Le photographe américain Cody William Smith a réalisé quatre séries très belles intitulées « A Moment of Reflection ». Il prend des photographies de paysages impressionnants vus à travers des miroirs : la mer, un coucher de soleil, le désert ou des montagnes, un éventail de lieux différents. A voir ci-dessous.
Milan 2014: the second project debuted by London studio Doshi Levien for Danish design brand Hay this year is a collection of mirrors with geometric shapes resembling jewels.
The 13 different mirrors in Doshi Levien‘s Maya series are produced in variations on diamond, oblong, octagon, almond, drop and circular shapes that can be combined to create unique wall installations.
“The shapes are coming from a meeting point between Indian tribal culture and modern geometric abstraction,” Jonathan Levien told Dezeen. “The forms were thought of as jewels for the wall, as constellations or sentences of different shapes.”
Combining the mirrors in different configurations allows the user to create arrangements comprising practical and decorative elements.
“The larger mirrors are designed to offer face-height reflections, whereas the smaller ones are like satellites to accompany the larger mirrors, or to be used in numbers simply to bring glimmering light into the space,” Levien added.
Doshi Levien originally designed the mirrors in 2012 for a room they curated as part of an exhibition called India Art Now at Arken Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen.
The mirrors were installed on a wall opposite portraits of famous Indian icons displayed in similarly shaped frames and were intended to “bring the steely grey sky of Denmark into the space.”
The designers showed the mirrors to Hay, which chose to add them to its collection and now produces them from laser-cut glass set in pressure die cast aluminium frames with a black powder-coated finish.
Doshi Levien also created a chair for Hay with a curving shell that references the shape of a traditional Japanese paper fan.
Both projects were presented by HAY during last week’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile.
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for Hay appeared first on Dezeen.
Milan 2014: trees appear to float within this forest-like installation by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, at Cassina‘s stand at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan this week (+ slideshow).
Sou Fujimoto‘s Floating Forest suspends trees contained in mirrored cubes throughout Cassina‘s space at the furniture fair, exploring the architect’s interest in the contrast of nature and architecture within the Italian brand’s Milan exhibition space.
“I feel that Italian design is very powerful because of their history and because of their visions for the future,” Fujimoto told Dezeen. “They have both, not only traditions, and can still maintain the identity and quality of Italian design.”
Each hanging container is suspended from metal wires and covered with mirrors on the outside to reflect the trees and give the appearance of effortlessly hovering throughout the exhibition.
The furniture is arranged as individual rooms on a gridded floor plan.
“Some of the trees are floating at different heights to create articulations from space to space,” Fujimoto explained. “The installation creates the excitement of walking around as the scene is gradually opening up to you.”
The installation comprises a mixture of hanging trees as well as freestanding trees, arranged purposely to allow maximum floor space for visitors to pass through the showroom. “The trees are similar to the typical Japanese tree Momiji, as the shape is beautiful and the leaves are very delicate,” said the architect.
The piece will be installed at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Hall 20 Stand D1/E6, until Sunday.
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Cassina’s Milan display space appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Dutch studio MVRDV has revealed its competition-winning design to create a bowl-shaped art depot for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam with a mirrored exterior and a rooftop sculpture garden.
MVRDV‘s Boijmans Collection Building will provide Rotterdam’s most important art gallery with a six-storey storage facility to house over 125,000 paintings, sculptures and objects, most of which will be accessible to the public.
Proposed for the northern end of the OMA-designed Museumpark, the building will have a round shape that tapers outward towards the top to minimise its footprint on the park. Its entire exterior will be made from mirrored glass, allowing the building to reflect its surroundings.
A public pathway will zigzag up through all six storeys, leading up from a lobby and cafe on the ground floor towards exhibition galleries and a restaurant at the top. These spaces will open out to the rooftop sculpture garden featuring a Futuro, the futuristic house developed in the 1960s by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen.
The levels in between will offer a series of exhibition areas curated by the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, as well as a look inside various depots and restoration workshops. Some artworks will be displayed within these spaces, and could be swapped with the use of mobile storage racks.
“A public art depot is a new phenomenon to the Netherlands; normally these depots are hidden in the periphery of cities,” said MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas.
“It is a bold initiative that will raise the attention of the international museum circles. It offers space to Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and will help it to strengthen its international profile.”
The building will also include offices, logistics rooms and quarantine areas, as well as private art collection rooms that can be rented through the museum. Completion is scheduled for 2017.
Here’s the full announcement from MVRDV:
MVRDV wins competition Collection Building
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Today the city of Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and MVRDV present the design for the new Collection Building. The building with a surface of 15,000m2 is an open art depot featuring exhibition halls, a sculpture roof garden and a restaurant. The public can see what’s going on behind the scenes in a museum and private art collectors will be able to store their own collection in ideal Museum conditions. The design – a reflective round volume – responds to its surroundings, Rotterdam’s Museumpark in which it will be completed in 2017. The allocated budget is 50 million Euro.
Collection Building is an art depot open to the public. A public route zigzags through the building, from the lobby on the ground floor where a café can be found up to an exhibition space, sculpture garden and restaurant on the roof. On the way up the route passes along and through art depots and restoration workshops. In depots visible from the route, the exhibition can be changed on a daily basis by simply moving storage racks so each visit to the building can offer a unique experience. On three floors the route passes through exhibition spaces which will be programmed by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
The building – which will store the precious art collection of Rotterdam – will also have spaces not accessible to the general public. For example logistics, quarantine and room for private art collections whose owners can visit their art and even enjoy it in private spaces comparable to the art-equivalent of a sky box. This is a new commercial service offered by the museum. Additionally depots and an office of philanthropic foundation De Verre Bergen will be located in the Collection Building.
The roof featuring a restaurant, sculpture garden and exhibition space offers wide views over Rotterdam and will be the new home for the Futuro, the ufo-shaped house of Finish architect Matti Suuronen.
The Collection Building will be realised on the northern edge of Rotterdams Museumpark, realised by OMA with Yves Brunier in 1994. In order to spare the park, the volume is designed as a compact round volume with a small footprint and will be clad with a reflective glass facade. This will make the building less visible and allow reflections, the public can see what is happening elsewhere in the park. Where needed the reflection will be lesser for transparency and to avoid unwanted light effects.
40% of the 15,000m2 will be visible or accessible to the public. The building will feature seven different climatic conditions facilitating ideal conditions for art storage, offices and the public. The ambition is to reach sustainability classification BREEAM Excellent.
In the autumn of 2013 five architecture teams presented their designs for the Collection Building in a competition won by MVRDV. The other contenders were Koen Van Velsen, Harry Gugger with Barcode Architects, Neutelings Riedijk and Mad with NIO. MVRDV was disqualified from the competition after an alleged breach of the regulations but was vindicated in a legal procedure and declared official winner. MVRDV won the competition together with Pieters Bouwtechniek, IGG Consultants and DGMR Consultants. Expected completion is envisioned for 2017.
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for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen appeared first on Dezeen.
A triangular section of frame at the top of this mirror by German design duo Kaschkasch Cologne allows it to rest neatly in the corner of a room.
The Kaschkasch Floor Mirror was designed for Danish brand Menu by Kaschkasch Cologne as a space-saving solution.
The top of its simple aluminium frame is bent into a 90-degree point so it fits into the often unused spaces where perpendicular walls meet.
The tubular frame has curved corners and is available in black, white or moss green.
“Our products are casual and voguish at the same time,” said Florian Kallus and Sebastian Schneider of Kaschkasch Cologne.
“Precise lines and geometrical shapes give them a distinct impression, which we like to combine with intriguing colour combinations for the additional Kaschkasch touch.”
When balanced against a flat surface, the top of the frame can be used as a rail for hanging clothes.
“We want each design to offer something extra, discovered by the user little by little,” said the designers.
The mirror glass is fixed between the sides of the frame and doesn’t extend to the top or bottom.
Menu presented the mirrors at the Stockholm Furniture Fair earlier this year.
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designed to fit into corners appeared first on Dezeen.
Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka will present a reflective glass table for Italian design brand Glas Italia in Milan next month.
Yoshioka‘s Prism Mirror Table for Glas Italia uses a high-transparency mirrored glass that covers the surfaces of the table to reflect its surroundings.
“This piece will be a table like a shimmering sculpture reflecting the view of surroundings,” said Yoshioka. The table is made up of a long rectangular top with bevelled edges, with mirrored blocks for legs.
The panels of glass were cut in a way that allows the edges of the table to refract light like a prism.
Yoshioka is known for his use of reflective and transparent materials including chairs grown from crystals and furniture that’s almost invisible. The table follows on from Tokujin Yoshioka’s Prism mirrors for Glas Italia last year. The new piece will be shown at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile from 8 to 13 April.
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for Glas Italia in Milan appeared first on Dezeen.
When we last caught up with Spanish industrial designer Cristian Reyes he had just introduced the Giros Table, a beautiful example of purpose-driven design. And now, we see another aesthetically fun and functional piece for the…
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These interactive installations by artist Daniel Rozin use sensors and motors to rearrange objects into a mirror-image of whoever stands in front of them (+ slideshow).
In his Mechanical Mirrors, Rozin connects motors to items including wooden pegs, plastic spokes and pieces of rubbish, then assembles them on large picture frames.
Behind each image is a hidden camera that feeds what it sees in real-time to a computer, which converts the image into an 830-byte video signal. Software designed by Rozin then instructs each motor to move the panel it controls accordingly to make up the image. The result is a mirror-image of the person or object in front of the panel.
“The mechanical mirrors are made of various materials but share the same behaviour and interaction,” explained Rozin. “Any person standing in front of one of these pieces is instantly reflected on its surface.”
His most recent installation, the Angles Mirror, used 465 plastic spokes arranged in a triangle-shaped steel frame to achieve this effect.
With his Weave Mirror, Rozin used 768 motorised and laminated C-shaped prints to mimic the look and feel of a homespun basket.
For his Trash Mirror meanwhile, he assembled 500 pieces of variously coloured bits of rubbish collected from the streets of New York and the artist’s pockets.
“This piece suggests that we are reflected in what we discard,” said Rozin. “The piece celebrates the ability of computation to inflict order on even the messiest of substances – trash.”
Rozin’s first mirror used 830 square pieces of wood. He continued to experiment with the material, most notably in 2007, where he used 650 wooden pegs, cutting each one at an angle to create the illusion of pixels.
“The silently moving wood components in this piece flicker like jewels or coins in the spotlight, challenging our notions about what constitutes a ‘digital object’,” he said.
Rozin has been commissioned to build an installation using this technology at the Taiwan Taoyuan international airport later this year. Rozin’s work will also be on display at the Barbican in London this summer as part of the gallery’s Digital Revolution exhibition.
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images using everyday objects appeared first on Dezeen.
The surrounding trees and sky will be reflected in a wide, shallow pool of water in this installation by Spanish architecture group Citylaboratory for a garden festival in Quebec, Canada.
The Rotunda installation by Citylaboratory will be created as part of the International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis in Quebec this summer.
A large black basin will be filled with water to reflect the surrounding forest then left to be used by local wildlife.
“Conceived as a device capturing the beauty of nature, the intention is to transform the surrounding landscape into the garden itself by capturing what is outside its boundaries,” said the designers, who are based in Santiago de Compostela in north-western Spain.
“Water is used as a raw material to create a reflecting surface,” they continued. “The container is simply a frame that suspends water above the ground; a homogenous black object, assembled in a direct way, minimising the expression of assembly joints and the contact with the ground.”
Once the dish is filled with water, the idea is to leave it to evolve over time as a source of water for birds and other garden life. Like a regular pond, it will be subject to falling leaves and fluctuations in heat, light and weather.
The project is one of six winners in a competition to design an installation for the festival, which will take place from 28 June to 28 September 2014. The design was selected from nearly 300 proposals for contemporary gardens submitted by over 700 architects, landscape architects, designers and artists.
Previous installations at the festival include a garden full of mushrooms grown on walls of decaying books, which Dezeen featured at its inauguration 2010 and revisited again in 2012 once the fungi had time to develop on the books.
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International Garden Festival in Quebec appeared first on Dezeen.
Strong storytelling plays a vital role in the work of Klára Šumová. Through her interior objects of various typologies and scales, the designer explores poetry and stories in design. Šumová debuted several years ago with her…
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