Hasta La Ideas

If you’ve ever searched for a door handle, you know that despite the overwhelmingly wide selection of styles available, it can be extremely difficult to find one that speaks to your style! With the Ada handle, you can put the finishing touch on your door with a look that’s truly your own.

It’s uniquely framed to accommodate a customized insert made from your favorite fabric, wood, metal, or other material. You can even imprint a logo or name on the insert to define your space as your own! If you’re more into minimal, leave it empty and use it as is.

Designer: Volkan Doğan

Upon the news of his death, advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather designed a font inspired by Gilbert Baker – the designer behind the rainbow flag that has become a symbol of LGBTQI communities.

Baker, a San Francisco-based artist and LGBTQI activist, originally designed the flag in 1978. He passed away earlier this month aged 66.

To honour him, London agency Ogilvy & Mather – who had worked with him on a number of projects – teamed up with organisations Newfest and NYC Pride, as well as foundry Fontself, to create a font reflective of his contribution to the LGBTQI community.

“We wanted to create something in memory of him, something that would celebrate his life but also celebrate the icon, which is the rainbow flag,” said Ogilvy creative director Chris Rowson.

“It’s powerful because of the colours and the meaning behind each of the colours,” he added. “That was the real inspiration; we wanted to celebrate something that he created that actually changed peoples’ perception of that community.”

Baker created his flag towards the end of the 1970s, so the team wanted to represent the typography and graphic language of that era through their design.

Rowson described the design process as “dissecting the flag”, with the team pulling apart its colours and proportions to create simple, elongated rectangles.

The rectangles were then manipulated and overlaid to form each letter. Where the shapes cross over, colours are blended – a decision Rowson said was representative of the “open and fluid community”.

“We liked the idea of that crossover and that overlay, it kind of creates new things,” he said. “People aren’t just one thing, they’re not just gay, or not just transsexual, everyone can be a mixture of things.”

Ogilvy hopes the font will be used to create banners for rallies and protests, with users able to download it for free from the Type with Pride website.

The Type with Pride site also offers free downloadable artwork featuring the typeface.

“This is just the start of the project, we really want it to grow and would love to the see the font held high a rallies, marches and the upcoming Pride events,” said the Rowson. “We’re going to create contests for the design community to become involved and also eventually release a whole family of the font.”

Baker’s rainbow flag was added to the Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) permanent collection in 2015.

At the time, Paola Antonelli – senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA – told Dezeen that the rainbow flag has served as a “politically powerful, meaningful, and also aesthetically effective symbol” for almost 40 years.

“The creation of new symbols for a changing world is a significant way for design to give definition and direction to human life, and one of MoMA’s goals is to acquire the art of our time,” she added.

The post Gilbert font pays tribute to designer of LGBTQI rainbow flag appeared first on Dezeen.

A weathered steel roof slopes over the gravelled courtyard at the centre of this concrete house in western India, which architect Samira Rathod has designed to offer residents plenty of shade from the sun.

The Shadow House is located in Alibaug, a coastal town located south of Mumbai in the Indian state of Maharashtra.

Mumbai-based architect Samira Rathod wrapped the 5,000-square-foot residence around a central yard, partially covered by a Corten steel roof that slopes downwards with a slight overhang.

This layout, which references traditional courtyard houses in southern India, aims to offer shelter from the hot sun and aids air flow for ventilation.

“In that scorching heat, there was only one desire – to be lulled back into that familiar dark, cold, calmness,” Rathod told Dezeen.

“The courtyard house of southern India does this well, with its overarching low slung roofs and a central courtyard around which the rooms surround.”

The exterior of the house features thick concrete walls, which are pigmented red on the southern side to absorb more light.

While there are few openings on the exterior, filtered natural light is brought in by the large expanse of windows facing the courtyard.

The babel tree planted at the centre of the gravel square is also intended to grow to offer extra shade. At full bloom, the architect said that the tree will “suffuse the house with its blazing fragrance and a confetti of tiny white flowers every morning”.

In one corner, on the southern side, the yard opens to an outdoor plunge pool with a spout providing a constant flow of water.

On the ground floor, a bedroom and en-suite bathroom occupy a block on one side of the yard, while the kitchen and informal dining area, a second dining room and a lounge is placed in the other.

The double-height lounge, which features a large skylight, is enclosed by a set of bifold doors that open fully to the garden on the northern, cooler side of the house. Inside, one of the concrete walls remains exposed, while the others are painted brown.

A staircase from the courtyard leads to the first floor, where a walkway cantilevers over part of the outdoor space. A series of thin shutters, described as like piano keys, creates dappled lighting on the wooden interior.

“The house is designed like a sieve through which light filtered, dappled and draped into its hollows,” said the architect.

“The living experience is designed to be gentle; dark, quiet and erotic, with its hierarchy of volumes and spatial textures.”

The walkway links a further two bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms placed at either end of the floor. A skylit shower features in one of the bathrooms, while a concrete wall is complemented by a mix of light and dark wood.

Across the residence, the floors are covered with handmade concrete tiles, some of which are pigmented with wavy stripes in red hues.

Maharashtra is a state that spans from the western region of India into the south. It has the second largest population in the country.

Other residences in the region include a concrete holiday home and another arranged with stone walls and a glazed, subterranean courtyard.

Photography is by Edmund Sumner.

Project credits:

Architects: Samira Rathod Design Associates
Principal architect: Samira Rathod
Project architect: Pooja A Shah
Structural consulant: Rajiv Shah and associates
Project team: Girish Bhadra, Rameshwar Bhadhwa, Jeevaram Suthar, Hasnain Kadiani, Ariff Abdulla

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Recip saw blades are typically thrown out when the teeth near the tang become dull—even when the ones near the tip remain sharp and new. The traditional way around this was to make use of the saw’s adjustable shoe, which can shift cutting to a fresh set of teeth an inch or so out from the clamp that holds the tang.

Most of the wear on a blade occurs an inch or so out from the shoe.

But what do you do when your saw does not have an adjustable shoe or the blade is so long the shoe lacks the throw to bring all of the teeth into prime cutting position? 

A second tang is punched into the center of the body.

Someone at DeWalt asked that question and came up with the idea for the Breakaway Blade, which is punched through the body in such a way that a worn blade can be broken in two to expose a second tang.

A 9-inch blade being snapped in two. The piece on the left is essentially a new 6-inch blade.

With the second tang in the clamp, a fresh set of teeth can be used for cutting. The design is akin to that of the blade in a snap-blade utility knife.

A 6-inch blade snapped in two.

DeWalt is not the first company to make a recip blade with more than one tang. Lenox makes an abrasive blade with tangs on either end. It works for that blade because with abrasive grit there is no direction of cut. Toothed blades cut on the in-stroke, so it wouldn’t work to put a tang on both ends.

Breakaway blades come in 6- and 9-inch lengths and are currently available for cutting metal: steel and copper pipe, conduit, metal studs, and the like. I doubt these will be adapted to wood-cutting applications because the opening through the center will weaken the blade and possibly cause it to kink if it binds. Binding is less of a problem with cutting metal than it is with wood. Also, it’s possible to cut wood and drywall without the shoe against the work—making it easier to use more of the teeth. It’s harder to do this with metal.

It makes sense DeWalt would be the company to come up with this design. Why? Because most recip saws have adjustable shoes but many of DeWalt’s do not. The availability of the Breakaway Blade makes up for the lack of that feature. And the ability to “start new” with a partially worn blade would be of value to those whose saws have adjustable shoes by allowing them to utilize even more teeth than before.

Huge fabric balloons invade concrete buildings and barren landscapes in this series of images by French artist Charles Pétillon.

Pétillon, who often works with balloons, produced the images to showcase an installation he created for Italian textiles brand Sunbrella during Milan design week.

The artist took 10 spherical balloons, in a variety of sizes, and wrapped them in different fabrics. The fabric covers zip together, allowing the balloons to be combined into a large and unusual cluster.

This four-metre-high composition was then artificially inserted into Pétillon’s photographs, which depict a range of deserted environments that include both buildings and landscapes.

In one image, the balloons hang over one of the balconies of a residential slab block, while another shows them tumbling down a bare hillside. There is also one that shows them emerging from a graffiti-covered kiosk.

“I wanted to create a contrast with the materials,” Pétillon told Dezeen. “You see the concrete is very strong, and you feel frightened for the installation.”

The artist presented both the installation and the images at Super Studio Design during Milan design week.

He calls the project Connexions – as the aim was to create a link between his artwork and reality.

“When I show my pictures in exhibitions, people always ask me: ‘Is it true?'” he said. “I wanted to show the process and share it with people. It’s real, it’s alive, and I wanted people to experience it.”

Pétillon is based in Paris. His past experiments with inflatables include filling Covent Garden market in London with 100,000 white balloons, and a similar project in spaces including a golf course and a suburban house.

While these projects were very site-specific, the Connexions project was envisioned to be recreated anywhere in the world. Using a software plugin for Street View, visitors to Sunbrella’s website can superimpose the balloons into any accessible location, then share the results via social media.

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