Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen promotion: Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas of Studio Fuksas and Jacques Herzog of Herzog & de Meuron are among over 70 speakers announced for Business of Design Week in Hong Kong next month.

The 2017 edition of the annual design conference is set to focus on architecture, with other speakers including Italian architect Mario Bellini, Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and designer Daan Roosegaarde.

BODW 2017 takes place from 4 to 9 December, at the SOM-designed Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Other speakers on the programme include Italian architect Mario Cucinella, Shekou Design Museum director Ole Bouman and Royal College of Art rector Paul Thompson.

Now in its 16th year, BODW is run by non-profit organisation Hong Kong Design Centre.

Italy is the partner country for this year’s edition, so the theme of the talks is “Italy Makes a Difference”. The aim is to offer a fresh take on design-driven innovation through a meaningful dialogue between Italy and Hong Kong.

The programme will be divided up into topics: Brands and Innovation; Communication and Design; Product and Design; Design for Asia; Space and Design; Heritage and Design; and Culture and The City.

More than 120,000 visitors are expected to attend the week-long BODW 2017 programme. Tickets range from HK$700 to HK$ 4,000 (£68 to £388), with optional extras including a gala dinner, the BODW summit, networking events and other activities taking place across the city.

Tickets are available to buy on the event website from now until 1 December 2017.

The post Studio Fuksas and Jacques Herzog among speakers at Business of Design Week 2017 appeared first on Dezeen.

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Soyoun Kim wants to encourage more interaction between the citizens of North Korea and South Korea, by creating a series of architectural structures along the border.

Kim envisions a series of 25 different buildings and monuments being erected between the rival countries. Each one would form a “neutral zone”, where citizens from both sides of the border could meet and communicate.

He has also created a fictional travel agency to encourage visits.

“These would help to redefine the relationship between South and North Korea as a harmonious co-existence, possibly even paving the way for unity,” explained the designer.

Kim came up with the idea after researching Panmunjom, a former village on the border between North and South Korea. It was the place where, in 1953, the two countries signed an armistice, with a view to ending the Korean War.

Only one of the village’s buildings now remains and currently functions as a peace museum. According to Kim, it is the only place along the entire border where citizens of both nations can meet one another.

His project proposes creating more of these sites. Called Blue Neutralized Zone, it includes a range of unusual destinations, from a spherical cafe and restaurant to a children’s playground.

Other additions include a religious shrine, an amusement park, a hair salon and an art-filled plaza.

Each design is in the same shade of blue, which matches the colour of the United Nations logo. It is also the same shade the two countries used for a unification flag in 2000 when they marched together in a parade of nations during the Olympic Games.

“The colour blue could be the symbol of ‘neutral and peace’ in this zone. Therefore, under the colour of blue, this whole zone continually expresses a sense of positive and optimistic future,” said the designer.

Kim presented the project at the Design Academy Eindhoven graduate show, staged during Dutch Design Week.

Also in Eindhoven that week, Dezeen hosted Good Design for a Bad World, a series of talks exploring whether designers can help solve global issues. One of the talks questioned whether design can influence politics – something that Kim wants to achieve with this project.

The designer recognises that the project is unlikely to become reality any time soon, but he doesn’t think it’s unrealistic.

“I am an optimistic person, and this is an optimistic future scenario,” he told Dezeen. “But 10 years ago we did have some shared districts. I hope we can have that again.”

The post Soyoun Kim proposes using architecture to promote peace between North and South Korea appeared first on Dezeen.

“The Harry Potter series is essentially a 7-book guide to everything you wish your childhood was – finding out you’re a wizard, running away from home, and indulging in a bevy of treats both mainstay and magical. Rock cakes, cockroach clusters, acid pops, chocolate frogs, and of course, butterbeer. Throw on your dorky glasses and sharpie a lightning bolt on your forehead for this week’s examination of the real-world sweets from possibly the world’s most popular book series about child sorcerers.”..(Read…)

‘Two hungry cats join forces to gobble down a festive feast’…(Read…)

UPDATE: Over $190K raised and less than 48 hours left, grab yours now!

The Modern Fuel Pencil 2.0 just embodies visual perfection. The way it’s intricately machined to absolute precision makes me want to go wow. For starters, the tolerances are so low and the parts fit together with such mechanical precision, you can seldom see parting lines, and that’s what makes the Modern Fuel 2.0 so visually… perfect.

Andrew Sanderson stepped out to make the first metallic mechanical pencil that echoed the character of a seasoned professional. Everything he saw in the market looked like it fit into a student’s stationery set, and not the pocket of a professional. The first in the series was launched almost three years back, made out of solid metal with a 0.5mm tip and a lifetime guarantee. The Modern Fuel 2.0 builds on the idea of a solid metal mechanical pencil with a professional air and improves certain aspects of it. For starters, it throws two new materials into the mix. Aside from the Stainless Steel and Brass variants, you even have a Titanium variant (which means it’ll last more than a lifetime), and a Bronze build, which gives the pencil an indescribable beauty. The bronze will gather a greenish patina over time too, making it look an otherworldly antique. The patina formed on the pencil becomes unique to you, making each and every pencil different from the rest.

Sanderson even switches up the mechanism on the inside, making it fully metal and allowing for 0.7mm and 0.9mm leads too, aside from the classic 0.5mm. The mechanism on the inside differs based on lead width, but each mechanism fits into the same pencil, so you can literally own one pencil body and multiple mechanisms that you can easily switch between. The back-end of the pencil comes with the rubber tip that conceals a screw underneath. Each pencil comes with a special Allen Key that allows you to open/close the pencil and replace mechanisms or leads. Once done, you can either close off the rear with a rubber, or a stylus tip, or even a fashionable little metal plug. The Allen Key also allows you to open the pencil to reveal a specially engraved serial number unique to each pencil.

The Modern Fuel Pencil 2.0 garnered the attention of architect John Pawson, who brought to attention the importance of detailing but the apparent lack of it. The pencil looks so seamless on the outside, one would think it was almost a single piece of metal. Pawson points out how each material lends a different aspect to the pencil, reminding him as an architect/designer of the material’s properties and its use in the field. Brass would remind him of weight and density, almost like a submarine component, whereas titanium’s lightness would be compared to aerospace applications.

Made keeping in mind that there aren’t many sleek looking mechanical pencils in today’s market that embody true minimalism, the Modern Fuel 2.0 was created with a lifetime guarantee. Its mechanism features a fully metal construction with no plastic/breakable parts. The tip is even created to be retractable, so that in the event that it falls face forward, the lead takes the damage, but never the pencil itself. Sanderson even provides a no-questions-asked replacement/repair service to back the immaculate construction that is the Modern Fuel 2.0, because if the first edition of the pencil was any indication, there’s clearly a demand for a designer’s/professional’s instrument that echoes the pure perfection a designer/professional demands!

Designer: Andrew Sanderson

Click here to Buy Now: $70.00 $120.00

Stainless Steel

Phosphorus Bronze C52100 (CuSn8)

Titanium

Tellurium Copper

Seamless design

Click here to Buy Now: $70.00 $120.00