Hasta La Ideas

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic worked with furniture brand Emeco to create the chairs and tables that furnish the new Parrish Art Museum on Long Island, recently completed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

The Parrish Art Museum recently moved to a new building by Herzog & de Meuron, a single-storey structure near the town of Southampton that resembles two long, narrow barns placed side by side.

Konstantin Grcic and Emeco’s Parrish collection includes a table, chair and lounge chair, all with curving legs made from recycled aluminium and seats made of reclaimed pine.

“The Parrish chair was given a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected,” said Grcic, adding that the chair manages to feel spacious while using very little material.

“The pine on the aluminium chair looks almost like tractor seat,” he added, “which has something old fashioned and genuine about it.”

Above: photograph by Konstantin Grcic

The collection will be launched in Milan next April, with tabletops made of high-pressure laminate rather than pine.

Grcic recently designed a mirror for a poodle as part of the Architecture for Dogs project and also contributed a bench covered in a glass mosaic to an exhibition at the V&A during the London Design Festival.

Above: photograph by Richard Lewin

Famous for its aluminium chairs, the American brand Emeco was founded in 1944 with a commission from the US government to produce the now classic Navy chair, also known as the 1006. Earlier this year we reported on a collection of aluminium chairs designed by French architect Jean Nouvel for Emeco.

See all our stories about chairs »
See all our stories about Konstantin Grcic »
See all our stories about Emeco »

Above: photograph by Richard Lewin

Photographs are by Clo’e Floirat except where stated.

Here’s some more information from the museum:

Parrish Art Museum
Mobile interiors by Emeco + Konstantin Grcic
Museum opening Nov. 10, 2012 in Water Mill, NYC, USA

Emeco and Konstantin Grcic collaborate on interior installation at the New Parrish Art Museum in South Hampton, NYC.

“The location on Long Island brings a feeling of countryside and the design process was always defined by finding the most straightforward solution fitting the surrounding – the specific needs for this specific museum in this specific region,” Konstantin Grcic reflects.

Based on local materials from local manufacturers, Konstantin Grcic matches recycled aluminium and retrieved timber with the bare building, both as fixed and mobile furniture for the Parrish Art Museum. The interior installation includes tables and chairs created in collaboration with American manufacturer Emeco.

“The collaboration with Emeco was always an important part of the project, something I had in mind as an obvious choice for the kind of furniture we needed. It is simply the only company I could think of who could bring a nice mix for this interior concept, specialists in aluminium, delivering another kind of material appearance, environmentally sound, perfect for the both indoor and outdoor and being such a truly American company – it was a perfect match,” Grcic continues.

“When Konstantin asked me if Emeco would be interested in collaborating with him on the Parrish Art Museum I was thrilled. Konstantin is one of the most innovative and original industrial designers of today,” says Emeco’s CEO Gregg Buchbinder. “Konstantin’s degree of perfection combined with his analytical rigour made the product development process deliberate and thoughtful. He managed to leverage our heritage and at the same time push Emeco into the future. The Parrish Chair reminds me of something Le Corbusier might have designed in the 1920s, yet at the same time, it looks fresh, modern, and original – it’s a real artifact of our current culture, a future classic,” Buchbinder continues.

“I have always had a fascination and admiration of the hard physical labour of the production of the Emeco’s iconic Navy chair. My ambition for the collaboration was, therefore, to do something that uses the same aluminium work but make the process more effective, less physically challenging. I think the design of the Parrish chair comes from a close understanding of what Emeco really can do,” says Konstantin.

“Developing the mobile interiors for the Parrish museum brings us to the peculiar psychology around chairs used in public spaces – exploring the idea of comfort and non-comfort. The best you can give someone in a public space is a chair that really feels like a chair. Considering the public self-awareness in a museum seat, the Parrish chair was given a round tube, forming a belt that defines the space around you – a space where you can feel protected. The chair is also spacious, achieved using very little material. Put together the pine on the aluminum chair looks almost like tractor seat, which has something old fashioned and genuine about it. At the final installation the Parrish chairs are strong individuals, yet the collection, I must say, looks even greater in multiplication. A density of tube forms composed in a very nice subtle way, an astonishing view in numbers,” Konstantin concludes.

The post Parrish by Konstantin Grcic and Emeco
for the Parrish Art Museum appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: designers Industrial Facility will show a prototype of an aluminium chair inspired by handrails at their east London studio on Saturday.

“Through a lot of thinking and walking I realised that over the course of the day we’re putting our hands on so many handrails all around London,” Sam Hecht of Industrial Facility told Dezeen. “I thought it would be interesting if the diametre of the armrest of the chair was the same as a handrail, which means that the armrest is much more chunky than you would normally find in an aluminium chair.”

Thick extrusions form the front leg, armrest and back leg in one piece on each side of the Alumi chair.

“It’s all made out of aluminium and it’s a very thin gauge, so it’s super light and yet it has this kind of solid, chunky appearance,” Hecht added.

The chair will be previewed as part of a one-day show called Pop-Down at the Industrial Facility studio at 20 Britton Street, Clerkenwell, London EC1M 5UA on Saturday 22 September from 10am to 6pm

See all our stories about Industrial Facility | See all our stories about the London Design Festival

Movie: Alumi by Industrial Facility
.

Dezeen’s London Design Festival map

.

The map above is taken from Dezeen’s guide to the London Design Festival, which lists all the events going on across the city this week. We’ll be updating it over the coming days with extra information on our highlights so keep checking back. Explore the larger version of this map here.

The post Alumi by Industrial Facility
at Pop-Down appeared first on Dezeen.

Italian architects Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas have completed a school for hotel management in Montepellier, France, clad in anodized aluminum triangles and punctured by 5000 unique triangular windows.

The Lycée Georges Frêche occupies two curvy cast-concrete buildings connected by footbridges over a courtyard.

Above image is by Studio Fuksas

The facade is pulled up on one side to create a tunnel through which students and staff enter.

Above image is by Studio Fuksas

As well as classrooms, offices and accommodation for students and staff, the complex includes a hotel and three restaurants that are open to the public, accessed from the opposite side of the campus.

The walls of the school and student accommodation are painted in a different colour on each floor.

Other projects by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas we’ve featured on Dezeen include a concrete church in Italy and a glowing orange music hall in France.

See all our stories about Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas »
See all our stories about Montpellier »

Photography is by Moreno Maggi unless otherwise stated.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas inaugurated a new public building in France: the Georges-Freche School of Hotel Management in Montpellier. Besides the architectural project that won the competition launched by the Région Languedoc-Roussillon in 2007, Fuksas architects have realized the interior of the spaces open to public: a hotel and three restaurants. Built on 3.95 acres in the ZAC Port Marianne area to the East of Montpellier, the hotel-school Lycée Georges Frêche transforms the landscape and provides it with a distinct urban identity.

Above image is by Studio Fuksas

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas’ project, which is developed horizontally, comes across as a single entity. It has a formal diversity, compact volumes and sculptural shapes. The volumetric complexity, which can be seen even inside the building, gives every room its own spatial individuality.

The School includes:

– Two main buildings connected by footbridges that cross a tree planted central courtyard
– Accommodation for students (75 beds spread over three floors)
– Housing for management (10 apartments over 5 floors)
– Gym
– Athletic Track and sports ground situated outside

The entrance for the students and the professors is through an arch while the entrance for the clients is on an opposite side. The two buildings that form the edifice make up the sculptural mass around which the gym, the students’ residence and the management’s housing gravitate. The first building, situated on the Titien Road, has three floors and includes: the multi-purpose room, the exhibition gallery, the administrative offices, the classrooms and the canteen that has exits leading towards the recreational areas outside.

The second building is distinguished by its Y form and is on two floors. Here, there are the spaces for the vocational teaching as well the areas dedicated to the hotel and the gastronomic restaurant: a hotel that is open to the public (12 rooms, 6 of which are two/three star, 4 four star and 2 suites); three restaurants, one of which is a gastronomic restaurant (50 places), a brasserie and a teaching restaurant (200 places in total), a bread-making workshop and a pastry making classroom. The gastronomic restaurant, the brasserie and the 4 star hotel showcase the School’s excellence and are the most important areas of the project.

Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas have designed the interior, the areas accessible to the public and the spaces devoted to the gastronomic sector and to the hotel. In the entrance hall leading to the gastronomic restaurant and to the hotel, there is a reception desk: a white lacquered sculptural object, mirroring the fluid forms and the solid character of the structure. The desk is covered with materials that are used for making boat hulls. Different types of originally designed tables and chairs define the spaces dedicated to the interaction between the public and the students. There is also the limited edition furniture specially made for the hotel.

The School walls and those of the students’ residence are painted in a different colour on each floor, with the shades ranging from yellow to green to magenta and orange. The colours serve as signage to distinguish the different spaces and activities. The project can be called “experimental” as much for its triangular shaped aluminium façade as for the use of reinforced concrete. Both materials have been adapted in order to be able to adopt specific shapes – curved and fluid – as required by the structure.

The facades of the building have been constructed using 17,000 cases of anodized aluminum in triangular shapes. Each aluminum case is unique and bears its own specific bar code in order that it can be identified for its specific situation on the façade. The interaction between the facades reinforces the dynamic tension between the solid materials and the cavities, the light and the shadows, that are an inherent part of the project. The geometric design of the aluminum “skin” is developed further to apply to the 5,000 triangular glass frames that are mounted on metal nets. Each of these is different.

The structure of the building is made from reinforced concrete. To reproduce the curves of the volumes, the project has used “shotcrete” technology. Photovoltaic panels have been installed on the roof of the first building (multi-purpose room, exhibition gallery, administrative offices, classrooms, canteen) as well as on the roof of the apartments for the management.

The post Lycée Georges Frêche by
Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas appeared first on Dezeen.

Cologne 2012: Marc Bell and Robin Grasby of London studio International won third prize at the [D3] Contest for young designers in Cologne this week with their layered aluminium lamp shades.

Called Apollo, the system comprises modular spun-aluminium shades with varying laser-cut slits.

Light can be filtered to varying degrees by layering them in different combinations over a standard screw-cap holder.

The Apollo series also includes solid layers to completely block and direct the light.

Bell and Grasby graduated from Northumbria University un 2009 and founded their studio in 2010, which happens to be in the same neighbourhood as Dezeen’s own offices.

First prize at the [D3] Contest was awarded to Jólan van der Wiel for his machine that uses magnets to draw furniture out of a vat of liquid.

Second prize went to Lee Sanghyeok for his table where closing one drawer causes another to shoot out.

All three projects are on show at imm cologne until 22 January.

See all our stories about Cologne 2012 here.

Here are some more details from the designers:

Apollo

Modular system of light shades to be arranged in various configurations on a standard screw cup lamp holder.

Solid shades offer complete and variably directed shade.

Perforated shades – in layered combination – enable the light to be gradually filtered, allowing for customisation of the overall aesthetic and manipulation of the emitted light.

Spun Aluminium, 5-axis Laser cut, Anodised.

La marque BMW anticipe l’arrivée de ses premiers modèles hybrides et électriques en créant ce concept et la voiture BMW i8, un prototype rechargeable conçue en aluminium et en fibre de carbone pour alléger au maximum le véhicule. Disponibilité prévue à partir de 2013.

Previously on Fubiz

• BMW 328 Hommage
• Nissan – The Value of Zero
• Little Thor

Copyright Fubiz™ – Suivez nous sur Twitter et Facebook