A lamp by Finnish designer Tuomas Auvinen that fits neatly into the edges of a room has won this year’s Muuto Talent Award for students.
Tuomas Auvinen‘s 45° lamp is designed to utilise the often wasted space where a wall and ceiling meet.
“One day when entering an empty apartment, I wondered why the corners and angles were not better exploited, and then I came up with the idea for 45°,” said Auvinen.
The back of the lamp is shaped into a 90-degree angle so it can nestle between two perpendicular surfaces. The circular diffuser on the front is always at a 45 degree angle to the flat planes.
“Through its shape and versatility the lamp can be placed everywhere in the room and no matter how it is installed, it will cast the light in an angle of 45 degrees,” said Auvinen.
The lamp could be fixed into the upper corners of a space, suspended from a cord or left to rest on the floor.
The Muuto Talent Award competition is organised annually by Danish brand Muuto and is open to all design students studying at Nordic institutions.
Competition: Dezeen has teamed up with publishers Myrdle Court Press to give readers the chance to win books about Trenton Oldfield’s time spent behind bars after disrupting the Oxford-Cambridge boat race.
The Queen vs Trenton Oldfield: A Prison Diary was written by Oldfield during his 6 months in prison after jumping into London’s River Thames and delaying the annual university boat race between Oxford and Cambridge to protest against elitism.
“Trenton Oldfield was sentenced to six months imprisonment at HM Wormwood Scrubs for a peaceful direct action protest at the Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race,” said the publishers. “His aim was to draw attention to the unjust inequalities in British society being severely exacerbated by government cuts and a culture of elitism.”
Oldfield’s diary is published along with articles considering the architecture of prison buildings and the design of everyday items used by inmates.
The 308-page book includes a visual archive of prison material – from dishes and toiletries, to clothing and paperwork. It also contains a guide to prison resources and a transcript of Oldfield’s trial.
Competition closes 21 April 2014. 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.
Garments by Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent and Thierry Mugler feature in an exhibition of feathered fashion at Antwerp’s Mode Museum.
This image: Ann Demeulemeester, S/S 2008. Photograph by Dan Lecca. Main image: Alexander McQueen, A/W 2009. Photograph by François Nars
Birds of Paradise. Plumes and Feathers in Fashion at MoMu explores the application of the material through fashion history.
Ann Demeulemeester, A/W 2010-2011. Photograph by Dan Lecca
The exhibition is split into themed sections showcasing different textures, colours and uses of the material, with a focus on the designers who have adopted it for their apparel.
Dries Van Noten, A/W 2013-2014. Photograph by Patrice Stable
Visitors are greeted by a haute couture gown from Thierry Mugler‘s Spring Summer 1997 collection, which has bright feathers arranged in patterns like butterfly wings around an open back.
Dries Van Noten, A/W 2013-2014. Photograph by Bache Jespers
Fashion by late British designer Alexander McQueen, whose work heavily featured avian influences, is displayed and provides the poster image for the exhibition.
Cleave, mixed media with crow feathers by Kate McGwire, 2012. Photograph by Tessa Angus
Feathers also feature prominently throughout the work of Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, who selected silhouettes that highlight her use of the material for the exhibition.
Detail of Quell, mixed media with dove and pigeon feathers by Kate McGwire, 2011. Photograph by Tessa Angus
“Ever since I was a child I have had an enormous respect for feathers, and especially for pigeon feathers,” she said. “To me a pigeon feather is poetry of the mundane, a form of perfection that is to be found on the streets by everyone.”
Folding fan, mount in ostrich feathers dyed in degrade, tortoiseshell sticks decorated with a crown and arms in platinum, diamonds, rubies and enamel, 1928, Altenloh E&R jewelers, Brussels, Former collection Queen Astrid of Belgium, Royal Collections Palace of Brussels SA.1935.0088, Photograph by Stephen Mattues
Garments are on show by twentieth-century designers Cristóbal Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, who both covered dresses in feathers during the 1960s.
Hat trimming, cut and dyed feathers, MoMu collection T12/208. Photograph by MoMu/Suzan Rylant
Angelic white dresses covered in fluffy down are contrasted with sinister dark garments in shiny crow feathers by a variety of designers.
Hat trimming of feather quills and artificial flowers, MoMu collection T96/90C. Photograph by MoMu/Suzan Rylant
Sculptures by British artist Kate McGwire are dotted around the space. One large piece titled Gyre is made of crow feathers, often associated with bad luck.
Blue Angel A/W 2012-2013, Roger Vivier. Photograph courtesy of Roger Vivier
A section is dedicated to fans, which were often made from elaborate arrangements of dyed ostrich plumes for use in the courts of Europe.
Photograph of the exhibition by Boy Kortekaas
The garments and accessories are accompanied by paintings and taxidermy showing the species that different feathers come from.
Photograph of the exhibition by Boy Kortekaas
The history of the plumassier – or feather worker – dating back to seventeenth-century France is also explained.
Duggan Morris Architects was tasked with adding three storeys of office space to the four-storey Georgian property in London’s Shoreditch. As the building sits within a conservation area, the architects were required to preserve the existing residential facade above the ground floor shopfront.
“The challenge was to retain the domestic scale windows within a commercial office use, as well as to consider the proportional impact and aesthetic quality of the multi-storey addition,” said studio founders Joe Morris and Mary Duggan.
Behind the brick facade, the building has been completely remodelled to generate an interior suited to modern commercial uses. The basement and ground floor are dedicated to retail, but the rest of the floors all provide flexible office spaces that decrease in area towards the top.
The Curtain Road facade features a grid that divides the surface of the extension to correspond with the three bays of the original frontage. Local rights of light required some open sections at the rear to become roof terraces.
A recessed section at the top two storeys reveals a portion of the adjacent building’s flank, helping to anchor the extension into its surroundings and creating a small terrace.
The new facade was designed as a simple arrangement of horizontal and vertical units, rendered in visually lightweight modern materials to create a contrast with the existing brickwork.
“To retain the gravitas and independence of the urban block, the additional storeys are designed with an ambition to achieve a lightweight object quality, restrained from any references to the adjacent heavy masonry structure,” the architects explained.
A combination of bonded glazed units and panels covered in a wavy metal mesh were installed to create a flush surface with minimal jointing and surface detailing.
The metal panels are perforated with a pattern of holes that allows air to flow through and doesn’t obstruct views from inside.
Felt curtains that can be drawn across the large windows create a similar visual rhythm to the undulating surfaces of the mesh panels.
Preserving the facade during construction
Concrete lintels and cills are painted in a matte finish, as are the window frames. The anodised metal panels have a champagne finish to ensure consistency between the masonry and the new architectural features.
Preserving the facade during construction
Towards the end of the construction process, a neon lighting installation by artist Tim Etchells was installed in one of the windows, displaying the message “Shouting your demands from the rooftop should be considered a last resort”.
This is a speculative office development generating 20,000sqft (GEA) of retail and work space located at 141-145 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, East London. The project is located within a conservation area defined by Georgian brick buildings and requiring retention of the existing urban block.
The building prior to development was four storeys (G, B+2) in height and is fully remodelled behind a retained brick façade. Above this, three new floors of contemporary office space are added, extending the building to 7 storeys in total, almost doubling the usable area. Planning permission was obtained in September 2011. Construction commenced in November 2012 and completed in October 2013.
Model photograph
The scheme
To generate the required area of 20,000sqft, a further three storeys were necessary within the permissible building footprint which is defined by the alignment of the front facade at street level and the rights of light (RoL) envelope at the rear. There are 7 floors in total (B, G 1-5) diminishing is size as you ascend. Logic and efficiency dictate the plan arrangement. A compact circulation core contains toilets, showers, lift and stair, and is orientated on the tallest side of the building. The offices are maximised with external terraces also carved out of the RoL envelope.
The ground and basement are intended for retail use. As such two entrances at ground level occupy either end of the facade – 141 leading to the upper office levels and 145 directly into the retail unit. Ultimately the building is flexible and can accommodate a single or multi tenant let. To retain the gravitas and independence of the urban block, the additional storeys are designed with an ambition to achieve a lightweight object quality restrained from any references to the adjacent heavy masonry structure. Scale references to the adjacent buildings window punctuation are stripped back by reducing the extension to optimum modules horizontally and vertically. The materials are reduced to mesh and glass with minimal panels and visible jointing. The lack of reveals to windows are intended to further communicate the delicate object form by disguising the depth or make-up of the construction.
This object quality is further reinforced by the deep recess to the upper 2 storeys. By revealing a portion of the existing brick flank to the adjacent building block (139 Curtain Road) the weight of the existing fabric is further communicated. This obviously reduces nett lettable area but is counterbalanced by a maximised envelope to the rear. Also the precise fit of the building between party walls without visible overdressing of flashings is intended to allow the extension to read as an independent form intended to appear simply resting ‘upon’ the facade below and ‘between’ the adjacent warehouses. A 50mm gap is detailed between the existing masonry and the extension and projecting copings are omitted in lieu of self-draining window sections.
A grid is imposed on the front facade to respond subtlety to the 3 bay house facade below. The plot is trapezoidal in plan and as such a diagonal grid sets up positions of facades and balustrades to the rear. The grid is further enforced at the rear, with smaller staggered terraces, articulating the building where the mass responds to a RoL envelope. Thus a proportional logic of panel size – mesh and glass – is utilised across the facades with the positions of balustrades also defined by the RoL envelope.
The visible facade is made up of mesh and large bonded units. The principle behind the entire facade construction is to use a simple curtain walling system where possible, with bespoke inserts to achieve the non standard details. The bonded glazed units are tied back to the main super structure. The mesh is bracketed off the curtain walling to meet the same plain as the bonded units and to achieve the flush outer layer. This principle continues around the entire facade front and rear. In order to maintain a reading of the building as a whole the colour palette is carefully calibrated to respond to the masonry tones from grey concrete mortar to mid brown bricks. The reflectance of the materials increases as you ascend to sky and the textural quality of each material selected is emphasised by various means.
A champagne coloured anodised metal panel is used for the mesh on the upper storeys. This is perforated with small holes achieving 40% free air flow and is also calculated to appear almost invisible from the inside to retain views across London. A waved profile adds another layer of light quality maximising incident sun throughout the day. The anodised surface is iridescent in sunlight.
The transition from the mesh to the glazed bonded panel is carefully managed by introducing a matching fritt within the double glazed bonded unit. This softens the overall appearance of the glass which would normally be a contrasting frame and fritt colour. Felt curtains have been introduced to the larger windows fronting onto the street to extend the waved mesh detail across the entire facade. The brick has been lightly cleaned and repointed where spalling with the intention to retain the relic with minimal surface alteration. All concrete lintels and cills and window frames are painted a matt colour to match the brickwork attempting to simplify the reading of the retained element.
At ground level the shop front is framed in concrete supporting the building mass above. The glass panels within being as large as is permissible with the constraints of the tight street and working zone. Again a fritt has been selected to match the concrete colour to soften the junctions. The colour treatment stops at the facade. As a rule the entire office units are white including light fittings and all exposed services.
The building has been a challenge in many respects mainly imposed by the condition to retain the existing facade. To an extent the process to retain it required extensive counter intuitive construction works. The delicate quality of what is deemed to be ‘permanent’ and of historical value has been exposed through the very process of having to retain it. An installation by Richard Wilson at Liverpool Biennial 2007 entitled ‘Turning the place over’ played on this very condition. A permanent gritty piece of city fabric is explored as an adaptable component. An abstract portion of the facade was mechanically rotated exposing the inside.
Similarly, this revelation of the building fabric became an interesting part of the construction journey that was to be capitalised upon particularly given the visibility of the works from the street and the opportunity to promote the building as a theatrical contribution to Shoreditch, perhaps calling out to a particular tenant typology or exposing a opportunity to use the building in an unconventional way. The construction works required an oversized steel temporary structure to protect the facade from falling which needed to be pinned back to the superstructure. The entire shopfront below was removed leaving the brick facade suspended to allow alterations to take place behind it. Due to the close proximity to the street and the restrictions imposed by the Olympics 2012, temporary scaffolds and coverings were kept to a minimum thus the entire build process was evident throughout the construction phase. Due to the size of the bonded panels a complete weekend closure of Curtain Road to permit safe cranage positioning and installation was necessary.
An installation by Tim Etchells was exhibited to expand upon the theatrics. The piece was installed for 6 weeks from September to October 2013. The neon piece entitled ‘shouting your demands from the rooftops should be considered a last resort’ was selected for its obvious irony in the context of imminent marketing of the building, but also to demonstrate the opportunity to use the high level glazed pods for exhibition. The neon had the obvious benefit of retaining visibility during the dark early evenings.
Swedish bicycle accessory brand Bookman has created a cup holder that snaps onto handlebars so city bikers can cycle with their takeaway coffees (+ movie).
The Bookman cup holder is constructed out of two rings and a steel spring, completely free of screws and glue.
Squeezing together the two rings opens the spring so it can be placed over the handlebars, clasping securely into place when the user lets go.
“The Cup Holder sits firmly in place never losing grip even during rides over bumps and potholes,” said Bookman.
The rings are different sizes so cyclists can flip the cup holder over depending on whether they ordered a small or large drink.
The cup holder comes with a little storage cube that fits inside the spring, holding the two rings together to keep it neat and tidy when not in use. It is available in black, white, red and green.
Bookman also produced bicycle lights that are attached by simply stretching the elastic cord around the handlebars or seat post. We filmed a short interview with Bookman’s Johan Lidehäll about the lights at the Interiors UK trade show in 2012 – watch it here.
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde is exploring ways of using the bio-luminescent qualities of jellyfish and mushrooms to create glow-in-the-dark trees that could replace street lights.
Daan Roosegaarde at SXSW
In this movie filmed at SXSW in Austin, Roosegaarde explains how: “In the last year I really became fond of biomimicry.”
“What can we learn from nature and apply to the built environment, to roads, to public spaces, to our urban landscape?” asks Roosegaarde.
Biomimicry is the method of imitating models and systems found in nature to solve complex design issues. One of the biological phenomena that fascinated Roosegaarde was how animals like jellyfish and fireflies generate their own light.
The glow-in-the-dark Bioglow plants. Studio Roosegaarde are working on a project to use a collection of these for street lighting
“When a jellyfish is deep, deep underwater it creates its own light,” he says. “It does not have a battery or a solar panel or an energy bill. It does it completely autonomously. What can we learn from that?”
Krichevsky creates the glowing plants by splicing DNA from luminescent marine bacteria to the chloroplast genome of a common houseplant, so the stem and leaves emit a faint light similar to that produced by fireflies and jellyfish.
Roosegaarde is now working on a proposal to use a collection of these plants for a large-scale installation designed to look like a light-emitting tree.
The compound luciferin allows jellyfish to emit light . Image: Shutterstock
He had just taken delivery of one of the small Bioglow houseplants when he met up with Dezeen in Austin.
“This one was shipped to my hotel room and I’m really excited to have it in my hand,” he says, holding the small plastic box that contains the plant. “This is a very small version that we have produced. Right now we are teaming up with [the University of New York and Krichevsky] to create a really big one of them like a tree instead of street lighting.”
“I mean, come on, it will be incredibly fascinating to have these energy-neutral but at the same time incredibly poetic landscapes.”
Strict regulations around the use of genetically modified plants within the EU mean that Roosegaarde cannot use this material in his Netherlands studio. He had to travel to the US to receive the plant.
Distinct from Studio Roosegaarde’s work with Krichevsky is a second project exploring bio-luminescence, called Glowing Nature, which does not use genetically-modified material. The aim was to find a means of giving mature trees light-emitting properties without harming them, building on research into the properties of bio-luminescent mushrooms.
Studio Roosegaarde’s visualisation of a tree emitting light in a rural setting for its Growing Nature project
The proposal is to use a very fine coating of “biological paint” that when applied to trees allows them to glow at night. The coating charges during the day and at night can glow for up to eight hours. Trials using the material will start at the end of this year.
The music featured in the movie is a track by Zequals. You can listen to his music on Dezeen Music Project.
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers is a year-long collaboration with MINI exploring how design and technology are coming together to shape the future.
French design duo Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec will introduce their first fabric collection of upholstery textiles knitted from jersey in Milan next month (+ slideshow).
“At the very beginning of our research there was a fascination for the structural traits of textiles that, observed under a magnifying glass, can be interpreted like a lattice of threads – building marvellous architectures,” said the designers.
Each fabric is created using a double jersey knit, made from a front and a back layer that, when knitted together, show the elements of the internal structure on the surface.
The front layer is made from a mix of wool and polyester yarns that combine dark and light coloured fibres, while the back layer is made from polyester yarns in a single vivid colour.
“To reach this particular irregularity of wool colour, we chose to use a very soft dyeing treatment that resulted in a coloured surface made of diluted tones,” said the designers. “Polyester, as a synthetic material, provides an intense plain colour accent.”
Three collections of 3D knitted and stretch upholstery fabric.
Constructed using a double jersey knit, the collections reveal new surfaces of slightly quilted fabric combining the stretch flexibility and firmness necessary to upholster a wide variety of shapes with the possibility of less points of stitching.
The knitted front layer of the textiles is made from fine melange wool and polyester yarns, which combines dark and light fibres. This ensures that they have a sensuous touch and feature a rich play of warm, delicate and irregular colour nuances.
The knitted back layer is made from unicoloured polyester yarns, in accent colours. These provide firmness and structure.
This conceptual design for a family home by postgraduate architecture student Gonzalo Vaíllo Martínez features a fluid structural frame, a skeletal staircase and a skin incorporating blinds that open and close like gills (+ movie).
Starting with the standard functional spaces required by a single family residence, Vaíllo Martínez based the form of the house on scientific advances in fields such as microcellular systems and biogenetics.
“Everyone has in mind what the standards of a normal house are today,” Vaíllo Martínez told Dezeen. “They are the principles established in Modernism, where spaces were separated by function and the aim was how to relate these spaces to one other and the surroundings.”
“This project is based on this distribution of the program in a very simple but strict way,” he continued. “The house is an exercise in blending a much more complex, multiple and emotive architectural language with a common single family house program.”
Designed as a modular system that can be adapted to any site, this version of the house was developed for a sloping plot at 2217 Neutra Place in California, which is located between two houses designed by Modernist architect Richard Neutra. Vaíllo Martínez feels these houses represent the outmoded typologies of twentieth century architecture.
“When the system is moved into a real location it evolves and mutates according to the constraints defined by the surroundings,” he explained. “It can be placed anywhere and the specific conditions of each location will modify the house in one way or another.”
The house comprises three interconnected units, with an entrance leading to pods containing various services which are partially submerged in the hillside and connected to the main living areas below by a fluid staircase.
A third unit housing the bedrooms and a terrace is detached from the main structure and raised above the ground at the bottom of the site.
Using 3D computer modelling processes that enable surfaces to expand, contract and respond to different parameters, the shape of the house was animated and deformed to match the topography of the site.
The fluid skeleton is intended to be constructed from structural concrete, with the complex facade panels and tangled supporting framework produced using 3D printing processes.
Organic louvred panels incorporated into the building’s skin open and close like gills, while other openings stretch and widen to adjust the amount of light entering the interior.
Vaíllo Martínez suggested that, although the building may appear unrealistic, it could be constructed today using contemporary technologies and manufacturing methods.
“We have more than enough technology not only to design projects such as this one, but also to materialise them,” he claimed. “This is not science fiction or something possible in the near future, it is possible today if we push the boundaries of the resources we have now. Budget is another issue.”
Here’s some more information from Vaíllo Martínez:
2217NPL House, Gonzalo Vaíllo Martínez
Located in the outskirts of Los Angeles, the starting point of the design is based on the standards of a single family house. The exuberance of the form is the tool that develops an aesthetic able to corrupt the original principles and establish a negotiation with the contemporary way of life in a day-by-day house.
The project is thought as a continuous mixture of conventional elements that create an emotional empathy with something that is familiar for everyone (social memory), combined with external contaminations that brings new behaviors and perceptions of the spaces.
The house is divided into three units. The first one is a half-underground piece, which contains the main entrance and the services of the house. The public areas are located in the second one (on the ground) and in the last one appears the private rooms, which detach from the ground. In this way, the three units are positioned in the same height and it is the relationship with the sloped topography that defines each piece structurally.
The aggressive exterior made out of the combination of a wire-linework, mobile facade panels and metallic surfaces, creates a contrast with the soft and continuous interiors.
These autonomous lamps by Dutch designer Bob de Graaf seek out human companions then follow them around, and go in search of the darkest spots in the house ( + movie).
The two lamps in the Species of Illumination series: the Wallace lamp, which affixes to the ceiling, and the Darwin desk lamp
De Graaf‘s interactive lights, collectively called Species of Illumination, were given the ability to act like creatures via a series of sensors, motors and stretchable cables that allow them to freely determine their actions.
The series consists of two lights. Wallace uses sensors to go in search of the darkest spot in a room and bring light to it. Once it has done that, the lamp works out where the next darkest point is and moves on to repeat the process.
Wallace is affixed to the ceiling at one end and has three pieces of wire that support a head on the end of a long electrical cable, which is encircled by a series of rings with copper wire threaded through each one.
Darwin, meanwhile, is a desk lamp that uses solar power to generate its electricity. During the day it trundles around on wheels seeking out sunlight to charge its battery, but in the evening it wonders around the house looking for movement and accompanying people with its beam of light.
Sensors in Darwin’s head allow people to interact with it. When a hand is held directly in front of the light, it tracks the movement and follows. Take the hand away and the light stops moving.
Darwin features two wheels made from tightly coiled wire, a black body with a solar panel on its back and a bulbous white head.
“The interaction and emotional relationship Wallace and Darwin bring contribute to people’s wellbeing, in the same way that pets do,” explained de Graaf. “The movement of living creatures triggers sensations, emotions and communication.”
“I think my lights are very much animate objects,” he continued. “At this point I’m still pretty sure they are not alive, but I think there will be a moment where the boundaries become more blurred.”
The idea was conceived after the designer created a radio-controlled box with an abstract head and began experimenting with it in a park in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 2011. The designer was surprised to find that passersby began to wave at it, pet it and chase it as though it were a pet.
De Graaf then experimented with removing the human-control element to make something more autonomous, and presented the Species of Illumination lamps as part of his graduation from the Design Academy Eindhoven last year.
This skateboarding ramp floating over the clear waters of Lake Tahoe was put together in just four days by design-and-build team Jerry Blohm and Jeff King for Californian skater Bob Burnquist (+ slideshow).
Brazilian-born Bob Burnquist was part of a group of California residents invited by non-profit organisation Visit California to “make their dreams possible” and “think big”. He came with the idea of skating over water.
“Dreaming big man, that’s what I do every day, I just try to dream as big as I can and then go make it happen,” he says in a video about the project.
Miami art director Jerry Blohm came up with a design for a wooden structure featuring one half pipe, one quarter pipe and one 45-degree ramp.
He also developed a concept for attaching weighted riggers in case the ramp oscillated too much in the water.
Once complete, the wood was stained with different colours to create horizontal stripes. The ramp was then towed out onto the waters of Lake Tahoe, which straddles the border between California and Nevada.
“It took about four hours to get it there going about four knots,” said Blohm, describing the installation.
“We had a host of folks coming up to the ramp on the way out to see what it was exactly. When they got close most could not believe it,” he said. “It looks like it is fake, floating with no supports.”
Footage of Burnquist using his skateboard on the ramp was included as part of a 24-hour stream of footage that Visit California aired on YouTube earlier this year.
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