Hasta La Ideas

The future of nightlife as conceived by a cross-disciplinary team of club-going creatives

“We wanted to show design in action, not on a pedestal,” said Heineken’s Global Head of Design Mark van Iterson as he walked us through “The Club”, the first project of their Open Design Explorations, a pop up nightclub in the Tortona district during Milan’s Design Week. He wasn’t kidding around. The culmination of a year’s work, it represents an ambitious collaborative research and design project that he led with a hand-picked team of 19 club-going young designers from São Paolo, Tokyo, New York and Milan.

The cross-discipline team, mostly students and young professionals, includes interior, product and fashion designers, architects and graphic designers. The crowd-sourced finalists were invited to present their ideas at Pecha Kucha events, at the end of which the team was selected. The team visited clubs in all four of those cities (we participated in the Tokyo tour), and shared and collaborated on ideas, leading to the design elements brought to life in the pop up club. Van Iterson coached the group along with Professor Buijs and six industry experts.

“It was new for everybody to co-create cross-disciplines, cross-cultures, cross-time-zones,” says van Iterson. “We collaborated in an online hub, a kind of virtual creative lab. Some were more comfortable in the open ideas phase, others more in the detailing phase, some fueled the overall concept, others stayed within their discipline. But that’s the beauty of diversity.”

The hub served to mediate ideas while the designers worked remotely. “The portal was the open lab where we all came together,” says van Iterson. “It was bridging all continents and timezones, stimulating cross fertilization and kept the creative juices flowing through new progress, new insights, new briefs.” Heineken sought to create the perfect club—the rare combination of place, space and crowd that makes for a good time. “If you get the energy, the interaction and the vibe right, the club is a great club,” relates van Iterson. “And design can play a crucial role in facilitating that.”

Similar to how car companies use concept cars to have a dialog with their fans and customers, Heineken sought to create a physical place to express new ideas, and to present them to the world’s largest gathering of design professionals during Milan’s Design Week, with the goal of having a conversation around innovation in the club space. Van Iterson’s expectations are realistic: “For sure, certain elements will never make it to ‘real clubs’, but other elements might impact on club design or Heineken design worldwide for future years.”

Uniting The Club’s three spaces—which include a lounge, bar and dance area—is an origami theme that is applied to every element, reflecting the “changing perspectives” concept that fueled the project. The layout takes a cue from the team’s logical sequence of a typical night out: Connecting, getting a drink, discovering, dancing, cooling down and ending the night.

Walking through the completed concept, we found innovative details throughout. A video-mapped DJ booth pumps out killer beats as waitresses in extravagant origami uniforms and custom-designed shoes serve Heinekens from an origami-shaped tray that rests comfortably on the arm and holds up to eight bottles securely so that servers can use their free hand to open the bottles with a matching opener. An interactive bar features video display counters that lets you order another round with the tap of a finger, and a massive display made from more than 2,500 Heineken bottles features programmed images interspersed with live feeds from the dance floor. A wall on the dance floor has numbered shelves to place your drink while you dance, and a black origami wall glows with graffiti from the attached chalk pens, allowing club goers to get graphic in a harmless way.

Open Design Explorations is one of several crowd sourced design initiatives Heineken is leading, which live at Heineken’s Ideas Brewery.

The Club will be exhibited until 20 April 2012 from 13:00 – 23:00 daily at Via Privata Gaspare Bugatti 3, Zona Tortona, Milan. Even the club’s construction was important. Because the club was designed to be easily transportable, assembled and broken down in a cost-effective and sustainable manner, it’s likely that you’ll see it an event near you soon. See more images of the concept club in our gallery.

We took a drive with the founder of a new retail concept store based in NYC

Sponsored content:

In this video we meet Rachel Shechtman, founder of the new retail concept shop, Story. Sponsored by the Range Rover Evoque, we take a ride with Rachel around Manhattan and hear about how she turned her passion for shopping in to a new venture.

A resurrection of the 90s staple promises to redefine the brand

Unveiled today at NAIAS in Detroit is the new Acura NSX Concept, a supercar slated for sale in 2014. Sporting a 400 hp engine with a hybrid SH-AWD drivetrain, the sexed-up model is meant to combine green ideology with hedonistic performance. The current NSX is a revival of the suspended version that first established Acura in the luxury scene during the ’90s. Though the original enjoyed pop culture appearances galore, the line faltered in the early 2000s. The brand has long struggled with sales of recent models, but the NSX seems poised to put Acura back on the map.

The release of a high-performance model has been long in the making, with plans for an even more powerful V10 NSX abandoned as a result of the recession. The current version includes a direct-injected V6, dual clutch transmission and electric motor that work in conjunction for impressive acceleration and efficiency. For cornering ability, the new model uses a Bilateral Torque Adjustable Control System to create positive or negative torque on the front wheels. The rare combination of environmental considerations and next-generation performance aims to anticipate a shift in the expectations of a supercar.

Many details remain to be seen regarding the final product. The materials used for the lightweight body weren’t specified, and performance specs including fuel economy and acceleration haven’t been released. The NSX is set to be manufactured in Ohio, a move that will hopefully breath some new life into the perpetually troubled American auto industry. This is the sort of brand revival that can potentially be a major game changer within the industry, so we’re anxious to see where Acura takes it from here.

Six concept cars channel Hollywood for design inspiration

As part of the eighth annual Design Los Angeles automobile designer’s conference, this year’s Design Challenge tasked six studios from Germany, Japan and the U.S. to design “Hollywood’s Hottest New Movie Car.” Each team—Honda, Hyundai, Subaru, Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and Smart—presented their idea through sketches, renderings, models and even mock movie trailers.

As a holistic design challenge—centered around but not exclusive to automotive concept—the competition judged each entry on how the vehicle reflects the brand within the movie plot, how it relates to their target audience, the level of imagination and character development of the vehicle and overall ingenuity of the story, car and character combination.

Standouts include the post-apocalypse-inspired Honda‘s IH (Intelligent Horse) and Subaru Horizon for their story development, while Mercedes-Benz wowed everyone with a full-scale model of their Silver Lightning—hoop wheels and all—a formula 1 inspired concept drawing a direct connection from past to future achieved through safety and style. Going after the inner child in everyone, Maybach‘s Berline gives Cinderella’s coach a futuristic transformation.

As the winner of the Challenge, the Smart 341 Parkour is reminiscent of the rocket-shooting, martini-shaking cars of James Bond lore, albeit pared down to tackle more everyday problems like small parking spaces. The Smart design team created the concept for Annie, a fictional investigative journalist in need of a car as curious as she. Thus, the 341 Parkour is capable of driving, flying and even climbing—best illustrated by Smart’s promotional trailer created for the Challenge.

For more information check 2011 LA Design Challenge online.

Designer Hugo Eccles unveils four smart ways to ensure social downtime in a London Design Week group show

While many designers are working hard to develop new applications that would foster more streamlined social networking, the group behind the London exhibit Slow Tech are intelligently conceptualizing how to take time off. Created by Wallpaper Magazine editor Henrietta Thompson and Protein, the group show “encourages people to take time off from their little shiny screens,” explains participant Hugo Eccles.

Working with designer Afshin Mehin, Eccles’ eponymous design office created four concepts that “jam the communication channels.” Starting with a friendly egg timer-styled device, Eccles explains the Social Timer is “the kind of thing your mum would use.” Intentionally using iconic forms throughout the project to help illustrate the point, Eccles and Mehin envisioned the Social Timer as a tabletop object that would disable a particular type of communication for a shorter amount of time, such as a family dinner. The timers also have Facebook and Twitter symbols on the top like salt and pepper shakers, as a subtle reminder of their purpose.

Functioning as an activist, the Social Bomb forces everyone to take a break by covertly cutting off all forms of technology. The bomb works best in places like the cinema, a wedding or other group setting where the social addict refuses to be polite by shutting off their device.

According to Eccles, the “most representative” concept the duo developed is the wall-mounted Social Thermostat. The variable device could be used in different rooms in the house, allowing the living room to be more socially warm while the bedroom stays socially cold. LED lights along the top of the unit display the room’s social temperature.

The Social Sentinel is undoubtedly a favorite among bosses. The device’s intensity is pre-set before it is mounted on a ceiling, keeping employees from tampering with it. A “watchful eye” lets people know when it is active, cutting them off from Twitter or Facebook during office hours.

The four Hugoeccles®designoffice concepts are on view along with the products from nine other designers, including Héctor Serrano, Samuel Wilkinson and Nic Roope, during London Design Week. Check them out at the Kiwi & Pom-designed Protein pop-up space 18 Hewett Street.