Hasta La Ideas

This steel and glass restaurant extension by Austrian studio Architekten Rüf Stasi Partner juts out over the edge of Karren Mountain in the Austrian Alps (+ slideshow).

Local studio Architekten Rüf Stasi Partner added the new hollow structure to increase the size of the dining room at a timber-clad restaurant and cable-car facility.

Elevated above a paved terrace, the new restaurant is held in place by long steel columns rooted into the mountain and connected to the main building by a glass passageway.

It is located 956 metres above sea level, allowing panoramic views towards Switzerland, Germany, Lake Constance and the Rhine Valley.

“The aim of the design, in addition to functional requirements, was to bring a sense of calm to the ensemble and create a more holistic appearance for the Karren cable-car station,” said the studio.

The architects also renovated the existing building. Parts of the timber structure were prefabricated before being flown to the site by helicopter, along with the pre-assembled steel parts for the restaurant, and both were erected on site.

Other mountain-top architecture we’ve featured includes a concrete mountain cabin also in the Austrian Alps, a seesaw-shaped lookout along a Mexican pilgrimage route and  a hunting lodge and hotel on Sognefjorden in Norway.

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See more Austrian architecture and design »

Photography is by Zooey Braun.

Here’s some information from the architects:

Panoramarestaurant Karren, Austria

Dornbirns’ ‘house mountain’ The Karren, is the most popular destination in the city. Due to the steady growth of domestic and foreign visitors, the capacity of the restaurant slowly became overwhelmed.

Jointly developed with the client, the owners, the business manager and the Architects Rüf Stasi Partners (ARSP), a sustainable concept for the expansion and renovation of the new panoramic restaurant Karren, was developed. The concept not only doubles the seating within the panoramic dining room and increases the outdoor terrace area; it also provides an optimisation of internal service processes, completely reconfiguring the restaurant kitchen and the storage areas.

The analysis of the existing building revealed a diverse mixture of renovations and extensions added over generations. As a consequence the existing construction and style had become chaotic. The aim of the design was therefore, in addition to the functional requirements, to bring a sense of calm of the ensemble and create a more holistic appearance for the Karren cable-car station.

A new steel and glass structure was attached to the front end of the existing panoramic restaurant (built in 1996) on the first floor. This component was rotated through 90 ° and then connected via a second glass passageway to the main building. Together this glass ring creates an open sided atrium which floats over the guests as they arrive from the cable-car or from the mountain path.

Inside the glass structure provides diners with an uninterrupted view of the Swiss and Austrian Alps in all directions. The advantageous cliff position also provides stunning views of Lake Constance and the Rhine Valley. At the same time, a harmonious appearance of steel and glass in the construction is achieved.The old south-facing wooden construction has been completely dismantled and replaced by a new, larger floor plan.

Through the extension of the building to the South, the required area for the kitchen extension is achieved and the previously hectic façade is calmed by removing many of the volume jumps creating a smoother outer shell. The new timber façade continues over the concrete construction of the cable car station in the east and over the services area, cladding almost all of the building in the same material to enhance the calming effect. The guests can also enjoy new views in the east (the ‘Staufenblick’) and north (the view of Dornbirn along the cable car route) which were previously not possible.

All building work had to be completed within a 10 week period during the winter months and at 956m above sea level. The main site entrance was only accessible through an extremely steep and narrow forest path.

Only through meticulous logistical planning was the perfect interaction of all counterparts on this tight construction schedule possible.

From the outset, planning was optimised through the extensive use of prefabrication. This allowed all timber construction to be made in an assembly hall before being flown to the site in less than 4 hours by helicopter. This allowed the entire wooden structure to be erected within two days on site. The pre-assembled steel parts were individually transported via the mountain road and fully assembled on the terrace.

Using the most powerful crane in the foothills of the Alps, the entire steel construction was lifted into place on the 11th of April 2013, and the end result was accurate to within 1mm. In parallel, the interior work and the technical installations were pushed hard to meet the deadline, which were completed three days early on the 8th of May. With the kitchens in full operation the new Karren Restaurant was proudly opened on time with a full festival.

Structure: Panoramic restaurant Karren
Planning and site supervision: Architekten Rüf Stasi Partner – Albert Rüf and Frank Stasi
Additional personnel: DI Arch Rike Kress
Construction time: 10 weeks
Altitude: 956m above sea level
Extension: 180 seat panoramic restaurant and 120 seats on the terrace

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Architekten Rüf Stasi Partner appeared first on Dezeen.

News: British graphic designer Peter Saville has tonight been named winner of this year’s London Design Medal, and has declared: “Manchester is now the capital of the UK”.

Saville, best known for his record covers for bands including Joy Division and New Order, will receive the medal at a ceremony on Wednesday at Lancaster House in the West End during the London Design Festival.

Born in Manchester in 1955, Saville studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic and made his name designing artwork for Factory Records in the same city. He moved to London in 1979, where his design consultancy clients included department store Selfridges, record label EMI and fashion houses such as Jil Sander, John Galliano, Christian Dior and Stella McCartney. He has been creative director of the City of Manchester since 2004.

London Design Festival chairman John Sorrell announced the award at the V&A museum tonight, when he introduced a conversation between Saville and journalist Paul Morley at the first session of the Global Design Forum.

In the conversation with Morley, Saville described his career as a 20-year meandering journey. “I’ve spent 20 years looking for a job,” he said.

Saville also spoke about his work as creative director for Manchester, helping his home city forge a new post-industrial identity and coming up with the slogan “Original modern” to give a timeless spin on its history as the world’s first industrial city.

“Manchester is the capital of the UK,” he said, talking up the city’s prospects. “London is no longer the capital of the UK. London has floated off to be a world city.”

Talking about his early work for Factory Records in the early 1980s, he said: “It was nothing to do with the record and nothing to do with the title. It was just a feeling of the now. It was entirely about lifestyle, it was about making you feel better.”

“In a limited, amateurish way, I was suggesting how I thought things could be,” he said of his iconic record cover designs. “Not how record covers could be, but how the ephemera of everyday life could be. It might just as easily have been a bus ticket or a cinema ticket or a cigarette packet.”

He added: “The culture of design we could perceive as young people in the 1970s or even in the early 1980s was very different from the way it is now. [Graphic art] was still a virtuous task, it was still a battle to raise standards. It was a challenge throughout the rest of the 1980s. The last recession was the watershed. The current culture is clued-in as to the power of applied imagery. Twenty-five years ago people talked about the logo-type, nowadays they talk about branding.”

Explaining why he has never worked for mainstream brands, he said: “With communication design being a service, there haven’t been many things I’ve wanted to serve. I wouldn’t want to work with British Airways. I wouldn’t actually want to make British Airways look better, because it’s not genuine.”

“Record covers are weird,” he continued. “You can do great work for a mediocre record and no one talks about it. You can do mediocre work for a great record and everyone calls it iconic. The iconic label that much of my work has is because the records were fundamental to many people’s lives.”

“The worst time for me was the 1990s, because I was the last big thing, or one of the last big things. I defined the 1980s. It was a nightmare, I felt obsolete, I was very passé.”

His reputation was later rehabilitated when a new generation of London design firms including Tomato and Fuel hailed him as a key inspiration. “My work was many people’s – many designers and creative people’s – first introduction to new ideas.”

Today, Saville accepts he has himself become a brand. “There’s so little meaning in the production of products today that people invite me to do what I want,” he said of recent collaborations. “They invite me to be facetious about the medium itself,” he said, recalling how he recently emblazoned the slogan “meaningless excitement” on a range of clothing for Yohji Yamamoto.

Now in its seventh year, the London Design Medal is awarded annually by a panel of judges to an individual for their contribution to design and London.

Previous winners include Marc Newson, Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Thomas Heatherwick and Ron Arad. Last year the accolade went to design duo El Ultimo Grito.

Read more about Peter Saville on Dezeen »
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London Design Festival 2013: London designer Benjamin Hubert claims to have created the world’s lightest timber table and is showing it off at the Aram Gallery in London this week (+ movie).

Benjamin Hubert worked with Canadian manufacturer Corelam to develop the table, which is 2.5 metres long, one metre wide and weighs just nine kilograms.

The structure was made by corrugating three layers of 0.8 millimetre-thick birch aircraft plywood. The edge of the table is just 3.5 millimetres thick.

The corrugated wooden structure is covered with a plain sheet to give a flat top, while the A-frame legs are made from a sandwich of two corrugated layers.

“Made using 70-80 percent less material than a standard timber table, Ripple can be assembled and manoeuvred by a single person,” Hubert said.

Ripple will be launched at the Aram Store in London’s Covent Garden as part of a solo exhibition of Hubert’s work taking place during the London Design Festival.

Benjamin Hubert has also designed a chair made from lightweight woven mesh and aluminium that weighs just three kilograms, another chair with a seat and back formed from a single curled sheet of plywood, and a series of tables made from expanded steel mesh – see more products by Benjamin Hubert.

See all our stories about London Design Festival 2013 »
See Dezeen’s map and guide to London Design Festival 2013 »

Here’s a project description from the designer:

Ripple: Benjamin Hubert Research

Benjamin Hubert has designed the world’s lightest timber table as part of an internal studio research project into lightweight constructions. The table, titled Ripple, is 2.5 metres long, 1 metre wide, and weighs just 9 kilograms. Made using 70-80% less material than a standard timber table, Ripple can be assembled and manoeuvred by a single person.

The table’s impressive strength to weight ratio is enabled by an innovative production process of corrugating plywood for furniture through pressure lamination, which was developed by Benjamin Hubert with Canadian manufacturer Corelam.

Ripple is made entirely from 3 ply 0.8mm birch aircraft plywood, a timber sourced only in Canada, where the table is manufactured. The material is the same as that used in construction of the Hughes H-4 Hercules – popularly known as the “Spruce Goose” – the world’s largest all timber airplane. The strength of the material in combination with the unique lamination process means the edge of Ripple measures just 3.5mm.

Ripple is minimal in its design language, employing a simple knockdown construction. The top surface is corrugated plywood overlaid by a flat sheet, and the A-frame legs are a sandwich construction of two corrugated plywood layers.

Ripple will be launched at Aram Store during London Design Festival in September as part of Benjamin Hubert’s inaugural UK solo exhibition, Antecedents. It will be available to buy from September on commission through Benjamin Hubert.

Material: Canadian Spruce 0.8mm aircraft plywood
Dimensions: L2.5mxW1mxH0.74m

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Benjamin Hubert appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival 2013: designers Scholten & Baijings set up a still life depicting a dinner party in progress at the V&A museum for the London Design Festival (+ slideshow).

Scholten & Baijings installed a large dining table set for a party of guests in the ornate gilded Norfolk House Music Room in the British Galleries of the V&A museum.

Cutlery is skewed, glasses are half full and food is strewn across the table, as if the party is in progress but all the guests have vanished.

“The visitor enters just seconds after the guests have left to smoke a cigarette in the garden,” said the designers. “One can use this unguarded moment to look at the luxurious dinner table and the interior undisturbed.”

Scholten & Baijings laid the table with its homeware, including the silver serving set for tea and cake designed for Georg Jensen and the range of glassware featuring swatches of colour, graduated tints and grid lines for Hay.

The designers wanted to use real food on the the plates but had to serve model vegetables instead.

Sounds created using the objects are included in a piece of music composed by Moritz Gabe and Henning Grambow, which plays softly in the background.

For this year’s London Design Festival the V&A museum is also hosting a giant chandelier of Bocci lights in the main hall and is displaying latest acquisitions including the world’s first 3D-printed gun.

Elsewhere, an Escher-style staircase has been erected outside Tate Modern. Check out more events around the city on our digital map »

See more design by Scholten & Baijings »
See more stories about the V&A museum »
See all our London Design Festival 2013 coverage »

Here’s some extra details from the designers:

The Dinner Party/True-to-life Design – Still Life by Scholten & Baijings
London Design Festival at the Victoria & Albert Museum 2013

In galleries and museums, design objects are frequently displayed on pedestals or in glass vitrines but rarely in something resembling the everyday living environment for which they were conceived. In the context of London Design Festival, Scholten & Baijings will be turning things around for a change. Or, rather, inside out. Because for nine days Scholten & Baijings will transform The Norfolk House Music Room in the British Galleries in the V&A Museum into a completely dinner setting in a lived-in home.

True to life

Visitors might hesitate to walk into the gallery because it looks so much like a lifelike dinner setting. The cleaning people have received special instructions to ensure that they don’t tidy up certain parts of the exhibition.

Objective

The objective of the presentation is to let people see things in a different way. More adventurously, because many designs are only discovered at a second glance. More objectively, because there are no nameplates, so that the boundaries between exclusive design and mass products become blurred and prejudices disappear.

“The visitor enters just seconds after the guests have left to smoke a cigarette in the garden. One can use this unguarded moment to look at the luxurious dinner table and the interior undisturbed. The music is playing softly…”

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by Scholten & Baijings appeared first on Dezeen.

This small house in rural Japan by Tokyo firm Case Design Studio is lifted off the ground on a single central pillar (+ slideshow).

Case Design Studio designed the single-storey home for a couple and located it on a sloping site in Yamanashi Prefecture, close to Mount Fuji.

A winding pathway leads from the road towards an elevated entrance, which comprises an external staircase that ascends to a balcony.

The house centres around a double-height dining room, which is lit from above by a series of clerestory windows.

Other rooms are arranged around the outside of the dining room and include a bedroom, kitchen, bathrooms and a traditional Japanese room filled with tatami mats.

According to the studio, the rooms were designed to lead into one another in a “migratory flow pattern”, meaning there are “no dead ends”.

The Japanese room is raised on a wooden platform and features a large window, offering a view out towards the trees.

Flooring elsewhere is concrete and features under-floor heating.

Interior walls are painted white, contrasting with the dark timber that lines the inside of the dining room.

Other Japanese houses completed recently include one with cantilevered storey, one shaped like a fairytale tower and one with angular cutaways. See more houses in Japan »

Location: Yamanashi Prefecture, Minamitsuru Narusawa village
Character: Fuji
Primary use: Housing (residence)
Residents: Couple

Land size: 395 sqm
Construction area: 75 sqm
Total floor area: 67 sqm (20T)
First floor scale: ground

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Case Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.