Hasta La Ideas

The town of Golden, British Columbia—in the picturesque Kootenay region tucked away between the Rockies and Columbia Mountain ranges—is a small historical logging town, and an appealing location for snow sports enthusiasts. Close to Banff, Glacier……

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Le photographe Florian W. Mueller, que nous avons présenté à plusieurs reprises, nous offre une nouvelle série intitulée Mountains of Gold. Son travail constitue un sublime hommage aux Alpes et aux montagnes. Après avoir saisi de jolis clichés des sommets, il a ajouté des pointes de doré à la retouche pour sublimer ses sujets.

This chair by Korean designer Hyun-Gi Kim is made from hundreds of tubes that circulate blood around the furniture in response to pressure.

Kim, who designed the chair while studying at Hongik University in Seoul, wanted to introduce “vitality” into furniture by giving it a circulatory system that pumps fake blood.

The Red Series 001 Breath chair features two seats, made from blood bags, connected by a bundle of vein-like pipes. When pressure is added to one end by someone sitting down, liquid rushes through the tubes and into the adjoining seat – which then expands as it fills.

“It reminds us of the muscles and beating of the heart, creating visual and auditory stimulation,” said the designer. “There is a metaphorical meaning in this work. There must be a lot of blood in order for this creature to live a life.”

Its companion seat also sinks in response to weight as the bags are emptied, revealing the steel pipes which form the underlying framework for the furniture.

Although Kim wanted to use real human blood, the volume required made this impossible, meaning he had to mix his own fake version instead.

Other designers have sourced the real deal. For example, an Austrian men’s magazine printed a special issue with ink infused with HIV-infected blood, and a Lebanese title made posters to commemorate the mass killing of Armenians in 1915.

Past furniture projects from students at Hongik University have included a blocky stool made from leftover walnut and oak chips mixed with resin, a chair covered in a circular pattern burnt on using a heat gun and a lattice-like chair painstakingly created by hand with a 3D-printing pen.

Photography is by Sumin Shin.

The post Hyun-Gi Kim’s Red Series chair mimics the movement of blood around the body appeared first on Dezeen.

London studio DRDH Architects has built an apartment complex and social centre for elderly people in Aarschot, Belgium, featuring simple materials, communal courtyards and few bold splashes of colour.

DRDH Architects worked with Belgian studio Architecten de Vylder Vinck Tallieu to design the facility for social services provider OCMW Aarschot, after jointly winning an international competition.

The project consists of a social centre and 36 serviced apartments, built on a historically important site on the line of an old city wall and at the end of a market street.

Part of a larger masterplan developed by Ghent firm Robbrecht en Daem for the regeneration of the city centre, the Orleanshof complex seeks to maintain a connection with the site’s history and its urban context.

“Making reference to the memory of the wall and responding to its domestically scaled neighbours within the historic centre, the building is composed of three long, thin, pitched-roof bars of accommodation that step up the sloping terrain of the site,” said the architects.

A courtyard set back from the road creates a continuation of the market street opposite, helping to draw people towards the entrance.

The clean-lined gabled forms of the three distinct volumes and a separate townhouse offer a contemporary interpretation of the city’s historic architecture.

A simple material palette underpinned by the pale brick cladding allows the building to slot unobtrusively into its surroundings.

In addition to ensuring a sense of connection with the city, the architects also sought to promote interaction between inhabitants and avoid the “introverted, institutional architecture” of standard elderly housing projects.

Courtyards with varying proportions help to organise the internal spaces. They also encourage residents to mingle, by affording views of different activities from throughout the public and private areas.

The large courtyard at the building’s entrance is flanked on ground-floor level by a reception area, as well as the social centre’s cafe and multipurpose rooms.

The apartments on the upper floors are arranged in threes around smaller communal areas, some indoors and some outdoors.

Daylight floods into these spaces through voids or skylights. It then filters into the interiors of the homes through the kitchen windows, which are aligned so neighbours can see each other across the internal corridors.

Brightly coloured shutters can be closed if privacy is required.

Several of the residences on the first floor open onto garden courtyards that are also overlooked by the apartments on the levels above.

Each apartment has a fully equipped kitchen, living room, bathroom, one or two bedrooms and a terrace. Simple materials and minimal detailing lends them a bright and neutral feel.

The communal spaces and corridors feature a more utilitarian palette, with exposed breeze blocks suggesting a transition between internal and external space.

DRDH Architects was founded by Daniel Rosbottom and David Howarth in 2000. The studio ranked at number 332 in the inaugural Dezeen Hot List – a countdown of the year’s hottest names in architecture and design.

Previous projects by the firm include a white concrete cultural centre in a Norwegian city’s harbour. The studio also made the shortlist for a new extension to an Oxford University college, but lost out to fellow London office Gort Scott.

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