Competition: ten Dezeen Books of Ideas for new Facebook followers to win

Dezeen Book of Ideas

Competition: we’re fast approaching 300,000 followers on Facebook, and to celebrate we’re giving away ten copies of our Dezeen Book of Ideas to readers who likes us over the next week.

If you don’t already like Dezeen on Facebook, visit out page here and hit “like”. We’ll randomly select ten of our new followers that sign up between now and Friday 12 July and send them a copy of our book.

On our Facebook page we post extra content, updates from Dezeen Jobs and Dezeen Watch Store, plus reminders about competitions we have running.

Dezeen Book of Ideas
Dezeen Book of Ideas

Dezeen Book of Ideas features a selection of the best ideas for buildings, interiors and products from the pages of Dezeen, such as a pewter stool cast in sand, a hospital lounge for recovering patients and a homemade toaster. See more stories about the Book of Ideas »

The book usually costs £10 and can be purchased here.

Winners will be contacted via Facebook on or soon after Friday 12 July, when we’ll ask for delivery details. We won’t pass on your information to anyone else – read our privacy policy here. Don’t forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter!

You can also follow Dezeen on:

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Special offer: buy Dezeen Book of Ideas for just £10

Dezeen Book of Ideas special offer!

You can now order Dezeen Book of Ideas at the reduced price of only £10 instead of £12. This special offer will run for a limited time so get yours quickly! Read on for more details or buy your copy online here.

Dezeen Book of Ideas features a selection of over 100 beautiful ideas by the world’s best creative brains, chosen from the pages of Dezeen over the last five years.

London Design Guide 2012-2013

We also have London Design Guide by Max Fraser on offer for only £10, reduced from £12. The guide features 140 design retailers, galleries and museums across London plus a further 100 bars, restaurants and cafes accompanied by detailed maps.

Dezeen Book of Ideas and London Design Guide for £20

You can now order Dezeen Book of Ideas and London Design Guide together for the reduced price of £16.

See all our special offers on our Dezeen Book of Ideas microsite.

www.dezeenbookofideas.com

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Dezeen Book of Ideas in Observer Christmas gift guide

Dezeen Book of Ideas in Observer Christmas gift guide

Dezeen Book of Ideas has been featured in the Observer’s Christmas Gift Guide, with the newspaper describing the book as “brilliant designs from the world’s best creative minds”.

Dezeen Book of Ideas in Observer Christmas gift guide

The book appeared in the Observer Magazine last weekend in a section titled “If they were inspired by Thomas Heatherwick they’ll love…”

Dezeen Book of Ideas

Dezeen Book of Ideas features over 100 fascinating ideas for buildings, products and interiors from the world’s most creative brains. The book’s A5 format makes it highly accessible and the £12 price tag makes it the ideal impulse purchase or Christmas gift. Buy Dezeen Book of Ideas now for just £12.

Pewter Stool by Max Lamb in Dezeen Book of Ideas

We recently published a series of excerpts from the book, including Pewter Stool by Max Lamb (above) and Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects (below).

Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects in Dezeen Book of Ideas

Reviews of Dezeen Book of Ideas

“From flip-flop art to a mirrored retreat in the sky” – Wall Street Journal

“The Sliding House and The Book of Ideas: Radical Thinking Required” – Forbes.com

“Fairs personally guides readers through the wonders of innovations like a balancing barn, a textile-skinned car, and the first aesthetically pleasing CFL — all of which share an ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ awe factor” – Sight Unseen

“Fabulous” – It’s Nice That

“Totally wonderful!” – Naomi Cleaver

“Handsomely repackages Dezeen’s coverage of the best in architectural, interior and design ideas” – Glasgow Herald

“Teeming with innovative projects handpicked by the people behind Dezeen … readers will be hard-pressed not to find something to gawk over in this intriguing new compendium of beautifully articulated concepts” – Dwell Asia

“Beautifully laid-out, to suit the content, and straight-shooting, non-convoluted descriptions make it user-friendly as well as eye-catching” – Lifestyle Magazine

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Dezeen Book of Ideas: Sweeper Clock by Maarten Baas

The final extract from our Book of Ideas selected by Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs this week is a 24-hour performance involving two janitors constantly sweeping lines of rubbish to represent the hand of a clock. The book makes an ideal Christmas gift and is available for just £12.

“Design performances were in vogue at the tail end of the noughties. Design fairs featured young creatives drilling, sawing and hammering and the process of making chairs, tables and lighting was suddenly seen as more interesting than the finished products,” explains Fairs.

“Dutch designer Maarten Baas had shot to fame earlier in the decade for his Smoke range of furniture that was generated via the most extreme performative process of them all: he scorched timber items with a blowtorch. Baas’ 2009 show in Milan proved to be the high-water mark of the design performance movement. Within a darkened warehouse he presented a range of functioning clocks in which the passing time was marked by human actions, rather than machinery or circuitry.”

“Sweeper Clock was the most dramatic of these: a 24-hour, non-stop performance involving two men sweeping rubbish around a concrete yard, filmed from above, with the detritus forming the moving hands of a clock as they worked,” he describes. “Whereas most other design performances were merely a means to an end, Baas’ clocks were also the product: you could buy the movie on a hard-drive and turn your widescreen TV or computer screen into a clock.”

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Sweeper Clock by Maarten Baas

Sweeper Clock by Maarten Baas

Two janitors continuously sweep a large expanse of concrete as part of a 24-hour long performance by designer Maarten Baas. Pushing two lines of trash around with their brooms, the two men mark the time of day, with one pile of detritus advancing precisely every minute, and the other every hour.

The performance was recorded by a camera mounted overhead and went on for 12 hours non-stop to create a film that, when endlessly looped, functions as a clock.

Sweeper Clock was one of a series of time-based films created by Baas in 2009 as part of a project called Real Time. Shown on screens during the furniture fair in Milan, the films were also available for sale on digital hard drives that, when plugged into TV screens, turn into working timepieces.

Other elements of Real Time include Analog Digital Clock, a film in which a performer replicates a digital clock by painting over and wiping clean red panels on a black glass screen; and Grandfather Clock, which appears to feature a person inside an upright case repeatedly wiping off and drawing hands on the back of a glass clock face with a black pen.

The boundary between art and design has blurred in recent years with the rise of the limited edition, gallery-driven collectors market, yet Baas insists that the functional nature of these films – the fact that they tell the time – grounds them firmly in the world of design.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Sweeper Clock by Maarten Baas

Read more about this project on Dezeen | Buy Dezeen Book of Ideas


Dezeen Book of Ideas out now!

Dezeen Book of Ideas features over 100 fascinating ideas for buildings, products and interiors from the world’s most creative brains. The book’s A5 format makes it highly accessible and the £12 price tag makes it the ideal impulse purchase or Christmas gift.Buy the Dezeen Book of Ideas now for just £12.

Reviews of Dezeen Book of Ideas

“From flip-flop art to a mirrored retreat in the sky” – Wall Street Journal

“The Sliding House and The Book of Ideas: Radical Thinking Required” – Forbes.com

“Fairs personally guides readers through the wonders of innovations like a balancing barn, a textile-skinned car, and the first aesthetically pleasing CFL — all of which share an ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ awe factor” – Sight Unseen

“Fabulous” – It’s Nice That

“Totally wonderful!” – Naomi Cleaver

“Handsomely repackages Dezeen’s coverage of the best in architectural, interior and design ideas” – Glasgow Herald

“Teeming with innovative projects handpicked by the people behind Dezeen … readers will be hard-pressed not to find something to gawk over in this intriguing new compendium of beautifully articulated concepts” – Dwell Asia

“Beautifully laid-out, to suit the content, and straight-shooting, non-convoluted descriptions make it user-friendly as well as eye-catching” – Lifestyle Magazine

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Dezeen Book of Ideas: Recovery Lounge by Priestmangoode

A hospital lounge for recovering patients is the next extract chosen by Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs from our Book of Ideas. The book makes an ideal Christmas gift and is available for just £12.

“There’s been a lot of discussion lately about how design has lost its sense of social responsibility and indeed, a lot of the stuff we publish on Dezeen doesn’t set out to make the world a better place,” says Fairs. “Meanwhile there are vast tracts of human experience that are virtually design-free zones. Hospitals wards fall into this category – they’ve barely changed since the days of Florence Nightingale and are often miserable, frustrating places to stay or visit.”

“Priestmangoode have, off their own backs, rethought the hospital ward with the same care they might apply to a hotel or passenger jet interior. Even the name Recovery Lounge makes you feel better; so much more positive than Acute Care Ward or Critical Care Unit, which seem designed to scare patients.”

“The Recovery Lounge is one of those ideas that isn’t yet a reality, but deserves to be,” he concludes.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Recovery Lounge by Priestmangoode

Recovery Lounge by Priestmangoode

The name alone suggests a radically different approach to hospital design. Rather than a ward, which conjures images of rows of beds, this is a lounge where people can relax. As opposed to focussing on the illness or the medical procedure, it is a place for recovery. Recovery Lounge is a self-initiated project by Priestmangoode. The industrial designers have extensive experience in designing interiors for passenger jets, hotels and airports, and wanted to see if they could apply the lessons learned in those sectors to the neglected area of hospital interiors.

Intended for people recovering from minor operations, the lounge offers each patient their own zone, which is carefully oriented to maximise privacy. These zones are designed for comfort as well as efficiency, with furniture raised above the floor to allow easier cleaning, and push-button reclining beds like those found on aeroplanes.

The lounge borrows its staggered layout from first-class airline cabins, allowing more beds per square metre and improving sight lines, so staff can easily monitor patients and attend to their needs in a shorter amount of time. This in turn could save money by reducing the number of nurses required.

Recovery Lounge is part of a report published in 2010 by Priestmangoode called the Health Manifesto, which looks at how better hospital design could lead to health benefits for patients and significant cost savings for the NHS.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Recovery Lounge by Priestmangoode

Read more about this project on Dezeen | Buy Dezeen Book of Ideas


Dezeen Book of Ideas out now!

Dezeen Book of Ideas features over 100 fascinating ideas for buildings, products and interiors from the world’s most creative brains. The book’s A5 format makes it highly accessible and the £12 price tag makes it the ideal impulse purchase or Christmas gift.Buy the Dezeen Book of Ideas now for just £12.

Reviews of Dezeen Book of Ideas

“From flip-flop art to a mirrored retreat in the sky” – Wall Street Journal

“The Sliding House and The Book of Ideas: Radical Thinking Required” – Forbes.com

“Fairs personally guides readers through the wonders of innovations like a balancing barn, a textile-skinned car, and the first aesthetically pleasing CFL — all of which share an ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ awe factor” – Sight Unseen

“Fabulous” – It’s Nice That

“Totally wonderful!” – Naomi Cleaver

“Handsomely repackages Dezeen’s coverage of the best in architectural, interior and design ideas” – Glasgow Herald

“Teeming with innovative projects handpicked by the people behind Dezeen … readers will be hard-pressed not to find something to gawk over in this intriguing new compendium of beautifully articulated concepts” – Dwell Asia

“Beautifully laid-out, to suit the content, and straight-shooting, non-convoluted descriptions make it user-friendly as well as eye-catching” – Lifestyle Magazine

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Dezeen Book of Ideas: Pewter Stool by Max Lamb

The next extract chosen by Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs from our Book of Ideas is a pewter stool cast in sand on a Cornish beach. The book makes an ideal Christmas gift and is available for just £12.

“If you search for Max Lamb’s Pewter Stool on Google Images you don’t find the studio-quality product shots you might expect. Instead you get dozens of photos of a beach in Cornwall. That’s where Lamb cast the stool, using the sand as his mould. The beach is a place Lamb remembers from his childhood and the material and casting method were once a proud local industry,” says Fairs.

“The making of the stool and the narrative behind it are what makes this product special and it could be argued that the evocative time-lapse movie Lamb filmed of the casting performance (and uploaded to YouTube) is a more robust cultural artefact than the stool itself.”

“For me this product represents the way the ease with which projects can be digitally documented plus the distributive power of the internet is changing the way designers work, and the way their work is perceived,” he adds.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Pewter Stool by Max Lamb

Pewter Stool by Max Lamb

Rebuffed by sand-casting foundries that laughed at his request to produce a single stool, British designer Max Lamb instead decided to make it himself.

Lamb returned to a favourite childhood beach in Cornwall and sculpted the mould for his stool directly into the wet sand.

The furniture designer melted pewter – a malleable alloy consisting mainly of tin with small amounts of copper and other metals – in a saucepan placed on a camping stove and poured the liquid metal into the mould. Once it had cooled, he dug away the sand to reveal the finished product.

Despite being a comparatively simple object, Pewter Stool is rich in narrative. Tin mining was once the main industry in Cornwall and sand from local beaches was used in the casting foundries. The mould can only be used once, making each piece unique, and the unpredictabil- ity of working on a beach means that imperfections become an inevitable part of each object’s charm.

The manufacturing process is imprecise and labour-intensive, yet practical considerations have driven the stool’s design. The three-legged form ensures that it will not wobble even if, as often happens, the molten metal fails to flow to the bottom of the sand mould. The seat is a grid of tessellating triangles and allows the maximum sitting area from the minimum amount of pewter.

The stool is inseparable from the seaside performance that created it. Lamb produced a time-lapse movie of it being made. While the finished object has become a collectable rarity, the video documentary, disseminated on YouTube and Vimeo, is available to everyone.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Pewter Stool by Max Lamb

Read more about this project on Dezeen | Buy Dezeen Book of Ideas


Dezeen Book of Ideas out now!

Dezeen Book of Ideas features over 100 fascinating ideas for buildings, products and interiors from the world’s most creative brains. The book’s A5 format makes it highly accessible and the £12 price tag makes it the ideal impulse purchase or Christmas gift.Buy the Dezeen Book of Ideas now for just £12.

Reviews of Dezeen Book of Ideas

“From flip-flop art to a mirrored retreat in the sky” – Wall Street Journal

“The Sliding House and The Book of Ideas: Radical Thinking Required” – Forbes.com

“Fairs personally guides readers through the wonders of innovations like a balancing barn, a textile-skinned car, and the first aesthetically pleasing CFL — all of which share an ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ awe factor” – Sight Unseen

“Fabulous” – It’s Nice That

“Totally wonderful!” – Naomi Cleaver

“Handsomely repackages Dezeen’s coverage of the best in architectural, interior and design ideas” – Glasgow Herald

“Teeming with innovative projects handpicked by the people behind Dezeen … readers will be hard-pressed not to find something to gawk over in this intriguing new compendium of beautifully articulated concepts” – Dwell Asia

“Beautifully laid-out, to suit the content, and straight-shooting, non-convoluted descriptions make it user-friendly as well as eye-catching” – Lifestyle Magazine

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Dezeen Book of Ideas: Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects

Every day this week Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs is selecting an extract from our Dezeen Book of Ideas, which makes a great Christmas present and is available for just £12. The second project is a competition-winning proposal to add a temporary platform to the Eiffel Tower that turned out to be a fraud.

“I really wanted this project to be real, but unfortunately it’s a fake,” explains Fairs. “It’s an audacious proposal to add a cloud-like Kevlar viewing platform to the top of one of the most famous monuments in the world and it fooled Dezeen along with many other publications. The architects invented the scheme as a publicity stunt, but it’s actually quite a beautiful addition to the Eiffel Tower as well as being a good way of relieving the unpleasant crush of visitors at the top of the tower.”

“Besides being a salutary warning of the ease with which falsehoods can spread on the web, it’s a provocative suggestion of how existing buildings could be adapted in future as new building technologies emerge,” he adds. “I spent a couple of years living in Seville in Spain and my favourite building there – in fact one of my favourite buildings anywhere – is the catherdal’s Giralda tower. Originally built as a minaret, the austere brick tower was later Catholicised with the addition of a florid Renaissance belfry. The resulting mash-up is as delightful as Serero Architects’ Eiffel DNA proposal, suggesting that even the most revered architectural masterpiece might benefit from a makeover.”

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects

Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects

This competition-winning design to transform the Eiffel Tower – by adding a flower-like viewing platform at the top – turned out to be a fraud. The project appeared on the website of Serero Architects in March 2008; they claimed to have won a contest to temporarily make over the Parisian landmark to mark its 120th birthday.

Consequently Dezeen, along with several other publications including The Guardian newspaper in the UK, published the seductive images of the iconic tower reimagined by the addition of a Kevlar structure that mimicked the lattice framework of Gustave Eiffel’s 1889 structure.

Called Eiffel DNA, the fantasy project was designed using a generative computer script that identified the tower’s genetic design code and used this template to “grow” a structure that would most efficiently support the temporary platform.

It wasn’t until a few days later that the New York Times established that the competition was non-existent, and we admitted we’d been duped.

The episode was a sobering reminder of the ease with which false information can spread on the internet; but it was also a brilliant PR exercise by the French practice, who received worldwide publicity. We still love the design, too.

Dezeen Book of Ideas: Eiffel DNA by Serero Architects

Read more about this project on Dezeen | Buy Dezeen Book of Ideas


Dezeen Book of Ideas out now!

Dezeen Book of Ideas features over 100 fascinating ideas for buildings, products and interiors from the world’s most creative brains. The book’s A5 format makes it highly accessible and the £12 price tag makes it the ideal impulse purchase or Christmas gift.Buy the Dezeen Book of Ideas now for just £12.

Reviews of Dezeen Book of Ideas

“From flip-flop art to a mirrored retreat in the sky” – Wall Street Journal

“The Sliding House and The Book of Ideas: Radical Thinking Required” – Forbes.com

“Fairs personally guides readers through the wonders of innovations like a balancing barn, a textile-skinned car, and the first aesthetically pleasing CFL — all of which share an ‘I wish I’d thought of that’ awe factor” – Sight Unseen

“Fabulous” – It’s Nice That

“Totally wonderful!” – Naomi Cleaver

“Handsomely repackages Dezeen’s coverage of the best in architectural, interior and design ideas” – Glasgow Herald

“Teeming with innovative projects handpicked by the people behind Dezeen … readers will be hard-pressed not to find something to gawk over in this intriguing new compendium of beautifully articulated concepts” – Dwell Asia

“Beautifully laid-out, to suit the content, and straight-shooting, non-convoluted descriptions make it user-friendly as well as eye-catching” – Lifestyle Magazine

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by Serero Architects
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Dezeen Book of Ideas now available in Milan

Competition: five copies of the new Dezeen Book of Ideas to be won

Dezeen have arrived in Milan for the Salone Internazionale del Mobile and we have just delivered our Dezeen Book of Ideas to three shops across the city.

You can pick one up at:

MUST Shop
via Olona 6
20123 Milano
www.mustshop.it
Pigr
via Clusone, 6
I-20135 Milano
www.pigr.it
Spazio Rossana Orlandi
Via Matteo Bandello 14
20123 Milano
www.rossanaorlandi.com

The Dezeen Book of Ideas features a selection of the best ideas for buildings, interiors and products from the pages of Dezeen. The book is also available to order online.

www.dezeenbookofideas.com

Dezeen Book of Ideas animation

This animation by Emmy Castelain flips through our new Dezeen Book of Ideas, which features 116 projects by the world’s best creative minds. We’ll show the animation at our party in Barcelona this evening – click here for more details and your invitation. Watch the movie »

If you can’t attend in person, you can order the book online for just £12 at www.dezeenbookofideas.com.

Dezeen in Barcelona

Dezeen in Barcelona

Inside 2011: we’re in Barcelona this week with our latest Dezeen Watch Store pop-up at Inside world festival of interiors and a party to celebrate our Dezeen Book of Ideas at Otrascosas de Villar-Rosàs tomorrow night – click here to download the invitation.

Dezeen in Barcelona

Inside world festival of interiors is taking place on the third floor of the Centro de Convenciones Internacionales de Barcelona from today until 4 November.

Dezeen in Barcelona

We’re posting the winners of the inaugural Inside awards as they’re announced today – see the full shortlist here and all our stories about Inside here.

We’ve also been working closely with Inside in the run-up to its inaugural festival, producing a series of video interviews with festival judges Ilse Crawford, Paul Priestman, Andre Fu and Linda Morey Smith. Watch them on Dezeen Screen.