Hasta La Ideas

Designer Ron Arad compares the overuse of 3D printing today to how musicians “abused” synthesisers in this movie made by Alice Masters for London’s Design Museum.

Ron Arad was interviewed about his use of rapid-prototyping technology to coincide with the Design Museum‘s The Future is Here exhibition, currently displaying some of his pioneering and more recent 3D-printed work.

“I discovered [3D printing] when it was called rapid prototyping… and I thought ‘here’s another way of making things’,” he says. “Things are very fast, you can draw something in the morning and print it in the evening.”

Currently exhibited at the museum, Arad’s Not Made by Hand, Not Made in China collection of spiralling, flexible 3D-printed designs was launched during Milan design week in 2000.

“I remember showing it to [designer] Achille Castiglioni when he came to see it,” says Arad. “I remember taking the time and explaining to him what it is, and I thought ‘this is great, I have something new to teach one of my heroes’.”

He reminisces about how exciting it was to experiment with the new materials and machinery, but says over time it was overused just as synthesisers were in music.

“The technology completely took over the studio and it was the most interesting thing we were dealing with, and predictably it became commonplace,” he remembers. “Synthesisers were abused completely and so is this technology we’re talking about.”

In the movie he also talks about his range of glasses made entirely from selective laser sintered (SLS) nylon powder, launched in Milan earlier this year and also part of the exhibit.

“Usually when you make eyewear it has a lot of components and a lot of tedious work with little things, screws, hinges,” he says. “We have the whole collection that is monolithic, just one material.”

Finally, he ponders everyday uses for the technology in the future: “Maybe in the future the plumber will have a machine in his van that will just print the S-pipe according to his needs in the van.”

Dezeen also interviewed Arad about his 3D-printed eyewear as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour coverage of this year’s Milan design week.

The Future is Here continues at London’s Design Museum until 29 October 2013.

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– Ron Arad appeared first on Dezeen.

This house in Alabama folds open to provide seating for an open-air performance space (+ movie).

Sections of the house-shaped structure designed by artist Matthew Mazzotta are hinged and unfold to reveal rows of seating inside the walls and under the roof.

Community organisation Coleman Center for the Arts and local residents teamed up with Mazzotta to demolish a derelict house in the centre of York, Alabama, and repurpose its materials and site for new public space – an amenity lacking in the town.

“Public space is an important element for the social and political health of a community,” Mazzotta told Dezeen. “If there is nowhere for people to come together and talk, except for the grocery store, then the conversations about the town are much less dynamic and inclusive.”

The team took the abandoned dwelling apart by hand to salvage timber boards, window frames and anything else reusable. The fire department then levelled the remaining debris using a controlled blaze.

The new structure sits on the same plot as the original house and is built on top of reclaimed railway sleeper foundations. The project was completed seven months after the idea was initiated.

Opening along the top ridge in five sections on each side. Hinges are located along the ground and seams halfway down the sides of the roof.

The large sections are lowered down in two stages and each requires a few people to move them at a time.

Once fully unfolded, five rows of seating in three lines face an open area that can be used for film screenings, musical performances and town meetings.

“People that sit together can dream together and have a moment to collectively see their town from a new perspective, and have a moment to express that to one another,” Mazzotta said.

Present at the opening event, Mazzotta noticed that everyone made themselves at home in the outdoor theatre straight away:

“People took right to it and started dancing and having a good time,” he said. “When we showed the movie, all the kids sat and laid all over it like it was their living room.”

“Overall there is just a real positive attitude towards the project since it cleaned up such an eyesore and now provides such an enjoyable experience, both through the events and the design,” said Mazzotta.

We recently published a home in Paraguay with a roof that lifts up like the lid of a box, and other moving buildings we’ve featured include a house that would shape-shift in different weather and structures that would roll along railway tracks.

Other outdoor theatres on Dezeen include an outdoor stage in Estonia made entirely from timber batons and a temporary canal-side cinema under a London motorway flyover.

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Read on for more information from the project organisers:

Open House by Matthew Mazzotta

202 Main Street, York, Alabama – between the town post office and the main grocery store.

What happens when an artist is invited to use the resources of a small town to help transform its identity? Artist Matthew Mazzotta, the Coleman Center for the Arts, and the people of York Alabama have teamed up to transform one of York’s most iconic blighted properties into a new public space. Open House is a house with a secret, it physically transforms from the shape of a house into an open air theater that seats one hundred people by having its walls and roof fold down.

On June 15 of this year, a ribbon cutting by the Mayor of York, Gena Robbins, inaugurated Open House. The symbolic gesture was followed with an invocation prayer to bless the project by Reverend Willie, performances by a gospel choir and the local R&B funk band Time Zone, as well as an outdoor film screening of Dr. Suess’s The Lorax. For the town of York, this is the beginning of a series of free public events programed by the Coleman Center for the Arts. A screening of the film Madagascar 3 was shown this past weekend – August 10th at 7:30pm. The theatre is free and open to the public.

How Open House came to be?

In January 2011, artist Matthew Mazzotta was invited by the Coleman Center For The Arts to organise an artwork with the people of York. During Matthew’s initial visit to York, the artist asked people from the community to bring something from their living room so that they could recreate a living room outdoors in the middle of the street as a way to provoke discussion about what were on peoples minds and to generate ideas about what direction they might go in. From this conversation, they developed a project that uses the materials of an abandoned house as well as the land it sits on to build the transforming structure on the footprint of the old house.

How it works?

The metamorphosis of Open House is designed to require cooperation. It takes four people one and a half hours to unfold the structure. The foundation is made of used railroad ties which anchor the custom fabricated industrial hinges to five rows of stadium seating. The rows of seats fold down with the aid of a hand winch and enough manpower to counter balance the hefty, but agile structure.

Critical Impact

Through the project, the artist hopes to directly address the lack of public space in York, AL by providing a physical location that becomes a common ground for community dialogue and activities. The new structure carries the weight of the past through the materials that were salvaged and repurposed from the old structure, most visibly the original pink siding. When Open House is fully unfolded, it provides an opportunity for people to come together and experience the community from a new perspective. When it folds back up, it resembles the original abandoned house, reminding people of the history of what was there before.

Support for Open House provided, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Visual Artists Network, York Drug, the City of York, the City of York Fire Department and countless individual supporters of the Coleman Center for the Arts and Matthew Mazzotta. A special thanks to Jegan Vincent De Paul, Cory Vineyard, Curtis Oliveira, James Marshall, Elouise Finch, Brenda Carole and Lerene Johnson, Alpha Kappa Alpha of the University of West Alabama, John’s Welding of Meridian, MS, Beany Green, Pam Dorr and CCA employees and Board of Directors.

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Je Ahn of London-based Studio Weave discusses how a series of design and build workshops are reintroducing architects to working on site in this movie by Stephenson/Bishop and Andy Matthews.

Studio Weave co-founder Ahn led this year’s Studio in the Woods summer workshop programme for students, architects and designers, first initiated by architect Piers Taylor of Invisible Studio to encourage a more hands-on approach to design.

“It started when a collective of architects came together as friends with the desire to make things with their own hands in the landscape,” says Ahn.

Participants use teamwork and communication to design and build as they go rather than drawing and planning off site.

“As architects we are getting pushed further away from what’s happening on site and the real world,” Ahn says. “You imagine things through your drawings and students are exactly the same, doing hypothetical projects that look beautiful… but how they’re actually built and realised is another matter.”

Sixty students, practising architects, furniture designers and sculptors spent five days creating timber structures amongst the woodland while camping on site last month.

Designers led five teams to build small shelters hidden in the trees, weave planks between tree trunks and create seating that skirts the edge of the woods.

The workshops take place in a different rural location each year. This year’s site was in Stanton Park, near Swindon in Wiltshire.

Swindon Borough Council acted like a client for the permanent structures, the first occasion this has happened in the programme’s seven-year history.

“This is the first time that we have a lifespan of these structures, which changed the dynamic of the design quite considerably,” says Ahn.

The designs were responses to a narrative about an imaginary community of industrious folk living around the site, created as part of a wider project that Studio Weave has been working on with the council.

“The Studio in the Woods workshop changed the way we practice and how we see things,” Ahn concludes.

Studio Weave’s previous rural projects include a hand-painted bird-watching cabin in Kent and a series of giant horns for listening to countryside sounds in Derbyshire.

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Photos are by Jim Stephenson and Andy Matthews.

Studio Weave sent us the information below:

Now in its seventh year, the people behind Studio in the Woods have taken the summer building workshop to public land for the first time. Located within ancient woodland just outside Swindon, the design and construction of five large timber structures was led by a group of award-winning architects, engineers, and furniture makers, with 60 participants who camp on-site for five days.

Studio in the Woods is an ongoing educational programme promoting the exchange of architectural knowledge and skills through experimentation and direct building experience. It was initiated by Piers Taylor in 2006 and continues to offer the opportunity to “learn by doing” in a reaction against the seeming disparity between designing a building and how it is realised; increasingly architects must imagine the making process through drawing. Studio in the Woods offers the chance to learn from the makers and work collectively.

Evening talks by invited speakers are organised for each evening once tools are put down for the day and before a group dinner. Participants include architecture students, practicing architects and a wider audience with an interest in sculpture, landscape and building with materials to hand.

This year’s workshop forms part of a wider project at Stanton Park and the adjacent Stratton Woods, to the north-east of Swindon. Over the last eight months, architecture practice Studio Weave has been working with Swindon Borough Council and the Woodland Trust on reinterpreting the two neighbouring woodlands and how the public perceives, uses and navigates them.

Set with the challenge to tie the sites together through one engaging narrative, Studio Weave have written a story surrounding a community of industrious woodland folk called the Indlekith, who live at a much slower pace to humans – a pace more akin to that of nature. The Indlekith are difficult to spot but clues of their existence lie in the smells, sounds, and textures of the woods. All five structures illustrate this narrative in a different way by responding to various characteristics of the woodland and how our senses interact with these.

Studio in the Woods 2013 was made possible by the generous support of Swindon Borough Council – the landowner of Stanton Park – making it the first time the workshop has had a client. This meant that health and safety has played an important role in designing for construction and lifetime use with the structures required to have a life span of five years, which has changed the dynamic of the designs from previous years.

Je Ahn, director at Studio Weave, says “Studio in the Woods provides an interesting solution to this problem of how to experience the parks. This is a design and build workshop where participants turn up without a design or knowing the site. They spend only a few days designing and building at the same time, responding very closely to the immediate context. There is minimal drawing but lots of communication and a strong emphasis on building the team.”

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happening on site” – Studio Weave appeared first on Dezeen.

Car brand MINI has previewed design ideas ahead of the launch of its new model later this year, including Union Jack door pockets and a disco floor (+ movie).

Presented at the brand’s headquarters in Munich last week, MINI‘s Vision concept design incorporates a Driving Experience Control switch would allow the driver to change the lighting, colours and atmosphere inside the car from calm to energetic with the touch of a button.

Coloured lights in the footwells could be activated to flash in a series of patterns to create a “MINI Disco”.

Criss-crossing stretchy straps in the shape of the British flag would form pockets inside the doors.

Smartphone holders, a storage box, cup holder or small safe could be clicked onto the floating centre console and removed when required.

Dark blue fabric would cover the lounge seats and the same colour is used throughout the interior, accented with orange.

References to the classic Mini that would be visible externally include the rounded forms of the chassis and a hexagonal grille, which integrates the bumper and auxiliary lights.

The bodywork would be built from a lightweight composite material made from pressed fibres and finished in a new gold-tinted orange paint.

Elements of this concept design will be incorporated in the new MINI to be unveiled towards the end of the year.

MINI head of design Anders Warming spoke to Dezeen about the future of car design and the possibility of driverless vehicles at the launch of the brand’s Paceman model last year.

We’re currently on a year-long expedition with MINI, visiting the best international design events as part of our Dezeen and MINI World Tour – see all our coverage so far from Design Indaba, Milan design week, New York design week and DMY Berlin. Next stop: London!

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Read on for more information from MINI:

MINI Vision. An exclusive look at MINI design of tomorrow.

At today’s MINI Design@Home event Anders Warming, Head of MINI Design, previews a sampling of visionary design and innovative ideas. The MINI Vision, for example, showcases various elements of future MINI design. Here, MINI has developed a vehicle design laced with new creative impulses that advance the cause of premium quality in the compact class.

In customary MINI fashion, the MINI Vision seizes the limelight with creativity, individuality and a generous helping of versatility. Interactive gadgets such as the Driving Experience Control switch offer a glimpse of the future. This particular feature allows the whole of the car’s interior to be transformed into a variety of different colour and experience worlds in the blink of an eye.

The presentation of the MINI Vision is based around a virtual 3D hologram. This form of expression provides a window into how the MINI designers go about their business. Complementing their familiar toolset of sketches and 1:1 clay models, virtual reality allows them to test and fine-tune creative ideas quickly and under realistic conditions.

The exterior: a perfect balance between old and new.

The design of the MINI Vision reaches pointedly into the brand’s past and combines the underlying features and values of MINI with future-focused aesthetic and technical innovations. The hexagonal radiator grille is inspired by the classic Mini, for example, and the MINI Vision integrates both the bumper and auxiliary lights into the grille.

The traditional and unmistakable rounded MINI forms are reflected in the exterior through elements such as the elliptical full-LED headlights. Their outer ring emits a consistent light and fulfils a daytime driving light function.

Among the stand-out signature features of the MINI brand are the clear separation of the roof, glasshouse and body. The chrome strip wrapped around the top of the body, the distinctive side indicator element and the black band framing the lower edge of the car are all hallmark MINI styling elements.

The MINI Vision presents these three defining design elements as a flowing, interconnected unit – conjured from innovative and lightweight “organo metal”.

This extremely mouldable but also very strong material is produced by pressing various fibres into a composite. Organo sheets have a unique texture comparable to that of fabrics.

Alongside lightweight construction techniques, aerodynamics also play a frontline role in the conceptual ideas behind the MINI Vision. The car’s body includes an aerodynamic air intake and outlet around each front wheel arch, airflow-optimised wheel rims and exterior mirrors, and an integral, air-channelling roof spoiler.

At the rear, muscular shoulders lend the MINI Vision extremely sporty and compact proportions. The finely drawn and clearly defined edging in the car’s bodywork is central to the exterior design language of the MINI Vision and underlines the concept’s precision and sporting intent.

The interior: originality and creativity packed into a very small space.

The interior of the MINI Vision stands out with its individual style, variability, functionality and aesthetic appeal. The fundamental idea behind the MINI brand – of providing maximum comfort within minimal exterior dimensions – filters through every detail of the interior.

A transparent and open cockpit, sweeping doors and a “floating” centre console allow the driver and passengers to experience the sensation of a wide open space coupled with the benefits of a space-saving small car. Lounge seats featuring dynamic piping add the finishing touch to the unique interior ambience.

The creative design solutions have been brought together with established pillars of MINI design. For example, the elastic fabric straps on the insides of the doors – arranged like the stripes of the Union Jack flag – are a nod to the brand’s British heritage. However, the stretchable straps have a functional as well as stylistic role: these flexible retaining devices are designed to hold a magazine, mobile phone or drinks bottle within easy reach.

The fresh layer of variability added by the MINI click system offers additional scope for customising the interior. Smartphone holders, a storage box, cup holder or small safe can be attached and removed in a single movement as and when required.

The interior of the MINI Vision as a whole can also be adapted to a variety of interaction requirements with similar flexibility and immediacy. The Driving Experience Control switch allows the driver to choose between a pure and focused or fully-interconnected mode. The two modes are expressed in different colours using calm, clear light and dynamic, energy-charged shades. Another highlight of the fully-interconnected mode is the “MINI Disco” floor. Here, an expressive interplay of colours, light and forms transforms the footwells as the MINI Vision appears to come vibrantly to life. As well as turning the ambient colour scheme of the interior on its head, the Driving Experience Control switch also changes the face of the familiar MINI circular central display. Depending on their selection, drivers will be met by either a classic, analogue-style view or an impressive 3D look, which gives the full suite of display elements an unaccustomed depth.

Colours and materials: structures form characters.

The Glamorous Gold paint finish – a shimmering gold-tinged orange tone – has never been seen before in the history of MINI design. And the use of organo metal creates an intriguing contrast to this gleaming metallic shade. The organo metal adds highlights not only to the outside of the car, but also to the interior, its unique structure lending the MINI Vision a cutting-edge character.

A tough, dark-blue fabric recalling the properties of a high-quality suit is employed for the seats and sections of interior trim. The seamless transitions of the various materials between the interior and exterior bring consistency to the MINI Vision despite the use of different materials and textures.

Its unbeatable scope for personalisation and an extremely sporty and precise design make the MINI Vision the perfect partner for the road, tailored to the needs and preferences of the individual driver. This design vision demonstrates that MINI will continue to use intelligent variability, imagination-capturing technology and a compact sporting presence to deliver unrivalled driving fun over the years to come.

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In this movie by producers Living Projects, architects David Mikhail and Annalie Riches explain how their Church Walk housing project created four compact but light and airy homes on the small awkward site of a former junkyard in north London.

Mikhail and Riches live in the Church Walk scheme they designed and developed themselves, which has been shortlisted for this year’s RIBA Stirling Prize and recently triumphed at the Housing Design Awards.

The terraced brick building contains three houses spilt over different levels and one apartment, each with access to outdoor space.

In the movie, Mikhail talks about the issues of building on a tight plot: “The proximity of the site to our neighbours meant that the building stepped down to be only two metres high.”

He also explains how the zig-zagging geometry of the plan prevents overlooking from a nearby building that sits at a 45-degree angle to the site.

Riches discusses how they maximised the amount of accommodation on the small area of land by varying ceiling heights. “Whilst there are some low spaces where you sit down like living rooms and bedrooms, those are contrasted with having spaces like kitchens and dining rooms with very tall ceilings.”

“The scheme is about trying to grab light and views where you can find them,” she adds. “Small tight sites are where architects can really add value because we do have the skills to make the most of whatever assets are there. I don’t see any reason why the principles here – the use of light, building up to the street edge – couldn’t apply to lots of brownfield sites.”

The homes were built on a brownfield site in Stoke Newington, the north London neighbourhood where Dezeen’s office is based – read more about the project in our previous story.

In other recent architecture movies we’ve published, take a tour of Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho complex in Beijing and listen to Richard Rogers’ thoughts on his design for the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Living Projects has also produced movies about the hexagonal Canada Water Library by CZWG and Maggie’s Nottingham cancer care centre by the same architects.

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where you can find them” appeared first on Dezeen.