Hasta La Ideas

This week on Dezeen, architect Amin Taha faced an order to demolish his RIBA Award-winning home and office in London and it was announced Pablo Escobar’s former home in Colombia will be torn down and replaced with a public memorial.

Islington Council issued the order to demolish Taha’s six-storey block of flats at 15 Clerkenwell Close, which the architect lives in himself, with claims that the facade’s natural stone was not fully detailed in the planning documents.

Taha said he believes the demolition notice is fuelled by personal dislikes of the Dezeen Award-nominated building. He has launched an appeal against the order.

In Medellín, it was announced that the concrete Mónaco building, which once served as a fortress-like home to narcotics baron Pablo Escobar, is to be demolished to make way for a public space that will serve as a memorial to victims of Colombia’s drug war.

RIBA announced that architect Nicholas Grimshaw is to receive the 2019 Royal Gold Medal for a lifetime of landmark projects, including the famous Eden Project in Cornwall and the International Terminal at London’s Waterloo train station.

Dutch graphic designer Anthon Beeke, famous for creating the 1969 Naked Ladies typeface and provocative posters designs, passed away this week aged 78, following a stroke. Beeke is survived by his wife, the trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort.

Foster + Partners’ 200-metre-high office skyscraper in Shanghai broke ground this week. The 42-storey tower is being built for property development company China Resources Land in the city’s Suhewan district.

The firm was also in the headlines this week for winning the top prize at the Archiboo Web Awards 2018 for the best overall website, which judges described as “a tour de force in making so much content accessible and easily navigable”.

In Cleveland, a groundbreaking ceremony for a new office building at the NASA Glenn Research Center, designed by TEN Arquitectos, took place to coincide with the space agency’s 60th anniversary.

Elsewhere in the US, Michael Kors Holdings acquired the iconic fashion house Versace in a £1.67 billion deal, following its purchase of shoe brand Jimmy Choo last summer for £900 million – the three brands are set to form a new fashion conglomerate.

In design news, a rose and chai-flavoured ice cream in the form of a woman’s breast, by New York-based Sally Reynolds, was selected as the winner of Bompas & Parr’s ice cream competition from London Design Festival.

A new stained-glass window was installed at London’s Westminster Abbey to commemorate the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and her “deep affection for and connection to the countryside”, designed by British artist David Hockney on his iPad.

Popular projects on Dezeen this week included a London restaurant with green fixtures by Australian studio Biasol, ecological packaging for fries made from potato skins and BIG’s overhaul of a Copenhagen warehouse to create the Noma 2.0 restaurant.

The post This week, homes of drug lord Pablo Escobar and architect Amin Taha faced demolition appeared first on Dezeen.

Clearly taking inspiration from the streamlined aerodynamic body of an airplane, the HM9 Flow by MB&F is a sheer pleasure to look at, with its unconventional, curvilinear body and luxury steampunk aesthetic.

The movement within the HM9 Flow is developed in-house and is produced from 301 parts being manually-wound with 45 hours of power reserve. Three exhibition windows on the top give you a clear view of the enchanting movement of the twin balance wheels on each flank, accompanied by a planetary differential that averages their output, giving you an accurate reading on the dial that’s located on a vertical surface that faces you when you have your hands around the steering wheel, allowing you to casually glance at the time as you navigate your automobile.

The case is made entirely from titanium, with as many as five curved sapphire crystal windows (three on top, one on the side, and one on the back) giving you a view of the time and the bespoke movement that’s responsible for it. MB&F plans to produce only 33 of these remarkable timepieces, albeit with a hefty price tag of $182,000. These stellar jpegs, however, are for free.

Designer: MB&F

Toys created by Czech designers over the past century are on show in London, including inflatable animals, wooden flowers and colourful totems.

More than 50 toys feature in the exhibition Mini Wonders: Czech Toys Past and Present at the Czech Centre Gallery, which opened during London Design Festival.

These range from the mechanical metal toys of Kovap, a former state factory on the Polish border, to inflatable plastic animals by Libuše Niklová, whose work has been displayed at MOMA in New York.

The exhibition includes wood, plastic and metal toys produced between 1920 to the present day – a period that included the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into two separate countries, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, in 1993.

It aims to show how Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have consistently produced imaginative and well-crafted toys, by giving an overview of most impressive designs produced, as well as the key players, including Ladislav Sutnar and Libuše Niklová.

“I wanted to present Czech toys as little wonders of our childhood,” explained exhibition curator Tereza Bruthansova.

“They are created by the imagination of their authors with the aim of inspiring to play, giving pleasure, developing an imagination, learning how to manipulate objects and telling stories,” she continued.

“We often forget them but they are little gems of Czech design.”

An inflatable red buffalo, yellow giraffe and blue elephant, all created by Libuse Niklova in 1971, are among the items on display.

“This became known as one of the Czech Republic’s groundbreaking designs,” said Bruthansova.

The oldest product on show is the Devil Box designed by painter Václav Špála for the Artel cooperative, a Czech craft and furniture workshop, in 1920.

Originally created to be sold in traditional Christmas markets in Prague, the brightly-coloured rabbit is composed of geometric blocks.

The exhibition also showcases a range of recent toy designs to emerge from the country.

Today, the young generation of Czech designers are very attracted to this domain,” explained Bruthansova.

The Amaris Horse was launched in 2015 by toy manufacturer Kutulu, which features a white, wooden body and is supported by four red wheels, while Pe-Pa is a wooden bird duo made by the same brand.

Also on show is the Zahumny Collection, a range of totem-like toys by My Dvě, and Adéla, a set of wooden flowers carved from wood by Adéla Fejtková.

The exhibition coincided with the start of London Design Festival, which ran from 15 to 23 September, but remains open until 14 October. All the toys showcased in the exhibition will be available to purchase.

Other noteworthy London Design Festival exhibitions included a showcase of Japanese metalwork and a display of health-focused furniture pieces.

The post Czech toys from the past 100 years showcased for London Design Festival appeared first on Dezeen.

Clearly taking inspiration from the streamlined aerodynamic body of an airplane, the HM9 Flow by MB&F is a sheer pleasure to look at, with its unconventional, curvilinear body and luxury steampunk aesthetic.

The movement within the HM9 Flow is developed in-house and is produced from 301 parts being manually-wound with 45 hours of power reserve. Three exhibition windows on the top give you a clear view of the enchanting movement of the twin balance wheels on each flank, accompanied by a planetary differential that averages their output, giving you an accurate reading on the dial that’s located on a vertical surface that faces you when you have your hands around the steering wheel, allowing you to casually glance at the time as you navigate your automobile.

The case is made entirely from titanium, with as many as five curved sapphire crystal windows (three on top, one on the side, and one on the back) giving you a view of the time and the bespoke movement that’s responsible for it. MB&F plans to produce only 33 of these remarkable timepieces, albeit with a hefty price tag of $182,000. These stellar jpegs, however, are for free.

Designer: MB&F

Clearly taking inspiration from the streamlined aerodynamic body of an airplane, the HM9 Flow by MB&F is a sheer pleasure to look at, with its unconventional, curvilinear body and luxury steampunk aesthetic.

The movement within the HM9 Flow is developed in-house and is produced from 301 parts being manually-wound with 45 hours of power reserve. Three exhibition windows on the top give you a clear view of the enchanting movement of the twin balance wheels on each flank, accompanied by a planetary differential that averages their output, giving you an accurate reading on the dial that’s located on a vertical surface that faces you when you have your hands around the steering wheel, allowing you to casually glance at the time as you navigate your automobile.

The case is made entirely from titanium, with as many as five curved sapphire crystal windows (three on top, one on the side, and one on the back) giving you a view of the time and the bespoke movement that’s responsible for it. MB&F plans to produce only 33 of these remarkable timepieces, albeit with a hefty price tag of $182,000. These stellar jpegs, however, are for free.

Designer: MB&F