Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen promotion: Walnut, oak and ribbons of leather combine to make the four new furniture pieces released by Japanese brand Ritzwell.

The objects unveiled by Ritzwell include a lounge chair, a stool, a bench and a desk, all of which marry the materials of wood and leather.

Japanese studio Atelier D. Q. – which has been creating furnishings and homeware for Ritzwell over the past 20 years – created the Rivage lounge chair.

It features a simple steel frame, cushioned leather seat, and two gently sloping armrests that are designed to mimic the form of traditional temples or shrines in Japan.

These can be crafted from walnut or oakwood, helping the piece fit into a variety of living spaces.

The remaining three pieces have been designed by Ritzwell’s own creative director, Shinsaku Miyamoto, who has been with the company since 2003.

Thick strips of leather interlace across the curved wooden seat of the MT Bench, which launched during Dezeen’s Virtual Design Fair.

The bench is available in two different sizes and the seat, which is supported by slim metal legs, can be made from walnut or oak. Seven different colour options are available for the metal legs and five different colour options are available for the leather banding.

Leather similarly weaves across the top of the MO Bridge Stool, which is intended to be used alongside the MO Bridge Small Desk.

The desk balances on four legs and boasts a simple wooden countertop inset with a smooth panel of leather.

The brand has deliberately designed each of the pieces with a pared-back form, in an attempt to merge a contemporary, minimalist aesthetic with the “fundamentals of Japanese philosophy”.

“The minimal shapes, increasingly sophisticated materials and finishes combined with the perfection of the workmanship, and the extreme attention to detail clearly reveal the millennial mastery of the Japanese craftsmen,” explained the brand, “and the translation of that knowledge into evolved technologies and a highly contemporary elegance.”

“Ritzwell’s creations do not respond to the fashions of the moment; rather, they speak to a renewed and deep desire for objects that can speak to the eyes and to the heart, both today and in the future.”

Ritzwell was founded in 1992 by Toshiaki Miyamoto. The company’s original headquarters are situated in Fukuoka, a city on the northern coast of Japan’s Kyushu island, but it also has showrooms in Tokyo and Osaka.

Last year additionally saw the brand open a new factory in Itoshima City, which has views of the nearby Genkai Sea.

The post Ritzwell’s latest furnishings reflect the “harmonious dialogue” between wood and leather appeared first on Dezeen.

Tech that’s been around for decades, but never so personalized, easy or efficient

Lumen, a pocket-sized device designed to “hack” and track your metabolism, officially launches today. The device (which resembles a vaporizer) features a hollow interior equipped to read your breath as it passes through. Essentially, it’s founded upon a simple equation: if you’re breathing out high amounts of CO2, you’re burning carbs, and if you’re emitting lower CO2 amounts, you’re burning fat. But the technology designed to capture that equation’s keystone metrics has long been costly and demanding, oftentimes requiring patients to sit for multi-hour breathing exercises (known as RER) and lengthy follow-ups.

Founders Michal and Merav Mor, twin sisters and PhDs in physiology and cell biology, were in the final year of their education when they began training for an Ironman competition. The Mors felt that their research could inform how they worked toward the grueling experience, which is comprised of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bicycle ride and 26.22-mile run. “It takes you 12 to 15 hours,” Merav explains. “And in order to do that, you must use nutrition in order to support your workout and to improve your performance.”

Merav says they noticed “a huge gap between the basic science and the clinical practice, meaning the technology and the knowledge and the insights that you can find in the science world is amazing, but eventually, what you can really use on a daily basis to make smarter decisions is very limited.” Eight years ago the pair founded Lumen, with a mission “to close this gap, to bring the technology that is already being used in the scientific world to the consumer.”

Today, their new handheld device’s most impressive attribute is its ability to condense the data collection process to just three breaths. The process prompts users to breathe through the device’s mouthpiece—inhaling for roughly five seconds and holding for 10, then exhaling at a steady pace. The simplicity and efficiency of this activity, checking in on one’s own metabolism each morning, becomes an easy habit.

But Lumen isn’t a dieting device; it’s a health-monitoring tool. “The main goal with lumen is first to promote health,” Merav tells CH. “And health meaning a healthy metabolism, which is a flexible metabolism… Metabolic flexibility is your ability to rely on fat stores in the morning, and to shift easily toward using carbs after consuming a high carb meal, for example. Metabolic flexibility represents your ability to use both type of fuel very easily and very comfortably.”

Alongside the breathing exercise, Lumen relies on user-submitted data points: the number of carb servings eaten the day before, how long breaks between meals lasted, the number of steps taken, workouts, how long users slept, and their current weight. All this data is considered and condensed to an assigned number from one to five, with one being burning fat exclusively and five being burning carbs only. Rather than a score or a grade, the assigned number provides a status update without praise or criticism.

With these numbers, Lumen guides users through the ups and downs of their metabolism—training it to burn fats some days and carbs others. This training ensures that even without the device, bodies will bounce back from more unhealthy days. It also debunks diets, and alerts users when a current eating plan doesn’t seem to be working for their body.

“If you are in a low-carb diet for too long, you actually lose the ability to use carbs as legitimate fuel, which means that once you will eat carbs, your body will take those carbs and convert them to fat and store them as fat,” Michal adds. “In order to maintain your body’s ability to use both types of fuel, the app is, all the time, changing the personal ambition plan based on your own unique metabolism.” The personal ambition plan allows users to create their own goal: be it boosting energy, increasing muscle mass or losing weight. It also suggests daily nutrition plans and the adjacent app offers meal suggestions and recipes.

“The science is already there,” Merav says. “There’s an understanding that a healthy metabolism—a flexible metabolism—is actually the main player behind everything that you want to achieve. It’s not important if your goal is weight loss, athletic performance, or avoiding diabetes—all these are an outcome of a healthy metabolism. And, of course, this technology is not new. It’s something that’s already been used since the ’60s to measure metabolism. Athletes are using it all the time, people with diabetes use it in hospitals. It’s just that this technology has several disadvantages, and Lumen makes it all far easier.”

“The main questions our users have when they wake up in the morning are: ‘How is my body functioning? What did I do and the past two or three days that affected my metabolism? What should I do today? What should I eat?’” Michal tells us. “They want Lumen to tell them exactly the amount of carbs and the amount of fat and protein they should receive. We provide our users a sense of control and the data to empower them to make smarter decisions.”

Images courtesy of Lumen

The site of BIG‘s proposed new national theatre in Tirana has become the focus of anti-government protests as demolition of the original theatre begins.

Protesters chanted “shame” and “dictatorship” as mechanical diggers were used to knock down the Teatri Kombëtar building, which dates from 1939, reported Reuters.

Up to 37 people have been arrested at the site including member of parliament Monika Kryemadhi, who is married to the president of Albania.

Political activists and artists have been campaigning to save the 1930s theatre as an architecturally significant and historically important building for the Albanian capital.

Albania’s prime minister Edi Rama, who has been in power since 2013 and was previously mayor of Tirana, has lead the drive to replace the old theatre, which had fallen into disrepair.

In 2018 Danish practice BIG unveiled plans for a new national theatre for Albania, which would be shaped like a bow tie and feature three auditoriums and a rooftop theatre.

Rama shared the pictures of BIG’s designs on his Facebook page yesterday, dismissing protestors as “professional troublemakers” and promising the new theatre would be “another cultural destination of European proportions”.

In March this year Albania was approved by the European Council to begin membership talks with the European Union.

“I want to assure you that the new National Theatre will have the consent of all tomorrow,” said prime minister Rama. “Both of the many who seek it today and of the few who today do not see further than yesterday.”

Rama’s political opponents have accused him of acting unconstitutionally, and attempting to take advantage of the coronavirus lockdown to start the demolition.

“At the peak of darkness, the mafia ordered destruction, not only one of Europe’s most endangered Cultural Heritage Monuments, but also of any illusion of the existence of the rule of law in Albania,” said the president of Albania Ilir Meta on Facebook.

“This is a constitutional, legal and criminal moral crime,” he wrote on his post, sharing a video of a digger bringing down part of the theatre’s facade.

Dating from the period of Italian occupation, the Teatri Kombëtar was built by Italian architect Giulio Bertè using techniques that were experimental at the time including Populit – panels of prefabricated concrete mixed with wood. Originally a cinema and swimming pool, the building was converted into the national theatre in the late 1940s.

Protesters against its demolition have alleged that the government did not have the proper permits to start work.

The project has been contentious from its inception, with critics accusing the prime minister of a lack of transparency for not holding a design competition and redeveloping the area in a public-private partnership. Prime minister Rama made a special law in 2019 to give private company Fusha the tender to redevelop the theatre – and land to build six towers next to it.

Tirana is currently undergoing rapid architectural transformation.

The re-design of Skanderbeg Square, round the corner from the national theatre, by Brussels-based practice p51N4E was a finalist for the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award in 2019.

In 2017, Italian architect Stefano Boeri presented a masterplan for Tirana 2030, outlining ways of redesigning the capital’s public places and planning to build forested parks and biodiversity corridors. Boeri has also designed a vertical forest tower for the city, along with an office block and three schools.

Dutch studio MVRDV has designed a way of converting the city’s monument to communism into a technology centre.

BIG has been approached for comment.

The post Protests in Tirana as Albanian national theatre demolished to make way for BIG project appeared first on Dezeen.

Montreal design studio Lambert & Fils has used the limbo of lockdown to create four “brothers and sisters” for its popular Dorval 01 light, which are being displayed digitally for the first time as part of the VDF x Sight Unseen collaboration.

The family of lamps now includes a wall, table and floor light as well as a linear suspension.

Each has the same pivoting heads as the original pendant light, which was designed for Lambert & Fils by French studio SCMP Design Office.

The Dorval 01 features four square LEDs balanced atop a cross-shaped aluminium frame and promptly won the Interieur Award in the Objects category when it was first launched at Kortrijk Biennial in 2018.

“Since we started developing the Dorval 01, we always had the intention to build a full collection around it,” explained Lambert & Fils founder Samuel Lambert.

“We love its industrial edge paired with its poetic impact and we made a promise to Morgane and Sébastien of SCMP Design Office that we would create its brothers and sisters.”

The floor lamp features a simple, round aluminium base and a pipe each for its body and arm. Attached to this is a single square head with the same riveted top and rotating functionality of its forebear.

The table lamp follows the same principle, but on a smaller scale, while the wall light sees the pivoting head-mounted straight to the round base.

Only the linear light has four individual heads like the Dorval 01, which are spaced out along a long aluminium rod.

This is suspended from the ceiling horizontally and can be used to light a long dining table or desks in an office setting.

The new collection also introduces two new colour-ways in the form of beige and midnight blue to the original palette, which consists of white, black, aluminium and light blue.

The hope is that expanding the family in this way makes the design more versatile and accessible while still maintaining the same visual language.

“The collection is both technical and beautiful,” says Morgane Pluchon of SCMP Design Office. “It’s still radical.”

The first renders of the Dorval family are being revealed as part of the Offsite Online virtual showcase by Sight Unseen.

VDF x Sight Unseen
Exhibitor: Lambert & Fils x SCMP Design Office
Project title: Dorval collection
Website: lambertetfils.com
Email: info@lambertetfils.com

Renderings are by RenderFolk unless otherwise stated.

Virtual Design Festival is the world’s first online design festival, taking place from 15 April to 30 June 2020 here on Dezeen.

Sight Unseen is a New York-based digital magazine that covers design and visual arts, as well as curating exhibitions such as the annual Sight Unseen Offsite event.

The VDF x Sight Unseen collaboration presents projects by 51 international designers as an extension of the New York platform’s Offsite Online virtual exhibition.

The post Lambert & Fils expands “radical” family of Dorval lamps appeared first on Dezeen.

As part of the VDF x Sight Unseen collaboration, Los Angeles studio BZippy & Co. is debuting a collection of ceramic objects that measure up to half a meter tall.

The project features the newly released Castle series of planters and side tables, as well as blowing up three of the most popular product lines from the studio’s ten-year history to oversized, almost architectural proportions.

“The new collection pushes the physical boundaries of our works, and asks how ceramic objects may be observed as the subject of a scene rather than an accent,” explained BZippy & Co.’s founder Bari Ziperstei.

Each piece is hand-built from slabs, creating monolithic silhouettes that nod to the construction of Brutalist buildings.

The Castle planters and side tables resemble the shape of a simplified fortress, with a massive, cuboid body and tourette-like cylinders on all four corners.

Meanwhile, the bulbous belly of the Giant Clover Ball Planter measures almost 61 centimetres wide and sits perched on top of a thick base, shaped like a four-petaled flower.

At 58 centimetres, the Giant Cloud Planter is the tallest piece in the collection and consists of a cylinder with two ridged tiers that are carefully balanced on top of one another.

The Giant Tube series of vases also takes the simple, geometric shape of a cylinder as its base and features five distinct variations on the theme.

Here, the form is alternately compressed and elongated, adorned with oversized rims or small round pegs that resemble screws emerging from a piece of engineering.

Indeed, Ziperstei thinks about the aim of the collection in very technical terms, as wanting to expand the limits of what can fit in a kiln and survive the precarious firing process.

“We really wanted to push the scale and challenge ourselves on an engineering level,” she explained.

At the same time, the collection also maintains a level of playfulness, by featuring an array of colourful glazes.

These range from the signature azure blue of French artist Yves Klein, to the shimmering, metallic shade Paladium and the newly-released, deep Chrome Green.

Ziperstei, who trained as an artist, founded the BZippy & Co. ceramics studio in 2008, in order to experiment with conceptual art practices within the traditional space of ceramic craft.

The new collection is available for purchase from the studio’s website and is also being shown as part of the Offsite Online contemporary design showcase by Sight Unseen.

VDF x Sight Unseen
Exhibitor: BZippy & Co.
Project title: Giant Tube Series, Giant Clover Ball Planter, Giant Cloud Planter, Castle Planter and Side Table
Website: bzippyandcompany.com
Email: info@bzippyandcompany.com

Virtual Design Festival is the world’s first online design festival, taking place here on Dezeen from 15 April to 30 June 2020.

Beyond curating the annual Sight Unseen Offsite showcase, Sight Unseen is a New York-based digital magazine that covers design and visual arts.

The VDF x Sight Unseen collaboration presents projects by 51 international designers as an extension of the New York platform’s Offsite Online virtual exhibition.

The post BZippy & Co.’s oversized ceramics mimic Brutalist architecture appeared first on Dezeen.