This week’s job of the week on Dezeen Jobs is a position for a lead designer (interiors) to join Paul Smith, whose newly extended Albemarle Street store is pictured. Visit the ad for full details or browse other architecture and design opportunities on Dezeen Jobs.
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(interiors) at Paul Smith appeared first on Dezeen.
Curving steel columns morph into angular arches around the etched concrete body of this bridge by New Zealand architects Warren and Mahoney over a road, railway and waterway in Auckland (+ slideshow).
Named Point Resolution, the pedestrian bridge connects the coastline with a stretch of headland on the opposite side of the bay. Warren & Mahoney designed the structure to replace an existing 1930s bridge, which had become structurally unsound.
The body of the bridge is framed by three sinuous arcs, which branch out from the steel columns that elevate the structure. “The steel supporting the deck was designed to pay homage to the original bridge by echoing its three arches,” explained the architects.
A curved concrete deck was modelled on the hull of a ship and features a series of etched patterns by artist Henriata Nicholas, designed to look like delicate water ripples.
These patterns continue across the angular glass balustrades that line the edges of the walkway, supporting handrails on both sides.
The architects compare the delicate patterns and curving forms with the nearby Parnell Baths – a 1950s structure that features a decorative mosaic mural. “[The baths] offered a clear language of angular lines meeting sinuous form and became a key motivator of the language and geometry of the design,” they added.
Warren & Mahoney were also the architects for the newest terminal at Wellington International Airport, which topped the transport category at the 2011 Inside awards. Watch an interview we filmed with the architects »
Other bridges completed recently include a Corten steel river crossing in Norway and a pivoting apostrophe-shaped bridge in the UK.
See more bridges on Dezeen »
See more architecture in New Zealand »
Photography is by Patrick Reynolds.
Here’s a project description from Warren & Mahoney:
Point Resolution Bridge
Auckland Council invited Warren and Mahoney to provide conceptual ideas for a replacement pedestrian bridge connecting Auckland’s waterfront to a prominent headland. The existing bridge, built in the 1930s was suffering severe structural fatigue and with the imminent electrification of Auckland’s rail network, the bridge needed to be raised.
The council, recognising the importance of the location, both in terms of its prominence along the waterfront and its proximity to the historic salt water Parnell Baths, wanted something sculptural, elegant and iconic. The baths, designed in the early 1950s in the International Modern style of lido bathing pools with a mosaic mural by artist James Turkington, with its fluid and abstracted swimmers, offered a clear language of angular lines meeting sinuous form and became a key motivator of the language and geometry of the design.
The location of the bridge at the edge of the harbour also provided obvious nautical allusions, both historic and contemporary – the waka and the super yacht.
It was determined that the bridge would be formed using three primary elements:
» A simple but sculpted and hull-like concrete deck would extend from the headland and protrude out into the harbour. This would in turn be cradled by a highly expressive steel armature or exoskeleton which sinuously referenced the language of the baths beyond. A simple cantilevered glass balustrade, co-planar with the concrete deck would provide barrier protection.
» The steel supporting the deck was designed to pay homage to the original bridge by echoing its three arches. The arches begin under the deck as diamond shaped columns which bifurcate to form the arches.
» The deck is formed with three separate twin-celled post tensioned precast concrete sections joined with in-situ stitches. The deck is supported by the steel armature through discrete pin connections.
Artist Henriata Nicholas developed a pungarungaru(water ripple) pattern over the concrete and glass surfaces. It was important that the patterning was delicately completed in a contemporary manner to ensure it would not be read as a patronising cultural reference. To ensure consistency of the concrete colour, a pigmented stain was applied.
To create the fluid and sinuous forms, along with the geometric precision required the bridge was designed and modelled in Rhinoceros with the associated parametric plug-in Grasshopper. The parametric capability allowed for design iterations to be produced quickly and tested against architectural and structural requirements.
Architect: Warren & Mahoney (Dean Mackenzie, Simon Dodd, Sebastian Hamilton, Chris Brown)
Artist: Henriata Nicholas
Structures: Peters & Cheung (Duncan Peters, Brent Deets, David Brody, Joe Gutierrez)
Lighting: LDP (Mike Grunsell)
Main Contractor: Hawkins Infrastructure (Nick Denham)
Client: Auckland City (Greg Hannah)
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by Warren & Mahoney appeared first on Dezeen.
News: Swiss design brand Vitra has acquired Artek, the Finnish furniture company co-founded by Modernist architect Alvar Aalto in 1935.
Vitra succeeds Swedish family-owned investment company Proventus, who took over majority ownership of the brand from the founders’ families in 1992.
Artek CEO Mirkku Kullberg said the buy-out is intended to give the brand a more international presence. “The international dimension, which was a clear goal already in Artek’s founding manifesto of 1935, needed to be revitalised,” he said. “That arena is where we want to be, and alliances or ownership arrangements are one way of building the future. In our judgment, having an owner from the industry was the best choice for Artek.”
“Vitra has held Aalto and Artek in high regard for decades,” said Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum. “Like Vitra it is a commercial-cultural project which plays an avant-garde role in its sector. For Vitra it is important that Artek can continue and further develop this role.”
Further details of the deal have not been disclosed. A spokesperson from Vitra told Dezeen that Artek will continue to operate as a separate company, with no changes in management or manufacturing for the moment. “Artek and Vitra are both very creative companies so any crossover is likely to be in creative collaborations,” she added. Artek is already the distributor for Vitra’s furniture in Finland.
Artek was founded in 1935 by Aalto and his wife Aino, art promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl. The company’s core archive comprises Aalto’s birch wood furniture designs including Armchair 41 created for the Paimio Sanatorium he completed in 1932 (pictured) and Stool 60, the much-copied classic that’s been in continuous production since 1933. The brand is extending its range and has recently acquired the rights to Finnish designer Ilmari Tapiovaara’s furniture.
In recent years the brand has also been collaborating with high-profile contemporary designers including Shigeru Ban and Naoto Fukasawa.
Earlier this year American furniture brand Herman Miller acquired New York-based textile manufacturer Maharam, whise archive includes work by designers Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and Gio Ponti.
See all our stories about Artek »
See more stories about Vitra »
Here’s some more information from Vitra:
On 6 September 2013, Vitra acquired the Finnish company Artek
A renowned design company founded in 1935 in Finland by architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino, art promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl, Artek was built upon the radical business plan to “sell furniture and to promote a modern culture of habitation by exhibitions and other educational means.” Artek has become one of the most innovative contributors to modern design, building on the heritage of Alvar Aalto.
“Vitra has held Aalto and Artek in high regard for decades,” explains Rolf Fehlbaum, a member of Vitra’s Board of Directors. “The Finnish design company is more than a collection of furniture; like Vitra it is a commercial-cultural project which plays an avant-garde role in its sector. For Vitra it is important that Artek can continue and further develop this role.”
Artek will continue as a separate entity. Synergies between different operations will be explored. They primarily relate to manufacturing, distribution and logistics.
Mirkku Kullberg, Artek’s CEO, says: “The international dimension, which was a clear goal already in Artek’s founding manifesto of 1935, needed to be revitalized. That arena is where we want to be, and alliances or ownership arrangements are one way of building the future. In our judgment, having an owner from the industry was the best choice for Artek.”
Kullberg continues: “This is a great opportunity for the Finnish design industry and a major move for Artek, lifting the company to the next stage.”
The core of the Artek product range consists of Alvar Aalto’s furniture and lighting designs. Under its new portfolio strategy, Artek is extending the range and has acquired the rights to Ilmari Tapiovaara’s furniture collection. In parallel, Artek also continues to work in close collaboration with prominent international architects, designers and artists, such as Eero Aarnio, Shigeru Ban, Naoto Fukasawa, Harri Koskinen, Juha Leiviskä, Enzo Mari and Tobias Rehberger.
As an important player in the modernist movement and in the spirit of its radical founders, Artek remains in the vanguard as it searches for new paths within and between the disciplines of design, architecture and art. “There is definitely a comeback of Nordic design and there is a renewed appreciation of Aalto’s work. Tapiovaara of course is much less known internationally, and it is high time that he be discovered,” Rolf Fehlbaum adds.
The partnership between Vitra and Artek is based on shared values. Proventus CEO Daniel Sachs, former owner of Artek, explains the decision of the transaction: “Vitra has the ideal corporate culture, know-how and industrial resources to take Artek to the next level.”
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Danish firms JDS Architects and KLAR Architects have created a multipurpose pier in Copenhagen featuring a series of undulating bridges and promenades that rise out of the water like waves (+ slideshow).
JDS Architects and KLAR Architects redeveloped two existing public squares on a stretch of the Kalvebod harbour adjacent to several large office blocks, and extended the promenade onto the water in the gaps where the buildings’ shadows don’t reach.
“What has doomed the Kalvebod area until now were the long shadows drawn by the imposing structures fronting it,” JDS Architects explained. “We studied the course of those shadows throughout the day and the year and located two main pockets of shadow-free zones.”
The new intervention enlivens a previously barren area of the waterfront and connects the nearby Langebro Bridge with roads that lead towards Copenhagen’s central station and Tivoli Gardens amusement park.
Raised above the water on stilts, two concrete piers provide facilities including a dock for boats, a canoe club and an events space, while decked areas with benches encourage sunbathing.
Promenades on different levels offer various ways of navigating the waterfront, with the wooden decking rearing up at one point to create a diving platform.
The two firms won the competition to develop the Kalvebod harbour area in 2008, and JDS previously designed a public swimming area on the opposite side of the harbour, that was completed in 2003 when the firm was still operating under the title PLOT with fellow Danish architect Bjarke Ingels.
JDS Architects recently revealed its design for an M-shaped office building covered in green terraces in Istanbul, while its founder Julien De Smedt has launched a design brand focusing on furniture and homeware.
Other landscape architecture projects on Dezeen include a seaside square in Croatia with steps, terraces and textured paving, and a coastal path in England featuring a staircase that provides access to a historic naval supply yard.
See more JDS Architects »
See more landscape architecture »
Photographs are by Ursula Bach unless stated otherwise.
Here’s a project description:
Kalvebod Brygge is situated opposite the popular Copenhagen summer hang out, Islands Brygge. Kalvebod Brygge has the potential to be Islands Brygge’s more urban counterpart but has, until now, been synonymous with a desolated office address devoid of life and public activities.
This new waterfront will be a place for a larger spectrum of public activities. With a close connection to the central train station and Tivoli, Copenhagen’s famous city amusement park, ‘Kalvebod Bølge’, the ‘Kalvebod Waves’ will become a hub, buzzing with activity and providing a chance for the inner city to regain its connection to the harbour.
Constituted more by its functionality than its tradition, this inner city site is less fragile than others and manifests Copenhagen’s contemporary urban waterfront with neighbouring entities such as the Black Diamond Library and the Nykredit building. According to the schedule the complex should be finished mid 2010.
The project consists of two main plazas, which extend across the water and are positioned with regards to sunlight and wind conditions. To the south, the pier allows for a flexible public space on the water with facilities to host events related to the creative industry. During the last 10 years Copenhagen has developed into a stronghold for the creative class, therefore Kalvebod Brygge proposes an urban showcase that gives organisations, companies, festivals and fairs a location along the waterfront.
In connection with this space, an active water enclave is created, for various water related activities. The plaza and surrounding pontoons provide the necessary facilities for these activities to function. The flow of boats that commute to and from the water hub also creates an active maritime background and secures the connectivity of the plaza to the rest of the city.
The second square acts as an oasis on the water, providing both proximity and access. This recreational space, with a beach, allows for a break from the hectic pace of urban life, where a floating garden is proposed. A maritime park where urban and maritime life meet.
Project: Waterfront, Urban Plan
Type: Competition, 1st Prize December 2008
Size: 4000 M2
Budget: 7,000,000 EUR (52,000,000 DKK)
Client: Copenhagen Municipality, Lokale og Anlægsfonden
Team: KLAR, JDS, Niras, Sloth Møller
Location: Kalvebod Brygge, Copenhagen Harbor
Status: Completed August 2013
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and JDS Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
Competition: as media partners for the Global Design Forum, Dezeen is giving readers the chance to win one of five pairs of tickets worth £395 each to the event in London on 16 and 17 September, which features speakers including Peter Saville (pictured) Jaime Hayon and Ross Lovegrove.
The Global Design Forum combines a series of talks and debates lead by key design industry figures and international designers over two days, organised by the London Design Festival.
Tickets will allow delegates to attend every event in this year’s programme and are each worth £395.
Opening night at the V&A museum will see artist and designer Peter Saville in conversation with journalist Peter Morley, followed by a drinks reception in the museum’s Paintings Gallery.
The next day at London’s Southbank Centre, the full-day programme will include four main sessions and over 20 international speakers.
Designers Ross Lovegrove, Jaime Hayón and Michael Young are all confirmed to speak at the event.
In one section, entrepreneurs and inventors will present their innovations to a panel of experts then the audience will vote for their favourite.
All ticket holders become members of the London Design Festival’s VIP Programme, giving access to a bespoke series of events throughout the festival from 14 to 22 September.
For a full schedule and further details visit the Global Design Forum website.
To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “Global Design Forum 2013” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers. Read our privacy policy here.
You need to subscribe to our newsletter to have a chance of winning. Sign up here.
Competition closes 12 September 2013. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeen Mail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.
Read on for more details from the organisers:
The Global Design Forum is the agenda-setting thought leadership event for design, organised by the London Design Festival. The event is a unique platform for the most challenging thinking about the future of human society and design’s role in it.
Speaking at this year’s Forum are individuals from a variety of business backgrounds where the implementation of intelligent design thinking is absolutely core to their strategy and competitive advantage, and that of their clients.
The Global Design Forum will start with a bang at the V&A as British artist, designer, art director and cultural game changer Peter Saville will engage in a provocative head-to-head conversation with leading journalist and commentator Paul Morley. With these two in the hot seat, you should expect the unexpected! The talk will be followed by a drinks reception for all delegates in the museum’s Paintings Gallery.
The next day, on Tuesday 17 September, delegates will come together at the Southbank Centre for the full-day programme, which includes four main sessions and over 20 international speakers.
Sessions will explore where innovation is at its most exciting, most relevant and farthest reaching; five bright entrepreneurs and inventors present their ‘world shaking’ ideas in only five minutes, scrutinised by a panel of experts and voted on by the audience; as cities grow in size, experts from around the world ask how creativity will be central to a ‘smart’ city’s future success; and as communication, production and distribution evolve, what new challenges does that present to designers and brands?
Speakers on the day include advertising guru Sir John Hegarty, serial entrepreneur Brent Hoberman, designer and educator Ilse Crawford, HTC’s Head of Design Scott Croyle, Senior Vice President of BMW Group Design Adrian van Hooydonk, and designers Ross Lovegrove, Jaime Hayon and Michael Young, to name a few.
Attend the Global Design Forum for provocative thinking, game-changing ideas and fresh insights.
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Design Forum tickets to be won appeared first on Dezeen.
A spinning oven shaped like a giant disco ball is the centrepiece of this pizzeria in Vienna by Austrian architect Lukas Galehr (+ slideshow).
Covered in hundreds of tiny mirrored tiles, the spherical pizza oven is positioned amidst the dining area and is anchored to a central chimney that allows it pivot from its centre.
The restaurant lights are dimmed for the evenings and various coloured spotlights are directed onto the oven, causing scores of pink, green and blue dots to flood across the white walls and ceilings.
Named Disco Volante, which loosely translates as flying disc, the restaurant is otherwise modelled on an authentic Napoli pizzeria with a vaulted ceiling, smooth tiled floors and clean white walls.
Black mosaic tiles lines the walls of the pizza-making area and also cover the floor surrounding the service counter and bar.
Simple wooden chairs and benches provide rows of seating, giving most diners a clear view of the glittering central feature.
Lukas Galehr is a member of design collective MadameMohr, which includes five architects and one industrial designer.
Other pizzerias to feature on Dezeen include one surrounded by tin cans and one modelled on an Italian courtyard.
See more pizzerias on Dezeen »
See more restaurant interiors »
Here’s a short movie showing the spinning oven in action:
Photography is by Lukas Schaller.
Here’s a project description from the architect:
Disco Volante
The recently opened Pizzeria is the second of its kind hosted by Maria Fuchs, a vanguard in the recent “genuine pizza” hype in Vienna. The name “Disco Volante” brings back memories of the James Bond villain Emilio Largo’s escape vessel. Also a famous car designed in the early 50ies carried this name (there has recently been a relaunch by Alfa Romeo). But in fact does the name of the pizzeria simply refer to its original meaning “flying disc”.
According to the clients wish the restaurant should not only carry the atmosphere of a southern Italian pizzeria but also transport the lightness of the “Italo-Disco” era of the 1970s and 80s.
The heart of every pizzeria is the wood fired oven which in this case is a giant disco ball with a rotating mechanism. After the dough is run out the Pizzaioli start the engine and the oven begins to slowly turn with about 1 revolution per minute.
In charge of the design as well for most of the production of the oven was Vienna based madamemohr, a young architects and designers collaborative. Their goal is not to just design but also to fabricate where possible. In this case, the outer shell of the oven which is made from heat resistant concrete, was produced utilizing CNC-milling technology to build the spherical formwork.
The mechanism allowing the oven to rotate is hidden underneath the baking surface where the heat does not damage sensitive parts. The shell is covered with approximately 7500 special cut mirror tiles which were glued on site.
The ceiling of the former grocery store revealed an extra meter of height when removed. This additional space contributes to the canteen like feeling known from the overcrowded places in Naples drowned in neon light. Adding up to this harsh and rather uncomfortable environment are the former church benches as well as the chairs, typically found in Vienna’s city departments and the tables only leaving space for a pizza and a beverage each. These attributes might sound unusual for a restaurant but are key elements of the success of “Disco Volante”.
The waiters and waitresses are all wearing special designed overalls by fashion designer Milena Heussler & Luciano Raimondi and recall a mechanics outfit.
Responsible for the design of the Neon Sign as well as all print media are grafisches Büro, Vienna.
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Lukas Galehr appeared first on Dezeen.
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has bent bamboo into walkways and seating areas at this year’s Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea, which opens today.
Kengo Kuma spilt the bamboo into three-centimetre-wide strips to make it easy to bend, so visitors to the Gwangju Design Biennale can walk over or recline on the springy surfaces.
Bamboo is a common material in both Japanese and Korean architecture and Kuma used it in this installation for its flexibility and tactility.
“The objective of my exhibit at the Biennale is to reconnect the human body with architecture,” said Kuma.
On each section the ends of the bamboo strips are attached along two edges of a fixed base, bowing up against each other where the two sides meet in the middle.
This causes one side to curl back on itself and the other to flow over the top, making a wave shape.
The curves create seating areas that can be leant up against or laid down on.
At the biennale the waves outside form a twenty-metre-long passage between two exhibition halls, where loose strands along the top quiver in the wind.
The direction of the waves is alternated so one side is always open but the walkway is constantly covered.
The same design continues inside one of the galleries, where staggered sections create smaller pockets of seating space.
In the dark exhibition space elements are lit from below, illuminating the splaying strands.
Open until 3 November, the Gwangju Design Biennale also features the travelling Designed To Win exhibition of sport equipment first shown last year at London’s Design Museum during the Olympic Games.
Kuma has used bamboo in his installations on a few occasions, including a concept home based on traditional Japanese interiors and as foliage amongst a topographical landscape of stone and water.
The architect’s latest proposals for a new outpost of the V&A museum in Dundee received the green light last month. He also recently completed a contemporary arts museum with a chequered glass facade in Marseille.
See more bamboo design »
See more architecture and design by Kengo Kuma »
See more design installations »
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by Kengo Kuma appeared first on Dezeen.
This riverside holiday house in South Limburg, the Netherlands, is raised on tree trunks to prevent flooding and clad with charred wood to reduce the need for maintenance (+ slideshow).
The small residence was designed by architecture studio Upfrnt, alongside charred timber consultancy Zwarthout. It is located on the banks of the fast-flowing Geul river, where construction is usually restricted to protect the environment, but was permitted as it replaced several dilapidated structures.
The design team used the traditional Japanese Shou-Sugi-Ban technique to burn the surfaces of the cedar cladding panels, creating a sealed surface that will protect itself and almost never need repairs.
The floor of the house is raised up by over a metre on a series of reinforced oak logs, as the nearby river is prone to frequent flooding. A wooden bridge links the entrance to the woodland pathway behind, while a series of steps leads down to the water’s edge.
The house incorporates several sustainable technologies that minimise its carbon footprint. “Upfrnt strive to design buildings that are in harmony with their environment,” explains Weijnen.
Alongside triple glazing and thick insulation, the house uses solar energy for heating and electricity. Waste water is also collected and filtered, so that it can be fed back into the river.
To enable a speedy construction, the house was prefabricated in Amsterdam by construction firm WHD Interieurbouw and was assembled on site in just three months.
We’ve featured several houses on Dezeen with charred timber facades. Others include a curved house in Japan and an extension to a mill-keeper’s house in England. See more architecture featuring blackened wood »
Other sustainable houses we published include a self-sufficient house in China and an energy-generating home in Japan.
Photography is by Hans Peter Föllmi.
Here’s some extra information from the design team:
Sustainable passive holiday house completed on the River Geul
Tucked away on the banks of the River Geul in South Limburg is a unique new holiday house created by Upfrnt architects, WHD Interieurbouw and Zwarthout. Permission to build on the Geul, one of Holland’s few fast flowing rivers is rarely granted because of the impact on the environment. Nevertheless the local council of Gulpen-Wittem was prepared to support this sustainable project in exchange for the removal of the original dilapidated buildings.
An interesting challenge for all parties was the frequent flooding of the river. In order to prevent water damage, the house was raised on poles made from local trees. A risen path was created to connect the house with the alley behind it.
Upfrnt strive to design buildings that are in harmony with their environment. The house is built following passive principles and has a low carbon footprint. Extra insulation and triple glass ensure year round comfort. Warm water is generated by solar heating. Electricity for cooking and heating is provided by solar panels elsewhere on the grounds. Sewage connection is unnecessary due to the use of a Helofytenfilter. Waste water is filtered and purified allowing it to flow back into the river cleaned. Use of the underground ventilation pipe for warming and cooling the incoming air increases living comfort considerably.
The complexity of building on stilts and the innovative sustainable character of the house required a resourceful team. Amsterdam based building company WHD Interieurbouw worked together with ZwartHout and the architect to bring this project to successful completion.
Despite huge window panes and an expansive view, the house is extremely private due to the positioning on the property. The house was prefabricated in Amsterdam and constructed on site. The silver sheen on the black exterior is the result of using the Shou-Sugi-Ban technique (Japanese burning of cedar panels) rendering the house virtually maintenance free. The building was completed within three months.
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by Upfrnt and Zwarthout appeared first on Dezeen.
Opinion: after returning from a two-week break, Sam Jacob reflects on the phenomenon of the modern beach holiday and argues that it is just as artificial as everyday working life in the city.
The summer is almost out of reach, the sun setting over vacation idylls and planes pulling their wheels up over the bleached industrial outskirts of a Mediterranean city. They accelerate into the sky, contrails arcing northwards, to deliver their payload of over-ripened northern Europeans back to their slate-grey natural habitats. They emerge from the airport still incongruously clad in espadrilles, shorts and straw hats.
Ah, holidays. The ten-ish days off from the normal pattern of life where we can kick back, get back to nature, soak up the sun and otherwise encounter the world in a different way to our usual nine-to-five. But although we often describe them as a “break”, holidays are actually a product of organised labour, products of the industrial revolution as much as the production line.
These bubbles of paradise, where the wind blows through your hair and you feel the prickle of the sun’s heat on your bare skin, are as artificial as the suspended-ceilinged, contract-carpeted and air-conditioned environments you spend the rest of the year holed up in.
Nowhere is this strange version of artificial nature more apparent than the beach. A beach might be a product of coast line geology, of sea levels and tides, of the forces exerted by the sea on the perimeter of the land, of rocks and shells worn down into grains of sand. But really the place we go isn’t this; it’s rather a highly-wrought cultural phenomenon that just happens to look (sometimes) completely natural.
The idea of the holiday is derived from holy days, still ghostly present in the word itself. Secularised and industrialised, the holiday remains a symbolic event, an act full of ritual. The beach is the ground on which we conduct this performance, aided by outfits and props. All those things we identify with beachiness – from the traditional British seaside fare of kiss-me-quick hats, donkey rides and Punch and Judy shows to the exotic cocktail-in-a-pineapple from a thatched beach bar, even the virgin, unspoiled sands of ultimate luxury beachiness – all of these are props and scenarios that allow us to commune with an idea. Walking down the promenade, in other words, or pulling on your Speedos, blowing up a deranged-looking inflatable sea monster… whatever you might find yourself doing is a way of participating in collective ideas about nature and society.
Think of all those highly specific items we drag down there: the special towels, buckets in the shape of miniature candy-coloured castles, lilos, umbrellas, tiny cricket bats, balls that catch the wind as though they thought they belonged to the sky. Think of the clothes we wear, think even of that June magazine favourite, the beach body (and how to get one). All of these point to the beach as a place that holds a very special meaning.
The very idea of a beach holiday is relatively recent. It is essentially an eighteenth-century invention, a combination of science (the beach as sanitarium) and changing attitudes to the landscape after urbanisation (which might fall under the catch-all term of romanticism). These ideas of health and romance still run through our contemporary notions of the beach like the words through a stick of rock. These combine with modern notions of leisure, with money, with images of family and/or relationships. All baking under an ozone-depleted sky, doused in gallons of SPF.
“Ha,” you might say. “Put down your cultural studies notepad, throw off your tweeds and join us frolicking in the shallows. You’re taking this far too seriously; it’s all just a little fun!” But that’s the point: the beach’s syntheticity is so absolutely absorbed into its landscape that it’s almost impossible to distinguish it from nature, even when it really is manufactured.
Beyond the vast infrastructures that holidays command – the engineering, logistics, complex finance and construction that enable travel, highways, hotels – to name but a few items necessary to enable us to go somewhere – beaches are themselves unstable places that shift with wind and tide. These erosions are often held at bay by civil engineering such as groins and breaks. Sand is rearranged in acts of “beach nourishment”: sometimes as simple as scooping it up from one end of a bay and putting it back at the other; other times as extreme as replenishing a beach with sand from somewhere else entirely. These acts of great geological shuffling mean that beaches stay in the same place against their natural inclination.
The slogan “Sous les paves, la plage” rang out in Paris in 1968. It imagined that beneath the concrete veneer of the city was something as apparently liberated as the beach. But far from being something opposite, the beach is part of the very same landscape as the city.
Sam Jacob is a director of architecture practice FAT, professor of architecture at University of Illinois Chicago and director of Night School at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, as well as editing www.strangeharvest.com.
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landscape as the city” appeared first on Dezeen.
Product news: architect David Adjaye has unveiled his first furniture collection, designed for American retailer Knoll, which includes two cantilevered side chairs and a limited edition coffee table.
David Adjaye developed the Washington Collection alongside his design for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC, which is currently under construction.
“This project has been an exhilarating and collaborative experience – an unexpected balancing act between the design and engineering processes,” said Adjaye. “My original idea of what this furniture should be was continuously refined and transformed throughout.”
The Washington Collection, which also includes a club chair, ottoman and side table, will be launched by Knoll in October.
The Washington Corona coffee table is made from four cast bronze panels referencing the bronze lattice that wraps around the museum in Washington and will be available in a limited edition of 75 pieces, marking Knoll’s 75th anniversary.
The Washington Skeleton and Washington Skin chairs balance on a cantilevered stand and are suitable for outdoor use.
The lattice design of the Skeleton chair is constructed from die-cast aluminium, while the Skin version is made from injection-moulded nylon.
David Adjaye won the design competition for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture museum back in 2009 and construction began in February 2012.
Adjaye recently designed an observatory and education centre with spiralling stone walls to be built on an island in the English Channel, and a silk-weaving facility in India.
At Design Indaba earlier this year, David Adjaye told us about his relationship with Africa and why he believes the continent provides a great opportunity for architects. See more stories about David Adjaye.
Architect Rem Koolhaas also launched a furniture collection with Knoll at the Milan Furniture Fair this year, which journalist Justin McGuirk told Dezeen was the most interesting thing he saw during the event. See more stories about Knoll furniture.
Here are some more details from Knoll:
The Washington Collection for Knoll, David Adjaye’s first collection of furniture, transforms his architectural and sculptural vision into accessible objects for the home and office. The collection consists of two cantilevered side chairs, a club chair, an ottoman, a side table and a monumental coffee table.
David Adjaye said, “Knoll approaches furniture as making connections between people and how they work and live their daily lives. This project has been an exhilarating and collaborative experience – an unexpected balancing act between the design and engineering processes. My original idea of what this furniture should be was continuously refined and transformed throughout.”
Commenting on Adjaye’s work, Knoll design director Benjamin Pardo said, “David is doing really innovative and important architectural projects, and what really interested us was to see that work on an entirely new scale.”
Adjaye’s limited edition cast bronze coffee table reflects this cross-over. The sculptural table with a clear glass top is constructed from four cast bronze panels, and four connecting plates. The roughhewn exterior contrasts the highly reflective, hand polished interior surface. To mark our 75th anniversary the bronze coffee table is limited to an edition of 75.
The post The Washington Collection
by David Adjaye for Knoll appeared first on Dezeen.
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