Hasta La Ideas

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, passed away over the weekend at his home in Sweden. There may be no single human being who has had more of an effect on the furniture of planet Earth than Kamprad.

He founded Ikea in 1943 at the age of 17, reportedly selling replicas of his uncle’s kitchen table, predominantly through mail order. Throughout the ’40s and ’50s he gradually added other pieces of furniture to his lineup, as well as employees to fill orders, and in 1956 came the big moment: He watched an employee remove one of his table’s legs before loading it into a customer’s car. Furniture, he realized, ought be designed to break down for shipping.

While the flatpack insight was not limited to Kamprad, the scale of his business acumen within this arena certainly was. Today there are 412 of Ikea’s gargantuan stores scattered across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East hosting some 930 million visits a year. Statistic Brain says the company sells 42 million Billy bookcases per year and 217 million catalogs are shipped out. The company carries nearly 10,000 home furnishing articles and employs 120,000 people around the world.

It should go without saying that they are the world’s largest furniture retailer.

Kamprad was 91 and until his death, still served as a senior adviser to the company. “Ingvar Kamprad was a great entrepreneur of the typical southern Swedish kind – hardworking and stubborn, with a lot of warmth and a playful twinkle in his eye,” Ikea said in a statement. “He worked until the very end of his life, staying true to his own motto that most things remain to be done.”

We’ve selected some of the best new architecture and design roles available via Dezeen Jobs this week, including positions with New York-based architect Peter Marino and in the Parisian office of Sou Fujimoto.

3D renderer specialist at Peter Marino Architect 

American architect Peter Marino is looking for a 3D renderer to join his growing firm. The New York studio has designed a store for the watch brand Hublo on Fifth Avenue, which features an exterior covered in black aluminium panels and black lava stone.

View more roles in New York ›

Part-II architectural assistant/architect at Threefold Architects 

London-based Threefold Architects recently overhauled a terraced house in its home city with cut-back floors to offer glimpses between its various levels. The firm is now looking for a Part-II architectural assistant/architect to join its practice.

View more architectural assistant roles ›

Visualisation expert at Sou Fujimoto Atelier Paris

The Parisian office of Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto is looking for a visualisation expert to join its growing office. Last week the architect revealed designs for a tower that forms part of a masterplan for a new neighbourhood in Nice.

View more roles in France ›

Architectural visual artist at Oppenheim Architecture 

Oppenheim Architecture is looking for an architectural visual artist with a keen eye for composition and lighting quality to join its busy team in Miami. The firm recently worked with Studio Arthur Casas to design a hotel in Rio de Janeiro that will allow guests to overlook Copacabana Beach while bathing in a rooftop swimming pool.

View more visualisation roles ›

Director of admissions and financial aid at Columbia University

Columbia University is looking for a director of admissions and financial aid to join its Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in New York. The university recently showcased a selection of architectural models and photos designed by its students at Columbia’s Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery.

View more academic roles ›

See all the latest architecture and design roles on Dezeen Jobs ›

The post Top five architecture and design jobs this week include roles with Sou Fujimoto and Peter Marino appeared first on Dezeen.

BBC arts editor Will Gompertz has attacked the education system in the UK, saying it is training children to behave like computers rather than designers.

Gompertz, the most senior arts journalist at BBC News, made the comments at the Designs of the Year awards dinner at the Design Museum on 25 January 2018.

“We’re bringing up a generation of children who are being sent mad,” said Gompertz, who hosted the ceremony.

“Kids being taught to learn by rote, regurgitate information, which Google can do,” he said. “And they’re not being taught to apply information at all. So we’re bringing up a bunch of children who are behaving like computers, not a bunch of children who are behaving like designers.”

Gompertz is the latest high-profile figure to express concern about education in the UK, where government policies are squeezing creative subjects off the curriculum in favour of academic topics.

Architect Amanda Levete described architectural education in the UK as “very weak” in 2016, while in 2014 Apple’s chief designer Jonathan Ive called design education ‘tragic”. Bodies including the Creative Industries Federation have also warned of a skills crisis in the design sector as fewer children study arts degrees.

“All schools should be arts schools”

“I really honestly think that all schools should be arts schools,” Gompertz added. “And that’s not just so people can have their arms covered in paint. I just think children want to have these spongy brains. They want to apply their knowledge; what you learn at art school is to apply your knowledge.”

Gompertz described improving education as “the great design challenge” and called on the Design Museum to create an education category at next year’s Designs of the Year awards.

“I would like a seventh category to be added next year, around education,” he said. “Because that surely is our future.”

“I really hope next year this subject of education is taken on,” he continued. “Because although we live in this information age, education is the only area that hasn’t been particularly touched by technology. Technology has changed hotels, it’s changed taxis, it’s changed music, it’s changed publishing. But actually children have pretty much the same education today as they did 40 years ago.”

Declining numbers of students taking arts subjects

Last year the number of students taking arts subjects at school fell to its lowest level in ten years. Critics blame the new English Baccalaureate (EBacc) curriculum, which they believe is discouraging schools from introducing school children to arts subjects.

“Because they’re focused on exams, which are about the individual, they’re having to deal with social media,” said Gompertz. “The truth of the matter is nothing is created alone.”

The overall winner at the 2018 Designs of the Year awards was David Adjaye’s Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, USA.

The post Children “being sent mad” by UK education policy, says BBC arts editor appeared first on Dezeen.

As you might’ve guessed from the name, the designers looked to the heavens for inspiration when designing the Orbita clock. It only makes sense considering this is where our perception of time begins and ends!

Minimalistic yet thoughtfully crafted, it features a circular void where hands would be. This represents the vast emptiness of space in the universe. At first glance, this also makes it almost unrecognizable as a clock. The two overlapping discs reflect how our perception of time is created by the rotations of the earth, both on itself (forming days and nights) and around the sun (forming years). This orbital-inspiration is made clear in the round shape of the clock and the turntables’ circular movements in relation to each other.

Designer: TWO O THREE

Le photographe suisse Matthieu Lavanchy donne vie aux emojis dans cette série d’images prise pour le magazine gastronomique The Gourmand. Lavanchy photographie les objets qu’on utilise beaucoup comme emojis: les pêches, les bananes, les aubergines, le fromage et les cafés — des examples amusants de technologies devenant réalité. Plus sur son site et Instagram.