This week’s job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position for senior architects at Fuksas Architecture in Rome, designers of the pictured church in Foligno, Italy. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
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at Fuksas Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.
Dezeen Watch Store: London watch brand Uniform Wares has launched the 104 Series, which is available now in black, blue and orange.
The 104 Series is an update of Uniform Wares’ popular 100 Series collection. The new series retains the straightforward simplicity of the original 100 Series design, but now incorporates Swiss-made 5-jewel Ronda movement, bringing the 104 in line with the rest of the Uniform Wares collection.
Contemporary touches including hand-applied batons, slimmer hands and raised hour markers update the design, resulting in a wearable, unisex style. The watch is finished with a rubber strap and hardened mineral crystal lens.
The 104 Series is characterised by colour blocking and texture; each timepiece incorporates subtly different shades and contrasting materials on the case, bezel, dials and markers.
The 100 Series was originally inspired by the minimal and utilitarian design of factory wall clocks and British manufacturers including Smiths Sectric and Gents’ of Leicester.
Visit Dezeen Watch Store to see the full Uniform Wares collection.
You can buy all of our watches online and you can also visit our watch shop in Stoke Newington, north London – contact us to book an appointment.
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at Dezeen Watch Store appeared first on Dezeen.
News: the #milanuncut debate that exposed the poor royalties designers earn has inspired the launch of Crowdyhouse, a new crowdfunding platform that helps designers find funding for their products.
CrowdyHouse, which will launch next week at Dutch Design Week, has been developed by Mark Studholme and Suzan Claesen to provide an alternative to the traditional royalties system, which Studholme says provides “an awful deal for the designers”.
“Our platform means that designers don’t have to take their product to Milan, stand next to it for a week, convince someone to buy it and then only receive 5 percent in royalties of the wholesale price,” Studholme told Dezeen.
Studholme says the #milanuncut project, which engaged dozens journalists and designers during Milan 2011, focused his attention on the difficulties faced by young designers trying to sell their work.
Coordinated by Dezeen and facilitated by an identity and a mobile app developed by London graphic designers Zerofee, #milanuncut was an open-source discussion on Twitter about the way designers are paid for their work in the furniture and product design industry. It drew attention to the paltry royalties and unfavourable contractual terms that are typical when young designers develop products for well-known brands.
“I’m very surprised that, since #milanuncut two years ago, no solutions have really been proposed,” he points out. “The conversation just died down, so hopefully we can ignite it again.”
During the Milan Furniture Fair in 2011, journalists including Kieran Long, Max Fraser, Justin McGuirk, Julie Taraska and Dezeen’s Marcus Fairs contributed to the #milanuncut debate, which set the international agenda for the fair. McGuirk focused on the issue in his Milan review in UK newspaper The Guardian and publications including Abitare, Form magazine and Architects Journal reported on the topic.
“The #milanuncut story was really just a symptom of the unsustainable state of the furniture industry,” said McGuirk this week. “As design manufacturing is forced to reinvent itself, crowdfunding platforms are an obvious step in a new direction, potentially giving designers direct access to markets of their own making.”
Using a similar crowdfunding principle to the one popularised by companies such as Kickstarter, designers are able to raise money upfront by inviting funding for products which investors eventually receive once they have been produced. The designers retain 90 percent of the funding total, with CrowdyHouse taking the other 10 percent.
“Crowdyhouse is actually the first crowd-funded platform specifically for design,” says Studholme. “We realised the traditional Kickstarter model doesn’t favour designers so we thought there was a need for a design-specific platform that really allows the designers to focus on the designs.”
CrowdyHouse offers contemporary products and furniture ranging in price from €65-3000. Designs have to reach a minimum order number before the designer begins to manufacture the product and distribute it to investors.
Details about the designers and the story behind the products, how the funds will be used, and the progress of funding and product development are listed on the website.
Some of the products featured include pressed-clay vessels by Studio Floris Wubben and a concrete, wood and leather lamp by Tim Vinke. Design studio Vilt aan Zee plans to use the funds generated on CrowdyHouse to buy a sheep to supply wool for its felt-shaded table lamp.
The designers listed on the site are currently all based in CrowdyHouse’s home nation of The Netherlands but Studholme and Claesen plan to expand the roster to include designers from other countries.
Here’s a full press release about the launch of CrowdyHouse:
CrowdyHouse stimulates unique design
Launch of innovative crowdfunding and sales platform on October 21st
A new Dutch concept to stimulate innovative design: CrowdyHouse. This platform is a unique combination of crowdfunding and retail. Giving designers the possibility to self-produce their work and allowing consumers to buy unique design in a transparent manner. CrowdyHouse is launching during the Dutch Design Week, October 21st, in Eindhoven.
When you have a good design as a designer, it’s surprisingly difficult to get financing for the production of it. What CrowdyHouse does is loosely based on the popular crowdfunding principle, but adds a dimension. Investors are also aspiring buyers. Their funding enables the designer to start producing. In return for funding the product upfront they will get the design they helped put into production.
On CrowdyHouse.com, the renowned designer Marc de Groot offers his Helix Light, a strongly geometrical shaped ceiling lamp, which splits a line of light into the shape of a three-dimensional Helix. Rebob offers a sympathetic porcelain birdhouse, shaped like a bird’s head. Renate Vos designed a table lamp of concrete, which sounds heavy but appears fragile and subtly spreads light.
‘The idea for CrowdyHouse began at the Salone del Mobile in Milan, says Mark Studholme who, together with Suzan Claesen, founded the platform. ‘We were surprised about how little a designer earns if his design is taken into production by a large manufacturer. It can be just 5 percent of the wholesale price that goes to the designer.’
Democratic design for an honest price, is one of the principles of CrowdyHouse. Democratic because the consumer decides which design gets produced by funding it. And honest because the money that is earned fully benefits the designer. CrowdyHouse’s role is limited to being a mediator. The initiative for the new design platform arrives at a time where the creative industry boils of good ideas, but all sources of financing have been depleted. The government is handing out increasingly less innovation grants. Banks don’t spend any money on young entrepreneurs. ‘CrowdyHouse can be a crowbar, a party that fills the void between a good idea and the lover of design’, according to Studholme.
The dozens of products being offered on CrowdyHouse.com are mostly meant for home interior use and vary in price from 65 to 3000 euro. Those who like the product and its story deposits their funding upfront. The site can then be used to track the popularity of a product, how long it will take before production starts and what the money will be used for.
The designers at Vilt aan Zee want to use the investment to purchase a sheep which they can use to produce wool for a lamp. Carpet designer Lizan Freijsen needs a small storage space before she can close a good deal with a textiles lab which produces carpets made from lichen. Each designer needs a small push. Design consumers can provide this small push on CrowdyHouse.
Stimulating unique design through crowdfunding, is the core of what this new platform does. ‘We offer products with a story from the designer’, says Studholme. ‘This gives funding and ordering at CrowdyHouse a very special dimension.’
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Japanese design studio Nendo has come up with a range of transformable accessories for dogs (+ slideshow).
Nendo‘s three-piece Heads or Tails collection consists of a dog bed, dishes and toys, all of which can be used in two ways.
“As a result of looking for a form that could be stable in two different shapes, the collection is constructed of triangular panels connected in polygon mesh,” said the designers.
The artificial leather bed pops up to become a little hut or can simply be used as a cushion.
Ceramic dishes have a larger bowl for water on one side and present a smaller saucer for food when flipped over.
A lightweight silicone toy bone made from a skeleton of triangles can be reshaped into a ball by folding the two ends back on themselves.
The black and white collection was designed for Japanese lifestyle magazine Pen.
Nendo isn’t the only team to have created objects for canines. Japanese designer Kenya Hara rounded up architects and designers including Kengo Kuma, Toyo Ito and Shigeru Ban to create architecture for dogs shown at Design Miami last year.
We recently compiled all the projects we’ve featured by Nendo onto a dedicated Pinterest board.
Photos are by Akihiro Yoshida.
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by Nendo appeared first on Dezeen.
Indian studio Khosla Associates used a modular concrete framework, bold colours and perforated terracotta screens to create this climate-sensitive kindergarten in Bangalore, which topped the education category at the Inside Festival awards earlier this month.
Khosla Associates designed the Delhi Public School kindergarten as a prototype for a series of school buildings that will be rolled out around southern India in the future.
“We were asked to create a simple and cost-effective language that could be adapted easily to different site conditions and slightly varying programs,” explained architects Sandeep Khosla and Amaresh Anand.
A modular concrete framework provides a standard size for the classrooms, which in some places are stacked to create a second storey.
There are 25 classrooms in total and they are arranged around a pair of courtyards that can be used as either playgrounds or outdoor learning spaces.
“The central linear open-to-sky court is the soul of the school and facilitates learning outside the classroom,” said the architects.
Rather than adding air-conditioning systems, Khosla and Anand wanted to make use of natural light and ventilation throughout the building, so they installed a series of perforated screens.
Constructed from two standard types of perforated brick, these decorative screens – referred to locally as jaalis – reduce the impact of direct sunlight and enable cross ventilation.
In places where more solid walls were needed, the architects added corrugated metal sheets in vivid shades, intended to reference the colours of traditional Indian textiles.
“The simplicity of the repetitive exposed concrete structure is what eventually dictated the design outcome as we added flexible layers onto it,” they explained.
Corridors run around the central perimeter of the school, while a bright red staircase connects the ground floor with classrooms on the upper level.
The kindergarten is the first of four blocks proposed for this site and will be followed by construction of junior, middle and senior school buildings.
Photography is by Shamanth Patil J.
Read on for a project description from Khosla Associates:
DPS Kindergarten School, Bangalore, India
The brief called for us to design a franchise for a popular north Indian school chain called Delhi Public School.
Since the model was to be potentially replicated across several schools in South India, we were asked to create a simple and cost effective language that could be adapted easily to different site conditions and slightly varying programs.
While the overall master plan currently under construction comprises a kindergarten, junior, middle and senior school block that will eventually cater to 4000 children; the current kindergarten facility has 25 classrooms, and with 40 children a class, a total strength of 1000.
The primary challenge was to design and complete construction of the first 35,000 sft. Kindergarten block within a 6-month time span at an efficient cost of Rs.1200/sft (USD $20/sft). The efficiencies of designing and constructing a building so rapidly had to be balanced with what we believed in; creating a warm, playful and welcoming environment for these young children that would be filled with natural light and ventilation. We set out to achieve our goal by creating an efficient modular system that we could use as building blocks. We looked at the basic module of a 700 sft classroom (35ft x 20 ft.) that could be repeated horizontally, or stacked one atop the other.
The classrooms on either side flank an 8ft wide single loaded corridor and open up to a central open-to-sky courtyard.
The simplicity of the repetitive exposed concrete structure is what eventually dictated the design outcome as we added flexible layers onto it. We added a corrugated metal wall on all corridors, which would serve a dual purpose; facilitate speed of construction and be durable for the wear and tear school corridors usually take. The corrugated sheets also gave us the opportunity to play with pattern and use tropical colours typical of the vernacular architecture of the region.
Other contextual references are in the vernacular terracotta jaalis (shading and ventilation screens used traditionally in India) that wrap around parts of the building and are included on both sides of each classroom to facilitate adequate cross ventilation from NE to SW. The jaalis cut down the sun especially on the western face of the building where we have effectively used them in breakout areas.
Judging the sun directions we played with a number of devices: horizontal and vertical pergolas and a combination of two different patterns of jaali on the exterior that create interesting patterns on the building at different times of the day.
The central linear open-to–sky court that runs the entire length of the building is the soul of the school and facilitates learning outside the classroom. The temperate climate of Bangalore allows for open to sky discussion on benches surrounding the courtyard trees or on the steps of the corridors.
In an age of air-conditioned schools becoming increasingly popular, we have attempted an energy efficient and cost-effective approach that utilises minimal electrical load during the day due to effective harnessing of breezes and adequate natural light during the day. It is our hope as architects that we are able to take this simple yet effective typology further to other franchises in the region.
Architects: Khosla Associates
Principal Designers: Sandeep Khosla and Amaresh Anand
Design Team: Sandeep Khosla, Amaresh Anand, and Bijeta Bachaspati
Structural Engineers: S&S Associates Civil
Contractors: Gomini Constructions Pvt. Ltd.
Project Management: Kris Cooper Pvt. Ltd.
Landscape: Garden World Pvt. Ltd.
Date completed: 31st May 2013
Area: 43967 sq ft
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by Khosla Associates appeared first on Dezeen.
Product news: a collection of kitchenware by Danish designer Ole Jensen is now in production with design brand Room Copenhagen.
Jensen‘s collection for Room Copenhagen includes a family of products for storage, cooking and serving that includes containers, bowls, cups, jugs and plates.
The plastic and wooden kitchenware is characterised by rounded shapes in bright yellow and muted tones.
The series includes classic Ole Jensen designs such a tilting colander he designed in 1995, which works as a combined sieve and serving dish.
A range of curved storage containers with grey lids also features.
The products will be available in stores across Europe this autumn and in the USA by early 2014.
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for Room Copenhagen appeared first on Dezeen.
A raw concrete interior is contained behind the white limestone facade of this townhouse in Lisbon by ARX Portugal (+ slideshow).
Slotted in amongst a row of traditional Lisbon townhouses, the five-storey residence was designed by local studio ARX Portugal with the same tall and narrow proportions as its neighbours.
The facade of the building is an arrangement of white limestone blocks, broken up by a grid of protruding piers and narrow windows.
“Just as most of Lisbon’s old buildings, it is a flat elevation whose expressiveness comes from its rhythmic nature and the light-and-shade effects produced with the backing-up of its surfaces,” said the architects.
Contrastingly, the rear facade is made up entirely of windows, fronted by steel balconies that overlook a secluded garden.
Walls, ceilings and staircases inside the house are bare concrete. “The precision of the design as well as the inclusion of two doors in most rooms endows the five small floors with a sense of a generous space and gives its dwellers a strong feeling of fluidity and freedom,” added the architects.
The main street-level entrance to the house leads onto the storey above the garden, which primarily encompasses a garage and living room.
The dining room and kitchen are located on the floor below and open out to the paved terrace and lawn.
The first and second floors accommodate bedrooms and bathrooms, while an office occupies the uppermost floor.
There’s also a small roof patio, featuring a small bench and a solitary tree.
ARX Portugal has used bare concrete in the construction of several residences in Portugal. Others include a top-heavy house with a glazed lower storey and a house with gaping chasms that drop down to basement courtyards.
Photography is by Fernando Guerra.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
House in Lisbon
The concept for this house emerges from a reflection on the identity of Lisbon architecture, a recurring type of 6-metre-wide and 15-meter-long deep house, ending in a small garden in the back. It is a 5-storey building with two radically different elevations: one “public” in white lioz limestone (the most used in Lisbon) and the one in the back, in glass, connected by an interior world in exposed concrete, punctuated by birch wood elements.
The elevation obviously follows on the Lisbon tradition, stressed further by the windows’ rhythmic structure, opened in a span system created by horizontal strips and vertical bars – characteristic of the city architecture.
Just as most of Lisbon’s old buildings, it is a flat elevation whose expressiveness comes from its rhythmic nature and the light-and-shade effects produced with the backing-up of its surfaces. This apparatus brings the elevation a sense of time, expressed by the change in the shadows throughout the day: from a more subtle morning light – with no direct sunlight – to the strong contrasting afternoon shadows.
Besides a straightforward concern in aligning the elevation with the surrounding lines, the design stresses an obvious contrast between the block-type bottom, and the more dematerialised crest.
If on the one hand the ground floor responds defensively to the narrowness of the street, combined with the fact that neighbours park their cars in front of doors and windows, on the other hand the top comes out much lighter and dematerialised: it is a space at once interior and exterior – a top patio allowing the transition between the lower building, to the south, and the higher one, to the north. Nevertheless, despite its intimate nature, the space allows a view over the surrounding landscape and to the far-off Christ the King statue to the south, along the street line.
On the back elevation we have explored the extreme transparency which extends the interior onto the exterior and opens up the view to the garden – where a splendid Linden tree takes centre stage – leading the eyes from the top floors over Lisbon’s hills, the Tagus river, and the South Bank. Radically opened to the exterior, the generous morning light that floods in directly is balanced by the grey concrete making up all the surfaces.
Inside, the precision of the design, as well as the inclusion of two doors in most rooms, endows the five small floors with a sense of a generous space, and give its dwellers a strong feeling of fluidity and freedom.
The constructive research for this project provides an example in which the whole structure shapes the space and becomes architecture in itself: the whole concrete structure, built with only 3 planes – two gables and a transversal plan – is set forth and designed to define the essential house space.
At once a natural and staged space, of both contemplation and living experience, the garden is expressed as an archeological site, where all layers of time, since the house was built, are present. Here, one can still see the ancient techniques that have raised thick stone walls (often recovered from other buildings), later brick overlays, mortar or paint, as well as the stones from the demolished house that have become pavement.
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Project: 2010-2011
Construction: 2012-2013
Gross construction surface: 436 m2
Architecture: ARX Portugal, Arquitectos Lda. (José Mateus, Nuno Mateus)
Work Team: Isabel Gorjão Henriques, Miguel Torres, Joana Pedro, Sofia Raposo, Rodrigo Gorjão Henriques, Paulo Rocha
Structures: SAFRE, Projectos e Estudos de Engenharia Lda.
Electrical, telecommunications and security planning: Energia Técnica – Gabinete de Engenharia, Lda
Contractor: Manuel Mateus Frazão
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These previously unseen photographs show the faceted modular structure of the Baku Crystal Hall in Azerbaijan, which was designed and completed in just eight months (+ slideshow).
The building, which was presented earlier this month at the Inside Festival in Singapore, had to be designed and constructed simultaneously to be ready in time to host last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, so German firm GMP Architekten collaborated closely with contractors Alpine Bau Deutschland and Nüssli throughout the process.
Conceived as both a concert hall and a sports stadium, the 25,000-seat stadium comprises a lightweight steel structure with a faceted membrane facade intended to resemble cut crystal.
According to Nussli’s Claus Kruppa, it was originally planned as a temporary structure, but was subtly altered during construction to enable it to remain in place for longer.
“A small change in the drawings, and now it’s going to be there for 30-40 years,” he said.
The building is located on a peninsula outside the centre of Baku. Its facade is covered with 9500 LED lights, which bring the structure to life after dark.
GMP Architekten has worked on several venues for international events. In 2011 the firm completed four stadiums for the World University Games in Shenzhen, while three of its stadiums featured in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Photography is by Marcus Bredt.
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by GMP Architekten appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Adidas has become the latest brand to launch a smartwatch with the release of a device for runners that monitors performance and gives coaching tips (as well as telling the time).
The miCoach Smart Run is Adidas‘ colour touch-screen running watch, which integrates both performance tracking and personal training into one device.
“By combining the latest innovations, design and ease-of-use navigation, we consciously broke the template that defines other running watches,” said director of miCoach at Adidas Simon Drabble.
While training, users can track runs with GPS mapping, monitor heart rate, play music and get real-time coaching.
A built-in accelerometer counts steps for tracking stride rate. GPS tracks speed and distance, mapping the route travelled on the journey.
An integrated Bluetooth MP3 player can transmit music to wireless earpieces to eliminate headphone cables, which can become tangled while running.
The watch also features a personal training application that uses colours and vibrations to tell the user to speed up, slow down or pause. Coaching can be delivered by a voice via a Bluetooth headset, plus animations demonstrating exercises and workout routines can be played on screen.
“The visual and audible guidance for interval training is a leap forward from any other watch available,” said Terrence Mahon, lead endurance coach for the UK Athletics Federation.
The Smart Run watch will be available on the Adidas website from 1 November.
Similar activity-tracking devices have been created by Nike and Jawbone, although neither feature screens. Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs discussed how wearable technology will “transform our understanding of ourselves” in his Opinion column, published March this year.
Companies from technology giants to car brands have all released wearable technologies over the past year. Adidas’ smartwatch joins a model by auto brand Nissan that communicates with a vehicle, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear that connects with the brand’s other devices and the Pebble watch, which raised the most money ever on crowd-funding platform Kickstarter.
Apple are also rumoured to be working on a smartwatch, while two companies launched rival Android-powered designs at the Baselworld watch fair in Switzerland in April.
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to launch a smartwatch appeared first on Dezeen.
This week’s issue of Dezeen Mail leads with Zaha Hadid’s family of superyachts and includes all the latest news, jobs, competitions and reader comments from Dezeen.
Read Dezeen Mail issue 174 | Subscribe to Dezeen Mail
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