Dezeen Wire: designer Ron Arad is awarded the London Design Medal 2011 at a ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral tonight as part of the London Design festival. The medal is awarded annually for a lifetime’s contribution to design and the city. It was awarded last year to Thomas Heatherwick, who was included in the judging panel this year.
Watch a series of interviews with Ron Arad on Dezeen Screen and see all our stories about his work here.
Dezeen Wire: non-profit organisation Architecture for Humanity have acquired Worldchanging magazine and plan to merge it with their own online Open Architecture Network. More details on the Architecture for Humanity website.
Dezeen Wire: Henn Architekten have won a competition to design a 450-metre tower for Haikou in China:
The tower forms part of a masterplan for the new business district that will include ten towers of between 150 and 450 metres.
The competition was won by Henn StudioB, the Berlin design and research studio of Henn Architekten. The same studio won a competition to masterplan the new business district for Wenzhou in November 2010.
Here are some more details from HENN:
HENN wins International Competition for 450m Tower in Haikou
HENN wins the first prize in the international competition to design the Haikou Tower in China. Among the participants were Wilkinson Eyre, Broadway Malyan, Zaha Hadid Architects and RMJM/Alsop.
The Masterplan for the central business district of Haikou thus marks a major milestone in a series of recent designs by HENN.
The competition was realized by the Berlin-based design & research studio HENN StudioB in cooperation with IPPR International Engineering Corporation, Arup, Front and Lumen3.
Haikou Towers are projected to become the heart of the new Central Business District of Haikou, the capital city of Hainan, a tropical island in the South China Sea.
The Masterplan comprises an ensemble of 10 Towers ranging from 150 to 450 meters height with an overall building area of 1.5 million square meters.
Dezeen Wire: a press conference launching new imm cologne project Das Haus – Interiors on Stage featuring designers Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien will be streamed live from London next week.
A live stream of the press conference and presentation about the first edition of Das Haus – Interiors on Stage with Doshi and Levien will be broadcast for free on 22 September at 11.00am. The first edition of the new project at international design fair imm cologne will take place in January. Doshi and Levien have been invited to create their vision of a dream home on a 180 square metre platform in the centre of the fair. Details of where you can view the stream will be released shortly.
Here is a press release from earlier this year with more information about Das Haus – Interiors on Stage
“Das Haus” – a perfect home
Starting in 2012, the international interior design fair imm cologne will again be hosting a major design event: “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage”. The project focuses on the design of an artificial living situation within the trade fair – public and yet very personal living space designed by Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien. The London-based design team will be kicking off the new format in January 2012.
“Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” will show a structure created entirely in accordance with the guest designer’s ideas – architectural elements, interior and outdoor space – as well as arrangements of furniture and furnishing elements for an individually configured interior design. In the middle of the Pure Village hall, the trade fair will erect an approx. 180 m² platform to serve as an open stage for the project. “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” is thus both a designer portrait and a visionary blueprint, an example of how it is possible to create a world of one’s own that becomes an expression of one’s own personality.
“With ‘Das Haus – Interiors on Stage’, the imm cologne is resuming the tradition of the Ideal Houses, although without adopting their rather abstract dimension,” explains Dick Spierenburg, under whose leadership Koelnmesse’s internal creative team is developing and implementing the project. Instead, the imm cologne is very deliberately seeking to connect with real conditions, thus building a bridge between the industry’s furnishing products and the progressive creative drive of the international design elite. For the creatives have to design “their” home under relatively narrowly defined architectural conditions, making use of furnishing elements that are actually available – mainly their own furniture and designs. To complete their design, they can choose from the spectrum of products provided by the ranges of goods on show at the imm cologne- a spectrum which today represents all the segments relevant to interior design, from carpets and kitchens, textiles and beds, bathrooms and lighting, all the way to colour systems.
It’s the human measure that counts
The designer’s talent stands for the ambitious aspirations and visionary nature of the project, the implementation by Koelnmesse for its accessible presentation to the public. Visitors will be presented with the scenography of a home – not a sleek and glossy “designer home”, but the home of a designer. The kind of personal living situation a designer would dream about – for himself, for one night, for a lifetime, for the future. A game between improvisation and perfection, between intimacy and prestige, between indoors and outside.
Besides picking up on current interior design trends, the project also addresses the public’s aspirations and social change. Ultimately, anybody interested in the art and culture of interior design – whether for private or professional reasons – has an ideal of his perfect home. But what does it look like? How can the dual function of one’s own four walls – as both a prestigious interior and an intimate place of retreat – be resolved on an individual basis? How can the aspects of trend-savvy, timelessly classic and individual living be reconciled? And what does the interior say about one’s own character? “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” provides the ideal platform by providing prominent designers with an opportunity to experiment, a chance to formulate a creative statement on modern interior culture using up-to-the-minute products.
Doshi Levien set up home at the imm cologne
Koelnmesse has invited Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien from London to design “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” as guests of honour. “We are delighted to have found such a progressive and forward-looking studio as Doshi Levien, who are not just part of the scene’s avant-garde but, thanks to their many product developments, also cover a wide spectrum and can genuinely point the way ahead,” says a pleased Dick Spierenburg. The London design team is famous for its original designs for major players like Moroso, Authentics or Cappellini, but also for its affinity with interaction design and other sectors of industry. The Anglo-Indian husband and wife team takes a hybrid approach to design that allows them to combine various cultures, industries, technologies and craft techniques. “It will be interesting to see what unconventional way they choose for combining furnishing objects and elements from other sectors into something unique in “Das Haus”. They reconcile many worlds. That in itself is one reason why they are so well suited to our new project, as well as to Pure Village,” says Spierenburg in explanation of Koelnmesse’s decision to invite Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien to design the first “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” installation.
Dezeen Wire: architecture critic Rowan Moore has reviewed the new book by American author Hal Foster that examines the increasingly blurred relationship between art and architecture – The Guardian
Dezeen Wire: architects OMA have announced the opening of Milstein Hall at Cornell University in New York.
The project was led by OMA partner and director Shohei Shigematsu, and Pritzker Prize-winner Rem Koolhaas. It unites the various facilities of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning.
See all of our Dezeen stories on OMA here.
Here is some more information from the architects:
OMA’s Milstein Hall opens at Cornell University
NEW YORK CITY/ITHACA, N.Y., September 16, 2011 | Cornell University’s Milstein Hall – the first new building in over 100 years for the renowned College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) – opened its studios for students in late August with completion coming in October. Led by OMA partner and director Shohei Shigematsu, and Pritzker Prize-winner Rem Koolhaas, the design for the 47,000-square-foot building physically unites the AAP’s long-separated facilities to form a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration.
“Milstein Hall operates on many levels,” says AAP dean Kent Kleinman. “It redefines the entry for the northern edge of the campus; it provides a permeable boundary between academic space and the public; it offers extraordinary spatial relationships between internal programmatic elements; and it offers a landscape of studios that fosters a level of interaction between our undergraduate and graduate architecture students that we have never enjoyed before.”
Milstein Hall’s large horizontal plate connects the second levels of the AAP’s existing Sibley Hall and Rand Hall to provide 25,000 square feet of studio space with panoramic views of the surrounding environment. Enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass and a green roof with 41 skylights, this “upper plate” cantilevers almost 50 feet over University Avenue to establish a relationship with the Foundry, a third existing AAP facility. The wide-open expanse of the plate — structurally supported by a hybrid truss system — stimulates interaction and allows flexible use over time.
Shohei Shigematsu comments: “Our ambition for the upper plate was for it to serve as a pedagogical platform for the architecture, art and planning departments – an open condition that could trigger interaction and discussion. The students and faculty are already beginning to use the space to generate unexpected results that go beyond what we had planned.”
Beneath the hovering studio plate, the ground level accommodates major program elements including a 253-seat auditorium, and a dome that encloses a 5,000 square foot circular critique space. The dome serves multiple functions: it supports the raked auditorium seating, it becomes the stairs leading up to the studio plate above, and it is the artificial ground for an array of exterior seating pods fostering public activities.
Dezeen Wire: Terence Conran turns 80 on 4 October and a major retrospective of Conran’s career opens at the Design Museum on 16 November.
A season of events celebrating his life and work will be launched with an evening at Tate Modern on Tuesday 20 September featuring a panel discussion with Stephen Bayley, Christopher Frayling and Fiona MacCarthy.
Here is some more information from the Design Museum:
SIR TERENCE CONRAN’S 80TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
The Way We Live Now, a season of events, celebrating Sir Terence Conran’s 80th birthday, will be launched with an evening at Tate Modern on Tuesday 20 September 2011, featuring a panel discussion with Stephen Bayley, Christopher Frayling and Fiona MacCarthy
Sir Terence Conran celebrates his 80th birthday on 4 October this year. A major retrospective exhibition exploring his unique impact on contemporary life in Britain will go on show at the Design Museum from 16 November 2011 – 4 March 2012. Through his own design work, and also through his entrepreneurial flair, Conran has transformed the British way of life. The Way We Live Now examines Conran’s impact and legacy, whilst also showing his design approach and inspirations. The exhibition traces his career from post-war austerity through to the new sensibility of the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, the birth of the Independent Group and the Pop Culture of the 1960s, to the design boom of the 1980s and on to the present day. The exhibition is curated by Stafford Cliff and Deyan Sudjic.
Sir Terence’s donation to the new development of the Design Museum of a cash gift of £7.5m and the value of the sale of the lease of the current Design Museum building at Shad Thames valued in the region of £10m was announced in June 2011. The Design Museum plans to relocate from its current home at Shad Thames to the former Commonwealth Institute building, giving it three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions, showcase its world-class collection and extend its learning programme.
Sir Terence Conran is one of the world’s best-known designers, restaurateurs and retailers. Born in 1931, he founded the Conran Design Studio in 1956 and later the Habitat chain of home furnishings stores that revolutionised the UK High Street in the 1960s and 1970s by bringing intelligent, modern design within reach of the general population. In the 1980s Habitat was expanded and following a series of acquisitions evolved into Storehouse plc, of which he retired as Chairman in 1990. Today he is the Chairman of Conran Holdings, a design group with restaurants, shops and an architecture and design practice operating all over the world. He has been Provost of the Royal College of Art since 2003.
In 1982 he established the forerunner of the Design Museum, the Boilerhouse, in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The success of this project led to the opening of the Design Museum in 1989 at its current location in Shad Thames. Over the years the Conran Foundation has donated approximately £50m to the Design Museum and Boilerhouse projects.
Dezeen Wire: a collaboration between Italian homeware company Missoni and fashion brand Target proved so popular that the retail site went down within minutes of its launch this morning – Daily Mail
Dezeen Wire: public criticism has greeted the launch of a campaign by the family of British author Roald Dahl to raise £500,000 to preserve the garden shed where he wrote many of his popular children’s books – The Guardian
Dezeen Wire: architect John Pawson talks to critic Kieran Long about his installation at St Paul’s Cathedral, which features a large mirror reflecting the interior of a helical staircase. The minimal but technically complex installation is open from 19-23 September as part of the London Design Festival – London Evening Standard
See all our stories about John Pawson on Dezeen here and listen to our podcast interview with the architect here.
See all stories about this year’s London Design Festival here.
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