Hasta La Ideas

A down-tempo, electronica song by a Montreal singer informed the design of an all-white installation created by students in a studio led by Canadian architect Jean Verville.

Called B15, the installation is the final project for a graduate studio at Laval University School of Architecture in Quebec City, where Verville recently became a professor.

Verville also leads an eponymous firm in Montreal and is well-known for experimental projects such as a black-and-white apartment that tricks the eye and a fairytale-like cottage in the forest.

For the studio project, Verville invited singer-songwriter Camille Poliquin – leader of the Montreal electropop band KROY — to participate.

Poliquin met with the studio’s 15 students to discuss her work methods and the “rhythms, sequences, nuances and variations” that characterise her artistic vision. She then composed a song specifically for the studio and charged the students with creating an installation to accompany it.

Over the course of the semester, the students conceived a small installation for a snowy clearing on campus. The temporary structure consists of 15 white-painted plywood blocks in various shapes and sizes, which can be combined to form different landscapes – some highly fractured, others more intact.

The students carried all of the pieces to the site by hand and tested out the different configurations.

“This stage led the group to work on in-situ adaptations of the elements, in order to explore the different assembly possibilities while preserving the installation’s structural and formal characteristics,” said Verville in a project description.

Canadian photographer Maxime Brouillet was brought in to document the work and capture “scenographic compositions” that revealed the versatile and expressive quality of the students’ design.

Poliquin used the installation as a backdrop for a forthcoming music video, and it will also figure in album artwork. Four different configurations will be featured in total. A short preview is available online.

“The hypnotic universe of KROY becomes the source of impulse for this installation, resulting in a multidisciplinary experiment combining music, architecture, video and photography,” said Verville.

In addition to providing architecture students with a unique experience, the studio supported Verville’s ongoing mission to develop “interventions that contribute to the de-compartmentalisation of artistic disciplines”.

Other recent projects by students include a robotically fabricated wooden bench by students in Vancouver and a woven pavilion that shelters archaeologists, which was designed by Swiss and Peruvian students.

Photography is by Maxime Brouillet.

Project credits:

Workshop instructor: Jean Verville
Students: Achille Breysse, Francis Brunette, Sara Bursikova, Louise Cancel, Alex Clavet, Guillaume Couture, Marion Delahay, Jonathan Estrade, Rosemonde Gadoury-Salvail, Steven Girard, Zachari Guay-Hébert, Walter Lopez-Echeverry, Noémie Marcellin, Justine Rioux, Marie-Ève Thibert
Workshop collaborators: Tania Paula Garza, France Goneau (of Jean Verville Architecte)
Musician: Camille Poliquin (of KROY)
Music video DOP and editing: Adrian Villagomez
Video colorisation: Charles-Étienne Pascal

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C’est un véritable signal d’alerte visuel et artistique qu’a créé l’artiste canadien Benjamin Von Wong avec son oeuvre « Strawpocalypse ». Une idée survenue en collaboration avec Zero Waste Saigon, une association vietnamienne à but non lucratif ayant pour objectif d’aider la population à réduire ses déchets. En résulte une vague grandeur nature composée de précisément 168 037 pailles en plastique. Un moyen percutant d’éveiller les consciences, tout en offrant une deuxième vie à ces déchets recyclés. Starbucks a en partie sponsorisé cette installation en installant, dans un certain nombre de leur cafés, des bacs de collecte de pailles usagées. Zero Waste Saigon a également apporté sa pierre à l’édifice en organisant des groupes de nettoyage. Après six mois de ces récoltes plastiques, les pailles ont dû être lavées, triées et codées par couleurs. 

Cette installation a été reconnue par le Guinness World Records comme la « plus grande sculpture en pailles » : 3,3 mètres de haut, 8 mètres de long et 4,5 mètres de large. Les visiteurs peuvent marcher au sein même de cette vague, de cette « séparation d’une mer en plastique » en deux partie. Une déambulation pour faire comprendre la triste situation actuelle quant aux énormes quantités de plastiques déversées dans l’océan.

Plus de son travail à découvrir sur son Instagram @Vonwong

Dezeen promotion: Ventura Projects has announced the return of its Future and Centrale exhibitions to Milan design week, where it will display the latest works from emerging and established studios including Lavazza, Gufram, Lensvelt and Modular.

The return of Ventura Future and Ventura Centrale to the city’s annual design festival – which is taking place from 9 to 14 April 2019 – will mark the organiser’s 10th anniversary at the event.

Designers at the Ventura Future exhibition will explore innovative processes like synthetic biology and address current global affairs such as migration, while Ventura Centrale will host a range of established practices.

Ventura Centrale will remain at its usual setting in a series of vaults near the Italian city’s main train station, but Ventura Future has found a new location in the Tortona district in the Base Milano industrial complex.

“Milan not only embodies design but the city lives and breathes its key principles,” said Margriet Vollenberg, founder and art director of Ventura Projects.

“Milan is the perfect environment with its generous curiosity for the new and unknown and its loving affection for the aesthetics of the established,” she added.

Mexican-American artist Isabelle Sanchez Jacques is one of the many names exhibiting at Ventura Future who will be using their designs to address global affairs.

Jacques will invite the public to consume homemade Mexican dishes while listening to anecdotal stories from migrant workers, in a bid to call into question issues like heritage and intolerance between cultures.

Switching from a sense of taste to a sense of smell, Dutch company SOM Tales of Perfume will be presenting a “fragrant experience” at the exhibition. At the exhibit visitors will be able to move through a composition of 100 wooden pieces that are infused with various components of pure botanical perfume.

“Over the last years there has been a detectable shift from the designer of objects to the designer of stories,” said the organisers. “Ventura Projects has always been at the forefront of this development.”

This year’s edition of Ventura Future will also explore the topic of bio-design. Eight Dutch designers  including Matilde Boelhouwer will show their visions for a “liveable earth”. Boelhouwer’s contribution will be a set of artificial flowers that turn rain into sugar water, to serve as emergency food sources for city-dwelling insect pollinators. The bio-design project is supported by the Embassy and the Consulate-General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Milan.

The forward-facing exhibition will also host notable design academies including London’s Central Saint Martins, and Royal College of Art, Prague-based university UMPRUM and University of Iowa 3D Design Program.

Design School Kolding in Denmark will ask the question “where do we feel at home?” in their exhibit, visualising the relationships between mobile personal objects and the ideas of home.

“The freedom that design students have to explore current topics never fails to excite,” said the organisers.

Thanks to the success of previous years, this year the Ventura Centrale exhibition will be expanding to host 16 vaults instead of last year’s number of nine.

Japanese manufacturer AGC and Korean practice Noroo Group will be among those exhibiting in the vaults, as well as Italian brands Lavazza together with Gufram and Aria studio, Dutch furniture brands Lensvelt, with Belgian lighting manufacturer Modular, Weltevree and Swiss practice Sky-Frame and Freitag.

Dutch designer Maarten Baas and American practice Rapt Studio will also present special projects at the show.

Baas will showcase his latest works at the exhibition, in a display that aims to entertain visitors with his artistic interpretation of what he has dubbed the “attention economy”.

Rapt Studio will make its first appearance at Milan design week with an installation that explores the emotions of connection.

Called Tell Me More, the installation will feature drapery-clad “stages” where each person will be asked to answer a question posed by the stranger who came before them, before moving on into a lounge where they are encouraged to strike up a conversation with the people all around.

Dezeen is main media partner for Ventura Projects, which was established in 2010 when founder Margriet Vollenberg launched the first edition of Ventura Lambrate. Since then, she has also set up Ventura exhibitions in London, New York and Berlin.

Ventura Centrale is freely accessible. For more information about Ventura Centrale exhibitors, visit the Ventura Projects website. Ventura Future has an entrance fee of €5. For tickets and more information about Ventura Future exhibitors, visit the Ventura Projects website.

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Hypothetically this could be a Leica branded printer concept, but I’m going to keep that aside for now and focus on this clever idea and its potential. Instant printers are not a new phenomenon, so what makes this Photo Printer different? The prospect of it directly connecting to your phone, acting as a battery backup and a printing machine. I could go a step further and say that it even serves as a memory backup for all the wonderful moments you capture through your phone, but for some odd reason I feel it shouldn’t have this feature.

In my mind, it takes away the charm of printing instantly and that being the only evidence of the magic you created. Back in the days, it worked well – of course you had a negative film that you could take more prints from. In this digital age, I think the phone’s memory will suffice. Let the printer do its job and be your constant companion when you travel and help you take beautiful pictures… always!

Designer: Deokhee Jeong

Interior design studio Modsy has created renders of rooms based on the production design of five Best Picture Oscar-winning movies.

The San Francisco-based studio reimagined room sets from award-winning films Titanic, Casablanca, The Sound of Music, Shakespeare in Love and The Shape of Water.

Modsy wanted to recreate the films’ sets as interior spaces put together using furniture items currently on the market. The studio describes them as having a “modern twist”.

“We designed the renders by incorporating key elements of each movie’s theme and thinking about how those design styles would be translated to the modern day,” said Modsy.

“A big goal for these projects is creating a space that can actually be brought to life. We think about the core design elements, styles and colours and then source products that you can buy today from favourites such as CB2 and West Elm to design the re-imagined rooms,” explained the brand.

The first render is a nod to 1944 Best Picture winner Casablanca, in particular Rick’s Café Américain, an upscale nightclub and gambling den in the film.

It features wicker furniture and geometric stone tables with a carpet of Moroccan rugs.

“Boho eclectic meets Moroccan charm, we’ve restyled Rick’s café and turned it into a Moroccan oasis that serves as a perfect place for cosy and intimate gatherings,” said Modsy.

“However, we’ve brought in a bit more of a bohemian feel to modernise the space a bit from its original 1940s style,” explained the studio.

Another render depicts the living room of retired naval officer Captain Georg von Trapp in 1966 winner The Sound of Music. The room has a cream colour-scheme with patterned curtains and a chandelier.

“We wanted to create a more traditional interior that is aligned with the period of the film, as well as the more serious and austere side of the family’s values for balance, precision and order,” said the studio.

“We were inspired by the living room where the family gathers to hear their father sing the classic song, Edelweiss,” continued Modsy.

For Titanic, which won an Oscar for Best Picture in 1998, Modsy reimagines the Titanic’s smoking room to include an ornate chandelier, green velvet furniture and a red Persian rug.

Another render is inspired by 1999 winner Shakespeare in Love and is complete with a writing desk, layered curtains and a red patterned rug.

“Where modernised Elizabethan meets theatrical flair, this space is perfectly dark and moody, just like a Shakespearean tale with elements of dramatic whimsy woven throughout,” said the brand.

“We took inspiration from the Elizabethan-era style of combining textiles and pattern, as well as the use of dark, rich and bold colours.”

The final render is a reinterpretation of last year’s winner The Shape of Water, particularly protagonist Elisa Esposito’s 1960s living room, which has a moody, dark colour palette with art deco and industrial-inspired decor.

“It represents a life of isolation and her unique bond with a mysterious, scaled creature,” said the studio.

The Oscars took place on 24 February 2019. We rounded up five of our favourite set designs from this year’s nominees.

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