Hasta La Ideas

Herzog & de Meuron’s nearly completed Pérez Art Museum Miami leads this week’s Dezeen Mail newsletter, which also features the latest news, jobs and reader comments from Dezeen.

Read Dezeen Mail issue 181 | Subscribe to Dezeen Mail

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Opinion: Kieran Long argues that while it’s fun to be cynical about pop cultural artefacts like Katy Perry Lashes, a recent expose on the conditions in which they’re made proves that it’s vital for design criticism to move beyond semiotics.

I’ve always felt, in that completely unfair way we tend to judge big stars, that Katy Perry was the most cynical and dead inside of all the questionable female role models in the pop cultural landscape. The Popchips poster campaign she fronted earlier this year is burned into my retina. I saw her every morning at South Kensington Tube station, looking over the top of her sunglasses in a sarcastic gesture of astonishment at just how extraordinary a bag of crisps can be. Her fingernails were like talons and her steel grey eyes were framed in false eyelashes.

“All Katy Perry lashes by Eylure are handmade, 100% natural and each style is reusable,” reads the description on the box of fake eyelashes that sits on my desk as I write. This comes just before “Katy’s top tips”, the instructions, in the voice of the gazillion-selling pop star, about how to wear the lashes to their best effect.

There may be no more emblematic product of contemporary capitalism than Katy Perry Lashes, the false eyelashes endorsed by the megastar singer. They are made of real hair and the Cool Kitty style (one of three different designs available) of lash has an undulating profile, with longer and shorter hairs alternating and creating an effect that Katy Perry herself models in a photo on the front of the box.

Perry has a self-consciously plasticky, robot-from-the-1950s aesthetic that is always accessorised with false lashes, nail varnish and a comicbook hairdo. With this Stepford/Bladerunner thing, she seems to invite identification. Something about her plain, cybergirl-next-door look makes young women feel that they somehow should be her, or be like her. It’s no coincidence that most of her merchandise is products for the body: perfumes (a whole range of them), body lotion, makeup. By buying these objects, you are somehow transforming your physical substance into Perry’s. The lashes allow young people to get inside Perry’s body, to look out at the world through her eyes. This out-of-body experience is available for the reasonable price of £5.95 in high street pharmacies.

When her partnership with Covergirl cosmetics was announced, Perry was quoted as saying: “In addition to music, I’ve always considered makeup to be a powerful creative avenue of self-expression.” In Perry’s world, you have to design yourself, to draw a new you on your own skin: she’s the perfect articulation of how contemporary pop culture raises narcissism to an art form.

In the end, this is the psychological game for which the fake eyelashes are designed as a prop. In themselves they may not seem like interesting design objects: they derive their fascination for many of us from this pop cultural framing. The material things are simply two rows of hairs, each hair tied by hand and one-by-one onto a tiny piece of string. These are then trimmed and affixed to a small strip that can hold a latex-based glue. The glue fixes the row of hairs to the Perry wannabe’s own eyelid.

I probably wouldn’t have noticed these ephemeral bits of sub fashion design at all before I met Gethin Chamberlain, the journalist responsible for the remarkable expose of the manufacturing story behind the false lash industry, published in UK tabloid newspaper The Sun on Sunday 20 October. Chamberlain participated in a debate at the V&A museum about ethical manufacturing in the fashion industry, but just a few days before the event he published the story of the false eyelash industry. In it, Chamberlain traces Eylure’s production to small villages in Indonesia, where women weave the tiny lashes and earn as little as 20p per day for doing so. He describes how many workers in the lash industry (which is worth £110 million in Britain alone) do earn the legal minimum wage for that region (£50 per month) but that some factories outsource the work to homeworkers in more remote locations: many of these earn less than half that paltry wage.

As designers and critics, we can always enjoy being cynical about pop cultural artefacts like these lashes and idly patronise the industry around figures like Perry. I guess there’s a whole office devoted to selling Perry’s name, plastering it over merchandise from body lotion to perfume to iPhone covers to T-shirts. There’s even something reassuring for prospective businesspeople that it’s still possible to make money in this day and age selling fridge magnets with pictures of Katy Perry in the buff on them. If capitalism is that easy, I wonder why we aren’t all making more money.

But the story of these objects and their making is a sleight of hand, a trick that consumerism plays on us. So remote are we from manufacturing today that a company can celebrate the making of these objects as a positive marketing story (“handmade, 100% natural”), while indirectly employing workers in exploitative conditions. Thanks to journalists like Chamberlain we are all aware of this. If we are serious about design in the expanded field, we have to inquire after not just the semiotic resonances of these objects, but the human costs too.

Kieran Long is Senior Curator of Contemporary Architecture, Design and Digital at the Victoria & Albert Museum. He presents Restoration Home and the series The £100,000 House for the BBC, and is currently the architecture critic for the Evening Standard newspaper.

The post “We must examine the human cost of objects,
not just their semiotic resonances” appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen promotion: the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam is accepting applications to study on its Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design (MIARD) course.

The Piet Zwart Institute’s two-year MIARD postgraduate course is set up to provide Bachelor students with a further course in interior architecture.

Enrolled students will undertake four thematic design projects as well as work on their self-directed graduation project during their second year of study.

Work by current students and alumni has been presented at international design and architecture events such as Dutch Design Week and Tent London.

A group of students showed a collection of kitchen products that included patterned rolling pins to make edible plates and a meat grinder that squeezes out biodegradable bowls during Milan design week earlier this year.

The institute is part of the Willem de Kooning Academy, based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Applications will be considered from Bachelor students with a degree in Interior Architecture, Interior Design, Spatial Design or Architecture.

The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2014. Visit the Piet Zwart Institute website to find the application documents and for more details about how to apply.

Keep reading for more information from the Piet Zwart Institute:

Piet Zwart Institute – Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design [MIARD]

Open for Applications: Deadline 31 January 2014

Welcome to the Master of Interior Architecture & Retail Design [MIARD] at the Piet Zwart Institute – an international postgraduate programme that is part of the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University, located in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The accredited small-scale programme is full-time and structured over two years.

At MIARD, we view the production of the interior as a multidisciplinary practice. Our programme is motivated by a design-research methodology that views interior architecture as an applied synthesis – integrating critical design practice, history, theory and technical skills through both digital and analogue means, specialised modules and self-directed research on the basis of a bottom-up strategy towards learning and innovation. We investigate making as a research and design process by mixing parameters, such as strategies and systems, techniques and tools, materials and technology, as well as other relevant and unexpected programmatic and cultural issues. As the practice of interior architecture continues to mature, we examine its performance and potential in the built environment at various scales and conditions to shape and advance the future of cities, neighbourhoods, buildings and their spaces, and for the communities and people that live in them.

Our students are trained to excel as a new generation of designers. Projects are researched in a dynamic atelier setting with highly equipped facilities working together with a diverse faculty of established architects, interior architects, designers, scholars and other specialists. Entrepreneurial practice and networking is encouraged throughout the programme to support and launch a student’s design career. Intrinsic to this Masters is a specialisation in Retail Design.

Based in Rotterdam, a dynamic European capital of architecture and design, we plan projects directly with and for the city and local affiliations, as well as actively participate at well-known international design platforms. We offer public events in the form of lectures, exhibitions, field excursions, and interdisciplinary workshops. Our students have access to extensive university and outside resources, fostering collaborative opportunities with specialists from peripheral disciplines.

Programme approach

MIARD situates itself firmly in applied-research, critical reflection and the professional field of interior architecture. It operates from the point of view that an educational master’s program must be adaptable to a variety of external forces and should resist institutional idleness.

We aim to foster graduates who are experts in the field of interiors and to excel as designers. A designer whose practice can modify to cultural, technological and industry changes and set precedents for new and innovative methods of operating. We work with the reality that the profession of the interior architect is a young practice, historically framed between the disciplines of architecture and product/furniture design. As our discipline matures, the programme plan is to contribute to its emerging identity as a relevant and necessary profession with its own theoretical, historical and research policies.

Making further defines the MIARD design approach. It is rooted in the position that interior architecture is about making places in the material-physical world and that interiors and its constituents (analogue or digital) play a significant role in forming the identity and logics of the built environment. We investigate making as a bottom-up approach to the creative process and material innovation. This approach allows students to acquire a diversity of essential, advanced and inventive skills as designers.

We stay involved and contribute to the professional field by working with noted and award-winning international staff and guest tutors. The program participates at national and international design events, conferences, competitions, and we host an active public lecture series throughout the academic year. Current students’ and alumni’s work have been presented at international design and architecture platforms, such as Milan Design Week, Dutch Design Week, Sunlab, TENTLondon, and their design projects have received extensive international press recognition with publications in Domus, Frame, Dezeen, and Designboom, among others.

Consequently, the interior architect needs to be someone who shapes, informs and advances the discipline and it’s meaning through critical and meticulous analysis of the role of the interior and its conditions in contemporary society, and furthermore he or she needs to understands the scope and potential of the interior’s role in a larger social, political and historical context.

Core teaching staff, visiting tutors and guest lecturers

Ruth Baumeister, Bart de Beer, Herman van Bergeijk , Jan Boelen, Sander Boer, Silvio Carta, Amélia Desnoyers, Bob Dinwiddy, Gabriella Fiorentini, Nuno Fontarra, Ulf Hackauf, Deborah Hauptman, Kai van Hasselt, Lisa Hassanzade, MarkDavid Hosale, Jos de Krieger, Maartje Lammers, Edwin Larkens, Sang Lee, Marta Male-Alemany, Michiel van Malenstein, Ilaria Mazzoleni, Lutz Mürau, Cristina Murphy, Yukiko Nezu, Mauro Parravicini, Brian Peters, Frank Schoeman, Gerrit Schilder, Tanja Smeets, Catherine Somze, Alex Suarez, Eline Strijkers, Aynav Ziv, Cristina Murphy, Mauro Parravicini, Frank Schoeman, Eline Strijkers, Robert Thiemann, Füsun Türetken, UXUS, Thomas Vailly, Dries Verbruggen, Francesco Veenstra, Robbert de Vrieze, Petar Zaklanovic.

Thematic design projects

Over the course of two years, students will take four Thematic Design Projects that are the core of the curriculum. These projects explore and open-up themes relevant to the field of interior architecture and other related and contemporary forms of design practice. One of four of these main design projects will be dedicated to the specialisation of Retail Design.

Thematic Design Projects are lead by either a core tutor, a team of core tutors, and/or guest tutors, who come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds. Whether an architect, designer, interior designer, artist or retail expert these specialists offer advanced insights into contemporary design practices and issues relevant to the professional field.

The Thematic Design Project structure offers students a framework for reflection, discussion, joint research and production. In other words, the particular selected theme serves as a matrix for exploring and scrutinising specific interior and built environment practices and broader design challenges. This module aims to develop the students’ understanding of their work in relation to others in the professional field and to help them define their design practice/profile within a broader cultural, technical and social context.

Complementary courses, public events, excursions and guest lectures are integrated with the design projects each trimester to provide historical, theoretical, technical, material and industry knowledge, skills and expertise.

If you have questions about the programme and application process please feel contact us at:

Piet Zwart Institute
Master Interior Architecture & Retail Design
P.O. Box 1272
3000 BG Rotterdam
The Netherlands

E-mail: pzwart-info@hr.nl
Facebook: www.facebook.com/PZIMIARD

www.pzwart.wdka.nl

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the Piet Zwart Institute appeared first on Dezeen.

A bridge over a stream connects the two sides of this concrete house in India by Mumbai firm Architecture Brio (+ slideshow).

House on a Stream was designed by Architecture Brio as a weekend retreat near the town of Alibag, on a site with a stream meandering through it.

The architects chose to separate the master bedroom from the main part of the house containing the kitchen, dining room, living room and guest bedroom by arranging them on either side of the stream.

Monolithic concrete boxes containing the various rooms rest on the uneven ground and cantilever over the water, while trees grow in the gaps between.

“Like an organism trying to make most use of its resources and surroundings, the house with its several limbs reaches out into the landscape, making full use of the views within the site and dramatises special moments: a beautiful tree, a view of the mountains beyond or the cascading stream during the monsoon rains,” said the architects.

A walkway covered by a pergola links the bridge with the entrance to the larger part of the house. Next to it, a narrow swimming pool follows the course of the stream and adjoins a sheltered verandah that becomes an extension of the dining room when sliding doors are pulled back.

The living room and both bedrooms also feature doors that can be slid or folded back to open these spaces onto outdoor decks that bring the occupants closer to the surrounding nature.

The kitchen is located at the centre of the house, with a high ceiling containing a skylight contributing to the bright space, around which the other rooms are arranged.

By offsetting these surrounding rooms and raising the level of the living area, the architects intended to give each space a sense of autonomy, while strategically positioned windows create views from one part of the building to another.

Concrete cast against wooden planks gives the building’s exterior a textured finish, which will be enhanced as it gains additional patina over time. The natural aesthetic is enhanced by timber screens that cast delicate shadows on the floors and walls.

Photography is by Sebastian Zachariah.

The following project description is from the architects:

House on a stream

Landscape

With a stream running through the house, this retreat in Alibag is delicately woven into the landscape, alternately opening up and closing itself to the different characteristics of the site.

A multitude of medicinal and fruit bearing trees provide for an intimate ambiance and comfortable microclimate. Though seasonal, the stream bed allows for an interesting landscape feature throughout the year. The house is placed on the banks of the stream where it makes a sudden S-curve. A short walk along the stream before entering the house builds up an element of anticipation.

Like an organism trying to make most use of its resources and surroundings, the house with its several limbs reaches out into the landscape making full use of the views within the site and dramatises special moments: a beautiful tree, a view of the mountains beyond or the cascading stream during the monsoon rains. What started out as a Cartesian response to the site became deformed, stretched and pushed in.

Program

The house consists of two parts: the day areas of the house such as the dining/kitchen, the living room and entrance verandah are separated from the master bedroom by a bridge that spans across the stream.

Since the owners are passionate about cooking, the kitchen is made the heart and centre of the house, a large, inviting volume with a high ceiling and a skylight that floods the space with light.

This space forms the anchor of the house from where its various limbs branch out into the landscape around existing components of the site. The living room on the left is lifted off the ground to have a panoramic view of the mountain range in the distance. The guest room embraces an existing tree to create a courtyard and just peeks across the dining room to have a view over the length of the stream. The pool is aligned along the stream acting as a celebration of it during the monsoons, and a memory of it during the dry season.

Orientation

The orientation of the program is based on climatic considerations. The bedrooms are mostly west facing with large verandahs and get the evening sun.

The living rooms faces east once again with a large verandah. The kitchen, dining, and pool areas all look towards the north and are shaded by large trees. The south façade of the house is predominately closed and more solid with the exception of a picture window that frames the view out from the pantry to the fields beyond.

Monolithic character

While the external structural concrete shell contracts and expands in plan in section it does so as well. The external form of the house responds to site and its orientation and flows from high to low in accordance with the monolithic fluidity of its form. Internally, however, it responds to the creation of space, and directs the eye to frame a particular view.

The outside and inside are therefore apart and internal spaces are defined with volumes created by the changing thickness of the internal ceiling.

The heaviness of this mass however is reversed by the lightness of the white washed walls and ceilings. A central skylight and large sliding doors, which span from floor to ceiling and wall to wall bring in the outside into the interiors. The cantilevered ‘limbs’ of the living room and two bedrooms defy the heaviness of the concrete volumes. By not resting it on the ground the relationship with the landscape paradoxically is strengthened.

Internal relationships

A series of asymmetrical axis create a path of discovery through the house. The arrival path is aligned with the axis of the pergola, which embracing the pool enters the dining room on the left side. One corner of the dining room overlaps with the conically shaped volume of the kitchen. By shifting the axis of the dining room off the axis of the kitchen and raising the level of the living room, this becomes a more secluded space.

Furthermore it allows a glazed door in the kitchen to open up to the outside and view along the external living room wall. At strategic positions in the house steel framed box windows protrude through the concrete walls. Placed symmetrically on the interior walls they highlight specific elements of the site, such as the bark of a tree, or peek from the master pavilion to the main house.

Materialisation

The house is cast in plank-finished concrete with a vertical grain. The homogenous materialisation emphasises the sculptural quality of the house that is moulding itself about the site. Concrete being left exposed in the humid Indian climate, attracts a patina that becomes more rich and alive over time. More so the grey textured surface provides a muted surface against the vibrant green surrounding.

Elegant timber screens further soften the greyness of the con- crete. They not only form a buffer between the interior space and the exteriors, but also create an intensive play of shadow and light on the floors and walls.

Description: Weekend house
Location: Jirad, Alibaug, Mumbai, India
Size: 300 m2
Design: Architecture BRIO, Robert Verrijt + Shefali Balwani
Structural design: Vijay K. Patil & Associates
Realisation: September 2013

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that straddles a stream in India appeared first on Dezeen.

Behind our fifth advent calendar window is Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, who was awarded the 2011 Pritzker Prize and designed the red concrete museum dedicated to artist Paula Rego (pictured) in his home country.

See more architecture by Eduardo Souto de Moura »

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Eduardo Souto de Moura appeared first on Dezeen.