Hasta La Ideas

The tallest building designed by a Russian architecture firm for the US, which will hold apartments like “shelves in the air”, has gained planning approval.

Moscow-based Meganom received the go-ahead to build the 262 Fifth Avenue tower in New York’s Nomad district from the city’s Department of Buildings yesterday.

First unveiled earlier this year, the skinny skyscraper will reach 1,009 feet (307.5 metres) tall and be topped with an observation deck. It will be the neighbourhood’s first supertall – between 984 feet (300 metres) and 1,969 feet (600 metres) – but one of many with similarly svelte proportions either completed or under construction in the city.

“We didn’t want it to be too high, but at the same time be visible and provide better views for the flats,” Meganom co-founder Yury Grigoryan told Dezeen in an exclusive interview. “We decided not to be higher than the Empire State Building observation deck, and we are checking carefully not to spoil the view of the horizon, or for tourists.”

Grigoryan said that the building’s structure is unique. Its lift and mechanical systems will occupy a core volume on the western side, which a stack of column-free living spaces will be anchored to like shelves.

“It is a completely flexible frame, like shelves in the air with good views,” the architect said. “We think that this structure can be the future.”

Each of the units will measure approximately 47 by 52 feet (approximately 14.3 by 16.1 metres), with 16-foot (4.8-metre) slab-to-slab height and huge windows on the northern and southern facades.

Residents will be able to chose the size of their apartments. They can purchase full floors, in multiples, and portions of levels depending on how much space they require.

“In terms of architecture it is super interesting that you don’t know who is coming and maybe they need more apartments, more sleeping rooms, or baby rooms,” said Grigoryan said.

Meganom has already developed a “library” of 80 different layouts and plans to host architectural workshops with residents to design the interiors.

As well as offering a “unique construction” for New York, the building will features materials chosen to enable a consistent indoor climate during the city’s hot summers and cold windows. Triple glazing will be used for the floor-to-ceiling windows, while aluminium will wrap the rest of the building.

Smaller circular windows will puncture the eastern wall to open up views, while also giving residents plenty of space for wall hangings inside.

Work is already underway on 262 Fifth Avenue. Two empty structures on the plot between 260 and 264 Fifth Avenue have already been demolished. The third, a historic 12-storey limestone building, will be incorporated into the base of the tower, alongside a Japanese-style garden.

Although the project is Meganom’s first in the US, the firm – which Grigoyan runs with Ilya Kuleshov, Elena Uglovskaya and Artem Staborovsky – is currently working a number of buildings in Russia.

He said that country’s architects have become more interested in creating public spaces than spectacular buildings during the interview with Dezeen, which took place shortly after 262 Fifth Avenue was unveiled.

Renderings are by MIR.

The post Meganom gains permission for skinny supertall skyscraper in Manhattan appeared first on Dezeen.

Designed entirely by humans and manufactured entirely by robots, the ADAPTIV shoe is literally the future. With absolutely no human intervention in the manufacturing process, ADAPTIV is completely made by 3D printing robots. What’s more special is the fact that ADAPTIV is built with multiple gyroscopes and pressure sensors allowing the ADAPTIV to “move air pressure throughout the shoe to support one’s bodily shifts and motions.”

Foot strain should be a thing of the past with the ADAPTIV as it uses a series of 3D printed silicone air bags within the shoe to provide tailor-made comfort to the wearer. Using a series of sensors, the shoes can target stress points, allowing air-bags to provide relief over long periods of time. Leadoff Studio designed the shoe which then got showcased at an event hosted by Carmelo Anthony around the NBA All-Star Weekend. The designers see this unique brand of shoes becoming a reality in just a matter of 5-10 years.

The ADAPTIV Shoe is a winner of the Red Dot Award for the year 2017.

Designer: Leadoff Studio for SOLS

A clear representation of present-day funk’s power and relevance, “Nu Burn Ave (Intercruise)” balances the signature uptempo edge and thoughtful, self-reflective core of Boulevards (aka Jamil Rashad). Musician and producer Neon Indian guests on the……

Continue Reading…

With the inherent theatricality in “Karen” by Felix and the Future, the musician (along with co-director Michael St Onge) has crafted a music video of epic proportions. A ballad with electronic twists receives visual support from warped religious……

Continue Reading…

The gridded facades of 20th-century skyscrapers by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier are recalled from memory for this series of prints by Swedish studio Claesson Koivisto Rune.

On show at new Tokyo design festival Designart last week, the 12 images – collectively titled Faciem – zoom in on the regimented facades of pioneering towers like Mies’ 1958 Seagram Building in New York and Skidmore Owings & Merrill’s 1974 Sear’s Tower in Chicago.

Each image is made up of hundreds of layers of details created on Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and the series took a full-time team of three from the Stockholm architecture and design studio a year to complete.

Studio co-founders Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune said the idea for the series stemmed from their interest in abstract art and its impact on architecture’s modernism movement.

“We are really interested in abstract, minimal art,” Claesson told Dezeen at the opening of the exhibition, which took place at Tokyo’s 360° Gallery.

“Architecture is not art and art is not architecture. But it is possible to find art in architecture and architecture in art,” added the studio.

“It’s easy to imagine that architects Mies van der Rohe or Oscar Niemeyer would have been influenced by the works of artists Agnes Martin or Carl Andre. Or, indeed, the other way around.”

All but one of the images are presented in landscape format, honing in on the variation in the proportions of the grid of windows rather than the verticality of the towers.

“The grid is all about repetition, proportions and artistic sensibility. The face of the skyscraper is its facade. This is something other than that which it is typically recognised for: its awe-inspiring height and poise,” said the studio.

“Most of the modernist skyscrapers were made by architects who were schooled in classical architecture but they did modernism, which meant that when they made skyscrapers [they designed were] basically just floors and then they just put the walls on,” he added.

“The only thing they could differentiate from eachother were the grids of the windows. And we became really interested in that – and how good they look in comparison to many new skyscrapers.”

Working from memory, some of the details have been tweaked, with elements taken away or added – such as the curtains that dress the windows in the image of the Commonwealth Promenade Apartments, a Chicago tower completed by Mies van der Rohe in 1956.

“We didn’t have drawings of the original skyscrapers, we just took the proportions of how they looked, and we have added some new things to them,” explained Claesson.

Designart took place 16-22 October 2017. The festival was set up by six Tokyo-based architects, designers and artists in the wake of the cancellation of Tokyo Design Week following a tragic accident.

Claesson Koivisto Rune was founded in 1995 by Mårten Claesson, Eero Koivisto and Ola Rune. Based in Stockholm, the studio’s output ranges from products and furniture to interior design.

Recently, the trio created rain-themed interiors for Bergen’s Zander K hotel, and designed a collection of disc-shaped lights that are “devoid of unnecessary detailing”.

The post Claesson Koivisto Rune recreates modernist skyscraper facades for collection of prints appeared first on Dezeen.