Software that can tell what city it’s looking at

Software that can tell what city it's looking at

Dezeen Wire: researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris have designed software that can look at a photo and identify the city in which it was taken by recognising building typologies.

The software uses images extracted from Google Street View to cross-reference architectural elements like balconies, windows and street signs and identify patterns unique to particular locations.

This movie explains how it works:

Visit the project website for more information »

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city it’s looking at
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Dezeen Music Project: Summer Swell by Cillian Warfield

This soothing instrumental is the latest track by Helsinki-based musician Cillian Warfield. A delicate acoustic guitar picking pattern forms the basis of the track, from which mournful horns and eerie bell sounds emerge as the track builds up, before fading back down again in a gentle swell.

Listen to the other chill-out tracks on Dezeen Music Project here.

About Dezeen Music Project | More tracks | Submit your track

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by Cillian Warfield
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The Royal Opera House launches competition to redesign entrances

Royal Opera House and ballerina photographed by Russ London

Dezeen Wire: the Royal Opera House in London has launched a competition to redesign the entrances and surrounding public spaces of its Covent Garden building, making it more accessible to the public.

London studios Amanda Levete Architects and Heatherwick Studio are among the seven firms invited to participate, alongside Diller Scofidio + RenfroStanton WilliamsJamie Fobert ArchitectsCaruso St John Architects and Witherford Watson Mann Architects.

The architect of the winning project will be announced in December and appointed to work on feasibility studies for the next phase of the project.

Here are the full details from the Royal Opera House:


The Royal Opera House (ROH) is running an invited architectural competition to ‘open up’ its public spaces to become more welcoming to visitors, provide an easily accessible insight into the work that goes on here and to improve the levels of comfort.

The aim is to make the physical entrances and street level public areas to the building more open and tantalising, and to find ways of developing existing space to assist making the work of the Royal Opera House and the associated creative processes more visible to the general public. In turn this will enhance the appeal of the Covent Garden building as a destination in itself. The Royal Opera House will be looking to reduce its use of energy and resources throughout the project as part of an ongoing strategy embedding ‘green thinking’ into all areas of ROH operations.

Tony Hall, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House said “We are hugely excited about the ideas and inspiration the competition will generate. The Royal Opera House is looking for the team who, if we can raise the funds needed to fulfil our shared ambitions, will create the next evolution of our building. We are keen to investigate the possibilities of opening up the building even more to ensure that we have the very best facilities to welcome our loyal and existing audiences and to reach out to new ones.”

This feasibility study comes twelve years after Dixon Jones’ redevelopment of the Royal Opera House which dramatically improved backstage and technical facilities, front of house entertaining areas and included additional performance spaces. During this time, the building has become used more than ever both as a performance venue and for other activities, with more than 650,000 people coming into our building last year and a further 30,000 people coming into the building during the daytime as casual visitors.

The competition process will allow us to select an architect to carry out a feasibility study for the work. The competition will run from July to November 2012 and we will announce the selected architect in December 2012. This process is being funded completely by private supporters of the Royal Opera House.

On completion of the feasibility study, the funds necessary to move to the next phase of the project will also need to be entirely raised from private sources.

The Royal Opera House has been advised on the project by Ricky Burdett of the London School of Economics. Dixon Jones are advising on the competition and feasibility process and Sir Jeremy Dixon will sit on the final jury. The seven invited firms are: Amanda Levete Architects, Caruso St John Architects, Diller Scofidio and Renfro, Heatherwick Studio, Jamie Fobert Architects, Stanton Williams Architects, Witherford Watson Mann Architects.

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“Flames of fame for Olympic cauldron designer” – The Independent


Dezeen Wire:
London 2012 Olympic cauldron designer Thomas Heatherwick has revealed that he has been inundated with messages of support from people “moved by his spectacular creation”. Speaking to the Independent, Heatherwick also says he ignored advice to avoid having moving parts in the cauldron, which features around 1,000 moving components. “ ”It’s probably more complex than a Swiss watch,” Heatherwick says – read the article in the Independent.

See all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics | See all our stories about Thomas Heatherwick

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Boost for Finnish tourism as visitors head to World Design Capital Helsinki


Dezeen Wire:
Finland is attracting tourists at an unprecedented rate, boosted by Helsinki’s current status as the World Design Capital, in sharp contrast to the unexpected drop in visitor numbers London has experienced during its Olympic summer.

Overnight stays in Helsinki in the period from January to May grew by 3.5%, while the city of Lahti saw a huge 32.8% increase. Tourist numbers were also up in Espoo (22.3%) and Vantaa (4.5%). Significant growth in overnight stays last year means the cumulative growth is strong, according to World Design Capital coordinators.

Tourists are coming to Helsinki to visit World Design Capital exhibitions and sites such as the Kamppi Chapel of Silence and The Pavilion, designed by Aalto University Wood Studio students.

In the British capital however, tourists appear to have vanished from London’s shops, theatres, hotels, trains and buses, despite expectations of a huge influx of visitors during the London 2012 Olympics.

See all our stories about Finland »
See all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics »

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World Design Capital Helsinki
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“The market cannot solve the housing crisis” – Justin McGuirk


Dezeen Wire:
 in an article for Domus magazine, design critic Justin McGuirk examines the social and physical decline of London’s social housing, discussing the part played by luxury real-estate developers and how architects have been held accountable.

Council housing blocks in Hackney, Newham, and Southwark are cited as examples, as McGuirk calls for the British government to accept responsibility for the city’s housing crisis and to work with architects to protect residents from the ruthlessness of the property market.

Read the full article here »

See also: our interview with McGuirk on the future of design criticism.

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– Justin McGuirk
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Olympic stamps by Hat Trick Design

London 2012 stamps by Hat Trick Design

Dezeen Wire: London studio Hat Trick Design have produced a set of Royal Mail stamps featuring iconic architecture from the capital to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics.

London 2012 stamps by Hat Trick Design

Tower Bridge, Tate Modern, the London Eye and the Olympic Stadium all feature on the stamps alongside the Olympic sports of fencing, diving, cycling and running.

London 2012 stamps by Hat Trick Design

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “Even fleet-footed Hermes himself would hang up his winged sandals and send his letters through Royal Mail if he saw the quality of these beautiful Olympics-themed stamps.”

London 2012 stamps by Hat Trick Design

We’ve also previously shown stamps for Royal Mail and the Dutch postal service featuring design classics.

London 2012 stamps by Hat Trick Design

See all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics »

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Hat Trick Design
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Luca Nichetto to design Das Haus at imm cologne 2013


Dezeen Wire:
Venetian designer Luca Nichetto is to create an installation representing his ideal home for the Das Haus installation at trade fair imm cologne in January.

The first Das Haus was created by London designers Doshi Levien for this year’s event and you can see what they came up with in our earlier story.

The next imm cologne takes place from 14 to 20 January 2013.

See all our stories about Luca Nichetto »
See all our coverage of this year’s imm cologne »

Here’s some more information from the organisers:


After its successful premiere in 2012, “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” is set to continue at the imm cologne 2013. In Luca Nichetto’s “Haus”, everything revolves around a centrally located living room that is intended to become the centre of a sustainable way of living that integrates nature.

The premiere of the new design installation format at the imm cologne was a huge success for both the trade fair and the designers. As guests of honour, designer couple Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien had the unique opportunity to blaze a trail for the future development of the series with their interpretation of this innovative new assignment. And that is precisely what they did: in their hands, “Das Haus – Interiors on Stage” became a crowd-puller that fully justified its location in the midst of Pure Village, the trade fair’s lively forum for interior design. In particular, the new conceptual approach of adopting a less abstract stance than previous formats and instead aiming to furnish the artificial architectural framework in lifelike fashion was welcomed across the board.

“Of course ‘Das Haus’ is about tendencies in current product and interior design as well,” says the imm cologne’s Creative Director Dick Spierenburg, summing up the public interest in a nutshell, “but what really makes this format so interesting for visitors and the public is that it is filtered through the personality of the guest designer.”

This time round, the guest designer is from Venice: Luca Nichetto, who comes from the famous island of Murano and has been strongly influenced by the glasswork of its craftsmen, sees himself as an autodidact. He is famous for doing things his own way. And so he has remained loyal to Veneto and the region’s infrastructure of design producers and subcontractors, a network that is rapidly gaining international significance. In 2006 he founded his own design studio in Venice’s Mestre Harbour, opening a second studio in Stockholm in 2011. His company develops designs for everything from sofas, chairs, office furniture, lamps and carpets all the way to glasses, vases and kitchen accessories. He is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after young designers in Italy and collaborates with a multitude of international brands, including Bosa, Casamania, Cassina, De Padova, Established & Sons, Foscarini, Fratelli Guzzini, Glass, Globo, Italesse, Kristalia, La Chance, MG Lab, Moroso, Offecct, Salviati, Skitsch and Tacchini. It is, he says, his experiences with the design culture that permeates everyday life in Sweden that motivate him to combine the modern, functional and democratic design philosophy of Scandinavia with the emotional, flamboyant tradition of Italy, which is geared towards craftsmanship just as much as it is towards speed. As in 2012, the imm cologne has thus selected a representative of the younger generation of designers who nevertheless has sufficient experience to largely furnish even an extensive living space installation like “Das Haus” with his own products.

With his plans for “Das Haus”, Luca Nichetto wants to pursue his growing interest in sustainable design. What particularly appeals to him about the project is the possibility of conducting a holistic experiment that goes far beyond the scope of pure product design. “Nature is often regarded as a combination of different elements located outside. Occasionally nature is there just to accomplish decorative functions, thus losing its vital essence and characteristics. When I think about the development of our contemporary human lifestyle, keeping in mind the objects I’ve designed, I imagine a house with a central ‘living room’ like a beating heart,” reveals Nichetto. He compares “Das Haus” with a small planet where the living room becomes as important as the Amazon Rainforest is for the earth: “A green lung that helps us live”. His “Haus” will thus become a study of the relationship between the macrocosm and the microcosm – an idea that draws its inspiration from a short film by Ray and Charles Eames entitled “Powers of 10”. “All the rooms will be linked to this ‘Green Heart’, which will transform my house into a totally eco-friendly container, with natural features incorporated into the high standard of living that ‘Das Haus’ provides for its inhabitants.”

At the next imm cologne in January 2013 Pure Village, where “Das Haus” is located, will be changing floors and moving to Hall 3.1, along with the D3 Design talents exhibition and the lecture forum “The Stage”. Pure Village was launched in 2010 as a conceptual and spatial extension of the Pure segment. With its systematically planned trade fair architecture and extended interior design offering, it has proved an ideal addition to the large-scale brand presentations in Hall 11. Under the title Pure, the imm cologne brings together presentations by brand-name manufacturers from a wide variety of segments who feel a special commitment to design. Anybody who wants to get an idea of the latest original interior design ideas and avant-garde designs from the wide spectrum on offer at the imm cologne will find what he is looking for here. The great demand for premium exhibition space calls for targeted expansion of the Pure format. The imm cologne 2013 will therefore see the addition of a third Pure element: Pure Editions, a platform for creative brands with visionary products and product concepts.
.

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“Higgs boson discovery announced in Comic Sans” – HUH


Dezeen Wire:
despite being one of the most significant scientific events of the past decade, the recent discovery of the Higgs boson particle was announced using Comic Sans, the most hated, informal typeface – HUH

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in Comic Sans” – HUH
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Design Museum awarded £4.6 million from Heritage Lottery Fund

Commonwealth Institute to be new Design Museum

Dezeen Wire: the Design Museum in London has been awarded £4.6 million towards developing the museum’s new home in south London by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Design Museum by John Pawson

The museum also received £300,000 from the fund in September 2010 and in June last year the museum’s co-founder Terence Conran donated a cash gift of £7.5 million, including proceeds from the sale of the lease of the current Design Museum building at Shad Thames.

Design Museum by John Pawson

The museum will relocate to the former Commonwealth Institute building in south London (top image), originally designed by RMJM in the 1960s and currently being redeveloped by John Pawson. The new museum is set to reopen in 2014.

See more images of the design in our earlier story and read more about the Design Museum here.

Here are some more details from the Design Museum:


New Design Museum wins £4.65m from Heritage Lottery Fund

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded the Design Museum a grant of £4.65million towards its plans to create the world’s leading museum of contemporary design and architecture at the former Commonwealth Institute in Kensington, it was announced today. This is in addition to the £300,000 of development funding awarded by HLF in September 2010.

With the addition of the HLF grant, the Design Museum has made good progress towards raising the necessary funds to complete the new Design Museum project which is due to open in 2014. The campaign also aims to raise an endowment fund to ensure the long-term sustainability of the museum.

John Pawson has redesigned the interior of the former Commonwealth Institute, a Grade 2* listed building which has lain dormant for over a decade. The move will give the Design Museum three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions, showcase its world class collection and extend its learning programme. The move will bring the museum into Kensington’s cultural quarter where it will join the V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Royal College of Art and Serpentine Gallery.

Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Museum said ‘This is a vital step forward for the new Design Museum and an outstanding vote of confidence in the future of this very exciting project.’

Sue Bowers, Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund London, comments “We are delighted to be supporting this transformational project that will see the Design Museum, London relocated to a new and improved home. The move to the former Commonwealth Institute building will not only give this iconic building a new and long-term use, but will also allow the Design Museum’s extensive permanent collection to be available for free for the first time. With three times the space of the museums former home in Shad Thames visitors will be able to better appreciate Britain’s considerable design achievements. This is an exemplary project that will transform the museum’s important collections and add to Kensington’s already thriving cultural quarter.”

The museum has made great progress towards its fundraising target through pledges and donations including: The Conran Foundation, The Dr Mortimer and Theresa Sackler Foundation, the Atkin Foundation, The Hans and Marit Rausing Charitable Trust, The Wolfson Foundation, The Garfield Weston Foundation, Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement, 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust, The Arnold Foundation and The Department for Culture Media and Sport.

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from Heritage Lottery Fund
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