Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2013: pinching steel clips for holding candles and chairs with legs that tuck into pockets feature in the latest range of products by Italian brand Discipline (+ slideshow).

Above: Clip Candleholders by Nendo

Japanese studio Nendo‘s contributions to the collection include the pinching steel candle holders shaped like fruit, a coat stand made of rectangular steel frames and a similar glass-topped side table.

Above: Linking Rings by Claesson Koivisto Rune

Frameless mirrors set into oval bases and sand-cast tables with round or square tops were created by Swedish designers Claesson Koivisto Rune.

Above: Slice desk organiser by James Irvine

A desk organiser sculpted from a solid piece of cork was designed by James Irvine, who passed away earlier this year.

Above: Pocket Chair by Ding3000

Among the chairs in the collection, one by Ding3000 has wooden legs that tuck into pockets in sides of the leather seat and another by Ichiro Iwasaki is cushioned with cork.

Above: Peg hooks by Jonah Takagi

Accessories include Johanna Dehio‘s waste paper bin with colourful compartments and Jonah Takagi‘s simple coat pegs.

Above: Quarter bin by Johanna Dehio

Discipline is exhibiting the products at Via Pietro Mascagni 4, the same location it launched it’s inaugural collection last year.

Above: Bridge stool by Ichiro Iwasaki

Other product ranges debuting in Milan include the Unexpected Welcome collection by Moooi and new furniture and lighting by Front.

Above: Clip Coat Hanger by Nendo

See all our coverage of Milan 2013 »
See our Milan 2013 map »

Here’s some more information from Discipline:

Pianissimo – Lars Beller Fjetland

A hanging lamp made with a special processing of cork which, cut in light leaves, becomes sinuous like fabric. The upper and lower parts are in glass; the illumination is LED, both direct and indirect.

Drifted – Lars Beller Fjetland

Designed by the young, brilliant Norwegian naturalist designer Lars Beller Fjetland, the Drifted series is the perfect synthesis of the Discipline style. Three stools – in low, high and bar versions, with a cork back, and a chair recall the purity and essentiality of the design – a light structure in oak, comfortable seat, impermeable and lasting, and interlocking assembly make this series unique. The structure is available in 3 colours and the seat in light or dark natural cork.

Above: Puck round table by Claesson Koivisto Rune

Linking Rings – Claesson Koivisto Rune

A minimalist, sober and elegant mirror with a little bamboo shelf on the structure in MDF which makes it light yet resistant. Available in two sizes and 3 colour versions, it is suitable for any type of environment.

Puck – Claesson Koivisto Rune

A small table with metal feet and a steel base treated with a sandcasting process, available both round and square. Particularly suitable for public spaces.



Above: Turné fruit bowl by Pauline Deltour

Quarter Bin – Johanna Dehio

An innovative bin with compartments, modular, for the home or the office, suitable for separating paper, tins and plastic. It is in wood and the individual modules can be combined and joined via a system of magnets, enabling the space to be optimised.

Turné – Pauline Deltour

The fruit bowl becomes an elegant, sophisticated furnishing element. Available in two finishes, mahogany or ash.

Above: Roulé gold tray by Pauline Deltour

Roulé – Pauline Deltour

A tray shouldn’t just be limited to its function but please and move. The sophisticated shape, rounded edges and sought-after materials make it luxurious in its simplicity. Pauline has also designed a little table, in ash or mahogany, where the Roulé tray becomes the top of the table. The series is further enriched by a glass mat, a little tray, a bowl and a centrepiece.

Pocket Chair – Ding 3000

An eccentric solution for this little armchair in natural cuoietto leather with a soft-touch effect. It slips over the wooden structure like a glove, the frame remaining suspended on the structure guaranteeing a surprising adaptability of the seat. The welcoming shape gives it a familiar yet sophisticated air. Washable and resistant, it can be used in different contexts.

Above: Gemma Box by Gemma Holt

Gemma Box – Gemma Holt

This looks like a simple block of wood but the top is a lid held by little magnets. A box or, better, a secret, multi-functional box, in 4 sizes and three finishes – ash, walnut and oak.

Slice – James Irvine

The desk organiser ‘Slice’ is made from a block of solid cork and is an elegant item of classic design which becomes original, contemporary and light through the choice of the material. It can house everything that’s required on a desk, from paper clips to the smartphone, and the pen to the tablet, in its rationally divided sections.

Above: Bridge table by Ichiro Iwasaki

Bridge – Ichiro Iwasaki

The Discipline collection is extended by a range for the outdoors – chair, stool, bench and table, featuring a simple, essential and elegant structure. The chair is in Iroko, a particularly resistant African wood suitable for outside; the structure in treated steel and the back in aluminium give the series robustness and lightness. Available in four colours to create combinations never trivial.

Clip Candleholder – Nendo

The minimalist style of the Japanese studio emerges in the clean lines, emptying of the volumes and the functionality of the items. The slender steel structure of Clip candleholders evokes the shape of fruit and the functional spring system enables any standard candle to be adapted to it.

Above: Clip Side Table by Nendo

Clip Coat Hanger – Nendo

Taking off the clothes worn in the open air so that you can be comfortable in your own home is one of the most comforting feelings associated with well-being. Just like having an object which carries out this function and, at the same time, exalts the aesthetic value. The Clip coat stand, which hooks and hangers can also be attached to, is functional, essential and features the clean lines typical of the Japanese studio. It adapts perfectly to every room where it will certainly be noticed because of its refined elegance. Available in three colours.

Clip Side Table – Nendo

The clean, severe lines and the minimal structure in steel supporting the solid, extra-clear glass top make CLIP a side table able to give every sitting room, office or waiting room a discreet touch of aesthetics and elegance. Available in two sizes and three colours.

Above: Smusso chair by Philippe Nigro

Smusso – Philippe Nigro

Sophisticated, flexible, light and sustainable, Smusso features a monocoque in natural bamboo, cut out to ensure lightness and transpiration, attached to a structure in light, robust steel. It is marked by a transverse design, available in the version with or without arms, and is easy to include in the domestic environment or public spaces. The rotating structure and the height adjustable one, with or without wheels, make it especially suitable as an individual desk or conference room chair. Available in the warm natural colour of bamboo or the more formal black.

Peg – Jonah Takagi

The coat stand becomes an element of style and personality. Simple and linear, in wood, in four colours to create bright colour combinations on the walls.

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by Discipline appeared first on Dezeen.

With all eyes on Rio ahead of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, Brazilian firm Bernardes + Jacobsen Arquitetura has grouped three disused buildings under an undulating roof to create a new art museum and art school (+ slideshow + photographs by Leonardo Finotti).

The Museu de Arte do Rio, which opened last month, occupies the renovated interiors of the Palacete Dom João, an early-twentieth-century palace beside Mauá Square in Rio’s port. Meanwhile, the Escola do Olhar school is inserted within a former police building and bus station next door.

Inspired by the shape of waves, Bernardes + Jacobsen Arquitetura added an undulating concrete canopy over both of the buildings, sheltering a new outdoor bar and events space on the rooftops.

“We had the challenge of proposing an icon,” architect Bernardo Jacobsen told the Rio Times. “The more modern building had two extra floors so we eliminated these to balance the set. Then we built a wave over the two, almost like a flying object.”

The museum of art comprises eight double-height galleries, accommodated across four near-identical floors. A ground floor entrance leads in through the centre of the facade, where visitors can either head straight towards the exhibitions or take a lift up to the roof.

The neighbouring school is an elevated structure supported by pilotis. The architects have cleaned up the ground floor area to create a public square, while a small sculpture area is positioned alongside.

Three levels of classrooms, workshops and exhibition rooms begin on the first floor, plus a library and auditorium are located on the fourth floor and a bridge links the two buildings on the next level up.

The Museu de Arte do Rio opened to the public with four eclectic exhibitions of Brazilian and international art.

Above: site plan – click for larger image

The renovated palace won’t be the only museum completed ahead of the 2016 Olympic games. The Museum of Image and Sound Rio by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Casa Daros, a museum of Latin American art, by Paulo Mendes da Rocha are also set to open in the next three years. See more architecture in Brazil on Dezeen.

Above: ground floor plan – click for larger image

See more photography by Leonardo Finotti on Dezeen or on the photographer’s website.

Above: mezzanine level – click for larger image

Read on for more project details from Jacobsen Arquitetura:

MAR – Art Museum of Rio

Our challenge was to unite three existing buildings with different architectural characteristics to house the Museu de Arte do Rio, the school “A Escola do Olhar” as well as cultural and leisure spaces. The existing buildings, the palace “Palacete Dom João”, the police building and the old central bus station of Rio, connected shall be part of the major urban redevelopment in the historic downtown of Rio de Janeiro. For each construction we analysed different levels of preservation.

Above: first floor plan – click for larger image

The first step was to establish a flow system allowing the Museum and school to work in an integrated and efficient manner. Therefore we proposed the creation of a suspended square on the police building rooftop, which will unite all accesses and host a bar and an area for cultural events and leisure. Consequently, the visitation will be from top to bottom.

Above: second floor plan – click for larger image

It was established that the palace, due to its large ceiling height and structure free plan should hold the exhibition areas of the museum. The police building shall be used for the school, auditoriums, multimedia exhibition areas, administration areas and employee areas of the complex.

Above: third floor plan – click for larger image

The stilts, currently used as an access to the road, will turn into a large foyer for entire complex, and will hold the sculpture exhibition areas. Access will be controlled between the two buildings, characterizing this empty space as internal, open and covered. The marquee of the Road, heritage element listed by the City, will be used for lavatories, store and region of loading, unloading and deposits.

Above: fourth floor plan – click for larger image

The connection and circulation of visitors between the two buildings, in the form of a suspended catwalk will belong to this new building, featuring the most unusual state possible.

Above: fifth floor plan – click for larger image

For the police building, we propose the suspension of the last floor to balance the height of the two buildings as well as the replacement of the masonry closing façade profiles using translucent glass, making the structural system of indented columns visible and revealing the stilts.

Above: sixth floor plan – click for larger image

Finally as the main mark of the project, we suggested that the suspended square have an abstract and aerial form. A fluid and extremely light structure, simulating water surface waves. A poetic architectural character full of meaning, simple and at the same time modern in regards to the structural calculation. This element shall be seen near and by far, and from below to who is arriving at the Praça Mauá, from above by those who are at the Morro da Conceição.

Above: cross-section – click for larger image

Above: elevation – click for larger image

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Bernardes + Jacobsen Arquitetura appeared first on Dezeen.

Milan 2013: French architect Jean Nouvel has set out his vision for the office environments of the future in a huge installation at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile this week (+ slideshow).

Commissioned by Cosmit, the parent company of the Salone, Project: Office for Living sees Jean Nouvel explore the changes taking place in the workplace and offers an alternative to today’s “unliveable” offices.

“In 30 or 40 years’ time we will be stunned to see just how unliveable most of today’s offices really were,” explained Nouvel. “Grotesque clones, standardisation, totalitarianism, never the merest hint of being pleasurable to inhabit.”

The exhibition in the SaloneUfficio area begins in a darkened space, where four movies show stylist Agnès B, photographer Elliot Erwitt, artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and writer and film director Alain Fleischer each discussing the concept of office space.

The visitor then enters various office scenarios devised by Nouvel, including an apartment imagined as a comfortable workspace and a series of offices divided by sliding walls and portable blinds.

The blank space of a converted warehouse allows a free and flexible arrangement of furniture and lighting, while a scenario in a high-tech skyscraper explores how sliding, collapsible walls and modular furniture can make a city office a more stimulating environment.

“We can work, and will increasingly work, in apartments, in our own apartments, in converted warehouses,” added Nouvel. “If we were to work in office skyscrapers, we would have to invent spaces impregnated with generosity, receptive to each and everybody’s universes and personalisations.”

The installation also features new pieces by designers Michele De Lucchi, Marc Newson, Philippe Starck and Ron Arad, who presents a piece of colour-changing furniture.

Another space is dedicated to demonstrating innovative lighting systems for offices, while a final room houses a selection of furniture by some of Nouvel’s favourite architects.

In an interview with Dezeen earlier this year, Nouvel argued that contemporary offices are functional and rational but not effective. “The office today is a repetition of the same space for everyone,” he said. “General solutions are bad solutions for everyone.

The Project: Office for Living installation is on show in Pavilion 24 of SaloneUfficio at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan until 14 April.

Earlier today we posted a round-up of highlights from the Salone, including a lamp with a glass base by Industrial Facility and chairs with wavy backs by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. See all news and products from Milan this year and check out our interactive map of the best parties, exhibitions and talks.

Other recent projects by Nouvel include an office block in Paris that looks like a pile of three separate buildings and a collection of aluminium chairs for Emeco – see all architecture and design by Jean Nouvel.

Here’s some more information from Cosmit, organisers of the Salone:

Jean Nouvel presents “Project: office for living”

The theme for the Saloni 2013 collateral event is the office. A dedicated area inside saloneufficio’s pavilion 24, will be given over to French architect Jean Nouvel’s exploration of enjoyment in office living. From 9th to 14th at the Milan Fairgrounds, Rho.

“‘Project: office for living’ is intended to illustrate ‘the concept of taking pleasure in life’: working is an integral part of living and we often spend more time in our offices than we do at home,” says Nouvel.

Specially commissioned by Cosmit, Pritzker Prize 2008 winner Nouvel’s project explores the tremendous changes that have marked out living and working spaces over the last few years.

“Once we reject cloned and alienating spaces, it becomes clear that there are many possible solutions,” says Jean Nouvel. “We have to change our behaviours, plan and think of work with a different mindset: no matter where an office is situated, it has to have a space it can call its own, identifiable, alterable, on a human scale, with its own history and objects, an enjoyable environment, basically.”

Within a dedicated 1,200 m2 area inside saloneufficio’s pavilion 24, Jean Nouvel will explore contemporary building concepts informed by a rejection of cloned, alienating, standardised and serially repetitive spaces, inspiring exhibitors and visitors with different ways of achieving alternative aggregation formulas.

The “office for living” exhibit takes the form of a small district, a small city – showcasing unique and unusual work scenarios that endeavour to demonstrate that, because of their individuality, workspaces need to be able to make for happy living as well as to provide inspiration. These are not utopias, or showrooms, or collections of a few exceptional pieces: these offices are representative of ordinary situations, often existing ones, and feature office furniture produced in the main by saloneufficio exhibitors.

A monolith rises in the middle of saloneufficio, as intriguing as it is inviting, showing four video-portraits – of the stylist Agnès B, the photographer Elliot Erwitt, the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and the writer and film director Alain Fleischer – each raising their concerns and expressing their points of view on the office space.

Five groundbreaking work situations are freely grouped around the monolith, serving to accentuate just how outdated today’s attitudes to the workplace really are.

The first of these is a classic city-centre apartment, left intact: the reception rooms, bedroom, kitchen, fireplaces, floors and mouldings have been left untouched. The space, used for both work and entertaining, is furnished to chime with the original architecture and the echoes of the past, with several different activities taking place in a warm, intimate atmosphere. The spaces are comfortable, individual and original. The apartment serves as a pleasing backdrop for living, enabling self-expression through objects and work, conserving the functional ethos of the office yet without prompting the same resonance.

The second is informed by the increasing vogue for working from home. During the day the house serves as an office, reprising its domestic function in the evenings, at weekends and on days off. “Habitation” and “office” become interwoven: the lines between office and home furniture become blurred, in a space in which even the objects have a dual existence.

Then there is an open space, containing pieces of industrial furniture that can be put together, stacked, taken apart and reassembled, breaking with the totalitarian, repetitious character of today’s offices. Furniture from several different eras is combined, incorporating objects from different spheres. The openness of the space enables everyone to express themselves freely, building their own working environments: cut off from their neighbours or in close contact; sitting on their desks or hunkering down on them. Different varieties of wood, cardboard, leather and coloured plastic rub shoulders, crowned with atypical and unexpected objects, marking out an irregular and astonishing cityscape.

The fourth space consists of a warehouse, a basic steel container of the kind found in city suburbs the world over. These often-empty cubes make for free-range furnishing. Their particular spatial quality affords each and every form of appropriation and differentiation. They make for and absorb specific non-systematic, totally flexible furnishing, lighting and decorating solutions. The scope for unfettered conversion is what sets this free space apart.

Rationalism provides the theme for the final space: a high-tech, open-plan office system which, while conforming to normality and to rational standardisation, is geared to transformation. The footprint, which may seem static and repetitive, is in fact free-form: sliding, collapsible walls enable individual offices to be built, either opening out into the adjacent space or the corridor or providing isolation. The doors are sliding or folding, there are blinds for light regulation, with frosted glass for intimacy. Sophisticated wood and chrome finishings and high-tech components impart a luxurious feel. An overall yet generous layout, geared to enjoyment in life.

A light laboratory promoting artistic and pictorial lighting for working environments, breaking with the monotony of traditional, homogeneous office lighting, is another feature. Prototype lamps, providing hitherto undreamt-of lighting solutions enabling each person to create their own lighting system,
Are on exhibit.

Spaces unfettered by traditional rules, therefore, with the concept of enjoyment in work firmly first and foremost, allowing people to put their own spaces together as best suits them, with plays of light and reflections.

Jean Nouvel has also put together a small compendium of furnishings by his great heroes, a homage to extraordinary designs of the past that are still tremendously contemporary. The pieces are displayed in front of the photographs of the places for which they were conceived by their “creators,” the masters who make up the imaginary museum that fires his inspiration.

The VIP lounge, where Ron Arad, Michele De Lucchi, Marc Newson and Philippe Starck have been interviewed in their own workplaces and expounded on their visions, rounds off the project.

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by Jean Nouvel appeared first on Dezeen.

OMA’s new Tokyo store for American accessories brand Coach is a glazed cube with a herringbone-patterned display system (+ slideshow).

Inspired by the categorised wooden storage systems of Coach‘s original 1940s stores, Coach Omotesando features a modular shelving system that Rem Koolhaas’ OMA has developed for all of the brand’s new stores.

Here, the shelves form a herringbone pattern that covers the glazed facade of the two-storey shop. Frosted glass panels were used to build the boxy shelves on the inside of the walls, while on the outside they form a system of horizontal louvres.

Once the store is open each box will be filled with an item from Coach’s latest collections, which include outerwear, footwear, jewellery, handbags and other accessories.

A staircase is positioned at the centre of the store, connecting womenswear on the ground floor with menswear on the first floor. This area also features a modular shelving system, although here it is broken up into a rectilinear grid.

Lighting is installed within the staircase tower, intended to create a central beacon that illuminates the store 24 hours a day.

OMA first revealed designs for the display system during the summer. Since then the studio has installed a smaller version at a Coach kiosk within Macy’s flagship Herald Square store in New York.

This week Dutch firm OMA has also revealed a collection of furniture for US furniture brand Knoll. See more architecture and design by OMA.

Other notable shop designs on Dezeen include Peter Marino’s Louis Vuitton Maison on London’s Bond Street and Schemata’s flagship for Japanese fashion brand Takeo Kikuchi. See more shops on Dezeen.

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Here’s some more information from OMA:

Coach Flagship, Omotesando

Founded in 1941, Coach began as a leather goods retailer, displaying their products in a single row of library-like, wooden shelving that categorized their handbags and wallets. The brand’s repertoire has since expanded to include a full range of lifestyle merchandise including outerwear, footwear, jewelry, watches and sunwear, which are now sold in a variety of retail environments from specialty boutique to department store.

Inspired by the clarity of Coach’s original, systematic filing retail strategy, OMA designed a modular display unit that is flexible enough to accommodate the specific needs of each product and retail environment. The spatial possibilities of this highly functional system reinforce Coach’s mission to represent ‘logic and magic.’ For the first iteration at a kiosk within Macy’s department store at Herald Square, acrylic display units were assembled into a floor-to-ceiling high, “V” shaped wall. Products appear to float amidst maintained views to the accessories floor beyond.

Coach’s ninth Japan flagship is a two-story, corner site on Omotesando, a prominent retail corridor in Tokyo. In comparison to the increasingly decorative elevations that characterize Omotesando, OMA’s design integrates display into the façade, seamlessly communicating the brand’s presence from the inside out.

The display units are stacked in a herringbone pattern of vertical and horizontal orientation to facilitate a range of curation scenarios. Dimensioned to accommodate Coach’s standard merchandising elements (ex. mannequins, busts, bags), the unit measures 1800 mm x 520 mm. Frosted glass that provides shelving within the store is further articulated to the façade as louvers.

Viewed from the exterior, the double-height storefront presents an uninterrupted survey of Coach’s full collection in a single view, with a dedicated frame for each product. Viewed from the interior, the display unit’s translucency creates an active backdrop for merchandise, filtering Omotesando’s streetscape into the shopping experience.

Above: display concept

In addition to the façade, OMA designed a floating tower of illuminated units that encase the store’s central stair, seamlessly connecting the women’s first floor and men’s second level. Consolidating the display on the facade and circulation creates a condition in which the shopper is continuously surrounded by product, while simultaneously liberating floorspace. In the evenings, the circulation tower illuminates the façade as a dynamic, 24-hour window display from within.

Above: cross section

Status: Commission January 2012; Completion April 2013
Client: Coach, Inc.
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Site: Ground and second floor of new construction on Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan Program: 444.75 m2 / 4787.25 sf
Façade: 210 glass units Circulation Tower: 105 acrylic units
Partner-in-Charge: Shohei Shigematsu
Project Architect: Rami Abou Khalil
Team: Yolanda do Campo, Benedict Clouette with Jackie Woon Bae, Cass Nakashima, Phillip Poon, David Theisz
Local Architect and Engineer: Obayashi Corporation Façade Consultancy: Michael Ludvik
Interior Architecture: Nomura, Co., Ltd.

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by OMA appeared first on Dezeen.

This timber-clad house by Dutch office Marc Prosman Architecten was one of the first to be constructed on an artificial island in IJburg, Amsterdam (+ slideshow).

As one of six man-made islands that make up the IJburg district, East Rieteilanden is a residential neighbourhood where approximately 80 new homes are in development.

Each residence on the island is given a similar-sized plot and is shaped by a series of construction guidelines. “The maximum size of the building has resulted in a uniformity of volumes on the island,” Marc Prosman Architecten‘s Martien ter Veen told Dezeen.

For IJburg Villa, the architects designed a rectilinear two-storey volume with rectangular recesses creating an entrance porch and first-floor balcony.

Lengths of pine are arranged vertically across the outer walls and also provide shutters across the windows. The building is positioned beside the water, so a layer of green water-repellent foil is inserted behind the cladding and can be glimpsed through the gaps between each wooden panel.

“The brown timber gives the closed facade depth and lightness,” says Ter Veen. “Its appearance refers to the reed that is planted along the shores of Rieteiland-Oost island.”

An area of concrete surrounds the outer walls of the kitchen and indicates the entrance into the house.

Beyond the entrance, the kitchen is positioned on the right, a living room is to the left and a staircase leads up to three bedrooms upstairs. The largest of the bedrooms has a private bathroom and opens out to the balcony overlooking the water.

The architects also added a long bookshelf along one wall at ground floor level, which is lit from behind by a frosted window.

Other completed residences on East Rieteilanden include a house with an entirely glazed rear facade and a timber house with a spiral staircase on its side. See more architecture in IJburg.

Photography is by Milad Pallesh.

Above: site plan

Here’s a short description from Marc Prosman Architecten:

On this new IJburg parcel Marc Prosman Architecten designed a detached villa, carefully embedded in this island by its open and panoramic qualities. This spacious experience with a beautiful view on the water resembles the client’s wish for a sense of freedom and characterises the design.

Above: ground and first floor plans

The back facade is mostly glass fronts, providing access to a platform terrace and the building wide balcony. The fronts are subtly framed by the same wooden structure as all facades, giving this villa its coherent appearance. The entrance at the front is being accented by a concrete frame.

Above: long section – click for larger image

Next to the entrance the kitchen is situated; the living room at the back faces the water. One wall consists of glass, mainly. A horizontal strip of frosted glass on the outside is a bookcase on the inside. This welcomes diffuse light into the living room, without affecting the occupants’ privacy.

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Marc Prosman Architecten appeared first on Dezeen.