Hasta La Ideas

This week’s job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position for an interior designer with Dutch brand Moooi, whose Unexpected Welcome exhibition (pictured) was the most talked-about show in Milan this year. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.

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at Moooi appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen promotion: designer Raffaello Galiotto has created patterned marble disks that blur into new shapes when spun fast enough for Italian brand Lithos Design (+ slideshow).

The Opus Motus installation features a set of wheels, each formed from a mosaic of coloured marbles.

These geometric layout of the disks can be seen when the pieces are still, but once the 120-centimetre wide wheels are rotated at a certain speed the colours blur together to create circular patterns.

“This particular illusion is the combined result of three factors: the rotation speed, the design that determines the arrangement of the elements at a specific interval, and the light source,” said Galiotto.

All six types of marble used come from different countries and include Verde Giada from China, Travertino Rosso and Travertino Giallo from Iran, Bianco Thassos from Greece, Nero Marquinia from Spain and Azul Macaubas from Brazil.

Colours and shapes of the segments were chosen after research into which would create the best illusions.

The disks are raised off the ground on stands and are spun by hand using counter-weighted levers on one side. For further details about the project visit the Lithos Design website.

Read on for more information from Lithos Design:

The Moving Colours of Stone

Playful, passionate, hypnotic, colourful.

Opus Motus is the new scenic stone design installation by Raffaello Galiotto in conjunction with Lithos Design, the result of a study on the natural colours of stone combined with movement.

Six gaudy mechanical vertical spinning tops (120 centimetres in diameter, two centimetres thick and 200 centimetres high) featuring an inlaid marble circle: when activated by a lever, it begins to spin progressively faster, the colours of nature merge together, amalgamating and forming other unprecedented shades. The figures will open up in a majestic and thrilling crescendo: an explosion of colours and shapes reveal to every onlooker unique and surprising optical effects.

Around the world in six colours

The starting point of the study behind the conception of Opus Motus are six types of marble among the most prestigious and charming, sourced from the four corners of the globe, from East to West: Verde Giada from China, Travertino Rosso and Travertino Giallo from Iran, Bianco Thassos from Greece, Nero Marquinia from Spain, Azul Macaubas from Brazil.

All the colours and geometric structures used for Opus Motus were purpose-designed based on the RGB additive model according to specific optical and chromatic effects. Thus the wealth of colours, which is already quite evident, proves to be even more surprising when movement transforms them.

Stone and I

As in other projects, with Opus Motus Lithos Design and Raffello Galiotto investigate stone as a natural element and thus intimately close to man: for this reason, the interaction with the public and their active participation is especially important. The Opus Motus circles can be activated manually with a simple lever-mechanism. The various colours of the marble tesserae come apart through the rotating movement revealing new and impressive shapes and colours to the observer.

Click here to watch the video of Opus Motus.

My Playful Marble Inlays by Raffaello Galiotto

This research was inspired by the opus sectile, the old art of creating marble inlay designs: the ancient marble cladding characterised by mid- and large-size slabs sometimes salvaged from existing works, to be shaped and recomposed in complex geometries. Today my intent is to set into motion and play with the effects that the dynamics and our perception of colours have to offer. The result is the chromatic sum of the various lithotypes, each characterised and selected for its particular colouring as assessed by the RGB (Red Green Blue) composition indicated by the trichromatic colorimetric system.

The dynamics of these inlaid and rotating marble disks, with their consequential “perceptive overlapping”, mixes the colours by summing them in a sort of “stone metamorphosis” so as to produce new stones with surprising colours.

Even the design of the composition, subject to the kinetic effect of the rotation, is deconstructed and then reconstructed in a new arrangement.

In addition, a third effect – an optical illusion – can be perceived as the various elements of the marble design apparently move in a disjointed rotatory motion. This particular illusion is the combined result of three factors: the rotation speed, the design that determines the arrangement of the elements at a specific interval, and the light source. The artificial light source, which is also stroboscopic, together with the perceptive capacity of our eye, triggers a consequential clockwise or counter-clockwise effect.”
With Opus Motus, after 3D experimentation, Lithos Design explores a new form of expression to broach a new and unexplored territory in the world of stone colours. Founded on an in-depth knowledge of stone materials, of their sources, of the ability to work them through dedicated and sophisticated industrial systems and significant investments in Research and Development.

www.lithosdesign.com

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A collection of vintage Aston Martins can be glimpsed through the fritted glass facade of this house in Maastricht, the Netherlands, by Dutch studio Wiel Arets Architects.

Named V House, the three-storey residence is sandwiched between two historic buildings in a part of the city where new structures have to match the scale of their surroundings.

Wiel Arets Architects designed the building with an asymmetric glass facade so that the edge of the roof slopes between the eaves of its neighbours, creating an angular plane facing up towards the sky.

The glazed wall is fritted at the base to maintain some privacy for residents, while thin curtains hang behind.

In contrast, the rear facade is made up concrete frames infilled with windows. A large void opens the ground floor up to the elements, creating a space for storing around seven or eight vintage cars.

“Due to the house’s very narrow site, the intention was to increase the amount of natural daylight that enters it, at both its front and rear,” project architect Alex Kunnen told Dezeen.

“Without the void that has been cut into the maximum volume in the rear, the house would have been far too dark. And so the fully glazed front facade and the back void work in tandem,” added the architect.

Two separate staircases lead up from the parking level to the first floor above. The first is a “fast” stair that ascends to every floor, while the second is a “slow” route that climbs gently towards a living room at the back of the house.

“It was always the intention to have two paths of circulation,” said Kunnen, “foremost for safety reasons due to the house’s large size, but also because the multiple paths of circulation create various cinematographic scenes throughout the house while they are being experienced.”

A fully glazed living room is contained within a suspended structure, hanging from a pair of I-beams that span the site at the rear. A combined kitchen and dining room sit just beyond and features a 3.5-metre cantilevered dining table.

The bedroom occupies the second floor, alongside an office that can be transformed into a guest suite by folding a bed down from the wall.

Glass doors open out to one roof terrace at the rear, plus a staircase leads up to a second terrace at the very top of the building.

Storage is built into the walls to minimise clutter, and heating and cooling systems are built into the floors.

Residents use iPhones to remotely open and close the house’s entrances, so there are no handles or keyholes anywhere around the exterior.

Photography is by Jan Bitter, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Wiel Arets Architects:

V House

V House was constructed for a couple that collects vintage cars, and is stitched within the medieval tapestry of historic Maastricht. The city dictates all new structures remain within the envelope of pre-existing buildings, and so a cut was created in the house’s front façade to generate a triangulated surface, which leads from one neighbour’s sloped roof to the opposite neighbour’s vertical bearing wall.

As the house’s site is long and narrow, voids were cut into the maximum permitted volume to ensure that natural light spills throughout the interior. The ground floor is both open to the exterior elements and sunken to the rear of the site, which makes possible the maximum two-story height allowance. A covered portion of this exterior space serves as an outdoor parking garage for the owners’ collection of Aston Martins.

As the house finds refuge between two historical buildings, it is a burst of modernity within this currently gentrifying neighborhood of Maastricht. The house is enormous, totaling 530 m2, and is entered through two oversized sliding glass doors that perforate its front façade. These doors serve as the house’s main entry and open to either their left or right for entry by foot, and both simultaneously retract to allow the entry of automobiles.

Due to safety and privacy concerns, these glass entry doors have no handles or keyholes and are instead are remotely opened from any iPhone, from anywhere in the world. For further privacy the house’s front façade was fritted with a gradient pattern of dots, which disperse in placement as the house rises towards the sky and focus at a distance to compose an image of curtains fluttering in the wind. Actual curtains align the interior of the front façade to afford additional privacy.

Circulation throughout the house occurs via two paths. A ‘slow’ stair leads from the ground floor to the expansive living room, which is connected to the partially raised kitchen and dining areas by a small ramp. A ‘fast’ stairwell traverses the entire height of the house and, together with the platform elevator, allows for direct vertical shortcuts to all levels of living.

Thus this house, with its multiple circulation interventions, such as its living room ramp and ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ paths, is organised not around the traditional notion of stacked floors and is instead organised around its circulatory section. At the apex of this ‘fast’ route is the entrance to an expansive roof terrace that’s also the most public space of the house, as it offers panoramic views over the spired roofline of Maastricht.

The living room has been suspended from two I-beams that span two masonry bearing walls that surround the rear of the site. Steel tension rods measuring 5×10 cm extend from these I-beams into the almost fully glazed façade of the living room, which allows its volume to float above the Aston Martins below. For privacy reasons, this glazing was treated with a highly reflective coating that casts a hue of chartreuse or amber depending on the season and angle of the sun. Only when inhabiting the master bedroom is this hanging of the living room apparent, as the I-beams are visible from the master bedroom, which opens onto the living room’s roof, which functions as a private terrace for the owners.

Heating and cooling is provided via a concrete core activation system concealed within the floors and ceilings of the house, while all storage is built into the circulatory areas in order to divide spaces and define rooms. These custom designed storage units also outfit the office space, where they conceal a bed that can be lowered to accommodate temporary visitors, such as the owners’ now grown children. All storage areas recede in prominence due to their fluid integration, which allows the house’s interior to remain flexible and open for ephemeral definition.

The one-piece custom designed kitchen was constructed in stainless steel, and the dining table, which is connected to it, cantilevers 3.5 m toward the front façade. The custom furnishings and storage spaces, together with the in-situ concrete and multiple roof terraces, make the V’ house an expression of free space in a regulated heritage context.

Program: Housing
Size: 530 m2
Date of design: 2006-2010
Date of completion: 2013
Project team: Wiel Arets, Alex Kunnen, Joris Lens, Breg Horemans, Felix Thies, Daniel Meier
Collaborators: Francois Steul
Client: Private
Consultants: Palte BV, Wetering Raadgevende Ingenieurs BV, Permasteelisa BV

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The translucent polycarbonate walls of this house in Hiroshima by Japanese architects Suppose Design Office allow natural light to flood the interior from all sides (+ slideshow).

Named House of Tousuienn, the three-storey building was designed by Suppose Design Office as the residence of a family of five, who also requested a space for storing and repairing a collection of motorcycles.

The long and narrow shape of the site dictated the shape of the house. It is surrounded on three sides by neighbouring buildings, so the architects added translucent cladding to allow light to permeate the interior without comprising residents’ privacy.

“Most exterior walls are thick and heavy,” said the architects. “For the House of Tousuien, we used a thin and translucent material to replace the regular exterior walls, where natural light can be maximised in the interior space.”

Windows are made from the same material as the walls, so they don’t offer any additional light but can be opened to allow residents to let fresh air into the building.

At night, lights glowing from within transform the building into a huge lightbox along the streetscape.

“The client can fully experience [the] change of the surrounding nature inside the house with a warm and bright space,” added the architects.

A steel structure made up of I-beams is on show inside the building and has been painted white. Concrete ceilings are left exposed, while the floors encompass a mixture of concrete and timber.

The motorcycle room occupies the entire ground floor and features wide sliding doors for easy access.

A small maintenance room sits in the centre of the space, while bicycles can be stored behind a staircase leading to the living spaces above.

A kitchen, dining room and living room are grouped together on the first floor, with a bathroom positioned behind.

On the uppermost floor, an enclosed children’s room in the middle of the space creates a barrier between two larger bedrooms on either side.

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a short project description from Suppose Design Office:

The House of Tousuien

The House of Tousuien is located in a quiet residential area, and it is designed for a couple and 3 children. The three sides of this house are surrounded by other residence buildings, and the shape of the site forces the house to stay long and narrow.

Most exterior walls are thick and heavy, where windows are added to balance out the heavy look of the exterior. For the House of Tousuien, we used a thin and translucent material to replace the regular exterior walls, where natural light can be maximised in the interior space.

In the House of Tousuien the client can fully experience change of the surrounding nature inside the house with a warm and bright space.

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London architect Daniel Widrig is presenting a collection of 3D-printed wearable sculptures during Design Miami this week, including one that looks like an exoskeleton.

Widrig‘s Kinesis collection explores the possibility of creating customised 3D-printed products based on a scan of the wearer’s body so they fit perfectly.

“We have been working with body related objects for a while now,” Widrig told Dezeen. “We originally worked with mannequins which we sculpted ourselves based on standard model sizes. Nevertheless we wanted to go a step further this time and create customised objects that literally merge with the human body.”

“Every body is unique and has its individual oddities, so 3D scanning is the only way to manage a total blending between a specific body’s topography and the designed geometry,” he added.

Using a digital model produced by the 3D scan as a starting point, Widrig analysed the parts of the body where the products would be worn and developed forms that are designed to “emphasise and exaggerate them.”

Two of the pieces are designed to be worn around the neck, with one of them intended to resemble “an inflated skin wrapping around the model’s breast and neck area.”

The other neckpiece is inspired by the expansions and contraction of muscular systems. These two objects take the form of a dense amalgamation of curving sections that resemble sinews or tendons.

The third object comprises a series of connected forms resembling vertebrae, which narrow into ribs that fit over the shoulder blades. “It resembles an exoskeleton growing out of the model’s spine,” said Widrig.

All of the wearable products were manufactured by Belgian 3D printing specialist Materialise from a polyamide/nylon powder using a selective laser sintering process.

Widrig explained that the process is ideal for fashion applications as it can be used to create flexible shapes with high levels of detailing and durability.

“Since our first fashion experiments in 2009, we tried to push the limits of SLS by reducing material thicknesses to a minimum where we wanted objects to be flexible, and gradually thickening up where we required more rigid zones,” he said.

The Kinesis collection is on show at design brand Luminaire’s Design+World event in Miami today.

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