Hasta La Ideas

A concrete kitchen worktop doubles up as a dining room floor inside this renovated house in Porto by Portugeuse studio Ezzo (+ movie).

Named Flower House, the project involved demolishing and rebuilding the building’s upper storeys, as well as refurbishing the existing ground floor to create sunken zones for the kitchen and living room.

“The project was aimed at creating a series of flowing, contemporary spaces, allowing a greater degree of flexibility and linking the internal spaces of the ground floor in just one: living, dining and kitchen,” said Ezzo.

Kitchen cabinets are slotted beneath the concrete floor, while a small breakfast counter is created by an extended section of the same surface.

The concrete was hand-poured on site and has been finished with a waterproof coating to give it a polished look.

The hollowed-out living area sits adjacent to the kitchen, whilst a dining area and small bathroom are positioned just behind.

The house’s new upper storeys are contained within a traditional vernacular form with a gabled roof, but the exterior has been painted entirely white.

“The core ambition of the scheme was to create a dwelling, which, over time, would come to reflect an approach to contemporary renovation work,” explained the architects.

The first floor accommodates a pair of bedrooms that open out onto a shared balcony, overlooking the surrounding city rooftops. Both bedrooms feature built-in storage space.

A bathroom with bright blue walls is located on the left hand side of the landing, while a wooden ladder leads up to a study room and seating area on the top floor.

A courtyard is located at the back of the house and is surrounded by walls clad in polycarbonate plastic panels.

Photography is by João Ferrand.

Here is some information from the architect:

Flower House

Flower House involved the remodelling of a small old house to provide space to accommodate a single client. The scheme included the refurbishment of the existing ground floor, demolished of the 1st floor as well as the construction of a new one.

The building is set within heritage site, which has drawn out a unique response to the history and settings. The building geometry, orientation and size is driven by the site constraints.

At the site, the existing buildings are idiosyncratic of their type, with flank elevations and roof profiles, which run the breadth of the neighbourhood of Foz Velha. These buildings are detailed in a utilitarian manner, with an honesty of material and detailing one would expect.

In responding to this condition, the design of the new building make clear reference to their historical parts. A two storey dwelling with character and personality, respectful of the existing neighbourhood, and taking advantage of the views.

In the interior the project was aimed at creating a series of flowing, contemporary spaces, allowing a greater degree of flexibility, linking the internal spaces of the ground floor in just one: living, dining and kitchen. Two different stairs ensures the connectivity between ground floor living spaces and upper floors of bedrooms and study space.

The core ambition of the scheme was to create a dwelling, which, over time, would come to reflect an approach to contemporary renovation work and create a flexible environment for who will live there.

Accessible via a path with only 2 m wide, flanked by old houses, externally, the building is wrapped in a homogenous white skin, which wraps up from the landscape.

This relationship of building to street retains those historic associations described, and similarly allows for a contemporary sculptural form to sit comfortably within its context.

Project: Flower House
Architects: EZZO – César Machado Moreira
Collaborator: João Pedro Leal
Location: Porto, Portugal
Project Area: 120 sqm
Project year: 2010/2013
Engineering: Penman Ldª
Constructor: Van Urbis

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Alchemist Lauren Bowker has embedded ink that changes colour depending on different climatic conditions into a feathered garment (+ movie).

Bowker designs clothing and sculptures to demonstrate how the inks she has developed blend from one colour to another depending on the surrounding environment.

Her extravagant PHNX fashion pieces were made from feathers impregnated with the ink, which respond to light, heat and friction so they ripple with changing tones as the wearer moves.

“I chose the feathers because the piece was about the birth of something new and the piece goes through dark phases to light, which is meant to be spiritual,” Bowker told Dezeen at the Wearable Futures conference where she presented the project earlier this week.

She also collaborated with photographer Ryan Hopkinson to create Valediction, a sculpture made from white leaves covered in thermochromatic ink so they would turn blue when they became hot. When the piece was ignited, the colours mapped the destruction before it occurred.

Bowker began her research by creating a pollution-absorbent ink called PdCl2, which changes colour from yellow to black in dirty conditions then reverts back in fresh air.

At the Royal College of Art she developed the product into ink that can respond to a variety of different environmental conditions.

“I graduated with an ink which is respondent to seven different parameters in the environment,” Bowker said. “Not only will it absorb air pollution, it will change colour to UV, heat, air friction, moisture and more. This gives it the capability to go through the full RGB scale.”

“Each ink works very differently, it depends on what sort of material you want to apply it to,” she added.

The inks can be applied to most materials using various methods, depending on the characteristics of the surface. “You can screen-print it,  paint it, spray it, or alternatively you can dye things with it, impregnating the fibres with the colour,” Bowker explained.

After presenting the technology in fashion pieces, it was picked up by a range of companies who asked her to collaborate on projects including a concept aeroplane cabin by Airbus. “Everyone saw this technology and saw their own vision of how they could use it,” said Bowker.

She can customise the inks to change colour in specific places by mapping the conditions at the locations and creating an ink to respond to these parameters.

“If you came to me and said ‘Lauren, I want my silk jersey to change colour when I’m at Oxford Street, then when I’m at Baker Street I want to be a different colour’, I would go out and map the fluctuations in the environment of each tube station then I would create you an ink that responds to those environments,” Bowker said.

Bowker recently set up The Unseen, a design house for biological and chemical technology house to raise awareness of the product and further the applications of her creation by making it more affordable. The company aims to launch a collection using the materials at London Fashion Week in February 2014.

In the future, Bowker hopes the inks will be adopted by the medical industry: “If it goes into a T-shirt that lets you know if you’re going to have an asthma attack, that for me is much more successful than having an amazing fashion collection.”

Bowker presented her work at the Wearable Futures conference at Ravensbourne in London, which concluded yesterday.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Multi-award winning alchemist Lauren Bowker leads prophetic art house The Unseen. Focused on Seeing The Unseen; The Unseen is a luxury design house and consultancy that integrates biological, chemical and electronic technology into fashion, through materials.

Philosophy

“The Unseen believes technology IS magic. My vision is to create a world of seamlessly captivating science; through exquisite couture, luxury products and opulent materials; in lieu of the believer searching for special pieces and unique experiences. To do this I will build a House and environment that both appeal intriguingly and aesthetically. That is well informed, well educated, inventive and sensitive to both Technology and Design. Offering luxury attire enhanced with technical magic that will lead fashion. I trust in the unseen world around us, it can offer beauty, magic and faith. I want others to see what I see.”

Valediction

A collaboration with genius Ryan Hopkinson.

Valediction depicts the burning of a sculpture made entirely from the skeletons of leaves, hand painted in Thermochromic, Heat tracking Pigments to appear blue. The sculpture, once ignited, acts as a mapping tool of its own destruction. The Thermochromatic treatment allows the viewer to witness patterns of heat flux in real time as the leaves combust and the flames propagate. With a starting height of eight feet the sculpture is reduced to nothing within ten seconds leaving only ash and a limited number of high resolution photographs as physical proof of it’s existence. On first glance aesthetic beauty conceals the technology, while the true nature of the sculpture is exposed through destruction by flame. Data is made available and witnessed in real-time, illustrating a new platform for physical visualisation.

PHNX

Through the expansion of many types of ink PHNX is an original take on dynamic chromic imaging. Using existing and vast variables from the immediate human habitat as an external input to the PHNX sensory ink, forming an array of new Chromic materials within natural structures. Resulting in a constructed and dynamically controlled textile that is capable of constantly evolving, continually changing colour state in front of the viewer’s eyes. Inspired by reincarnation and the cycle of life PHNX was intended to enhance the beauty of Technology in materials and the imagination of experimentation within Fashion providing an aesthetic that provokes discourse on beauty of materials in fashion, technology, interaction and data.

PdCl2

The multi award winning PdCl2 ink is designed to treat the symptoms of hazardous lifestyles we live in today. The Chromic Dye is capable of reacting in the presence of carbon emission. Presenting a reversible colour change from yellow to black. The surrounding concept addresses issues in health as a result of passive smoking, logically evolving into a platform that aesthetically visualises environmental conditions. Using Material to offer an innovative language within visual communication.

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to climate by Lauren Bowker appeared first on Dezeen.

News: in this movie interview filmed for a documentary about Rem Koolhaas, rapper Kanye West talks about working with the architect’s firm OMA on a seven-screen cinema to show his first film and reveals that he’s working on a second movie.

In the interview conducted by Koolhaas’ son Tomas, director of the documentary, West also talks about ambitions for his design company DONDA and says that “music has really been a Trojan Horse to create art again”.

“I love Rem’s work,” said West while talking about how much he enjoyed working with the architect’s company OMA in 2012. “I just like that fact that I was able to take my position as a musician, as a rapper and as a celebrity, and be able to invest in a project with a company of that level.”

OMA’s pavilion design for West was a shaped like a pyramid and erected for the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, and during the interview the rapper revealed that he has been producing a new film that builds on the immersive experience for the past year and a half: “I’m working on a film and I’ve created a seamless version. There were seven screens and they were separated, and the new one is seamless.”

“When it happens and people see it, I think people will understand a bit better what I’m talking about or why I’m so frustrated,” he added.

West also discussed his creative company DONDA, which he set up last year. At the moment he initiates and funds all the projects himself, but the 36-year-old hopes that this will shift so his company is commissioned to create for others within the next four years.

“I’m paying for a lot of the projects that I wanna work on, but it’s like my own home [designed by Claudio Silvestrin], or a store design, or [the] pavilion I did with OMA,” he said. “I believe, just to will this into fruition, that when I’m 40 [DONDA] will have to turn down projects.”

“I’ve done basically everything I can do with the amount of finances I have,” West continued. “If I go and think about a new form of film making and I go through the entire process, I end up funding the entire thing myself because it’s too abstract of a concept for people to put a finger on.”

During the interview filmed in October he repeated the declaration of his design ambitions, which he first expressed during a rant about the subject while speaking on BBC Radio 1 in September.

“I went to college on an arts scholarship, I was the number one you know so music has really been a Trojan Horse to really create art again,” he declared. “What do you think I spend the most time on when I’m creating a tour? The visuals. I am more of a visual artist and a product person.”

“DONDA, with my company, we like to collaborate with firms,” West added. “We like to go and ask questions and say ‘for this job, who would be great to work on this?'” In addition to his collaboration with OMA, he is also working on a visual identity for his brand with graphic designer Peter Saville.

Since this interview took place, West addressed students at Harvard University about architecture and design last month. The negative response to the rapper’s design ambitions was declared “racist” by an African-American student activist from the institution.

Tomas Koolhaas is currently aiming to raise funds to complete his REM documentary on Kickstarter. The feature-length documentary will focus on how the architect’s buildings are used by people and will “comprehensively explore the human conditions in and around Rem Koolhaas’ buildings from a ground level perspective”. Watch the trailer below:

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News: online retail giant Amazon has presented a prototype for a service that uses flying robots to deliver packages to customers within half an hour of ordering (+ movie).

The service would be called Amazon Prime Air and would be available to customers living within a ten mile radius of one of Amazon’s distribution centres.

The unmanned aerial vehicles are called “octocopters” because they feature eight propellers and Amazon claims they could be implemented as soon as 2015.

A video released by Amazon shows a drone collecting a package inside a plastic container from a conveyor belt at a distribution centre before taking off and delivering it to the customer’s doorstep. The flying robots would be directed by GPS to coordinates specified by the customer.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made the announcement yesterday on American investigative news programme 60 Minutes and explained that the technology is already in place, but that the legal issues surrounding such an operation are likely to delay its implementation.

“The hardest challenge in making this happen is going to be demonstrating to the standards of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) that this is a safe thing to do,” Bezos told 60 Minutes.

“I don’t want anybody to think this is just around the corner. This is years of additional work from this point,” he said, before stating that he hopes it could be made available to customers in four to five years.

“We hope the FAA’s rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015,” said Amazon on a webpage dedicated to the project. “We will be ready at that time. One day, Prime Air vehicles will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today.”

“The FAA is actively working on rules and an approach for unmanned aerial vehicles that will prioritise public safety,” the company added. “Safety will be our top priority, and our vehicles will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards.”

During a demonstration, Bezos pointed out that the unmanned vehicle can still fly if one of its rotors suffers a failure. “I know this looks like science fiction; it’s not,” he said.

Sydney startup Flirtey claimed to have launched “the world’s first unmanned aerial vehicle delivery technology” earlier this year, using flying robots to deliver books directly to customers based on the location of their mobile phone.

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Angular zinc-clad volumes fold around a central courtyard and stretch out towards ocean views at this house designed by Australian architect John Wardle on the scenic Great Ocean Road in Victoria (+ movie).

Named Fairhaven Beach House, the three-storey residence is perched on the top of a hill. John Wardle Architects laid out the building with an uneven U-shaped plan to create a wall of windows facing the water and an east-facing courtyard that is protected from coastal winds.

The route from the entrance to a large living room was intended as a dramatic progression through the building, passing by a cantilevered study and through a pivoting asymmetric door.

“It is a dynamic, fluid journey through the house from arrival to the ocean view,” said the architects, whose past projects include a house on a working sheep farm in Tasmania.

“It is choreographed to increase anticipation before reaching the main living space,” they added.

A large kitchen and dining room is positioned on one side and projects even further towards the coastline, plus a secluded balcony provides an opportunity to dine outdoors.

“The house is carefully zoned to allow for privacy and communal gathering,” said the architects.

While the exterior of the house is clad with grey zinc panels to blend in with the tones of the bush landscape, the interior features timber surfaces across every wall, floor and ceiling.

Two bedrooms are located on the ground floor and a wooden staircase leads up to a third on the upper storey.

A garage, wine cellar and informal living room are tucked away in the basement.

Fairhaven Beach House topped the residential category at the Australian National Architecture Awards earlier this month. Judges described it as “a masterful control of form and space, scale, material and detail”.

Photography is by Trevor Mein. Movie is by Maximilian Mein.

Here’s more information from John Wardle Architects:

Fairhaven Residence

The Fairhaven Beach House is located on top of the ridgeline above the Great Ocean Road on the Victorian coastline. The site enjoys panoramic views over the southern ocean and surf beach below.

The proportions, orientation and dimensions of windows have been tailored to particular views and to reveal internal spaces. The design process has been one akin to scenography, bringing together sensory and spatial experiences to frame the theatre of inhabitation within.

This beach house coils and steps around a protected central courtyard, which creates an outdoor space sheltered from the harsh prevailing winds. The living area doors and an oversized sliding kitchen window open up and integrate the courtyard with the house during fine weather.

It is a dynamic, fluid journey through the house from arrival to the ocean view; it is choreographed to increase anticipation before reaching the main living space.

As you step beneath a cantilevered study into a dramatic vertical entry space, you become acutely aware of a number of twists and folds along its length that make the transformation into the horizontal living space. Its main window aperture matches the cinematic proportions of the ocean view.

The house is carefully zoned to allow for privacy and communal gathering. The upper level houses a suite of private rooms including a main bedroom, ensuite, study and viewing terrace. The entry level contains a pair of bedrooms and bathroom. The main living and dining space is where the occupants come together. A garage, laundry and informal living space are hidden from view in a basement level.

Materially the house is clad in a green-grey zinc cladding, for both its longevity and natural colouring that merges with the scrub and tea tree landscape. In contrast, the interior of the house is completely lined in timber (floors, walls, cabinetry and ceilings) to form an enclosure for living that its inhabitants become completely immersed within. The eye is then always drawn back to the outlook beyond.

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stretches out towards the ocean appeared first on Dezeen.