Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen promotion: British designers Tom Dixon, Thomas Heatherwick and Es Devlin are among 30 high-profile speakers who will present at this year’s Design Indaba conference in Cape Town.

The annual Design Indaba Conference of Creativity is set to take place from 21 to 23 February 2018, at Cape Town’s Artscape Theatre.

Joining Dixon, Heatherwick and Devlin, British designer Morag Myerscough, London-based Studio Swine and designer and researcher Neri Oxman, will also make presentations during the event.

“The Design Indaba conference is going beyond design to create a multi-sensory event where you can hear, see, learn and experience the future of creative thinking and design activism,” said the event’s organisers.

“[It] aims to make a positive impact on society by building a movement that attracts producers of meaningful culture and business, regardless of sector or industry.”

Trend forecaster Li Edelkoort will return to present her annual seminar, revealing three critical future trends that will affect business and culture, while the search for this year’s Most Beautiful Object in South Africa aims to challenge notions of beauty in design.

The festival also includes the Design Indaba’s longstanding annual Film Festival, Nightscape Music Festival, and exhibitions including the Emerging Creatives Programme.

“With three full days of engaging speakers, exhibitions and a film and music festival, the 2018 conference is set to amaze, uplift and motivate delegates to find new ways in which to design a better world,” said the organisers.

Other activities include a programme of music concerts, a festival of food and an exhibition of up-and-coming South African design.

In order to increase accessibility to the event, the Design Indaba Simulcast offers a live broadcast of the main conference to several venues around South Africa, at a reduced rate.

The initiative was developed by Design Indaba to cater to those unable to attend the conference in Cape Town, such as emerging designers, students and young professionals.

For further details about the festival, a full list of events and speakers plus registration information, visit the Design Indaba website.

The post Tom Dixon, Thomas Heatherwick and Es Devlin to present at Design Indaba 2018 appeared first on Dezeen.

Architecture studio Wernerfield has raised this dwelling in Texas several metres off the ground, to provide guests with a sensation of “floating in the forest”.

The PH2 Treebox was built on a wooded property in Dallas with an existing split-level home. Wernerfield, a local design firm, with charged with creating an “artful office and guest house” that pays heed to the site’s natural beauty.

Rather than placing the new structure at grade, the team elected to lift it off the ground – a move inspired by a raised patio attached to the main house.

“The existing home’s split-level plan provides an elevated deck at the rear that is wrapped by the forest,” the architects said. “This sensation of being elevated and floating in the forest was carried forward as the central design concept throughout the project.”

The guest house sits atop 12-foot-high (3.6-metre) metal columns, with the underside of the building used as a parking area. Exterior walls are clad in blackened cypress, which helps the dwelling blend with its site while also protecting it from the elements.

“Shou sugi ban charred wood siding was selected for the exterior siding for its naturally enduring properties as well as its visual discreetness, allowing Treebox to slip quietly into the forest,” the team said.

Rectangular in plan, the 1,536-square-foot (143-square-metre) building is divided into two rooms that are separated by a central breezeway. One room contains the guest quarters, and the other houses the office.

A basic metal staircase leads up to dwelling. The west elevation is lined with a slender deck, which merges with a bridge that connects to the main house. Sliding glass doors enable rooms to be open to the outdoors.

“The interior of the Treebox was a simple open-plan layout that captures the surrounding forest views with framed and punched openings,” said the studio.

For both rooms, the team used a restrained material palette and high-end decor by famous designers and architects.

The guest area is fitted with a wood and glass coffee table designed by Isamu Noguchi and Barcelona chairs by Mies van der Rohe. The office features a 511 Ventaglio desk by Charlotte Perriand.

Other furniture pieces include a coffee table designed by Eero Saarinen and chairs by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Perriand.

Wernerfield has completed several residential projects in its home state, including a slender residence organised around a pool terrace, and a low-maintenance dwelling that features concrete and glass volumes and a treehouse clad in pre-rusted steel.

Photography is by Robert Yu.

Project credits:

Architect: Wernerfield
Barcelona chairs and ottomans: Knoll (designed by Mies van der Rohe)
Noguchi table: Herman Miller (designed by Isamu Noguchi)
LC2 armchairs: Cassina (designed by Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand)
Saarinen coffee table: Knoll (designed by Eero Saarinen)
511 Ventaglio office desk: Cassina (designed by Charlotte Perriand)

The post Wernerfield elevates Treebox guest house on wooded site in Texas appeared first on Dezeen.

Here’s one way to live more simply: sell all your possessions on eBay. That’s what John Freyer did in 2002. As he was getting ready to leave grad school in Iowa for New York City, he decided to sell everything he owned on eBay and on his site, allmylifeforsale.com. He sold everything, from used socks, to a can of Chunky Soup from his pantry, from his Planet of the Apes LP, to a bag of small, roasted cuttlefish. The result is a book that catalogues his project, which is described on the site as an “explor[ation of] our relationship to the objects around us, their role in the concept of identity, as well as the emerging commercial systems of the Internet.”

You don’t need to be as hip and PoMo as Freyer to see the benefit of eBay as a tool for turning clutter into cash. I saw an article in New York Times back in 2007 about how teens trying to get quick cash are a great source for cheap electronics on eBay and Craigslist. Especially when you’re about to make a life change, like moving to another city, selling a lot of your stuff, instead of packing it up and paying to ship it, can be a great organization strategy.

There’s a moral here for you even if like most of your possessions, thank you very much. Whenever you are uncluttering and you don’t think you can bring yourself to part with some knick-knack, just think of John Freyer and his Star Wars bed sheets.

This post has been updated since its original publication in 2007.

Post written by Jerry Brito

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Chairudo built the world’s largest wooden-style coaster, inspired by El Toro at Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey, out of LEGO..It uses nearly 90,000 LEGO pieces and took Chairudo over 800 hours to build. It’s 6.5 meters long, 1.2  meters wide, 1.4 meters tall, and has a track length of 26 meters. It is currently on display at the Czech Repubrick event at Hamleys toy store in Prague, Czech Republic…(Read…)