Depuis des années, la photographe californienne Camille Seaman se déplace dans les régions polaires et capture les effets secondaires de la fonte des glaces. Les animaux sont les premières victimes de ce phénomène, en atteste cette série de clichés bouleversants.
By Geoff Ledford, Industrial Designer at Soulcake Creative/INDUS Outdoors
The modern designer/manufacturer/consumer loop isn’t sustainable. That’s well-covered territory and the subject of books, lectures and articles by people that are smarter and much more qualified to speak on the subject than me.
But as a product designer going into the holiday spend-a-thon™, the realities of a society obsessed with stuff always hits me particularly hard this time of year. Every product that we design, produce and sell uses finite resources that will eventually run out. Mass-produced products are easily replaceable (read: disposable), which compounds the problem. And, sadly, the only inexhaustible part of the loop seems to be consumers’ incessant demand for more.
What’s a designer to do?
As designers, we can’t do much to discourage society’s obsession with stuff. (Admittedly, I suppose a designer could combat consumerism by creating hard to use, ugly or otherwise inferior products. But then he’d likely be out of a job too.) If designers do our jobs well, we actually encourage customers to buy more stuff, not less.
So if designers are, in fact, the problem solvers that we claim to be, how do we confront consumerism in the face of the impending environmental crisis? To paraphrase leadership guru Stephen Covey, it’s a much better strategy to focus on things that you can control rather than worry about the things you can’t. (He called it a “circle of influence.”) And it’s within this circle of influence that design can start to sing a sustainable tune.
Indus designers create a clay model for a hiking stick handle that allows for multiple, ergonomic grips.
A modest example
At Soulcake, we’ve found a way to help the environment that is within our direct circle of influence—going after upstream sources of manufacturer waste that are many of our clients’ backyards. Companies routinely purge scraps and “manufacturer excess” as an accepted part of their business practice—in many cases long before finished products ever get into the hands of consumers.
Only a handful of shoe designs can claim a true hip-hop pedigree. The Adidas Superstar (sans laces) owes its street cred to Run-DMC while the ’90s East Coast rap scene’s affinity for Timberland boots tripled sales over the decade. And British shoemaker……
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Inspiration for the Radix One Slim Wallet came from a surprising visit to the chiropractor where designer Arthur Wu learned his fat old wallet was causing a slight tilt in his pelvis, contributing to lower back pain. The resulting design is fairly simple, consisting of a silicone band wrapped around two polycarbonate parts to sandwich credit cards and IDs in the middle. Rather than elastic bands that lose their stretch, the silicone band maintains its memory to ensure cards are always kept secure.
Designer: Arthur Wu
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(One Slim Wallet was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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An orange plastic tunnel forms a curvy seating area along the facade of this London office block – the first UK project from José Selgas and Lucía Cano, the architects of next year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion (+ slideshow).
Located in a former carpet factory in Shoreditch, Second Home is a collaborative workspace for various small companies, featuring transparent acrylic walls, over a thousand plants and a so-called “flying table”.
At the front of the two-storey space is a canteen restaurant where occupants are encouraged to interact with one another and share ideas. Inspired by Richard Rogers’ River Cafe, the area doubles up as an informal workspace.
The main seating area is contained within the orange tunnel, described by the architects as a greenhouse. It features a curved bank of seating, painted with glossy orange paint, and a selection of mismatched chairs.
Behind this is an events space that can be used for film screenings, music performances and lectures, as well as for company meetings and workshops.
To ensure the flexibility in this room, it features a grand U-shaped meeting table that can be winched up towards the ceiling when not in use. Legs can be screwed on and off, to ensure stability when people are leaning on it.
The various offices are spread out over two floors, all contained behind the bubble-like plastic partitions. These maintain views all the way through the building, from the front to the rear.
The architects, whose own office is a transparent woodland tunnel, also added extra glazing to the outer walls to reinforce this visual connection.
“We realised that we had this great opportunity for transparency in the building,” José Selgas told Dezeen during a tour of Second Home earlier today.
“Now we’ve opened up the rear wall, bringing it down to the level of the desks. I think it works perfectly, because now we have this relationship with the neighbours.”
Some of the curvy glass enclosures are small workspaces for four to five people, while others can accommodate as many as 20, including several double-height spaces. Each one is soundproofed, thanks to the insulating properties of the acrylic.
“We know about the softness of the material, it’s very good for acoustics,” said Selgas. “It’s not glass, it’s plastic so it can move and it absorbs sound. It works perfectly for the sound. You can have people working and you really don’t hear anything.”
“It’s also the most transparent material you can have,” he added.
Mismatched chairs continue throughout the workspaces – in total there are 600 different types of chair in the building, as well as an assortment of different lighting fixtures.
Hydroponically cultivated plants line the edges of every office, with many slotting into gaps in the surfaces. A “plant hospital” is located in a courtyard, for nurturing any unhealthy plants.
None of the offices have kitchen areas, but staff can enjoy free coffee in the canteen.
Corridors feature slightly lower ceilings than rooms. This is because ventilation ducts and other services have been concealed overhead, but also creates a feeling of openness in the workspaces.
José Selgas and Lucía Cano were last week revealed as the designers for next year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion – an opportunity usually only open to architects who haven’t built in the UK before. Their design, expected to centre around transparency, will be revealed in the new year.
Photography is by Iwan Baan.
The post SelgasCano’s London office refurb features
an orange tunnel and a “flying table” appeared first on Dezeen.
Throughout this year, design studio TEMPLO has been working on a trilingual identity for #StopTorture, a campaign from the International Truth and Justice Project which aims to raise awareness of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. The politically neutral system combines a vibrant colour palette with English, Sinhalese and Tamil characters…
Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war ended in 2009 after three decades of conflict, but in a report published in March this year, the Truth and Justice Project claims that rape, sexual violence and torture has increased in the country in the past five years.
Led by Yasmin Sooka of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales and based on harrowing witness testimonies, it describes “widespread and systematic violations by the Sri Lankan security forces” against LTTE (Tamil Tiger) suspects and their associates in a manner which indicates “a co-ordinated, systematic plan approved by the highest levels of government”.
To raise awareness of this issue in the west, the Truth and Justice Project launched #StopTorture in June this year and asked TEMPLO to devise a politically neutral identity for both on and offline communications.
The studio created a trilingual system based around two typographic logos – the first combines the Tamil and English characters for ‘Stop’:
And the second combines English and Sinhalese:
Logos are used together on campaign imagery and TEMPLO says the dual branding aims to create a sense of ‘balance from both perspectives’, while giving a voice to both ethnic groups.
“We needed Sri Lankans inside and outside of Sri Lanka to understand that their plight was being shared with the wider world,” says Templo founder and creative director Pali Palavathanan. “We also didn’t want to alienate the very people we were trying to give voice to,” he adds.
Designing the logos was a complex process, explains Palavathanan, as both symbols had to be visually similar while ensuring characters were clearly legible for native speakers of each language.
“We had to start with matching the Tamil and Sinhala letterforms, [which was] tricky as they are constructed in completely different ways. Tamil is much more geometric and angular compared to the more script-based Sinhala,” he says. “Once this was achieved, we could extend the lines and curves to their English counterpart. We then tested this with native Tamil and Sinhala speakers to test legibility.”
TEMPLO also had to avoid using colours or symbols associated with political groups: “We had to avoid using deep reds, yellows and tigers to ensure we didn’t reference either Tamil Tiger flags or hard lined Sinhalese nationalists,” says Palavathanan. The resulting scheme features a bold red and purple, which Palavathanan says is designed to “stand out from the crowd” while capturing the vibrancy of Sri Lanka.
The identity has so far been applied to the campaign’s website, the report and imagery for social media and #StopTorture events. The studio also designed a website, white-flags.org, which commemorates the fifth anniversary of the day when 143 Tamils surrended and disappeared. The site features an animation of disappearing white flags alongside a timeline of events, imagery and eyewitness testimonies of the incident.
Creating an identity for such a politically charged campaign, and which addresses such disturbing subject matter, is a daunting task – as Palavathanan points out, “the design had to be incredibly sensitive to the content, which often described horrific and unimaginable events. It also needed to stand out and have impact.”
“This was one of the most challenging projects we have ever worked on,” he adds. “We had to protect the identities of translators, barristers, journalists who contributed as the Sri Lankan government are known for their intimidation tactics and hostile treatment of those that question their authority – for this, reason many who were involved could not be credited. We also asked ourselves if we should put our names to the work,” he says.
The finished system combines Sri Lankan script with clear infographics and bold sans type to sensitively yet clearly relay some shocking statistics in reports and communications, as well as providing a distinctive and immediately recognisable logo.
The campaign will run until June 2015, and has so far gained support from Desmond Tutu, US Ambassador Catherine Russel and Woman’s Hour broadcaster Jenni Murray, as well as celebrities M.I.A, Cara Delevingne and Bianca Jagger. Former foreign secretary William Hague also vowed to review the policy of deporting Tamils back to Sri Lanka after attending a #StopTorture event this summer.
Credits
Design: TEMPLO
Website build: Made By Cloud
Animation: Martin Shannon
Filming: Scott Carthy
Le studio hollandais Wieki Somers a conçu « The Bathboat » : une baignoire originale en forme de barque en bois. L’idée est venue des bateaux de pêcheurs qui flottent et « se baignent » dans l’eau. Ce meuble a été révélé au musée Boijmans van Beuningen de Rotterdam. A découvrir en images.
Photos by Elian Somers.
News: New York architect Steven Holl has seen off competition from 104 applicants including Zaha Hadid, OMA and Amanda Levete, to design a new wing for the Mumbai City Museum.
Steven Holl Architects collaborated with Mumbai practice Opolis Architects on the red stone design for the new north wing of Mumbai’s oldest museum, the Mumbai City Museum. The Victorian museum sits within a 47-acre botanical garden and zoo in Byculla, to the south of Mumbai.
Related story: Steven Holl to design four museums for new complex in China
The new wing will extend into the garden and house a permanent gallery and a temporary exhibition space capable of receiving large-scale touring shows. Renderings of the design show a red building with deep cut-outs for windows and openings, and a smooth white interior.
Expected to be between 8,000 and 10,000-square-metres, the extension will include a conservation centre, library and archives, and a new museum shop and cafe.
The museum said that the international architecture competition was the first to be held for a public building in Mumbai. Prominent entrants among the eight teams shortlisted for the commission were OMA, Zaha Hadid Architects and Amanda Levete’s studio AL_A, which designed a new subterranean gallery for London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
“It is an incredible honour to be the winners and we’re very excited about the next steps on the project,” said Noah Yaffe, partner at Steven Holl Architects who also designed the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas, the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark and Helsinki’s Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.
Local rough-cut Agra stone will be used for the facade, which features a roof with parapet detailing.
The irregular shapes carved from the brickwork will expose accents of the thick white concrete that be used to form the interiors, which feature curved walls and ceilings.
“The winning design was distinctive for its sculptural and calligraphic qualities and its commitment to sustainability,” said a statement from the museum. “It proposes a simple volume, which is enlivened by deep subtracting cuts, creating dramatic effects of light and shade.”
One arch cut into the base of the building rises over a pool of water fitted with photovoltaic units that will help to offset the museum’s electricity consumption.
The pool will be submerged into a garden courtyard between the old and new buildings. Tropical planting is pictured emerging from boxes sunken below the water’s surface.
Construction is expected to begin in 2015.
The post Steven Holl to design new wing for
Mumbai City Museum appeared first on Dezeen.
Have you guys ever sold your house? When potential buyers file in, you want them to see your spacious rooms—but you don’t want them lingering too long picking out the flaws. What’s the best way to hustle them through so they can see it all, without their eyes picking up on the imperfect miters on the crown molding and such?
Simple: Build an in-house rollercoaster:
by Chérmelle D. Edwards
“I feel ya,” a new exhibition with Savannah College of and Art Design (SCAD) and André 3000 Benjamin, made its Art Basel Miami debut exploring the intersection of three artistic disciplines: fashion, film and art within a……
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