Hasta La Ideas

Photographer Dan Tobin Smith used footage of more than 100 gemstones, blown up to 60 times their size, to create an immersive installation in the basement of Collins Music Hall for London Design Festival.

The focal point of Void was a square of screens, set on a raised platform in the centre of the room, with each screen giving visitors a glimpse into the varied inner life of different crystals.

Projected on to the screens were extremely close-up images of the kaleidoscopic worlds hidden within each stone, recreated on a vast scale.

“I discovered that filming [the stones] made them really come alive,” Tobin Smith told Dezeen. “And in the end I thought it would be a shame to just leave them as films, so the idea of an installation started taking shape.”

London design studio The Experience Machine was tasked with displaying the films in the subterranean concrete space, which was achieved through the 360-degree screen set-up.

The light projections captured on the central cube of screens were a visual representation of gemstone inclusions – other elements that become encased within the crystal during its formation.

For two special performances during the festival, Void’s otherworldly nature was underscored by an eery chorus of layered female voices courtesy of the electronic drone choir NYX.

“I felt that the human voice would work well with the inclusions because they are these tiny, imperfect but beautiful things,” said Tobin Smith. “I like the idea of the voices connecting us to the inclusions, saying we are part of the same physical system.”

Over the course of three years, Tobin Smith either bought or borrowed the more than 100 specimens that are featured in the project, and filmed each of them.

These include semi-precious gemstones created through rare geological processes, alongside rubies from Mozambique and Zambian emeralds that date back millions of years.

Many of the stones were sourced through Gemfields, a supplier of responsibly sourced gemstones and supporter of the project.

Tobin Smith said that the project constitutes the largest collection of filmed footage documenting the inner structure of gemstones. And to create it, he had to develop entirely new production methods.

“We mounted a Leica Gemological microscope to a digital cinema camera called an Arri Mini,” he explained.

“This is the same camera that is used on feature films such as Blade Runner 2049 and has a wonderful filmic sensor and colour space.”

The movement within the projections, which creates the impression of free-floating galaxies, was achieved through a custom motion-control rig.

“We needed the stones to turn very slowly and accurately,” said Tobin Smith.

“This was quite hard and took months and months to perfect, because when you’re in at times 60 magnification, any kind of vibration becomes extremely visible – something which can’t be corrected in post-production.”

With Void, he hopes to make us question the boundaries of where nature ends and design begins: “Unearthing these inclusions is like opening up a massive catalogue of textures, patterns, colours and forms, things you haven’t seen before and you couldn’t design.”

“Nature has created these things through insane timescales and crazy randomness,” said Tobin Smith.

“They often feel designed because they are so strange and novel and I think seeing that nature is responsible for these things through the photographic medium is enlightening. It shows how huge and incompressible nature is,” he continued.

Other installations at the London Design Festival, which ran until 22 September, included Kengo Kuma’s Bamboo Ring and a colourful “urban living room” by designer Camille Walala.

Photography is by Dan Tobin Smith.

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Argentinian studio Adamo Faiden has renovated the curved lower floor of this 1929 home in Buenos Aires to create a light-filled room that opens onto the garden.

Located in Vicente López, a neighbourhood in the north of Buenos Aires, the historic home was purchased by a young family that was eager to make the most of their garden.

They wanted a large space for entertaining, an atelier, and most importantly, a direct way to access the outdoors.

The project focuses on overhauling the home’s lowest level, which originally contained service programmes that had become outdated and didn’t make efficient use of the space. Heavy structural walls on this level supported the home, making these small rooms difficult to occupy.

Adamo Faiden, a local practice run by architects Marcelo Faiden and Sebastiaán Adamo, wanted to update the floor by creating a more contemporary relationship with the landscape.

“At the beginning of the last century we maintained a distant, contemplative relation [with nature],” Faiden told Dezeen. “To establish a much more direct relationship was the main argument of this project.”

The firm opened up the space by replacing the bearing walls of the lowest floor with a white steel structure made up of columns and beams. Folding glass walls along the curbed exterior perimeter to bring more natural light inside and open onto the garden.

“When the windows are completely open, the former basement is perceived like a large marquee whose cover is the house itself,” the studio added.

White finishes lend the space a minimal look, which is complemented by a weathered metallic fireplace placed in one corner of the floor.

The open plan is intended to accommodate a range of activities within the same space. “Its equipment – a fireplace, a kitchen, a studio and a service room – allows it to receive different kind of events,” Faiden said.

Adamo Faiden has completed several buildings in Argentina such as a tower in Buenos Aires fronted by a mesh facade and a rural home built within an existing livestock structure.

Other historic renovations in Buenos Aires include IR Arquitectura’s transformation of a leftover corner of a 1950s building into a small apartment, with built-in furniture and a caged balcony.

Photography is by Javier Agustín Rojas.

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Conceptualized in 2017, and currently on the road to its fourth edition in 2020, Asia Design Prize has really evolved from an idea to a massive awards program that’s been supported by and organized with partnership from design institutions and professionals around the world. Asia Design Prize’s biggest success story is its judging procedure, an elaborate, accurate, and fair judging system that gives everyone from students to professionals, and even multi-disciplinary design studios equal preference, judging the quality of the idea and the project in the most ethical and fair way possible.

The Asia Design Prize’s judging procedure relies on its strong jury of 42 design professionals, design educators, and design journalists from 14 countries. Projects are presented to the jury members without revealing the designer’s name, nationality, organization, or any other personal information. The process occurs in two rounds, with different judges in each round looking at the work, resulting in an evaluation that’s fair and accurate. The chairman of the jury judges the top 10% of the awarded works to decide the grand winner of the Asia Design Prize for the year. At the end of the programme each year, ADP organizes an awards gala for its winners, where they receive their certificate and trophy, and also network with one another as well as with their jury panelists. Winners of the ADP award are also included in Asia Design Prize’s annual yearbook, a permanent place in the Asia Design Prize’s online exhibition, and even have their works featured in prominent design magazines and journals across the world, truly bringing attention and credibility to their work and their skill sets!

As the wheels begin moving for the Asia Design Prize 2020 competition, we thought it would be fitting to showcase some winning concepts from the last year. Cycle through to see some of our absolute favorites, but more importantly, use them as a barometer to measure the worth of your own design concepts, because come 2020, your work could win a prestigious award too!

Head to the Asia Design Prize website to know more! They’ve just announced their 2018-19 winners. You can find our favorites below!

Last Date to Register Early Bird Submission: September 30, 2019

01. TAC Air Purifier by Junku Jung

Air quality varies from place to place as much as allergies vary from person to person… so, it makes very little sense that we all have the same purification systems available to us! Designed with this in mind, the TAC air purifier provides custom air cleaning to suit you and where you live. Unlike other purifiers, it features unique filters, each dedicated to a specific type of allergen or pollutant. Live in a big city? Throw on the smog filter. Allergic to pollen? There’s a filter for that too. Simply layer the brightly colored filters to get just the right balance for you and your unique space!

02. Paprika Stool by Yoshioishikawa

The Paprika Stool has a pretty neat idea behind it. Stools, or furniture in general, occupy space even when they’re in retail, or being transported from factory to the shop. What if you could design a stool that’s deflated when transported, and inflated to be a stool only when purchased? The stool is, in principal, like a balloon with 3 legs. Made out of fabric, it remains soft and comfortable on the outside, and is filled with PU foam on the inside just minutes after it’s been purchased, so a customer can take home a soft, solid stool back home that they can sit on. The stool saves money by making logistics simpler and more efficient, and can easily be manufactured in different sizes by filling PU foam into a larger stool cover, much like filling cotton into a cushion cover or a mattress, or polystyrene balls into a beanbag!

03. Pencil Sharpener by Di Lu

If you’ve ever sharpened a pencil (and if you haven’t, what planet are you living on?), then you know how easy it is for the shavings to fly all around your desk or workspace. Unless you’re hovering over a waste bin, that discarded lead and wood can mess up your work. Designed with this in mind, this pencil sharpener by Di Lu serves as an extra collecting-vessel to gather shavings so they can be easily discarded. Simple, right?

04. Molt Chair by Taylor Cheng

Inspired by the Ming Dynasty, the Molt Chair combines western furniture design with ancient Chinese cultural values. The angular floating armrests and the chair’s front take inspiration from the thrones of Chinese emperors, while the side view looks more like the stylings of a modern rocking chair.

05. Slim Smart Washer 3 by American Standard

Designed to retrofit onto existing toilets, the SSW3 aims at easing the transition from toilet paper to a water-based cleaning system. A simple lever on the side lets you work the SSW3’s controls, pulling up for a bidet-style front-wash, or pushing down to trigger the rear shower. The system neatly integrates into existing toilets, and requires no electricity to function!

06. Veark CK01 by Daniel Ronge

Designed as a unibody tool, with a knife handle that borrows from tool design, the Veark CK01 gives knives the reverence they deserve. The knife is by far a chef’s most favored and most important tool, which is why the CK01 has such an industrial-tool-aesthetic. The CK01 blades are all manufactured in Solingen, Germany, the holy grail of knife-manufacturing and bladesmithing in all of Europe. The drop-forging technique results in each knife handle having its own individual texture, each one unique like a fingerprint, and a hardness of 58 on the Rockwell scale. And the unibody design has more to offer then just great looks: The open handle design invites your thumb to rest on the blade and pinch grip the knife like a pro. The metal blade also provides a counterbalance that allows you to maneuver the knife with ease. A singular body also means the knife is easier to maintain, with no place for food, dirt, and dust to get wedged into. A simple rinse makes the CK01 as good as new!

07. Leaf Hair Dryer by Yejin Choi, Jinah Kim & Juhyuk Yun

With an aesthetic that definitely seems new for its category, the Leaf folding hair dryer explores a completely organic, novel design direction. The standing hair-dryer occupies little to no space on your desk, docking on its contact-charging plate when not in use. The dryer’s air-barrel folds inwards, integrating with the handle to become almost monolithic, but when you fold it out, it assumes a leafy aesthetic, thanks to its white outer shell. Just lift it off its charging dock, unfold it, and begin using it for the silkiest, smoothest hair ever!

08. Hougyoku by Kenichi Ken Mizuno

Combining aspects of pottery and jewelry making, Hougyoku resembles a bird nurturing its egg. It’s a result of traditional and modern pottery techniques developed in the Japanese pottery-town of Seto. Integrating the two into a single form, the bird and egg are represented as positive and negative forms, denoted by the color schemes. The Hougyoku can be used as a sculptural element but also as a place to store small keepsakes.

09. Coat+ by Baoliyuan, Wangaihong, Maqianqian

This regular jacket has an inner expansion mechanism for pregnant women! Realizing that fashion should be more accommodating for women in their maternity period, the designers decided to reinvent the coat so that it fits women who are as well as who aren’t pregnant. It doesn’t make sense having to buy separate clothes just because you’re expecting a child, only to throw those clothes away after the child is born, right? Coat+ is a coat that women can wear all through their lives! An extra fabric attachment zips to the coat allowing you to expand it… when you don’t need the expandable attachment, you can wear it as a scarf!

Last Date to Register Early Bird Submission: September 30, 2019

Architecture studio Feld72 have completed the Maierhof housing estate in the Alpine town of Bludenz, Austria, comprising eight timber buildings in a mountain landscape.

Built for the housing cooperative and developer Wohnbauselbsthilfe, the estate’s three-storey blocks have been arranged around a new pedestrian route through the town.

The Maierhof housing estate also includes a series of public green spaces designed by landscape architects Gruber + Haumer.

Although the buildings appear similar, each has been designed by Feld72 to have a slightly different alignment and size.

None of the eight blocks are larger than the nearby 13th century Zürcherhaus, a prominent heritage building in the area.

“The task was to bring together density and context,” said the studio.

“Prerequisites for the new development were defined together with the town of Bludenz – permeability, a public passage for pedestrians, as well as open communal spaces.”

A total of 67 apartments have been created by the scheme, ranging from one to four rooms in size. All the apartments have covered balcony or terrace spaces.

Each block is entered via the central pedestrian route.

Four blocks at the western end of the scheme overlook the central courtyard, which has been designed for children to play in and offers bicycle parking spaces.

The ground floor of one block has been given over to a communal common room space, which overlooks the courtyard.  This room has a glazed facade and will be managed by the town.

Instead of the standard housing estate dividing elements such as garden walls and fences, the Feld72 used lines of wildflowers to subtly mark the definitions between private and semi-public spaces.

Each block is built using a wood-based hybrid structure of prefabricated wooden box beams.

For the facades, vertical planks of silver fir have been arranged at different widths.

Over time they will weather and blend in with the surrounding agricultural structures.

Above each ground floor level, a thin metal band wraps around the circumference of the blocks, marking the divide between the ground floor and the two floors above them.

To keep the area as car-free as possible, access to the underground parking area has been pushed to the northern edge of the site .

Feld72 was founded in Vienna in 2002, and the practice focuses on changing the perception and uses of public spaces.

The practice has previously completed a kindergarten in Italy, split into three house-like forms connected by glazed areas.

Photography is by Hertha Hurnaus.

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As a new university year begins, we’re waving off our freshers and returning students with Pinterest collections of homely bedrooms and alcoves, space saving interiors and storage ideas that even your parents would approve of. Follow Dezeen on Pinterest ›

Main image shows the versatility of peg-hole walls and shelves styled as minimalist bliss in Sacha apartment.

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