Forget waterfront offices, what about an office literally on the water? Think of Enclaves as office meets lazy river (productivity levels not included with the structure). Remote work and flexible lifestyle have seen a boom thanks to the pandemic which has led to a lot of innovative designs like this floating office pod which is a low-impact concept offering the best of views with maximum privacy for focus.
In the future, you will find Enclaves floating on the Vistula River with the Wawel Castle as the backdrop. Designer Agnieszka Białek who made this zen office pod is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, Poland which explains the picturesque theme. Białek was inspired by her usual pandemic strolls (which were the highlight of all our lives) along the Vistula River and thought of how cool it would be to have floating co-working spaces that would have no footprint on the land. You will have to use a kayak to get to the pod which means effectively eliminating any disturbance people. The pods will be designed to be active day or night and can be rented by the hour to host meetings, change the scenery or just get into a deep focus zone!
The architectural structure has soft, curved edges and a contemporary look which is a contrast to the natural setting but still complements it. Since the pods are floating on the river, it reduces utility requirements to almost zero and there is no soil degradation. Enclaves look like bubbles on the river – the natural foam creates floating, geometric shapes that grew into a larger version for the project. Like lily pads, the pods are anchored to the river bed and also attached to each other like a network which makes it modular in nature. The pods can be 3D-printed within a few days using waterproof and recycled/recyclable materials to further reduce their environmental impact. It comes with built-in furnishings that create versatile spaces to suit everyone’s work personality and needs.
“It is still difficult to define the changes that [COVID-19] will make in architecture in the long run. We know for sure that we are facing a new reality. Remote work has become the norm for most companies and will continue for a long time to come. Consequently, employees will be able to choose the time and form of work. To a large extent, we will notice fatigue with the home space. We will gladly move the work zone from home to another place. The concept makes working remotely possible, becomes a comfortable place for online meetings, or relaxing in the new reality of reduced touch,” says Białek. Till we can get our own Enclaves, let’s continue with those daily walks.
Rumor has it that Lamborghini is giving the Urus a significant facelift this year – its first since 2017 when the Urus was announced. I personally think the Urus is the kind of vehicle Lamborghini should openly embrace. After all, if your brand logo is a raging bull, why not create cars that embody that physically? Don’t get me wrong, their hypercars, if I may borrow a term from my generation, are certainly bae… but nothing says sheer unbridled power than a large vehicle with a larger-than-life presence. The Urus, to a degree, embodied that; and the Lamborghini Marzal wears that distinction proudly on its sleeve too. Meet the Marzal a conceptual off-roader designed to be just about as brutish and powerful as the ‘fighting bull’ brand it represents!
It isn’t like Lamborghini hasn’t built off-road vehicles before. The company was literally established as a tractor manufacturer before evolving into and embracing its racecar DNA. Designed by Parisian designer Andrej Suchov using Gravity Sketch, the Marzal concept is a confluence of sorts, created to be a vehicle that can shine on the tarmac but isn’t scared of leaving its comfort zone to dominate rough terrain.
Its profile certainly captures the signature Lamborghini silhouette, with its iconic wedge-shaped design… however with higher ground clearance, a larger rear, and bigger tires designed to handle rough roads. It’s quite rare to see a Lamborghini with a rear windshield, and the Marzal boasts of that too, although it does get blocked when you include the storage unit. With its aggressive design styling and that iconic yellow color, the Marzal looks every bit like something Lamborghini would make – a testament to the company’s strong visual language. It also sports a rather interesting Y-shaped taillight, often seen in Lamborghinis, but not like this. In the case of the Marzal, the Y-shape is a prominent, defining feature on the rear, and I personally think it gives the vehicle character.
Part slick supercar, part all-terrain vehicle, the Marzal definitely is a hybrid, but looks quite comfortable in its skin. It boasts of a hexagonal windscreen that extends into the hood, and rather unusual doors that curve upward into the roof and don’t really come with any pillars. Rather, there’s a horizontal bar running through the door that I can’t help but attribute to the designer’s creative license. On the inside, the car seats four – with yellow leather-clad carbon-fiber seats. The driver, however, gets the best experience with an incredibly stylish cockpit outfitted with a neat sporty steering wheel.
If there was an emergency, I would instantly protect my dog and my coffee. So if you are anything like me then the BruTrek Expedition Coffee Kit is essential for you! Planetary Design has created one of the world’s most rugged, portable, coffee brewing kits for modern-day explorers who need more than just a french press. This coffee kit has a full range of accessories and looks like it is ready to be air-dropped into a war zone and I just know it will survive with the 29-L Zarges case that protects it.
The brewing range comes in a sturdy, custom foam-cushioned lightweight German aluminum box which is popular for overlanding and can be neatly stacked over other similar-sized Zarges boxes or strapped to the outside of a vehicle if needed. It is designed to keep dust and moisture out, and it is also IGBC-certified bear-resistant according to Zarges USA – so no aggressive grizzlies will be stealing your coffee although, before coffee, some of us might be like angry bears ourselves! The kit includes a large 32-oz (946-ml) BruTrek French press with a more group-friendly option featuring a handle and a spout. The french press comes with all the gear needed to store and pour the perfect cup outdoors – four 8-oz cups, an 8-oz Airscape air-lockout coffee canister, a small “CarGo Can” container for sugar, and a coffee scoop! All you need is your choice of coffee beans, water, and a stove to boil it.
It comes with a price tag of $500 but it is definitely something a coffee addict who loves the outdoors can consider investing in because it will last a long time. I know bad coffee is better than no coffee but a good cup of freshly brewed coffee in the middle of nowhere is priceless and that is why it comes in a military-grade case because for some of us our coffee is everything!
Originally called Pier 55, Little Island is an elevated park built on top of 132 mushroom-shaped concrete columns in the river at 55 Hudson Greenway.
Little Island was formerly known as Pier 55
Located on the edge of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, close to the southern end of the High Line and the Whitney Museum, Little Island officially opens to the public on 21 May 2021 and can be visited for free with timed tickets.
Little Island sits on mushroom-shaped concrete planters
“On the day we were supposed to order $80 million worth of cement, our lawyers said [the opposing group] could get an injunction,” said Diller.
“Not only would I have all this cement sitting around with nowhere to put it, whatever else I’d done so far would have to be undone too,” he added.
“I was angry. I had taken $45 million of the foundation’s money and literally thrown it in the river. I felt irresponsible.”
The park has three stages including an amphitheatre
Diller said that New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo then called him repeatedly and offered to help get the lawsuit dropped. The project was restarted and relaunched in 2019 and renamed Little Island.
The 2.4-acre park has three stages for live theatre performances, including an amphitheatre of wooden benches facing the river.
There are 500 events scheduled for the park between June and September this year.
Diller said he hopes that Little Island can also become a nightclub, and has applied for a liquor licence.
Diane von Furstenberg and her husband Barry Diller spent $260 million on the park
Diller said the design team had taken extra precautions at Little Island, spending $6 million on a perimeter system and employing 24-hour security for the park.
“Look, if someone wants to hurt themselves you can’t stop them,” said Diller.
“But we did do a lot of studies and from this height, unlike the George Washington Bridge or The Vessel, if you fall into the river, it’s unlikely that you will kill yourself.”
The free, open-to-the-public Marimekko Summer Market will commence Friday 21 May on the interactive website marimekko.party. Designed to mimic the spirit of a Finnish summer market, the virtual event—which celebrates the fashion and design brand’s 70th anniversary—will include music, activities and the opportunity to “virtually try on looks from Marimekko’s spring-summer collection,” according to WWD. Read more about the inclusive festivities there.
Called American Framing, the pavilion project was commissioned by the University of Illinois Chicago and explores the history of wood as a building material in America.
Top and above: Andersen and Preissner covered the US pavilion in a pinewood frame
Wood framing is a construction method where pieces of wood are fitted together to form a support structure, or skeleton, for a building.
Andersen and Preissner built traditional features of American houses, such as dormers, gables and a porch, into the wooden skeleton.
The frame is four storeys tall
Building this frame around the neoclassical facade of the pavilion reveals a part of construction that usually remains hidden, said the architects.
“It started with a conversation about how beautiful projects can be when the framing has been built, but not covered,” explained Andersen.
“It seemed a bit mystifying to us that other than in carpentry guides and a handful of academic texts, the subject was never explored with the seriousness as nearly all other types of architecture,” added Preissner.
Dormers feature on the installation
According to Preissner, wood framing currently accounts for over 90 per cent of domestic construction in America due to the availability and low cost of the material. The duo wanted to bring this to Venice with their pine installation.
“The full-scale work expresses the sublime and profound aesthetic power of a material system that underlies most buildings in the United States,” Andersen told Dezeen.
“We hope that the experience of the pavilion reconditions attitudes towards the widely used but unprivileged construction method, and introduces the topic anew, presenting the vaguely familiar as something profoundly wonderful,” added Preissner.
The architects wanted to highlight wood as a construction material
The pair also want to highlight wood as a sustainable building material.
“It’s better for the environment than concrete, steel, masonry or old-growth timber,” Andersen. “Plus, you’re growing trees while you make it.”
American Framing also features matching wooden furniture by architect Ania Jaworska and architecture practice Norman Kelley.
Norman Kelley has remade Shaker chairs and benches using softwood and nails, while Jaworska’s pieces are benches crafted from pre-cut lumber.
Wooden furniture by Ania Jaworska and Norman Kelley sits next to the pavilion
Photography by Daniel Shea and Chris Strong documenting the US timber industry is also shown as part of the exhibition.
Shea documents fir and pine forests where trees used for lumber grow, while Strong’s photography focusses on the people who work around mills, shops and construction sites.
“The photographic projects examine the margins of the wood framing world, either through the exploration of the temporal site of construction and the social and political aspects of labour or through the textures, myths and origin stories of the material itself,” said Preissner.
Paul Andersen and Paul Preissner are both independent architects and associate professors at the University of Illinois Chicago.
The legendary 1978 clash between graphic designers Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac epitomises “the challenges that designers still face every day,” according to filmmaker Gary Hustwit, who has written a book about the event.
Held at New York’s Cooper Union design school, the two designers argued over the merits of Vignelli’s iconic, abstract system and Tauranac’s geographically accurate proposal.
Top and Above: Gary Hustwit’s new book The New York Subway Map Debate
Vignelli’s design was “a minimalist diagram of the subway routes, designed on a grid with 45- and 90- degree angles to the lines,” Hustwit said.
“It was not intended to be geographically accurate, it was more like a service diagram in the vein of London’s Tube map.”
Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac debated the subway map in the 70s
By contrast, Tauranac proposal “strove for geographic realism and showed as much information as possible about the city above and its famously dysfunctional subway service.”
“Later in the evening Tauranac referred to Vignelli’s design as ‘form follows fiasco.’ So yeah, there were some insults traded”
The debate was held at the Cooper Union in New York
Vignelli, who died in 2014, is regarded as one of the great graphic designers. His design for the New York subway map was introduced in 1972.
However, it proved unpopular with the public and was replaced in 1979 by the more realistic design developed by Tauranac with Michael Hertz Associates.
Even though digital technologies are making traditional maps less important, the debate over the two design approaches still has relevance today, Hustwit believes.
“To me, the debate was this historic moment in design history that should be preserved, but it’s also an example of the challenges that designers still face every day,” he said.
Photographer Stan Ries found the negatives of his original photos
“It’s a question of how to effectively present and communicate complex information, and the best methods to accomplish that will continue to be debated well into the future.”
Hustwit’s book, The New York Subway Map Debate, will be published in October and will include a transcript of the debate taken from a newly discovered audio recording of the event.
Below is the transcript of Dezeen’s interview with Hustwit:
Marcus Fairs: Why did you decide to write this book?
Gary Hustwit: Last summer, I was doing research for a short documentary I was making called “The Map”, which followed the digital redesign of the New York City subway map by Work & Co. and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
I knew there’d been a legendary debate about the subway map in the ‘70s between Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac, but I couldn’t find that much information about it or a transcript of what had been said.
I got in touch with the archivists at the Great Hall at Cooper Union, where the debate had taken place. And in a stroke of luck, they told me they’d just discovered an audiotape of the event in a storage space with over 4,000 other recordings. I couldn’t believe it.
That same week I tracked down a photographer named Stan Ries. I’d seen a contact sheet with a few small images of the debate at the Vignelli Center for Design Studies in Rochester, and Stan’s name was on it.
When I reached Stan, he said he didn’t remember taking photos that night, and that all his negatives were in storage somewhere. But he told me he’d try to take a look the next time he went to his storage space.
A few days later, he got back in touch. “You’re never going to believe this,” he told me, “but the first box I opened up had the Subway Debate negatives in it!”
So it was the combination of discovering those two things, the tape and the photos, that gave me the idea to publish a book. I just thought it would be a great way to put all of this information together and shed more light on what happened back then.
Marcus Fairs: Describe the debate and the key figures.
Gary Hustwit: The debate took place on 20 April 1978, in the Great Hall at Cooper Union, which has a history of hosting important public gatherings. Abraham Lincoln gave a speech there shortly after the Great Hall opened in 1858. Massimo Vignelli had overseen the design of the 1972 subway map, and John Tauranac was the head of the MTA’s Map Committee.
Tauranac was critical of Vignelli’s designs and had spent several years designing a new map. Each side stated the case for their design during the debate, with a panel discussion following. There were six other experts on the panel, ranging from graphic designers like Peter Laundy to transportation planners like Aviva Goldstein.
They’re both still alive, as is John Tauranac, so I’ve interviewed them about the memories of the evening. I’ve also tracked down some audience members who spoke up during the Q&A portion of the event.
Marcus Fairs: What was the difference between the two approaches to map-making?
Gary Hustwit: Vignelli’s map was executed by a young designer on his staff named Joan Charysyn. It was a minimalist diagram of the subway routes, designed on a grid with 45- and 90- degree angles to the lines.
It was not intended to be geographically accurate, it was more like a service diagram in the vein of London’s Tube map. So Vignelli and Charysyn moved the location of certain stations on the map in order to fit their grid. This is what really made some people angry because the map didn’t correspond exactly to the city above ground.
Also in Vignelli’s map, the water was coloured beige, and the area of Central Park was grey. In the debate, Vignelli explained, “The water here and the parks, they have not been done in blue and green, as would be natural, because there is no intention of representing nature there as a natural element.”
But Tauranac replied that it was a simple cartographic truth that water should be blue and parks should be green. “Showing parks in grey and water in beige might reflect, I guess, a certain cynical reality, but this is a cartographic reality,” he said.
Tauranac’s proposed replacement map strove for geographic realism and showed as much information as possible about the city above and its famously dysfunctional subway service.
Vignelli hated it. “It seems to me that the total lack of methodology, which this map shows, reveals that the basic philosophy is the more you add, the better your communication will be,” he said. “As it happens in communication, it’s just the other way around.”
Later in the evening, Tauranac referred to Vignelli’s design as “form follows fiasco.” So yeah, there were some insults traded.
But the city transit authorities had already given Tauranac’s new map their blessing, so in a way, the debate was moot. A year later in 1979, the Tauranac/Hertz map was released and 40 years later it’s still in use, with some revisions.
Marcus Fairs: Who won?
Gary Hustwit: But I was just thinking about this and in a weird way they both “won”. Vignelli’s map is seen as an icon of modern graphic design and still revered today. And Tauranac’s map has lasted over 40 years and is in use in NYC subway cars right now.
Marcus Fairs: Why was the debate important and what is its relevance today? Do we still need subway maps?
Gary Hustwit: To me, the debate was this historic moment in design history that should be preserved, but it’s also an example of the challenges that designers still face every day. Simplicity versus complexity, form versus content. It was Vignelli’s minimal abstract diagram versus Tauranac’s info-rich geographic realism.
And while it’s true that we don’t use paper maps as much today, every webpage or phone screen we look at has been designed by someone, and the hierarchy of information that is displayed is crucial to being able to navigate our digital and physical lives. How big should the type be, where’s the navigation, what colours are used where, etc.
It’s a question of how to effectively present and communicate complex information, and the best methods to accomplish that will continue to be debated well into the future.
Marcus Fairs: Who else worked on the book?
Gary Hustwit: Well, if it’s a book about the subway system, Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth at Standards Manual are obviously the people to collaborate with! They designed the book, and the cover design is adapted from the original invite to the event.
Stan Ries’s photographs are showcased throughout the book, and Paula Scher wrote the foreword. We’ve interspersed the full transcript of the debate with contextual details, examples of the maps, and excerpts from new interviews with the surviving participants.
Hamish Smyth also designed a letterpress print that’s a mashup of the two maps, a graphic distillation of the opposing philosophies. I’ve started calling that print the “Map Battle”… which of course should also be the title of the fiction film that gets made about this whole story someday! I’d watch that!
Marcus Fairs: When does it come out?
Gary Hustwit: The book will be published in October and is available for pre-order now. All pre-orders include the exclusive letterpress print, free.
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Meet Dustache, a dustpan with a quirky Pringles-ish avatar that hopes to bring a fun, storytelling element to the act of cleaning. A portmanteau of Dust + Mustache, this dustpan and broom by Peleg Design is your personal clean-up crew that can take care of any dry-waste mess around your house. The dustpan forms Dustache’s face, while the broom is styled to look like a nose and nice thick pair of man-whiskers. Whenever you come across some dirt or dust, or you accidentally spill some food over, just grab ahold of Mr Dustache and his brush and pan are always ready for duty… and don’t worry, he doesn’t mind getting crumbs in his moustache- that’s his job after all!
What Dustache does so wonderfully is it bring a quirky and fun appeal to an otherwise mundane task. It’s something the folks at Peleg have managed to do really well with their products. Dustache’s fun personality and oddly cartoonish design make cleaning up much more fun. It’s almost as if you’ve got yourself a clean-up buddy as you conveniently feed crumbs into Dustache’s non-existent mouth using his rather furry (and detachable) upper lip!
This week Apple announced AssistiveTouch, a radical system for controlling your Apple Watch without touching it.
Aimed at users with limited mobility and limb differences, it very cleverly utilizes features already built in to the Watch to provide new ways of interacting with the screen. In addition to the gyroscopic pointer shown above, it can react to hand and finger motions:
I’m often working outside with gloves on, that I have to pull off to pause a podcast or turn an alarm off on my Apple Watch. I am dying to try this.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
