“The aim was to make it classic yet playful, and preferably loved by all,” said Borselius. “The road to get there became a balancing act – intuition and emotion in interaction with craftsmanship and precision.”
The base design for all the chairs is formed by a simple cushioned seat and back. The next model up incorporates arms and the final design features a headrest.
All chairs come upholstered a range of colours, supported by either a dainty metal frame or rounded wooden legs.
“The chair’s thin metal legs makes it pretty and classic, while the rounded wooden legs have a more playful expression,” the designer said.
A corner appears to have been sliced away from this hilltop house in Portugal by architect Manuel Aires Mateus (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).
Manuel Aires Mateus – who alongside brother Francisco runs Lisbon studio Aires Mateus – teamed up with Ana Cravino and Inês Cordovil of fellow Lisbon office SIA Arquitectura to design House in Fontinha for a site outside the rural town of Melides.
Positioned at the peak of a hill, the two-storey house was conceived as a lookout point offering views out across the Fontinha Estate, but was also planned to offer the same seclusion as a typical courtyard residence.
“The house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view,” said the architects.
The building occupies a cross-shaped footprint. Rooms are arranged around three quarters of the plan, while a rectangular terrace extends out from the middle and a swimming pool runs along one side.
The base of the structure is set into the ground, creating level entrances on both floors. “The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view,” said the architects.
Instead of rectilinear shapes, each block is also gently tapered to make the building appear larger than it actually is.
The sliced-off corner creates a partial arch on the lower level of the building and accommodates an entrance to a living room.
This curved shape reoccurs within the houses’s minimal white interior, in the arched ceiling that spans the stairwell.
The house contains three bedrooms, all located on the upper floor. The two smaller rooms sit bedside one another at the back, while the master bedroom is positioned beside the swimming pool and features its own marble-lined shower area.
The kitchen is also on this floor and features a worktop with a skylight overhead, as well as a triangular fireplace recessed into a corner.
Three pivoting glass doors open the spaces of this floor out to the terrace, offering residents the opportunity to survey the landscape.
Here’s a short description from Manuel Aires Mateus:
House in Fontinha
On the Grândola crest, the house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view.
The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view. The perimeter delineates the internal lodgings and its transitions. High volumetric spaces, occupied by elements that define functions and atmospheres.
Location: Melides, Portugal Date of project: 2009-2011 Date of construction: 2012-2013
Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus With: SIA arquitectura Collaborators: Ana Rita Martins Client: Nuno Correia de Sampaio Engineer: Betar | Promee | Campo d ́água Constructor: Mateus Frazão
Surface Area: 130 + 108 sqm Building Area: 160 + 130 sqm Site Area: 50000 sqm
This six-sided wooden cabin by Estonian designer Jaanus Orgusaar has walls that zigzag up and down and two circular windows resembling fisheye camera lenses (+ slideshow).
Designer Jaanus Orgusaar based the wooden house, called Noa, on the shape of a rhombic dodecahedron – a convex polyhedron with twelve identical rhombic faces. This creates a modular structure that can be extended with extra rooms, but that also feels like a round space from inside.
“The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, the walls and roof are compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module,” Orgusaar said. “The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space.”
The 25-square-metre house is located in Estonia,
can be easily assembled or taken apart, meaning it can be transported elsewhere if needed.
It is built entirely from wood and its exterior cladding boards were soaked with iron oxide to give them a grey, weathered appearance intended to help the cabin blend into its surroundings.
Insulated wooden boards cover the roof to keep the interior warm, and the base of the structure is raised up from the ground to prevent damp.
“The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground and is therefore also more cold-resistant than a usual dwelling,” explained Orgusaar.
Walls inside the cabin are plastered walls and painted yellow, and the space is furnished with a small kitchen and a dining table and chairs.
A terrace can be attached and used as a dining area in warm weather.
Orgusaar built the first house as a summer cottage for his family, and plans to add two more modules. The design is also being manufactured by prefabricated building company Katus and will be available for sale soon.
Here’s a project description from Jaanus Orgusaar:
Aiamaja Noa
Noa is an easily mountable sustainable living space, adaptable to a variety of landscapes and environments. The advantage is that one can always add a module to extend the housing step by step, with each module, ones “saves” a wall.
It is an invention by Jaanus Orgusaar, an Estonian designer-inventor. He built the first one for his own family, and plans to add two more modules. One module is 25 square metres.
The small house was brought to life from the need for a practical, sustainable and economical living space which would be easily mountable compiled from identical elements. The base element is a specific rhombus. The base for the structure is the rhombic dodecahedron.
The rhombic dodecahedron can be used to tessellate three-dimensional space. It can be stacked to fill a space much like hexagons fill a plane. Some minerals such as garnet form a rhombic dodecahedral crystal habit. Honeybees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycomb from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism capped with half a rhombic dodecahedron. The rhombic dodecahedron also appears in the unit cells of diamond and diamondoids.
While looking for the perfect structure that would fill the space without void, Jaanus chose this unique structure for it is stable standing on three feet, stiff and because it spreads the tension evenly, and offers a synergy in space apprehension, having almost sacral feeling to its round space.
Jaanus is an inventor diving into the very bases of geometry. Many of his creations starting from shoes and fashion, product design and now architecture takes its inspiration from the sacred geometry, the five platonic solids and their inter-relations.
The building stands on three feet, not needing a foundation on the ground, therefore also more cold resistant than a usual dwelling. The house lacks acute angles, therefore giving an impression of a round space. The floor plan of the house is a hexagon, walls and roof compiled of identical rhombuses, therefore it is easy to continue the structure in space by adding the next module.
This kind of structure is simple and economical, yet strong, offering a great, almost timeless, sacral space experience. The little house is currently in use as a summer cottage for the designer’s family, the insides continue without interruption to the summer terrace that is used as a dining area. The house is situated at the brink of a forest in the very vicinity of a 200 year old pine tree and fur tree, therefore guests from the forest, as owls and squirrels are commonplace.
Materials used are all sustainable- wooden construction, floor and outside boarding, even roof- covered with thermo boards. The walls are plastered with limestone paste and painted with cottage cheese paint. The outside wall boards are soaked with iron-oxide to make the house grey fitting into the surrounding nature almost inconspicuously.
Diagram showing the rhombus dodecahedron shape design for the cabin
The round windows frame the view to the open space of endless fields. In the dark the windows reflect the space so that it creates an illusion of additional rooms in the dark.
Noa widens the concept of space offering a different space experience.
Author: designer Jaanus Orgusaar Producer of first prototype: Jaanus Orgusaar Producer: Woodland Homes Photos: Jaanus Orgusaar and Terje Ugandi
News: Austrian lighting brand Zumtobel has conducted the first ever laboratory study into how shoppers respond to different lighting scenarios and claims the results of its research will help retailers improve the way customers perceive their products.
The dominance group (performers, disciplinarians), responded sensitively to unbalanced lighting concepts and can best be loaded with positive emotions through balanced, moderate effects.
Zumtobel, which specialises in architectural lighting solutions, teamed up with market research company Gruppe Nymphenburg to analyse the reactions of a survey group presented with fashion items displayed in a simulated shop. The interior displayed on a large curved screen was transformed using 20 different lighting schemes.
The researchers measured the unconscious physical reactions of the 48 subjects in an effort to identify whether the different lighting scenarios prompted positive or negative feelings toward the products.
The stimulance group (hedonists, adventurers), responded most positively to lighting scenes with relatively strong contrasts, created by accent lighting and a variety of different spots.
“As lighting experts we know that light impacts on people’s mood, emotion and therefore wellbeing – both in positive and negative ways,” Zumtobel’s marketing director Stefan von Terzi told Dezeen. “However, we realised that lighting and its affect on humans has never been researched in the shop and retail environment from a consumer perspective before.”
The research was conducted using a method developed by Gruppe Nymphenburg called the Limbic Model, which divides the subjects into seven groups based on personality type and measures physical reactions including brain waves and cardiac activity.
The balance group (harmonisers, traditionalists and bon vivants) responded particularly positively to moderate accent lighting.
The results of the laboratory study showed that, while there is no single lighting scenario that appeals to all consumers, individual groups respond better to certain solutions, making them more likely to spend time in the shop and make purchases.
“The Limbic Lighting study shows clear differences with respect to lighting preferences,” Von Terzi claimed. “The shoppers responded strongly to even the smallest changes of the lighting scenes hardly noticeable with the naked eye.”
Zumtobel Intro light
Based on the reactions of the participants, the seven personality types were amalgamated into three groups. The Balance group responded best to moderate accent lighting, the Stimulance group reacted positively to the strong contrast created by spotlights, while the Dominance group preferred balanced lighting and subtle effects.
Zumtobel anticipates using the outcomes to present its retail clients with suggestions for customised lighting schemes based on the brand’s target customers.
Zumtobel Carve lighting system
“The findings of this study will help to develop retail brand specific lighting concepts, to present goods perfectly and to increase the shoppers’ sense of well-being and hence increase their dwell time,” said Von Terzi. “We believe that the findings of the study will usher in nothing less than a new era of shop lighting.”
Photography is courtesy of Zumtobel.
Here’s a full statement about the project from Zumtobel:
Target group-adequate lighting of shop and retail areas – new retail study by Zumtobel
In a laboratory study conducted by Zumtobel and Gruppe Nymphenburg it has been possible for the first time to measure people’s affective responses to various lighting scenarios in shops on an empirical basis. In the process, the lighting preferences of seven different groups of customers were analysed using a neuropsychological target group model. The findings of this study will help to develop lighting concepts for retail, to present goods perfectly and to increase the customers’ sense of well-being, thus making them stay in the shop longer.
The most recent research in the area of neurosciences has shown that more than 80 % of buying decisions at the point of sale (POS) are made unconsciously, mainly depending on influences addressing people’s emotions. Perfect lighting plays a major role in this context: customers do not only perceive the goods visually, but will be touched by an attractive lighting scenario at the emotional level. However, the effects of light have so far been evaluated only by means of various questioning techniques, without taking the decisive aspect of the unconscious into account. For that reason, Zumtobel Research jointly with Gruppe Nymphenburg, a Munich-based consultancy and market research institute, initiated a laboratory study in order make the emotional effects of light on customers measurable empirically, recording their physiological responses. “Light has a major unconscious impact on people”, explains Dr. Hans-Georg Häusel of Gruppe Nymphenburg. “Therefore, those who wish to collect data that can be empirically measured and also challenged have to deal with the unconscious, carrying out measurements at the place where people’s emotional responses originate.”
Zumtobel Factor light
The “Limbic Model”: characterisation by personalities
For the laboratory study, the researchers used the “Limbic Model” developed by Gruppe Nympenburg, which focuses on the complex emotional personality structures of consumers. The sociodemographic data of the 48 subjects involved where therefore negligible for the purpose of the study. Instead, the subjects were assigned to seven different personality types, the “Limbic Types”, using a questionnaire. These included the “Bon vivants”, the “Hedonists”, the “Adventurers”, the “Performers”, the “Disciplinarians”, the “Traditionalists”, and the “Harmonisers”. The objective of the research project was to find out how these seven groups respond to various lighting scenarios at the POS. For this purpose, a new method developed by Gruppe Nymphenburg was used, the “Limbic Emotional Assessment” (LEA). Using this method, even the most minor physical responses can be measured.
In the laboratory experiment, the researchers placed the male and female subjects between 19 and 62 years of age in front of a 3D shop simulation installed in a research lab, which displayed fashion items illuminated in various different ways. The subjects successively looked at 20 different lighting scenarios with various ambient and accent lighting features, colour temperatures, contrasts and light quantities. While doing so, their unconscious physical reactions, including brain waves and cardiac activity, were empirically measured. Based on the psychophysiological data collected, it was possible to clearly establish which of the lighting scenarios’ parameters triggered positive or negative emotions, stimulation or relaxation in specific target groups. In the process, it was found that even minor changes between the individual lighting scenarios triggered different responses in the subjects.
Zumtobel Iyon light
On the results
The findings obtained clearly show that there is an optimal way to address each individual target group. It has also turned out that there is no single lighting scenario which has the same markedly positive impact on all “Limbic Types”. There are, however, individual lighting profiles which several types respond positively to. Three main groups were identified, each with similar requirements as to lighting solutions: the first group, BALANCE (Harmonisers, Traditionalists and Bon vivants), responded particularly positively to moderate accent lighting. The second group, STIMULANCE (Hedonists, Adventurers), responded most positively to lighting scenes with relatively strong contrasts, created by accent lighting and a variety of different spots. Group three, DOMINANCE (Performers, Disciplinarians), responded sensitively to unbalanced lighting concepts and can best be loaded with positive emotions through balanced, moderate effects. However, narrow-beam lighting with extreme contrasts triggered negative emotions in this group.
Dr. Hans-Georg Häusel summarises: “Again and again we find that the importance of lighting at the POS is dramatically underestimated. Instead, the focus is on fancy packaging and shop design. But actually, the goods on display will only touch people’s emotions if they are set centre-stage through light. Even the affective signals emanated by the shop itself are strongly influenced by light.”
For only if customers feel at ease inside a shop and perceive the lighting scene as attractive will they be motivated to stay for a while. Ultimately, this means that customers will have more time to notice the products and brands in a shop and to buy them. “By combining neuromarketing with our lighting expertise, we can effectively implement a new way of addressing our target groups already at the stage of lighting design, for the benefit of our customers”, says Peter Kovacs of Zumtobel. “This helps us create lighting scenarios for specific brands and target groups that accurately meet the needs of customers in shops and retail areas.”
On the research method
The Limbic Emotional Assessment (LEA) research method, which has been developed by Gruppe Nymphenburg, is based on methods used in neurosciences as well as psychophysiology. The latter discipline is concerned with the relationship between brain activity and the related physical responses. In combination with Limbic, a brand and target group navigation model tried and tested in practical applications, LEA allows for a distinction according to specific target groups. In doing so, the scientifically tested LEA method combines five different parameters that capture even the tiniest of physical reactions. From brain waves and skin conductance through to cardiac activity, numerous physical reactions of customers are meas- ured to draw conclusions on their emotional state.
An Alpine choir pivoted on hydraulic platforms as part of French fashion house Moncler’s Autumn Winter 2014 presentation at New York Fashion Week, which concludes today (+ movie).
Moncler created an audio-visual installation called Winter Symphony to showcase the brand’s Moncler Grenoble ski and winter wear collection at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on Saturday.
Members of the ten-piece Pendulum Choir stood on small platforms and were strapped to the mechanisms around the torso, legs and feet as they sang an updated version of a traditional Alpine song.
Dressed in down-filled morning suits, the nine singers and one conductor tilted in various directions as pistons behind their backs and under their feet contracted and expanded.
Behind them, sixty male and female choir members dressed in black and white Moncler outfits stood in rectangular boxes stacked four levels high.
Each box was illuminated around the edges, separated from each other so they appeared to float in the darkened theatre.
Lights shining on the choir members flashed as the larger collective joined in singing with the smaller group.
The presentation took place on 8 February during New York Fashion Week, which finishes today.
Luca Nichetto‘s Fondue lamp takes its inspiration from traditional European fondue cauldrons, which are kept above a heat source to slowly melt cheese. “The Fondue lamp is merging different traditions, the south European and the north European,” said Nichetto.
The amber-coloured glass pendant is suspended to resemble the shape of the cauldrons. A metal element runs through the glass from top to bottom, kinked in the centre where it supports the horizontal bulb.
The power cable can be attached to either end of the frame so it can run from a source on the ceiling or the floor. “The output of the power cable, which is generally concealed or made less evident… becomes a feature of the lamp,” the designer said.
News: architecture firm Farrells has won a competition to masterplan two major commercial sites in the growing Qianhai special economic zone in Shenzhen, China, with plans that include a 320-metre skyscraper.
The firm led by British architect Terry Farrell will oversee the development of two key sites surrounding the Qianhaiwan metro station, which are expected to play a key role in boosting cross-border trade between Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
The first of the two masterplans will provide over 460,000 square-metres of commercial floorspace, including offices, shops, serviced apartments and luxury homes. A 320-metre skyscraper will be built as part of the proposals, alongside a pair of 185-metre gateway towers.
Ground-level activity
Terry Farrell said: “This project represents a great opportunity to bring sustainable design principles to this dynamic and rapidly expanding part of Shenzhen.”
Ground-level activity
“The proximity of the area to Hong Kong is important and Qianhai will benefit from cross border trade to soon become a thriving district in its own right,” he added.
Landmark tower section
Farrell set up offices in Hong Kong and Shanghai following a growing workload in Asia that began with the Peak Tower in the early 1990s. The architect completed Shenzhen’s tallest building in 2011 – the 442-metre Kingkey 100 skyscraper.
News: architects have been surprisingly slow to adopt augmented reality as a design tool, according to co-founder of visualisation studio Inition Andy Millns.
“At the moment there are very few architects using augmented reality day-in, day-out as part of their design process,” he told Dezeen in an interview for our MINI Frontiers project.
Augmented reality is a means of layering extra information that can change in real time over a view of the real world, often using a tablet device such as an iPad.
Although hyperrealistic computer-generated renders are now well-established tools in the architectural design process, the use of augmented reality is yet to catch on, said Millns.
“This is really because the [augmented reality] tools haven’t been tightly integrated into their design tools yet,” said Millns.
He attributes the slow uptake of augmented reality within architecture studios to a disjunct between the modelling software used in their normal workflow and that required to produce augmented-reality models.
Most augmented reality activity is currently used for marketing and presentation purposes, said Millns.
“We’ve worked with many property developers on the marketing side to bring their properties to life using augmented reality,” he explained. “You can look at a model and select what type of apartments you are interested in, and it will show you live data of which ones are still on the market.”
Inition’s augmented-reality models were recently used at the Dezeen Watch Store pop-up at The Imagine Shop at Selfridges, where visitors could point an iPad’s camera toward a printed marker that interacted with software on the iPad to render a model on the screen.
London-based Marks Barfield Architects has designed a temporary glazed pavilion raised up on criss-crossing steel columns that looks set be built near the firm’s London Eye observation wheel on the South Bank.
Marks Barfield Architects won an international competition to design the pavilion, intended to form part of the redevelopment of the current Shell Centre site. If granted planning permission, the four-storey building would house a marketing suite for the development as well as educational and visitor facilities.
“We chose local architects Marks Barfield for this building as they have already made a significant contribution to the South Bank with their world-renowned design of the London Eye,” said John Pagano of developers, Braeburn Estates.
“The high-quality designs they have proposed for the visitor pavilion will be in keeping with our aspiration for the Shell Centre scheme, and complement the South Bank’s cultural offer,” he added.
The 20-metre-high glazed building would be built on a plot at the edge of the recently redesigned Jubilee Gardens and would rise from a ten-square-metre base intended to minimise its footprint and impact on the landscaped public space.
Subsequent storeys would expand outwards to provide more floorspace for the meeting room and educational facilities housed on the first floor and showrooms for the flats proposed as part of the site’s redevelopment on the second and third floors.
Marks Barfield designed the pavilion to be dismantled and reused when no longer required at the Shell Centre site. A planning application submitted in relation to the pavilion is subject to the main development being approved.
“In the longer term, our proposed plans for the South Bank include the transformation of the Hungerford Car Park into a park which would result in the expansion of Jubilee Gardens by a third,” said Pagano.
“This would herald a major enhancement to the public areas adjacent to the new Shell Centre site with landscaped recreational space available for everyone to enjoy.”
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