Architectural photographer Carlos Ayesta captured these unusual views of Paris by abseiling down the sides of skyscrapers with his camera slung over his shoulder (+ slideshow).
Ayesta is a freelance photographer specialising in architecture. He has abseiled from Paris structures such as La Tour Eiffel, La Grande Arche de la Défense, the Center of New Industries and Technologies (CNIT), Tour EQHO and Tour Sequoia.
By dangling from the sides of these buildings, Ayesta gains an unusual perspective of the city, including views taken through windows of unsuspecting occupants.
“My approach of taking photographs whilst abseiling and from hanging platforms shows the architecture in another dimension,” Ayesta told Dezeen.
Ayesta hopes to capture the city, district and buildings in his photographs from a previously unseen perspective. “I can take pictures of hidden things. No-one on the ground or on top of the buildings can see what I see,” he explained.
“I take pictures of towers, offices and homes, and I am able to capture the people working and living within those spaces,” he continued. “The window reflections are magical – you can see life and the landscapes within the same frame.”
Here’s a short film of Ayesta abseiling in Paris:
Ayesta told Dezeen he is talking to a company in Tokyo about his next project.
Product news: Copenhagen design firm KiBiSi designed this low-energy pendant lamp by scaling up the shape of a classic light bulb.
KiBiSi’s Bulb Fiction pendant lamp unites the socket and bulb into one product.
The shade is made from hand-blown opal glass and the pendant’s cord incorporates a thick white silicone cover to give it extra volume. The cord can be tied in a knot for a different look and the lamps can be hung in clusters.
“The fixture creates the illusion of a classic incandescent bulb, hides the low-energy light source and ensures a comfortable, soft light,” said the designers.
Bulb Fiction is now available to buy in North America through furniture company HighTower.
KiBiSi is an industrial design firm founded in 2009 by designer Lars Holme Larsen of Kilo Design, architect Bjarke Ingels of BIG and brand consultant Jens Martin Skibsted of Skibsted Ideation.
Designed by Danish design team KiBiSi and manufactured by Lightyears, the Bulb Fiction pendant lamp is a playful take on the classic incandescent light bulb and is now available in North America through HighTower.
Bulb Fiction remains true to the iconic shape but has been scaled up and broken down, creating the illusion of a single bulb, while hiding the low energy light source, and ensuring a comfortable, soft light with its hand-blown opal glass shade.
Bulb Fiction transitions seamlessly between public and private spaces from hospitality to retail, commercial and residential environments. It works beautifully as a single lamp, but also looks fantastic when hung in a cluster, a straight line, or in staggered formations.
To further play with the design, simply tie knots in the cord or gather several lamps together to form a modern chandelier.
Seoul architects studio_GAON designed this house in the Korean countryside for a couple who want to retire and grow walnuts (+ slideshow).
The couple, who are in their sixties, required a house where they could live with their parents and daughter.
Located on a sunny hillside near the provincial town of Geochang, the timber-framed house has traditional Korean architectural features including a raised timber “maru” deck offering views of the surrounding countryside.
The daughter and parents are accommodated on the second floor and ground floor annex respectively, sharing the living room and maru with the owners.
The house is designed to engender a sense of tranquility and privacy, allowing the owners to rest after their long careers.
“The scenery is so peaceful that it feels like midday nap soaks into a body as softly blowing wind,” write studio_GAON. “Nobody hinders or prohibits ingoing, but the house is so peculiar located that nobody from outside can see the inside.”
Here’s some more information from the architects:
House in Geochang
House in Geochang is the house built on a sunny hill of Geochang, a Korean provincial city. There is a tall, brushy dogwood in the site, and a spring next to the tree which always provides fresh water. Also there is a small pool at the foot of the hill.
The scenery is so peaceful that it feels like midday nap soaks into a body as softly blowing wind. Nobody hinders or prohibits ingoing, but the house is so peculiar located that nobody from outside can see the inside. Slope of the hill is moderately steep, and wind is blowing quietly. This is an ideal land, which has hill, water, wind and tree.
The house was built by a sexagenarian couple who was going to live with octogenarian parents. The house owner, who devoted his entire life to social movements (labor movements) resembles Prometheus, a Titan in Greek mythology.
The couple helped others during their whole life, and even now they are taking care of others at every opportunity. They are planning to grow walnuts after completing the house. So they wanted a land which is suitable for farming, and a house which can provide true relaxation.
So we wanted a modest and cozy house, which will not wake the Titan, who takes rest after a long time, from his nap. Nap is a temporary sleep, a sleep which provides a clear mind after waking up. Here they will take sleep and rest soundly. For this reason, we decided to call the house as ‘House, where shade rests’.
Required spaces are rooms for the couple, parents and daughter respectively, living room as common space, two restrooms and an attic. The relationships whithin the family is good, but we targeted on keeping discreet distance and protecting private life in order to prevent discomfort due to overly nearness and excessive consideration.
On the East corner, where the dogwood is seen clearly, we put a kitchen and dining room, and on the opposite side, projected the living room to the main approach, and added a wide floor. For this reason, if we see the house from the front, the part of left side is a space for daughter-in-law, and the part of right side is a space for mother-in-law.
The living space for the daughter-in-law is a kitchen and dining room, where the dogwood and spring are very close to. The living space for the mother-in-law is living room and main room, which has a good view of a garden and village. For a daughter, who wants a separate space, assigned a room with a balcony on the 2nd floor, and from there she can have a talk with a person on a deck connected with a kitchen, looking each other.
Due to the form of the site, the house was slightly tilted along East-West axis and took elongated shape. Since the scenery of the hill located on North-West side was so beautiful, they should be seen from the kitchen and living room, and we made windows toward South and North in order to receive warm sunlight from South.
As the house owner wished, we hope the family will remember this house as their new home, as the cozy and comfortable house, receiving consolation from nature. The building, like a farmer who endured storm and eventually collected teemful harvest, will be a permanent living place for the three generation family.
In our next movie focussing on key projects by Richard Rogers, the British architect talks exclusively to Dezeen about his radical Lloyd’s building in London and explains why he is not completely comfortable with the “high-tech” label that is often applied to his work.
Completed in 1986 for insurance company Lloyd’s of London, Lloyd’s building comprises three main towers, each with an accompanying service tower, which surround a central rectangular atrium housing the main trading floor.
Lloyd’s building in London. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
Often cited as a pioneering example of high-tech architecture, Lloyd’s building was considered radical because, like Rogers‘ preceding Centre Pompidou in Paris, all of its services, including staircases, lifts and water pipes, are on display on the outside of the building.
“We were able to convince Lloyd’s that we would put the mechanical services on the outside because mechanical services have a short life,” Rogers explains.
Central atrium of Lloyd’s building. Photo copyright: Richard Bryant / Arcaid.co.uk
As with the Centre Pompidou, the idea was to make the central spaces as open and flexible as possible. “[We] kept the floors clear because Lloyd’s said they wanted two things,” Rogers says.
“They wanted a building that would last into the next century – we met that one – and they wanted a building that could meet their changing needs.”
Central atrium of Lloyd’s building. Photo copyright: Richard Bryant / Arcaid.co.uk
However, Rogers says that he does not completely agree with the use of the term “high-tech” to describe the building.
“I have no great love for high-tech,” he says. “One would like to think one uses the appropriate materials, but of course appropriate materials are shaped by the time you live in. So we use the technology of today – and the technology of yesterday where appropriate – to build the buildings of today.”
He continues: “We thought Lloyd’s was the absolute ultimate in the art of technology. When I look at it now, it’s practically hand made. People say, ‘well, it’s technology and therefore it’s a high-tech building.’ It’s a bit too easy.”
A 200 year-old City of London institution at the time, Lloyd’s seemed an unlikely client for such a bold building.
“It was very traditional,” Rogers says. “The only bit of technology when we went to see the [previous] Lloyd’s building inside was a Xerox machine and some people were still writing with feathers and ink.”
However, Rogers says that the company was actually very forward-looking. “It was backwards only in the process,” he says. “Of course, it was the most famous insurance firm in the world and obviously contained a very cutting-edge element within that.”
He continues: “We were again extremely fortunate, in the same way as we were with the Pompidou. The real critical thing in architecture is having a good client. A good client is not somebody who just says ‘yes’, it’s a client that is engaged in the evolution of the building, who responds.”
While Rogers worked closely with Lloyd’s on the functional aspects of the building, he says he had more freedom over the aesthetics. “We were dealing with people who knew about change, knew about risk, but hadn’t a clue about art,” he explains. “The ducts, the pieces on the outside, allowed us to play a game with light and shadow.”
Despite enjoying a productive relationship with Lloyd’s initially, there were still challenges to overcome to get the building built.
“A year before the end of building, there was an investigation by the Bank of England into Lloyd’s and the chairman and everyone had to resign,” Rogers says. “The next chairman hated us, so we had a very tough last year.”
Rogers says that the general reaction to the building once it was completed was also hostile, although opinion changed over time. Lloyd’s building was Grade I listed in 2011, just 25 years after it was built, and Rogers sees parallels between it and Christopher Wren’s iconic St Paul’s Cathedral.
“Wren was in his seventies when he at last got St Paul’s built,” he says, recounting a story that the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral told him at the opening of Lloyd’s building. “He’d started thirty years beforehand and was so tired of having his building attacked and turned down, by the time he got to building it he put a twenty foot fence all around the site so that nobody could see it.”
“So even St Paul’s was a shock of the new. We think its been there forever – certainly Prince Charles thinks it has been there forever – but it hasn’t. It was a risky building to build in those times, which is why it is great.”
The London home designed by Rogers for his parents, and which influenced his later design for the Pompidou Centre, was recently put on the market for the first time since it was built in 1968.
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Long brick and wood volumes extend down the narrow plot of this house in Bondi, Sydney, by local architect Fearns Studio (+ slideshow).
While renovating a single-storey Victorian terrace, Fearns Studio filled the thin strip of land behind with a blackened wood cuboid on top of brick ground floor that’s painted white.
Under the pitched roof of the old house, a lounge faces the street and a bedroom behind is connected to a bathroom via a small courtyard.
These rooms are joined by a long corridor that leads from the front door to the large open-plan dining, kitchen and living area.
Ground-floor rooms are lit by skylights, as well as patio doors along the thin alleyway down one side of the house that leads to a courtyard.
“Skylight penetrations bring light into the centre of the plan, helping to define spaces within it,” said architect Matt Fearns.
Stairs behind one wall of the double-height dining space lead up to two more bedrooms, which both have a balcony and share a bathroom.
Kitchen units, tables and cupboard doors match the wooden window and door frames, which warm the neutral interior.
A guest bedroom and ensuite bathroom sit above a garage at the bottom of the garden.
A renovation of an inner city, Victorian terrace house, the Bondi House was conceived as a first floor timber tube above a ground level brick box behind the retained portion of the house.
Skylight penetrations bring light into the centre of the plan, help define spaces within it and protect the privacy of neighbouring dwellings from upper level rooms while large glazed doors open new ground level interiors to unobtrusive garden courtyards.
Warmth is given to the white plaster walls and ceilings and to concrete flooring with oak cabinetry, windows, doors and with blackbutt flooring through the remainder of the house.
“By 2050 meat production will have to increase by 50%,” states graduate designer Katharina Unger. “Considering that we already use one third of croplands for the production of animal feed, we will have to look for alternative food sources and alternative ways of growing it.”
Her solution? To breed insects in a table-top farm at home and serve up the larvae, which she says tastes “nutty and a bit meaty”, as an alternative source of protein.
Unger isn’t the only designer suggesting alternative options to everyday cuisine: we interviewed designers about the future of food for an article in our one-off 3D printing magazine Print Shift.
Philips Design also developed a farm for the living room.”People are increasingly concerned about how their food has been manipulated and processed, genetic modification, global shortages, environmental degradation through monoculture, the distance food travels before reaching their plates and many other related issues,” said Clive van Heerden, the company’s senior director of design-led innovation.
More recently, 3D printing pioneer Janne Kyttanen created prototypes of 3D-printed burgers and pasta to demonstrate how the technology could be used in the future.
“I printed burgers just to create an iconic image and make people realise that one day we will be able to 3D-print a hamburger,” he told Dezeen. “Once you do, you don’t want to print a traditional hamburger; you can print the weirdest thing you can imagine.”
The Sugar Lab by Kyle and Liz von Hasseln
There’s already demand for superficial uses of 3D printing technology, such as 3D-printed sugar sculptures for wedding cakes, table centrepieces and pie toppings created by Los Angeles company The Sugar Lab.
Other designers are simply experimenting with the way we react to food, or the way food reacts to us. “What if food was able to play with our cutlery and create hyper-sensations in our mouth?” asked Minsu Kim, whose Living Food project uses synthetic biology to propose meals that wriggle on the plate and in the mouth.
The four-seater, five-door city car has retained much of the styling of the original concept car, including a black band running from the bonnet, across the roof and down the back of the car and blue highlights around the distinctive BMW front grille.
It features a 170bhp all-electric motor powered by a lithium-ion rechargeable battery and can travel 130 to 160 kilometres on a single charge.
Top speed is 150 kilometres per hour and the car can accelerate from 0-100 kilometres per hour in 7.2 seconds.
The battery can be charged from a domestic plug socket in around 8 to 10 hours, or in 3-4 hours from a public charging station.
BMW also offers a home charging station called BMW i Wallbox Pure, which can match the charging rate of public charging stations.
The car’s onboard navigation system, which features a mobile data connection as standard, displays available charging stations within the car’s current range in real-time.
A second version of the car features a tiny additional 650cc petrol engine, which powers a generator to recharge the battery while the car is on the move.
Called the BMW i3 Range Extender, this version of the car can travel up to 300 kilometres on a single charge, almost twice as far as the all-electric car.
BMW also offers an additional annual subscription service called BMW Access, which allows BMW i3 owners to hire petrol-engined BMWs for one-off long-distance trips.
The world, and with it the sphere of personal mobility, is in a state of ecological, economic and social upheaval. Global developments such as climate change, dwindling resources and increasing urbanisation call for fresh solutions. BMW i is finding those solutions. The brand stands for visionary vehicle concepts, inspiring design and a new understanding of premium that is strongly defined by sustainability.
In the BMW i3 – the first series-produced model by BMW i – zero-emission mobility in a premium car package proves to be a recipe for pure driving pleasure. The first BMW Group model running on electric power alone offers customers totally new and groundbreaking ways to experience driving pleasure, sustainability and connectivity on city roads.
The visionary design of the BMW i3 showcases both BMW’s customary sporting capability and the efficiency of a four-seater with authentic clarity. Its innovative vehicle concept, including a passenger compartment made from carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP), combines lightness, stability and safety with extraordinary spaciousness.
Meanwhile, the driver assistance systems and mobility services from BMW Connected Drive and the 360° ELECTRIC services – all developed specially for BMW i – turn zero-emission urban mobility into a compelling everyday driving experience.
The electric motor powering the BMW i3 generates a maximum output of 125 kW/170 hp and peak torque of 250 Newton metres (184 lb-ft). Its instantaneous power flows to the rear wheels via a single-speed transmission. The motor sources its energy from lithium-ion storage cells integrated into the car’s underfloor section.
The significantly lower centre of gravity of the i3 – the result of the low, central placement of the battery units – and even weight distribution make an additional contribution to the car’s agile handling.
The battery gives the car a range in everyday conditions of 130 – 160 kilometres (81 – 99 miles) when fully charged from a conventional domestic power socket, BMW i Wallbox or public charging station.
News: a heritage group in Beijing has written an open letter to the Royal Institute of British Architects saying it is “disappointed and offended” that Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho complex has been given an RIBA International Award.
The letter from the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center attacked the RIBA‘s decision to award the 330,000-square-metre retail, office and entertainment complex in Beijing, which it labeled a “typical unfortunate example [of] the destruction of Beijing old town.”
“The Galaxy Soho project has violated a number of heritage preservation laws and regulations,” said the letter. “It has also caused great damage to the preservation of the old Beijing streetscape, the original urban plan, the traditional Hutong and courtyard houses.”
The letter urged the RIBA to “have a deeper understanding of the current situation in modern Chinese society.” It claims the award could encourage developers and authorities to continue with the “destruction of cultural heritage sites”, which it says has “been a very common offence committed by many of the growing rich and powerful.”
Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy Soho complex photographed from the surrounding streets by Hufton + Crow
“These cutting-edge schemes show the leading role that architects play in delivering visionary new thinking about urban issues,” said RIBA president Angela Brady on the announcement of the shortlist last month.
Completed in October last year, the Galaxy Soho complex comprises four domed structures fused together by bridges and platforms between curving floor plates.
Here’s the full letter from the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center:
An Open Letter to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) on Its 2013 RIBA Award for Galaxy Soho
To Whom It May Concern at RIBA:
From the recent Weibo (Sina miniblog) post by the Honorable Ambassador of the United Kingdom, we have learned that the Galaxy Soho project, designed by British Architect Zaha Hadid, has won the 2013 RIBA award. Many of us in China were very shocked when they learned this news. The Galaxy Soho project has violated a number of heritage preservation laws and regulations, including the Measures for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Landmarks of Beijing, The Beijing City Master Plan, and Plans for Protection of Historical and Cultural Landmarks of Beijing. It has also caused great damage to the preservation of the old Beijing streetscape, the original urban plan, the traditional Hutong and courtyard houses, the landscape formation, and the style and color scheme of Beijing’s unique vernacular architecture. During the land acquisition process, the legal rights of the original hutong residents were also grossly disregarded. The Galaxy Soho Project is definitely a typical unfortunate example on the destruction of Beijing old town; but, not withstanding, it has been selected as a winner of your award. Many of us in Beijing are very disappointed and offended.
The destruction of cultural heritage sites and the violation of the public cultural rights have been a very common offense committed by many of the growing rich and powerful in Chinese society. Some developers work hand-in-hand with some corrupted officials to encroach upon the precious cultural heritage which should be enjoyed by the entire society, while they accumulate their own personal wealth. Due to the incompetence of law enforcement institutions, this kind of destruction is growing quickly, and the deliberate neglect is epidemic.
Many residents of Beijing, including us, sincerely wish that your institution would have a deeper understanding of the current situation in modern Chinese society, the severe challenges facing cultural heritage preservation in China, as well as the indecent conduct of many greedy developers. We strongly believe that this award by your institution will only encourage these developers and authorities to continue to commit the wrongs they have done and will increase the difficulties of cultural heritage preservation in China.
We sincerely hope that RIBA will understand this sorrow and concern of the Chinese people and take action to help make up for the negative impact this award has caused.
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