Hasta La Ideas

Romain Quirot est une cinéaste et photographe français basé à Paris. Entre plusieurs projets, l’homme a voyagé aux USA de Salton Sea & Bombay Beach à Slab City en passant par Salvation Mountain, réalisant une série de clichés intitulée « The Last Free Place in America ».

These ceramic bowls by Belgian designer Ilona Van den Bergh are slip-cast in perfect half-spheres and reshaped while still pliable to create one-off pieces (+ slideshow).

Van den Bergh creates the warped forms of the Moon bowls after she removes them from the plaster mould.

Each circular piece is worked by hand to shape a gentle indentation across the curved surface that is slightly different every time.

The deformed bowls are then fired to fix their final shape.

“The design is based on a circle: a perfectly closed, round line,” said Van den Bergh. “It is one of the strongest shapes, known and used throughout the history of mankind, as powerful in its simplicity as the sun and the moon.”

“But it was a challenge for me to work with this perfect shape,” she continued. “So once I remove the clay from the plaster mould, I deform the bowl. I create for each object a new curve, a new route, a new life.”

The thin-walled containers are coloured with different “engobes” – liquefied suspensions of clay particles in water – giving them a matt white, grey, brown, red, pink or orange finish.

The bowls are designed to be presented in large groups. “As a collection, the objects evoke an organic and dynamic feeling,” Van den Bergh told Dezeen.

“They breathe an atmosphere of serenity,” she said, “where shadow and light bring the collection to life, where lines and shapes conduct the rhythm, where purity and simplicity rule.”

Available in three sizes, with diameters of 10, 15 and 25 centimetres, the bowls are available to purchase individually.

The post Ilona Van den Bergh’s Moon bowls
are deformed after casting appeared first on Dezeen.

La Shed Architecture has renovated an old residence in a Montreal neighbourhood, adding a roof terrace flanked by corrugated metal and a bright red-orange staircase (+ slideshow).

Canadian studio La Shed carried out significant remodelling works to Maison de Gaspé, a two-storey home and garage in the district of Villeray to create a home for a couple and their two young children.

According to the architects, the house had undergone several transformations and fragmentations since it was first built, losing many of its original characteristics.

Because of this, a completely new aesthetic was chosen for the exterior, reuniting annexes under a cladding of dark red brickwork and corrugated steel sheeting.

“The facade went through a variety of transformations over time that made restoration impossible,” explained the architects.

“We chose to create a contemporary facade that would seamlessly integrate with the surrounding housing stock.”

To reconcile the old and new parts of the property with the local architectural typology, textured brickwork and blackened timber were added at the front of the house in keeping with neighbouring properties, while more modern and industrial materials were used to the rear.

“Relief work on the brick crowning alluded, in a modern manner, to the traditional masonry ornaments typical of the surrounding area,” the studio explained.

Glass sliding doors open onto a patch of pale timber decking in the back garden, which is overlooked by large windows set into the galvanised steel cladding of the upper storey. A chunk of this first-floor volume was removed to create a rooftop patio above the garage.

The single-height garage was clad in planks of pale timber to match the decking. This cladding material continues beyond the property’s glass doors to define an interior entrance to the garage.

“This removal allowed for an alleviation of the building’s density in relation to the backyard, while providing the garden with further natural light and a more open line of sight,” said the architects.

Inside, the spaces are finished with pale wooden floors and white walls.

Two islands with stainless steel tops sit parallel sit in the kitchen segment of the open-plan living area. One provides a work surface, while the other features a sunken sink and hob.

Spotlights and sliding doors are fixed onto ceiling runners, allowing the two spaces to be separated, and pantry storage and an oven are recessed into a white wall that separates the kitchen from a playroom.

In the play area a tiny door with a house-shaped profile opens into a cavity behind a chalkboard wall, providing a hideaway and playhouse for the family’s two children.

A bookcase made from slats of pale timber runs up one side of the double-height living space. The bright red-orange treads of a staircase rise to one side before the flight turns 90 degrees and disappears behind the cover of the bookshelf.

Upstairs, three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a study with an adjoining terrace are arranged around the atrium and separated by sliding doors.

The bathrooms features glass shower screens and are covered in tiny monochrome hexagonal and square tiles.

“The black hexagonal mosaic floor as well as solid wood horizontal surfaces act as contrasting elements in relation to the omnipresent whiteness of the bathroom,” said the architects.

A fence-like structure made from pale timber closes the study from the atrium, while from below the flatted structure allows the occupants views of the office above.

Beyond the office area, doors open onto the roof terrace. A slim room at the end of the patio provides a storage space and acts as a screen from neighbours.

Photography is by Maxime Brouillet.

The post Montreal home updated with corrugated metal
cladding and a vibrant staircase appeared first on Dezeen.

Tobbe Malm est un forgeron et photographe basé à Oslo. Il réalise de fantastiques sculptures en récupérant de vieux boulons. Un jour, l’homme trébucha sur des boulons rouillés et a immédiatement reconnu les chapeaux larges et les tiges minces comme ayant des caractéristiques physiques humaines.

During a recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Sean Penn told a fabulous Taps-era anecdote.

After working on the 1981 drama in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania with Tom Cruise, he and another co-star, Billy Van Zandt, picked up Cruise at LAX when the actor followed with a trip out west. Penn decided the first order of business should be a drive to Lucille Ball’s Beverly Hills home, since Van Zandt was a devoted fan of the comedienne.

“I mean, generationally, it didn’t make much sense, but this guy [Van Zandt] was a fanatic Lucille Ball guy,” Penn told Kimmel. “He was our age. So I thought it would be fun to see his fandom of Ball by going along with stalking Lucille Ball’s house.”

As it turns out, that was just the beginning. From Van Zandt’s current bio page:

Billy’s biggest career thrill was acting alongside his idol Lucille Ball on her final television series. A year after Lucy’s passing, Billy and [writing partner] Jane [Millmore] were nominated for a [1990 Outstanding Informational Special] Primetime Emmy for writing and producing a television special where they unveiled, for the first time in 40 years, the original pilot episode of I Love Lucy.

Millmore and Van Zandt, who divides his time with wife Adrienne Barbeau between New Jersey and California, are currently still touring with their hit 2010 Off-Broadway comedy You’ve Got Hate Mail. New York Post reviewer Frank Scheck gave it a rave when it first opened, and when reading the basic husband-wife-female-friend plot line, it sounds a lot like a modern-day version of, you know.

P.S. Given how Penn told the anecdote on Kimmel, with this droll punchline – “He [Van Zandt] had been there [to Ball’s home] many times” – the funniest come-true aspect of all this is the role Van Zandt played in the 1986 episode of that final Ball TV series. He was: Delivery Guy.