Hasta La Ideas

Take a tour through the spaces of Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho complex in Beijing, China, in this movie by architectural photographer Dan Chung.

Completed at the end of 2012, the 330,000-square-metre complex accommodates shops, offices and leisure facilities within a cluster of four striated domes. Courtyards and pathways weave between the buildings, while bridges and platforms form connections on the upper levels.

“The design responds to the varied contextual relationships and dynamic conditions of Beijing,” said Zaha Hadid at the opening. “We have created a variety of public spaces that directly engage with the city, reinterpreting the traditional urban fabric and contemporary living patterns into a seamless urban landscape inspired by nature.”

See more images of the project in our original story, or see a second set of photographs that shows how the building integrates with its surrounding context. See more architecture by Zaha Hadid »

We’ve noticed a trend recently for striations and strata – horizontal layers of material such as sedimentary rocks – in architecture. See our archive of geologically inspired projects »

Movie is by Dan Chung. Additional photography is by Hufton + Crow.

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Zaha Hadid Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Architect Steven Holl describes how the design for his new athletics centre at Columbia University was based on a diagram for a football strategy, in the first of two movies by architectural filmmakers Spirit of Space.

Completed earlier this year, the Campbell Sports Centre is a five-storey building that is partly raised up on stilts, providing both a student facility and a new entrance to the existing sports tracks of the Baker Athletics Complex.

Steven Holl explains the original concept for “points on the ground and lines in space”, like a game strategy. “Those point foundations of the building [are] where it becomes a gateway and the idea of the outer exits is as lines in spaces moving on the building,” he says.

The building features an exposed concrete and steel structure, as well as a series of exterior balconies and staircases. “Those big heads of the [nearby] Broadway Lift Bridge were, in a way, inspirations for this sort of grey steel structural shape,” adds Holl.

The interior of the building is divided into three zones, with physical exercise zones located on the lower levels and student study areas at the top. “This has to do with the aim of the scholar athlete, that you develop both the body and the mind together,” adds architect Chris McVoy.

Holl concludes by talking about how the building comes alive after dark, forming a “chunk of architecture that equally gives a feeling of light and brightness,” alongside the glowing lights of the sports pitch. “The building has a kind of life that it gives to that site at night,” he says.

See more images of the Campbell Sports Centre in our earlier story, or see more architecture by Steven Holl Architects.

Spirit of Space has previously filmed movies about other Steven Holl-designed buildings, including an underground gallery in South Korea and the mixed-use Sliced Porosity Block in China. See more movies by Spirit of Space on Dezeen »

Architectural photography is by Iwan Baan.

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– Steven Holl on Campbell Sports Centre appeared first on Dezeen.

The latest version of the affordable XO tablet, designed by Yves Behar for the One Laptop Per Child Association, goes on sale this week (+ movie).

The seven-inch touchscreen Android tablet will be available for $150 at Walmart stores across the USA this week, marking a move away from the product’s initial focus on the developing world.

The new version features a rubber exterior and a carrying hook, while the bilingual English/Spanish software comes with a suite of pre-loaded apps, games and books.

The XO tablet is the fourth iteration of the One Laptop Per Child concept, all of which have been designed by One Laptop Per Child’s chief designer, Yves Behar of San Francisco design studio fuseproject.

The first, nicknamed the “$100 laptop”, was a clamshell design with a keyboard that could be charged by hand-crank and was intended for children in remote villages without power.

The product was one of five winners of the Index Awards for sustainable design in 2007 and won the Design Museum’s inaugural Design of the Year award in 2008.

Its successor, the XOXO laptop, was unveiled in 2008 and featured two hinged touch-screens.

The third version, called the XO-3, was launched last year. This was a tablet with a removable rubber cover that could also house solar panels to recharge the battery.

“The new tablet is an evolution of all the things we have learned with the original XO Laptop,” says Yves Behar. “The new user interface is colourful and easy to use, while the protective rubber exterior features a carrying loop similar to the original XO finger hooks.”

See more stories about One Laptop Per Child »
See more design by Fuseproject »

Here’s some text from One Laptop Per Child:

FUSEPROJECT AND ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD ANNOUNCE NEW XO TABLET DESIGNED TO SPARK THE CHILD’S IMAGINATION

The fuseproject-designed XO Tablet arrives in Walmart stores across the country this week. Developed in collaboration with the One Laptop Per Child Association, the tablet harnesses the power of a touchscreen device to create new ways for children to learn. The powerful Android tablet has a new user interface and protective cover that delivers the continuity of the design language of the original One Laptop Per Child with a new learning experience.

Centered around the idea of aspirational “dreams”, the main screen is organized by topics rather than applications. A clear hierarchy of information makes tiers of learning within each dream easy to follow and access, a key element of the new child-centric XO Learning System Interface. A simple sentence “I want to be an…” is the opener to a myriad of software, games, and applications grouped around each of the subjects of interest.

“The new tablet is an evolution of all the things we have learned with the original XO Laptop,” says Yves Behar, fuseproject founder and Chief Designer of OLPC since 2006. “The new user interface is colorful and easy to use, while the protective rubber exterior features a carrying loop similar to the original XO finger hooks. What is unique about this version is how we crafted the user interface and the industrial design simultaneously. We wanted to make sure that together they would deliver a cohesive experience while stimulating discovery and offering a few surprises.”

The seven-inch tablet, made by Vivitar, is running Android OS, and is the only multilingual (English/Spanish) and Google-certified tablet for kids on the market. It includes content curated and selected for age-appropriateness by OLPC in collaboration with Common Sense Media, a leading non-profit organization dedicated to helping parents and teachers make informed decisions about media.

The pre-loaded software includes 100 free pre-loaded apps, games, and books. Special parental controls such as the XO Journal tool, allow parents to track how much time children spend on each app and can provide insight into where children’s interests lie.

The One Laptop Per Child Association has distributed 2.5 million of the original XO Laptop in 60 countries, and is now launching the new $150 tablet in the US starting at Walmart, as well as in developing countries such as Uruguay, Cambodia, and Barbados.

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for One Laptop Per Child appeared first on Dezeen.

We spotted this stair-negotiating skateboard at ShowRCA 2012 and the accompanying movie became one of our most watched. One year on, its designer Po-Chih Lai has made a new film, updated the design and launched it on Kickstarter (+ movie).

The Stair-Rover features an eight-wheel mechanism that allows it to ride up curbs and descend flights of steps.

Po-Chih Lai‘s original model featured a maple deck, customised aluminium trucks, and flexible V-frames that connected over the ends of the board.

Since the initial design, the frames have been shifted beneath the board and connected by a plastic chassis to allow a full longboard deck to sit on top.

Lai has also created an upgraded Pro version that sports a fibreglass deck and black components.

This new movie shows longboarders navigating urban obstacles around London, at locations including the Emirates Stadium, the Royal Albert Hall and the Millenium Bridge.

Lai designed the prototype for the board while studying at the Royal College of Art and we first published the project last year as part of our 2012 graduate show coverage.

He recently launched the design on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter so backers can pre-order their own board, and the project is around halfway toward it’s £50,000 target.

If the product makes it into production, both the Stair-Rover and Stair-Rover Pro will be available.

We’ve featured a few skate parks on Dezeen in the past, including one that covers every surface inside and out of a Californian house and another in a former peanut factory in Calais.

See more design for skateboarding »
See more architecture and design movies »

Read on for more information sent by the designer:

Stair-Rover launches innovative longboard – creators target £50,000 investment

The creators of Stair-Rover have launched a Kickstarter project that hopes to raise the £50,000 investment needed to manufacture the first run of boards. The longboard features a distinctive eight-wheeled design with a unique mechanism that allows it to scuttle crab-like down flights of stairs.

Beginning life as inventor PoChih Lai’s final year project at the Royal College of Art, the Stair-Rover has evolved through no fewer than fourteen different prototypes and is now ready for manufacture. The Stair-Rover team hope that the new sport will combine aspects of longboarding and surfing, and prompt riders to look at their cities in a new way.

The Kickstarter project offers rewards to backer for investments of £8 – £600, including branded stickers and clothing and limited edition Stair-Rovers. Both the standard Stair-Rover and the upgraded Stair-Rover Pro are available via the Kickstarter project. The Kickstarter campaign will run until 31st July 2013.

“Stair-Rover really isn’t like anything we’ve seen before,” says PoChih Lai. “It’s about daring people to explore their cities in a brand new way. Stair-Rover is very distinctive looking, but people that have tried it tell us it feels natural – on flat ground, it performs a lot like a conventional longboard. The real difference is the amount of freedom you have on the Stair-Rover. And I, for one, can’t wait to see what our community of riders can do with that freedom.”

Stair-Rover has attracted the attention of skateboarders and longboarders alike, as well as that of design-aware individuals and publications. Stair-Rover videos have attracted over 500,000 views online and received coverage from CNET, Fast Company and the Huffington Post among others. Renowned TV shows like The Gadget Show, Discovery Daily Planet and Manoto 1 have also featured the Stair-Rover’s evolution.

The Stair-Rover Kickstarter project will only be funded if at least £50,000 is invested by 31st July, 2013. Please support the project at Kickstarter.

To find out more about Stair-Rover, or to see videos of it in action, please visit www.stair-rover.com.

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Po-Chih Lai update appeared first on Dezeen.

This conceptual food by Royal College of Art graduate Minsu Kim would wriggle around on the plate and in your mouth (+ movie).

Minsu Kim‘s Living Food project builds on developments in synthetic biology to propose meals that behave like living creatures.

“Synthetic biotech has already started to create artificial life in organic forms,” says the designer, citing a swimming artificial jellyfish made of heart cells by researchers at Caltech and Harvard University. “Breathing life into artificial digestible forms in not merely a fantasy.”

In the Design Interactions department of the Royal College of Art‘s graduate exhibition this week Minsu Kim presents three dishes, each exhibiting a different behaviour: wriggling around, waving tentacles or puffing up as though breathing.

“This project explores new culinary experiences through developments in synthetic biology, and finds its lineage in haute cuisine and molecular gastronomy,” the designer adds. “What if food was able to play with our cutlery and create hyper-sensations in our mouth?”

Show RCA continues until 30 June 2013. Other projects on show include glassware that creates kaleidoscopic effects and bicycle helmets made of pulped newspaper.

Other stories about futuristic food on Dezeen include treats with edible packaging, fruit labelled with lasers and 3D-printed hamburgers.

Find out how soon we could be tucking into 3D-printed steaks in an extract from Print Shift, our one-off print-on-demand publication all about 3D printing.

See more stories about food design »
See more from Show RCA 2013 »

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Minsu Kim appeared first on Dezeen.