Hasta La Ideas

Elements of the dismantled Marble Arch Mound that Dutch studio MVRDV designed for central London last year are planned to be reused in the renewal of Ebury estate in Pimlico.

Materials and trees used to create the controversial attraction beside Marble Arch will be repurposed into gardens and a play area at the redeveloped housing complex.

The plans form part of the wider redevelopment of the red-brick Ebury estate, which is being overseen by Westminster City Council – the same body that commissioned the Marble Arch Mound.

Opened in July 2021, the Marble Arch Mound installation was designed by MVRDV as a temporary landscaped viewpoint intended to resemble a hill.

It was commissioned by the council with the aim of enticing people back to the Oxford Street shopping district after lockdown. However, it was ridiculed by critics after it opened too early and the greenery began to die.

A decision was made to temporarily close the structure shortly after it opened, and when it reopened a month later entry fees were scrapped. It closed permanently in January 2022.

Westminster City Council’s deputy leader Melvyn Caplan who oversaw the project resigned over the scheme, for which costs spiralled from £3.3 million to £6 million.

Since then, MVRDV has blamed Westminster City Council’s “nonchalance and laxity” for the failings of the project, but added that “we stand by our initial design”.

Perhaps the one success of the project is that the installation will now be repurposed just as MVRDV intended when it revealed the project.

While details of the landscaping for Ebury estate’s new gardens and play area are yet to be disclosed, MVRDV had planned for all of the wood, soil, grass and trees from the installation to be reused.

Westminster City Council’s phased regeneration of Ebury estate, which has been in development for 13 years, has also proven to be controversial in its own right.

Designed by local studio Astudio Architects to increase the number of homes on the site, it will see the demolition of its existing 1930s buildings in place of 758 new flats – meaning many residents are being forced to move into temporary housing. According to the BBC, 20 of them are currently refusing to leave.

Ridicule of the Marble Arch Mound continues a year on. Last month, designer Dan Douglas recreated the viewpoint within a modified version of a 1990s video game called Duke Nukem to allow disappointed visitors to blow it up.

The photography is by Dezeen.

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Promotion: the “rough, earthy textures” of tiles should be used to bring warmth and texture to every room in the home, not just the bathroom and kitchen, according to Japanese brand INAX.

In the UK and other northern European countries, tiles are traditionally associated with wet spaces such as the bathroom and kitchen.

INAX, a Japanese tile brand that was launched in 1924 to produce terracotta and tile products for the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, wants to change this perception and encourage its customers to use tiles throughout the home and in retail, hospitality and office spaces.

“With three-dimensional shapes, rough earthy textures and seemingly unusual and unique designs, all of which are not generally used in bathrooms and kitchens, you have a whole range of options to choose from to expand your ideas for designing your space,” said INAX.

INAX specialises in what it refers to as “artistic Japanese tiles” that feature textured surfaces and three-dimensional shapes that catch the light.

“The tiles offer a dynamic play of light and shadow, created through intricately designed shapes or carefully calculated differences in thickness,” said the brand of its Japanese Tile World Collection.

The tiles in this collection, such as the Homura and Hosowari designs, incorporate traditional Japanese motifs and are made using traditional production techniques where the tiles are baked for longer periods of time to make them more hardwearing and stain-resistant.

Homura, for example, is a glazed stoneware tile made by INAX’s master ceramicists using the same scratch tile technique that was used to create the tiles for the Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1924.

Homura features a unique, subtle colour gradient and two different surface finishes that add interest and warmth to the interior. INAX suggests using the Homura tiles in a fireplace.

The Hosowari Border tile is another long-standing product in INAX’s Japanese Tile World Collection.

Featuring smooth, angled edges and a rough-hewn face that creates dramatic shadows, Hosowari is available in a range of deep colours.

The brand advises that this tile suits hotel lobbies, restaurants, living rooms and offices.

The now-demolished Imperial Hotel is Wright‘s best-known building in Asia and is where he combined his western design principles and a fascination with Japan.

For the interior, the American architect chose a mix of materials, including reinforced concrete and brickwork. Ōya stone, a Japanese volcanic tuff rock featuring hues of grey and green, also featured and was carved into decorative patterns by local craftsman to reference traditional Mayan designs.

However, the building’s ornamentation and interlocking planes were also suggestive of historic Japanese architecture.

To view more about the Japanese Tile World collection visit INAX’s Japanese Tile World website.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for INAX as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Relying on a process known as photocatalysis, the Titan iPhone case can neutralize viruses and germs just by being exposed to indoor and outdoor lighting. Meanwhile, its grippy silicone design makes it better to hold, prevents slipping, and can even absorb minor impact, preventing damage to your phone.

While people like to believe the pandemic is over, here’s news that you’ve conveniently forgotten. Viruses still exist! Microorganisms are still all over the place – sure they’re not pandemic-worthy, but they’re still germs that can get in your body and compromise your immunity… and they’re more likely to be on your smartphone – yes, the smartphone that you touch 50 times a day and place right against the side of your face. Designed to help neutralize microorganisms that may get onto your smartphone case and then effectively on your person, the Titan is a new type of protective case that works on both a physical as well as a microbiological level.

Designers: Danny Lacy , Flavia Sertori, Matheus Paschoalino & André Verdant

Click Here to Buy Now: $44 $80 (45% off for YD readers).

Sure, like any cover case, it protects your phone from accidental drops and bumps, but it also goes above and beyond. Armed with a special photocatalytic nanoparticle layer, the phone’s surface reacts to sunlight and indoor or outdoor lighting, generating highly reactive hydroxyl radicals (·OH) that mineralize when it is exposed to any light with a wavelength of 360–400 nm. In short, it degrades absorbed organic compounds, microorganisms, and viruses, while creating an additional layer of protection.

Given that most people end up putting a protective case on their phone, Titan offers a level of protection that reflects a sensitivity to a mindset that’s developed over the last two years. Your phone is dirtier (on a microscopic level) than a toilet, and it isn’t something that most tech companies have seemed to address. Sure, we’ve seen our share of UV phone sanitizers in the past two years, but what Titan offers is so much more elegant. Just snap the case on and the smart case with its integrated silicone photocatalytic technology pretty much cleans itself of microscopic germs on its surface … or at least the phone’s sides and rear.

The advanced silicone construction is grippy and shock-absorbing, which means it’s less likely to slip out of your hands, and even if it does, it cushions any impact, preventing damage to your device. Moreover, the silicone has an ability to mineralize organic compounds, ensuring that any food/coffee spills on the case doesn’t end up staining the surface. In fact, the case was even submerged in coffee for 12 hours as a part of a lab trial, and once it was exposed to UV-A light, the brown stain faded away. Tests performed in Texas in an approved microbiological lab with a live virus Strain 229E, ATCC VR-740 also showed an 11x reduction in viral load after just being kept in in UV-A light ( same wavelength as the sun ) for 30 minutes.

The Titan Case is designed to be compatible with the iPhone 13/13 Pro Max series all the way down to the iPhone X from 2017… although iPhone 14 options variant is are are in the works too. The case comes in white, navy blue, gray, and pink, and even allows you to wirelessly charge your phone. Titan has 2mm thickness , which should make it compatible with MagSafe accessories, since MagSafe has a 2mm thickness requirement for it to work.

Click Here to Buy Now: $44 $80 (45% off for YD readers).

The post Anti-bacterial silicone case for the iPhone keeps your phone and hands protected from germs first appeared on Yanko Design.

Designed to be comfortably worn while a pregnant mother carries their child, the ‘Retractable Garment’ by IU+ Design features a unique fabric construction that expands aesthetically as the wearer’s body does. A winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award, the garment relies on a series of uniquely positioned fabric cutouts that grow to form a pattern that is revealed the bigger the baby bump gets!

“Using pattern variations, the retractable garment meets the functional demands of pregnant women throughout the entire process”, say lead designers Shen Jiye and Chen Yujie. “In other words, the garment witnesses the entire pregnancy.”

Designer: ShenZhen IU+ Design Co., Ltd.

“The abdomen area of the garment is made to be flexible and adjustable to accommodate the various stages of pregnancy. It is made with a certain tension that allows the fabric to stretch over the baby bump, and the patterns expand to fit the shape of the stomach, creating a one-of-a-kind look”, the designers mention. Moreover, the garment can even be worn after a child is born, thereby reducing unnecessary fashion waste.

This concept, while unique, builds on an underlying idea that clothes should be designed to last as long as possible while accommodating growth and developmental factors. A similar project, titled Petit Pli, used pleated fabric that allowed the clothes to expand as a child grew, enabling them to wear the same clothes for years instead of mere months.

The Retractable Garment is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2022.

The post This award-winning expanding garment was designed for pregnant women to wear to term first appeared on Yanko Design.

Brazilian studio Gusmão Otero Arquitetos Associados has completed a campus for the Pequeno Príncipe School on the outskirts of the city of Ribeirão Preto using concrete and prefabricated panels.

The campus was completed earlier this year for the institution, which serves children from elementary school through high school.

The campus encompasses four main buildings, totalling 9,300 square metres. Three of these contain classrooms and are divided by age group, while the fourth holds communal spaces.

A central plaza between the four buildings contains sports fields and is large enough to accommodate all of the students in one place.

“The new campus is distinguished by the integration of the buildings with external space and nature,” said Gusmão Otero Arquitetos Associados (GOAA).

The buildings have one, two or three storeys, depending on the age of the children, with the older students occupying the tallest structure. The communal building is placed at the top of the school’s gently sloping grounds and has two floors.

Much of the ground floor of this structure is open to the exterior, which helps keep the interiors cool through cross-ventilation. This structure contains a basketball court, a large auditorium and the school’s cafeteria and administrative offices.

“The integration of the buildings with the external areas and nature was one of the project’s pillars, reinforcing the will to create open and permeable buildings,” said GOAA.

“This strategy aims to minimize earth movements and take advantage of the different levels of insertion of the constructions of each cycle to create autonomous external spaces, at the same time that a large central square has the scale to receive the entire school community,” the studio continued.

The architecture studio arranged for more than 250 trees planted during construction.

Each of the four buildings was built on a similar structural grid, which creates a consistent appearance for each building. All of the structures were built with cast-in-place concrete beams and pillars that support prefabricated floor slabs.

“The building materiality is exposed, as are the electrical and hydraulic installations,” said GOAA.

Large clerestory windows were placed in sloping protrusions from the roof to allow for natural sunlight in the middle of the structures.

To further help shade the interiors, the architects designed deep canopies that protect the building openings.

GOAA used these as an opportunity to bring some colour into the project, painting the support frames blue and choosing a natural-hued terracotta for the shading elements.

As of its completion, the Pequeno Príncipe school meets roughly half of its energy consumption with solar panels placed on the roofs.

According to GOAA, the school intends to install more panels in the coming years, in order to eventually meet all of its energy needs.

GOAA was established in 2014 by Ricardo Lopes Gusmão and Guido D´Elia Otero. Its offices are located in São Paulo, where the studio completed another school by converting an existing car dealership building.

Other school buildings include a campus in China filled with buildings “like a cluster of huts in fairy tales” and a school in Zambia built with locally sourced materials by Caukin Studio.

The photography is by Rafaela Netto, unless otherwise stated. 

Project credits:
Team: Clara Troia (coordinator), Beatriz Dias, Tomas Vannucchi, Victoria Afonso
Constructor: It’s Informov
Landscaping: GOAA + Doni Camargo arquiteto paisagista + Letícia Fortuna
Structure: Marata Engenharia
Installations: Corelo Chaves Projetos Técnicos
Lighting: Denis Joelson e Viviane Brites
Environmental consultant: Matheus Tonellis
HVAC: 3D Ar Condicionado Engenharia Térmica
Acoustics: Ruth Montanheiro Paolino
Waterproofing: PROASSP

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