Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen School Shows: we’ve picked five student museum and exhibition projects that were featured in Dezeen School Shows, which explore both history and futuristic technology.

These undergraduate and postgraduate students have developed museum and exhibition projects that explore modern technology, cultural heritage and the connection between traditional and contemporary fashion.

This roundup of projects includes a museum that showcases the remains of demolished buildings to create a “journey” through the history of a site, and a museum that aims to address the inequality experienced by women in the workspace during the industrial revolution.

The selection of projects comes from architecture, interior design, spatial design and exhibition design courses at international institutions including University of the Arts London, University of Brighton, Fashion Institute of Technology and University of Kentucky College of Design.

Meta Museum by Nicholas Benjamin

Interior design student Nicholas Benjamin developed a museum where visitors can interact with virtual collections. The museum includes products from Scan The World, a network of 3D-scanned cultural artefacts.

“Meta Museum also takes advantage of its digital environment by implementing multiple features that would be impossible to display in a real-world space,” said Benjamin.

“This includes navigation of the space, as the space can now become non-Euclidean, allowing for efficient and creative ways to move around.”

Student: Nicholas Benjamin
School: University of the Arts London
Course: BA (Hons) Interior Design

View the full school show ›

The Museum of Rye by Regina Nakansere

Architecture student Regina Nakansere designed a museum in Rye, England, which explores the use of demolished buildings in preserving an area’s history.

Nakansere took pieces of a building – extracted by its demolition – and embedded them into a trail through Rye, creating a journey that tells a story of its past.

“This proposal transforms selected buildings within the centre of Rye into a changing and evolving museum of the town,” explained Nakansere. “The strategy employed uncovers or reveals aspects of the buildings, uncovering hidden aspects of their past as well as their current purpose.”

Student: Regina Nakansere
School: University of Brighton
Course: MArch (RIBA Part 2)

View the full school show ›

Lexington Legacy Museum and Civil Rights Memorial by Ben Thornton

Architecture student Ben Thornton designed a museum and memorial that aims to exhibit the history of Lexington in Kentucky, USA.

Thornton collated the building’s material palette aiming to express “permanence, modesty and timelessness” to commemorate those who dedicated themselves to establishing and growing Lexington’s identity.

“The museum’s primary focus is a large interior atrium and civil rights memorial served by a skip-stop elevator and stair circulation system,” explained Thornton. “This encourages deep contemplation of Lexington, Kentucky’s history with a particular emphasis on the unidentified – yet to be credited founders of the city.”

Student: Ben Thornton
School: School of Architecture at the University of Kentucky College of Design
Course: Third-year Undergraduate studio, spring 2020

View the full school show ›

Fabric-Women-Museum by Shiyuan Liu

Interior and spatial design student Shiyuan Liu created an interactive museum that aims to address the unfair work environment experienced by women during the industrial revolution.

The museum’s four rooms are designed to follow the themes of control, inconvenience, isolation and vulnerability. Each room guides visitors through a journey to experience its “emotion” while enabling visitors to gain a deeper understanding of the history at the time.

“The project is based on research into the history of Artiach during the industrial revolution when approximately 80 per cent of the workers were women,” explained Liu. “Although Artiach offered work opportunities for women, their working conditions and treatment were poor.”

Student: Shiyuan Liu
School: University of the Arts London
Course: BA Interior and Spatial Design

View the full school show ›

The Voice of Souls by Heeji Min

Heeji Min, an exhibition and experience design student, proposed an immersive exhibition that allows visitors to explore the creative process of designer fashion.

By including audio guides narrated by the designers themselves, visitors are able to gain an insight into the art of the traditional process of haute couture and discover its influence on modern fashion.

“Fashion is a creative and artistic forum for designers to express their ideas, thoughts, and emotions,” said Min. “But fashion exhibitions are stereotypically curated by luxury brands and viewed as just another form of marketing.”

“This project… explores ways of motivating the public to attend fashion exhibitions in the future and uncovers experiential approaches to curating them.”

Student: Heeji Min
School: Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY
Course: MA Exhibition and Experience Design

View the full school show ›

Partnership content

These projects are presented in school shows from institutions that partner with Dezeen. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Los-Angeles-based Pulse Design Group did the latest redesign of this hybrid electric/gas oven and range.

The BlueStar Dual Fuel Series Range is a hybrid electric and gas range top & commercial oven for your home. Pulse was given the opportunity to collaborate with BlueStar on their latest redesign of a restaurant-quality, performance-level oven range system.

Pulse worked to create a product that seamlessly combines high-performance functionality with elegant design. The Dual Fuel’s unique two source cooking design required an equally unique user interface. Pulse designed the UI for the Dual Fuel series, including all flow documentation, all custom iconography, and all pixel perfect digital assets. Finding a balance of modernity and unobtrusive, clean design was the challenge for this application.

Pulse had a blast coming up with innovations for the Dual Fuel with the BlueStar team. Equipped with unique features such as its pivoting interface screen, all new X-8 8-Point Burners, commercial-grade steel griddle, statement ergonomic handles, and a new modern foot profile… just to name a few! Not to mention, thanks to BlueStar’s endless color and finish customization options, the Dual Fuel seamlessly integrates into any kitchen.

Intuitive UI. Along with aiding in the industrial design of the Dual Fuel Series Range, Pulse developed its award winning user interface. A UI that is not only aesthetically pleasing, but fully tailored to the end user. Dual Fuel’s unique two-source cooking design required an equally unique user interface. Presented on an ergonomically pivoting touchscreen, it is packed with features such as: independent cooking settings for each oven, 10 distinct oven modes, one-press stop functionality, a full settings panel that includes Sabbath settings, two standalone kitchen timers, and more.

You can see more of Pulse’s work here.

US-based architecture studio SOM has completed a restoration of the Lever House seventy years after the studio originally designed the historic New York City office building.

Under developers Brookfield Properties and WatermanClark, the project includes a restoration of the building’s lobby, plaza, interior office spaces, terraces, third-floor lounge and mechanical systems.

The 22-storey building consists of a rectangular base that is suspended over a courtyard and plaza by columns, with a tower of office suites extending from the northern corner of its city plot.

Upon the developers’ purchase of the building in 2020, many of the interior spaces had fallen into disrepair.

“It still had all of the good bones, it had all its original parts, but it had, over that 70-year period, sort of suffered,” said vice president of design at Brookfield Properties Scott Kirkham.

“It wasn’t in particularly good repair and it certainly was showing certain signs of its ageing.”

Along with interior designer Marmol Radziner and landscape architect Reed Hilderbrand, the team overhauled both interior and exterior spaces.

“This renovation reactivates Lever House for the 21st century,” said SOM partner Chris Cooper. “We’ve restored the plaza and podium to its original 1952 glory while comprehensively overhauling the mechanical systems.”

“The result is a landmark that is both renewed and reminiscent of its midcentury splendour – with revamped outdoor spaces, more natural light inside, and an efficient use of energy.”

In the building’s lobby, which is enclosed in floor-to-ceiling windows, SOM restored the terrazzo flooring, stainless steel-clad columns, white-marble planters, black limestone and white marble walls and a yellow tile mosaic wall that sits at the entrance to the elevators.

SOM design principle Frank Mahan explained the team used a “variety of data points” including the existing materials, historic drawings, photos and “contemporaneous descriptions” in order to closely match contemporary materials to their 1950s predecessors.

This included sending aged samples of the original terrazzo flooring to a lab, where they were used to create a new, stronger material composed of similar ingredients.

Interior designer Marmol Radziner created rosewood, mohair, and leather furniture and a large bar unit for the building’s newly restored third-floor common space, which is located in the building’s elevated rectangular base.

The central bar consists of two rosewood cabinets that bookend a glass screen by John Lewis Glass, while the floors were clad in “galaxy green” marble with a similar-hued soapstone on the walls.

“Experientially, it was important that Lever Club feel warm and refined, almost residential in feel,” said Marmol Radziner design partner Ron Radziner.

“This translated to our intentional colour-blocking of interior materials, the basis of which was the iconic green of the building facade.”

On either side, the lounge area leads out onto a terrace overlooking the street below. Along with horticultural designer Patrick Cullina, Reed Hilderbrand outfitted the terraces with Whitespire birch trees interspersed with low-lying vegetation, flowers, and shrubs.

The studio also restored architectural elements, including replacing red pavers on the terrace with grey precast concrete.

Finally, “a series of sweeping changes” to the mechanical systems, including replacing original induction units throughout the interior, will help push the building towards LEED Gold and WELL Platinum certification targets.

Originally designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the 307-foot (94 metre) high building housed the headquarters of soap company Lever Brothers.

It is known for its green-hued glass curtain wall and small stature compared to surrounding office buildings, with each tower floor plate measuring just 11,000 square feet (3,350 square metres).

The curtain wall was the second to be installed in New York City amidst the era’s largely masonry architecture, helping to evolve the city’s office buildings to an International style.

SOM previously replaced the building’s facade in 2001.

The studio is known for the construction of multiple skyscrapers internationally, including the world’s tallest skyscraper, Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Nearby, the studio recently completed a black terracotta-clad office building in Chelsea.

The photography is by Lucas Blair Simpson/SOM.

Project credits:

Lead architect: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Interior design: Marmol Radziner
Landscape architect: Reed Hilderbrand
Preservation consultant: Higgins Quasebarth & Partners

The post SOM completes restoration of New York’s historic Lever House appeared first on Dezeen.

Italian lighting brand Lodes has collaborated with Tokyo-based design studio YOY to create Hover, a lamp with a shade designed to look as though it’s floating.

Designed to “surprise and create the unexpected”, Hover was recently shortlisted for in the Dezeen Awards. Available as a table or floor lamp, it has a lampshade that is detached from its base and connected by a single cable running through the lamp’s stem.

“Extremely poetic in its simplicity, Hover perfectly exemplifies Lodes’ commitment to balancing technical know-how with contemporary design,” said Lodes.

“The Hover series includes a table lamp and floor lamp where the lampshades appear magically hovering in the air.”

The lamp has a matte white finish, which according to Lodes is informed by Japanese aesthetics “offering a light, minimalist touch”.

“The Japanese influence is clear in the aesthetic – allowing Hover to fit into several environments or moods seamlessly,” said the brand.

Lodes describes the technological process behind Hover as “extremely complex”.

The light’s cable runs through the inside of the stem and then emerges from it “ensuring a continuity that gently supports the shade”.

Here, the cable is partly made from a metal pipe, which joins the shade and the pole, creating the illusion that the shade is floating.

Both variations of light feature a dimmer that’s controlled by a power switch situated on the upper part of the stem.

“The Hover collection marks an opportunity to play with new materials,” said Lodes.

“While the base is made of a white painted metal, the shade comprises a sheet made from a special compound of paper and polymer film, which further emphasises the lightness of the design language while extending its durability.”

Hover was shortlisted in the lighting design category for this year’s Dezeen Awards. Other lights shortlisted in the category include the Soft Serve light, which was informed by meringue and ice cream and Tom Dixon’s Portable lamps.

The post Hover lampshade appears to be “magically hovering in the air” appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Showroom: Italian brand Fiandre Architectural Surfaces has added three new colours to its Marmi Maximum surface collection, which are unified by stone-like patterns.

The Marmi Maximum range includes large-format panels with surfaces informed by rare quarried marbles and other sought-after stone types. The existing range of 39 patterns is now joined by three new iterations.

Camouflage has a high-contrast pattern of greys and beiges designed to have a dramatic and timeless marble-like appearance.

Breccia Sarda has a more subtle, cohesive sand-coloured finish, while Palissandro White features a milky background marked with sweeping dark streaks.

The panels are suitable for a range of uses from furniture decoration to floor and wall coverings.

They come in a selection of treatments, which change the degree of the surface’s reflectivity and texture.

Product: Marmi Maximum
Brand: Fiandre Architectural Surfaces
Contact: info@granitifiandre.it

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