Hasta La Ideas

A mix of faculty, students and non-affiliated practitioners in the fields of architecture and design have signed a petition calling for a boycott of Columbia University after its treatment of students protesting the war in Gaza.

The petition was launched under the moniker Architects and Planners Against Apartheid and calls “to boycott all academic events at Columbia University as a whole” and particularly Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and Barnard Architecture, the liberal arts college that shares the campus.

The petition was launched after the New York City university called in police in response to student protests, which began in mid-April, and have since spread to universities all over the United States.

 

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A post shared by Kabage Karanja (@kabage_karanja)

Kabage Karanja shared the petition on Instagram

The architect-specific petition follows a general one signed by thousands of sympathetic academics.

A week after the petition was signed and sent to Columbia, the protests culminated in the NYPD clearing the campus of protest encampments and clearing an academic building that had been “seized” by the protestors, according to the New York Times, leading to dozens of arrests early Wednesday morning.

“Many faculty within the department are extremely supportive of the course and the students with the encampment and initiatives that are ongoing,” Nairobi-based architect and adjunct assistant professor at GSAPP Kabage Karanja told Dezeen.

Kabage, who is a signatory on the petition, which includes more than 180 names, shared a post promoting the petition on Instagram after Wednesday morning’s police actions. He said that Architects and Planners Against Apartheid is a group that has come together to “express our solidarity with the cause to free Palestine”.

Concern over brutality towards students

“We are only emphasizing this deep concern of the extent of brutality that’s being put forward against those students,” he continued.

“I think the key request was for a sit down to discuss these matters,” said Karanja, referring to the students’ request that Columbia divest from companies profiting from the war in Gaza.

He believes that the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza is the key concern of students, and said that architects have a key role to play in protesting the war.

“We, beyond any profession, are front and centre within the conflict, because more often than not architectural buildings, from universities to hospitals to homes, are the targets and the people within those, most of whom are innocent,” said Karanja.

He added that many of the professors at the university were signatories on a 2021 petition that called for “supporting student, faculty and staff activism for justice in Palestine” – a petition that was signed by now-dean of GSAPP Andres Jacques.

Destruction and disruption says Columbia

Columbia has maintained that its decision to call on the police was justified, citing damage to property to structures in the private institution and anti-semitic sentiments among the protestors.

“Today’s protesters are also fighting for an important cause, for the rights of Palestinians and against the humanitarian tragedy in Gaza. They have many supporters in our community and have a right to express their views and engage in peaceful protest,” said university president Minouche Shafik in a statement yesterday.

“But students and outside activists breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of destruction, not political speech. Many students have also felt uncomfortable and unwelcome because of the disruption and antisemitic comments made by some individuals, especially in the protests that have persistently mobilized outside our gates.”

Dezeen has reached out to Columbia University for comment on the Architects and Planners Against Apartheid petition.

The photography is via Wikipedia Commons.

The post Architects and planners call for boycott of Columbia University after protests appeared first on Dezeen.

If you’re someone like Martina of YouTube channel Nerdforge, who craves a cup of coffee after lunch, or maybe during work, you don’t have to get up and hit the kitchen anymore. Martina has built herself a PC case mod that brews a perfect cup of coffee with the touch of a button. And if you’re an ardent coffee buff, she has a detailed video on how you can try and build a PC that also makes coffee in a quick and efficient manner.

This PC with a built in coffee maker brews and dispense a hot cup of coffee whenever you want, but the process of building it from scratch hasn’t been easy. The idea started with, what if there was a coffee maker installed right into the PC, you wouldn’t have to get up and fetch a cup when you wanted it after lunch. And so, the modification started with the empty Corsair Obsidian 1000D tower case, which was considered big enough to fit the coffee machine.

Designer: Nerdforge

The humungous PC case was needed because Martina did not want to install a pod coffee maker. She wanted the entire machine: from bean grinder to brewer and dispenser, all-in-one, functioning glitch-free on a press of a button. The PC case was first cleared of the side panels and obstruction on the right where the coffee mug would need space to move in and out. Then the bean grinder was first trimmed to fit into the case with 3D printed pipes, funnels and attachments connecting it to the brewing machine.

Martina removed the coffee container from the dispenser to replace it with a mug that could be easily accessed by the user. Once the hardware was ready, the recreated coffee machine was connected to an Arduino (by Martina’s partner Hansi) to be able to control it using just one button. The machine grinds, brews, and dispense a savory cup of coffee in one breath, with all the precision. The duo has added a visual progress bar to see where the coffee making process has reached. Also, provided is a sensor that ensure the coffee never begins brewing until there is a cup in the holder.

Although everything in the video is all about the installation of the coffee machine in the PC case, it has been fitted with capable innards to deliver computing needs. It comes installed with Intel Core i7-14700K processor and an Nvidia RTX 4070 Ti graphics. Other details are scanty, but the PC is air-cooled to ensure it can keep the temperature on both – coffee machine and PC – sides effectively cooled. Finally, for an impressive and aesthetically pleasing look, Martina decorated the case mod with stained wood on both the inside and the outside, and finished the look with LED lights.

The post YouTuber custom builds coffee machine into a PC for freshly brewed cup of Joe at work first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Ourou shelving system employs an unusual wood joint. It was developed by French industrial designer Guillaume Bloget, working with craftsman Antoine Rivie`re.

“I wanted to make a wooden shelving system, without nails or screws, completely removable so that it could be stored flat,” Bloget explains. “After going back and forth between drawing and prototyping, we found a self-locking solution, capable of locking the assembly as the shelf was loaded.”

To explain what you’re looking at: The trapezoidal verticals have had round tenons milled into their bottom edges.

The horizontals are where it gets tricky. Each end of the horizontals have had half-lap tabs cut into them that alternate, top/bottom. Where the tabs switch over, a round mortise has been bored.

With two horizontals lapped, the tenons at the bottom of the verticals lock into place. The top of the vertical slots into a mortise in the center of the horizontal above.

“The constructive principle of the shelf is reduced to two parts: the upright and the top. The multiplication of these elements allows the shelf to adapt without limits to the dimensions of the spaces in which it is inserted.”

The Ourou isn’t a production piece; Bloget developed the design during a stay at France’s L’Association Rhizome residency program, which promotes creative research and interdisciplinary exchange. Rivie`re co-founded the association with architect Laure Girardeau.

Dezeen Showroom: named after a crystalline mineral, the Selenite Maximum tile collection by Italian brand Fiandre Architectural Surfaces brings an iridescent quality to interiors.

The Selenite Maximum collection references selenite, a variety of gypsum known for its transparent crystals, which led the ancient Greeks to dub it ‘moon stone’.

In Fiandre’s interpretation, crafted in high-performance porcelain stoneware, these rich internal structures are rendered in three colours: black, white and greige.

The brand says the tiles bring a “prestigious touch” to walls, floors and structures, while generating “a sense of spatial and spiritual renewal”.

The range comes in several formats as well as a new Jewel finish that Fiandre describes as combining glassiness and iridescence to create a luxuriant stone effect with silvery reflections.

The Selenite Maximum collection also delivers on the high-performance qualities of ceramic tile, boasting durability, mechanical strength, resistance to chemicals and easy cleaning.

Product details: Selenite Maximum
Brand: Fiandre
Contact: commerciale@granitifiandre.it

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Responsible furniture designers use sustainably-sourced and certified wood. However, not all of that wood goes into the pieces, of course; there are offcuts and scrap. These high-quality pieces of wood, which have had the bad luck of occupying the negative space of a design, are then burned, producing CO2.

Furniture designer Martin Kechayas has managed to get his hands on a large amount of offcuts. Since the pieces from any given production run often offer repeating shapes, he used them to design an entire furniture series. “The BRICO series comprises various pieces, all made from up to 100 percent residual wood,” Kechayas writes.

“BRICO is conceived originally as the ultimate ‘recycled chair:’ a composition of diverse – discarded, disparate – pieces of wood, put together in the form of a bricolage, or a 3D collage.”

“A kind of physically usable poetry – except, now, it’s resuable.”

The materials list of just one of these chairs is unintentionally hilarious:

“The BRICO chair Origin in oak, beech, birch, ash, maple, walnut, cherry, mahogany, cumaru, jotoba, pine, purple hart and a few rainforest trees.”

Kechayas is self-manufacturing the chairs and selling them here.