Samuel Wilkinson‘s Babylon stationery collection for design brand Lexon contains a pen, a pen pot, scissors, a stapler, a tape dispenser and an alarm clock.
“I wanted to create an aesthetic, tactile set of objects that work as well in the office as the home,” Wilkinson told Dezeen. “Each object has its own individuality but still looks coherent in a group.”
Made from a thick injection-moulded plastic in a matte finish, all the pieces feature vertical creases down the curvaceous forms that create multi-faceted shapes based on rock formations. Each design is comes in its own bright colour and the entire range is also available in slate grey.
“We were searching for an distinct surface treatment that could elevate the series and tie all of the objects together,” Wilkinson explained. “Through our research we came across inspiring images of rock strata, such as the The Wave, on the slopes of the Coyote Buttes in Arizona.”
The twelve-sided alarm clock has raised markings on the face to indicate the hours, with white hands for telling the time contrasted by a green alarm hand.
Controls and battery are stored inside the rear case, which is held to the face with magnets and cut at the end so it sits the correct way up on the desk.
A refillable ball-point pen that comes in ink blue is shaped to flow into its weighted stand.
The scissor handles are designed to be comfortable for both left and right-handed users. A tall stand completely covers the blades when stored away.
Coloured bright yellow, the stapler is moulded to hide the hinge at the back and can rest either horizontally or vertically.
Tape loads into the top of the green dispenser, which appears to squeeze around the wheel from the wide weighted base.
There’s also a ten-sided pen holder that includes a soft inner base to muffle the noise created when writing implements are dropped in. Photography is by Sylvain Deleu.
Sweeping lengths of concrete create curving canopies around the perimeter of this golf clubhouse on South Korea’s Changseon Island by Seoul architecture firm Mass Studies (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The clubhouse was designed by Mass Studies to provide dining and spa facilities for the South Cape Owner’s Club golf resort and it is located at the peak of a hill, where it benefits from panoramic views of the sea.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Described by the architects as being like “a pair of bars bending outward”, the building’s plan comprises a pair of curving single-storey blocks that are both sheltered beneath one X-shaped roof.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
“The two curvatures of the building engage with specific moments of its immediate surroundings, hugging the existing context – the rocky hill to the east, and the vista out toward the cape to the west,” said the designers.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The curving canopies follow the bowed walls of the two blocks, but also integrate a series of smooth folds that present dramatic changes between light and shadow.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
“From a distance, the appearance of the clubhouse reads horizontal, demure, and subtle,” explained the architects. “However, once in and around the clubhouse, one begins to have a dramatic experience through the perspectival exaggerations and the views framed by the illustrious canopy edges.”
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The western arm of the building accommodates the dining areas. A banqueting hall and restaurant are positioned at opposite ends of the block, and both feature fully glazed facades that open out to terraces around the perimeter.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
In contrast with this transparent structure, the eastern wing of the clubhouse has an opaque concrete facade that maintains the privacy of club members using spa facilities, but brings light in through clerestory windows.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Areas for men and women are divided between the two halves of the block, but both lead out to private outdoor pools offering views of either the coastline or the distant landscape.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
A patio is also sheltered beneath the roof to create an entrance for the clubhouse. There’s a skylight in the centre to allow daylight to filter into the space, while a pool of water is positioned directly underneath.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Here’s a project description from Mass Studies:
Southcape Owner’s Club: Clubhouse
Located on Changseon Island in Namhae Province, at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, is a resort development – the Southcape Owner’s Club – with several complexes that are strategically positioned throughout the dramatic topography of the archipelagic region.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The apex of the resort is the Clubhouse, which in plan is essentially a pair of bars bending outward. The two curvatures of the building engage with specific moments of its immediate surroundings, hugging the existing context – the rocky hill to the east, and the vista out toward the cape to the west. Simultaneously, the composition of the curved masses allow the building to also embrace what is to the north and south – a grand entry round-about, and a remarkable ocean view to the south, respectively.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
An open central zone is formed, anchoring the entire complex in a culmination of an impressive entrance patio under a sculptural open-roof, a reflection pool directly below, and a spectacular framed view of the South Sea. To the east are the more private spa facilities, and to the west, the more public restaurant, private dining, and event facilities.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
There is a contrast that takes place, not only programmatically, but also in materiality – solid vs. transparent. The spa area is mostly designed as a closed mass, with a slightly open 1m clerestory running along the entire length of the solid exterior walls and roof, progressing to a fully open release at both ends of the volume, which allows for an outdoor terraced bath for both the men’s and women’s spas with views out to the South Sea and waters beyond the landscape to the north. The dining areas are all glass-clad with extended perimeter terraces to all sides, offering a sense of openness out to the waters and landscape.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
The sculpted roof of the Clubhouse is derived through a geometric rigour driven by the systematic structural organisation, which is a response to the three-dimensionality of the natural context. The depth of the curved steel beams are revealed, as if it were a vacuum-formed white concrete membrane, where a series of vaulted concrete canopies ultimately form an x-shaped, exploded circle in plan.
Photograph by Yong-Kwan Kim
The 3m canopies that outline the entire roof not only function as a shading device, but follow the overall architectural language, as the edge conditions change in direction, up and down, from the north to the south side of the building. It adds to the sensuous movements that are portrayed throughout the building.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
From a distance, whether from the deck of a boat afloat the South Sea, or from a distance in the rolling landscape of the island, the appearance of the Clubhouse read horizontal, demure, and subtle. However, once in and around the Clubhouse, one begins to have a dramatic experience through the perspectival exaggerations and the views framed by the illustrious canopy edges.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
The Southcape Owner’s Club Clubhouse is a seamless, continuous, and complete object in nature, with a shape in plan that creates a complex relationship with the surroundings, in rhyme with the ria coastline of the archipelagos that are unique to this region.
Photograph by Kyungsub Shin
Type: Sports, Golf Clubhouse Location: Namhae, Korea Site Area: 23,066.16 sqm Site Coverage Area: 7,955.98 sqm Total Floor Area: 15,101.56 sqm Building-to-Land Ratio: 34.49% Floor Area Ratio: 20.39% Building Scope: B2, 1F Structure: RC, SC Exterior Finish: White Exposed Concrete, Serpentino Classico, Travertine Navona, Broken Porcelain Tile Interior Finish: Serpentino Classico, Travertine Navona, Solid Teak Wood, Venetian Stucco
Photograph by Wan Soon Park
Architects: Mass Studies Structural Engineer: Thekujo MEP Engineer: HANA Consulting & Engineers Civil/Geotechnical Engineer: Korean Geo-Consultants Co. Ltd. Lighting Engineer: Newlite Landscape design: Seo Ahn Landscape Construction: HanmiGlobal Co. Ltd. Client: Handsome Corp.
Maison&Object 2014 French design duo Colonel has launched its third furniture collection, featuring items based on camping equipment (+ slideshow).
Designers Isabelle Gilles and Yann Poncelet of Colonel have released a series of new products and updated items in their previous collection, released at the same exhibition last year.
“[We] drew this new collection in the same spirit as the previous one, which makes the brand signature – light wood, patterns and fresh colours reminding travel and holidays throughout the year,” said the designers.
The two sliding doors of a small beech wood sideboard are cut with perpendicular slots, which create a grid pattern when they overlap.
Designed to look like a shepherd’s stool, the three-legged Bob wooden coffee table with a curved lip comes in beech or light grey and at two heights.
The Swarm lamps comprise a metal frame covered with a layer of coloured fabric behind a honeycomb mesh, pulled in at the top and bottom with drawstrings. The lamps sit on three spindly legs, either long or short, and also come as a pendant version.
A piece of wood veneer curved into a cylinder is hand painted with watercolours and mounted on a metal frame to form another lamp called Dowood.
The collection also includes a set of turned wood containers with patterned fabric rims and mirrors with curved ladder-like metal frames.
Updated items include the Caracas chair – a contemporary version of a 1960s camping chair – that has been revamped with new graphics for the seat material.
Also new fabrics are available for the tiltable faceted shade of the Faces floor lamp, which has a branch halfway up its stem for hanging coils of the colourful cord.
The full collection is on display at Maison&Objet, taking place outside Paris until tomorrow.
News: architecture firm BIG has unveiled a proposal for an apartment block in the Bahamas featuring a honeycomb facade where every balcony contains a swimming pool (+ slideshow).
BIG, the firm led by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, is designing the eight-storey residential building for a site on the south coast of New Providence Island, where it is set to become the tallest structure in the Albany community.
The honeycomb facade will form the south face of the building. The hexagons will frame balconies belonging to each of the apartments, which will contain sunken pools facing directly onto the marina through clear glass balustrades.
“Our design is driven by an effort to maximise the enjoyment of the abundant natural qualities of Albany in The Bahamas: the landscape, the sea and the sun,” said Bjarke Ingels.
“A honeycomb facade functionally supports the pools making them sink into the terrace floor and provides spectacular sight lines while maintaining privacy for each residence,” he added.
Named Albany Marina Residences, but also known as the Honeycomb, the building will be completed as a collaboration between BIG and smaller firms HKS Architects and Michael Diggiss Architects. It will join three other new buildings proposed in the area.
The hexagonal pattern will continue down onto the paving of an adjacent plaza, and will also provide a framework for soft landscaping, seating areas and an outdoor pool.
“Drawing inspiration from its coastal setting, the hexagonal design evokes the natural geometries you find in certain coral formations or honeycombs,” said Ingels.
Shops will be contained on the ground floor, alongside a lobby leading to the entrances of each apartment.
Here’s a project description from BIG:
BIG designs centrepiece for a new resort in the Bahamas
BIG + HKS + MDA have unveiled the design for the new Honeycomb building and its adjacent public plaza in The Bahamas – a 175,000 ft² (ca. 16,000 m²) residential building with a private pool on each balcony overlooking the marina.
Albany is a modern paradise-like beach and golf resort community, located on the south coast of New Providence Island. The Honeycomb will be the tallest structure in Albany, making it a landmark in the resort, and a beacon from the ocean.
The facade has a hexagonal pattern that uniquely frames the natural beauty of the Island. The balconies are deep enough to not only provide outdoor spaces, but also summer kitchens and a pool sunken into the balcony of each unit. These pools have a transparent edge towards the plaza, eliminating the visual barrier between the pool and the environment. Bathers can be fully immersed in the view of the marina and the ocean beyond.
On the ground level, the facade pattern melts into the pavement of the plaza, creating a subtle topography on the square. Along the edge, various hexagons transform into green mounds with plants, palm trees, and integrated seating. The centre of the square is formed by a shallow pond, which is fed by fountains scattered around the plaza, and a network of small creeks between the hexagonal pavers.
The residences in the building offer a variety of floor plans that will suit the diverse lifestyles of its tenants. The residential lobby and high-end retail will activate the public plaza. A golf cart parking and storage units are oriented towards the parking lot on the north, in close proximity to Albany’s championship golf course.
A wooden ladder and a pair of winding steel staircases link the rooms of this lofty house in Sapporo, Japan, by Jun Igarashi Architects (+ slideshow).
Named Case, the three-storey residence was designed by Japanese firm Jun Igarashi Architects to centre around a family living room with a seven-metre-high ceiling, from which residents can see into almost every other room of the house.
The first of two lightweight steel staircases curves up from the living room to lead to a wooden mezzanine just below the roof, which can be used as a study, a children’s playroom, or simply as a corridor.
Another staircase winds down from this level to a bedroom on a second mezzanine, while a third platform is positioned directly above and can be accessed by climbing a wooden ladder that clips around the edge of the floor.
All three wooden lofts are connected to ceiling by slender steel rods, which double as supports for handrails that extend around both the floors and the staircases.
A full-height partition runs along one side of the living room to separate it from the adjacent kitchen, but a large rectangular hole in its centre allows a view into not only this space, but the bedroom and storage level overhead.
Rather than adding simple doorways between rooms on the ground floor, the architects built three curvy corridors that extend out beyond the house’s rear wall. One leads to bathroom spaces at the back, while another sits at the end of a long and narrow entrance lobby.
Externally, the house is surrounded by vertical wires that the architects hope will become a framework for climbing plants.
Here’s a short project description from Jun Igarashi Architects:
Case
This house is located on the suburb of the city of Sapporo. The site is a typical suburban subdivision and height difference between the road is large. Footprint isdetermined by building coverage and wall retreat of the architectural law and the slope of the site approach.
I set the long corridor of entrance as a buffer zone (windbreak room) between the large heat load space.
Because of the site area is small, to set the buffer space into the inside is difficult. So I spread the thoughts and invent the space of growing plant on stainless steel wire around the house as the new type of buffer zone between outside and inside.
Location: Sapporo, Hokkaido Principal use: Private residence Design period: 2011 Construction period: 2011-2012
Architects: Jun Igarashi Architects Structural engineer: Daisuke Hasegawa & Partners Construction firm: Oooka Industry
Site area: 197.50 sqm Building area: 50.52 sqm Total floor area: 80.84 sqm Number of storeys: 3 above ground Structure: Timber frame
News: Piero Ambrogio Busnelli, founder of Italian furniture brand B&B Italia, has died aged 87.
One of the great pioneers of Italian contemporary design, Busnelli founded B&B Italia in 1973, after previously co-founding C&B Italia with Cesare Cassina.
From the outset Busnelli worked with leading designers to create a series of iconic furniture products, including three Compasso d’Oro Award winners: Mario Bellini’s 1972 Le Bambole armchair; Studio Kairos’ 1983 Sisamo wardrobe system; and Antonio Citterio’s 1987 Sity sofa system.
In 1989 B&B Italia was the recipient of the first ever Compasso d’Oro Award to be given to a company. The award was given for “the constant work of integration carried out in order to combine the values of scientific and technological research with those necessary to the functionality and expressiveness of its products.”
The company is based in Novedrate in Italy’s Como province, in a building designed by architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano in 1972.
Piero Ambrogio Busnelli was born in Meda on 13 April 1926 and died on 25 January 2014.
Here is a statement from B&B Italia:
Piero Ambrogio Busnelli, founder of B&B Italia, died on 25 January 2014. He was a visionary entrepreneur on the scene of design and an extraordinary ambassador of “Made in Italy” in the world.
The furnishing sector has lost a great interpreter in the history of Italian design, a pioneer who believed in it from the onset by furthering its success in the world with farsighted initiative.
Born in 1926, he grew up in Meda (Milan-Brianza), distinguishing himself from a young age for determination and courage to explore new avenues, especially in the professional framework. His experience as entrepreneur began in 1952 but Piero Ambrogio Busnelli’s dream of an “Industry For Design” came true in 1966, when he created C&B along with Cesare Cassina. A man of great courage and determination, Busnelli never hesitated to leave the handcrafted heritage of his native land for a new industrial culture of design that embraces an all-round approach and focuses on exports throughout the world.
By introducing an extraordinary technology for the production of padded furnishings (cold polyurethane foam moulding) to the sector through his own initiative, and by partnering several widely renown designers (Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Mario Bellini, Gaetano Pesce, Ludovico Magistretti, Marco Zanuso and many others), the company won a series of awards and recorded growing international success.
In 1973 the company’s conversion into B&B Italia marked a momentous change in the life of Piero Ambrogio Busnelli. His insight and entrepreneurial vision take shape and accelerate the company’s race to carry out highly qualifying projects, both architectural (the headquarters were designed by R. Piano and R. Rogers) and in terms of product, with icon items, such as Sisamo, Sity, Domus, Charles and many more. These were projects that contributed to write the history of Italian design, with the contribution of a new generation of designers (Antonio Citterio, Patricia Urquiola, Paolo Piva, Naoto Fukasawa, Jeffrey Bernett and several others).
From the onset, Piero Ambrogio Busnelli built his company by referring to a new industrial model, without ever being daunted by challenges. His innate dynamism and great intuition led him to extend the innovation process and seek other domestic settings, finally also including offices, contract furnishings and cruise liners.
Four Compasso d’Oro Awards acknowledged a series of successful items: Le Bambole in 1972, Sisamo in 1984, Sity in 1987 and, finally, in 1989, the first Compasso d’Oro Award ever assigned to a company, and unquestionably the most appreciated, rewarded B&B Italia “For the constant work of integration carried out in order to combine the values of scientific and technological research with those necessary to the functionality and expressiveness of its products.”
Today the company is managed by the second generation of the family that has been guiding it for many years along the path of international growth.
The steel sheet is folded in four places to create a niche for resting new envelopes, important post or mail that needs to be sent, and a smaller raised dent for holding pens.
“A home for your letter writing paraphernalia or a stand for your incoming or outgoing mail, Post Point accommodates envelopes, cards and pens,” said Bergne.
The shape narrows diagonally after each crease in the material to look like the back of an envelope. A small magnet holds stamps in place.
The letter holder can be hooked onto the wall using a hole in the back or simply rested on a flat surface. Post Point is on show at this year’s Maison&Objet trade fair outside Paris, which concludes tomorrow.
Interview:Iwan Baan is the rock star of architecture photography, shooting buildings from helicopters and “living in a hotel 365 days a year”. With a new exhibition documenting his hectic schedule now open in Germany, Baan spoke to Dezeen about his unique lifestyle and technique (+ slideshow).
Iwan Baan
Iwan Baan started out as a documentary photographer but moved into architecture after a chance meeting with architect Rem Koolhaas. He has since become the most sought-after name in architectural photography and spends his life travelling the world to shoot buildings by names such as Zaha Hadid, Herzog & de Meuron and SANAA.
“It’s continuous travelling,” he said. “When you look on the map, it’s flying back and forth all over the world.”
Inflatable concert hall by Anish Kapoor and Arata Isozaki in Matsushima, Japan
Baan is known for eschewing the traditional approach of shooting buildings in isolation. He says his aim with every shoot is to capture the life both within and surrounding the built environment. “It’s still very much my interest to show what’s happening around these buildings, what people do there and what kind of role these projects have for people,” he explained.
For most shoots the photographer rents a helicopter to capture his subject from above. “It’s very important for me to give the larger overview and try to get some distance from the architecture. That really tells you where it is and that it’s not just a building that could be anywhere.”
Sanmenxia, Henan Province, China
The new exhibition, entitled 52 Weeks, 52 Cities, shows a selection of Baan’s photographs from the last year accompanied by short commentaries. “It’s really a view into a year of travelling with Iwan,” he said.
Subjects in the exhibition vary from glossy architectural projects to a settlement in Lagos where over 150,000 people live in self-built structures perched on stilts over a lagoon, a village in China where locals have excavated a network of underground caves to live inside, and a secretive Japanese shrine that is rebuilt every 20 years. It also includes the iconic shot of post-Sandy New York that threw the photographer into the limelight when it made the cover of New York Magazine in late 2012.
New York City, New York, USA
“Most people know my photography from the commissioned architecture work but there are also a lot of other places that fascinate me, that show how people are building informally. My work is about looking at all the different aspects of building and the built environment, from the very well-planned cities to what people build themselves out of necessity,” he said.
52 Weeks, 52 Cities is on show at the Marta Hereford gallery in Hereford, Germany, until 30 March.
Here’s a full transcript of the interview:
Amy Frearson: Your new exhibition is called 52 Weeks, 52 Cities. Are you on the road all the time, or do you get opportunities to go home?
Iwan Baan: I haven’t had a home for almost three years. I live in a hotel basically 365 days a year.
Amy Frearson: Talk me through how you go about shooting a particular place. How many cameras do you tend to take on a typical shoot?
Iwan Baan: I always get an idea very quickly about how I want to document a space from an architectural point of view. I work very light and I usually only want one camera with me. I don’t work with tripods or large cameras. It’s really all about capturing the life of these places. That’s what is important for me.
Larabanga, Northern Ghana
Amy Frearson: Do you try to shoot each project from the air?
Iwan Baan: More or less yes, it’s part of my visual language of describing projects. It’s very important for me to give the larger overview and try to get some distance from the architecture. Using a helicopter is always a good way to capture that kind of thing, and to give an architecture project its place in the city or landscape. That really tells you where it is and that it’s not just a building that could be anywhere.
Amy Frearson: Do you do all your own post-production on your images whilst you’re travelling?
Iwan Baan: Yes, but I do very little post-production on my images, usually only colour corrections, and I always do it right after the shoot.
House K by Sou Fujimoto in Osaka, Japan
Amy Frearson: Most architectural photography tries to present the building in isolation but your photos often capture the social and urban context as well.
Iwan Baan: Yes that’s very much the way that I take my commissions. They should be more than just architectural projects. They should be able to tell more about the story and the life around these buildings.
Amy Frearson: You didn’t actually start out as an architectural photographer did you?
Iwan Baan: Yes that’s right, I started out doing much more documentary photography. It was only eight years ago when I met Rem [Koolhaas] and fell into this whole architecture field. So it’s still very much my interest to show what’s happening around these buildings, what people do there and what kind of role these projects have for people. This exhibition tells that story by showing these unique areas and showing why these architecture projects are in these specific places.
Cairo, Egypt
Amy Frearson: Tell me about the exhibition.
Iwan Baan: Marta Herford approached me about nine months ago or so. I had worked for Marta Herford before, about three ago years on an exhibition of all the Richard Neutra houses all over Europe, which I documented. I came back about nine months ago and they asked me if I was interested in doing another exhibition. I thought, with all my endless travels, it would be interesting to show a diary of my last year of travelling. Not only showing the new architecture, but also all the other things that happen around it. It’s really a view into a year of travelling with Iwan.
Amy Frearson: Did you have an idea of what places you were going to be visiting across the year or did you work it out as you went along?
Iwan Baan: With my schedule, things always come up around a week before. It’s continuous travelling. When you look on the map, it’s flying back and forth all over the world.
Floating School by Kunle Adeymi in Lagos, Nigeria
Amy Frearson: Tell me about some of the cities and places you’ve captured over the year.
Iwan Baan: Most people know my photography from the commissioned architecture work but there are also a lot of other places that fascinate me, that show how people are building informally. I’m really interested in how people build themselves unimaginable living conditions, for instance in the slums of Nigeria, or in Lagos where people have built this whole city in water, basically in a lagoon. My work is about looking at all the different aspects of building and the built environment, from the very well-planned cities to what people build themselves out of necessity.
Toilet by Sou Fujimoto in Ichihara, Japan
Amy Frearson: Is there an underlying theme that ties all the photographs together?
Iwan Baan: All the pictures are really about telling the stories of why a project is very specific for a place, whether they’re very large, like a Zaha Hadid building in Azerbaijan that could only have been built there, to the tiniest project where I flew across the globe to Japan to photograph a toilet by Sou Fujimoto. I like telling these kinds of stories with my pictures.
Sanmenxia, Henan Province, China
Amy Frearson: Do you have any favourite photographs in the exhibition?
Iwan Baan: That’s hard to say, there are so many of these incredible places. One that comes to mind is of underground houses in China. It’s a whole region in the centre north of China, around Xi’an, where for centuries people have dug out these courtyard houses that are basically carved out of the earth. They could only do it there because of the special earth, it’s a kind of loose clay soil, so it’s easy to dig it out. These people didn’t have money to buy materials to build new houses, so for them the most logical step was to carve them out, since it is only manpower they needed to create these incredible houses.
At the most recent count, almost 40 million people live there. It’s one of those things that is so specific for this area and reveals a lot about how people build and live in these places. These kinds of things always fascinate me.
Shrine at Ise, Japan
Amy Frearson: Can you describe some of the more historical places that you’ve photographed?
Iwan Baan: One place that comes to mind was a couple of months ago. It’s the Ise Shrine in Japan. It’s an incredible story of a series of shrines in a village in Japan. They started building the first shrines there in the year 600, and since then they have rebuilt the shrines every twenty years. There’s this enormous tradition of craftsmanship, rebuilding all these frames every twenty years. I was very lucky to be there a couple of months ago during that whole rebuilding process and afterwards, when there were all these ceremonies there. So my pictures were really telling a story of this incredible architectural history, how people experience that, how people build it and how people have lived with it for 1400 years.
Nanping Village, Anhui Province, China
Amy Frearson: Did you find any of the places particularly challenging to shoot?
Iwan Baan: There’s a place in China, a series of incredible courtyard houses in the Anhui Province where I was last year. From the outside, you come into a village which is completely closed off. It only has narrow roads and you can hardly see any of the architecture, so it’s hard to document. When I came to this place I got a little frustrated about how I was going to shoot it, but then I found a doctor in a little village in the countryside and asked if I could tag along with him. I walked for two or three days with him and went to all these family houses. All the doors were open and I would step into all these incredible homes and was really able to photograph the life happening inside these places.
Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India
Amy Frearson: Can you tell me about any other countries you’ve been to?
Iwan Baan: Last January, I was with a whole team from Harvard University in India. There was an event that happens once every 12 years, it’s called the Kumbh Mela. It happens in the north of India near Varanasi, where the Ganges and the Yamuna rivers come together. It’s basically a big delta, but between December and April it’s dry season there so the water level drops.
Once every 12 years the Indians organise a festival there and it’s basically the largest human gathering in the world. Around 100 million people visit the site over a period of about a month and a half. It’s in this river bed that has dried out, so this piece of land about the size of Manhattan becomes available. They literally build a pop-up mega city for 100 million people there, including all the infrastructure. They build roads, they make electricity and there’s this whole city made out of bamboo sticks, saris and curtains. A city for 100 million people and after two months it disappears again.
Glass floors allow residents to look down from a dining table into a toilet inside this windowless concrete house in Shanghai by Chinese firm Atelier FCJZ (+ slideshow).
Yung Ho Chang of Atelier FCJZ originally designed the Vertical Glass House as an urban housing prototype for a competition in 1991. Twenty-two years later, the studio was able to realise the project as part of the West Bund Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary Art.
The building now functions as a guesthouse for visiting artists and architects. Closely based on the original design, the four-storey house has a glass roof and glass floors between each level, meaning that residents can look all the way up from the basement to the sky.
According to project architect Lu Bai, the house is a 90-degree rotation of the typical glass houses completed during the Modernist period, placing more of an emphasis on spirituality and materials.
“With enclosed walls and transparent floors as well as roof, the house opens to the sky and the earth, positions the inhabitant right in the middle, and creates a place for meditation,” he explained.
A single steel column extends up through the exact centre of the building. Together with a series of criss-crossing joists, it dissects the floors into quarters that each accommodate different activities.
On each floor, one of these quarters is taken up by a steel staircase that spirals down to the basement from a double-height second floor.
The house’s austere concrete walls were cast against wooden formwork, which was left rough on the outside and sanded on the inside to give a contrast in texture between the facade and the interior walls.
Each glass floor slots into a pair of narrow horizontal openings in the walls and the architects have added lighting along these junctions to create stripes of light on the building’s facades after dark.
The overall footprint of the house is just 40 square metres.
Here’s a project description from Atelier FCJZ:
Vertical Glass House
Vertical Glass House was designed by Yung Ho Chang as an entry to the annual Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition organised by the Japan Architect magazine in 1991. Chang received an Honorable Mention award for the project. Twenty-two years later in 2013, the West Bund Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary Art in Shanghai decided to build it as one of its permanent pavilions.
Basement plan
Vertical Glass House is a urban housing prototype and discusses the notion of transparency in verticality while serving as a critic of Modernist transparency in horizontality or a glass house that always opens to landscape and provides no privacy. While turning the classic glass house 90 degrees, Vertical Glass House is on one hand spiritual: with enclosed walls and transparent floors as well as roof, the house opens to the sky and the earth, positions the inhabitant right in the middle, and creates a place for meditation. On the other hand, Vertical Glass House is material: vertical transparency visually connects all the utilities, ductworks, furniture pieces on different levels, as well as the staircase, into a system of domesticity and provides another reading of the modern theory of “architecture as living machine”.
Ground floor plan
The structure erected in Shanghai in 2013 was closely based on the 22-years old design scheme by Chang and developed by the Atelier FCJZ. With a footprint of less than 40 square meters, the four-storey residence is enclosed with solid concrete walls leaving little visual connection to its immediate surrounding. The walls were cast in rough wooden formwork on the exterior and smooth boards on the interior to give a contrast in texture in surface from the inside out. Within the concrete enclosure, a singular steel post is at the centre with steel beams divide the space in quarters and frame each domestic activity along with the concrete walls.
First floor plan
All the floor slabs for the Vertical Glass House, which consists of 7cm thick composite tempered glass slabs, cantilevers beyond the concrete shell through the horizontal slivers on the facade. The perimeter of each glass slab is lit from within the house; therefore, light transmits through the glass at night to give a sense of mystic for the pedestrians passing by. All the furniture were designed specifically for the rooms inside the Vertical Glass House to be true to the original design concept and keep a cohere appearance with its structures and stairs. Air conditioning was added to the house.
Cross section
The Vertical Glass House will be operated by the West Bund Biennale as a one-room guest house for visiting artists and architects while serving as an architectural exhibition.
Original drawings
Office: Atelier FCJZ Principal Architect: Yung Ho Chang Project Architect: Lu Bai Project Team: Li Xiang Ting, Cai Feng
Original drawings
Location: Xuhui District Longteng Road, Shanghai, China Client: West Bund Building Area: 170 m2 Structural Type: Housing/Exhibition
Cologne 2014: this day bed by young designer Stefanie Schissler is intentionally lumpy to encourage users to snuggle into it.
The Kulle day bed by Stefanie Schissler has an undulating surface caused by the different sized pieces of upholstery foam concealed beneath its stretchy boiled-wool surface.
The German designer wanted to create a piece of furniture for relaxation that invites the user to lay down through its appearance.
“The look is something new, which is arising curiosity in people,” Schissler told Dezeen. “It is designed to arise the urge to touch and feel it.”
The small cubes of leftover foam used have different densities and heights so the squashiness varies across the surface. “Every bobble feels different,” Schissler explained. “You can feel them but in a very gentle and pleasant way. A lot of people describe it as a massage for the body.”
She added that the piece is not really meant for sitting on but as a landscape for relaxation. “The bobbles at the back are slightly higher so that you can lean your head on them to read a book, but in general the daybed is a piece that is not made to sit on, but to really lie in it, feel it and simply relax.”
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