Hasta La Ideas

Last year around this time, Dwight Garner was decimating Ruth Reichl’s novel Delicious! in the pages of The New York Times. Here’s a brief reminder:

It’s a gauzy ode to the liberating virtues of pleasure, glazed with warmth and uplift, so feebly written and idea-free that it will make you wonder if the energy we’ve been putting into food these last few decades hasn’t made us each lose, on average, a dozen IQ points.

Garner’s slam of the one-time NYT journalist’s effort reverberated far and wide, prompting for example Los Angeles magazine a few days later to itemize the review’s “5 Most Cringeworthy Slams.” A year later, Reichl tells the Wisconsin State Journal that memories of the crit-eek! still sting:

Not only was it the nastiest take-down of anything she’d ever written, Reichl said it was the worst review she’d ever read…

“It was devastatingly bad. I’ve never read a worse review of anything,” Reichl, 67, said by phone from the home in New York City she shares with her husband, Michael Singer, a retired CBS News producer. The couple has a 26-year-old son, Nick, who works as a filmmaker.

As Journal reporter Samara Kalk Debry notes, the Times ran a second review of Delicious! a few weeks later by Kate Christensen. That one was much nicer.

Reichl is co-presenting a Tuesday lunchtime fundraiser in Madison for the Madison Public Library Foundation’s Wisconsin Book Festival. Attendees will sample food and drinks made by local female chefs and mixologists, as well as receive a signed copy of Delicious! The author will also speak and read from her book that same night at the Central Library.

In the article, former Gourmet magazine critic Reichl also shares some interesting thoughts on today’s U.S. household tendency towards take-out and restaurant meals.
 
[Jacket cover courtesy: Random House]

Both the jagged profile of Norway’s mountain ranges and the gabled elevations of traditional houses informed this angular housing development in Stavanger (+ slideshow).

Designed by Danish studio AART architects and local firm Studio Ludo, the 19,500-square-metre Waterfront project is one of Europe’s largest wooden residential developments – fitting for a city with the highest concentration of wooden buildings in northern Europe.

Situated in the city’s harbourfront area, the site accommodates 128 freehold flats and a range of communal facilities designed in a style that references Stavanger’s heritage of wooden architecture from the 18th and 19th centuries.

“In many ways, it expresses the essence of the city by refining the city’s wooden architectural tradition, while also interpreting the Norwegian landscape,” said the design team in a statement.

The architects decided to vertically stretch sections of the facades, resulting in irregular forms.

“It blurs the boundary between the urban space and the dramatic Norwegian landscape by appearing as a mountain range of wood on the edge between the city and the sea,” said the team.

The complex was arranged as a continuous sequence of spaces that extend along the angular edge of the waterfront.

Separate units are divided up by narrow gaps that reference the city’s traditional winding streets. There are also several large public plazas and walkways offering views out to sea.

Corners were sliced off the edges of the units to reduce their visual mass, but also to ensure that appropriate surfaces are angled towards the sun as it passes across the sky.

Public spaces around the periphery of the buildings include a promenade that extends along the sea-facing side of the development and continues all the way to the city centre.

“The promenade creates a clear line and a natural flow between the recreational atmosphere at the waterfront and the urban and historical atmosphere in the city centre,” said AART architects.

Sheltered areas between the structures house a community square, a play area and spaces that will be planted to become green parks.

Large concrete staircases connect the promenade with the raised square, encouraging the public to either explore the spaces or sit and look out towards the sea.

Ground-floor units facing the promenade accommodate cafes and shops that will further enhance the vitality of the area surrounding the accommodation.

“By promoting social interaction and piquing the pedestrian’s curiosity, the cafes and shops carefully articulate a form of ‘moments’, which, together with the wooden facades, give the building complex a human scale and a rich architectural quality,” the architects said.

A large communal room at first-floor level overlooks the public square, the promenade and the sea, providing an additional space for social gatherings.

Single-storey apartments are located on the lower levels of the buildings, with duplexes housed above. The irregular shapes of the buildings allow for a variety of floor plans, resulting in residences of different shapes and sizes.

The development is constructed with timber frames and cladding made from a heat-treated wood harvested from Scandinavian forests.

A second phase of construction is scheduled to complete later this year.

Photography is by Adam Mørk.

Project credits:

Client (developer): Kruse-Smith
Client (original contracting authority): Stavanger 2008 and NAL|NABU
Architects: AART architects, Studio Ludo

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Markos R. Kay est un artiste résidant à Londres, spécialisé dans le numérique, qui a été commissionné par Pentagram afin de réaliser des illustrations 3D basées sur le travail du Prix Nobel Eric Betzig, pour le magazine HHMI Bulletin. « Microscopic Leaps » révèle des figures complexes qui simulent ce qu’on appelle la « microscopie fluorescente ».

These sculptural helmets by digital art studio FIELD incorporate Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets (+ movie).

FIELD‘s Quasar project comprises three wearable sculptures designed to be worn by visitors to the studio’s solo exhibition in London, titled Violescence.

“We worked really closely with Studio Makecreate who fabricated the helmets,” FIELD managing director Vera-Maria Glahn told Dezeen.

“They were amazing partners in achieving the forms and finishes that we were after, and making the sculptures wearable at the same time.”

To create the headsets, a mould was taken of a head wearing the Oculus Rift device and headphones, which was used as the base for all three pieces.

Layers of fibreglass, resin, polypropylene and other synthetic materials were then built up to form the exaggerated shapes.

The virtual reality (VR) headsets are fixed inside so the full devices fit snugly over the wearers’ heads.

“Each of the sculptures is the result of a very elaborate manual process – a strong contrast to the digital tools that we started the design process with in the studio,” said Glahn.

“And yet, the iterative steps of moulding, shaping, layering and carving are quite similar in 3D tools and simulations as in manual processes.”

In each of the sculptures, the VR headsets offer different interactive audio-visual experiences that are intended to present journeys and emotions of three personas – representing aggression, sensitivity and inquisitiveness.

“Viewers dive into a graphical galaxy filled with sound and music, which they control with their arm gestures and viewing direction: a continuous process of creation, modification and destruction of a visual and sound composition,” Glahn said.

FIELD created the software used to produce the immersive sounds and imagery. Participants wear a wristband sensor that recognises arm gestures using acceleration and gyroscope data.

The solo exhibition, presented by digital art platform Sedition, also includes a series of four animations and four digital prints titled Forays.

“The works represent landscapes, architecture and objects of the future as seen by the artist, and foreshadow the change in the perception of reality by future generations through the influence of contemporary technology,” said FIELD.

Violescence is taking place at The Hospital Club in London’s Covent Garden from 29 to 31 May 2015.

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Team:Indeed created an effective solution for runners. OKEY is a flexible and elastic key ring pendant made of skin-friendly silicon, which is easily ..