Hasta La Ideas

Architect Leticia Saá has woven historical features such as exposed brickwork and wooden pillars into the minimal interior of this open-plan apartment in Madrid.

Located in Madrid’s Lavapiés neighbourhood, the two-bedroom apartment is spread across the top floor of a three-storey residential building that dates back to 1900.

The apartment had been unoccupied for 35 years prior to its renovation, which has been carried out by local architect Leticia Saá.

Its owners – a young couple – had previously lived in a tiny and cluttered flat, so were keen for their new home to feel large and spacious.

As a result, Saá has given the 130-square-metre apartment a largely open-plan layout where the bathrooms are the only completely private areas.

Social spaces such as the living room, kitchen and home office are located on one half of the plan, while the bedrooms and bathrooms are on the other.

The two sides are linked by a hallway which wraps around the building’s stairwell and central courtyard.

To soften the appearance of the interior, which has been given a minimalist fit-out, Saá sought to incorporate some of the building’s original quirks.

Time-worn brick walls, wooden beams and pillars have been preserved, as well as a brick fireplace. Surrounding surfaces have been freshened up with a simple coat of white paint.

“
To create a space which exudes calm and serenity inside the hustle of the city, we wanted to use a minimalist but warm decorative and furnishing style,” explained Saá.

“
The architecture of the 1900s had a very strong impact in the historic city centre, so we wanted to recover the building techniques of that period and reveal them in some parts of the house.”

To enhance the feeling of the apartment being one large, continuous space, Saá wanted concrete flooring to appear throughout the interior. This is in exception of the living room, where wide oak floorboards have been installed instead.

The change of flooring here is meant to signal a change in the mood of the space.

“I wanted to create a cosy and natural environment and make the living room different from the rest of the apartment,” Saá told Dezeen.

The entrance hallway has been conceived as transitional space between the inside and outside. An array of houseplants sit in one corner, and a small interior window has been punctuated in a wall to create the sensation of a patio or a street.

The washbasin of the bathroom has been placed outside of its door, intended to act as a visual barrier between the guest quarters and the rest of the home.

“It was also placed here because of the lovely natural light which comes across the window,” Saá said.

In the kitchen, which is located between the hall and the living room, Saá has continued the pared-back aesthetic. The space features handle-less plywood cupboards, a stainless-steel backsplash and a breakfast island with a white-steel frame.

A cardboard lamp by Dutch design studio Waarmakers hangs directly above.

“We consider [the kitchen] as an integrated element in the house,” added Saá, “That’s why the island has this light appearance, and only an induction cooker appears atop the counter.”

A mezzanine level that’s used as an extra guest room or reading corner sits above the kitchen and is accessed via a step ladder.

A home office and utility space are also located opposite the kitchen.

Like Saá, many architects opt to keep historic elements – White Arrow preserved ornate door frames and coving in its renovation of an apartment in Berlin, while TAAB6 conserved barrel-vaulted brick ceilings in its overhaul of a Barcelona townhouse.

Photography is by Iñaki Domingo of IDC Studio.

The post Original beams and brickwork add warmth to pared-back Madrid apartment appeared first on Dezeen.

People will usually ask you what are you wearing or what are you eating, but can you imagine being asked what emotion have you picked today? Because if you are wearing Hapbee you can actually answer that odd yet interesting question. Hapbee is the world’s first wearable that lets you feel calm, alert, focused, relaxed or sleepy on command! Will it be revolutionary or just take us one step closer to becoming androids? One user literally said he felt like Iron Man and I am here for it.

While it may seem like a device straight out of a Black Mirror episode, Hapbee (which comes from the word ‘happy’) actually wants to make life easier by giving us the capability to balance and control our emotions. There are 15 years of research and development that have gone into designing Hapbee with patented technology. It uses electromagnetic frequencies that are even lower than your phone’s to better your mental health without causing any permanent changes to who you really are. The device is actually a boon if you look at it from a psychological lens. It can reduce stress, help you sleep better and be more productive at work – three things the entire world could use to deal with the pandemic without increasing their load of emotional trauma. There are many people dealing with high-level anxiety, depression, bipolar disorders for whom coping with the pandemic can be paralyzing and Hapbee can be a relief.

“It’ll allow you to experience the feelings and sensations you desire almost instantly, without ingesting any harmful substances or chemicals while having the ability to return to your normal baseline state within a matter of minutes,” says the team behind Hapbee. Think of it as a playlist for your emotions. The device syncs to your smartphone so you can control it with an app. The physical product is lightweight enough to wear as an accessory around your neck or as a headband, it is visually subtle and should blend with your style. In a world after COVID-19 we will all have to work a little harder on caring for our mental health to get over this big life change, devices like Hapbee can truly change the game. Now I know why the user felt like Iron Man, it is the subtle breathing-like glow from the logo…good thing it has no shrapnel! Cue song – because I’m Hapbeeeeee.

Designer: Hapbee

Proof that a material doesn’t necessarily provide constraints to a design process, Dasein’s lighting designs are unconventional, to say the least. They feel like they should be made of metal tubing, be plastered with chrome, and find themselves somewhere in a billionaire’s space-mansion, but Dasein’s lighting products combine that futuristic appeal with warm lights and familiar materials, like pinewood ply, leather, and fixture details that give it, for the lack of a better term, neo-rustic appeal… maybe a billionaire’s holiday home in the Bahamas.

The way DASEIN looks at form and its relationship with materials is complex, almost comparable to Gerrit Rietveld and how he had a way of uplifting materials with his non-traditional ahead-of-time approach to form. DASEIN’s series of award-winning lamps and home-decor are arguably just as modern, complementing homes by and giving them their conversation-starter.

DASEIN’s products are all manufactured with a keen eye for perfection, executed by highly skilled professionals. All products strive to make as much use of eco-friendly materials as possible, and require little to no maintenance. It’s difficult to tell if the design informs the manufacturing process, or vice-versa, but Dasein’s products, the Monday Lamp, for instance, boast of an unusual appeal that feels less like lighting and more like an abstract artpiece. The lamp, which comes with an off-center design, can be height adjusted using winged screws. It comes with a hollow wooden body, and switches things up by using a dome-shaped reflector piece that sits in front of the numb instead of behind it, giving the lamp a diffused halo, rather than a focused beam. The absence of buttons indicates at the product’s commitment to looking like an abstract art installation instead of a ‘product with functional details’. The Surplace builds on the aesthetic set by Monday, but creates a lamp that visually feels like it’s floating in midair. This precarious balance helps uplift a room, almost literally as most furniture tends to surrender to the laws of gravity, while the Surplace chooses not to!

DASEIN’s products almost deliberately choose to look distinctly unique. It’s almost impossible to tell where each lamp or table’s inspiration comes from, although Kristof mentions the Surplace and Monday lamp-modules are inspired by bicycle lights. This reinterpretation of retro with unusual geometry is what helps DASEIN’s products blur the line between design/decor and expressive art.

Designer: Kristof De Bock

Learn More about DASEIN and start a new project with them!

Trecento Lamp

Trecento is the period between the Gothic and the Renaissance times. Gothic art wanted to be as realistic as possible; in the renaissance there were those extra accents. Additional folds were carved into the clothing, muscles slightly larger.

Dasein Products love “form follows function”, but with a “personal touch”. A potential conflict is therefore just around the corner. They constantly weigh up whether certain considerations are justified. In the design process of this lamp more than usual.

That is why they have chosen the name Trecento. It is partly a time reference and a reference to the product, the design process and/or a feeling than they have of it. The lamp is made of wood with a S14 light inside, the hanging supports are cow leather.

Surface Lamp

The Surplace lamp is an ode to the lamp on the bikes that are well known and hated by the 40+ generation. The dynamo made your legs feel like exploding while standing still.

Surplace is also a term that is used in track cycling. Mostly in duals where one dares the colleagues’ nerves. You can see how the name covers the design well.

The Flying Surplace is the hanging variant of the Surplace.

Monday Lamp

The initial idea was to get rid of the standard standing or hanging position of a lamp. They were looking for a new starting point and let the form of the product start from there. This lamp is tensed between ceiling and floor but is still easy to move.

1982 Lamp

1982 was named after the year that Spielberg released the movie E.T and the world got to know the cute alien.

Meanwhile Lamp

The Meanwhile is a robust, self-standing 2-heading lamp. This object is completely made of plywood that is glued under high pressure.

Planck Table

Planck time (or quantum time) is the smallest time unit, basically used in science. And so it is an obvious title for this coffee table due it’s construction and size.

Planck is a movable table on wheels made of glued planks. The surfaces are sandpapered and treated with a matt and very strong varnish. There are 2 levels -since the inside of the table is hollow – which is very practical for placing magazines or plaids.

Learn More about DASEIN and start a new project with them!

Japan’s 1,000-year-old cherry tree, Shel Silverstein’s houseboat, NASA’s remote teams and more from around the web

Japan’s 1,000-Year-Old Cherry Tree Blossoms Again

In Japan’s Miharu (a town in the Fukushima Prefecture), a 1,000-year-old cherry tree continues to blossom. While there are no tourists flocking to see it this year, the tree—known as the Takizakura—is as glorious and mesmerizing as ever for those who live nearby. One such individual is Sidafumi Hirata, who has visited the tree since his childhood and is now at the helm of a team protecting it and the rest of the town’s cultural heritage. The Takizakura (aka “waterfall cherry tree”) has survived wars, earthquakes, plagues, and a nuclear disaster. Hirata checks it often. “Whenever I went out, I worried. I had to see if she’s OK or not,” Hirata tells NPR. “But every time I saw that she’s still standing, unchanged, it was always a relief. No matter what, the cherry blossoms are still there.” A timely reminder that nature forges on, the uplifting interview is available to read or listen to at NPR.

Joel Meyerowitz’s All-Encompassing Interview With LensCulture

Pioneering street and portrait photographer Joel Meyerowitz (who shot in color during the ’60s, when most were capturing images in black and white) recently sat down with LensCulture’s Jim Casper for a delightful and insightful interview. Meyerowitz talks about the vibrance of city streets, how a beginner photographer can find their signature style, the ways technology  has impacted the art form and more. What’s truly revealed is that the 82-year-old artist loves his medium. “I said right at the beginning, photography has taught me everything I know basically all this time. And I think it comes to me in a kind of slowly dawning consciousness again and again,” he says. “I tend to just love human nature and nature itself and the opportunity to pass along the experience through the camera’s eye.” Read or listen to the lengthy interview at LensCulture, where there are also plenty of Meyerowitz’s vibrant photographs to admire.

This Glove-Like Device Encourages Lucid Dreaming

Though still in development trials, the new “Dormio” device invented by MIT researchers shows potential for aiding lucid dreaming—or more specifically, hypnagogic microdreams. Using the “steel ball technique” (popularized a century ago and used by Salvador Dalí and Thomas Edison) as a starting point, the team built a biometric glove-like device that identifies the onset of sleep, and subsequently attempts influencing oncoming dreams based on preset parameters. When the wearer enters hypnagogia—”a semi-lucid sleep state where we all begin dreaming before we fall fully unconscious”—prerecorded auditory stimuli trigger responses, essentially testing the capacity for retaining information we find in dreams after we wake. Read more at Business Insider.

Scientist-Invented Carbon Nanostructure That’s Stronger Than Diamonds

Scientists from several institutions (including the University of California, Irvine) have conceptualized and fabricated a new class of plate-nanolattices (nanometer-sized carbon structures) that happens to be stronger than diamonds. They’ve done so through a complex 3D laser printing process referred to as “two-photon polymerization direct laser writing.” Scientists begin by focusing a laser on a drop of ultraviolet-light-sensitive liquid resin. It’s in the final material’s tightly woven close-cell plates that remarkable strength resides. Read more about the construction process at Slash Gear.

An Interview With The New Yorker’s Ed Steed

For an interview several years in the making, Lucy Bourton at It’s Nice That finally got in contact with one of her favorite cartoonists for The New Yorker, Ed Steed. Formerly an architect, Steed became a professional cartoonist after sending several ideas to the publication—a process which remains essentially the same, even as a regular contributor. Blending politics, humor and art into something accessible and timely, cartoonists have a difficult job, but as Steed explains, “I’m not really trying to be funny, I’m trying to come up with good jokes, which is a bit different.” But once that punchline is crafted, he says, “The feeling is relief. Relief that you’ve found a joke, that you did your job, so you’re still a cartoonist. If you can’t think of any more jokes, you have to find a different job.” Read the full interview at It’s Nice That.

Inside NASA’s Mars Rover Remote Control Rooms

Given the universal directive to practice social distancing, even NASA’s teams work remotely. That means those in command of the current Mars Curiosity Rover mission control it from their homes. The predicament forced NASA to accommodate less-capable hardware systems, deal with slower coding sequences, and ultimately send fewer commands to the Rover each day. But, as social media posts from the agency suggest, NASA is getting along just fine. “It’s classic, textbook NASA. We’re presented with a problem and we figure out how to make things work,” science operations team chief Carrie Bridge tells SlashGear. Read more there.

Touring Shel Silverstein’s Fanciful Former Houseboat

In Sausalito, California’s picturesque Richardson Bay, children’s book author Shel Silverstein’s former houseboat floats on the waters like a ramshackle wonderland that only his imagination could dream up. Inside the 1,200-square-foot WWII-era balloon barge, old meets new as reclaimed architectural features and colorful stained-glass windows jostle with contemporary upgrades. See more photos at Apartment Therapy.

Stockholm’s Art-Filled Subway Captured by Photographer David Altrath

From Lars Arrhenius’ 8-bit-inspired tiles at Thorildsplan station to Ulrik Samuelson’s “ghost garden” at Kungsträdgården, and Björk and Åberg’s mural at Solna Centrum Station, artwork saturates Stockholm’s subway system. German photographer David Altrath explored the underground (or tunnelbana in Swedish) over several late nights last year, capturing images at a time that, “it seemed like I was the only person there,” he tells Wired. Altrath abandoned sightseeing in the city and instead traipsed the 94 stations that over 250 artists have decorated. The resulting images show off the varied pieces, as well as the architectural delights of the subterranean wonderland. See more at Wired.

Studio Precht’s Fingerprint-Shaped Parc de la Distance Design

A monument to solitude and quiet adventures, Studio Precht’s design for their Parc de la Distance concept curls about like a vegetal fingerprint. Each of the parallel hedgerows comes with a gateway at both the entrance and exit that serves as an indicator of whether or not the pathway is occupied. Red granite gravel contrasts the green of the bushes and the sound produced with each step alerts others. Studio Precht planned each journey to be about 600 meters long—or about 20 minutes to complete. Read more at designboom.

Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily in Link and on social media, and rounded up every Saturday morning.

The shape of the handy tool called MH-19 is inspired by protection masks and has solved yet another problem using design. Gloves are single-use items that generate more waste if used by everyone to do everyday things. Gloves can be left aside for the healthcare professionals who need them the most while we can use reusable handles like this for our daily essential outdoor tasks. Innovation has the power to be simple yet mighty effective in its purpose.

3D printers are currently a valuable tool in this fight and the global design community is doing everything they can to support the healthcare professionals, engineers as well as the general public through their creativity.

Designer: Marc Senar