The difference between off-the-rack and custom suits and shirts cannot be further. Everything from one’s shape to style bears the brunt of this difference. And regardless of how much you love your tailor, there’s nothing like donning an article of……
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Mattress startup Casper has opened a space for New Yorkers to relax and refresh, and even sleep for a short while in tubular wooden pods.
Located in Manhattan’s Soho neighbourhood, adjoining Casper‘s main retail shop that opened earlier this year, The Dreamery was designed by the brand’s in-house team in collaboration with architecture firm Hollwich Kushner.
It was created as a place for visitors to rest and freshen up, “bringing better sleep to more people and to more places,” according to the brand.
Inside is a bright lounge area with a separate, darker room for napping. Users can reserve 45 minutes of rest time for $25 (£19), which can be booked on Casper’s website, via ClassPass or Mindbody, or simply walking in.
“Noticing that everyone was downing green juice and wearing fitness trackers — but falling asleep at their desks — Casper set out to champion sleep as an essential pillar of wellness,” said a statement from the brand.
A dark blue archway with lights resembles a starry night, while a much brighter lounge has white floors and walls and a series of seating areas.
Sleeping pods are housed in a separate dimly lit room. A set of cylindrical wooden vaults serve as private nooks, with grey curtains to close them off while in-use.
Inside each wooden volume is a Casper twin-sized mattress, as well as linens and pillows by the brand.
“The Dreamery is about making sleep and rest a part of our regular wellness routines — similar to how many people prioritize a workout class,” said Neil Parikh, co-founder and COO at Casper.
Behind these sleeping pods are windows, which have been covered in a black material to virtually mask daylight.
Private wash and changing stations are also provided in a separate area with sinks, storage bins and mirrors.
Included in the experience are constellation-print pyjamas and cleansing amenities, yet there is no mention of how laundering services work.
Launched in 2014, Casper has become one of the biggest disruptors in the mattress industry in the US, with a foam mattress that is shipped in an easy-to-handle rectangular box.
The start-up focuses on innovation and frequently launches new sleep-related products, ranging from bed frames to travel-sized pillows.
“The [store’s] concept enables us to pilot new ways of bringing better sleep to more people and to more places – whether that’s here, the workplace, airports, or beyond,” said Parikh.
Earlier in the year, the brand opened its first store, featuring small A-frame house designs where customers could test its mattresses.
The Dreamery is located at 196 Mercer Street, between Houston and Bleecker streets in New York City. Plans for the Casper store also involve hosting public events regarding wellness and sleep.
Other nap-bar designs include a room in Dubai with oversized curvy cushions by Smarin, and a pop-up “sleeperie” in London with red hammocks by Hassell and Draisci Studio.
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It’s 2018 and jetpacks are finally here, but they don’t really propel you in the air yet… Archie O’Brien’s Cuda, developed with 3D Hubs, is the world’s fust backpack-sized jetpack that propels you underwater!
Pulling water from the front and pushing it out the back with incredible force, the Cuda is a relatively tiny contraption that fits right on your back, and when triggered, gives you a boost, propelling you at the speed of 8mph underwater with no effort.
Enticed by the Seabob, a hand-held water scooter, Archie built the Cuda as a low-cost alternative to the otherwise $10,000 Seabob. Built with 3D Hubs (the massive online manufacturing facility), Cuda went from idea to prototype in just a year, and featured a new propulsion system altogether (as opposed to being a shrunken version of a jet-ski). Using the services and materials provided by 3D Hubs, Cuda has a metal-turned driveshaft, a CNC milled heatsink, a completely 3D printed body PLA plastic body, and a carbon-fiber dust infused polymer for the propeller that gives it high strength and low weight. All 3D printed parts are coated with an epoxy resin to improve their performance and integrity underwater, while all the electronics are placed in waterproof compartments, sealed with silicone.
Using the Cuda is as simple as controlling the speed with a hand-held remote, and the direction with your body. Made out of 45 3D printed parts that can be assembled in just near 10 minutes, the Cuda is patent pending and may go into production as early as 2019, from where it could be used for anything from entertainment to emergency… for now, Archie’s plans are to use the Cuda to swim alongside dolphins!
Designers: Archie O’Brien & 3D Hubs
A few years ago when my colleagues were designing an aging-in-place walk-in shower for Jacuzzi, they rented a nearby virtual reality facility to evaluate a simulated version of an early prototype.
The VR facility staffer donned a suit packed with sensors, and the designers on Bresslergroup’s project team were able to ask him in real time to interact with different elements of the prototype. Observing how some of the controls were in a hard-to-reach area, the design team immediately saw the value of changing these and other design elements.
Today we have the ability to set up and interact with a VR-simulated prototype whenever we need to, and without leaving our office – and the cost is a fraction of what we spent to rent the VR facility just a few years ago. And the technology continues to grow more accessible. If you can figure out how to leverage it for product design, it can easily translate to faster turnaround and cheaper development costs.
Foam core mockups have been a staple for industrial designers since the beginning of our profession. Once an object gets bigger than two by two feet, it’s often useful to build some kind of volumetric model to evaluate placement of controls, positions of openings and doors, and relative scale compared to the users.
I was taught in my first years of design school how to meticulously craft by hand a presentation-worthy foam core or foam model based on CAD drawings. Laser cutters and CNC machines make this process more precise, efficient, and speedier.
At Bresslergroup we frequently build these models for clients to conduct ergonomic assessments and get feedback on in-progress work. Models can be built with moving doors and drawers to simulate usage scenarios and evaluate workflow. In most cases we make refinements based on learnings derived from interacting with these models.
But the larger models, such as the one shown below of the aging-in-place shower, can take skilled designers days and even weeks to construct. And if a large change needs to be made to the model, it again takes time and significant effort to modify.
Transporting something of this size has its challenges. If a client isn’t within driving distance, in many cases it’s not feasible to deliver a model to a client’s location. In the case of one model we built of a room-sized lab instrumentation system, we rented a truck to drive it (in pieces) to our client a couple of hours away. Then we re-assembled it on-site.
Enter VR. Devices such as the Oculus rift and HTC Vive have enabled consumers and professionals alike to embrace the technology, experiment with it, and discover its potential.
At Bresslergroup we’ve integrated VR into our workflow. Our CAD planning still begins in our chosen CAD platform of choice – readying the design for VR requires no extra work. But instead of iterating with physical materials, we can now quickly jump into VR to explore variants more quickly.
VR makes quick work of creating and playing around with variants to test our assumptions. Native CAD files can be imported seamlessly into a VR environment in just a few minutes. (Above are screenshots of the shower imported into our VR environment.)
Once in VR, different variants and configurations of this model can be evaluated side by side in full scale. Watch the video, above, to see how we can manipulate and move the shower seat and reach for shelves and grab bars while in VR, adding to the immersive experience. When designing products such as these, not only is access important but so is the ability to reach critical areas.
The ability to quickly try things out in full scale is an extremely important tool in our design toolbox. But when we want to share the model with our clients, the ability to pack it up and take it on the road is key. Below is a GIF of me unpacking the kit and setting it up – as you can see, it’s a lot more efficient than building, deconstructing, transporting, and reassembling a foam core model.
Our setup consists of an HTC Vive and a VR capable workstation and of course, a case to carry everything. We have developed a workflow to quickly bring in Solidworks models with textures and shading.
We expect our setup to evolve as quickly as VR evolves (which is to say, quickly). The new Oculus Rift is $199. In a few years you’ll be able to get an HTC Vive for that price. Google Chrome now supports web-based VR for the Oculus Rift; and more apps are being introduced to enable us to upload a CAD model, create a scene, and send it to a client. With one click, the client will be able to open the VR scene and interact with our latest prototype.
Today VR is usable and affordable for ergonomics testing and to test our own and our clients’ assumptions. This lets us iterate and improve a design before we build a prototype. Before VR, if designers and engineers didn’t have the time or budget to build foam core models, they would end up with very expensive prototypes that would then require changes. Now we can make sure the first prototype we build is optimized for ergonomics.
In the future, we expect to be able to use VR for user testing. (Check out this report from the recent HFES Symposium by my colleague, Aditi Singh’s – she writes about the trend of Using AR/VR Technology for Human Factors Research.) This future is close—and it’s exciting.
Three library card systems divide New York City: the New York Public Library (for Manhattan, Staten Island and the Bronx, the Queens Library and the Brooklyn Public Library. Membership cards at all three will now offer a “culture pass” program granting……
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Teetering on some strange, beautiful line between ’90s radio-rock familiarity and the indie ethos of today, “Joke” sees Third Eye Blind reveal the first track from their forthcoming all-covers EP Thanks For Everything. Of course fans of the band will……
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US studio Craig Steely Architecture has created a two-level home for a sloped site in northern California, with vast stretches of glass that overlook the treetops.
Nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the residence – called Pam and Paul’s House – is located in Cupertino – the city where Apple has its vast headquarters. Built on a steep and wooded site, the 2,600-square-foot (242 square metres) dwelling was designed to minimise its impact on the environment. One side of the house hugs the hillside, while the other hovers over it, propped up by thick pillars.
“The conceptual idea came clearly and quickly – float a glass box in the leaves of the trees on two trunk-like columns, disrupting as few oaks as possible,” said American firm Craig Steely Architecture in a project description.
For exterior cladding, the team used zinc and aluminium, along with large stretches of glass that are shaded by the dense tree canopy. On the upper level, mirrored glazing reflects the surrounding landscape and sky.
The home is entered on the top level, where a steel-grate bridge leads to the north-facing front door and garage. The upper level is composed of a rectilinear form adjoined to a sculptural volume, both of which are encircled by native grasses. While the lower level appears like a wide box, the south elevation actually cuts across the hillside at an angle. Curved corners accentuate the home’s unusual massing.
Inside, a metal staircase leads down to the main level of the home, where one encounters a light and airy space. Dark steel structural beams were left exposed, serving as a contrast to white walls, floor-to-ceiling glass and light grey concrete flooring.
The northern half of this storey, abutting the hillside, encompasses bedrooms and bathrooms. The other half contains the public zone, which floats among the treetops and is filled with dappled sunlight.
Within the open-plan public area, the team carved out portions of the floor slab in order to create distinct areas. A sunken office sits underneath the stairs, while a plush purple sofa occupies a 144-square-foot (13-square-metre) sunken pit in the living room. A long strip of flooring in the kitchen was also extracted.
Space was further delineated through the use of LED strips that are flush with the ceiling. “Strong geometric lines of light, reminiscent of a Dan Flavin sculpture, are clearly visible from the outside looking up through the leaves,” the team said.
Craig Steely Architecture, which has offices in San Francisco and Hawaii, is known for creating imaginative homes in challenging locations. Other projects by the studio include Lavaflow 7, a dwelling built on the slopes of an active volcano in Hawaii.
Photography is by Darren Bradley.
Project credits:
Architect: Craig Steely Architecture
Lead architect: Craig Steely
Project team: Luigi Silverman, Ryan Leidner, Toon Kantharoup, Anastasia Victor, Chris Talbott
Contractor: Forsythe General Contractors
Structural engineer: Val Rabichev
Glazing: Bonelli Windows and Doors
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Dezeen promotion: to celebrate its 15th anniversary in the UK, international fashion school Istituto Marangoni has announced eight new design courses at its London location, starting from October 2018.
The London Istituto Marangoni, which already offers a range of fashion and art degrees, will join its Milan counterpart in offering bachelors and masters courses in interior design, product design and visual design.
“Istituto Marangoni London is experiencing a pivotal moment this year, as we celebrate our 15th anniversary expanding our portfolio with this exciting challenge,” said Charlotte Gorse, Istituto Marangoni London school director.
“Stepping into design is a natural progression for us, the fields of fashion and design work closer and closer together every day. Building on the best of both London and Milan design practices gives us a unique view of creative London,” Gorse continued.
Located in Shoreditch’s design triangle, the institution aims to offer students contemporary industry- and sector-specific facilities, including a material library and 3D production technology software.
The bachelors courses on offer are interiors, interior design, interior design and lighting, product design, product design and furniture, and visual design.
Meanwhile, the masters programme features contemporary interior design, fine jewellery design, and contemporary furniture design.
“I am proud to announce the launch of Istituto Marangoni London Fashion and Design School,” said Roberto Riccio, Istituto Marangoni group CEO. “Our group is in constant growth, both locally and globally, and this new opening is a further milestone in our history of excellence.”
“I am sure that our strong bond with the industry, our innovative teaching method and the expertise of our London design faculty teaching staff will breathe a new life into design education in the UK,” he continued.
Applications for the design courses, due to begin in October 2018, are available here.
Istituto Marangoni was founded in 1935 and has locations in Milan, Florence, Paris, London, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Mumbai and Miami.
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The megatall tower in new action movie Skyscraper was never expected to be a hit with architects, admits production designer Jim Bissell, but he wanted the building to be a “hero” nonetheless.
The task of designing The Pearl – an imaginary 240-storey tower in Hong Kong that catches on fire – fell to Bissell and his team, who were required to create a skyscraper that was both believable and that satisfied all the requirements of the plot.
But the Oscar-nominated production designer said that marrying a beautiful building and the storyline of the movie, which stars actor Dwayne Johnson, was an impossible task.
“No matter what we did, we were doomed for failure in the eyes of the architectural community,” Bissell told Dezeen. “I had no delusions about the fact that it was going to incite the ire of many of my architectural peers.”
The script called for a colossal skyscraper that Johnson’s character could access in a dramatic fashion, in order to put out the fire and save his family trapped inside, as well as provide a vertigo-inducing setting for the action.
“All of the criteria that good architecture needs to meet to be beautiful, wonderful and celebrated, are not the criteria I had before me to design this building,” said Bissell. “As a designer who also wants to make the building look appropriate as a piece of architecture, that was a real challenge.”
The production designer previously worked on Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which sees Tom Cruise scale the world’s current tallest building – Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his work on George Clooney’s 2005 historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck.
For Skyscraper, which was released last week, The Pearl was designed to reach 1,066 metres in height – making it the world’s tallest building if it were real – and is described as “a marvel of modern engineering”.
Architect and tall-building specialist Adrian Smith, who consulted on the project during its early writing stages, previously told Dezeen that director Rawson Marshall Thurber wanted a building that was based on real possibilities.
But this proved challenging for several reasons, Bissell revealed. For example, written into the movie’s narrative is a domed portion of the building, also called the Pearl, which houses various high-tech functions at its tip.
“The first real challenge was to make a very, very tall building with a pearl at the end, and not make it look phallic,” said Bissell. “The second is that, because it is so overbearing on the skyline, it’s so prominent… I did want to try to give it some kind of real character.”
During the design process, the team stumbled upon an ancient Chinese myth, The Dragon’s Pearl, which provided a source of inspiration for the concept. Across Asia, the dragon symbolises strength and courage, echoing the character of The Pearl’s owner and developer in the movie.
The resulting tower’s curving glass form resembles a dragon, snaked at the bottom then reaching skyward, holding the spherical “pearl” in its mouth at the top. The “eye” is created by double-helix wind turbines that help to power the building, while its “belly” is a 30-storey atrium where much of the film’s action takes place.
“Something that I think that many architects do in their work, and they’ve stolen it from us – dramatic designers – is that they give their building a narrative and a context,” Bissell said.
Overall, the designer’s intention was for The Pearl to be a hero, and “represent something strong and reaffirming, against the forces of greed and corruption”.
Skyscraper was produced by Flynn Picture Company, Legendary Pictures, Perfect World Pictures and Seven Bucks Productions. It has been released worldwide by Universal Pictures.
Read on for an edited version of our interview with Jim Bissell:
Dan Howarth: How did you go about designing The Pearl for the movie Skyscraper?
Jim Bissell: By looking at the concept, you can probably see that as a design challenge it was pretty much a no-win situation. As a designer, I’m tasked with the job of designing something that it is totally appropriate for the skyline of Hong Kong.
But all of the criteria that good architecture needs to meet to be beautiful, wonderful and celebrated, are not the criteria I had before me to design this building.
I had to simply make it look like this building was designed by those criteria. It had to appear to be designed by those criteria, but the real criteria was to give Dwayne Johnson access to a building that was on fire, higher than any other building on the skyline.
I’m sure you can appreciate, as any other architect who looks into the design of this building, that no matter what we did, we were doomed for failure in the eyes of the architectural community.
Especially because there were a couple of other things too that were very much the tail end of the dog in terms of the design process.
Dan Howarth: What is the building’s role in the story?
Jim Bissell: The storyline involves Dwayne Johnson coming in above the 100th floor which is where this fire has cut off the rest of the building down below, and that’s where his family is. And he has to go save his family.
He enters the building in a very dramatic fashion – it’s on the posters – then finds his family and constantly has to move up, away from danger and ends up putting himself in even more peril.
That is the design criteria for me, as a dramatic designer. As a designer who also wants to make the building look appropriate, as a piece of architecture, that was a real challenge.
Rawson, the director, had also written in that at the top is this dome-like structure which he called The Pearl, and why the building was called The Pearl in the original script, which houses all sorts of technological marvels, on top of being in a spectacular place – close to 2,700 feet in the air.
To make the building look appropriate, as a piece of architecture, that was a real challenge
The first real challenge was to make a very, very tall building with a pearl at the end, and not make it look phallic. The second is that, because it is so overbearing on the skyline, it’s so prominent – and believe me I had no delusions about the fact that it was going to incite the ire of many of my architectural peers – I did want to try to give it some kind of real character.
Unlike The Towering Inferno, or unlike even Die Hard to a degree, but especially Towering Inferno – the building is a character in the sense that its destruction is not due to the architect’s negligence or the corruption of a contractor, or something like that. This building is actually really cool, it’s a strong character and it’s trying to fight and preserve itself, while Dwayne Johnson is trying to fight and save his family.
So the desire on a dramatic level is to make the building a character that you’re rooting for.
Dan Howarth: So how did you go about doing that?
Jim Bissell: It was something that I think that many architects do in their work, and they’ve stolen it from us – dramatic designers – is that they give their building a narrative and a context. The narrative and context that we tried to give our building, The Pearl, were based on cultural icons of the area, as well as myths of the area.
In the preliminary research that we did, we discovered the myth of The Dragon’s Pearl, which has to do with the region around the Pearl River, very close to Hong Kong.
In that myth, you begin to see that the pearl is the pearl of wisdom. The dragon is the river itself, snaking through the area. And the dragon has a greater and more transcendent meaning: the dragon that is celebrated in Asian culture as one of strength and courage and fortitude, and resilience.
So this is what we started basing the design on, which was for a self-sustaining building. We wanted to design in artificial rice paddies that were also very decorative, that grew food for the residents. All the energy that was needed to power the building was self-generated through tidal generators, solar panels and the double-helix wind generators that became the eye of the dragon.
The desire on a dramatic level is to make the building a character that you’re rooting for
And that the parts were all part of the dragon. Dramatically, we used the singularist forms to try to articulate this strength and elegance as the dragon reaches up out of these rice paddies and holds the pearl of wisdom in the sky. Also, the tail of the dragon scoops and is a cultural centre, where the concert halls are etc.
As this singular form reaches up, right in the centre – which is where our action takes place – is a 30-storey atrium. That’s sort of the belly of the beast.
The atrium was very useful for us, because rather than having Dwayne Johnson dangling constantly on the outside the building, in jeopardy, now he was on the inside of the building. And you can see the fire leach around these floors and terraces of the 30-storey atrium.
Dan Howarth: The Pearl is branded as the safest building in the world, but obviously that’s not the case. What happens to it?
Jim Bissell: There are redundant systems for fire suppression and for safety all through the building, and a very corrupt group who are trying to use the building to hold the owner and the developer of the building – who’s one of our heroes – hostage.
Incidentally, another reason for designing the building to have a character of real strength is that it reflects this Chinese character who develops the building. We wanted to make sure the associations are good.
There are all these things that could cause the fire to be contained, but – I don’t want to give away too much of the story – they find a way, very deviously, using Dwayne Johnson’s character to get into the computer systems of the building and shut those systems down so they don’t work.
If you can capture that feeling of vertigo, it’s really quite thrilling
It’s through the cleverness of both Dwayne Johnson and the building’s owner that they’re eventually able to put the fire out, and we see in the end that they will rebuild. So the building survives and will be a hero.
Dan Howarth: You mentioned The Towering Inferno, and there have been many other action and thriller movies centred around skyscrapers. What is it about tall buildings that make them such popular subjects for these types of movies?
Jim Bissell: It’s height. You get up there and believe me, if you can capture that feeling of vertigo, it’s really quite thrilling. It’s visceral and you’re still sitting in your seat, rather than riding around on a rollercoaster or dropping out of the sky, you’re watching somebody else do it. But your neurones are working overtime. It’s pretty interesting.
My daughter, who was an assistant in the art department on the movie, went to the cast and crew screening and she was on the edge of her seat the whole time. She’d seen the models, she’s seen the sets, she knew what was going on. But she still had sweaty palms and she was having the thrill of a lifetime watching Dwayne leap around
Dan Howarth: So it’s about capturing the feeling of unease you might get from being so high up, on screen?
Jim Bissell: I think so yes, it’s about creating a bit of a joyride; a vicarious thrill.
Dan Howarth: It’s interesting how buildings can play characters in these movies. The building itself plays a character and a very pivotal one at that. The way it’s designed and shaped, it can either be a good guy or a bad guy.
Jim Bissell: It’s true. I had this discussion with a journalist about an article she had done about why the villain always resides in contemporary or modern architecture. It’s interesting how certain types of architecture represent certain characters.
Dan Howarth: Was the building based on any particular existing structures or architectural style?
Jim Bissell: We were influenced by [Santiago] Calatrava, Zaha Hadid – you could look at that building and see that it has a lot of contemporary architectural influence.
But at the same time, it was solidly based on trying to capture, in an elegant way, the character of this dragon. That was our solution to making it a character, and avoiding the obvious footfall of making it extraordinarily phallic. Those wonderful sinuous form make it more feminine I think.
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Grafton Architects founders Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara explain their theme for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 in the Royal Academy of Arts‘ annual architecture lecture, which we are streaming live.
The stream is now live. You can watch it here or on Dezeen’s Facebook page.
Farrell and McNamara chose Freespace as the theme for this year’s Venice Biennale, which they describe as “a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity” in architecture.
This is the first lecture that the pair have given in the UK since the exhibition opened in May. In it, they give more details about exactly what Freespace is and how it features in their own architectural work.
Projects likely to feature include the Universita Luigi Bocconi School of Economics in Milan, Italy, and the UTEC University in Lima, Peru, for which they won the first RIBA International Award.
Dezeen is media partner for the 28th instalment of the prestigious lecture series, which takes place at the Royal Academy in London on 16 July 2018, as part of the programme for this year’s Summer Exhibition.
The lecture will be streamed live from the new Benjamin West Lecture Theatre – created during David Chipperfield’s renovation of the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens building – from 6:30 to 8pm on 16 July 2018.
Previous speakers in the lecture series include Wang Shu, Bjarke Ingels, Peter Zumthor and Liz Diller. Last year the speaker was Balkrishna Doshi, who reflected on 70 years of pioneering architectural projects.
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