Hasta La Ideas

Alexander Fehre used aluminium-mesh partitions and metal light fittings to give an industrial aesthetic to this showroom and office for a conveyor-belt company in Germany (+ slideshow).

Alexander Fehre designed Movet Office Loft for manufacturer Movet across a single storey of an old industrial building in the town of Schorndorf, just outside Stuttgart.

The German designer used the aluminium mesh to partition the different activities of the business, while retaining the industrial look of the old building.

“All parts of the interior were designed with the function as first demand,” Fehre told Dezeen.

Panels of aluminium mesh also enclose the meeting space, creating a corridor that runs between the platform and a row of desks for the company’s employees. “It has a subtle filter effect for the open-plan space,” said the designer.

The designer said he chose the material as many of Movet’s clients have a metalwork background. “It is important that they feel comfortable and related to the industry they are working in,” he said.

A raised larch platform in the centre of the office forms an open-plan meeting room and kitchen for employees that also serves as a showroom for clients, with conveyor-belt elements displayed on white display plinths and shelves around the room.

A five-metre-long table with an oak-veneer top and coral lacquered legs sits in the middle of the space with copper and enamelled lighting fixtures – designed by Form Us With Love – suspended on cabling above it.

The large metal shades contribute to the office’s industrial feel.

The company sells mainly online, meaning clients do not often visit the offices. This allowed Fehre to retain a predominantly open-plan layout for the offices, with a showroom at its centre that makes clients “part of the action”.

“My idea was to put the showroom and conference table right into the heart of the office – the so-called Movet Workshop. The result is a generous room for the team and a down-to-earth and hands on showroom for the clients,” said Fehre.

Across the corridor, a workspace for eight employees has angular furniture constructed from oak-veneered plywood and linoleum.

The wooden furniture balances on the points of triangular sheets of cladding that extend from the surfaces of the cabinets and tables to the floor.

The storage cabinets are manufactured from one single element which is rotated and joined to form a complete piece.

“This repetition, paired with an easy to handle surface material, makes the units cost-efficient, while resonating with the theme of industrial production,” said the designer.

The cabinets are coated in a ceramic-lacquer that disguises the joints in the pieces to give a seamless finish.

Acoustic-foam baffles are arranged in between the wooden ceiling beams in a pattern that echoes the shapes of the furniture and metal mesh. These baffles dampen noise and reflect lighting.

“The idea was to use the baffles in a special way to emphasise the relation of Movet to the conveyor belt industry. Therefore, they are designed as one running pattern over the whole workplace area,” said the designer.

Beyond the open-plan desk space, the corridor turns to lead to the company’s shipping warehouse. A mirrored wall at the end of the corridor conceals a storage space.

Photography is by Zooey Braun.

The post Alexander Fehre designs industrial-style office
for a German conveyor-belt manufacturer appeared first on Dezeen.

Our contemporary creative world is peppered with scientific and technological influences—exhibitions that feature stylized data mapping, molecular gastronomy, Maker Faire’s everlasting dedication to the nerdy artist—it’s truly a tradition that traces at least as far back as da Vinci. But how often…

Continue Reading…

Singapore’s new national sports stadium lays claim to the world’s largest free-spanning dome, measuring 310-metres across, and its roof can be opened or closed to suit the tropical climate (+ slideshow).

The design team – a group of engineers and designers from Arup, DP Architects and AECOM – created the Singapore Sports Hub on a 35-hectare waterfront-site in Kallang, south-east Singapore.

The team designed the vast domed structure to become the state’s national stadium, as part of a complex of buildings that also includes an indoor stadium, water-sports centre and a museum – known collectively as the Singapore Sports Hub.

It was named sports building of the year at this year’s World Architecture Festival.

Up to 55,000 people can be seated beneath the curving canopy of the 310-centre roof.

“A dome roof is a very iconic architectural and structural form,” said project architect Clive Lewis.

Responding to the tropical climate, panels within the roof can slide open and closed to shelter the pitch and auditorium from heavy rain, or to keep the space cool in high temperatures.

According to the team, the roof is left open when the stadium is not in use, helping to keep the grass pitch in good condition.

The moving roof sections are made from translucent ETFE plastic, chosen for its strength and thermal properties.

The panels are supported on metal rigging that arches over the pitch, connecting to a framework that covers the auditorium on either side of the stadium.

Air-conditioning is piped into the structure beneath rows of red plastic seats.

A lightweight skin of metal sheeting clads the steel frame, weighing just 8,000 tonnes – a relatively streamlined mass for the large-scale structure.

“For the national stadium we wanted the cladding to express the form and geometry of
 the structure below, which we achieved through
 the articulation of the super lightweight cladding systems,” said Lewis.

A lattice of arching metal beams criss-cross over the exterior of the dome. Bulbs integrated into the metalwork light the stadium at night.

The ends of the beams meet the ground beyond the facades, creating a double-layer structure and framing a covered walkway that rings around the stadium.

A gap in the water-facing end of the stadium is left open to the air to frame the city’s skyline.

The stadium is used for a range of sports activities including athletics, cricket, football and rugby, as well as music concerts.

Project credits:

Architecture: Arup Associates
Engineering: Arup
Architect of Record: DP Architects
M&E: Arup + Squire Mech
Landscape: AECOM

The post Singapore national stadium boasts
world’s largest free-spanning dome appeared first on Dezeen.

Carousels of amputated human body parts perform choreography to a score of dramatic music punctuated by the sound of pneumatic pumps in an installation by British artist Peter William Holden in London (+ slideshow).

Peter William Holden presented three Dance Machines named Arabesque, Vicious Cycle and SoleNoid β as part of Merge Festival, a series of arts events currently taking place around London’s Southbank area. The sinister-looking machines act out dance routines on spotlit-platforms in a darkened room off Borough Road.

The Leipzig-based artist designed the mechanised sculptures, made up of life-like limbs mounted on steel frames, to perform ritualistic movements to well-known classical music by Sergei Prokofiev and Johann Strauss.

“I have attempted to create work which falls somewhere between conventional notions of pictorial art and a kind of performance,” Holden told Dezeen.

The kinetic sculptures are driven by pneumatic air pumps which sound each time the limbs move. The cabling, steel frames and air valves of the works’ construction are left exposed.

In a piece influenced by Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, named Arabesque, human-scale arms and legs skewered on metal rods react to music by Strauss.

A circle of prosthetic legs flex at the knee, kicking in time to the music, while four pairs of arms severed at the elbow, flop back and forth in the centre of the platform.

“The limbs, translucent and livid, bare their internal robotic mechanisms to the gaze of the viewer. The wiring is an aesthetic expression, deliberately integrated into the installation to bring chaotic lines of abstract form to contrast with the organised symmetry of the body parts,” said the artist.

As the compressed air pushes the parts into motion the air valves “exhale loudly” and the metal frames clack.

“This combined with the rattle of relays and the tandem clattering of pistons produces a hyper-modern accompaniment to the music of Strauss,” he said.

On another circular base, eight black and white tap-shoes perform a rhythmic dance in SoleNoid β. The heel-toe movements of the shoes and the sound of tap-dancing are synced using a computer.

The final work, named Vicious Circle, is inspired by the artist’s interest in the Industrial Revolution.

“It is a brutalist robotic structure and it is a representation of some of the fears I have with technology,” said Holden.

Rubberised hands attached to metal-framed structures that appear like decapitated bodies rise and fall in time to Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights.

“The motion of the machine reminds me of the relentless movement of progress as the machine moves to its predetermined program, ignorant of its environment and unwilling to stop if anything gets in its way,” he said.

“Though paradoxically it is possible to see beauty within its movements, reminding me that technology is a double edged sword and we, humanity, have the possibility to decide which direction it will take.”

Merge Festival takes place in venues across the capital until 19 October 2014.

Photography is by Matthias Möller

The post Peter William Holden’s Frankensteinian robots
perform dance routines to music appeared first on Dezeen.