Hasta La Ideas

Get ready for some ID nitty-gritty. “Honestly, [this here is] probably the least enjoyable part of being an industrial designer for me,” confesses ID’er Eric Strebel. “It’s a huge amount of work to reach out and find a manufacturer and then sort through the data of quotes and numbers. It is, however, part of what an independent designer is sometimes required to do, to see your vision become a reality.”

This week’s video is something that nobody ever really talks about in the industrial design world: The “Design Guide.” What happens after the initial design work is done? How do you get your design prototyped, and ultimately manufactured? You know the ins and outs of your product; how do you convey this information to someone or a team of people that are new to your product?

You need to create a package of information that can be handed off and reviewed by others to quickly understand what you want to make and to your specifications.

A good design package will get you a quote quicker and to production faster. In the video below, I cover the steps of creating what is needed to get the “Backpack Hanger” quoted for prototyping and production.

Also covered: How I create the various documents that make up the design guide, that gets shipped out to manufacturers to quote the project. And how I use an online tool called mfg.com to help me find a possible manufacturer.

Ozzy Man Reviews: Destination F Compilation (Volume 7)..(Read…)

Following on the heels of the Swatch Sistem51 HODINKEE Vintage 84 from 2017, HODINKEE has teamed up with Swatch once again to offer the Sistem51 Blue Edition. The Blue Edition features a 42mm translucent blue plastic case, a Sistem 51 automatic, 19-jewel movement with hours, minutes, seconds and quick-set date, a transparent case back, grey-blue dial, lumed hands, 90 hours of power and 30 meters of water resistance. Because the Sistem 51 movement’s assembly is automated, these watches are incredibly affordable. At just $150…(Read…)

MAD architects has reveals its designs for Courtyard Kindergarten, which features a dynamic roof that surrounds a historic Chinese courtyard and acts as a playground for the children.

The Beijing-based architecture firm, led by Ma Yansong, designed the building to preserve the cultural heritage of the site, while creating new spaces that wrap around the original 18th century buildings.

According to MAD architects the idea for the kindergarten, which is currently under construction, came from an Chinese proverb.

“There is a saying in old Beijing when children are naughty: if you go three days without being punished, the roof will cave in,” said Ma.

The architect aimed to create a structure that incorporated a sense of magic, and a playful space for the children to spend their free time during the school day.

“It is a symbol of freedom and endless imagination,” said the studio.

The school is located on the site of a traditional siheyuan courtyard that dates back to 1725. MAD’s design closely juxtaposes the old architecture with new forms, bringing history together with new buildings.

The roof transforms the limited space between the various school buildings into a colourful, raised playground that will function as the main area for sports and outdoor activities.

On the southwest side of the roof, the bright surface undulates in a series of small hills and plains, creating a “natural-seeming” landscape for play.

Underneath this floating playground, the roof shelters the interior of an open-plan kindergarten. The layout includes teaching spaces, a library, a small theatre and a gymnasium.

The school serves a total of 400 children between the ages of two and five.

“The openness of the space offers a free and inclusive atmosphere. Positioned adjacent to the old courtyard, the new learning space opens towards the historic buildings,” added the architects.

“This gives the children alternating views between old and new, deepening their understanding of time and dimension.”

The school will be built around three ancient trees that exist within the original courtyard.

The kindergarten buildings surround the trees, leaving space for them to grow and allowing natural light from the inner gardens to enter the classrooms.

Throughout the design of the kindergarten, MAD aimed to retain the integrity of the original buildings and create a new kind of interaction between them.

“It offers the children an understanding of history and place, and the preservation of nature, bringing an inclusiveness between the old and new design – one that adds value to the community,” said MAD.

“My ideal kindergarten is not a theme park, or a place of shelter. It should be objective and real, but go beyond reality and provide some space for the unknown and imagination,” said Ma.

The Courtyard Kindergarten is under construction and is expected to be completed in late 2019.

MAD are known for creating structures that bring together the imagination and the real. In October 2018 the architecture studio began construction on the “extraterrestrial” Quzhou Sports Campus in China, which features stadiums that will rise from a landscaped park like volcanoes.

In the mountainous region of Yabuli in northeast China the architecture firm is also building a domed conference centre that looks like a snowcapped peak on an icebound planet.

Photography is by CreatAR Images.

Project Credits:

Principal Partners: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano Design Team: He Wei, Fu Xiaoyi, Xiao Ying, Chen Hungpin, Yin Jianfeng, Zhang Long, Zhao Meng, Kazushi Miyamoto, Dmitry Seregin, Ma Yue, Huang Jinkun, Ben Yuqiang, Chen Luman
Client: Yuecheng Group Executive
Architect: China Academy of Building Research
Interior Design: MAD Architects, Supercloud Studio
Signage Design: 2X4 Beijing
Landscape Architect: ECOLAND Planning and Design Corporation
Facade Construction: Beijing Jangho Curtain Wall System Engineering Co., Ltd.
Visualizations: SAN Model

The post MAD unveils plans for kindergarten with red rooftop playground in Beijing appeared first on Dezeen.

Architects need be more “nutty” in their designs according to architect Peter Cook, who claims that there isn’t enough drama in the new London tower proposed by Foster + Partners.

“It’s not spooky enough,” Cook told Dezeen, describing the Norman Foster-led firm’s plans for the observation tower, called The Tulip.

Critics and the public have been shocked by the shape of the 305-metre-high skyscraper, comparing it to everything from a cotton bud to a sex toy. But Cook thinks it would be better if it was even more strange. “It’s [just] signalling,” he said.

Cook – who is best known for being a member of experimental 1960s architecture group Archigram – said he thinks many of today’s architects need to get in touch with their zanier, more creative side, to design more interesting and unusual projects.

“I think they take themselves too seriously,” said Cook, who currently co-directs Crab Studio. “There’s a certain association with being very self effacing, with being honourable, which I don’t think is true. But it’s a current mode and mood.”

Architects should try cinema and “strange religious experiences”

The architect, who received a knighthood in 2007, spoke to Dezeen following a talk at the World Architecture Festival in Amsterdam.

In the talk, titled Nutters of the North, he praised the “spooky” beauty of architecture found in coastal settlements along the Baltic and North seas.

He cited the Heddal Stave Church in Norway – a 13th-century timber building with strange stacked gable roofs and towers – as an example of architecture that embodies the character he loves.

In order to loosen up, architects should turn to culture and embrace the bizarre, he suggested.

“I think they should go to more movies,” Cook said. “They should look at more art, they should have more strange religious experiences.”

Northern sea crossings inspired spooky architecture

Cook has been particularly critical of British architecture in the past, blaming a dearth of experimentation in schools for producing a “dull period” and slamming the redevelopment of King’s Cross as “boring”.

He thinks British architects could find plenty of inspiration in along the coastlines of northwest Europe.

The architect noted how, since the Viking Age, architectural elements were spread across this region, and later moved along the trading route of the Hanseatic League.

It was this exchange of styles – combined with the mood imbued by long winters and grey skies, and the madcap, Heath Robinson-esque skills needed to engineer dockland machinery – that led to the eccentric architecture, he claimed.

He described it as “that haunting-ness that comes from the north, together with the moving-parts stuff that comes from the coast”.

Architects can learn from these strange buildings

Each country, said Cook, has its own particular kind of strangeness informed by the landscape and weather conditions.

Scotland’s dark and gothic spires in Edinburgh and Glasgow are “dour but looking for the light”, while the English “love pissing about” with phallic towers that poke out above the treetops. Finnish architects “seem to enjoy scooping and slithering” while Norway has a more “sweet and drifty” style.

Today’s architects can learn a lot from these examples, said Cook.

“[Architects] should understand that people want more than just the presentation of the necessary,” he said.

“It’s an atmospheric thing, it’s the sort of thing that old religious buildings were playing with, where they tried to build up a sense of mystery and preciousness even,” he added, “not just seeing everything straight off, full frontal.”

The post The Tulip by Foster + Partners is “not spooky enough” says Peter Cook appeared first on Dezeen.