Hasta La Ideas

Japanese designers Nendo have adapted a traditional Japanese paper-making technique to create a series of lamps that are smooth at one end and gently wrinkled at the other.

Nendo called the collection Semi-Wrinkle Washi, with “washi” being the name for Japanese paper made from plant fibres. “Washi is made by passing fine screens through a bath of plant pulp and water to collect the pulp, then by drying the screens and peeling off the new paper sheets,” said the designers.

To create the lamps they collaborated with Taniguchi Aoya Washi, a company in the Tottori Prefecture in western Japan which is famous for creating three-dimensional objects using the same technique. “Rather than pasting sheets of washi together to create forms, the company uses the same process to create beautiful seamless forms that are three-dimensional from the start,” Nendo said.

According to the studio, the lamp shades created through this process are so smooth that they “can be confused with white glass or plastic.”

They found that adding a vegetable called konjac to the mixture creates wrinkles that reveal the objects are made of paper, but this technique means the surface no longer communicates that it was made with the company’s traditional technique.

“After running into this problem, we decided to take the best of both worlds: to create lighting fixtures that are only half-formed with the wrinkle process,” they explained. “The wrinkles can be applied gradually so that the two different effects come together seamlessly.”

The resulting shades have smooth surfaces at the bottoms and softly pointed, crumpled tops. They come as pendants or table lamps and have a hole in the underside allows that light to escape.

The wrinkles shrink the overall size of the fixtures so Nendo decided on the desired final size and calculated backwards to work out what the starting form and size should be.

“This hybrid process created a new face for paper, one that combines the softness and tensility that only three-dimensional washi can display,” the designers added.

The product will be available exclusively from Seibu department stores in Japan.

Photographs are by Hiroshi Iwasaki.

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Two initials are merged so each be read from different angles in this 3D-printed metal jewellery (+slideshow).

Design agency Ultravirgo‘s Mymo service creates 3D monograms by digitally combining any two letters or numbers. “From the front, you see one character,” said the designers. “From the side, you see the other.” The monograms can be 3D-printed as small charms by New York company Shapeways.

Traditionally embroidered on clothing, a monogram is a 2D graphic combining two or more letters to form a logo. Mymo transforms these motifs into a 3D form, to be printed in stainless steel, silver or ceramic.

The steel and ceramic pieces are printed by gluing layers of the powdered materials on top of each other, while the silver designs are cast in a 3D-printed wax mould.

The pendants can be worn as a necklace, linked to a keychain or displayed as an ornament. The Mymo typeface was designed by Ultravirgo founder Patrick Durgin-Bruce.

Here is some more information from the designer:

Mymo reinvents the monogram with 3D-printed typography

Introducing Mymo. A modern, clever monogram that combines any two letters or numbers into a custom typographic sculpture for necklaces, keychains, and ornaments (to start). From the front, you see one character. From the side, you see the other.

Monograms used to be a badge of honor, embroidered on work shirts, towels, and stationery. But with their florid Victorian style and the move to mass production, they were left behind as an ephemeral fashion trend. But we love the concept of letters that carry personal meaning, so we’ve re-invented them.

Twitter may allow 140 characters, but a Mymo makes a statement with just two. We challenge people to decide what two letters or numbers best represent them. Initials? Kids’ initials? The dogs’? Age? Football jersey number? Birthday date? They make the perfect gift for weddings, graduations, housewarmings, holidays, wedding attendant gifts, new babies, mothers, fathers, and just because – allowing anyone to give a gift with personal meaning without needing to know too much about the recipient.

Mymo uses Shapeways to 3D print each item individually on-demand. The finished Mymos are made of sterling silver, stainless steel, or food-grade ceramic. Mymo makes 3D-printed objects more accessible to the public, combining great design with personalisation – without customers needing to learn how to use 3D software.

The Mymo type was designed by Patrick Durgin-Bruce of Ultravirgo, an award-winning graphic design agency in New York City with a penchant for typography. He has also created custom type for the United Nations and the University of Pennsylvania. New typefaces by other designers are in the works for 2014.

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two initials in one pendant appeared first on Dezeen.

Swedish design collective Front has designed a cloud-shaped ice cream in collaboration with dessert company Häagen-Dazs.

Häagen-Dazs‘ ice cream by Front comes in two graduated colours named dawn and dusk.

The flavour of the red dawn cloud is champagne truffle with Belgian chocolate whilst the dusk orange cloud incorporates Haagen-Dazs’ well-known flavours, dulce de leche and cookies and cream.

“As Scandinavians snow is an essential part of our winters,” said the designers. “We were inspired by how the snow clouds in the north transform the landscape. We made an ice cream snow cloud that sprinkles snowflakes on your plate.”

The Clouds are sold throughout France and in Brussels, Liège, Madrid, Barcelona, and London.

Last year, London designers Doshi Levien designed an ice cream cake in the shape of a cratered moon for Häagen-Dazs.

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by Front appeared first on Dezeen.

Door handles created by late Modernist architect Lina Bo Bardi for her home in São Paulo have gone into production 62 years after she designed them.

The horn-shaped lever handles are being manufactured by British design brand Izé, founded by Financial Times architecture correspondent Edwin Heathcote, who has licensed the design from the Lina Bo Bardi Foundation.

“They lent us a pair of the original handles from the house which we then copied and cast, then they gave us the rights to produce them,” Heathcote told Dezeen.

Bo Bardi created the handles for the 1951 Casa de Vidro (Glass House), which she designed for herself and her husband in the Morumbi neighbourhood of São Paulo. She always intended for the handles to go into production, Heathcote said.

The glass-walled Casa de Vidro, surrounded by jungle and raised up on stilts, has recently been hailed as an important Modernist landmark as part of a wider re-evaluation of the work of Bo Bardi, who was born in Italy in 1914 and died in Brazil in 1992.

“I think it’s a particularly humane type of Modernism,” said Heathcote, comparing the house to villas by Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. “I think this building provides a paradigm of how Modern architecture does’t have to dictate how it’s used. It can be looser and more amenable to transformation.”

Bo Bardi and her husband Pietro Maria Bardi moved from Italy to Brazil in 1946, where she completed a number of social housing and private projects. Her work, including her São Paulo Museum of Art, has only recently become more widely recognised; last year she was the subject of Lina Bo Bardi: Together, an exhibition at the British Council Gallery in London.

Heathcote believes the delayed recognition of Bo Bardi’s work is partly due to Brazil’s geographical isolation and partly due to the fact that she is a woman.

“São Paulo is a long way from New York and Europe, where the prevailing trends have been coming from,” he said. “It’s only now that Brazil is getting richer and opening itself up at lot more. People are travelling there, the arts scene is happening, people in Europe and America are realising like good the architecture in Brazil was.”

“I think [it’s] probably also because she was a women, much like the Eileen Gray situation,” he added, referring to the Irish Modernist designer whose importance was overshadowed by her male contemporaries. “Eileen Gray has only really been picked up in the last twenty to thirty years and has only really been recognised in the last five or six years, and I think its the same with Lina Bo Bardi.”

Heathcote set up Izé in 2001 to produce door handles and other fittings for architecture projects. “It turned out that the door handle was, proportionate to its size, was the most influential piece of the building that I could think of that I could get into manufacture,” he said. Previous products include handles designed by Studio Toogood, Eric Parry

Photos of Casa de Vidro are by Edwin Heathcote. Here’s an edited transcript of the interview with Heathcote:

Daniel Howarth: How did you come to set up a company making door furniture?

Edwin Heathcote: My background is in architecture and I have always been interested in production and the design of the object. I gave up architecture but I was still interested in the design and being part of the building process, I tried to isolate the smallest but most important element that would lend itself to manufacture; I didn’t want to get involved in the whole building process.

It turned out that the door handle was proportionate to its size; it was the most influential piece of the building that I could think of, that I could get into manufacture. We started by reviving some of the designs from the twenties and thirties and then the fifties. We started commissioning people at the same time, and we’ve been plugging away at it for a dozen years.

Daniel Howarth: How did you get the rights to produce the Bo Bardi handle?

Edwin Heathcote: We worked with the Lina Bo Bardi Foundation, which is based in the house she designed for herself, the Casa de Vidro in São Paulo. Over the period of a about a year they lent us a pair of the original handles from the house which we then copied and cast, then they gave us the rights to produce the handles.

Daniel Howarth: Why is the house and the design so special?

Edwin Heathcote: I think it’s a particularly humane type of Modernism. I think that there’s been a type of Modernism that’s been made iconic, the kind of Corbusian villa has become the kind of symbol of the Modernist house. The Corbusian villa and Mies’ Farnsworth House offer these sort of twin poles, and they’re very keen to achieve a kind of perfection. I think that the Lina Bo Bardi house is looser, it has a kind of humanity to it that is slightly lacking in both of the other, both in Corb and in Mies.

It has a sort of, I hesitate to say, a Brazilian joie de vivre. But I think its something of that in it, this house in the jungle, the way it’s integrated into the landscape is very informal. Inside you have this feeling that you’re part of the landscape, the tree comes through the middle of the house and the courtyard. It somehow much more integrated in the surroundings. It’s a sort of alternative Modernism.

Daniel Howarth: What makes Bo Bardi stand out as an architect?

Edwin Heathcote: There’s one building in particular: SESC Pompéia [a former factory in São Paulo that Bo Bardi and her husband converted into a multi-purpose building between 1977 and 1982]. That building in particular has been up by contemporary commentators as an example of how you can achieve quite a fierce Modernism, using existing industrial buildings and an existing urban context, and create a real piece of city, create a functioning, organic piece of city, which is adaptable and which people can adopt as their own.

I think the tendency of Modernism has been to impose a building which is either then used or not used. Obviously some Modernist social housing is an example of the failures. But I think this building provides a paradigm of how Modern architecture does’t have to dictate how it’s used. I can be looser and more amenable to transformation.

Daniel Howarth: Why was she unrecognised for so long?

Edwin Heathcote: I think São Paulo is a long way from New York and Europe, where the prevailing trends have been coming from. There’s this kind of band of LA, New York, Europe, Japan, which have been the northern hemisphere grouping that has dominated architectural culture. I think it’s only now that Brazil is getting richer and opening itself up at lot more, people are travelling there, the arts scene is happening, people in Europe and America are realising like good the architecture in Brazil was, I think for a long time they just hadn’t really noticed. They were too concerned with their own issues.

I think [it’s] probably also because she was a women, much like the Eileen Gray situation. Eileen Gray has only really been picked up in the last twenty to thirty years and has only really been recognised in the last five or six years, and I think its the same with Lina Bo Bardi.

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go into production appeared first on Dezeen.

Each of these resin pots by east London designer Phil Cuttance is embellished with a unique iridescent sheen on its lid.

Phil Cuttance hand-cast each simple Aurora Pot with a rounded bottom and flat lid from a water-based resin.

He submerged the lid under water and drops a small amount of polish onto the surface to form an oily slick. He then lifted the lid up, catching the colourful pattern on its top.

“I have always liked the visual effect of oil or polish slicks on water,” Cuttance told Dezeen. “I wanted to simply find a way to transfer a polish slick from the water’s surface and preserve it on an object.”

The slick created by the polish is different each time, so every pot in the set is one of a kind.

Photography is by Petr Krejčí.

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by Phil Cuttance appeared first on Dezeen.