Le photographe Benoit Paillé a eu l’excellente idée avec sa série « Crossroad of Realities » de chercher à effacer la frontière entre prise de vue réelle et images de jeux vidéos. Utilisant des images du jeu Gran Theft Auto V, cette série offre donc la possibilté de rentrer dans l’écran de l’écran, et parvient à nous immiscer dans un univers unique.
In this series, Matthew Sullivan (AQQ Design) highlights some designers that you should know, but might not. Previously, he looked at the work of T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.
Shiro Kuramata: Born in Tokyo, 1934. Died in Tokyo, 1991.
“For him, an object, a piece of furniture, an installation is never finished inside the borders of its own physicality. For him, around an object, or around a piece of furniture or around an installation there is never a silence, never abstract dust; always the air around is vibrating, as if it were shaken by a central provocation. That’s why very often Shiro was trying to represent not only the object, or the furniture, or the installation but also the many mysterious vibrations that were produced around.” —Ettore Sottsass from Vibrations in the Air, 1991
Materials were central to the work of Shiro Kuramata. His palette was the various qualities that matter exhibits: reflectivity, transparency, translucency, opacity, tactility. Form seems a result. It’s not that form is unconsidered, just that the material is the voice; the material is the content of the furniture.
Japan has a very sophisticated visual culture; at times it’s almost ridiculous how astute it is. The continual unification of craft and art transcends some sort of spiritual economy. (Indeed, from a Western perspective, it can seem that our separations of “art” and “craft” are misguided.) There is a long history of cleverly melding a medium with sculptural or pictorial representations, so that the inherent qualities of brush, ink, stone or wood are actually part of the resultant image. This is true of sumi-e/suiboku-ga ink-wash painting, as well as sancai (the Japanese-adopted Chinese technique of modeled, tri-colored glazes in ceramics) and karesansui (the art of dry landscape rock gardens). So when speaking of Kuramata’s work as “matter centric,” it really feels like an extension of this history. With every piece of his furniture (whether his K-Series lamps, his Glass furniture, his various flower vases or his Pyramid shelving), there is no separation between construction, form, interiority, materials—it’s all one thing.
Above: the Pyramid shelving unit for Ishamaru (1968). Top image: Kuramata’s How High the Moon chair for Vitra (1986)
Left: the Glass chair (1976). Right: an interior for the Issey Miyake store in Ginza, Tokyo (1983)
A clay-based black paint forms a protective layer across the facade of this woodland cabin in Finland, designed by Playa Architects as the second home for a Finnish family living abroad (+ slideshow).
Finnish architect Tuukka Vuori of Playa Architects designed the house for friends who want to spend their holidays in their home country.
Named Villa Kettukallio, the 122-square-metre house is located on the edge of a lake in Hirvensalmi, on a spot where the family used to take forest walks. It will be visited throughout the year, so needed to be accommodating in all seasons.
“Winters can be very cold, sometimes minus 30, then in summer there’s daylight around the clock, so it had to work in both of these circumstances,” Vuori told Dezeen.
“The main brief was to take in these surroundings, so we added big glazed openings facing towards the lakeside,” he added.
Birch clads the exterior and has been coated with a black distemper paint that is typical of Scandinavian dwellings. This will help to protect the building from ageing.
Living and dining rooms take up around half of the house’s floorspace, encouraging the family to spend more time in communal areas rather than in the bedrooms.
A sauna sits on the north side of the site on the opposite side of a veranda, creating a protected seating area where residents can cool down. An entrance then leads directly back into the house via the shower room.
“Traditionally lakeside homes have separate saunas, but the family didn’t want it to be separate,” said Vuori. “This meant we could avoid building extra shower spaces, which also deals with some environmental concerns.”
A second terrace on the south side of the building gives the family a sunny space for dining outdoors.
Walls and ceilings inside the house are lined with birch and alder. The floors are pine and feature stripes created by the family’s own sawmill.
“With pine you usually get this really strong texture in the wood, these horizontal sections,” explained Vuori.
Heating is provided by a wood-burning stove that sits between the kitchen and the living room. Constructed from brick, this is coated with grey plaster to give it the appearance of polished concrete.
Photography is by Tuomas Uusheimo.
Here’s more information from Playa Architects:
Villa Kettukallio
The villa is the all-year-round base in Finland for a four-person family currently living abroad. The site between cliffs and a fairly steep lakeside beach was chosen during the family’s forest walks. The place overlooks a narrow strait and far out to an open expanse of the lake. In accordance with the site conditions, the building is relatively closed off towards the forest while opening up generously in the direction of the lake.
The house is split by an atrium yard and a covered terrace, on one side of which are small bedrooms and the other more generous living spaces. During the summer the floor layout allows for “complete circulation”. Instead of a separate shoreline sauna building, a sauna was built in connection with the house itself. A covered veranda for cooling off after the sauna separates the sauna from the rest of the building.
In painting the facade with black distemper paint, the building blends with the shadows of the pine forest when viewed from the direction of the lake.
In the interior, the surfaces are mostly untreated domestic wood: birch, pine and common alder. The wood floors are built from vertical-grain pine boards from the family-owned sawmill.
The post Villa Kettukallio by Playa Architects
provides a woodland holiday home appeared first on Dezeen.
Le site Kind Of Normal a imaginé des infographies amusantes appelées « TruthFacts » qui livrent des petites vérités sur notre quotidien, notre époque (digitale) et nos diverses habitudes ; des anecdotes dans lesquelles tout le monde peut se reconnaitre. Une sélection des différentes infographies est disponible dans la suite.
When Mike Natenshon’s girlfriend accidentally threw out his favorite T-shirt—perfectly soft from years of wash and wear—he underwent a long series of experiments to replicate that worn-in comfiness right off the rack. And, while the former investment banking…
Continue Reading…
Centquatre (aka 104) is one of Paris’ newly opened and exciting art centers. Along with Gaité Lyrique, this new generation of venues are no longer just art galleries, but spaces…
Continue Reading…
La marque Schwartz (Herb & Spice) a fait appel à Print Tech, Novalia et l’agence créative Grey London pour concevoir un poster interactif sur lequel chaque couleur d’épices possède un son quand on la touche grâce une encre spéciale. L’illustrateur Billie Jean est derrière l’illustration de toutes ces saveurs qui se transforment en sons.
Milan 2014: Japanese design studio Nendo has unveiled several new pieces to accompany the Peg armchair it produced last year for Italian brand Cappellini (+ slideshow).
Also called Peg, Nendo‘s collection includes another chair, a series of beds, a chaise longue, a small and large table, a mirror, a corner cupboard and two sofas.
“Peg is a family of products that tells a history, comfort but also attention to detail, quality of materials and good shapes,” said Cappellini in a statement.
The shape of the round armchair was influenced by the small cars that populate the streets of Milan. Its seat rests on a crossed ash frame, with the back legs poking up through the sides of the backrest to provide support.
The top and legs of the tables are both rounded – a distinctive element repeated throughout the collection. The tops of the legs puncture the tabletop so they are visible when viewed from above.
Echoing a design feature from the table, the longest tripod supporting the mirror is visible through a hole at the head of the oval glass.
The chaise longue and sofas come with removable cushions available in a range of colours and fabrics.
The beds in the collection have wood headboards that can be upholstered in fabric or leather. The corner cupboard is made with three poles that support four triangular moulded shelves.
All the pieces come in wenge, ebony, natural ash wood or bleached walnut.
The collection was on show at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, which concluded yesterday.
The post Nendo extends Peg furniture
collection for Cappellini appeared first on Dezeen.
Let’s be clear about two things: 1. I am a tech luddite; 2. I, coincidentally, grew up broke playing with sticks and rocks, and galdang it I liked it. Resultantly, I view expensive high tech toys with both skepticism and romanticism. That in mind: I covet this toy series, I want it to get funded, I’m begging my mom for one, and I would like to subscribe to its newsletter.
TinkerBots are reconfigurable, programmable, kinetic toys. The block-based sets use a central “Power Brain” cube that provides power and an arduino-compatible microcontroller. Snap in a variety of mobile and immobile pieces and expand your robotic object in a myriad of ways. Depending on the set, you can control a vehicle by bluetooth, mobilize an animal, teach it new moves, add proximity sensors and grabbing claws… They tout the capability of being a “living Lego” set, and have even designed in actual Lego compatibility. They’re a little less versatile than that plastic block titan, but hey, baby steps. More importantly, you get a little modular robot with no wiring or programming needed. One of their goals is to adapt the system to use as a quadcopter. Teach your progeny about programming and the sinister future of drones in a single go!
Check out the campaign video:
This teardrop shaped portable printer from Israeli studio Zuta Labs wirelessly prints documents from tablets, smartphones or desktop computers.
Shaped like the droplet colour icon used on many domestic printers to indicate ink levels, the Mini Mobile is a pocket-sized device that can print remotely using a bluetooth connection.
It was developed by former students of the Jerusalem College of Technology, who felt frustrated by the lack of portability in today’s printers.
The team did some research into mobile printers, finding nothing that really suited their needs. So they decided to build their own.
“Being students, we worked on our laptops in different places, libraries, classrooms, cafes, trains and out in the sunshine,” explained a member of the team.
“We were able to do so because we had everything we needed with us on our phone or laptop. Yet, we always found ourselves struggling to find a place to print once the work was done.”
Measuring ten centimetres high and 11.5 centimetres in diameter, the Mini Mobile weighs 300 grams and comfortably fits into the palm of a hand.
The device connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to smartphones or PCs. When activated a hatch underneath the printer slides open, revealing the inkjet.
The user then places the Mini Mobile onto a piece of paper, using the teardrop’s pointed shape to align it with the top of the page.
Using an omni wheel system that allows it to move in multiple directions, it rolls across the page, printing in a grey-scale. When it reaches the end, the device moves down the page and continues on to the next line.
The machine uses a high resolution optical sensor to control movement, speed and placement of the robot.
“We asked ourselves, ‘why not get rid of the entire device, just put the printhead on a set of small wheels and let it run across a piece of paper’. By doing so, we allow the printer to really be as little as possible,” the team said.
The device also knows when multiple pages require printing, sending a message to the user’s laptop to place the machine on to another piece of paper.
The inkwell inside is capable of printing 1000 pages before needing to be replaced, and the battery will allow continual use for up to an hour.
The machine will print 1.2 pages per minute at a resolution of up to 96 by 192 dots per inch, but the team hopes to increase the speed when the device goes into commercial production.
Made from polycarbonate and available in matte black or white, each Mini Mobile has a thin illuminated blue strip to indicate when it is switched on.
At present, the Mini Mobile is a proof-of-concept, and Zuta Labs are currently raising funds on Kickstarter.
The post Pocket-sized printer creates documents
by rolling across pages appeared first on Dezeen.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
