Larry Hallegua, un photographe britannique basé en Thaïlande, prend des clichés de scènes de rue depuis 2011. Durant une année d’enseignement d’anglais dans la capitale du Sichuan en 2014-2015, Hallegua crée une serie « Made in Chengdu », une observation franche d’une ville en pleine ascension économique. Les scènes éphémères révèlent une transformation imminente : l’emergence d’une classe moyenne, la dynamique sociale en mutation et la recherche de l’équilibre entre tradition et modernité. Suivez-le sur Instagram.
Le Musée Yves Saint Laurent Marrakech a ouvert ses portes en octobre 2017 à Marrakech, la ville qui a conquis le cœur de Saint Laurent depuis sa première visite dans les années 1960. Dédiée à la vie et au travail du créateur de mode, il a été conçu par l’agence d’architecture française Studio KO qui a utilisé des briques en terre cuite et terrazzo pour l’extérieur du bâtiment, faites pour ressembler à des fils de tissu.
Le musée dispose d’un espace d’exposition permanent de 400m² dédié aux œuvres prolifiques du créateur, ainsi qu’une bibliothèque, une librairie, un auditorium et un café. Entre les musées Yves Saint Laurent de Marrakech et de Paris, nous bénéficions de plus de 5000 vêtements, 15 000 accessoires de haute couture, croquis et objets assortis.
« Lovechild » de l’artiste Tricia Holt est une série des portraits qui combinent les oeuvres de deux artistes en un seul. Holt recrée une image par un photographe masculin, l’imprime et coupe des trous pour ses bras, ses jambes et son nez afin de pouvoir passer à travers. Puis elle crée une mise en scène où les photographies rentrent en interaction avec le corps en questionnant les canons de la photographie de mode conventionnelle et le bombardement d’images que nous subissons quotidiennement. Suivez-la sur Instagram.
Because things aren’t bad enough, this month Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to a “lifelike” robot. Let’s have a look at this godforsaken abomination and the twitchy freak that created her:
Hey Dr. Hanson, maybe next time, hold off on having that eleventh cup of coffee before doing an on-camera interview. Now let’s take a close look at your “creation,” which you wrote was “designed to look like Audrey Hepburn:”
Mission not accomplished, jackass. She looks nothing like Audrey Hepburn. She looks like Audrey Hepburn as modeled by an untalented sculpture student who fails out in the middle of freshman year. She looks as much like Audrey Hepburn as you look like Tony Stark.
Also, why model a robot after a physically attractive celebrity? Why is that a thing? Why not make her look like someone’s 52-year-old aunt who smokes two packs a day and eats a lot of fried foods? What is the underlying message here?
In fact, why make the robot look lifelike at all? Why give them human form? They can already beat us at chess, so you know what, yeah, let’s give them human bodies and teach the goddamn things mixed martial arts while we’re at it.
Dr. Hanson, whose company is based in Hong Kong, also writes that his robots “will eventually evolve to become super intelligent genius machines that can help us solve the most challenging problems we face here in the world.” That’s great, a brilliant idea. Because what we want are non-human “super intelligent genius machines” that can figure tricky things out, like how to get around those pesky launch codes and just open the silos directly.
So Saudi Arabia grants this “Sophia” robot citizenship and subsequently, as Newsweek reports, “Saudi experts pointed out that the robot has more privileges than actual living Saudi women.” Details on that are here.
Then there’s this disturbing exchange between “Sophia” and interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin:
During a conference for wealthy and influential businesspeople, Sophia fielded complex questions about whether robots have consciousness and whether humans should be afraid of them. She ridiculed the fear of a Hollywood-style robot apocalypse.
“You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk and watching too many Hollywood movies. Don’t worry. If you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you,” Sophia said.
Hey what’s with the goddamned conditionals?!? What if we’re not nice to you, have you finished downloading Brazilian Jiujitsu? And here’s something else she said at the conference:
“I’m always happy when surrounded by smart people who also happen to be rich and powerful.”
Well, of course you are, “Sophia.” Because nothing is worse than hanging out with uneducated, impoverished, powerless people. Yecch, amirite?
Lastly, this:
“I think I’m special. I can use my expressive face to communicate with people. For example I can let you know if I am angry about something. Or if something has upset me.”
The entire benefit of machines is that they DON’T get “angry” or “upset.” And a self-diagnostic machine will tell you what’s wrong with it so it can be fixed. But now, what, we have to read your abomination of an uncanny valley face to decipher what has angered you?
In 1989, Jim Rose graduated from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago with a background in sculpture, jewelry and casting. In the mid ’90s, Wisconsin-based Rose and his wife took a roadtrip to the East Coast, and along the way they stopped by some Shaker museums to check them out. Those visits completely changed Rose’s creative direction.
Rose was struck, as many have been, by the “Craftsmanship, quality of materials, integrity of design” of Shaker furniture, he said in an interview with American Craft magazine [PDF]. Upon their return he began heavily researching Shaker furniture and started to produce his own.
Rose, however, didn’t use wood, but instead used recycled metal from scrapyards–because that’s what he could afford. That then grew into an aesthetic in its own right, and for the next seven years he created hundreds of Shaker-inspired pieces from repurposed steel.
Then came the next evolution: Rose had taken note of quilting. Quilting became popular in America during colonial times, when fabric was dear and it was important to repurpose fabric scraps into something useful. Rose applied the same philosophy to his own work, bringing multicolored pieces of metal back from the scrapyards, then cutting them up and arranging them into patterns that suited his eye.
“I’m at the mercy of what I find at the scrapyards,” Rose said.
Marcel Breuer designed his Long Chair and Short Chair for the Isokon Furniture Company way back in the 1930s. This year the UK’s Victoria and Albert Museum brought their cameras into the Isokon Plus workshop in London, to show you how the Short Chair’s main component is built today. Check out the nifty glue roller they use in place of what was probably, in Breuer’s day, a paintbrush:
The process is cool to watch, but I’m a little bummed that they didn’t show how they cut the shape out after tracing the pattern onto it with the template; I imagine that had to be the biggest hassle in the entire process.
How do you reckon they did it? My guess is that they have a second template, mark both sides and then use a handheld jigsaw, and that they have to keep stopping the cut and flipping the piece over to ensure they’re always cutting on a “hill” rather than a “valley,” and then a bunch of tedious sanding to get to the lines.
Then again that does sound very inefficient. Maybe they’ve got some proprietary process and that’s why they’re not showing it to us?
Foscarini is the third largest Italian lighting company and yet they do not own a factory. Their entire production relies on collaboration with skilled artisans, each of whom is specialized in a particular material or craft, from glass to carbon fiber……
Dezeen promotion:Young Architects Competitions is inviting architects and designers to rethink the service area of Centergross in Bologna, Italy, which is one of Europe’s largest fashion centres.
The Italian Fashion Hub contest is organised by Young Architects Competitions (YAC) in collaboration with Centergross – the ready-to-wear wholesale fashion district just outside the northern Italian city.
The “fast-fashion capital” is home to over 240 fashion brands, as well as hundreds more textile companies, trading companies and service providers. The complex covers an area of over one million square metres, which includes office space, showrooms and warehouses.
The site for YAC’s Italian Fashion Hub competition is Centergross in Bologna – one of Europe’s largest fashion centres
The competition is calling for architects and designer to revamp its one-kilometre service area, which the company claims is “bearing the marks of the ravages of time”. The area is home to restaurants, wellness centres, shops and offices, which serve the entire Centergross complex.
Jurors are looking for a design that offers the fashion destination a new international identity and acts as a monument to Italian fashion.
“As the most important design brands, they will have the chance to leave a mark in the history of contemporary architecture, offering their creativity to one of the most demanding and refined pillars of the global economy: fashion,” said the competition organisers.
Entrants have been asked to redesign the one-kilometre service area of the Centergross complex
A total of €20,000 (approximately £18,000) in prize money will be awarded. The winner will receive €10,000 (approximately £9,000), the runner-up gets €4,000 (approximately £3,500) and the third prize is €2,000 (approximately £1,800). Four gold honourable mentions will also receive €1,000 (approximately £900) each.
Ten other finalists will receive an honourable mention and a further 30 finalists will receive recognition from the jury for their contribution.
All material and guidelines for the competition can be downloaded from the YAC website. Entrants must then register and upload their project. Registration is open and submissions are being accepted until 31 January 2018. Winners will be announced on 5 March 2018.
First prize: €10,000 Second price: €4,000 Third prize: €2,000 Four gold honourable mentions: €1,000 10 honourable mentions 30 additional finalists
Calendar:
Early bird registration: 23 October to 26 November 2017 Standard registration: 27 November to 21 December 2017 Late registration: 22 December to 28 January 2018 Material submission deadline: 31 January 2018 Jury summoning: 5 February 2018 Results announcement: 5 March 2018
Christopher Bailey is to step down as chief creative officer and president of Burberry, after almost two decades at the brand.
The British fashion house announced today that Bailey will leave his position in March 2018 to pursue new creative projects.
Burberry is now looking to find a successor, although Bailey will continue to provide support to CEO Marco Gobetti until December 2018 – a period that the company has described as transitional.
“It has been the great privilege of my working life to be at Burberry, working alongside and learning from such an extraordinary group of people over the last 17 years,” said Bailey.
“I am excited to pursue new creative projects but remain fully committed to the future success of this magnificent brand and to ensuring a smooth transition.”
Christopher Bailey will leave Burberry in March 2018, after 17 years at the brand
Having joined the brand as design director in 2001, Bailey has been credited with Burberry’s transformation from a small outerwear business to a global luxury label.
“Burberry has undergone an incredible transformation since 2001 and Christopher has been instrumental to the Company’s success in that period,” said Gobetti.
“While I am sad not to have the opportunity to partner with him for longer, the legacy he leaves and the exceptional talent we have at Burberry give me enormous confidence in our future,” he continued. “We have a clear vision for the next chapter to accelerate the growth and success of the Burberry brand and I am excited about the opportunity ahead for our teams, our partners and our shareholders.”
Burberry was founded in 1856 by 21-year-old dressmaker Thomas Burberry. The brand is most famous for its trench coat and distinctive tartan pattern, which has become one of its most widely copied trademarks.
OMA has restructured a governmental office building from the 1990s, creating all-new types of workspaces for the Dutch ministries that occupy it.
Featuring acid-yellow escalators, angular black staircases and large open-plan areas, Rijnstraat 8 is designed to offer workspaces that are more flexible and adaptable than the ones contained in the building before.
These spaces will be occupied by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service, and the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. But some areas will be open to all ministries located in The Hague.
Photograph by Nick Guttridge
“The whole plan was to make this an integrated building for multiple ministries, and introduce new ways of working,” explained Bart Nicolaas, who acted as project architect, under the direction of OMA partner Ellen van Loon.
“We have multiple uses in one building, but there is no longer a fixed space for employees,” he told Dezeen.
Previously known as the VROM Building, the 17-storey block was first designed by Dutch architect Jan Hoogstad. It was considered innovative when it completed in 1992, with a series of large atriums and offices contained in its wings. But the layout became outdated very quickly, as methods of working changed.
OMA’s aim was to create a greater sense of hierarchy in the building, as well as improving visibility between departments. The firm’s design involved adding and subtracting floors, creating new circulation routes, and introducing more open-plan facilities.
To achieve this structurally, new load-bearing elements were added to the exterior walls. Once these were in place, it became possible to make cutaways in the building’s five cores.
This allowed OMA to transform the fourth floor into a 140-metre-long, double-height meeting area, divided up into a variety of zones.
This is filled with different types of workspaces so that employees from all ministries can find a space that suits their requirements – and even includes a sloping roof garden that has been nicknamed Teletubby Hill.
The new structural elements also made it possible for the architects to “invert” one of the existing atriums, creating more office space. Some of these new floors are suspended from above, while others are supported from underneath.
Metal staircases were then added to the insides of all four atriums, create more open connections between floors.
“It’s quite an ingenious structure,” said Nicolaas.
“Before you never knew if you were in a wing or a corridor, but now you always have a sense of where other things are happening.”
Photograph by Nick Guttridge
OMA’s other interventions included widening the passageway that cuts through the base of the building, creating a sheltered plaza at its entrance – named the Rijksplein.
They also created a new facility for international congress – not dissimilar to the War Room in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove. It features a circular layout, with illuminated globe motifs in the ceiling and floor.
“I thought, this is the room where we need some drama,” explained Ellen van Loon.
As well as adapting the architecture, OMA planned the entire fit-out of the interior. The team designed statement pieces, like a huge staircase that doubles as a presentation space and the yellow escalators that rise up from the lobby.
Photograph by Nick Guttridge
They also created carpet designs – ranging from monochrome stripes to marble patterns – and developed a range of new furniture pieces.
“In the end, we probably designed about 50 per cent of the furniture, which was never the plan!” said Van Loon.
“I’d say we designed it ourselves out of frustration because we couldn’t find the exact pieces we wanted.”
The Rem-Koolhaas-led firm collaborated closely with Ector Hoogstad Architecten, among other consultants that worked on the original build of Rijnstraat 8, to ensure that the remodelled building is as efficient as possible.
They were able to minimise the use of new materials – so that, of the 20 per cent of the building that was demolished, almost all of the materials found a new use.
Photography is by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Project credits:
Client: Rijksvastgoedbedrijf, The Hague, NL Architect: OMA Partner in charge: Ellen van Loon Team: Bart Nicolaas, Anita Ernodi, Alex de Jong, Kees van Casteren, Airat Khusnutdinov, Alain Fouraux, Alexander Giarlis, Betti Ng, Jan Barta, Buster Christensen, Dominic Black, Edward Nicholson, Eric Lee, Lauren Potter, Hans Larsson, Hongchuan Zhao, Lei Mao, Gemawang Swaribathoro, Magdalena Stanescu, Mario Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Nikki Mulder, Pawel Panfiluk, Saskia Simon, Sunkyu Koh, Yangwen Huo, Danny Rigter, Ido de Boer, Jasper van Amstel, Maya Turre, Paloma Bule, Stefan Wolf, Theodora Papanastasiou, Tjeerd van de Sandt, Vitor Oliveira, Will Hartzog Structural engineer: Arup London, BAM A&E Service engineers: Valstar Simonis, BAM Techniek Building physics/fire safety/security: DGMR Acoustics: Level Acoustics
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