Rotterdam and Paris architects Ooze have collaborated with artist Marjetica Potrc to create a community garden and water treatment plant on an island in Essen, Germany. (more…)
Dezeen podcast: curator Nina Due gives a guided tour of the Sustainable Futures exhibition on show at the Design Museum in London. (more…)
Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has designed a conceptual transport system that would involve airships powered by seaweed. (more…)
by Jose R. Mejia
What happens when you task four leading architects with redeveloping a historic Milanese neighborhood? Multiply that by €523 million and you get an equally historic seven-year endeavor, breaking records and creating an entirely new blueprint for cities of the future.
CityLife, the catch-all name for the project, will end up being Milan’s first zero-emissions neighborhood. Comprised of residences, offices and retail space, the new architectural phenomenon will include three bold skyscrapers designed by Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, and Arata Isozaki.
At the core of the development, a centralized park—designed to operate both as a pretty public attraction and an eco-engineering feat—will purify air and normalize temperatures.
Slated to become Italy’s tallest building, Isozaki’s Il Dritto, will tower at 715 feet. His love for spartan design makes a strong statement through the simple, elegant structure.
Hadid’s tower, Lo Storto, will connect to the tube station (along with Il Dritto), housing retailers and apartments. The slick design highlights her mastery of form and curvature, seen recently in the MAXXI Art Museum. Hadid explains her process, “The dynamism of the surrounding urban fabric was the subject of our formal investigations and inspired the geometry of the project.”
Libeskind deconstructed the classic shape into Il Curvo, a strange pairing of curved, half-moon glass and sharp concrete. Both dreamy and urban, the edifice represents the metropolitan idealism of CityLife.
Intended to work as a fully-formed neighborhood from its opening in 2014, the mix of offices and residences will be complemented by several new cultural buildings, including a new Museum of Contemporary Art, tying together the starchitect-studded vision of utopian living.
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Barcelona-based studio Pöko Design‘ new bulletin boards do double duty—as both a place to pin up notes or bits of inspiration and as an important reminder in the form of a creative design in and of itself.
The cute series of animal cork boards adds a sober touch by depicting the diverse range of species directly under threat from climate change. Produced by Kikkerland (which means “frog land” in Dutch), the collection, called Affected, features a polar bear, a migratory songbird and, appropriately, a treefrog.
Designer Petz Scholtus tells us that each of these animals is already experiencing the effects of rising global temperatures on their natural habitats. “The thinning ice at the Arctic Circle leaves fewer places for both the polar bears to hunt. Songbirds are particularly sensitive to both temperature and their habitats, so warmer seasons worldwide may mean that you won’t be hearing some of those old familiar songs in years to come. International trade, deforestation and climate change causes the spread of the chytrid fungus, which causes chytridiomycosis and it has virtually made tree frogs extinct.”
Sad as the decline of these three is, the unbelievable truth is extinction currently threatens over 17,000 species. Arriving at a time when the recent Gulf oil spill’s horribly large reminder drives home the point that human actions can cause great environmental damage.
Not only the form of the boards but also their material reminds us of the importance of biodiversity. Explains Scholtus, “By using cork, we keep the cork oak forests alive, one of the most sustainable natural habitats and home of several endangered species with the highest level of biodiversity in southwest Europe and northwest Africa.” What’s more, 2% of the boards’ proceeds will be donated to Tree-Nation to fight desertification, climate change, poverty, and CO2 emissions by planting more trees in the world.
No one likes to be beaten on the head with an eco-stick, so we appreciate the Affected bulletin boards for their simple beauty and their quiet daily “memo to self” that we need to watch what we’re doing to our planet.
The bulletin boards sell for $20 each from Kikkerland.
Con le classiche fascette in plastica ho risolto una marea di fix, queste però a forma di foglia sono grandiose! Disegnate da lufdesign gli stessi della Fork The Cables…spero si trovino in vendita da qualche parte!
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Folgorante idea di lufdesign per questo arrotola-cavo per iPhone/iPod. Non so se è ancora un prototipo oppure sia già in produzione, se avete maggiori info, fatecelo sapere!
La scorsa settimana un gruppo di ciclisti berlinesi hanno versato vari galloni di vernice a base d’acqua nella trafficata Rosenthaler Platz di Berlino. Le auto, praticamente costrette a passarci sopra, hanno colorato l’intero incrocio, l’effetto lo potete vedere da queste foto qui sotto. Io ci vedrei bene piazza San Babila qui a Milano, magari verso le 6 del venerdì pomeriggio!
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Seed bombs—a simple mixture of clay, fertilizer and plant seeds—are a favored form of DIY “drop-and-go” weaponry among gardeners taking the greening of public spaces into their own hands. To aid the expansion of the guerrilla gardening movement in its persistent goal of transforming forgotten or abandoned urban landscapes into greener spaces, L.A.-based design firm Common Studio came up with pre-made seed bombs.
As part of the interdisciplinary studio’s “Greenaid” concept, they repurposed old quarter-operated candy machines to vend single seed bombs. Anyone can purchase one of the machines (approximately $400 each), which generate profit as they impact the local area’s chances of becoming host to more colorful plant life by making seed bombs more accessible. As an added incentive, Common Studio will supply the seed bombs in mixes specifically developed for the local environment and its ecology. Interested buyers can get a quote on the vending machines by emailing them at “info [at] thecommonstudio [dot] com.”
Similarly, the Cincinnati-based design firm VisuaLingual developed its own make of seed bombs. Available in three region-specific formulas—East Coast, West Coast and Midwest—each yields a colorful mix of florals. The pods come in satchels of five ($7) and sell through the company’s Etsy shop.
For a more thorough look at both the histories and how-tos of guerrilla gardening, check out Richard Reynold’s book “On Guerrilla Gardening: A Handbook for Gardening Without Boundaries,” available from Amazon or Powell’s.
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.
