Hasta La Ideas

Interieur 2014: Paris design studio Pool has brought together its furniture and lighting for an exhibition inside a dilapidated school building during this year’s Biennale Interieur event (+ slideshow).

Pool‘s exhibition is titled Walk the Line, after the 1956 Johnny Cash song, and includes new pieces added to a range initially designed for Maison Kitsuné‘s Cabinet de Curiosité in New York.

The designers created the Circle chair from black metal tubes, which form the outline of a dining chair with a curved top within a ring that forms the arms.

Gaps between these elements are filled in with smaller bars, arranged parallel to each other but facing in different directions in each section.

“We wanted to draw a chair in an armchair with a simple line,” the designers told Dezeen.

“There is an anamorphosis when you look the chair from the front that draw the shape of a simple seating, making the arm disappear.”

The chair was first shown by Paris-based Gallery S Bensimon during the city’s Maison & Objet trade fair last month.

Pool founders Léa Padovani and Sébastien Kieffer also teamed up with metal craftsman François Pouenat to create a set of metal objects using both traditional and contemporary techniques.

The electric cable threads through the top of the circle and connects to the back to the horizontal tube to balance the piece, with the help of a counterweight.

A fluorescent tube light is positioned facing down at the other end.

“We wanted the stroke to be as simple as possible to emphasis the cantilever and make the light stick float,” said the duo.

The Trophé vase is created using a sheet of metallic green metal rolled into a cone and fixed at its tip to a black cylindrical base.

“The Trophé is basically the ghost of the paper protection of a bouquet, turned into a metal trophy,” the designers said.

These new designs join two pieces released the previous year. A circular table top with an uneven surface rests on a pyramid-shaped base, which holds a brass sphere just above the ground where the black-painted metal elements cross in the centre.

“The Contrepoid table was about balancing the rough side of the hammered top with a lighter and more modern base, keeping captive a brass ball for the balance of the whole structure,” said the designers.

For the Maillet table lamp, the same hammered effect is applied to the copper stand. A black metal box that forms the shade has a bright blue anodised aluminium handle at one end to “make it a tool.

“The Maillet lamp was inspired by the traditional tool our craftsman used to hammer the metal,” the designers explained.

The pieces are on display inside a tiled room the Broelschool in Kortrijk, Belgium, for this year’s Biennale Interieur, which continues until 26 October.

In another part of the school, which is set for demolition, furniture brands have turned the rooms into temporary hotel suites for visitors to the design event.

The post Pool exhibits geometric furniture in former school
for Biennale Interieur 2014 appeared first on Dezeen.

Voici une série de Gif animés réalisés par le graphic designer allemand Rafael Varona. Il met en scène à travers des gifs humoristiques et poétiques des animaux, des machines infernales, des personnages et des paysages avec un style graphique très captivant. Une série éclectique et colorée à découvrir dans la suite.

White stuccoed walls and terracotta tiled roofing create a visual connection between the simplified volumes of this small house in a Portuguese vineyard and traditional agricultural buildings nearby (+ slideshow).

Sara Antunes and Mário Ferreira of Lisbon office SAMF designed the Casa dos Caseiros residence for the caretaker of an estate that overlooks the Douro river in one of Portugal’s main wine producing regions.

The property replaces an existing farm building and is part of the gradual regeneration of the site to improve its potential for agriculture and tourism.

Simple forms, terracotta tiles, retaining walls made of local stone and blue-painted carpentry all reference the vernacular style of the existing buildings, helping the new addition blend in with its surroundings.

However, the architects explained that the design “also relates to the modern tradition, providing an openness of interpretation, with a subtle reworking of details which tend to give a more abstract and ambiguous character to the whole.”

The house’s two adjoining pitched roof volumes are situated at the entrance to the site, perpendicular to the terraces supporting the vines.

On one side a smooth white wall extends from a contrasting rugged stone retaining wall, while the line of the rear facade kinks to follow the path of the entrance road where it connects to a courtyard.

A corner of the building has been removed to create a sheltered entrance that leads into the open living and dining space, accommodated beneath the first of the vaulted ceilings that echo the shape of the roofline.

“Inside, we sought to make the spaces coincide with the outside form, with the simplest possible division and no transitional or circulation spaces,” said the architects, who positioned the bathroom in the space next to the entrance.

The sparsely furnished interior features blue cabinetry that continues the palette found on the exterior and incorporates entrances to the two bedrooms housed in the slightly smaller second volume.

Geometric tiles provide a modern interpretation of the traditional painted tiles popular in the region, while a marble countertop and splash back add a natural detail.

The small footprint references the compact size of typical gatehouses. The architects attempted to offset this by creating rooms with steeply pitched ceilings that “accentuate their spaciousness despite their small physical size.”

Photography is by José Campos.

The post SAMF reinterprets traditional Portuguese
farmhouses with Casa dos Caseiros appeared first on Dezeen.

There are a lot of things I like to do in this world, but running a meeting isn’t one of them. Years ago, I had a boss who would call me into his office and talk for a good half hour. As I walked back to my desk, I’d think, “So, what just happened in there?” Now, when I’m in charge of a meeting, I worry: will my attendees walk away with a clear idea of what was said and what, if anything, needs to be done?

I recently found myself in the unenviable position of sitting at the head of the table, as it were, but not until I had done some research on effective ways to run a meeting. There are a lot of articles out there on the topic, and here I’ve collected the best advice I could find. Now, please come to order and review these tips for running an effective meeting.

WikiHow provided advice that I’ve been advocating for a long time. Partly because of my admitted meeting anxiety, and partly because I really don’t like wasting time. Specifically, determine if a face-to-face meeting is really necessary at all. There are instances when you simply must sit down in the same room to have a conversation or spark collaboration. But, if the agenda is something that can be accomplished with an email thread or a quick conference call, do that instead. You’ll save everyone a lot of time.

They also suggest distributing the meeting’s clear goals in advance. I’ll admit that I’ve never done this. Instead, I hand out a paper agenda as people are sitting down to the table. This throwback behavior from the ’80s is distracting, as everyone sits and reads the paper or thinks ahead to the topic they’re most or least interested in. From now on, I’ll distribute the agenda a day or two ahead of time, so people can show up ready to go.

Forbes also has some great advice for meetings. For example, “spend twice as much time on the agenda as you normally would.” In other words, the clearer and more tightly-defined each item is on the agenda, the more efficient your meeting will be. I also like their suggestion to allot half the time you initially think the meeting will need. “Meetings are like accordions,” says Victor Lipman, “they stretch naturally to fill the allotted space.”

I used a similar trick on myself when I was in college, after learning about Parkinson’s Law, which states: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. If a professor told me I had 3 weeks to complete an assignment, I’d tell myself I had two. Otherwise, I knew I’d be at my desk working feverishly on day 20.

Inc. has advice that addresses types of meetings. One type, the Action Meeting, is the format I’m probably most familiar with. The goal is to devise and implement a solution to a pressing problem or outstanding project. One trick I learned from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done is to end each of this type of meeting by saying, “OK, so my next actions are …” Stating this out loud confirms that you are clear on your assignment(s), and that your bosses are clear on that fact, too. Inc. also emphasizes the importance of keeping in touch after the meeting has ended. This is an area that I’ve struggled with in the past. While I’ll make a list of actions that I’ve delegated (my “Waiting For” list), I don’t always follow up with people responsible for these tasks on a regular basis. That’s something I’ll start doing.

Of course, a meeting isn’t restricted to the board room. You might be on a council or committee at your kids’ school or a church. Less formally, you may even have family meetings to discuss finances or monthly schedules or vacations. These lessons may apply there, too. If you have tips for running an effective meeting, let me know. I’m always willing to improve in this area.

Post written by David Caolo

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The post Get organized to run meetings effectively appeared first on Unclutterer.

Dans sa collection « Maple », les designers de chez Grovemade ont conçu un support fonctionnel pour les claviers d’Apple auquel ils ont ajouté des rangements supplémentaires pour nos bureaux. Fait avec du bois d’érable, nous pouvons y ranger des stylos, des piles ou encore des cartes. A découvrir en images et à travers une vidéo.