Hasta La Ideas

Colour-blocked walls painted in flamingo pink, azure blue and pastel green define the different areas of this seaside apartment in Greece, by architect Stamatios Giannikis.

Waterfront Nikis Apartment is located in a listed art-deco building from 1937, in the city of Thessaloniki.

Giannikis uses the apartment as a base for his cultural organisation, Architecture In Residence, which hosts dinners, lectures, exhibitions, meetings and shows focused on architecture and design.

Spanning 120 square metres, the three-bedroom apartment comprises a living room that overlooks the sea, a dining room, a shower room, a WC, a storage room, a kitchen and two balconies – one at the front overlooking the sea and one at the back with a view to the street.

While the layout of the apartment was not changed during the renovation, Giannikis fitted an entirely new kitchen, shower room and WC with new flooring and sanitary fittings.

Original art-deco fittings – such as the flooring, the solid wood door and window frames, and the ornate plaster details on the ceiling – are all retained and refurbished.

“The intention of the renovation was to design a space that feels like home,” Giannikis told Dezeen. “Contrast as a design approach was introduced in order to bring together these existing fittings with the new amenities.”

Clean-lined pastel green kitchen cabinetry was installed to create a sharp contrast with the apartment’s original geometric red and black cement tile flooring, while 1950s glass and bronze bedside light fixtures are placed next to Leaf chairs by contemporary furniture brand Arper.

Giannikis chose three bold colours to organise the space. Flamingo pink is used in spaces that overlook the sea, azure blue is used in spaces that have views out across the neighbourhood and the pastel green shade is used in the apartment’s wet spaces such as the kitchen, shower room and the WC.

“The use of bold color in the design of Waterfront Nikis Apartment is done in an effort to complement and strengthen the power of the sea view, not to suppress it,” explained Giannikis.

“Pastel green is used to create serenity in the functional spaces, azure blue is used to convey a sea ambiance deep inside the apartment and flamingo pink is used to frame the actual azure blue of the Mediterranean Sea.”

In addition, to allow for flexibility, light, stackable and foldable furniture in the apartment can be used in various setups and can be easily disassembled and stored when not in use.

“The feeling of homeliness that the design was pursuing had to avoid compromises in the ability of the apartment to host the range of activities,” explained Giannikis. “Flexibility in the design of the infrastructure was key to achieving this goal.”

Other residential interiors that have used colour blocking to add personality include a minimal white house with a bright blue steel staircase by RA Projects, and a 1970s apartment in Mexico, which features a bold yellow storage area that separates the living room and bedrooms.

Photography is by <a href="http://www.kimpowell-photography.com/ “>Kim Powell.

The post Waterfront Nikis Apartment features walls in shades of pink, blue and green appeared first on Dezeen.

This multipurpose drinking fountain, designed by ÉCAL industrial design graduate Dimitri Nassisi, can be used for fighting fires, quenching thirst, filling bottles and refreshing pet dogs.

Styled to look like an updated fire hydrant, the Drinking Hydrant is bright blue to attract the attention of anyone looking for water.

“In Switzerland you find some drinking fountains, but I don’t feel there is enough of them. The problem I saw was that they would often be very discreet and people don’t know where to find them,” explained Nassisi.

“Also, it is very complicated to add new drinking fountains. It takes a lot of time to develop such a project and the costs are high.”

Nassisi, who studied industrial design at Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ÉCAL) in Renens, Switzerland, set out to create a new drinking fountain that was both intuitive, attractive and used existing infrastructure in the city.

“Swiss streets are filled with lots of well-thought-out objects,” said Nassisi. “What was profoundly interesting to notice was that the overflow of information on the roads pushes people to look at all these elements like an abstract painting.”

When looking for easily accessible water in the city, Nassisi noticed that the traditional red fire hydrants were becoming increasingly invisible in the streets among all the other noise.

“My biggest question for the drinking fountain was what it should look like,” he said.

Developing a new typography for street furniture became his major focus for the project. The hydrant had to be aesthetically pleasing to as many people as possible and be practical in case of city fires, but also had to appear new.

He resolved to model the fountain on these existing water sources, using the same process of construction used for regular fire hydrants. His new water fountain-cum-fire hydrant is cast out of iron.

“It is a very old technique that gives a lot of freedom for design,” he continued. “Using this well-oiled making process was a way for me to take a reference to the past and add a touch of newness to it. Inspired by a spring, the drinking hydrant looks like it had just appeared during the night.”

Only a concept prototype at the moment, Nassisi’s intention is that this new drinking fountain could replace some existing fire hydrants at strategic intervals around the city.

Nassisi’s research revealed that the hydrants could easily be removed and replaced without causing any roadworks. From the road upwards, the visible hydrant structure is only bolted down while the complex plumping under street level.

A double valve system enables firemen who need to use the hydrant to combat fire to fully open both valves and run the water at very high pressure. At other times, the valves would reduce the pressure for easy drinking.

Nassisi also included a dog bowl into the foot of the hydrant. “I want anyone to be able to enjoy the fountain – grown ups, children and even dogs.”

The dog bowl has no water outlet of its own; it utilises overflow water that would otherwise be wasted.

As well as wasted water, the hydrants also address issues of plastic waste. By providing regular water fountains and bottle refill points would help combat the consumption of single-use plastic bottles.

In a previous year, fellow ÉCAL student Alice Spieser 3D printed a tap that enabled users to drink straight from the faucet more easily.

The post Reimagined fire hydrant doubles up as a water fountain for people and dogs appeared first on Dezeen.

Designers are increasingly looking to the human body when finding materials for their creations. Here are 10 of the most stomach-churning examples, featuring blood, sweat and tears (plus urine and hair).

This Is Not A Värdera by Krisztina Czika

Krisztina Czika is one of several designers exploring how human hair can be used as the base material for products.

The Hungarian designer made a collection of 15 mugs from wax and human hair harvested from four donors, including herself, as part of the DesignLab course at Gerrit Rietveld Academie.

Find out more about This Is Not A Värdera ›

Human Hair Transformation by Zsofia Kollar

Also working with human hair, Zsofia Kollar has created a series of scented objects, including a golden wall hanging and a U-shaped necklace.

Kollar wanted to show that there are alternative uses for the large amounts of human hair that are thrown out each year.

Find out more about Human Hair Transformation ›

Urine Ware by Sinae Kim

Sinae Kim chose to demonstrate the potential to recycle another item of human waste, urine, in this collection of decorative vessels inspired by the shape of the human bladder.

The Central Saint Martins graduate coated the ceramics with a glaze made from 280 litres of human urine, which was collected from five people over a period of five months.

Find out more about Urine Ware ›

Selfmade by Christina Agapakis and Sissel Tolaas

American scientist Christina Agapakis and Norwegian scent expert Sissel Tolaas collected bacteria from artist Olafur Eliasson’s tears, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist’s nose and chef Michael Pollan’s belly button to make human cheese.

The cheeses formed part of an exhibition about synthetic biology in Dublin.

Find out more about Selfmade ›

Hair Glasses by Studio Swine

Made from human hair bound with natural resin, this range of glasses was designed by Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves for their Royal College of Art graduate show in 2011.

The pair, known as Studio Swine, revisited the process in 2014 to create a range of accessories including combs and vases.

Find out more about Hair Glasses ›

Perspire by Alice Potts

Alice Potts used human sweat as the starting point for her Royal College of Art project this year.

The designer encrusted a series of garments, including ballet shoes and a sports jersey, in crystals made from the sweat.

Find out more about Perspire ›

Pissjar Sans by Pissjar

Swedish hardcore band Pissjar took inspiration from their name to create a typeface made entirely from their own urine.

According to the artists, the appropriately named Pissjar Sans takes inspiration from the “dirty disruption” created by punk music.

Find out more about Pissjar Sans ›

Drawing Blood by Ted Lawson

Human blood was the material of choice for Ted Lawson. The artist connected himself to a painting machine that used a “significant amount” of his own blood as ink to draw a nude portrait of himself.

The artwork was created as part of a series Lawson created using Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) machines.

Find out more about Drawing Blood ›

Wiggy by Oksana Bondar

Another designer experimenting with potential uses for waste human hair, Kingston School of Art graduate Oksana Bondar created a dressing table stool from the material.

Bondar combined three weeks worth of hair cuttings from her local salon with Polylactic Acid (PLA) – a biodegradable plastic made from corn starch or sugar cane – to create the biodegradable stool.

Find out more about Wiggy ›

The Colour of Hair by Fabio Hendry and Martijn Rigter

London-based designers Fabio Hendry and Martijn Rigters used human hair to create a type of sustainable ink to print patterns on a set of aluminium stools.

The patterns were created by placing the offcuts from local hairdressers on the heated up aluminium, which makes it carbonise and penetrate the material.

Find out more about The Colour of Hair ›

The post 10 designs made from the human body that will make you squirm appeared first on Dezeen.

It’s been around for almost half a millennium now, and the pencil is still going strong. Even today, the most commonly used ones come with a graphite nib encased in wood, with the exception of the mechanical pencil, a much more recent innovation that allows you to extrude a graphite lead by clicking a button… but no matter how far we progress as a species, the humble pencil is always our go-to for ideating, sketching, scribbling, doodling, and noting. The Magno Ti turns that humble 500-year-old product into something spectacular, that not only celebrates the ubiquity of the pencil, but gives it a makeover that transforms it into a stunning instrument that will live and enchant for another 500 years. With a titanium build, and an eye-catching magnetic deployment for the graphite nib, the Magno Ti is simple, sophisticated, and sublime.

The Magno Ti (named for its magnetic action and titanium build) comes with a cylindrical design, punctuated by a metallic ring/belt that slides up and down its smooth body. Within the metallic ring lies a magnet that helps push the lead out from within the titanium cylinder. Using the invisible magic of magnetism, the ring slides up and down on the outside, while the graphite lead magically moves outwards and inwards from within the cylinder without any contact. Once you’ve extruded the nib to its desired length, twisting the head of the pencil locks the nib in place, so you can sketch without it retracting inwards. The Magno Ti even comes with a sharpener stored at the back end of the pen, allowing you to keep your nib sharpened at all times.

The Magno Ti builds on the success of the Magno, and revisits the avant-garde design with a titanium build, not just to commemorate the success of the Magno, but to also make their pencil indestructible and last centuries, much like how the original pencil itself has resiliently stood the test of time, and like how the ideas one puts down on paper with these pencils often remain immortal too!

Designers: Ashley Hribar-Green & Matthew Aston Cain

Click Here to Buy Now: $35

Click Here to Buy Now: $35

Long lines at the bar, iffy brand loyalty, and out-of-touch leadership are among the woes of the liquor business—and issues that brands are looking to solve for their consumers. With “connected” cocktail glasses and liquor bottles, brands will be able……

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