Full Size Lego Pick Up

Les équipes d’ingénieurs Lego et Chevrolet se sont réunies cette année pour relever le défi de reproduire le modèle Silverado 1500 Lt trailboss que le constructeur automobile présente cette année. Il leur aura fallu plus de 2000 heures de travail, comprenant la sélection des pièces et leur assemblage, et 334 544 pièces de Lego pour réaliser ce modèle grandeur nature. Bien qu’il ne soit pas en mesure de fonctionner comme l’original, ce modèle pousse à l’extrême le sens du détail et de la finition. Réalisé pour la sortie du film Lego 2, le pick up rouge promet de faire une apparition remarquée à l’écran, pour le plus grand plaisir des fans de la marque de jeu.

 







Civic Architects creates public library in vast locomotive shed

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

The vast LocHal library and events space, designed by Amsterdam-based studio Civic Architects, occupies a former glass and steel locomotive shed in Tilburg, the Netherlands.

Located in Tilburg’s station district, the LocHal library is named after the locomotive shed in which it is housed. The building’s imposing footprint measures 90 x 60 metres with a height of 15 metres.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

Civic Architects has retained much of the industrial building’s steel structure with its tall glass windows and towering riveted columns, that have shape the renovated interior.

Conceived as contemporary reinterpretations of the original building, new solid structures made from black steel, concrete, glass and oak are combined with a series of movable giant textile screens that can create temporary zones within the building.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

Opened last month, the library is run by Midden Brabant Libraries which is using the space to showcase its library concept.

As well as a reading space, the building also functions as a meeting place for events organised by partners such as the arts organisation Kunstloc Brabant, and the co-working company Seats2Meet.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

To make the building as welcoming and accessible as possible, the entrance hall is conceived as a covered city square with large public reading tables that double as podia, an exhibition area and a coffee kiosk.

A set of broad steps which can be used as event seating for over one thousand spectators connect the ground floor square to the building’s upper floors where huge glass facades allow for plentiful daylight.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

On the second floor, the gallery and stairways that circle the perimeter of the space allow visitors to get a closer look at the building’s historic glass walls as they browse the bookcases or make use of the quiet reading areas.

A large balcony on the third floor offers panoramic views of the city. The open interior allows for sightlines across the diagonally stepped interior landscape.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

In addition to the building’s new solid structures, Civic Architects also introduced six giant movable textile screens, which can be used to temporarily divide the open space into zones.

Designed by Inside Outside and woven by the Tilburg Textile Lab, the six screens not only create more intimate, smaller scale environments within the cavernous space, but they also improve its acoustic properties.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

The screens can be repositioned using a computerized system. They can, for example, be moved to separate areas from the higher library floors, or across one of the staircases to create a small, semi-private auditorium.

The largest screens, measuring 50 metres across and 15 metres high, can be used to conceal the coffee kiosk or create a backdrop for it. When positioned in front of the windows on the south side of the building, the screens soften the light that floods through the tall glass facades into the inner square.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

A number of spaces throughout the building referred to as labs provide spaces where visitors can learn new skills.

For example, one of the labs is in the form of a glass cube, formerly part of the concert hall in Amsterdam’s Beurs van Berlage building. There is also a Food Lab, a Word Lab, a DigiLab and a Heritage Lab.

There is also a children’s library, the design of which was inspired by the nearby fairytale theme park, De Efteling. Here young visitors can wander through giant storybooks and browse bookcases in the form of coloured pencils and rulers.

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

After dark, the building’s glass structure becomes a welcoming beacon of light in the city centre. At this time, the architects said that the interior takes on the character of a theatre, with all surfaces bathed in a warm light.

“The imperfections of the existing materials contribute much to the authentic atmosphere of the LocHal,” said Civic Architects.

“The architecture creates a colossal, industrial setting for all types of activity. The interior design, with its unique fixtures and fittings, creates an extra layer that adds playful variation to the overall visual experience.”

LocHal Public Library, designed by Civic Architects

In London, restaurateurs Shamil and Kavi Thakrar transformed a former railway transit shed close to King’s Cross station into an outpost of their hugely successful restaurant chain, Dishoom in 2015. The spacious interior pays homage to the Irani cafes that sprung up around Bombay – now Mumbai – during the first half of the 20th century.

Meanwhile Studio Puisto created a pine sauna complex within a former customs checkpoint, which later served as a warehouse building in Tampere, Finland.

Photography is by Stijn Bollaert.


Project credits:

Lead architect: Civic Architects
Transformation and restoration: Braaksma & Roos Architectenbureau
Interior and landscape design, textiles: Inside Outside/Petra Blaisse
Landscaping: Donkergroen
Interior design library & offices: Mecanoo

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Careers guide: Laurie Pressman describes her path to becoming vice president at Pantone Color Institute

Dezeen Jobs careers guide: Laurie Pressman vice president at the Pantone Colour Institute

Laurie Pressman began her career merchandising for US department stores, but is now vice president at the Pantone Color Institute. She reveals how she got her there for the Dezeen Jobs careers guide

A psychology graduate, Pressman worked in various roles within the retail sector,  including product development and homewares buying, before joining Pantone in 2000.

Pressman has a deep understanding of “the role and influence that colour plays in consumer behaviour”, which she combines with years of industry experience to help her in her current role at the Pantone Color Institute.

Consulting consumer brands, Pressman directly assists clients in refining and strengthening visual identity. “Everything I do involves an understanding of the pivotal role that colour plays in the design process” she explained.

Pressman’s past studies have shaped her current career in a positive way: “I have been able to blend my past professional experience with my psychology training, spending my days doing everything I love most,” she continued.

When asked to give advice to those starting out in their careers, Pressman reinforced the importance of patience.

“Learn from anyone and everyone that you can. Be open and work hard. One day each of your experiences will come together and you will blossom.”

Read the full interview on Dezeen Jobs ›

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Ocean Space Habitat is the world's first portable underwater tent

Ocean Space Habitat

A nursing professor and explorer have designed a portable life-support system that they claim allows divers to eat, sleep and decompress underwater.

Ocean Space Habitat functions like an underwater tent that can be rapidly deployed to provide and maintain a breathable environment.

The design takes the form of a frame covered by an inflatable collapsible envelope, which can be anchored. The envelope can be fixed with a removable propulsion unit that propels it through the water.

The interior is equipped with windows, a seat, a replenishable oxygen source and a carbon dioxide scrubber which continuously removes carbon dioxide from the mobile environment.

Ocean Space Habitat
The Ocean Space Habitat can be packed up and transported on a plane

It was designed and patented by diving pioneer and explorer Michael Lombardi and Professor Winslow Burleson, the director of NYU Meyers College of Nursing’s cross-disciplinary NYU-X Lab.

In conventional scuba diving, divers must periodically come up for air, restricting the depths that they can reach before having to return to the surface.

Much like an underwater base camp, the habitat provides a place where divers can remove their equipment before transferring to the tent. Once inside the tent is “blown down” with fresh gas to create a relatively dry atmosphere suitable for napping, talking, eating, and decompressing before returning to a dive.

The habitat allows divers to dive deeper and stay underwater for longer periods of time. Several divers at a time can swim up into the dry chamber to decompress and it can even be used to treat decompression sickness in a controlled manner.

Although other fixed undersea bases exist, the Ocean Space Habitat is unique due to its portability. The tent-like structure and anchoring system are light enough to pack in checked luggage and take on a plane.

The team are currently testing the habitat off the coast of Rhode Island where they are beginning to spend longer periods of time underwater. They are currently testing time periods of eight to 12 hours, and hoping to stay overnight within the next six months.

In an interview with National Geographic, Burleson reported that the design is also affordable, costing less to buy than some single diving operations cost to run: “I like to think [it offers] an opportunity for a truly ‘immersive’ experience,” he told the magazine. “The tent allows us to take home a bit more than we would as temporary visitors using conventional scuba techniques.”

Ocean Space Habitat
The device is currently being tested in the water for periods of between eight and 12 hours

“Imagine if a tourist, normally limited to a one-hour dive, could stay under through that magical transition from sunlight to twilight to darkness — with all the life that emerges,” he continued. “People could experience the ocean in a whole new way.”

In 2017, two Seattle-based aerospace engineers invented a floating survival shelter that, in the event of a disaster, can house between two and 10 people for up to five days.

Made from aircraft-grade aluminium, the spherical watertight capsules will protect occupants from the initial impact of a natural disaster, as well as sharp-object penetration, heat exposure, blunt-object impact, and rapid deceleration.

Photography by Michael Lombardi.

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Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter creates "robust machine for experimental exhibitions" at ArkDes

Boxen by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm

The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design in Stockholm has a new exhibition space within one of its lofty galleries, featuring wire mesh surfaces, a huge round window and a ramp winding round its exterior.

German studio Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter designed Boxen to give ArkDes – as the museum is better known – a space better suited to presenting small-scale exhibitions.

Made primarily from steel, the multi-level structure is described by the museum as “a robust machine for fast-changing, experimental exhibitions”.

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
Boxen gives ArkDes a space suited to presenting small-scale exhibitions

“Our brief for Boxen was simply to create a small gallery space for faster, cheaper, more experimental exhibitions and curatorial projects,” explained museum director Kieran Long.

“The museum had always lacked such a gallery, and we also felt that the lack of an independent gallery scene in Sweden required us to provide a platform for emerging, polemical practice.”

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
It is installed within one of the museum’s two 19th-century exhibition halls

Boxen is installed within one of the museum’s two existing exhibition halls, a pair of 19th-century gymnasiums once used for military training, that face out towards a part of the building that was added by Rafael Moneo in the 1990s.

While its muted tones of white and grey blend in with its surroundings, Boxen’s exposed utilitarian structure makes a bold statement. It features a visible framework of structural I-beams and a corrugated steel roof, which is raised up to allow light to enter from above.

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
A ramp winds around the exterior of the gallery

The ramp begins by the gallery entrance and wraps the entire exterior. With a balustrade made from simple textile mesh, it passes across the centre of the round window and finishes at a balcony that stretches along the full length of the structure, giving visitors the opportunity to view exhibits inside the gallery from all angles.

From here, a concealed staircase provides an extra route inside the gallery.

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
The ramps leads up to a balcony, before guiding visitors back down into the exhibition space

The gallery space has an area of 156 square metres in total, laid out as a rectangle with “classical double-square proportions”.

Its internal walls are lined with birch plywood and white plasterboard to create a more traditional white-cube interior. The backside of these surfaces is painted silver, to better fit in with the metal mesh and netting it sits beside.

Made primarily from steel, the structure is deliberately utilitarian in appearance

Long commissioned the project shortly after becoming director of the museum in 2017. His aim was to give the museum an opportunity to become more versatile, while also offering a platform to an emerging architecture studio based in Stockholm.

Since opening in June 2018, the gallery has hosted three exhibitions: Modellarkivet, a look into the archive of Stockholm’s Urban Planning Department; Space Popular, an installation looking at the relationship between architecture and the digital world; and Young Swedish Design 2019, a showcase of emerging local talent.

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
The gallery has hosted three exhibitions so far including Space Popular, which looked at the relationship between architecture and the digital world

“Dehlin Brattgård’s project gave us more than we could have expected,” said Long.

“I think they have made a quietly radical piece of museum architecture. It densifies the museum’s spaces, creating a beautiful, elegant interior, but also providing the drama and fun of walking up the ramp,” he continued.

Boxen gallery by Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter at ArkDes in Stockholm
During Stockholm Design Week it hosted Young Swedish Design 2019, a showcase of emerging local talent

“Views into the gallery are gradually revealed, and it provides new perspectives on the historical building it sits within. It is an engine of curatorial ideas, and is an intensely social space, a place to see and be seen – what any good public space always is.”

Photography is by Johan Dehlin.


Project credits:

Architect: Dehlin Brattgård Arkitekter
Client: ArkDes (The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design)
Lead architects: Johan Dehlin, Johannes Brattgård
Structural engineer: DIFK (Florian Kosche)
Project manager: Erik Törnqvist
Steel construction: Promostal
Build: Eckerud EQT
Graphic identity for Boxen: Studio Reko

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Daily: 2

Transgressions

Seattle snowmageddon. February 2019 Edition

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

A must watch, truly splendid

Beyond conventional motorbike design

We’re officially putting Dennis Sedov on our watchlist for design talents this year. Sedov has an unusual way of playing with forms, introducing new combinations and new perspectives to his designs. His cars look mesmeric, his products look unusual and inviting, and his motorbikes, a category we’ve covered practically in entirety, bring a new way of looking at form design in the two-wheeler category.

Sedov’s bikes aren’t designed to be practical. They’re clearly outlandish, but they’re outlandish enough to be celebrated for their outlandishness. Sedov plays wonderfully with proportions, materials, negative space, and geometry to create a bike that is a bike in theory, but looks like something from a parallel universe. The B4 is one such example.

Thinner and leaner than his other bikes, the B4 has a skeletal design that looks more bike-like than his previous motorbike designs. It splits into two broad volumes, connected at two points, one right below the seat, and one under the handlebar unit. The bikes sport a black + copper finish, but what’s most alluring is the bike’s wheels. Sedov’s usually relied on airless, solid tires that showcase unusual patterns that also provide the suspension function, but the B4’s tire is more traditional. The tire comes with a pattern around the hub that looks eye-catching but also flexes under pressure to provide a smooth riding experience. I can’t tell you how much I’d love to see a proof-of-concept!

Designer: Dennis Sedov

Daily: 1

Transitory

Seattle snowmageddon. February 2019 Edition

When battery manufacturers make smartphones…

This isn’t really what I had in mind when I was complaining about how my phone’s battery didn’t last long enough, but I guess Energizer’s product does count as a solution to the smartphone’s battery problem.

This is the Energizer Power Max P18K Pop. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a smartphone, but it certainly has smartphone-like features. The Energizer Power Max P18K Pop, according to the guys at The Verge, is a massive 18,000 mAh battery with a smartphone attached to it. Measuring at a staggering 18mm thick, the Power Max P18K Pop is the equivalent of 3.5 iPhones making it the phone with the world’s biggest battery.

The Power Max P18K Pop comes with three rear cameras and sports a hidden sliding module with two front-facing cameras, like last year’s Vivo Apex smartphone. This means the Power Max P18K Pop’s 6.2-inch LCD display on the front is uniquely pleasing to look at. It has no notch, and sports minimal bezels… a concept that seems to be slightly defeated when your phone is as thick as a power bank. The phone also sports a MediaTek processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, runs Android Pie, and comes with 48 hours of CONTINUOUS usage, courtesy its gargantuan battery. The battery also takes a whopping 8 hours to charge fully, but I doubt you’d ever reach 0% battery unless you actually tried, given the phone could last practically through the week with moderated usage.

The Energizer Power Max P18K Pop launches this summer, and it certainly is the thicc-est phone I’ve ever seen… but I guess there are people out there who like themselves a phone with a big batt-ery. See what I did there?

Designer: Energizer

Image Credits: The Verge