Dec 22
Transcendence Trailer
Posted in: UncategorizedDr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the foremost researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence,..(Read…)
Dec 22
Cubli, a small cube that can jump up and balance.
Posted in: UncategorizedThe Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control in Zurich has developed a cube that can stand on its..(Read…)
Dec 22
Japanese practice k/o design studio has designed a bulbous silver building that adjoins a red-tiled rectilinear tower at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music in Kawasaki (+ slideshow).
The freeform building, called Silver Mountain, houses new rehearsal halls, while the Red Cliff tower contains offices, a faculty lounge and student lounge.
“Free 3D form Silver Mountain and rectangular Red Cliff are designed depending on functional needs to be devoted for rehearsal hall and office, and located at the pivotal point of traffic of the campus, but intended to show the powerful outline of form and contrast of silver and red,” said architect Kunihide Oshinomi of k/o design studio.
A glass canopy spans the gap between the two buildings, which provides one of three pedestrian routes to the rest of the site.
The exterior of the Silver Mountain is clad in stainless steel plates in a pattern developed using 3D surface analysis to determine the most efficient combination of standard rectilinear tiles and irregular panels used to fill the gaps.
Inside the building, the curved walls create a smooth-sided cave-like foyer which leads to a rehearsal room contained in a central concrete core.
Further rehearsals rooms are located in the basement and on the first floor and feature undulating concrete walls that improve the rooms’ acoustic properties.
A faculty lounge on the ground floor of the Red Cliff building contains boxy armchairs and a separate meeting room, and adjoins a lounge area for students. The upper four floors contain offices.
Photography is by Nacasa & Partners / Atsushi Nakamichi.
The following information is from the architects:
Silver mountain and Red cliff
First of all I wanted to avoid to be included into the category of architecture called as a ＊fragmentation or poetry dominant in Japanese cool design trend.
Therefore I intended to look back to the basic principles of architecture, which are form, space and material or colour.
Free 3D form Silver mountain and rectangular Red cliff are designed depending on functional needs to be devoted for rehearsal hall ＆ office, and located at the pivotal point of traffic of the campus, but intended to show the powerful outline of form and contrast of silver and red.
Silver mountain is carefully cladded with stainless steel plate based on precise computer simulation to maximise use of regular size plate. Red cliff is furnished as a random graphic patch-work of 3 different red colours of mosaic tiles.
Interior of Silver mountain is a purely exposure of back side of 3D free form and resulted to create spaces used for a lobby or foyer of each halls like a dramatic cave.
Rehearsal halls interior are also back side of 3D free form but flanked with exposed concrete waved wall for avoiding echo. First floor studio wall show interesting traces of the hitting pattern with this flanked wave wall and 3D free form.
Glass roofed space between mountain and cliff called as a Valley roofed with Cloud of glass is a main pedestrian root for this campus.
Location: Kanagawa prefecture, Japan
Project: Silver mountain& Red Cliff Senzoku Gakuen College of Music
Design: k/o design studio / Kunihide Oshinomi + KAJIMA DESIGN
Photo: Nacasa & Partners / Atsushi Nakamichi
Site area: 65,744,08 square metres
Building are: 1,437,59 square metres
Total floor area: 5,084,00 square metres
Structure: reinforced concrete construction
Construction period: 2012.04 – 2013.08
The post Silver dome constructed
at a Japanese music college appeared first on Dezeen.
Dec 22
ListenUp: Matthew Dear’s Tears for Fears, Outline Artists’ creative series, South Africa hits Brooklyn and more in our look at music this week
Posted in: listen_up, listenup, matthewdear, outlineartists, privatejam, soundtracks 
Jose Gonzalez: Stay Alive Gothenburg, Sweden’s Jose Gonzalez is known for his comforting vocals and stripped-down acoustic sets that buzz with energy. It’s been a few years since Gonzalez released new solo material, so we were happy to see his latest release “
Dec 22
We hope you’ve all been good boys and girls for Santa this year! Hopefully he’ll deliver the suggestions collected together in our updated Christmas list Pinterest board if you ask him nicely. Check out our Pinterest board full of presents and stocking fillers »
The post Pinterest board:
Dezeen’s Christmas list appeared first on Dezeen.
Dec 22
LAMPSLAMP
Posted in: Uncategorized
The lamp is made with the use of burned-out halogen lamps that provide brilliant light effect through a translucent layer of violet silicone. The ligh..
Dec 22
People could immerse themselves in a huge fabric cocoon at this interactive installation by architect and artist Sophia Chang (+ slideshow).
Sophia Chang stretched huge sheets of Lycra around frames to create the network of tunnels and enclosed spaces through the interior of the Invivia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The structure extended between different entrances and wrapped around the base of the gallery’s spiral staircase. There were also a handful of openings, which framed windows to the spaces outside.
“The softened geometries of this expansive fabric insertion frame both people and their context, while confounding the experience of interior and exterior, wall and room, hiding and revealing places to be found and explored,” said Chang.
The inside of the space was separated into two disconnected halves. Visitors could occupy either sides, meaning they could see the silhouettes of other people behind the dividing layer of fabric.
According to the designer, the experience was intended to represent the feeling of being inside walls, in the space known as poché.
“Here poché receives a more ambiguous reinterpretation,” said Chang. “What could be understood as a wall or reminiscent space from one vantage point, becomes an inhabitable room from another.”
Photography is by Anita Kan.
Here’s a project description from Sophia Chang:
Suspense
Suspense is a recent architectural installation by Sophia Chang at the INVIVIA Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Allen Sayegh (co-founder of INVIVIA) and Ingeborg Rocker (co-founder of Rocker-Lange Architects) curated and sponsored the interactive installation, an unexpected fabric space that manipulates the architectural frame to blur the boundaries between inside and outside and piques the viewers’ awareness of their bodies in space.
The softened geometries of this expansive fabric insertion frame both people and their context, while confounding the experience of interior and exterior, wall and room; hiding and revealing places to be found and explored. Upon entering the piece, both occupant and environment are estranged, creating greater awareness of one’s self, one’s relation to others, and relationships to one’s surroundings.
The installation’s curved rooms are made from Lycra fabric that is suspended between rectangular frames, which capture moments of the original context and pull them into the suspended space. Visitors occupy both sides of the frames, creating playful interaction between those enclosed within the fabric and those outside.
Looking around, the smooth fabric surface breaks open to a view of an old stone wall, a glimpse of brick, a stair, or out to the street. The re-captured everyday appears distant and other.
The installation is conceived as multiple layers of poché. The term commonly refers to the space within walls, here poché receives a more ambiguous reinterpretation: what could be understood as a wall or reminiscent space from one vantage point, becomes an inhabitable room from another. The complexity of the curved forms precludes immediate understanding of the total piece and allows for the visitor’s perception of the space to shift as they continue to discover new places to sit, contemplate, walk, and watch within the gallery.
Neighbouring wall spaces are activated as people encounter each other through the fabric. The installation is an ‘open work’ (Umberto Eco) as it is not limited to a single reading or a predetermined range of readings but rather encourages multiple readings. With changes of light, occupation, and the flexing of the geometries, new realisations continuously become possible.
The post Sophia Chang installs stretchy fabric
tunnels through a gallery appeared first on Dezeen.
Dec 22
Today’s A-Zdvent calendar features Rafael Viñoly and his Firstsite gallery wrapped in golden metal. New York architect Vinoly also made the headlines this summer after reports surfaced that his Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London was reflecting light intense enough to melt cars.
See more architecture by Rafael Viñoly »
The post Dezeen’s A-Zdvent calendar:
Rafael Viñoly appeared first on Dezeen.
Dec 21
AROUND.U
Posted in: Uncategorized
Classic and timeless as a love letter, with simple lines and noble materials, the elegance of Around.U dwells serenely the office, the bedroom or the ..
Dec 21
Black brick house in the woods by Takero Shimazaki and Charlie Luxton
Posted in: black houses, British houses, Charlie Luxton, slideshows, Takero ShimazakiArchitects Takero Shimazaki and Charlie Luxton have renovated a 1960s house outside London to create a modern home that features black-painted brickwork, large windows and a new angular roof (photographs by Edmund Sumner + slideshow).
Now named Aperture in the Woods, the old house had been vacant for three years and was desperately in need of repairs, but Shimazaki and Luxton chose to retain and modernise as much as possible of the houses’s original structure to preserve its simple character.
“Whilst the existing house was not a building of significant design importance, we felt there was a spirit there worth preserving and enhancing, being that of post-war British modernism,” they said.
New brickwork was added and the whole house was then painted black to hide the junctions between new and old.
“It was clear that no matter how carefully we tried to match the brick a homogenous finish would not be achieved,” said the architects. “Black was chosen to make the house recede into the shadows created by the surrounding woodlands.”
The architects increased the angle of the roof to heighten the ceiling in the open-plan living room and create a row of clerestory windows.
More new windows frame vistas of a nearby church, but also offer residents views of a wildflower garden planted between the house and the forest.
“Without any curtains or blinds, the house is a transparent black viewing box, its external walls reflecting or absorbing the surrounding nature throughout the season,” added the architects.
A glazed lobby provides a new entrance to the house. Inside, walls are painted white and are complemented by oak joinery and wooden floors.
Bedrooms sit on the opposite side of the house to the living areas, while a small office is tucked away at the back.
Photography is by Edmund Sumner.
Here’s a description from the architects:
Aperture in the Woods, High Bois Lane, Buckinghamshire
A conversion of a derelict 1960s modernist house in the outskirts of Amersham, Buckinghamshire, the house has multiple aspects and is sited next to a local Church and surrounded by the Buckingham woodland.
Reflecting the economic downturn post 2008 and with a limited project budget, the design developed out of the architectural language of the original house; the owners and the architects working as much as possible to maximise the existing structure.
Most of the original brickwork was retained and added to. It was clear that no matter how carefully we tried to match the brick a homogenous finish would not be achieved. It was decided to paint the brick and the black was chosen to make the house recede into the shadows created by the surrounding woodlands. One half of the roof was raised to create a taller, sharper, pitch to the living room. Bedrooms were placed in the other half, retained at its original pitch, with an additional volume projecting into the garden to create a larger master bedroom. A new glass entrance lobby has also been added to open up the front of the house.
The family recently relocated from London to enjoy life within the Buckingham woods. The house is Phase 1 of 3 phases that will include additional spaces for quieter activities such as a study/guest house (Phase 2) and a green house (Phase 3).
Views of the house’s woodland surroundings were made through careful amendments to the existing openings, with additional apertures focusing on specific viewpoints including the church, immediate and distant woods and the newly planted wild flower garden to the front of the house.
Without any curtains or blinds, the house is a transparent black viewing box, its external walls reflecting or absorbing the surrounding nature throughout the season. The interior is realised in a light grey tone with all joinery including windows and doors in oak. The contrast of dark and light makes this building highly ephemeral and reflects the family’s aspirations for more dynamic living. The house is often used as a shelter for music events (with all the doors and windows open!), gatherings for local families and children as well as a quiet retreat for the family.
The project is a collaboration between Takero Shimazaki Architecture (t-sa) and Charlie Luxton.
Client: Jonathan and Ana Maria Harbottle
Architect: Takero Shimazaki Architecture (t-sa) and Charlie Luxton
Design Team: Jennifer Frewen, Charlie Luxton, Takero Shimazaki, Meiri Shinohara
Structural Engineer: milk structures
Approved Inspector: STMC Building Control
Main Contractor: Silver Square Construction Solutions Ltd
Single ply roof: Bauder
The post Black brick house in the woods by
Takero Shimazaki and Charlie Luxton appeared first on Dezeen.
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