Refusing the natural tendency for compartmentalising, the staircase was allowed to define the perimeters of the kitchen and living room, creating an open floor with natural light all day long. Light enters from the kitchen in the morning, from the staircase’s skylight and from the living room in the afternoon.
Sections
Climbing the last and narrow flights of stairs we reach the sleeping quarters where the protagonist is the roof, whose structure was kept apparent, though painted white. On the other side of the staircase, which is the organising element on every floor, there’s a clothing room, backed by a bathroom.
If the visual theme of the house is the white colour, methodically repeated on walls, ceilings, carpentry and marble, the clothing room is the surprise at the top of the path towards the private areas of the house. Both the floor and roof structure appear in their natural colours surrounded by closet doors constructed in the same material. It reads as a small wooden box, a counterpoint to the home’s white box and being itself counterpointed by the marble box of the bathroom.
Fitting with the strategy of maximising light and the explicitness of the spaces, the material and finish choices used in this project were intentionally limited. White colour was used for the walls, ceilings and carpentry due to its spacial qualities and lightness. Wood in its natural colour is used for the hardwood floors and clothing room due to its warmth and comfort. Portuguese white Estremoz marble, which covers the ground floor, countertops and on the bathrooms and laundry walls and floors, was chosen for its texture, reflectivity and colour.
Window and door details
All of the original wood window frames of the main façade were recovered, the roof was remade with the original Marseille tiles over a pine structure and the decorated eave restored to its original glory.
The hardwood floors were remade with southern yellow pine over the original structure and all the surfaces that required waterproofing covered with Portuguese Estremoz marble.
Ground floor window frames were remade in iron, as per the original, but redesigned in order to maximise natural illumination (as on the east façade).
Window and eaves details
Architecture: Tiago do Vale Architects, Portugal Location: Sé, Braga, Portugal Construction: Constantino & Costa Project year: 2012 Construction year: 2013 Site area: 60 m2 Construction area: 165 m2
Advertorial content: The holiday season means something different to everyone, but one common (at least in the northern hemisphere) treat is donning a cozy sweater at every possible opportunity. Whether you’re sipping eggnog around the fire, heading to holiday parties…
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Ski-in and ski-out access is de rigueur among alpine enthusiasts, particularly those who trek to the vast, steep slopes of Switzerland. The new W Verbier and The Residences at W Verbier offer just the ticket for avid downhillers and après-ski fans, with a prime location at the base of the mountain’s Medran gondola. Though to get there they may have to navigate past St. Bernards, either via the St. Bernard Express regional train or the Great St. Bernard Pass mountain road.
Fabian started by making a latex mould from the model car, which was then filled with a thin layer of gypsum to create the shell. Several dozens of these shells were made in order to complete the next step: smashing the shell onto the car to create the illusion of the vehicle breaking out. This step had to be repeated a great many times until the desired results were achieved. To capture the very moment where the shell hit the model, Fabian connected a microphone to his camera, a Hasselblad H4D, and flashes, so that every time the shell hit the surface of the car, the impulse was picked up by the microphone which then triggered the flashes and the camera shutter. Representing a car as a living, breathing organism that has been gestated is a neat twist on car conception; it could be said Hatch is to the automotive world what a stork is to delivering babies.
