Hasta La Ideas

Architect Rem Koolhaas created a runway surrounded by water for fashion house Prada‘s Spring Summer 2015 collection shown in Milan on Sunday.

Koolhaas’ Rotterdam-based AMO research studio designed the floating catwalk and setting for the Prada show, describing the space as “in between a cave, a cruise ship, and an indoor pool”.

“The set up questions the relationship between outdoor and indoor: water invades the space, redefining the existing elements, changing proportions, reflecting unexpected point of views, augmenting the show,” said the studio.

Models walked around a rectangular platform covered in a tan-coloured carpet, which appeared to hover above the surface of the bright blue water.

The structure was attached to the perimeter at one end, where models walked on an off.

A row of arched structural columns ran through the centre of the space and a band of white lights were mounted on the walls to light the room.

Bleachers that surrounded the pool were wrapped in the same carpet as the catwalk, providing seating for the audience.

Guests had to climb over the top of these steps before taking their seats, presenting them with an elevated view of the environment.

The Prada Spring Summer 2015 show took place on 22 June as part of Milan Moda Uomo – men’s fashion week.

Rem Koolhaas and AMO have been working closely with Prada for a number of years, creating a portable, shape-shifting cultural pavilion for the company in 2009 and a range of angular furniture to furnish the runway show for its Autumn Winter 2013 menswear collection.

Prada’s Spring Summer 2014 collection scooped the top prize in the fashion category at Designs of the Year 2014.

Photography is by Agostino Osio.

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floats on a blue pool appeared first on Dezeen.

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$(function() { $(“#a20140624”).jobWidget({ amount_of_jobs: 5, specialty: “product design, industrial design” }); }); (more…)

La photographe Alexis Mire, basée à Boston, a réalisé une série poétique intitulée « The Cotton Series » qui met en scène des nuages artificiels faits avec du coton. Cela donne des images surréalistes dans lesquelles un nuage sort de la bouche de la photographe-modèle, d’une théière ou flotte au-dessus de son lit.

News: Chilean architect Smiljan Radic has this morning unveiled his translucent and bulbous Serpentine Gallery Pavilion at Kensington Gardens in London.

Raised up from the ground over a series of rugged quarry stones, the cylindrical pavilion is constructed from a paper-thin layer of white fibreglass, reminiscent of papier mache wrapped around a balloon.

Radic gave the structure a hollow centre, creating a central courtyard that is open to the sky. There are also various openings in the walls that form balconies, offering views out over the gardens.

“I’ve always thought that this is a really symbolic place,” Radic told journalists at the press preview earlier today. “For me this pavilion is a folly, and the folly historically is a romantic place, a place of extravagance and a place of atmosphere. So this pavilion had to both occupy and create a symbolic place.”

Visitors can choose to either walk inside the pavilion, via a raised walkway leading up from the ground in front of the gallery, or they can stroll down underneath, where the large boulders both support the structure and offer places to sit.

“From the outside, visitors see a fragile shell in the shape of a hoop suspended on large quarry stones. Appearing as if they had always been part of the landscape, these stones are used as supports, giving the pavilion both a physical weight and an outer structure characterised by lightness and fragility,” said Radic.

Grey wooden decking covers the floor, intended to create the feeling of a patio rather than an interior.

Radic designed the pavilion using a series of models put together from masking tape. His intention was for the structure to feature the same handmade qualities, on a grander scale.

“I feel like a giant made this model as a gift for London,” he said.

Last year’s pavilion was designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and comprised a cloud-like structure made from a lattice of steel poles. Other past commissions include Herzog & de Meuron, SANAA and Peter Zumthor.

Photography is by Amy Frearson, Dezeen.

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by Smiljan Radic opens appeared first on Dezeen.

Wooden house-shaped volumes are inserted into this office in the attic of a converted industrial building in Shanghai, by Chinese architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, creating a contrast with raw concrete fittings (+ slideshow).

To accentuate the location of the offices for strategic design and research consultancy Flamingo in the roof space of the building, Neri&Hu constructed house-shaped volumes with pitched roofs that contain meeting rooms and other activities.

Taking cues from the idea of the attic as “a space of quiet and rational thought”, the architects focussed on creating different experiences throughout the office based on contrasts of scale, light and shadow.

The attic space was originally created by adding a steel A-frame to the flat roof of an existing building and the installation of the house-shaped units was intended to introduce a vertical dimension that draws attention to the sloping roofline.

“The insertion of house-like volumes into a landscape of concrete platforms breaks down the homogenous space,” said the architects, “such that the roof is not just a singular element, but can be experienced on multiple levels, from various vantage points and on various scales.”

Clerestory windows covered in black metal mesh interrupt the slanted ceiling that floods the main work areas with natural light.

Concrete partitions are staggered throughout this space to define circulation routes and to separate work stations that feature dark wooden desks.

The opposite side of the space accommodates a boardroom, work pods, breakout areas, participant rooms for research groups and observation rooms, which are housed in the pitched-roof structures.

Timber cladding gives the exterior of these units a warmth and tactility that contrasts with the colder materials used elsewhere, while translucent panels allow light to filter through to the interiors.

The angled-shape of the attic roof becomes a feature inside the white-walled boardroom, where it is punctuated by artificial lights designed to emulate skylights.

An exhibition area at one end of the open-plan workspace features a suspended ceiling intended to help define the space’s parameters.

A recessed section at the centre of the floating ceiling continues the pitched roof motif and incorporates concealed lighting.

The height of the pitched ceiling allows for the introduction of a mezzanine level accessed via a narrow staircase that emphasises the idea of the loft-style space.

The mezzanine contains a small breakout space with windows that overlook the surrounding rooms and offices below.

Glass with varying degrees of opacity and mirrored materials recur throughout the interior and reference the use of one-way mirrors between the observation rooms and participation rooms where research activities take place.

Neri&Hu applied a similar industrial aesthetic to the interior of an Italian restaurant in a steel-framed building in Shanghai, and has also created a shop for shoe brand Camper inside a former warehouse that resembles a cross-section of an old brick and timber house.

Photography is by Dirk Weiblen.

Here’s a project description from Neri&Hu:

Flamingo Shanghai Office
The Attic

In the daydream, the recollection of moments of confined, simple, shut-in space are experiences of heartwarming space, of a space that does not seek to become extended, but would like above all to be possessed. In the past, the attic may have seemed too small, it may have seemed cold in winter and hot in summer. Now, however, in memory recaptured through daydreams, it is hard to say through what syncretism the attic is at once small and large, warm and cool, always comforting.

In Gaston Bachelard’s seminal work The Poetics of Space he poses a metaphor of the house as a dwelling for the psyche; while the subterranean cellar represents our deep subconscious, the elevated attic is a space of quiet and rational thought. In our imaginations and memories, the attic is an oft forgotten space, a space of contradictions and possibilities, both dark and light, intimate and vast, daunting and comforting. Neri&Hu’s renovation of an industrial roof space in Shanghai into offices for creative agency Flamingo are inspired by these very paradoxical and enigmatic notions of the attic.

Essentially a flat roof converted to occupiable space with the addition of a steel A-frame structure, the site itself was a main driver for the design intent, which was to exaggerate and enhance the experience of the existing condition, that is, of occupying the space within the eaves of a roof—like an attic. The insertion of house-like volumes into a landscape of concrete platforms breaks down the homogenous space, such that the roof is not just a singular element, but can be experienced on multiple levels, from various vantage points and on various scales.

Traversing the open work area, one first experiences an extensive view of the original structures, while black metal mesh panels frame bright clerestory windows above. The exhibition area features a pure floating roof to encapsulate the space while leaving it open and flexible. The board room, on the other hand, is completely enclosed, but also captures the telltale double pitched roof and features lighting fixtures that mimic natural skylights.

To culminate the attic experience, a narrow set of stairs brings you to a small mezzanine level, a hidden room nestled within the other larger ones, its windows offer stolen glimpses into other rooms—a moment to reflect in hindsight the spaces once occupied.

Owing to the nature of the client’s work, a given element of the project are pairings of rooms divided by one-way mirror. Expanding upon notions of voyeurism and scientific observation, the interspersed use of varying types of glass—clear glass, frosted glass, one-way mirror, and mirror—forces all the occupants into a state of slight discomfort, as roles of observer and observed can be reversed at any given turn.

Through carefully crafted openings and layered materials, each enclosure becomes a viewing mechanism, a filter through which we examine others as we examine ourselves.

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raw concrete and angular meeting rooms appeared first on Dezeen.