Hasta La Ideas

News: this animation by filmmaker Christian Borstlap celebrates fashion house Louis Vuitton and has won the award for best Dutch design project at this year’s Dutch Design Awards (+ movie).

Above: still from Louis Vuitton I animation by Christian Borstlap
Top: Louis Vuitton I animation by Christian Borstlap

Titled Louis Vuitton I, the animation illustrates the history of the fashion house and was created for the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris earlier this year.

Above: still from Louis Vuitton I animation by Christian Borstlap

The movie won the Golden Eye award for best project and also came top in the motion design category.

Above: still from Louis Vuitton I animation by Christian Borstlap

The awards were presented at a ceremony in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week, which continues until 28 October.

The other winning projects are featured below, with captions provided by the judges.

Golden Eye: Louis Vuitton I by Part of a Bigger Plan, Christian Borstlap (above and movie)

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News: a range of drinking glasses, jugs and vases incorporating dye that generates electricity from sunlight by Marjan van Aubel has won the DOEN Materiaalprijs at Dutch Design Week (+ movie).

The Energy Collection sandwiches titanium dioxide with pigments from plants like spinach and blueberries between the glass walls of the vessels, acting as a solar cell to generate an electrical current when sunlight passes through.

The technology was invented by Michael Graetzel at Swiss research centre EPFL and van Aubel applied it to household items that can be used as normal while they generate power throughout the day.

They can then be connected to a shelving system that acts as a giant battery and incorporates USB power outlets for charging mobile phones or powering a small lamp.

The project was announced as winner of the €15000 prize yesterday at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, where the nominated projects remain on show until 28 October.

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wins DOEN Materiaalprijs appeared first on Dezeen.

News: cheap 3D printers mean manufacturing can again take place at home as it did before the industrial revolution, according to MakerBot Industries CEO and co-founder Bre Pettis (+ audio).

Above: MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis talks to Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs

“Before the industrial revolution everybody did work at home; there was a cottage industry,” said Pettis (pictured above), who spoke to Dezeen today at 3D Printshow in London, where his company launched a new desktop printer costing $2,200. “Then you had to go to the factory to work. Now we’re bringing the factory back to the individual.”

Pettis was in London to unveil MakerBot’s Replicator 2 3D printer, which he claims is the first affordable printer that does not require specialist knowledge to operate. “We’ve just put the factory in a microwave-sized box that you can put on your desk and have at home,” said Pettis.

Brooklyn-based MakerBot was founded in 2009 with the goal of producing affordable 3D printers for the home and it has become one of the best-known brands in the rapidly expanding 3D printing and open-source design movement.

Pettis claimed that 3D printing was now advanced enough to produce consumer items on demand; last month the company opened its first store in New York, selling MakerBots and products printed in store on the devices. “This bracelet I’m holding took fifteen minutes to make,” he said.

3D Printshow is the UK’s first exhibition dedicated to 3D printing and runs until 21 October at The Brewery, London EC1.

3D printing and open design have been hot topics recently, with several projects at the Istanbul Design Biennial exploring possible applications for the technology and gun enthusiasts releasing blueprints to print guns.

Here’s a transcript of the interview, conducted by Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs:

Bre Pettis: “I’m Bre Pettis, CEO of MakerBot Industries and we make MakerBots. We just came out with the MakerBot Replicator 2. It’s a desktop 3D printer, which means you can have ideas and make them too. You can create models and 3D print them. And it’s an exciting time because this technology used to be really big machines that were inaccessible in elite institutions and now you can just have one on your desktop or on your coffee table at home and you can just make the things.”

Marcus Fairs: “Do you think this is the first machine that’s consumer friendly? You don’t need to be a geek, you don’t need to be an expert programmer to buy and use this machine – have we got to that stage yet?”

Bre Pettis: “Yes, the thing that’s most exciting for the average user is that we just launched a whole software suite called MakerWare, and it’s makes it so much easier. You literally just drag and drop, you position it how you want it and you press make, and it just does it for you. So it’s gone from a command-line tool, which is kind of hard to use, to a super easy, really nice software package that makes it easy for everyone to make the things they want.”

Marcus Fairs: “People are getting very excited about 3D printing and other types of open-source manufacturing. Is that excitement a bit premature or is there really going to be a revolution in the way that objects are designed and manufactured?”

Bre Pettis: “Well, it’s interesting. Before the industrial revolution everybody did work at home, there was a cottage industry. And then when the Jacquard loom and these kinds of things came along, you had to go to the factory to work. But we’ve just put the factory in a microwave-sized box that you can put on your desk and have at home. So it’s an interesting kind of cycle of life of manufacturing now that we’re bringing the factory back to the individual.”

Marcus Fairs: “And how much do you think this will change the existing structure where you have a designer who designs a product and a factory or brand who manufactures it – how will that existing top-down model be changed by this kind of technology?”

Bre Pettis: “So industrial designers, engineers and architects are actually the ones [whose] whole workflow has changed by this. They used to have to have an idea, send it off to a modelling house, have it take a couple of weeks or a month and then iterate on a monthly cycle. With a MakerBot you iterate on an hourly cycle, in some cases minutes – this bracelet I’m holding took fifteen minutes to make and I’m just cranking them out all day here.

“So for the people who are making products, this just changes their life. It makes everything so much faster, so much easier, so much more accessible. If you have one of these on your desk you can actually try making the things that you’re working on, and if you don’t like them you can throw them away, you don’t have to sign up for a service or have to stress out about how much it costs; it’s inexpensive. You can fail as many times as you need to to be successful.”

Marcus Fairs: “But you’re talking about prototypes. I mean, how far away are we from finished products being printed on demand for consumers?”

Bre Pettis: “So in New York City we just opened a retail store, and we do two things there – we sell MakerBots, and we sell things made on a MakerBot, and we literally have a bank of MakerBots that just make things 24 hours a day for the store.”

Marcus Fairs: “And what are the best-selling products that you make?”

Bre Pettis: “Right now the best-selling products are jewellery and we have this little contraption that’s like a heart that’s made out of gears, and people really like that too, it’s made by a designer named Emmett.”

Marcus Fairs: “So it’s still sort of small products, sort of novelty value products – what about the huge industrial applications, the mass applications, the larger products?”

Bre Pettis: “The true MakerBot operator has no limitations. This machine we just launched has a massive 410 cubic inch build volume, which means you can actually make really big things, you can make a pair of shoes if you want to. The cool thing is that if you want to make something bigger, you just make it in component parts, and then you either make snaps, so it snaps together, or you glue it together and you can make things as big as you want, if you make it in components.”

Marcus Fairs: “So this has just come out and how much does it retail for?”

Bre Pettis: “This retails for $2,200, and it’s really a great affordable machine that’s also just rock solid. We’re really proud of it.”

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back to the individual” appeared first on Dezeen.

News: architect Renzo Piano has unveiled designs for a museum of movie history for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.

The $250 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, designed in collaboration with Californian architect Zoltan Pali, will be built on the campus of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The project will involve the restoration of the former May Company building on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, which was originally built in 1938 in the Streamline Moderne style as a department store but which has remained empty since suffering damaged in the 1987 earthquake.

A new, spherical glass structure designed by Piano will be built next to the May Company building. The museum will exhibit items from the collection of the Academy, which is best known for organising the annual Oscars awards.

“The design for the museum will finally enable this wonderful building to be animated and contribute to the city after sitting empty for so long,” said Piano.  “Our design will preserve the May Company building’s historic public profile while simultaneously signaling that the building is taking on a new life that celebrates both the industry and art form that this city created and gave to the world.”

See all our stories about Renzo Piano.

Here’s the press release from the The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences:

THE ACADEMY UNVEILS VISION FOR NEW MUSEUM BY ARCHITECTS RENZO PIANO AND ZOLTAN PALI

ACADEMY MUSEUM OF MOTION PICTURES WILL BE
FIRST MAJOR MUSEUM IN U.S. DEDICATED EXCLUSIVELY TO
THE ART, SCIENCE OF MOVIES

$100M RAISED TOWARD $250M CAPITAL CAMPAIGN GOAL

LOS ANGELES –- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it has reached its initial goal of $100 million toward a $250 million capital campaign to fund the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Concurrently, the Academy unveiled its vision for the first major U.S. museum dedicated exclusively to the history and ongoing development of motion pictures. Designed by award-winning architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali, the non-profit museum which will be located in the historic May Company Wilshire building in Los Angeles, is slated to open in 2016.

“The Academy museum will be a landmark that both our industry and our city can be immensely proud of,” said Academy CEO Dawn Hudson. “I appreciate the unwavering support of our board, our members, and especially our campaign chairs, all of whom have led us through this crucial stage.”

Launched in early 2012 by Campaign Chair Bob Iger and Co-Chairs Annette Bening and Tom Hanks, the campaign has raised $100 million through private donations towards a $250 million goal. “The early response to our fundraising campaign has been outstanding and is incredibly encouraging,” said Iger. “We are so grateful to the founding supporters of the campaign, who share our vision and passion for creating the Academy Museum.”

Located on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art campus, the nearly 300,000 square-foot Academy Museum will revitalize the historic building, which has been vacant or underutilized for nearly 20 years, and weave it back into the fabric of the city.

The design fully restores the Wilshire and Fairfax street-front facades of the 1938 Streamline Moderne building, and includes a spherical glass addition at the back of the original building. Designed to represent the marriage of art and technology, the addition will house a state-of-the-art theater which replaces an extension made to the structure in 1946.

“The design for the museum will finally enable this wonderful building to be animated and contribute to the city after sitting empty for so long,” said Piano, the Pritzker Prize winning architect.  “I am very inspired by the Academy’s name and mission, the idea of the arts and sciences working together to create films. Our design will preserve the May Company building’s historic public profile while simultaneously signaling that the building is taking on a new life that celebrates both the industry and art form that this city created and gave to the world.”

“A major movie museum in the heart of this city has been a long-held dream of the Academy,” said Academy President Hawk Koch, “Thanks to the latest technological developments we can take the visiting public through time, back into our history and forward toward our future.”

Through immersive exhibitions and galleries, special screening rooms, and an interactive education center with demonstration labs, the museum will draw from the Academy’s extensive collections and archives, which include more than 140,000 films, 10 million photographs, 42,000 original film posters, 10,000 production drawings, costumes, props and movie-making equipment, as well as behind-the-scenes personal accounts from artists and innovators – the Academy’s membership – working in the motion picture industry.

“Hollywood has played an unparalleled role in bringing American art, culture and creativity to people around the world,” said Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles. “The Academy Museum will be a remarkable resource for L.A. that will both celebrate the industry that has defined our city and provide an essential resource that reinforces our position as leader and innovator.”

The $100 million raised includes significant commitments from:

* Campaign Chairs and their families: Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and Bob Iger and Willow Bay

* Academy Governors, Past Presidents and their families, including: Bill Condon and Jack Morrissey, Richard and Bonnie Cook, Rob and Shari Friedman, Sid and Nancy Ganis, Jim and Ann Gianopulos, Gale Anne Hurd, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, Hawk and Molly Koch, John and Nancy Lasseter, Walter Mirisch and Lawrence Mirisch, Bob and Kay Rehme, and Tom and Madeleine Sherak

* Film studios and entertainment conglomerates, including The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and Lionsgate

* Individuals and foundations, including Cecilia DeMille Presley, Lucasfilm Foundation, Shirley Temple Black and Family, Ken and Carol Schultz, The Mary Pickford Foundation, Alan and Cindy Horn, Frank and Fay Mancuso, Bob and Eva Shaye, The Four Friends Foundation, the Film Music Foundation, and Jerry and Linda Bruckheimer

* Corporate partners, including Dolby Laboratories, Panavision, Technicolor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Entertainment Partners/Central Casting, Girard-Perregaux Watches, and The New York Times

* Industry guilds, including the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, and the Writers Guild of America, West.

The Academy will also provide an endowment to support the Museum’s long-term programming.

“The Academy Museum will have a profound impact on the cultural landscape of Los Angeles. The decision to locate this museum in a historic building on LACMA’s campus will bring incredible benefits to both institutions and their visitors. It is a whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts,” said Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

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by Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali appeared first on Dezeen.

Istanbul Design Biennial: Turkey’s frenetic, unplanned growth means it needs good design more than most other countries, according to the organiser of the inaugural Istanbul Design Biennial, which opened this week.

Top image: model of Istanbul on the ceiling of the Adhocracy exhibition at the biennial

“We need cities that are better designed, we need products that are better designed,” said Bülent Eczacıbaşı (pictured below), chairman of the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), which organised and sponsored the biennial. “We all know that a design culture is very important but also our need for good design is more important than other countries.”

Eczacıbaşı, speaking at a press lunch in Istanbul, added: “In industry we need to spread the understanding that products from Turkey need to be better designed. If one day we can make Designed in Turkey a desirable attribute our mission will have been accomplished.”

The Turkish economy expanded by 8.5% last year, making it the world’s second-fastest growing economy after China, yet there is concern in Turkey about the chaotic nature of development.

“We have to stop and think a bit,” said Emre Arolat (pictured below), an architect and the curator of Musibet, one of the two main exhibitions at the biennial. “Things are changing very fast and at this speed it’s not possible to manage change well.”

Musibet, which means “plague” or “sickness” in Arabic, features 32 projects that respond to the phenomenal growth of Istanbul, which has a population approaching 17 million and which covers more than 5,000 square kilometres.

“This exhibition is not putting a solution on the table but it is asking lots of questions that are not being asked,” Arolat told Dezeen. “People are really excited about the transformation. The public here is very positive; they accept everything the government says. We don’t have any economic crisis; construction is the main thing in the economy at the moment. The mainstream press is not asking any questions about this because they’re really happy about the situation.”

Arolat cited plans to build two new cities outside Istanbul, which would destroy the ancient forests that act as the city’s “lungs”, yet which have received little critical analysis in Turkey.

Above image: Istanbul Modern, venue for the Musibet exhibition

Musibet, along with the Adhocracy exhibition covered in our earlier story, responds to the biennial’s central theme of “imperfection”. The theme was proposed by Deyan Sudjic, director of the Design Museum in London and a member of the biennial’s advisory board.

“There is nowhere better to explore [imperfection] than in Istanbul, a city of infinite layers, charged with the vitality that comes from engaging with rapid urban, social and cultural change” Sudjic writes in the biennial catalogue. “Istanbul as a city, is far from perfect, yet it is one of the most exhilarating and dynamic centres in the world. Its special quality is that it makes so much from the imperfect, the inexact and the provisional.”

See all our stories about the Istanbul Design Biennial »
See all our stories about Turkey »

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– Istanbul Design Biennial organiser appeared first on Dezeen.