Hasta La Ideas

A rose and chai-flavoured ice cream designed by Sally Reynolds has won Bompas & Parr‘s ice cream competition, which took place during this year’s London Design Festival.

Designed by New York-based Reynolds, the winning ice cream takes the form of a woman’s breast, and is informed by classical sculptures.

Aptly named Homage to the Breast, the ice cream was intended as a celebration of the beauty of the female figure. As the designer explains, it “plays on the power of the currency of women in the days of royalty.”

The simple breast-shaped gelato design was developed from a more complex model that Reynolds sculpted in virtual reality.

The ice cream was made in a Rose Masala Chai flavour – consisting of vanilla gelato flavoured with rose syrup and chai spice.

Food design studio Bompas & Parr’s competition asked architects and designers to come up with ideas for a three-dimensional ice cream mould based on those used by royalty in the 18th century in time for London Design Festival.

The winning design, and two runners up, were chosen by a panel of 11 judges from the creative sector, including Dezeen’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.

Second place was awarded to Estela Gless for her cherry-flavoured dondurma – a Turkish ice cream with an elastic texture – lolly inspired by the bright and colourful Mexican iced treat Paleta.

Called Mouth Toys, the design aims to reflect the physical and emotional sensations experienced when eating ice cream.

In third place was Milan-based designer Michele Menescardi with his Bubble-icious ice cream, designed to replicate a bar of soap. The pineapple and basil-flavoured lolly took inspiration from fruit salads, as well as the ancient Arabic tradition of sweets and culinary art.

“Although gimmicky and paradoxical, it looks good, the flavours are interesting and I like the counter-intuitiveness of putting something that looks like a bar of soap in your mouth,” said Fairs.

Each of the frozen creations were available to eat for one day only on 20 September at Scoop – an exhibition put on by the British Museum of Food, which is running until 30 September at Gasholder 11, London.

The competition was curated to celebrate the city’s annual design festival, which took place this year from 15 to 23 September.

All profits from the sales will be donated to Maggie’s Centres, which support people living with cancer, and their family and friends.

The “world’s first non-melting” ice lolly designed by Bompas & Parr was also displayed at the Scoop exhibition for one day only on 22 August. The non-melting lolly was inspired by a frozen composite material pioneered during the second world war.

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The former Philips power plant in Eindhoven has been transformed into an innovation hub by young architect Janne van Berlo, in a renovation that celebrates the building’s industrial features.

Rotterdam-based Atelier van Berlo worked with Eindhoven-based studios Eugelink Architectuur and De Bever Architecten to complete Innovation Powerhouse.

It occupies an iconic building that once provided Philips factories with power generated by coal, gas and oil.

The building now accommodates around a dozen businesses. One of the main aims of the design to create an ecosystem that would allow these companies to communicate, interact and share facilities.

“It was very important to create a building with a very open atmosphere that encourages people to collaborate and run into each other regularly,” Janne van Berlo told Dezeen.

During research into other refurbished multi-tenant buildings, the project team found that navigation is a common issue and that internal compartmentalisation can lead to some businesses being tucked away in forgotten corners.

To avoid this potential pitfall, the design is centred around a communal street-like passage that extends from one end of the building to the other. All of the offices are arranged along this central passage and their glazed walls help to enhance the feeling of connection between the various tenants.

The double-height, five-metre-wide corridor allows natural light entering through skylights to illuminate the centre of the building, which would otherwise have been too far from the facades to receive an appropriate amount of daylight.

The skylights also cast light onto the original concrete framework, as well as features including coal chutes suspended from the roof that preserve a sense of the building’s industrial past.

“We love this raw industrial look,” Van Berlo added. “It’s the jewel of the building so we wanted to keep it visible as much as possible.”

“It gives you a sense of history as well as future possibilities. It also creates a playful atmosphere that you need for people to feel creative and inspired.”

In addition to opening up the roof to provide more daylight, the architects also punched small holes into the existing brick facades to increase illumination levels within the offices, while minimising disruptions to the historic surfaces.

At the rear of the building, a glass extension follows the lines and rhythm of the existing structure to ensure visual consistency between the old and new sections.

Glazing throughout, the project was carefully considered to achieve continuity with the older openings.

Some of the steel window frames were renovated and updated with new glass, while new windows feature frames concealed in the surrounding brickwork to express their modernity.

Several of the contemporary interventions are based on parts of the original design that were never built, including a steel vertical garden which completes the symmetrical form as it was initially intended.

The new addition contains meeting rooms, a glass elevator and emergency exits in a delicate transparent box that contrasts with the existing monumental structure and hints at the transition towards more sustainable energy production.

The original power station was built in four stages between 1953 and 1972 on a site known as Strijp-T in the heart of the Brainport industrial area.

After ceasing operation and being occupied by other tenants, the plant gradually fell into a state of disrepair and was taken over by the local municipality, which placed it on a list of buildings to be demolished.

It was industrial design company VanBerlo that spotted the opportunity to repurpose the building as creative offices and spent four years lobbying to prevent its destruction.

The company is now the core tenant of Innovation Powerhouse, which is owned and operated by commercial developer GEVA. It was also behind the decision to give young architect Janne van Berlo, daughter of the VanBerlo founder, the opportunity to work on the project, rather than give it to a high-profile studio.

It is her studio’s debut project.

Similarly, Australian studio DesignOffice recently converted a former power station in Melbourne into a cafe and restaurant with exposed brickwork and abundant planting.

Photography is by Tycho Merijn.

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I never thought I’d say this, but I actually prefer this tractor concept over my own car… errr… almost any car, for that matter. It’s called the Valtra H202 and it’ll put your hooptie to shame!

Designed as part of the Valtra Design Challenge, the vision is for the year 2040. As clean as it is mean looking, it’s powered by an advanced hydrogen fuel cell/electric engine that results in enormous, consistent torque. As fun as it looks to drive, it’s meant to rely on autonomous operation, remote control via app, and laser guidance to enhance safety and efficiency in the field. Despite its aggressive, ultra-modern look that’s almost reminiscent of a monster truck, it’s an obvious evolution of the archtypical form of the tractor, making it instantaneously recognizeable.

Designer: Lorenzo Mariotti

I never thought I’d say this, but I actually prefer this tractor concept over my own car… errr… almost any car, for that matter. It’s called the Valtra H202 and it’ll put your hooptie to shame!

Designed as part of the Valtra Design Challenge, the vision is for the year 2040. As clean as it is mean looking, it’s powered by an advanced hydrogen fuel cell/electric engine that results in enormous, consistent torque. As fun as it looks to drive, it’s meant to rely on autonomous operation, remote control via app, and laser guidance to enhance safety and efficiency in the field. Despite its aggressive, ultra-modern look that’s almost reminiscent of a monster truck, it’s an obvious evolution of the archtypical form of the tractor, making it instantaneously recognizeable.

Designer: Lorenzo Mariotti

Concrete boxes housing galleries are laid out around a tranquil pond at this extended museum in Maryland, which architecture firm Thomas Phifer and Partners embedded in the rolling landscape.

The Pavilions add 50,000 square feet (4,645 square metres) of indoor exhibition space to the Glenstone Museum, a private institution with an impressive collection of post-war art.

A short drive northwest of Washington DC, it joins a 2006 building by Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects on the 230-acre (93-hectare) estate.

Nestled into the landscape, the new minimalist expansion comprises a set of cuboid volumes with varying dimensions, which form the galleries. These are connected by a single-storey concourse, forming a circular route for visitors to follow.

The cuboids are clad in cast-concrete blocks, which measure approximately six feet long, one foot high and one foot deep (1.8 by 0.3 by 0.3 metres). These were left to cure outdoors, causing variations in their tone.

Grass covers the roof of the building’s lower portion, to help embed it into the verdant site.

Thomas Phifer and Partners, together with PWP Landscape Architecture, worked closely with the museum’s founders for over 15 years to create a setting that would encourage visitors to slow down.

The team visited countless museums around the world, including Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, to gain a sense of what kind of atmosphere they wanted to create at Glenstone.

A key objective, according to Phifer, was “embedding nature into the experience”.

“This has been the foundation of the project from the beginning,” he told journalists during a press conference last week. “We had these remarkable rolling fields, and we wanted to present an atmosphere that when you finally stood in front of the work, that you would get lost in it.”

“We really thought of nature here as the first material,” the architect added.

PWP Landscape Architecture’s work involved reshaping the terrain, moving and planting many trees, to create a picturesque ecology that looked like it had always been there.

“We saw that there was fantastic potential of the site – the acres, the trees that existed here – but it didn’t feel like you came to nature… some place as special as it had the potential to be,” said the firm’s Adam Greenspan.

Visitors arrive at a gravel car park, strategically placed a 10-minute walk away from the Pavilions, which are tucked out of sight.

Instead, a welcome centre clad in silvery timber acts as a reception area, with washrooms and other facilities.

From here, visitors begin a journey along a path that begins in the trees, then emerges into the meadow landscape, where the tops of the cuboid concrete volumes are just visible on the horizon.

“As you begin your journey over at the arrivals building, you start to walk, and the distractions of the day begin to fall away,” said Phifer.

The crushed granite pathway winds gently uphill – past a huge Jeff Koons sculpture in the distance – until it reaches the entrance to the Pavilions, which is located on the upper level of the complex.

Accessed down a long flight of stairs, the galleries are arranged around a central pool sprinkled with waterlilies and other aquatic plants.

Tall glass panels, which extend past the roof to form guard rails, provide views from the corridors to this Water Court. At one end, doors provide access to a decked platform on the water, where visitors can sit and relax.

From this position, the building blocks the horizon line in every direction, effectively framing the sky.

Phifer described the court as providing a “meditative experience, where you always return to this space that is open to the sky and the light”.

He took inspiration from Japanese author Junichiro Tanizaki’s 1933 book In Praise of Shadows, a favourite with minimalists for is description of aesthetics, when creating the sequence of spaces through which museum visitors travel.

“As we began to sculpt these rooms, we wanted this experience to be about a journey through light and shadows,” Phifer said.

Flooring through most of the museum is a bespoke terrazzo, chosen to compliment the concrete blocks and poured-in-place concrete ceilings.

Galleries, numbered one to 10, were designed for the most part with specific artworks in mind.

The team consulted many of the artists about the ideal environments for displaying their work, and used the information gathered to design the spaces.

For example, three works commemorating the moon landings from On Kawara’s Date Painting series occupy the tallest volume. Before his death in 2014, he requested a wooden floor in the room and a skylight high above the pictures, mounted on trowelled plaster walls.

Roof windows feature in some of the other galleries, while several are illuminated with clerestories. One space, lined entirely with wood, looks out to the landscape through a giant glass wall and is furnished with a long bench for reading books stored behind.

In a corner courtyard, a huge work by Michael Heizer – one of two at the museum – comprises a deep pit filled with 15 huge weathering-steel beams.

An exhibition of highlights from the Glenstone collection can be found in gallery two, arranged roughly chronologically and geographically. Sixty-five works by some of the best-known names in modern and contemporary art – Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, Alexander Calder, Yayoi Kusama and Jean-Michel Basquiat to name a few – all feature.

Rather than texts on the walls, gallery assistants dressed in grey provide information about the art – encouraging open dialogue and communication.

The 204,000-square-foot (18,950-square-metre) Pavilions building also includes office spaces. In-between this and the older museum, a cafe designed similarly to the arrivals building has a Scandinavian feel created by pale wood furniture and surfaces.

Glenstone does not charge admission fees, and reopens to the public Thursdays to Sundays from 4 October 2018.

Based in New York City, Thomas Phifer and Partners has also completed an equally minimal expansion for the Corning Museum of Glass.

A courthouse in Salt Lake City, a curvy brick residence in Wisconsin and an architecture school in South Carolina are among the firm’s other previous projects.

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