Not only his first show in NYC since 2004, Cuban artist Damian Aquiles’ current exhibition “Alquimista” is also an exclusive collaboration with the Facundo Rum Collection. Teaming up with the luxury rum brand (from the Bacardi family’s private reserves……
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New York studio Yun Architecture has brought a landmarked federal-style townhouse in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighbourhood back to life.
The Tribeca Townhouse was built in 1828, in the area that was home to the Washington Street Market until the late 1960s.
Used as an egg and poultry distributor for much of its history, the house is one of nine that were saved by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Society, and now-defunct Housing and Development Administration, when the market was redeveloped.
“The nine houses were given individual landmark status for their uniqueness as a group of intact houses characteristic of late 18th-century scale and profile which did not exist anywhere else in Manhattan,” said architect Susan Yun.
However this home had fallen into disrepair despite its earlier renovation, so her firm Yun Architecture was asked by the artist couple owners to restore its former glory.
On the exterior, new windows, dormers and wood frames were added in keeping with the original architecture.
A wooden porch in the backyard, originally deemed illegal, was authorised and rebuilt using cast-iron columns, railings and stone flooring – “keeping within a refined federal style aesthetic”.
Inside, the main staircase was moved to benefit the open-plan living area at entrance level. A studio, work and exhibition space now occupies the basement, while a library and bedrooms take up the upper floors.
For the interior, Yun teamed up with designer Penelope August, who she had previously worked with at Selldorf Architects.
They kept the rooms light and bright, using pale paint to form a backdrop for more colourful furnishings and artworks that create a homely feel.
Salvaged, heart pine floorboards were laid throughout, and the four fireplaces were reactivated and clad with limestone mantles.
The duo also developed a range of custom pieces for the house, including woodwork, marbled porcelain tiles and blown-glass lighting.
Terrazzo speckled with colourful recycled glass forms counters and splashbacks in the kitchen, where copper fixtures and faucets are also found.
Antique pieces – from doors and sinks to wallpaper – were also used to add hints of the house’s period, while retaining a contemporary look.
The townhouse and its neighbours are unique to Tribeca, which is best known for its spacious loft-style apartments. Many have these have recently been renovated, including two residences converted into one home using a blackened steel staircase and an apartment where walls were swapped for walnut furniture.
Photography is by Devon Banks.
Project credits:
Architect and designer: Susan Yun, Yun Architecture
Interior designer: Penelope August
General contractor: Taconic Builders
The post Yun Architecture restores character of historic Tribeca townhouse appeared first on Dezeen.
Raw Colour est un studio de design basé aux pays- bas créé par Daniera ter Haar et Christoph Brach. Initialement exposées au sein de la Gallery Aram à Londres à l’occasion d’une exposition individuelle dédiée au duo créatif intitulée « Blend », « Graphic Time » est une série d’horloges au design abstrait et coloré. Les horloges sont composées de trois demi cercles chacun garant des heures, des minutes ou des secondes. A mesure que le temps passe, les formes et les couleurs s’entremêlent laissant apparaître des visuels uniques à chaque moment de la journée.
Those of you who own cars are undoubtedly familiar with your own. But because I’m a ZipCar member, I’m used to getting into a different vehicle each time I need a set of wheels. At the mercy of what’s available, I rarely get the same vehicle twice.
I’m a very smart person with a degree in Industrial Design, so when getting into an unfamiliar car I can usually locate the steering wheel right away. But I often have to cast about for the clock. The clock is important for ZipCar drivers because you have to return the car at a pre-arranged time or you get charged a penalty.
The last car I owned was a 2001 Volkswagen Golf, for several years. That conditioned me to look for the clock here:
In contrast, more modern designs for car interiors have the clock towards the center of the dashboard. That makes better sense as both driver and passenger can see it. Here are the interiors for the last seven vehicles I’ve borrowed and where the clocks were:
As much as I like them at the center of the dash, I still cannot get my eyes to quickly land on them. The digital readouts often share real estate with other bits of information, and when glancing from the road to the dash, I often have to visually fumble to register “Ah, clock.“
Kristen Lee, an editor at Jalopnik, made an interesting observation at the New York Auto Show: “Nearly all of [the cars I looked at] had big screens in their center consoles, which, fine. But the few that featured analog clocks stood out.”
Among the handful of brands that did was Lexus, who has their analog clocks visually framed and placed dead-center in the dash:
Now that’s a clock I can get behind.
Car owners among you: Where is the clock on your dashboard? (If you’re willing to post a pic in the comments so we can compare, that’d be great.) Where would you like it to be? And do you prefer analog or digital for time-telling?
This will be super-helpful to those of you who have design/build skills and want to see dollar breakdowns for a project. Ben Uyeda of HomeMade Modern was asked to create a shoestore in an impossibly short deadline. He not only shows you every step of the process, from design to fabrication, but spells out the pricing and profit at the end:
I do wish more designer/builders were as transparent about this stuff. Great job, Ben!
Dieter Rams appears sparingly in Gary Hustwit’s “Objectified” documentary on product design. Perhaps that was for the best, as Hustwit’s now working on a dedicated feature-length documentary on Rams, where we’ll get to hear about his philosophies, processes and inspiration in-depth.
Hustwit has released three teaser trailers:
Rams will include in-depth conversations with Dieter, and dive deep into his philosophy, his process, and his inspirations. But one of the most interesting parts of Dieter’s story is that he now looks back on his career with some regret. “If I had to do it over again, I would not want to be a designer,” he’s said. “There are too many unnecessary products in this world.” Dieter has long been an advocate for the ideas of environmental consciousness and long-lasting products. He’s dismayed by today’s unsustainable world of over-consumption, where “design” has been reduced to a meaningless marketing buzzword.
Rams is a design documentary, but it’s also a rumination on consumerism, materialism, and sustainability. Dieter’s philosophy is about more than just design, it’s a about a way to live. It’s about getting rid of distractions and visual clutter, and just living with what you need.
The documentary will reportedly be released this year.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has observed that “guest expectations have evolved.” With that, the home-sharing organization deploys a new tier to their service: Airbnb Plus. After two trial years, it’s comprised of 2000 homes in 13 cities. All of these locations……
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Prefabricated panels of cross-laminated timber were used to construct this micro cabin in the Pacific Northwest, designed and built by architecture students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The Emerge cabin is located near Eugene, a small Oregon city that is surrounded by forests and farmland. The compact structure was created in three weeks by 13 students in a design-build programme called PLAIN, led by professor Jason Griffiths at UNL’s College of Architecture.
Encompassing 80 square feet (seven square metres), the cabin is used as a classroom for visitors to the Bauman Tree Farm – a 673-acre (272-hectare) family-owned farm that promotes forest stewardship and education.
“The educational cabin serves as a gathering place for small elementary school tour groups wanting to learn about sustainable forestry,” the design team said.
Conceived in collaboration with the farm, the building’s design is meant to convey a relationship to the forest and the production of lumber in the Pacific Northwest.
“It provides a way of visualising the transition of wood from its natural state through the incremental procedures by which it is transformed into a lumber product,” said Griffiths. “These transitions then narrate the assimilation of the product into architecture, and in this case, back to the forest.”
Rectangular in plan, the small cabin is topped with a pointy roof with a chimney-like protrusion containing a skylight. The building is elevated off the ground on four concrete piers, helping minimise its impact on the earth.
Walls and flooring are made of cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels that were fabricated off-site. For the shingled roof, the team used CLT, along with glu-laminated timber and dimensional lumber.
“A CLT panel consists of several layers of kiln-dried lumber boards stacked in alternating directions, bonded with structural adhesives and pressed to form a solid, straight, rectangular panel similar to plywood but larger,” the team said. “It can be ordered to builder specifications, so the entire build project can be delivered onsite precut and ready to assemble.”
Front and rear facades feature tall wooden screens with an irregular pattern that evokes tree branches. The lower portion consists of straight lines, while the upper section becomes more fractured.
“The screen was a way of working out a narrative between the regular geometry of industrial lumber and the pattern of trees,” said Griffiths. “This narrative runs from the bottom to the top. The idea was that the gables’ geometry disappears or meshes with the pattern of branches from surrounding trees.”
Visitors enter the cabin through a wooden pivot door, which is lifted upward via a counterweight system. Inside, the skylight funnels daylight into the one-room cabin, while also providing views of the forest canopy. In the centre of the space, a portion of the floor was cut out, forming a sunken seating area.
“The interior can be occupied in different ways by arranging or storing CLT sitting blocks and a floor/table in desired arrangements, depending upon the occasion,” the team said.
Using CLT – an increasingly popular material for construction – was a driving factor for the team. Early in the course, students were provided with samples of the material that they used to test connections, finishes and details.
“The first week consisted almost entirely of this type of exercise, where students could use onsite shop facilities to try out their ideas and reach a resolution quickly through direct experience with the material,” said Griffiths.
The programme has three additional projects in Nebraska underway, all of which use CLT. One is a storage and meeting facility at an orchard in South Sioux City, and another is a cabin at the Cedar Point Biological Station near the town of Ogallala. A third will be created on the Santee Sioux Reservation in the northern part of the state.
In addition to the PLAIN design-build programme, UNL’s architecture college offers a program called FACT, led by architect Jeff Day of Min Day.
Other recent student design-build projects in the US include a community hall in the Utah desert by the Colorado Building Workshop and a metal-clad home for low-income tenants that was produced by Kansas State University students.
Photography is by Mike Lundgren.
Project credits:
Designer: PLAIN, College of Architecture, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Client: Bauman Family Tree Farm
Collaborator: The DR Johnson Lumber Mill
General contractor: Justin Austen Design
The post Architecture students use cross-laminated timber to build tiny classroom in Oregon forest appeared first on Dezeen.
The next time you head to your dry cleaner, take all of your unused wire hangers with you. Most dry cleaners recycle hangers and actually appreciate you returning them because it saves them money. You get rid of clutter in your closet and help keep landfills free of hangers.
Also, unless you have a need for the plastic bags they wrap around your clothing, you can ask for the dry cleaner to keep the bags off of your clothes. It keeps you from having to toss the bag when you get home, and again saves the dry cleaner money. Men’s dress shirts also can be folded instead of put on a hanger so that you don’t have to take a hanger home with you at all.
When you go to pick up your clothes at the dry cleaners, take reusable high quality hangers and garment bags with you just like taking reusable shopping bags with you when grocery shopping. That way you don’t even need to take their wire hangers and plastic bags home.
This post has been updated since its original publication in 2007.
Post written by Erin Doland
Whether you’re a minimalist, or the kind to carry your life around with you, the Digital Nomad 35 backpack has a way of fulfilling your needs. Made for a small but demanding audience, the Digital Nomad is for the working wanderlust, who wants to travel, but work while he or she does. How does one bag cater to someone who focuses on both professional and personal lives? With pockets. Loads of them.
The way the Digital Nomad deals with segregation is that it compartmentalizes the entire bag space so that no two categories of luggage really interact with each other. Your socks, notebook, and DSLR have separate areas of storage because they must. This also means even if your bag is half-full, your stuff won’t rattle around inside because they all have their separate enclosures.
Built for the work-play overlap, the bag was made to carry all types of items. Its spacious interiors are great for as many as 10 pieces of clothing (it comes with compression straps for when you want to carry less), and around it lie various pockets for your keys, cables, chargers, power banks, and even your camera. Opening from both sides, the bag uses its back-space for your laptop, iPad, notebook, etcetera.
The Digital Nomad 35 comes in black and gray variants, made from Cordura and Vecoya, both being incredibly resilient, water-repellent, and eco-friendly. A low-poly world map on the bag acts as branding while also doubling up as a reflective patch that allows your bag to be seen in low-light conditions. Designed to be used as a hand-held bag or even a backpack, the Digital Nomad 35 comes with an overall clean design, hiding even its shoulder straps in a pocket of their own. Pop them out when you hit the trails, and you can even use the detachable waist-strap when the trails get steep. The bag comes with its own rain-cover, stowed in its bespoke pocket, and even integrates a concealed-yet-easy-to-access RFID blocking pocket for your wallet, cards, and passport.
Designed in partnership with DNX Global, an international community of dedicated digital nomads who spend months working while traveling, the Digital Nomad 35 was designed for the 95th percentile, and was made to withstand the most demanding conditions and needs. So whether you’re a regular joe who travels between cities or an absolute professional wanderlust who hikes mountains between skype calls, know that the backpack has you covered. And with its endless number of pockets and compartments, you’re never really going to run out of space!
Designers: Outdoorer & DNX
Click here to Buy Now: $225.00 $300.00
Click here to Buy Now: $225.00 $300.00
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