Hasta La Ideas

Japanese office G Studio added swathes of white paint to the walls of this loft apartment in Tokyo, making it look like the space is unfinished (+ slideshow).

Named Tokyo Loft, the apartment occupies one of the uppermost floors of a 1980s housing block and was designed specifically to be used as short-term accommodation for tourists.

Rather than offering a polished hotel-like interior, G Studio chose to deliberately create a space that combines home comforts with raw industrial finishes – in order to “achieve harmony” between the two aesthetics.

“Since this apartment is to be used for accommodation purposes, we took the unique character of the apartment and added a hotel-like atmosphere,” said designer Ryohei Tanaka.

The raw concrete walls and ceilings were updated using a painting technique intended to create the effect of Japanese Washi paper. It involved spray painting A4 sized sheets of resin against the surfaces, then removing them to reveal a spiral-like texture.

“This mixes the old wall with the new wall,” the designer told Dezeen. “Just renewal is boring. Something old is not just old, and it is better than just new.”

The space is organised around a large living space that opens out to a balcony terrace. A bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are arranged around the outside, along with an entrance area.

On one side of the apartment, a row of skylights were built into the sloping ceiling to offer views of the city. This allows plenty of natural light into the open-plan living space, which features a metal kitchen unit along one edge.

Wooden floorboards are used throughout the apartment, with bright orange electrical wires and plumbing features left exposed to enhance the industrial look.

To make the space more welcoming to guests, typical hotel features including a freestanding bathtub and a bar area were also added.

Tanaka believes this style of accommodation allows tourists to be “exposed to the real culture” of Tokyo.

“Due to websites like Airbnb, there has been an increase in popularity with these types of short-term apartment rentals,” the designer added. “These are customers who are dissatisfied with traditional hotels and would like the comfort of a home while travelling.”

The project is expected to become a template for rejuvenating the city’s disused “pencil buildings” – which were built during Japan’s economic growth in the 1980s and earned their nickname because they sit on plots of land disproportionate to their height.

“Plans are in place to increase these types of apartments in Tokyo with this apartment being the first test model for future projects,” added the designer.

The post G Studio Architects creates unfinished
aesthetic in Tokyo loft apartment appeared first on Dezeen.

“Pleine Lune” which means full moon is our second collaboration with Ligne Roset. It´s made out of black thick high-quality tanned calf leather ..

Fun piece from Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KSL-TV.

Reporter Sloan Schrage sat down with a couple of former University of Utah student reporters to revisit the time Andy Warhol was booked for an October 2, 1967 lecture at the school but instead, sent an imposter. In those days, there was no Google, so as suspicions grew after the event, it took longer than it would have today for the detective work:

At the end of October, a New York-based photographer came to Salt Lake to take photographs of the University of Utah Repertory Dance Theater for national publications. “[Lectures director] Paul Cracroft showed the picture [student reporter Joe] Bauman had taken of the supposed Warhol to this guy,” said [former student reporter Angelyn] Hutchinson. “And he said, ‘No, that’s not Warhol. I know Warhol and that’s not Warhol.’ “

In early December 1967, Cracroft was to go to New York City on an unrelated business trip. He contacted Warhol’s manager, Paul Morrissey, and asked if he could meet him and Warhol while there. “They said, ‘Oh, of course,’ ” remembered Hutchinson, “and they stood him up.”

A few weeks later, a University of Utah student returned from a visit to New York with a photo of Warhol that had run in The Village Voice. It was published in the Daily Utah Chronicle student paper alongside Bauman’s snap, and the poll consensus was that the man who came to campus that day was not Warhol.

Actor Allen Midgette, the actor who turned out to be the fake Warhol for the Utah lecture and similar events at schools in Montana and Oregon, did not respond to multiple KSL-TV inquiries. Too bad, as it would have been really fun to hear his side of the story.

L’artiste belge et plongeur Sylvie de Burrie tourne des scènes sous-marines de corail en morceaux dont elle utilise la coupe pour créer une magnifique galerie totalement abstraite. Les photos qui composent sa série « My Life Aquatic » permettent aux spectateurs d’observer ces élégantes créatures de récifs disposés en motifs répétitifs.

It should be a very good spring for The Strand Magazine. The literary quarterly’s latest issue contains a never-before-published 4,800-word story by Tennessee Williams titled “The Eye That Saw Death.”

It’s the ghoulish tale of a man who, at age 30, suffers through increasingly harrowing visions after receiving an eye transplant. From a report by the AP’s Hillel Italie:

The Strand managing editor Andrew F. Gulli, who has previously published little-known works by Graham Greene and John Steinbeck among others, found “The Eye That Saw Death” at one of the country’s leading literary archives, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Williams scholar George Crandell says the undated work is a “pretty good story” and surprisingly polished for a piece never published before. Crandell is especially impressed because he thinks Williams was likely in high school when he completed it.

“The story has a similar feel to “The Vengeance of Nitocris,” kind of a horror story that was published in Weird Tales in 1928 (when Williams was 16),” says Crandell, the associate dean of Auburn University’s graduate school and a member of the editorial board of the literary journal the Tennessee Williams Annual Review.

Smartly, The Strand is keeping all traces of the Williams treasure offline and pointing non-subscribers to a $12.95 hard copy access point.

For more Williams, check out this week’s fun tour in the Times-Picayune of a local rooming house where the writer stayed briefly when he was 27. That piece is timed to coincide with the latest edition of the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival (March 25-29).