Le design du restaurant afghan Parwana Kutchi Deli est né du fruit d’une collaboration entre Graham Charbonneau du Studio-Gram et les directeurs artistiques de chez Mash. Avec des nuances de bleu, de belles alcôves, des clichés d’icônes afghanes, de paons et des tonalités de street-food, ce spot de 45m2 situé à Adelaide propose des saveurs parfumées concoctées par Zelmai et Farida Ayubi, venus en Australie en 1987.
Bertrand Lanthiez est graphic et interactive designer français. L’année dernière, il a exposé à Reykjavik une oeuvre intitulée « Sound of Threads », une composition de deux installations qui, de manière intrigante, invitent à ressentir la musique et les sons autrement qu’avec le seul sens auditif. La bande son a été réalisé, avec la voix de Mina Tindle, une chanteuse française qui à récemment sorti un second album.
Part 1 : Installation composée de quatre supports en bois et de fils de laine islandais. La lumière est projetée dessus afin de créer une traduction visuelle de la musique et de souligner l’expérience sonore.
Part 2 : Une petite pièce dans laquelle les gens sont invités à créer leur propre « morceau de musique » en utilisant simplement les mouvements de leur corps qui actionnent aléatoirement des sons et des lumières.
It won’t be long before “people have a solar car on their driveway,” Lammers says in the movie, which was filmed in Eindhoven at Dutch Design Week 2014.
“There’s so much energy from the sun that’s not being used,” he explains. “It’s still quite expensive to build [a solar-powered car], but within about 30 years solar cars could be a realistic way of transportation.”
“[Stella] is very much like a normal car,” says Lammers. “It can reach up to 120 kilometres an hour. In good sun conditions and with the battery charged it can travel for about 700 kilometres. It fits four people. It’s a car you can just get in and drive away like the car you own at home.”
Participants in the race were only allowed to charge their vehicles from the grid once, with the rest of the energy for the 3,000 kilometre journey coming from the sun.
Lammer’s claims that even in less sunny parts of the world, a solar-powered car like Stella would be practical to own and drive.
“Stella can charge while it’s driving but also while it’s standing still,” he says. “In a climate like in northern Europe you’d collect more energy than you’d use in a normal daily commute for ten of the twelve months in the year.”
He continues: “That means it’s energy positive and it could feed energy back to your home. You could use your washing machine with the power you gathered with your car.”
Martijn Lammers of Solar Team Eindhoven
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers is a year-long collaboration with MINI exploring how design and technology are coming together to shape the future.
The music in the movie is a track called Family Music by Eindhoven-based hip hop producer Y’Skid.
Behind the aluminium facade of this innovation centre for the University of Toronto Mississauga, local office Moriyama & Teshima Architects has converted a courtyard into a rotunda with a glass roof (+ slideshow).
The university asked Moriyama & Teshima Architects to upgrade an earlier building of its own design – the Kaneff Centre completed in 1992 at the campus located 33 kilometres west of central Toronto – to provide new amenities for students and staff alongside the existing auditorium, classrooms and offices.
In addition to enclosing the original central courtyard to create a multipurpose space at the heart of the facility, the architects introduced a rectangular extension. This balances the plan and accommodates services including a new reception and offices for the faculties of economics and management.
“The strategy to address the existing building was incremental,” said Moriyama & Teshima Architects principal Carol Phillips.
“Rather than subsuming the original building, we inserted discrete additions, giving presence to each of the major volumes and functions of the building while resolving the fragmented form of the existing structure.”
The building’s first and second floors are wrapped in white powder-coated vertical aluminium fins that are intended to complement the robust forms of its Brutalist neighbours and alter its appearance depending on the viewing angle.
“To knit this part of the campus together we committed to the palette of neutrality, bold in expression, rich and varied in texture and detail,” claimed Phillips.
The upper storeys project over the glazed ground floor to provide a sheltered route for students during inclement weather.
The use of glass at this level enhances the connection between the interior and the rest of the campus by allowing partial views inside while reflecting the surroundings.
An entrance set into the glazed facade leads directly towards the rotunda, which maintains the spatial concept of the courtyard created as part of the original plan for the site.
Short sets of steps positioned at openings around the edge of the circular corridor lead into the communal space, which can be used for meetings or relaxation by students and staff.
Natural light from high level windows filters through timber slats that reference the external facade treatment.
Travertine marble used on the floor and walls helps to reflect daylight around the interior.
As with on the development of the original Kaneff Centre, the architects worked with local firm PCL Construction to ensure the renovation and extension maintain the same aesthetic and engineering standards.
I greatly enjoyed Barry Berkus’ “How to Think Like an Architect” videos, and have been searching in vain for an industrial design counterpart. To have a creative designer walk you through, in plain English, a design as it unfurls is immensely edifying, but I can’t find an ID guy who’s done it.
I did, however, luckily stumble across Field Notes man and Curiosity Club veteran Aaron Draplin breaking down a graphic design project. Learning website Lynda.com tasked Draplin with designing a logo—something that can take months—and condensing it all into a sit-able video. Not only does Draplin render his process completely transparent, there’s a bonus starting around 15:00, when he discusses what happened after he decided to go freelance.
For centuries, scientists, thinkers, makers and—of course—designers have looked up to the sky and stars for inspiration. From satellite imagery on silk scarves to the movie Interstellar, some great stuff has come from celestial-oriented thinking. One of the latest examples is a set of tableware by Chi and Chi that takes its cue from astronomical objects and other cosmic phenomena.
Founded last year, Chi and Chi is a product design studio based in Taiwan, run by brothers Stephen and Leo Chiu. The duo were approached by a close friend, Sappho Wong, who wanted to develop a set of tableware for her brand Saniyo. Wong offered to provide her expertise in OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing) consulting and her connections in the ceramic industry, while giving the Chiu brothers free rein over the ideation and creative process.
The designers started off by thinking about the concept of “gathering”—a natural point of entry for tableware “We think that it is very interesting how people meet and get to know each other and become friends; it is something very natural and we never know if there is a law or pattern behind it,” Stephen Chiu says. “We think it is similar to the universe—everything is in order, and when all the things join together, it brings harmony and diversity. It is exactly like the relationship between humans.”
Iowa may not be the first place to pop into mind when you think high-tech, but the Midwestern state is getting serious with smartphones as they become the first to allow digital driver licenses. Instead of completely replacing physical IDs, Iowa will……
On a mission to “empower the creative world to make ideas happen,” Behance has quite the impressive online community. Their Year in Review reveals many of the amazing projects born from the digital portfolio platform. Looking back at 2014, photographers……
The new Cicret bracelet concept wears like a Jawbone Up while offering the functionality of your favorite smartphone. Utilizing a “picoprojector,” the wristband hopes to emit your phone’s display directly onto your skin and then tracks your interactions……
In advance of next year’s forthcoming EP, Brooklyn duo Baby Alpaca has released a beautiful new (and sexually charged) track, “Roller Coaster.” It’s been almost a year since the band dropped a new track, and this is well worth the wait, as melody meets……
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