Hasta La Ideas

Cologne 2014: Eindhoven designer Tsuyoshi Hayashi has used discarded roof tiles to create curving seats for a series of stools and benches (+ slideshow).

Hayashi gathered the traditional kawara tiles from a factory in Takahama, a city in Japan with a long history of producing the curved roof tiles from local clay.

Across Japan, a five percent rate of kawara tiles being damaged during production results in more than 65,000 pieces being sent to landfill every year.

Hayashi cuts off the chipped or cracked parts of the damaged tiles and fixes them to a wooden frame that he designed to fit the standardised shape so no nails or glue are required for assembly.

“The smooth curved shape [of the tiles] invites people to sit and it keeps one’s posture straight ergonomically,” Hayashi told Dezeen.

The designer added that the processes used to manufacture the tiles make them extremely durable and weatherproof so they can be used outdoors.

“Japanese roof tiles are fired in more than 1200 degrees [Celsius], which makes them harder than the ones in Europe, which are mostly fired at around 800 degrees,” said Hayashi. “A single chair can support a person weighing up to 120 kilograms.”

Other properties that attracted Hayashi to seek out a new function for these redundant objects included the variety of textures and colours that are produced.

“Smoked roof tiles gives an ageing texture to the surface, and colours are created continuously by glazing companies as waste material after they showed them to the clients,” said the designer.

The wooden frames can be constructed as single pieces or combined to create long benches with legs of different heights.

Hayashi graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven last year and opened his own studio in the city in December. He is working on projects that explore potential uses for various waste materials from factories in Europe and Japan.

“My biggest wish is to collaborate with factories in each country and apply my design principle to propose unique value and locality of waste material,” said Hayashi.

The Kawara project was exhibited as part of the [D3] Design Talents exhibition at imm cologne.

This year’s [D3] Contest was won by a storage rail based on a traditional Shaker-style peg board. Imm cologne continues until Sunday at the Koelnmesse exhibition centre.

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by Tsuyoshi Hayashi appeared first on Dezeen.

Finnish graduate Mikko Hannula based the design of this faceted metal chair on a 3D scan of a traditional wooden seat called a Windsor chair (+ slideshow).

Hannula‘s Windsor 2.0 project explores how familiar objects can be updated using digital technologies to give them an appearance that reflects the cutting-edge tools available to contemporary designers.

“Furniture [designs] like the Windsor chair are becoming relics in the eyes of the younger generation and they desperately need some updating to become appealing again in our digital age,” Hannula told Dezeen.

“From a manufacturing point of view this sort of digital translation opens up whole new possibilities and market opportunities for traditional products,” he added.

The designer used a pocket camera and Autodesk’s 123D Catch software, which transforms photographs into 3D digital models, to capture the shape of a Windsor chair – a traditional design that features a solid wooden seat into which the turned wooden legs, struts and steam-bent back are inserted.

“I chose to use the Windsor chair as the basis of my design because it has a special meaning to the British people,” explained Hannula, who recently graduated from Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe. “It is an essential part of domestic interiors in the UK and an archetypal product in the furniture-making history in High Wycombe, the former chair-making capital of the world.”

A digital model generated by scanning the chair was simplified and abstracted into a series of faceted surfaces using 3D software.

Hannula then translated the three-dimensional form into a flat net shape that could be transferred onto a steel sheet.

From this point the chair was manufactured using manual processes. The metal was cut and then folded using a fly press before the joints were welded to create the chair’s rigid form.

The decision to use simple folding processes to produce the chair was influenced by Hannula’s original intention to develop an open-source product that could be made available online for people to download and put together themselves.

Windsor 2.0 was Hannula’s graduation project and currently exists as a one-off. However, he believes it could form the basis of a collection of products that reinterpret other classic designs.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

Windsor 2.0

Digital technologies are developing rapidly expanding from industry use to the average household opening up new exciting possibilities for the future. How­ever, instead of just going forward we must not forget the past. Objects are only important as a source of memory and association: they affect us through their ability to bring back fragments of the past to the present.

My aim has been to look back and forth at the same time challenging the established division be­tween tradition and innovation and blurring boundaries between low tech and hi tech. Using current digital tools I have ‘hacked’ into the DNA of an old Wind­sor chair resulting in a form that is typical for the digital age yet traditional and somehow familiar.

This project started as a thesis research project. I was trying to find out what kind of things people cherish in their homes and for what reasons. More than 50 % of all the respondents I interviewed mentioned memories as a reason for cherishing their special possessions. Although personal memories tend to evolve in time through different occasions and experiences, it is possible to make everyday objects to preserve history.

Windsor chair was a natural choice for the project because of its fundamental status in the furniture making history in High Wycombe and in the memory and the domestic landscape of Britain. I wanted to ‘upgrade’ this old, iconic piece of furniture, taking it to the digital age of 21st century.

The original chair was 3D scanned using 123D Catch software from Autodesk and a pocket camera. The digital model was then abstracted and refined, making it structurally feasible and aesthetically pleasing. After that the templates were created by unfolding the model and transferred onto sheet steel, which was then cut and folded back into a form of a chair and spray-painted. Despite the digital emphasis of the design process, this chair was materialised by hand using very traditional methods and materials.

Although digital fabrication could have been applied in manufacturing process, folding the product corresponded better with the initial idea of an open-source production which whoever could download from the Internet and reconstruct themselves. Also, rabidly developing technology and increasingly cheaper costs of 3D printing will soon make it more economical to print out products like this. For now, however, this chair remains as a one-off piece, a ‘furniture sculpture’.

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by Mikko Hannula appeared first on Dezeen.

Toulouse architects BAST have renovated a derelict house in the French city by adding a corrugated steel extension that contrasts with the existing masonry (+ slideshow).

BAST responded to planning regulations outlawing the demolition of the existing house by designing a vertical extension that will give its inhabitants an additional storey once the interior refurbishment is completed.

The metal-clad addition replaces the building’s damaged roof and sits on top of existing limewashed stone and brick walls, which echo the construction of other buildings on the street.

“We wanted to create a strong contrast between the part retained and the new part – to contrast massiveness of masonry against the abstract extension,” architect Laurent Didier told Dezeen.

The angular structure features an offset gable and is punctuated by small windows on the south and west sides. The use of the strong but lightweight corrugated material reduces stresses on the lower storey.

“The extension allows the metal to not overload the existing foundations and walls,” said Didier, adding that the weight of the new structure is equivalent to that of the old roof.

A row of roof lights along the north-facing surface brings a soft and consistent natural light into the upper floor of the building.

The ground floor will contain an open plan living room and kitchen, with a separate area housing a bedroom, bathroom and storage space.

A new framework constructed inside the existing walls will support a first floor containing two bedrooms, a bathroom and a mezzanine office.

The post M03 house renovation by BAST contrasts an
old brick base with a new metal extension appeared first on Dezeen.

Seattle firm Olson Kundig Architects used dynamite, chippers and saws to bore through the huge boulders of a rocky outcrop on a North American island to make room for this raw concrete house (+ slideshow).

Named after the French word for stone, the Pierre is a single-storey residence designed to cut into the protruding bedrock of the client’s existing property, located on one of the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle.

“Putting the house in the rock follows a tradition of building on the least productive part of a site, leaving the best parts free for cultivation,” said Tom Kundig, a director at Olson Kundig Architects and the lead architect on the project.

The house is slotted between two sections of rock. Its walls are made from exposed concrete, with a smooth surface that opposes the rough stone, while the roof is covered with grassy plants to allow the building to merge into the landscape.

Traces of the stone continue through the house’s interior, where a cave-like bathroom tunnels through one of the boulders and features a mirror that hangs down from a hole in the ceiling.

A large living and dining room spans the length of the building and features a fireplace hearth comprising a carved rock with a levelled surface.

The master bedroom sits off to one side and includes a sink with a basin made from another huge lump of stone, where polished sections allow water to cascade down three separate pools.

All rooms of the house are furnished with a selection of antique pieces, artworks and custom-designed lighting fixtures.

Leftover rock from the site excavation was turned into crushed aggregate for use during the construction.

The Pierre was completed in 2010 but was named as one of 26 winners of the American Institute of Architects’ Institute Honor Awards earlier this week.

Photography is by Benjamin Benschneider, unless otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Olson Kundig Architects:

 The Pierre

The owner’s affection for a stone outcropping on her property inspired the design of this house. Conceived as a retreat nestled into the rock, the Pierre (the French word for stone) celebrates the materiality of the site. From certain angles, the house – with its rough materials, encompassing stone, green roof, and surrounding foliage – almost disappears into nature.

To set the house deep into the site, portions of the rock outcropping were excavated through a combination of machine work and handwork. The contractor used large drills to set the outline of the building, then used dynamite, hydraulic chippers, and wire saws and other hand tools, working with finer and finer implements as construction progressed. Excavated rock was reused as crushed aggregate in the on all the stonework, a reminder of the building process, while huge pieces of rock were employed for the carport structure.

With the exception of a separate guest suite, the house functions on one main level, with an open-plan kitchen, dining, and living space. A wood-clad storage box (made with siding reclaimed from a Lionel Pries-designed house) transitions from outside to inside. Its two large bookcases open to provide concealed access to laundry and kitchen storage. A large pivoting steel and glass door provides access to a terrace.

Set at a right angle to the main space, a master suite features a custom-designed bed with a leather headboard and footboard set in the middle of floor-to ceiling bookshelves.

Throughout the house, the rock protrudes into the space, contrasting with the luxurious textures of the furnishings. Interior and exterior fireplace hearths are carved out of existing stone; levelled on top, they are otherwise left raw. In the master bathroom, water cascades through three polished pools, natural sinks in the existing stone. Off the main space, a powder room is carved out of the rock; a mirror set within a skytube reflects natural light into the space.

The materiality of the built structure – mild steel, smooth concrete, and drywall – create a neutral backdrop for the interior furnishings and artwork and the exterior views to the bay and surrounding landscape. Contemporary works of art by Cameron Martin, Jesse Paul Miller, Andres Serrano, Franz West, and Claude Zervas are mounted inside and outside the house. Antique furniture and art objects are complemented by custom pieces. The custom light fixtures are based on the designs of Irene McGowan, a Seattle artist and lighting designer best known for her work with noted Northwest architect Roland Terry.

Design Firm: Olson Kundig Architects
Lead Architect: Tom Kundig

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cuts into a rocky outcrop appeared first on Dezeen.

A pointed arch punctures the red concrete facade of this Portuguese visitor attraction designed by Lisbon architect Gonçalo Byrne to present the history of a fourteenth century battle between Portuguese and Castilian forces (+ slideshow).

The Centro de Interpretação da Batalha de Atoleiros was designed to host an exhibition dedicated to the story of the Battle of Atoleiros, the first clash of an eight-year period of Portuguese civil war that started when King Ferdinand I died without any male heirs.

Unable to situate the building on the historic battlefield, Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos created the centre in the nearby town of Fronteira, eastern Portugal, on a site overlooking a park.

The exterior walls are made from blocks of pigmented concrete and have a coarse surface intended to be reminiscent of the uneven construction of medieval buildings.

“The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand,” said the design team.

Slabs of schist, a fine-grained rock, are slotted between the layers of concrete to support the structure and give additional texture to the facade.

The pointed arch cuts right across the building to create a pair of glazed entrances beneath the shelter of the concrete. This glazing also wraps around the rear of the building to create a row of windows.

A curving wooden bench is positioned behind the windows, creating a seating area at the end of the exhibition trail where visitors are expected to look out across the park and recreate battle scenes with their imagination.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos:

Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros

Object

The Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros, in Fronteira, is a cultural equipment intended to raise social awareness on the several perspectives over the battle occurred on April 6th 1384, and its importance in the context of the dynastic disputes between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castela, by the end of the XIVth Century.

Given the impossibility on plotting the Interpretation Centre on-site, in the battlefield area, the City Council approved its plot in the town core, on a location with high visibility and inserted in an urban park system that simulates and evokes the old battlefield. During the visit to the Interpretation Centre, visitors will experience different visual perspectives of the battlefield, but also about the history, through its protagonists and authors, led by the hand of the painter Martins Barata.

A large bench, at the end of the exhibition circuit, presents urban park in all its dimensions, rehearsing another exhibition discourse, this made of vegetables and inert elements, a sculptural dimension that simulates the plains and the imagination refers to the Battle of Atoleiros.

Materials

The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces, achieved by the use of pigmented concrete with raw and irregular expression, very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand. This texture is enhanced by interposing lines of schist slabs in the horizontal joints of the building.

As a whole, the building generates a gravitational presence; almost an earth sculpture dyed in its own tonalities, evoking time in the spontaneous patina patterns, resembling a stained vertical battlefield, between a small and a larger body, like the two armies in conflict.

Structure

The combined use of concrete walls and a structure formed by a concrete column/beam/slab system, allowed maximal area exploitation and the display of generous exhibition areas.

Through the completion of consoles the structure had acquired more complexity, allowing lateral glazing and motivating an open relationship between inner and outside areas, between exhibition and urban park.

Environment

Portuguese southern landscape has a golden/reddish tone. The reddish wash of the building tries to emulate those colours and patterns, therefore reinforcing a sense of belonging.

Colour and textures are also enhanced by the usage of the same pitch used on the urban park paving system, serving as an essential framework for the Interpretation Centre, yet reinterpreting the battlefield original landscape.

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tells the story of a Portuguese civil war battle appeared first on Dezeen.