Queel & Company’s not-so-utilitarian Spool Dock blurs the line between modern home decor and electronic accessory. Crafted in the USA from sustainable North American white oak, merino felt wool and a weighted metal base, this stylish charging dock is as sophisticated as it is warm and natural. Better yet, it also doubles as a convenient cable organizer that allows users to swivel docked devices with the touch of a finger! Get it here.
Google Maps vient de faire une dernière mise à jour pour sa Street View : nous pouvons maintenant admirer l’oasis de Liwa à Abu Dhabi, depuis notre ordinateur. Capturées à 360 degrés et pour la première fois sur le dos d’un chameau, ces belles images du désert sont disponibles dans la galerie, accompagnée d’une vidéo qui montre le procédé.
Chinese architect Li Xiaodong, the recipient of the inaugural Moriyama Prize, completed this building with an elaborate brickwork facade to create offices and dormitories at a building site in Zhejiang Province (+ slideshow).
It is the first building of a larger development, so the architect was tasked with designing both offices and accommodation for the team that will build the rest of the complex.
His concept was for a structure that impacts on the landscape as little as possible.
“To be able to appreciate and respect the pristine site in Dichen Valley in its totality, we proposed a series of carefully placed architectural interventions to create a route of pure and distinct landscape experiences,” said Martijn de Geus, one of the architects on Li’s team.
The building sits on the flattest section of the mountain slope. The majority of the structure is single storey, but a smaller second storey was created towards the northern end of the site, where the ground level drops by around three metres.
The facade is perforated wall that at first glance appears to be made from concrete, but on closer inspection is revealed to be a complex brick grid that combines a traditional local craft technique with modern engineering.
“We thus take a known, familiar concept, such as the solid brick wall, and instead we create a floating, permeable and open screen of bricks around the perimeter,” said De Geus.
“This thus creates a contemporary response in line with the local Chinese conception of space, in which mass and context are not solid objects, but become a series of linked, permeable environments,” he said.
This wall forms an outer skin that wraps around most of the building’s perimeter. Behind it, interior spaces are laid out around a pair of courtyards to foster a sense of community between residents.
“The relation between building mass and the organic environment is softened by the facade, conceived as a wrapped-around screen that makes the mass disappear and becomes a changing layer that interacts between inside and outside,” added De Geus.
Containing four trees, the first of the two courtyards was designed as a more social space, positioned between the workspaces and the communal living and dining rooms.
The second courtyard opens out to the inclining mountainside. This space was conceived as a more private domestic area, accessible from the dormitories at the southern end of the plan.
Both courtyards are flanked by bamboo screens, designed to offer a warm contrast to the stark grey brickwork of the exterior. Bamboo was also engineered into planks to create flooring.
Dutch Design Week 2014: Dutch designer Roderick Vos has created a collection of tables and benches using structural supports with H-shaped profiles, more commonly found in architecture (+ slideshow).
Designed by Roderick Vos for Dutch furniture brand Spoinq, items in the Blakeley collection are constructed from H-beams – also known as a Rolled Steel Joists (RSJs).
The steel beams are cut to length using computer numerically controlled (CNC) cutting technology and welded together into a choice of base configurations.
Wooden slats are then glued together to form the tabletops, and joined to the bases with eight-millimetre bolts.
“It is a very low-tech table,” Vos told Dezeen. “I tried to make an elegant, refined-looking table, but at the same time focused on simple manufacturing processes.”
“The constructivist approach to product design has always appealed to me. I have always had a certain fascination for the H-beam. Of course it is mainly used in architecture, but one can use this steel beam very well for other purposes like the construction of a table base.”
The collection includes three bases, available in a wide range of colours, and 100-centimetre-wide tabletops in a choice of oak, ash or walnut and 200, 225 or 250 centimetre lengths.
“We focused on creating an alphabet of different table bases that we could mount the three existing tabletops onto,” said the designer. “The simplicity of the construction and the details has given these designs, unexpectedly, an almost Japanese touch.”
A range of similarly designed benches completes the range. “When the tables were realised, it was obvious that we had to include three benches in the same handwriting,” said Vos.
“I hope they will be loved by young and old – the simplification of a design gives the product a longer life span.”
Studio Roderick Vos launches the Blakeley collection at Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week, which continues until 26 October.
Focus sur les posters réalisés par le graphic designer allemand Timo Lenzen. Ces affiches en noir et blanc diffèrent les unes des autres par la technique utilisée mais la touche personnelle de l’artiste confère à la série une belle cohérence visuelle. Des natures mortes contemporaines ainsi que des graphismes abstraits sont à découvrir dans la suite.
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