Hasta La Ideas

News: the forthcoming National Stadium of Japan by Zaha Hadid Architects is now set to become the main sporting venue for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games, following the news that Tokyo will be the host city.

The new 80,000-seat stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2020 games, as well as athletics, football and rugby events.

“The stadium will become an integral part of Tokyo’s urban fabric, directly engaging with the surrounding cityscape to connect and carve the elegant forms of the design,” said Zaha Hadid, after winning a competition to design the stadium in November.

“Our three decades of research into Japanese architecture and urbanism is evident in our winning design and we greatly look forward to building the new National Stadium,” she added.

Set to replace the existing Kasumigaoka National Stadium, the new building will join Kenzo Tange’s iconic 1964 Olympic stadium in Yoyogi Park, which will function as a handball arena this time around. Zaha Hadid Architects will also work on this building, renovating the structure and adding a retractable roof.

Two other venues from the 1964 games – the Nippon Budokan and the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium – will also be reused, offering venues for judo and table tennis.

Additional arenas will be constructed in downtown Tokyo in an effort to save energy and reduce the need for transport investment, while the Olympic village is proposed on Tokyo’s harbour and will be converted into housing after the games are over.

Tokyo was named as the host city for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic games over the weekend and will follow on from Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Find out more about Rio 2016 »

Zaha Hadid Architects previously designed the Aquatics Centre for the London Olympics in 2012, which recently had its two temporary wing-like seating stands removed. See more architecture by Zaha Hadid  »

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around Zaha Hadid’s stadium appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: design studio Kawamura-Ganjavian is now producing a smaller version of its squishy headpiece for napping on the go for children (+ slideshow).

Spain and Switzerland-based studio Kawamura-Ganjavian have scaled down their Ostrich Pillows for ad-hoc snoozing to be suitable for children aged six and over.

Originally funded on Kickstarter, the padded grey helmets are designed to make sleeping at the desk, on long car journeys or in waiting rooms more comfortable – find out more in our previous story.

The design has been modified for kids so the whole face is visible through the hole in the front, compared to just the nose and mouth on the adult model.

Patterned fabric now lines the inside, visible through the two hand holes on either side.

When we published the adult version, our commenters called it “a pickpocket’s dream” and compared it to a “garlic clove” and a “locust head”.

Kawamura-Ganjavian has also designed a padded reading room at a bookshop in Lausanne and screens made of sticks covered in Velcro for an exhibition in Milan.

Our most recent stories about design for sleep include a squishy light that can be used as a warm, glowing pillow and the first Sleepbox hotel made from portable sleeping capsules in Moscow.

See more design for sleeping »
See more design by Kawamura-Ganjavian »

Read on for more information from the designers:

Ostrich Pillow hit the headlines across the globe 12 months ago and everybody was talking about it, from Perez Hilton to Stephen Fry, Jimmy Kimmel to the cast of ‘Modern Family’, Tech Crunch to the Sun, Hypebeast to Loose Women, Huffington Post to Bloomberg.

The Ostrich Pillow launch made a sensation last year when it it’s founders raised more than $200,000 in just 30 days via the amazing crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign.

The people have spoken with sales stretching across the globe, and the sleep-deprived masses have been relishing the calm in their “Ostrich Pillow moments”. Have you Instagrammed your’s yet?

We at Ostrich Pillow like to be inclusive so now with public demand telling us to think about the kids, so here we are announcing the launch of Ostrich Pillow Junior. From ages six plus, the Ostrich Pillow Junior is the perfect travelling and napping companion for kids for car journeys, study breaks and general time outs.

Beautifully designed, hand-made to perfection in Spain and supercool, this new addition is more fun, more functional and more bang for your buck.

Ostrich Pillow Junior comes with a larger opening for the face so both eyes and mouth are visible enhanced padding at the forehead and neck to give more comfort, support and ease for the younger user.

The pillow comes with two unique interior colours – Berry Snooze and Dreamy Waves and comes with a more attractive price and retails at €59, $75 and £50.

Alongside the launch of Ostrich Pillow Junior, the designers have created more colours for the adult range. As well as the original Ostrich Pillow Blue, we now offer you the choice of Mellow Yellow for those bright happy times and Sunset Siesta for those chilled out and laid back moments, solving more of your gifting dilemmas’ as the holiday season draws nearer.

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Kawamura-Ganjavian appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are more public spaces on the back of bikes: a swarm of tiny mobile parks covered in grass are being pedalled around the city of Baku this month (+ slideshow).

Designed by John Bela of design firm Rebar Group and Till Wolfer of Scandinavian collective N55, the Parkcycle Swarm project consists of four pedal-powered miniature parks.

Each one has a bike in the centre and is surrounded by a rectangular metal frame with a grassy surface. One of the parks has a tree attached to the frame and another folds up like a sun lounger.

They can be cycled to a chosen location and installed for public use. Visitors to the micro-green spaces are encouraged to take a break, have some lunch, relax and sunbathe.

The project intends to highlight new possibilities of public installations and to raise awareness of cycling, community participation and the value of green space, according to the designers.

Parkcycle Swarm will be traveling around the Azerbaijan capital city as part of arts organisation Yarat’s Public Arts Festival called Participate this month.

Another new addition to the city of Baku is Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Centre.

Other mobile architecture featured recently include a portable town square on a pedal bike, a tiny mobile stage that is based on sixteenth century market stalls and Roman fortune tellers and a quilted cube attached to the back of a tricycle.

See more mobile architecture »

Here’s a project description from Yarat:

Parkcycle Swarm, by Rebar Group and N55

A joint project by N55 and Rebar Group, Parkcycle Swarm has landed for August-September 2013 at PARTICIPATE: Baku Public Art Festival 2013, produced by YARAT.

The work joins YARAT’s founder comments, “Parkcycle Swarm is a brilliant addition to the Public Art Festival, helping expand our expectations of ‘public art’ and creating a social, green space wherever its components travel. We hope to inspire artists and the public alike with our programme, so we are delighted to welcome both the Parkcycle Swarm and Rebar group’s director John Bela to give a lecture at YARAT.”

Parkcycle Swarm consists of four small mobile parks, which are being cycled through the city. Described by Rebar group as a “human-powered, open space distribution system,” Parkcycle debuted in San Francisco in 2007, offering immediate access to green space for the neighbourhoods it parked in. By bringing the project to Baku, Rebar Group aims to expand the possibilities of public sculpture whilst raising awareness of cycle-power, community participation and the importance of green space.

Works at the Baku Public Art Festival 2013 range from a giant Rubber Duck by Florentijn Hofman (Netherlands), which arrives on 5 September, to Farkhad Haqverdi’s (Azerbaijan) Yard Art initiative, which has transformed Baku’s most neglected spaces, through to a performance and installation 9th Apartment by Georgian collective Group Bouillon, which questioned post-Soviet ideas of public and private space.

Parkcycle Swarm will be followed by Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck, landing in Baku 5 September.

About YARAT

Founded in 2011 by Aida Mahmudova, YARAT is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally.

Based in Baku, YARAT, (which means ‘create’ in Azerbaijani) realises its mission through an ongoing program of exhibitions, education events, and festivals. YARAT facilitates dialogue and exchange between local and international artistic networks, including foundations, galleries and museums. A series of residencies further fosters opportunities for global cultural dialogue and partnerships.

YARAT’s educational initiatives include lectures, seminars, master classes, and the Young Artist Project ARTIM (meaning ‘progress’ in Azerbaijani). ARTIM aims to encourage the next generation of Azerbaijani creative talent to seek a career in the arts and gives young practitioners the opportunity to exhibit their works in a professional context.

Founded as part of YARAT’s ongoing commitment to growing local art infrastructure, YAY Gallery is a commercial exhibition space. In line with this, YAY (meaning SHARE in Azerbaijani) shares all proceeds from sales between the artist and YARAT and supports a range of national and international artists.

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Rebar Group and N55 appeared first on Dezeen.

A mobile town square that packs into a miniature clock tower on the back of a bike will be appearing around north London this month (+ slideshow).

London agency Spacemakers enlisted design firms Studio Hato and Studio Kieren Jones to create the world’s first mobile town square for Cricklewood in north London. The intention of the project is to highlight the lack of green space and amenities in the community.

“Cricklewood is a community with no public space: no town hall, no library, no square, not even a single bench,” explained the designers. “The square will take the form of a civic folly on the back of a rickshaw bicycle, housing everything necessary to create a bona fide town square, including benches, stools, a clock tower, games and signage.”

The miniature square will be installed at a number of temporary locations, including outside a DIY superstore, on a pavement near a bingo hall and a rooftop car park. It will be used to host events for the local community such as dances and film screenings.

“The project aims to show what public space can do for a community, and how even these scraps of land can be used to create a sense of place,” said the designers.

When the town square is fully installed it covers 10 metres squared. The mobile folly including the bicycle is 1.22 metres wide and 2.8 metres long. It rises to 3.2 metres in height.

It has a custom-made five-wheeled base with 12 millimetre plywood covering, faux-brick cladding and a hand-made clock. Inside, there is a collection of furniture including umbrellas, benches, tables and chairs.

“The structure is both a practical solution – a vehicle to move the kit around – and a folly, providing a civic backdrop, helping to frame the spaces,” said designer Kieren Jones. “I hope this playful solution can be the town hall that Cricklewood never had.”

Cricklewood Town Square will be travelling around north London until 28 September. It will also be exhibited at the RIBA Forgotten Spaces exhibition at Somerset House in London, which runs from 4 October to 10 November 2013.

Designer Kieren Jones’ other projects include the Sea Chair project that trawls the oceans for plastic waste  to make furniture and a miniature factory to transform uneaten parts of a chicken into fashion items and products.

Other mobile architecture featured recently includes a tiny mobile performance stage based on sixteenth century market stalls and Roman fortune tellers and a quilted cube that is attached to the back of a tricycle.

See more mobile architecture »

Here’s a project description from Spacemakers:

Spacemakers produce the world’s first mobile town square

Spacemakers, the civic design agency behind the successful transformation of Brixton Village market, has enlisted Studio Hato and Studio Kieren Jones to create the world’s first mobile town square. Constructed from a clever kit of parts, the innovative town square will travel by bike and move across north London from 31 August to 28 September, inhabiting patches of disused land and turning them into vibrant public spaces for all.

Cricklewood, north west London, has an intriguing history but little civic amenities left to show for its heritage – not only is there no town hall or library, there’s not even a single public bench. Now the team that created the cult Brixton Village renaissance are turning their attentions north, seeking to highlight the dire lack of public space in Cricklewood via their ingenious mobile town square.

Designed and built by Studio Kieren Jones, the mobile town square will emerge in a series of forgotten spaces: from an unloved patch of grass next to B&Q, to an empty pavement outside a bingo hall, and even a rooftop car park. The square will take the form of a civic folly on the back of a rickshaw bicycle, housing everything necessary to create a bona fide town square, including benches, stools, a clocktower, games and signage.

To bring the Capital’s newest public space to life Londoners are invited to join in, with a dynamic programme of events running throughout the installation, from dog shows and chess championships, to tea dances and debates. Many of the events play on Cricklewood’s little known past, with film screenings on a car park roof referencing the area’s long lost film studios, and a DIY library where locals can read books by the town’s famous literary progeny.

Designer Kieren Jones explains: “In response to the relative lack of civic space in Cricklewood, I have created a miniature and mobile town hall, which will enable the activation of places and spaces within the town centre that have been previously underused. The structure will also house a set of bespoke furniture, using local suppliers, that can be flexibly deployed. The clock tower is a reference to the Smiths clock factory that used to exist in Cricklewood, and to the decorative clock that used to exist on Anson Road, but which was sold for scrap during the war.

The structure is both a practical solution – a vehicle to move the kit around – and a folly, providing a civic backdrop, helping to frame the spaces. Cricklewood has a thriving community, but no space for this community to exist. In a way, I hope this playful solution can be the town hall that Cricklewood never had.”

The fully installed space will be up to 10 metres squared, the mobile folly including the bicycle is 1.22m wide x 2.8m long x 3.2m tall and made from a bespoke, dip-coated 5-wheeled bike base, a steel frame, with 12mm plywood covering, faux-brick cladding (polyurethane, resin and brick dust) and a hand-made clock. The square’s furniture is made from a welded steel base, dip-coated in Cricklewood by local car-resprayers and finished with locally sourced, reclaimed wood.

Studio Hato were tasked with creating the signage and graphics for the square. Their solution was to come up with a DIY sign-making workshop, where local people could use stencils to create their own signs, and set their own rules, for the space.

A unique font, based on the standard British ‘transport’ font used on street signs across the country, has been created, and will be applied using stencils to pre-cut, temporary boards, with marker pens in official signage colours: blue, red, green and brown. Wayfinding signs will also be created, pointing towards the square, and re-positioned each time the square moves.

For Spacemakers it’s the incidental activities which take place on the structure which will be the most fascinating element of all, as project director Tom James reveals: “It’s these unplanned elements that will really generate the social life of these squares, attracting passers by. Our project is all about giving local people permission to sit, rest, play and meet in these spaces. This free, public space, open to everyone, is vital to making any place feel like a real community.”

James notes that the project aims to show people what’s possible, even in these scraps of land, but more than this, it aims to start a conversation. “We hope to use this project to get an idea into Cricklewood, to set a precedent that local people can use to help them work towards a permanent public space. The structure will stay in the community long-term: but just as important is the inspiration.”

Cricklewood Town Square is funded by the Mayor’s Outer London Fund, as part of a set of interventions in Cricklewood, led by Gort Scott Architects.

Cricklewood Town Square director Tom James is a writer and urbanist. His previous projects include GO, a cult fanzine about Sheffield which was named as one of Britain’s Top Ten Arts Secrets by the Observer, featured at the Venice Biennale for architecture in 2006, and is part of the V&A’s Permanent Art Collection; and Sheffield Publicity Department, an imaginary tourist board for Sheffield.

Kieren Jones is a designer and maker. His award winning work includes the Sea Chair project, a method of harnessing waste plastic in the oceans to make furniture, and the Blue Fence project: a proposal to reuse olympic fencing to create social furniture. In 2006, his ‘Flatpack Rearranged’ project, repurposing Ikea furniture, gave rise to the ‘Ikea Hacking’ subculture. Kieren leads the Materials Futures MA course at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

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by Spacemakers appeared first on Dezeen.

New York architecture studio Bureau V showed its debut menswear collection based on theories by German architect Gottfried Semper during New York Fashion Week.

Bureau V centred its first foray into fashion design around Semper’s nineteenth-century Stoffwechseltheorie, which describes the replication of old construction techniques when implementing new materials.

With this in mind, the studio used the performance-driven shapes of cycling shorts and fisherman’s waders and created garments in lighter, textured fabrics and a minimal palette.

“We’ve shifted the materials and tweaked the shapes to migrate some of the forms of this clothing outside of sport and into a more formal setting,” Bureau V’s Peter Zuspan told Dezeen.

Oxford shirts with mesh vents under the arms and bibbed long johns feature in the 12-piece collection, along with felt T-shirts and tweed shorts.

White and light grey tones help to emphasise the textures such as waffle cotton knit and quilted cellulose fabric, plus diverge from the overuse of black in architect’s clothes according to Zuspan.

“The original reason we chose the colours was a minor protest to architects’ (and New Yorkers’) longterm obsession with black,” he told Dezeen. “That said, we also appreciate the light colour’s ability to show off the more sculptural details in the clothing with minimal lighting.”

The studio enjoyed the speed of working on a fashion collection compared to drawn-out architecture projects.

“We’re a younger studio and one of our biggest frustrations we find with architecture is that it’s just too slow,” said Zuspan. “A fashion design project that we designed and worked on for 2-3 months was very refreshing.”

Bureau V collaborated with design platform BYCO to produce the garments, which are now for sale. The collection was first shown last Thursday at the Dillon Gallery as part of New York Fashion Week.

Other architects that have tried their hand at fashion design include Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid and Oscar Niemeyer, who have all previously created shoe collections.

For more menswear, see Sruli Recht’s collection that features wooden clothes or check out giant accessories and oversized knitwear by Sibling.

See more menswear collections »
See more fashion design »

The designers also sent us the following info:

Bureau V’s capsule collection takes as its point of departure 19th century German architect Gottfried Semper’s Stoffwechseltheorie, a historical theory that describes how forms derived from material-specific practices often shift into other materials, creating valuable lingering forms that bear no material justification.

The collection expands upon this theory from material practices to utility at large. Taking extreme performance-driven forms (such as bicycle bib shorts and fisherman’s waders), the collection shifts both the clothing’s material and its context, removing much of the utility from the work, and thereby re-contextualising material formal artefact as sculptural gesture.

The collection is presented by BYCO, a tech-platform for design, which has an ongoing project to collaborate with designers to create work outside of their respective discipline.

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by Bureau V appeared first on Dezeen.