We are a unique housewares company searching for a talented graphic designer to join our rapidly growing team. As a senior Graphic designer you will work alongside our project managers to develop solutions based on market research and retail strategies. We are looking for a self-starter who is capable of
Babylonstoren is so idyllic, it’s almost unfathomable. A working farm that dates back to 1692, the beauty of this vineyard is two-fold: nature and natural talent. The former is thanks to its location in the Cape Winelands, where bucolic landscapes……
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This CGI animation, created by art studio Prudence Cuming Associates, takes viewers on a journey across the heavily textured surface of Damien Hirst‘s Veil of Faith painting.
London-based Prudence Cuming Associates created the movie to coincide with an exhibition of Hirst’s latest series, The Veil Paintings, at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles.
The animation takes viewers on a journey across one of Damien Hirst’s latest paintings
The company wanted to “imagine another dimension” of Hirst’s work – one that gives the feeling of being inside the painting.
“Having worked with Science and Gagosian for many years, we have always been interested in what technology can do to get the viewer closer to the artwork,” said Stuart Trood, CEO of HENI, the company that Prudence Cuming Associates forms part of.
Prudence Cuming Associates collaborated with Damien Hirst’s own studio Science, as well as the Gagosian Gallery, to create an exact digital replica of the painting’s undulating 3D surface.
Using a 4K-resolution camera, they captured both pull-back photographs of the painting and high-resolution macro shots of each part of the paint, in order to mimic the exact texture and shape that had been created by Hirst’s paintbrush.
The team, which was made up of specialist photographers, filmmakers and VFX artists, then used a specialist visual-effects software called Flame to start stitching together each shot, creating 3D versions of each blob of paint.
“Our visual effects (VFX) creatives have yet again pushed the boundaries between reality and virtual reality, creating art inside art,” said Trood.
While working on the modelling of each blob, the team started piecing together the animation, making sure the gliding movements weren’t too fast or slow. The aim was to allow the viewer to be “immersed in this world” of the painting.
Using animation software Cinema4D, they were able to trace the journey of the camera. Then, to complete, they pieced together the various 3D renders using Flame finishing software, and adjusted the lighting, textures and timings to create a natural flow.
The creators believe the result captures the sensory experience of looking directly at the painting, and shares this with a wider audience.
“Our VFX creatives worked closely with Science on a storyboard that would transport the viewer gradually from the depths of an intriguing fantasy landscape, only pulling out at the end to reveal the whole painting,” added Trood.
Damien Hirst is one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists, best known for works including The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and the Spot paintings.
The Veil Paintings is on display at Gagosian Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, until 14 April 2018.
They all feature multiple layers of brushstrokes and brightly coloured dabs of thick impasto, which reference the pointillist, impressionist and abstract expressionist art movements.
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A social housing complex designed by Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza in the 1970s is captured in this new photography series by Zeynep Yılmaztürk.
Yılmaztürk, a photographer based in Istanbul, took the photos of SAAL Bouça in Porto, a housing scheme designed by the Pritzker Prize winner when he worked for Portugal’s national housing association, but which was only fully completed in 2007.
It comprises duplex homes organised in four-storey blocks, with small gardens lined up on opposite sides of several communal courtyards.
Siza worked for the Servicio de Apoio Ambulatorio (SAAL) between 1973 and 1977. The housing association had been formed to address the severe housing crisis facing the country at the time – a particularly turbulent period that saw a military coup in 1974 and a right-wing coup in 1975.
Located on an infill site in a slum in central Porto, the Bouça development was envisaged by Siza as a new type of social housing that would provide homes for the law clerks who worked in the Porto courts.
With their spacious internal dimensions, the duplex homes were seen as a radical solution.
Siza’s design was to stack two-storey homes on top of one another, with the uppermost homes set back to provide outdoor space. Rows faced one another, with long planted courtyards in between to provide community space for occupants.
The modernist-style design was reminiscent of 1920s social housing in other European countries such as Germany. But Siza also brought in elements of regional architectural, such as street-facing balconies and exterior staircases that lead up to third floor galleries.
One side of the triangular site backs onto a railway embankment, so the architect planned a high double wall to buffer the noise of the trains. Walkways were designed to extend across the wall, linking the rows.
At the opposite end of the site, Siza designed irregularly shaped buildings containing community facilities, such as a laundry, library and meeting spaces.
Other details included colourful paintwork, designed to prevent end walls being left blank. Siza chose red, which has been liked to the tone of the Bruno Taut-designed Horseshoe Estate in Berlin.
However, the volatile political situation meant SAAL was short of government funding and building materials were in short supply.
Works ran on the site from 1977 to 1979, but only two of the planned four blocks – representing just a third of the planned homes – were built. Neither the communal facilities nor the barrier wall were realised.
Severely curtailed, the two rows sat on a derelict lot for almost 30 years, being used as emergency accommodation for Porto’s poorest social housing tenants.
But after three decades, the addition of a metro link and the increasing value of property in the central location bought Bouça back to the attention of the local government.
In 2007, the project was finally realised in its entirety, almost exactly to Siza’s original specifications. The bounding wall was added, along with the extra rows and end-of-row buildings.
Today, the blocks are covered in colourful graffiti but appear to be largely occupied.
Álvaro Siza, 84, is one of Portugal’s best-known architects. He was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1992 and received the RIBA Gold Medal in 2009.
His best known-works include the Boa Nova Tea House and the Serralves Museum, also both in Porto.
He is currently working on his first US project, a 35-storey upmarket residential tower in New York, and also recently completed a white concrete church in Brittany, France, and a sprawling art museum in Chaves, Portugal.
In a 2014 interview with Dezeen, he said that “emotion is very important” in his architecture.
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Kurtis Minster, étudiant à l’université de Montana, partage sa passion pour la photographie en postant des photos de paysages à couper le souffle. Lors de différents voyages à travers les Etats-Unis, le jeune homme a capturé des montagnes enneigées, le désert du Montana ou encore un lac à la couleur bleue vive. De quoi nous donner envie de partir très rapidement en vacances. Ses photos sont à découvrir sur Instagram et sur son site.
’90s nostalgia continues, this time with Polaroid’s new (but old) 96 Cam—an original Polaroid 600 camera from 1996 but updated in two new colorways. With a close-up lens, lighten/darken slider and automatic flash (with override), it has all the features……
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The best hotels offer guests unique local experiences, says jury members for the AHEAD Asia hospitality awards, in this movie produced by Dezeen.
Now in their second year, the AHEAD Asia 2018 awards were presented in a ceremony at the Andaz hotel in Singapore earlier this month, celebrating the best in hospitality design from across the continent.
In this movie, which Dezeen filmed in Singapore for AHEAD, the judges claim that design was just one of the things they were looking out for when assessing the submitted entries.
“More and more of what we do is not about the things that go in the space,” says Wimberly Interiors director Christine McGinnis in the film.
“It’s really about how it makes people feel and part of that is the notion of the local context. People are looking to take something away from their stay or their experience. They want to learn something.”
One of the hotels the judges felt epitomised this approach to hospitality design is Trunk (Hotel), a small boutique hotel in Shibuya, Tokyo, which was named New Concept of the Year 2018.
“Trunk is really a social hub,” says Jinou Park, Design Hotels. “It’s a neighbourhood maker. Through its design and curation of different activities, it really reflects the energy of Shibuya and greater Tokyo.”
Two Roads Hospitality chief operating officer and AHEAD Awards Asia jury chair Guy Heywood adds: “It stood out because it is very innovative. The design of the rooms is split, so you’ve got the bed upstairs and then open floor space downstairs to maximise the amount of square footage you have in the room.”
Many of the winning hotels at AHEAD Asia this year were renovations of existing buildings. One of the judges’ favourite properties was Alila Yangshuo, a converted former sugar mill in Guilin, China, which won the Resort Hotel and the Spa and Wellness categories.
“Everybody looks to this project, it’s really shaken up the scene there,” says McGinnis. “Guests that I know who have stayed there are absolutely blown away, so clearly it’s doing an awful lot right.”
Heywood adds: “The new building, where most of the guest rooms are, is completely modern – raw cement, hard concrete, bamboo. So you have this juxtaposition between the old and new elements.”
The big winner of the night was also an example of adaptive reuse. The Warehouse Hotel in Singapore, converted from a former spice warehouse, won four awards, topping the Guestrooms, Lobby and Public Spaces, and Urban Hotel – Conversions categories, as well as taking home the top honour of AHEAD Asia Hotel of the Year 2018.
“It’s a classic example of an architect and designer keeping the heritage and the uniqueness of the building, while at the same time incorporating the modern luxuries that a traveler requires these days”, says Heywood.
McGinnis adds: “They just get so much right – the attention to detail, the respect for the local culture. It’s no surprise that they managed to sneak off with pretty much all the awards and Hotel of the Year.”
This movie was filmed at the Andaz Singapore and 1880 members club for the AHEAD Awards. All photography is courtesy of AHEAD.
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When I was a kid, my sister was a teenager and our parents would make us share a suitcase any time we would travel. I would get SO angry because she would inevitably pack all her clothes PLUS a hair dryer PLUS a curling iron. There’s was little to no room left for me (and, of course, she was a bully who always got her way). I digress. If only we’d had the DRYON!
This hybrid design marries both functions into one minimalistic and super sleek unit that looks more like a modern art than a bathroom appliance! The curling iron is housed in the center of the square shape and doubles as the power supply for the blowdryer. When you want to curl, simply slide it out to activate the heating mechanism. It’s perfect for traveling (and your angsty teen sister when you go on vacation)!
Designers: Wanki Kim, Suhyeon Ki, Jo Ara, Nahyeon Park, Jihyeon Park, Seunghee Seo
Engineering firm Arup and architecture studio CLS Architetti have revealed plans to 3D print a one-bedroom house at this year’s Milan design week.
Arup and CLS Architetti are creating the structure, which they describe as “Europe’s first 3D-printed one-bedroom house”, to highlight the potential of the technology.
It is currently being 3D printed in a square near the Duomo cathedral, to be showcased during the annual design week in April. After that, it will be demounted and relocated elsewhere.
“We want 3D printing to be taken more seriously,” explained Guglielmo Carra, who is Arup’s materials consulting lead for Europe.
“Its potential to disrupt the construction industry has been seriously underestimated,” he told Dezeen. “Our ultimate aim is to bring about a shift in the way the construction industry operates – for us all to move away from a ‘make, use, dispose’ mentality.”
Named 3D Housing 05, the single-storey 100-square-metre home, will contain four rooms: a living space, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom.
It is being printed by a robot made by Cybe Construction, using concrete supplied by cement supplier Italcementi, which is specifically being mixed to cure quickly. This will allow the 3D-printing process to continue quickly.
“The peculiarity of the concrete mix is to be made so that the curing time is much faster than in traditional cases, so as to allow the bottom layers of any printed part to withstand the load created by top layers,” said Carra.
Following Milan design week, the 3D-printed house will be dismantled and reassembled at a location on the outskirts of the city. Here the team will conduct a series of non-destructive tests to monitor how the 3D-printed structure will perform over time.
The rise of 3D printing over the past decade led to numerous architects and designers trying to become the first to build a 3D-printed house. Others have been completed in China and Russia, plus a micro home has been 3D printed in Amsterdam.
But Arup and CLS Architetti think theirs will bring something new to the table.
“With this project we wanted to demonstrate that 3D printing is yet a reality from a technical and technological standpoint,” said Carra.
“With the advancement of robot development, by using flexible manipulators, we believe that 3D printed building could increase even more in dimensions and in speed of execution.”
The house will not be the only 3D-printed design at this year’s Milan design week. The first collection from Spanish brand Nagami, which will debut at Milan, will feature 3D-printed chairs designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, Ross Lovegrove and Daniel Widrig.
Images courtesy of Arup and CLS Architetti.
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German car manufacturer BMW has unveiled a one-off, all-electric version of its classic MINI car, to demonstrate its commitment to releasing zero-emissions production vehicles by next year.
Based on a late version of the original MINI Cooper, the classic MINI Electric is a unique model that aims to express the carmaker’s “appetite for purely electric driving.”
The vehicle was unveiled at the New York International Auto Show, a year ahead of the launch of the company’s first fully electric production cars.
“The classic Mini Electric combines the historic look of the world’s favourite small car with groundbreaking drive technology for tomorrow’s urban mobility,” said the brand.
“With this unique vehicle, MINI sends out a clear signal demonstrating its commitment to retaining the brand’s unmistakable character whilst embracing innovative zero local emission technology,” it continued.
Back in August 2017, BMW unveiled its MINI Electric Concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
The fully-electric production vehicle is currently being developed, and is set to hit the roads in 2019. This vehicle will be based on a standard MINI 3 Door.
In contrast, the classic MINI Electric was designed as a one-off model, based on the original MINI Cooper.
However, instead of being powered by a four-cylinder engine like the original model, the classic MINI Electric boasts a battery-powered electric engine.
“The classic Mini Electric is the result of an imaginary journey through time, where the story of classic model is extended by a consecutive chapter,” said the firm.
“The original from the second half of the 20th century becomes a sympathetic ambassador for environmental awareness and a form of sustainable mobility whose future has just begun.”
True to MINI’s design character, this classic model is coloured with red paint, and complimented by a white roof and bonnet stripes. The yellow MINI Electric logo is featured on the wheel hubs and at the front and back of the car.
“The electric classic remains true to the brand, both in terms of its visual appearance and driving characteristics. The spontaneous power of its electric motor provides a new dimension to the unmistakable go-kart feeling that helped propel the British small car in its original form to worldwide popularity,” said MINI.
BMW’s electrification of its classic MINI follows in the footsteps of luxury British motor company Jaguar, which unveiled a zero-emissions version of its iconic E-type model in September 2017.
The annual New York International Auto Show opens to the public on 30 March, and will run until 8 April 2018.
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