Minnesota architect Josh Lewandowski has started a blog where he’ll post one meaningless architectural diagram every day for a year (+ slideshow).
Up and Over Aaltoesque
Since 7 September, Lewandowski has been publishing a single drawing to his Pointless Diagrams blog every day, and intends to continue for a whole year.
“I started the blog because for as long as I can remember I’ve always drawn and doodled 3D sketches that have an unapologetic dearth of meaning,” Lewandowski told Dezeen. “I’m doing it because of my sincere belief that setting aside time to doodle useless stuff is extremely useful.”
Imaginary Religion
The drawings depict imaginary structures and architectural scenarios, and some of the diagrams also feature directional arrows. “I like that people I’ve shown them to see different things based on their own experiences,” he said.
“I draw my inspiration from architecture, furniture, engineering, geometry, cereal boxes, Lego instructions and Etch A Sketch memories,” explained the designer. “I always use pen and ink because an early art teacher told me erasing is for wimps.”
Walk Carefully
The original drawings are made in pen and ink on buff acid-free paper and are available for purchase from Lewandowski.
I started the blog because for as long as I can remember I’ve always drawn and doodled 3d sketches that have an unapologetic dearth of meaning.
Deco Aqua Lake
Whether it was in a 6th grade English class, during a Peter Eisenman lecture in grad school, or when I should have been CADing while employed at Robert A M Stern Architects; I was drawing.
I Can’t Stop
The sketches are usually meaningless and aesthetically could be described as equal parts Draw Squad and James Stirling.
I draw my inspiration from architecture, furniture, engineering, geometry, cereal boxes, lego instructions, and Etch A Sketch memories. I always use pen and ink because an early art teacher told me erasing is for wimps.
A.13
This blog chronicles my attempt at a year-long endeavor to draw one diagram a day, because of my sincere belief that setting aside time to doodle useless pictures is extremely useful.
Climb, then Leap
They appear meaningful without actually being helpful. Some might seem to reference real things or show some sort of relationship between things, but that is merely coincidental. Enjoy.
London Design Festival 2013: these round stools by Stockholm designer Kyuhyung Cho can be stacked thanks to a ring of holes around the edge of each seat.
Kyuhyung Cho designed the Poke Stool for British brand Innermost. It features four round legs and has eight holes in the seat. When not in use, the legs can be poked through the holes of another stool.
“The twist of each stool added creates a rhythm as the stack grows higher,” said Cho.
“The composition of different colours and variations to the rhythm lead us create our own structure, like a geometric sculpture,” he added.
The stools are available from Innermost in black, white, natural wood, red, yellow, green and blue. They are made from laquered timber and are 44 centimetres in height.
Après la vidéo et les images dévoilant l’idée du projet « 3D Printed Room », le studio Digital Grotesque nous propose de découvrir la construction et la mise en place d’une pièce magnifique entièrement imprimée en 3D. Un rendu époustouflant à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite de l’article.
A collection of 1950s and 1960s products by designers including Dieter Rams, Arne Jacobsen and Dietrich Lubs for German electricals brand Braun are on display at the new Paul Smith store in London (+ slideshow).
Audio 1 compact system with record player (white version), 1962, and ‘kangaroo’ system audio stand, 1967, by Dieter Rams at Paul Smith Albemarle Street
Collectors of Braun Design products das programm curated a selection of vintage Braun products in fashion designer Paul Smith‘s recently extended store on Albemarle Street in London’s Mayfair district.
Record player by Dieter Rams, 1960
The emphasis of the small exhibition, titled White, is mainly on audio products such as radios, turntables and speaker units.
Atelier 3 / L 40 compact system and box speaker by Dieter Rams, 1962
“We’re showing 45 pieces, mostly 60s audio but also including some classic household designs,” said das programm director Peter Kapos.
PC4 record player by Dieter Rams, 1965
Dieter Rams was appointed director of Braun’s in-house design department in 1960 and began applying the standards established by the Ulm School of Design a year earlier.
RT 20 tischsuper table radio by Dieter Rams, 1961
Under his direction the company became renowned for producing rational and functionalist designs, which are widely credited as Apple creative director Jonathan Ive’s aesthetic reference for the computer company’s products.
“The influence of Braun Design on Apple design is well documented,” Kapos told Dezeen. “From the 2001 iPod onwards, Apple has been helping itself to all kinds of bits and bobs, producing a curiously accelerated collage of Braun Design.”
L 460 wall-mountable round speakers by Arne Jacobsen, 1967
Other Braun Design members are also represented in the collection. The oldest piece in the store is Hans Guglelot’s combined record player and radio from 1955, and homeware designs by Reinhold Weiss and Gerd Alfred Müller are also on show.
G 11 table radio by Hans Gugelot, 1955
The items will be displayed in the recently opened store until 7 October and Kapos will be giving tours of the exhibition in its final week – more details here.
Audio 1 compact system with record player (white version), 1962, and ‘kangaroo’ system audio stand, 1967, by Dieter Rams
Amidst the architectural and cultural ruins of post-war Germany, industrial designers considered their role in the task of reconstruction. In 1953 the Ulm school of design opened. It taught that rationally organised objects of daily use might serve as models for a more rational social form and thereby guide the maelstrom of productive forces to a more acceptable result. They called this utopian project ‘systems design’. The following year, the Braun Company approached the Ulm school with a brief to modernise their audio line. Designers Otl Aicher and Hans Guglelot, lecturers at the school, established the Braun style and produced the blueprint for a comprehensively integrated programm of household electronics.
The Ulm school is represented in the exhibition by two pieces: Gugelot’s G 11 / G 12 record player and radio combination, issued in the 1955 the inaugural year of Braun Design, and Gugelot and Rams’ SK 4 phonosuper of the following year. This pair of foundational objects are the first encountered by the visitor.
Prüfplatte A 1, unattributed, ca 1960
An in-house design department was established at Braun in 1960; Dieter Rams was appointed its director in 1961. You can see from the pieces on the bridge shelf how the Ulm style was both retained and transformed in the products issued after the services of Ulm freelancers had been dispensed with. Post-1960 Braun designs remain orderly and rational, according to functionalist principles. But the first designs’ rather Scandinavian-modern references to nature are replaced by a more severe and emphatically industrial material vocabulary.
Just as important was the transformation in the interrelation of individual designs. The Braun audio designs of the 1960s were no longer conceived as single items related to others in the programm by a more or less common aesthetic. Now, the program was thought of as a single integrated system consisting of functionally compatible elements under a fully unified aesthetic regime. In this way the entire Braun programm of the 1960s unfolded as a unitary modular system.
KF 21 coffee machine by Florian Seiffert, 1976
The examples presented in the main space have been selected to express the formal and functional unity and systematicity of the 60s Braun program. The audio designs of this period, all by Dieter Rams, may be divided into two groups: light weight turntables, small radios and speaker units, and larger more substantial system elements. The largest of these at the far end of the room is the Audio 1 integrated system sitting on the ‘kangaroo’ modular stand. Despite the formal variety, the distinctive characteristic of 1960s Braun Design is its overarching coherence. It all ‘locks’ together.
It’s interesting to think that at this time Dieter Rams was also drawing furniture designs on the same principles for production and sale by Vitsoe, then Vitsoe+Zapf. The idea was that audio design, furniture design (and toaster design for that matter) should fuse into a single interlocked whole – a total rational environment that we might imagine extending outwards to the design of buildings, districts and cities…
KM 3 mixer system by Gerd Alfred Müller, 1957
Because space is limited the emphasis of the exhibition is placed on audio products. However, the Braun program of the 1960s also encompassed extensive kitchen, misc. household, lighter, dry shaving and photography ranges. The pair of ‘Das Braun Programm’ posters by the till presents something of this scope.
As in the audio segment, these products related to every other as parts of a rational, aesthetically unified whole. Indeed, the graphic design of these posters itself, in its systematic arrangement on a grid, contributes to this unity, as did the design of every other piece of Braun printed material from packaging down to guarantee cards and instructions for use – see as examples the KF 1000 headphone and MX 1 111 child’s toy.
ABK 20 wall clock by Dietrich Lubs, 1985
Presented on the bay of shelves are a few iconic examples of Braun household products. Of these, Reinhold Weiss’ HL 1 multiwind desk fan and KMM 1 coffee grinder are particularly important. Weiss joined the Braun Company as a graduate of the Ulm School in 1960 and continued to practice systems design according to its original idea. Ram’s designs tended to be simple cubular forms. A tension between rational rigour and idiosyncrasy in the arrangement of control elements provides ‘interest’. Weiss’ designs, on the other hand, are both more fully abstract and three dimensional. The device is broken down into functionally discrete units – base, stem, motor block, fan head, cowl – that are then articulated as sculptural elements, a series of volumes, densities, textures and masses. The result is at once functionally and constructionally concrete, and highly abstract.
It’s interesting to compare Weiss’ functionalism with that of his colleague Gerd Alfred Müller, whose iconic KM 3 food processor sits on the top shelf. Müller articulates the functional elements of the device – motorblock/gearing/tool – with great clarity as distinct strata imposed upon a flowing organic form, a horizontally ordered series of cuts. This form encloses the bowl; notice how its lip aligns with the top edge of the gearing block. A distinctive feature of 1960s Braun Design is the fine balance struck between difference and identity. Rams, Weiss and Müller drew up designs with very distinct characters that nevertheless belonged unambiguously to a single programm.
Tonearmwaage tone arm scale by Dieter Rams, 1962
The period of Braun Design is defined as 1955 – 1995, beginning with the first of the modernist designs and ending when Dieter Rams stepped down as Director of the Design Department. However, our exhibition focuses almost entirely on designs issued before 1968. In 1968 the Gillette Company acquired a controlling share in Braun and thereafter stopped the economically irrational practice of cross-subsiding product lines. In particular, profits from the dry shaving sector, which made up the largest part of company earnings were no longer permitted to offset losses incurred by the grandiose design folly that was the Braun audio program.
Interesting as it was, outside a small group of German middle class intellectuals there just wasn’t the demand for it. Post-68 Braun Design was increasingly led by market research, which very quickly brought about the demise of the functionalist adventure in systems design. To be sure, great designs still continued to be produced at Braun after 1968. See for example the astonishing KF 21 coffee filter on the plinth opposite the shelves. But these tend to stand out as singular designs. Shaped by marketing requirements, what remained of the programm increasingly found itself reflecting existing conditions. Perhaps, the expansive ‘kangaroo’ system stand (of which only a small part is shown here) represents the last attempt at designing in a truly utopian mode, that is, one that reaches beyond what presently exists to something qualitatively new…
Under the present stewardship of Proctor and Gamble, owners of the Gillette Company, Braun continues to extend the company tradition of offering products of the highest quality in terms of design and manufacture. Its offering is now almost entirely restricted to personal grooming. Recently, a number of interesting discontinued products of the Braun Design period have been re-issued. Amongst these are Rams’ DW 30 digital watch of 1979, Dietrich Lubs’ AB 30 vs alarm clock and Rams and Lubs’ superb ET 66 calculator. These are displayed for sale in the till area.
London Design Festival 2013: Lebanese designer Najla El Zein has sent us this movie showing her 5000 spinning paper windmills being installed in a doorway at the V&A museum in London (+ movie).
In the movie, Zein says that the installation aims to make visitors feel and hear that they are transitioning between two spaces. “It defines an exaggeration of a specific sensorial moment that each one of us experiences throughout our daily lives,” she says.
“The wind portal tries to grasp and emphasise common emotions and senses that are often forgotten,” she adds.
The film also shows the designer creating each of the windmills by hand-folding paper and fixing them in place with hand-sculpted wooden joints. Each windmill is then attached to the vertical poles with 3D-printed clips.
A computerised wind system controls which windmills spin at any time by letting air escape through tiny holes in the uprights. “Different speeds of wind were programmed, resulting in different speeds, sounds and feelings,” explains the designer.
Later in the film, visitors can be seen walking through the two parted gates, which although static, appear to be shut when viewed from certain angles. “According to the angle you are positioned, one would perceive the gate as being closed. As soon as you approach it the gate seems to open up,” Zein says.
Photography and films are courtesy of Najla El Zein Studio.
Here’s a full project description from the designer:
The Wind Portal
The Wind Portal is a walk-through installation that represents a transition space from an inside to an outside area. It defines an exaggeration of a specific sensorial moment that each one of us experiences throughout our daily lives.
Wind and sound are the elements that makes us understand our environmental context.
The Wind Portal installation is shaped as a monumental gate of eight metre-high and composed of thousands of paper windmills that spin, thanks to an integrated wind system.
The aim was to make visitors feel, hear and become aware of transitioning through two spaces.
The wind portal tries to grasp and emphasise on common emotions and senses that are often forgotten.
Its architectural shape works as an illusion effect where, according to the angle you are positioned from, one would perceive the gate as being closed. As soon as you approach it the gate seems to open up.
The installation blends in different technologies and materials such as hand-folded paper windmills, hand-sculpted wooden joints, 3D printed clips, and a complex wind and light computerised system.
Different flows of wind are programmed resulting into different speeds, sounds and feelings. The light, which seems to play with the wind flow, gives us an impression of a breathing piece. Indeed, the gate breathes in and out, where wind is its main source of life.
Studio team: Najla El Zein, Dina Mahmoud, Sara Moundalek, Sarah Naim Lighting designer and automation: Maurice Asso and Hilights
Neon words and symbols embellish the exterior of this temporary wooden pavilion inside the new Library of Birmingham by designers Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan (+ slideshow).
Designer Morag Myerscough collaborated with artist and designer Luke Morgan to install the pavilion in the new library in Birmingham, England, which was completed earlier this summer by Dutch studio Mecanoo.
The pavilion will host an 18-week programme of workshops with artists, film makers and book makers, and is aimed at challenging people’s perceptions of what libraries can offer.
“The pavilion is meant to be something of a ‘curiosity box’ which closes on Sunday night, undergoes transformation the following day and then when the doors open on Tuesday has become a totally new space depending on what that week’s resident has planned,” said Myerscough.
Brightly coloured words such as “delight”, “discover” and “fantasy” adorn flags attached to the top of the structure and originate from workshops the designers held with youth arts group Birmingham 2022.
“We wanted to greet visitors with a smile and a celebration of the word,” added Myerscough. “It encourages conversation and fun.”
Large openings let light permeate the roof of the pavilion, which is made up of peaks with different sizes and proportions.
A large table surrounded by colourful metal stools forms the central workspace, while exposed wooden battens on the interior walls double up as shelves for displaying images and objects.
Centrepiece of the dramatic lobby of the new Library of Birmingham is a temporary pavilion created by Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan. The Pavilion is a multifunctional structure designed to house an 18 week programme of creative residencies for the Discovery Season. Artists, film makers, book makers and a range of other creatives will set up home in The Pavilion for a week at a time, making new work and offering a variety of free activities for visitors. The Discovery Season curated by Capsule is a dynamic mix of exhibitions, activities and performances, with the aim to challenge perceptions of what a library can be.
Entirely hand-crafted, The Pavilion has been designed to reflect the diverse and often radical Discovery Season creative residency programme including. The timber single-storey structure is topped with a neon ‘crown’ of signs emblazoned with words that originated from workshops held with youth arts group Birmingham 2022.
Myerscough, Morgan and two assistants hand-painted the exterior walls with symbols used in on-line communication, embracing digital with an analogue technique. “We wanted to greet visitors with a smile and a celebration of the word,” she says. “It encourages conversation and fun.”
The interior of the timber box structure has been kept as simple and raw as possible, allowing each resident to change the space as much as they wish. Battens can be used as ad hoc shelves, while the ceiling is made from wooden slats which provides views of the neon rooftop signs and delivers a striking internal dappled lighting effect.
Two sides of the structure feature full-height double doors while the others have large windows. These can either be swung open for transparency or closed to create a more intimate environment for projected installations, in stark contrast to the Library’s vast lobby space.
“The Pavilion is also meant to be something of a ‘curiosity box’ which closes on Sunday night, undergoes transformation the following day and then when the doors open on Tuesday has become a totally new space depending on what that week’s resident has planned,” Myerscough adds.
The Pavilion was erected on site in just two weeks, and was designed to make best use of a space directly opposite the Library’s main entrance. It snugly fits between concrete pillars, working within tight spatial restrictions imposed by the Library’s fire protection system.
As part of the Discovery Season, Studio Myerscough also hosted a week-long residency using the intricate interlocking aluminium patterns of the cladding for the Mecanoo-designed Library as inspiration to create a new A to Z font with the people of Birmingham. Designed to be completely demountable, it is hoped that a new home for the Pavilion will be found at the end of the Discovery Season.
Le designer français Lionel Doyen s’associe avec Dickson, fabricant de tissus pour la marque Sunbrella, pour créer Swing : une balançoire faite d’une cage de tiges de métal autour de laquelle on a enroulé des sangles de tissu. Une façon très design de prouver la résistance des matériaux à découvrir en images.
Movie: in our final movie from garden trade show Spoga+Gafa, French designer Thibault Penven demonstrates his folding boat, which won first prize in the Unique Youngstar competition for outdoor products by young designers.
The structure is stiffened by a wooden bench across the middle of the boat and two collapsible rods, which slide into loops along the rim like tent poles.
“This foldable boat is easier to use than an inflatable boat,” says Penven, who demonstrates in the movie how quick it is to put together and take apart.
“When you have a rigid boat it is so expensive to keep it on the shore, so I decided to design a boat that you can carry from home to the lake or the river.”
Penven developed Ar Vag as part of his course at Ecole Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland and admits that he was nervous when testing out his first prototype.
“At the beginning I was a little bit afraid,” he says. “But with this one, the yellow one, its very rigid and very stable. So you go straight and you are very [relaxed] inside.”
He adds: “It’s very strong. The weight of the boat is around 20-25 kilograms but it is still in development, so I’m trying to make it less heavy.”
Product news: German designer Annika Frye has designed a rotation-moulded lighting range with visible seams (+ movie).
The SEAM polymer plaster lights are created using a rotation-moulding machine, which Annika Frye constructed herself.
The lampshade evolved over months of experimentation with various mould shapes and additives such as wood and textiles.
The shade is built up in three layers, each with a different colour.
First the mould is screwed together and attached to the centre of the machine. It’s then filled with the first polymer plastic mixture.
Powered by an electric motor, the machine rotates in three directions simultaneously so the liquid covers the inside of the mould.
After drying, another coloured layer of mixture is added to the inside of the mould and the rotation process is repeated.
The mould is discarded after final drying, leaving the product with a smooth outer surface and the seam of the mould visible.
The bottom of the lamp is cut off and sanded, revealing the irregularities of the casting process on the inside.
The light comes in green, white or red and the fixture is made from sandblasted plexiglass.
These pendant lights are currently on show at the MAK Vienna as part of an exhibition entitled New Nomadic Furniture. They will also show during Vienna Design Week 2013.
“The last publication on your site was great, a lot of people contacted me and I had lectures, exhibitions and other invitations,” Frye told us. “This project is basically the application of the experimental process on a regular product that I can make myself.”
The pendant light SEAM was originally a test shape that I designed to experiment with my DIY- rotational moulding machine. After some months of experimentation with different shapes and additives such as wood or textiles, I decided to use one test shape to improve the process. I tested all kinds of mixtures of polymer plaster with my test shape and I also did some colour experiments. I started to write down everything I did, like laboratory workers do.
The Machine
The rotational moulding machine (a simple construction) that was used to make the lampshades. It looks less fancy than the other machine I made, it’s only a tool. This machine is the real improvisation in this project, while the the lampshade is not really improvised.
The Process
The outcome of my colour and material experimentation is a simple lampshade. The moulding process compromises three steps with different layers and different colours. The seam of the moulding process is still visible in the product, so are the irregularities of casting process. The drops inside the lampshade refer to the movement of the machine. The lampshade comes in different colours: green, white and red. It has a smooth surface on the outside, while the inside shows irregularities that refer to the DIY- rotational moulding process. The outside is sanded and covered with a protective layer of vaseline.
The Fixture
Because of the irregular material thickness, the lamp needs a special fixture that enables the user to adjust the lampshade. The fixture was made from sandblasted plexiglass. It also works as a diffusor. The special fixture also determines the form of the lampshade: a bigger hole is necessary at the top of the shade in order to adjust the lampshade, the light passes through. Every lampshade has a slightly different surface due to the rotational moulding process. The mould that was used to make the lampshades. The bottom part of the shade is cut off later.
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