This teardrop shaped portable printer from Israeli studio Zuta Labs wirelessly prints documents from tablets, smartphones or desktop computers.
Shaped like the droplet colour icon used on many domestic printers to indicate ink levels, the Mini Mobile is a pocket-sized device that can print remotely using a bluetooth connection.
It was developed by former students of the Jerusalem College of Technology, who felt frustrated by the lack of portability in today’s printers.
The team did some research into mobile printers, finding nothing that really suited their needs. So they decided to build their own.
The portable printer can connect to smartphones via bluetooth
“Being students, we worked on our laptops in different places, libraries, classrooms, cafes, trains and out in the sunshine,” explained a member of the team.
“We were able to do so because we had everything we needed with us on our phone or laptop. Yet, we always found ourselves struggling to find a place to print once the work was done.”
Measuring ten centimetres high and 11.5 centimetres in diameter, the Mini Mobile weighs 300 grams and comfortably fits into the palm of a hand.
The device connects wirelessly via Bluetooth to smartphones or PCs. When activated a hatch underneath the printer slides open, revealing the inkjet.
The Mini Mobile works by rolling across the page and printing each line individually
The user then places the Mini Mobile onto a piece of paper, using the teardrop’s pointed shape to align it with the top of the page.
Using an omni wheel system that allows it to move in multiple directions, it rolls across the page, printing in a grey-scale. When it reaches the end, the device moves down the page and continues on to the next line.
The machine uses a high resolution optical sensor to control movement, speed and placement of the robot.
“We asked ourselves, ‘why not get rid of the entire device, just put the printhead on a set of small wheels and let it run across a piece of paper’. By doing so, we allow the printer to really be as little as possible,” the team said.
The device also knows when multiple pages require printing, sending a message to the user’s laptop to place the machine on to another piece of paper.
The inkwell inside is capable of printing 1000 pages before needing to be replaced, and the battery will allow continual use for up to an hour.
The machine will print 1.2 pages per minute at a resolution of up to 96 by 192 dots per inch, but the team hopes to increase the speed when the device goes into commercial production.
Made from polycarbonate and available in matte black or white, each Mini Mobile has a thin illuminated blue strip to indicate when it is switched on.
At present, the Mini Mobile is a proof-of-concept, and Zuta Labs are currently raising funds on Kickstarter.
Opinion: the photo-sharing site set the agenda at this year’s Milan design week and hints at how technology will transform the way we experience the world, says Marcus Fairs, who also shares a selection of his own Instagram images from the week (+ slideshow).
I was attending a talk in Milan the other day and I noticed that one of the panelists was far more interested in his iPhone than the discussion. The girl sitting next to me in the audience was similarly preoccupied. Then I realised what was going on: the guy was Instagramming a picture of the girl, who had just Instagrammed one of him.
For me, the star of Milan this year was Instagram. It was the lens though which I experienced the week: it was a kind of parallel digital version of my real-world experience.
Instagram is how I kept up with what friends were doing in Milan, and was a key source of research for what I should see. It’s how I found out about the things I’d missed. I know plenty of other people who said the same.
It was my preferred method of documenting my own experiences at the fair this year. And when a journalist from La Repubblica called to interview me about my Salone highlights, her first question was “What was your favourite Instagram moment?”
Instagram is how I found out that Massimo Morozzi had died. A few years ago news like that would have spread on Twitter, but this year the design cognoscenti have switched to the photo-sharing service.
But Instagram is a purely visual medium that does not criticise but instead, through its filtered trickery, burnishes. It’s not a surprise that designers, who collectively aspire to create a more beautiful world (and were largely silent during the 2011 twitterstorm), have embraced it too.
Dinner at Spazzio Rosanna Orlandi
This wasn’t a vintage Salone in terms of talking points and there appeared to be little consensus among Intagrammers as to the outstanding shows. Rather the city itself – and particularly its more photogenic venues – became the stars. The breezily atmospheric Palazzo Clerici in Brera; the eccentric Spazio Rosanna Orlandi; the breathtaking Villa Necchi Campiglio; the charming pop-up street cafes and garden bars in Ventura Lambrate; the surreal Fornasetti house. Under a benevolent sun, it felt more like a sprawling lifestyle festival than a design fair.
Instagram feeds are highly personal, highly curated visual diaries of an individual’s aesthetic interaction with a place. The filters and cropping tools allow you to achieve visual perfection within a little square frame, creating an idealised world free of the clutter and noise of the real world.
My own Milan Instagram diary is low on design but high on portraits of people I’ve met, dinners I’ve attended and incidental tableaux from my meanderings around the city. Trawling through my feed will no doubt strongly influence my memories of the week. It’s an airbrushed digital travelogue that paints both the city and my interaction with it in a flattering light.
Instagram is a powerful arbiter of taste because it favours certain aesthetic experiences over others. It likes a strong, colourful form against a plain background; it loves translucency and diffraction; it adores sunsets. I wouldn’t be surprised if brands soon start to rethink their presentation strategies to enhance the Instagrammability of their stands.
Interconnections by Nao Tamura at Lexus Design Amazing
Instagram also favours eclecticism: a typical fairgoer’s feed will feature a product followed by a selfie followed by a street scene followed by their lunch. Design has existed in a bubble of its own for decades: to walk round a design fair or flick through a design magazine is to see an aesthetic monoculture. But Instagram reveals how the design world intersects with other realities, and shows them to be just as beautiful.
Instagram is just a foretaste of the way we will use digital technology to experience events like the Salone del Mobile in future. Capturing technologies like 360-degree video – which records everything in all directions – allows the creation of convincing digital replicas of physical spaces.
And display technologies like Google Glass, augmented reality and virtual reality mean that we will be able to access additional layers of information as we move around an event, or even experience it without being there. One day the Salone del Mobile could be hosted in a huge server farm, accessible only through a virtual reality headset.
These technologies also allow users to inhabit enhanced, personalised worlds – or entirely artificial worlds – that can be designed around their preferences, edited on the move, Instagram-style, and filed for future enjoyment. Bored by the colour of your kitchen? Use a real-time filter to change it. Walk to work too drab? Brighten it up, adjust the contrast, cut and paste some sights from your last holiday.
To an extent we already inhabit a parallel space: time spent on Instagram, Twitter or other social media is time spent in a virtual community rather than the real world. The cliche of the person so entranced by their iPhone that they notice nothing of their physical surroundings is just the beginning of the migration towards parallel digital worlds that are as convincing as the real one.
Somebody will have to design these worlds but it is astonishing how little attention designers and the design industry is paying to this potential. In Milan this year only Moooi dared dip their toes into the water, presenting an online 360-degree digital walkthrough that allowed people who were not in the city to experience their show.
Elsewhere, Joseph Grima’s FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) project harvested images from Instagram, reactions from Twitter and combined them with robot-generated transcripts of discussions. It treated the fair as a giant data-generating event and used algorithms instead of journalists to decide what to publish.
An excerpt from one of the FOMO publications
Apart from those two examples, and a smattering of other projects, this year’s fair was largely a tech-free zone. The lack of innovative uses of technology at the fair was the elephant in the room. This is an extraordinary missed opportunity for an industry that needs to embrace technology if it is to have a future.
Milan 2014: designer Tom Dixon presented a collection of pendant and table lights that combine geometric brass-plated planes with spherical glass shades in Milan last week.
Dixon‘s Plane collection features two-dimensional surfaces surrounding spherical diffusers, creating lamps with geometric outlines that change depending on the aspect they’re viewed from.
“Geometry is a constant in my work,” Dixon told Dezeen, explaining the form of the lamps. “Actually I think in the main I have been minimal and geometric for many years now, starting with the Jack Lamp in 1997, or maximal and geometric, such as with the Pylon Chair in 1990.”
The flat planes are made from steel covered in reflective brass plating, while the spherical diffusers are produced from white glass.
“The flat and the round, the shiny and the matt, the reflective and the translucent is just part of the exploration of opposites that we started a couple of years ago with a collection called Rough & Smooth,” Dixon added.
Pendant versions are available with either round or triangular planes, while the table lamp balances on a separate surface fixed perpendicular to the rear of the metal section surrounding the light.
Electrical cords that carry current to the bulbs disappear into raised channels that lead from one edge of the flat surfaces to the central glass sphere.
Grouping the lights close to one another results in dynamic reflections across the warm brass surfaces.
This wooden observation platform and pavilion emerges from the landscape of a memorial park in Koknese, Latvia, offering views across the River Daugava (+ slideshow).
Designed by Latvian studios Didzis Jaunzems Architecture and Jaunromans un Abele, the wooden structure is located in the Garden of Destiny, a park designed to celebrate the country’s 100th birthday in 2018 and pay tribute to all those that have died in the last century.
The architects used the natural incline of the site to build a pavilion that is partially buried beneath the ground. A sloping roof provides an elevated deck that visitors can walk over, while the surrounding terrace concludes at a balcony that cantilevers out across the water.
“The view terrace and pavilion create a harmonious environment to discover the special character of the site – the spaciousness and the faraway horizon over River Daugava,” explained Didzis Jaunzems.
Existing features around the site informed the shape of the building. As well as working in line with the site’s topography, the architects designed a structure that avoids all surrounding trees whilst seeking out the best viewing spots.
The structure was built almost entirely from larch. Wooden planks were fixed around a larch frame, creating a uniform surface across the ground planes and around the building’s walls.
Each plank was also milled to create fine ridges, intended to prevent visitors from slipping when the ground is wet, and glazing was added at the front of the pavilion to offer shelter from strong winds and rainfall.
Wooden benches fold up from the ground to provide seating and metal railings create see-through balustrades.
Since opening, the site has become a popular location for all kinds of activities. “The view terrace unintentionally has become a very popular place for wedding ceremonies,” said Jaunzems.
Photography is by ML-Studio.
Read on for more information from the design team:
View Terrace and Pavilion
View Terrace and Pavilion are situated in memorial park “The Garden of Destiny”, the area of Consolation which is the first zone of Future according to overall project of the island. The Garden of Destiny is memorial place for all souls that have been lost to Latvia in last century and it will be completed as a gift to country on its 100th birthday in year 2018. The View Terrace project started as an architectural competition and with a help of donations is now first realised permanent building in memorial park. View terrace received the Prize of the Year in Latvian Architecture Best Works Award.
The view terrace and pavilion create a harmonious environment to discover the special character of the site – the spaciousness and the faraway horizon over River Daugava. The tight bond between Latvian people and nature has been emphasised in the project. Nature is a source of inner energy, strength, peace and inspiration. Nature has been a priority in this project since it is the consolation for Latvians. The building has been designed considering site particularities and in harmony with nature:
» The main flows of people have been analysed. The building is made in a way to not cover the view to river panorama when approaching the site; » Stop points such as benches and covered space are situated in the places where view is the most stunning and emotional; » The building has been shaped in a way to preserve most valuable trees on the site; » Terrain level differences are used in the project design. The pavilion is partly sunken into the ground so it doesn’t cover the view when approaching the building and to provide comfortable access from the lowest level of terrace.
View terrace and pavilion has diversified levels of “openness”. This gives an opportunity to use the building in all kind of weather conditions as well as lets visitors to choose the level which emotionally suits them the best. For example if it is raining or in case of strong wind people can enjoy the view from the part of pavilion that is covered with roof and protected with large glass. But if the weather is not an issue then exposed long benches can be used. The building can be seen as a platform for harmonious interaction between people and nature.
The main architectonic idea of the project is building volume that following people movement from a pathway and seats gradually grows into a building in this way exploring building location on the very coast of the river. Roof inclinations creates an exciting place where to play and relax. The main challenge of the project was its highly public significance – it is built for everybody and furthermore by donations of people. The building is very compact however its configuration and various possibilities of usage allow to coexist all parts of society. From this year on couples in Latvia can officially get married outside the church and the view terrace unintentionally has become a very popular place for wedding ceremonies.
Pavilion and view terrace are made in wood – larch. The load-bearing structure is larch frames. Finishing is larch planks that are processed in a special technique to avoid slippery surfaces on pathways and roof of the building.
Project address: Memorial park “The Garden of Destiny”, Krievkalna Island, Koknese, Latvia Projects architects: Didzis Jaunzems, Laura Laudere in collaboration with architecture office Jaunromans and Abele
The world’s first flying dress, Volantis, on its first public demonstration in November 2013. Credit: Terry Richardson
Rapidly developing flight technology will make personal flying vehicles commercially viable in the near future according to Benjamin Males, co-founder of London-based fashion and technology company Studio XO, who developed the Volantis for Lady Gaga.
“Volantis might seem very science fiction,” says Males, “but if you consider the developments in vehicle design, if you look at the trends toward space travel and jet pack design, actually the idea of having a personal aerial vehicle that has to have style doesn’t seem that crazy”.
Lady Gaga with Studio XO’s directors, Nancy Tilbury and Benjamin Males. Credit: Terry Richardson
“Who knows, in ten years time we may all be flying round in Volantises,” he adds.
Volantis is remote controlled and flies using 12 battery-powered propellors. Flown by a trained pilot who specialises in unmanned vehicles, it was unveiled with Lady Gaga at a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York City, in November last year.
Speaking to Dezeen at Studio XO’s London headquarters, Males explains how the aircraft is powered by 12 rotor blades and borrows technology commonly used in the manufacture of drones.
“It’s known as a hex 12. It has six arms and 12 rotors. Each arm has two rotors which provide the thrust to lift [it] off the ground,” he says.
The truss section at the centre of the aircraft, to which Gaga was fastened by a belt, is made of titanium. The rotors and her custom-made bodice are made of carbon fibre.
The passenger stands inside a white bodice that is connected to the truss. “Although the machine had to be strong, we also wanted it to have the affordances of fashion. So we made a very beautiful front casing which completed the dress,” says Males.
Volantis hovering above the ground on its first public flight. Credit: Terry Richardson
White cylinders surround the rotors in hexagonal formation and connect in the centre above the dress, which rests on the ground using a circular stand when not in flight.
Lady Gaga in front of Volantis
Studio XO has also worked with other high-profile artists including the Black Eyed Peas and Azealia Banks, to create hybrid stage costumes that combine fashion and technology.
“We bring these subjects together, in this space – in this quite unique environment,” says Males, who is now working on the launch of a new ready-to-wear brand developing some of the ideas from the company’s stage work.
Milan 2014: Anglo-Indian design duo Doshi Levien has created a lounge chair for B&B Italia based on memories of a trip to the Himalaya mountains in India (+ interview).
The Almora chair aims to recreate the experience of visiting a town of the same name in the Himalayan foothills.
“The idea of the chair really comes from this memory of seeing the snow-capped Himalayan peaks wrapped in a soft, warm blanket,” said Jonathan Levien.
“You are wrapped in the soft warm blanket so you enjoy the mountains but you are warm where you are,” added Nipa Doshi. “It was the idea of really capturing this in a piece.”
She added: “Of course at the end of the day it is a chair, but how do you replicate this feeling of being in the cold air but being warm? So I think that although the chair is open, it is also warm.”
The chair features a two-part conical plastic frame that forms the seat and back, plus a curved oak headrest that appears to balance on top of the frame.
The seat is upholstered in leather while the headrest is finished in shearling. The chair is mounted on a five-spoke aluminium swivel base and the accompanying ottoman has a round steel base and a curved wooden seat upholstered in leather.
The chair is the first product designed by Doshi Levien for Italian brand B&B Italia. It launched this week in Milan during the Salone del Mobile.
Here’s a short interview with the designers conducted in Milan:
Marcus Fairs: Tell us about the new lounge chair you’re showing today.
Nipa Doshi: The chair is called Almora. It is our new lounge chair for B&B Italia: two years in the making and designing. The idea of the chair really comes from this memory of seeing the snow-capped Himalayan peaks wrapped in a soft warm blanket.
First model of the Almora lounge chair
Jonathan Levien: What, the peaks are wrapped in soft warm blankets?
Nipa Doshi: No, you are wrapped in the soft warm blanket so you enjoy the mountains but you are warm where you are. And we imagined this chair almost to have the same feeling of warmth and comfort and to use the chair to enjoy the view outside and to sleep in; or equally to be with your children and read stories. It’s a chair very much to be alone in, but also to be with the family.
Marcus Fairs: What does Almora mean?
Nipa Doshi: Almora is the name of this place in India, in the Himalayan mountains.
Jonathan Levien: And where we were staying in the mountains was in this lodge, which had a really nice outdoor space. Indoor and outdoor were connected. We want to feel warm and secure in the place in which we are staying but very much engaged with our surroundings so the chair, in its gesture and form, is very open and it is almost like it is embracing not only the person sitting in it but also the view.
Concept model of the Almora lounge chair
Marcus Fairs: Is the chair really inspired by this village in the Himalayas? Or is it just a nice story?
Nipa Doshi: No, it is really. The materiality of the piece, you can see it is… the shearling, the leather. They are all materials that are very tactile, very human, living materials. It was the idea of really capturing this in a piece. Of course at the end of the day it is a chair, but how do you replicate this feeling of being in the cold air but being warm? So I think that although the chair is open, it is also warm.
Jonathan Levien: There has to be a starting point to every piece and for us it is a feeling. It is what do we want to evoke in the piece. We don’t come from a functional perspective. It is more from a sculptural point of view and that means thinking about the space in which it is going to be used and dreaming about that. But then of course that is only part of the project and the other part is what is the materiality of the chair? What is the technology, the structure? How are the parts composed? We are hiding the technology, we are trying to create a sense of overlapping forms and floating components and hide the technology. There are many strands to it and for us it helps to start with a dream, with a place, before it takes shape.
Concept model of the Almora lounge chair
Marcus Fairs: You are an Anglo-Indian couple and a lot of your work up to now has featured identifiable Indian motifs or forms. But this, if the story hadn’t been explained to me, I wouldn’t of thought of India and the mountains.
Nipa Doshi: But in a way I think it is not about India but about the mountains and I think it is more about nature. Almora was more a fictitious place; it could be Switzerland and the Alps. It can also be just looking at your garden. Many of us, even if we live in a city, have a very narrow view where we can have nature so it works in a home so the idea was very much about the experience you want to have in a home rather than a place as such.
Jonathan Levien: But, it is true also that the cultural aspect in our work is not as ostensible in this design in that you cannot see so clearly a partnership of Nipa and Jonathan in this design. It is not expressed in terms of a design-meets-a-decorative-graphic approach but I think it is very much a coming together of Nipa’s sense of visual identity and my ability to translate that into three-dimensions.
Mirrored walls and projecting staircases create optical illusions inside the brick-lined atrium of this apartment complex in Ghent, Belgium, by local office Atelier Vens Vanbelle.
Named Gewad, the building housing four individual apartments was constructed on the site of a former costume shop destroyed by fire, which architect Maarten Vanbelle of Atelier Vens Vanbelle bought and decided to redevelop with partner Dries Vens.
Rather than a standard arrangement of single-storey apartments, the properties slot together in multi-layered shapes that mean each one is spread over at least two floors.
“We did not want to design apartments that would feel like an apartment, with all rooms obediently after the other,” said the architects. “It had to be houses, hence all apartments have two or even three floors.”
The surviving rear facade was retained along with an existing courtyard which, complemented by the central patio and the street on the other side, allows daylight to reach each apartment at all times of the day.
Influenced by the courtyards found at the heart of homes encountered by the architects on a trip to Italy, the patio provides a communal entrance featuring a staircase that ascends to the top floor and incorporates landings, offering access to the apartments on different levels.
The walls of the atrium are built from brick salvaged from the ruined shop. Stairs are made from different materials, with some hidden behind brick walls and others projecting over the atrium, creating a complex composite effect intended to evoke the illusory drawings of M.C. Escher.
“You see countless courtyards with stairs, balconies and doors in places where you least expect it,” said the architects of their experiences in Italy. “That was also the intention: that you step inside and not immediately know how the apartments are oriented.”
Windows around the atrium allow glimpses into the interiors of the apartments and add to the communal feel, while their careful placement restricts views of the most private rooms.
At the top of the atrium is a polished aluminium mirror that reflects sunlight and views of the sky into the spaces below and amplifies views of the surrounding neighbourhood when seen from the roof terrace.
The irregular arrangement of the apartments also creates unique spaces and details, including private balconies, sloping walls and double-height spaces.
One apartment features a wooden staircase with widened treads that provide storage and casual seating areas, while another has an opening above the living room that exposes dark-stained wooden beams.
Materials including wood, concrete and second-hand terracotta flooring were chosen to ensure the building ages well with use. The intention is that residents will gradually adapt the public areas to meet their needs.
“We have let a lot of materials coexist, without letting it be too crowded,” the architects pointed out. “By playing with textures and materials we create atmosphere and define different residential functions.”
The architects’ studio is contained in a former coach house at the rear of the courtyard, which features planting that will mature over time to create a lush garden.
The street-facing facade is rendered in a whitewash in accordance with the local council’s request and features a ground floor wall incorporating the trunks of 23 chestnut trees.
Here’s some more information sent by Atelier Vens Vanbelle:
Four inventive city apartments
Puzzling around central patio
This project brings together four new apartments which run perfectly under, over and trough each other. The building was erected on the spot where once stood a burnt costume shop. Maarten bought the dilapidated house with his brother and parents, and began puzzling together with his business partner Dries. “There was a lot of thinking concerned. We started from zero, only preserving the rear facade. Not only an urban intervention, but thanks to the old rear facade the original dimensions of the courtyard were also retained.” “Each apartment overlooks both the street, the central patio, and the courtyard, so that at any time of the day somewhere sunlight can come in.”
Whoever enters the building, stands on a particular courtyard. The architects had shortly before the start of the project on tour in Italy, and there the idea grew. “You will see countless courtyards with stairs, balconies and doors in places where you least expect it. That was also the intention: that you step inside and not immediately know how the apartments are oriented. ‘The staircase consists of different materials and we even spotted a piece of’ reverse ‘staircase. “It reminds of a drawing of graphic artist Escher, which kicks all directions seem to go.”
The patio provides a unique circulation throughout the building. The residents come out against each other, or see each other occasionally pass through a window. “Without that privacy is violated. We made sure that no one else is living inside look. “The patio is built with stones recovered from the burned building. Above the patio there’s a large mirror made of polished aluminum. It was positioned in a way it reflects down the sunlight during the day and seen from below it reflects the sky.
“We did not want to design apartments that would feel like an apartment, with all rooms obediently after the other.” It had to be houses, hence all apartments have two or even three floors. “We have thought very longtime about how we could fit the apartments together.” These apartments define eachothers shape and layout. Besides the two floors there are also other elements that reinforce the ‘house feeling’: each apartment has a separate entrance which can be reached with stairs from the patio, and each apartment has both a street, patio and courtyard side. Each resident enjoys fantastic views of the city of Ghent, a private terrace and nooks and crannies that you would not expect in an apartment. One apartment has a meter high atrium, the other a piece of glass in the bedroom floor, or a hall with a sloping wall. On the street side there is a meeting room for the architects, and at the rear of the courtyard there’s a charming former coach house as a studio for the two.
An exception, perhaps, but the architects design everything by making models. “Because we are so focused on light. We make a model, which we orient in the same way as the future home, and by filming the inside we see how the sunlight penetrates the building. “In the apartment building we find numerous examples of well-positioned roof and interior windows. In the upper apartment, where three boys live together, the bathroom is connected to the living room through an inside window, and look out simultaneously by a roof window: “So you see your own house from unexpected angles in a way it remains fascinating. The head of the architecture department of Ghent said that our project is a kind of synthesis of urban living: How can you live together in a small area, but do not suffer the disadvantages concerning light, circulation and privacy?”
The architects wanted to create the feeling that the apartments have spontaneously, coincidentally, almost organically grown. “We do not want architecture for architects. It should not be finger-on that we have thought hard about the design. The intention is that our project is going to look better by getting older, rather than to decline. Hence we have worked with many beautiful old materials: wood, concrete, old floors, etc. The patio has yet to change: vegetation, balconies and washing lines. It should all be a little more ‘lived’. ‘The façade takes humility on the street. Besides the base, formed by 23 chestnut trees, the façade is a purified version of the classic whitewashed facade. The white plaster was one condition of the city services.
The material is not motivated by ephemeral fads. In the living room of Maarten’s apartment we see a wardrobe made from grooved plywood of Polish pine, which has a beautiful drawing. That pine wood contrasts with the dark smoked oak parquet. The ceiling is partly concrete, partly from pasting, partly from wooden beams and there is even an iron beam visible. “So much more fun if you watch your ceiling from your seat.” In the kitchen we find even a dash reclaimed terracotta floor, feeling like the oak. “We have let a lot of materials coexist, without letting it be too crowded. Name it controlled quantity (laughter). By playing with textures and materials, we create atmosphere and define different residential functions. Sociability is a bit of a dirty word in modern architecture, but honestly we are quite fond of it.”
Milan 2014: Dutch architecture firm UNStudio has revealed a chair with an S-shaped seat that allows its user to move from sitting upright to relaxing with a leg up (+ slideshow).
Part of UNStudio‘s Gemini collection for Dutch brand Artifort, the asymmetric chair was designed to let sitters “sit up, slouch, lounge, hang, repose or hunker”, as well as to “shift, twist, turn, swing around, pivot to face each other or turn towards the room.”
Set upon an asymmetric frame, the body of the chair curves towards the floor on one side and arches upwards to form both an arm and a backrest on the other. This shape allows a user to sit in a variety of different positions.
“The main concept for the Gemini design is versatility,” Ben van Berkel, co-founder of UNStudio, told Dezeen.
“We approached this not only in terms of where the chairs can be used, but also in terms of how. The shape of the chair allows for a wide variety of seating positions and therefore also for variety in perspectives and views of the spaces in which it is placed.”
The chair is available in two varieties: one curving to the left and the other to the right. The seat shell is made with a metal insert that is padded with foam, covered with Dacron and upholstered with a stretch fabric. There are four types of upholstery available, in two different blues, beige and orange.
The Gemini collection also includes a small matching side table. This features a metal frame, upholstered sides and a tabletop made of solid oak.
Concept diagram
The chairs are on display in Pavilion 16, F30 at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Milan.
Here’s a project description from UNStudio:
Gemini, Artifort (Schijndel, NL) 2014
Gemini for Artifort has been designed as individual furniture pieces which can be placed as single seating elements, in pairs or in groups of various sizes and configurations. The concept for the design of the chair centers on flexibility of movement, versatility in seating positions and variety in spatial experiences.
Concept diagram
Set upon an asymmetric frame, the generously proportioned single-surface body of the chair curves towards the floor on one side and arches upwards to form both an arm and a backrest on the other. This contoured composition affords the user variety in seating positions and directionality: they can sit up, slouch, lounge, hang, repose or hunker, but they can also shift, twist, turn, swing around, pivot to face each other or turn towards the room.
Spatially Gemini introduces varying visual orientations of the spaces in which the chairs are placed and offers the possibility to choose between sitting alone, sitting together or simply enjoying different views of the surrounding space. When coupled with either its direct twin or its mirrored twin, the nonsymmetrical silhouette of both the frame and the soft element transforms to create a curvilinear symmetry.
Elevations
The horizontally subdivided soft body of the chairs can be upholstered in up to three ways in one or two colours, from a choice of many different shades. Gemini can be used in private, public and semi-public settings, such as waiting areas, lobbies, offices, lounge areas and libraries.
Milan 2014: London studio Poetic Lab has revealed a new iteration of Ripple – a lighting collection that imitates movement on water – at Milan design week (+ movie).
The concept design for Ripple was originally shown by Poetic Lab last year in Milan, but has since been developed further into two different sizes and put into production with Austrian crystal brand J. & L. Lobmeyr.
Each style consists of two unevenly hand-blown glass domes sitting on brass bases. A G4 halogen light shines from within the smaller dome through the larger dome as it slowly rotates. This creates a constantly changing mix of light and shadow to create a ripple effect on the surfaces around the lights.
“When I first saw Ripple I was totally struck by this effect and I had to sit down for about 30 minutes and watch it,” said Lobmeyr’s co-owner Leonid Rath. “It was really an emotional decision to take it into a range.”
“It’s not about designing a lamp, it’s about the experience and the emotion that is created by this moving light,” Poetic Lab co-founder and designer Hanhsi Chen told Dezeen.
Firing the glass in the furnace
“The inspiration of the collection comes from the nature beauty of light and fluid matters. We try to capture the essence of light through its gentle movements, just as all the nature light do,” said Chen.
The molten glass out of the furnace
“The process starts with the hot molten glass and as it interacts with the air, gravity and the breeze of the blower it gradually takes shape into a mysterious bubble,” added Chen.
Blowing air into the molten glass
Ripple is on show at the Spazio Rosanna Orlandi, Via Matteo Bandello 14-16, Milan.
Japanese architect Eto Kenta has hidden a narrow garden behind the metal-clad exterior of this house in Ōita Prefecture, Japan (+ slideshow).
The two-storey house is situated on the border between a residential neighbourhood and a grassy plain, so Eto Kenta designed a building that is closed at the front and open at the back, and named it Cave.
To the street, the building presents a wall with only two openings – a large high-level window allowing light to permeate the garden tucked behind and a doorway leading to the entrance. In this way, the facade protects the interior from prying eyes.
The narrow garden sits directly behind the wall, ahead of a large room that functions as a living space and kitchen for the family.
“Raising a large opening on the south side allows lighting and ventilation into the house, but also ensures privacy from the neighbouring houses,” said Kenta.
Sliding walls allow the living room to open out to the secluded garden. These are mirrored by a row of rear windows that slide back to reveal the interior to the field beyond.
“By operating the opening and closing in relation to the outer and inner space, we create both open and private places,” said Kenta.
A lightweight steel staircase leads up to the first floor, where three rooms sit alongside one another to create a series of bedrooms.
Two of these bedrooms feature windows overlooking the garden, while the third opens out to a patio contained behind the walls.
A second patio is located at the back and a small study provides residents with a quiet workspace facing out over the fields.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
