Scholten & Baijings installed a large dining table set for a party of guests in the ornate gilded Norfolk House Music Room in the British Galleries of the V&A museum.
Cutlery is skewed, glasses are half full and food is strewn across the table, as if the party is in progress but all the guests have vanished.
“The visitor enters just seconds after the guests have left to smoke a cigarette in the garden,” said the designers. “One can use this unguarded moment to look at the luxurious dinner table and the interior undisturbed.”
The Dinner Party/True-to-life Design – Still Life by Scholten & Baijings London Design Festival at the Victoria & Albert Museum 2013
In galleries and museums, design objects are frequently displayed on pedestals or in glass vitrines but rarely in something resembling the everyday living environment for which they were conceived. In the context of London Design Festival, Scholten & Baijings will be turning things around for a change. Or, rather, inside out. Because for nine days Scholten & Baijings will transform The Norfolk House Music Room in the British Galleries in the V&A Museum into a completely dinner setting in a lived-in home.
Photograph by Susan Smart
True to life
Visitors might hesitate to walk into the gallery because it looks so much like a lifelike dinner setting. The cleaning people have received special instructions to ensure that they don’t tidy up certain parts of the exhibition.
Objective
The objective of the presentation is to let people see things in a different way. More adventurously, because many designs are only discovered at a second glance. More objectively, because there are no nameplates, so that the boundaries between exclusive design and mass products become blurred and prejudices disappear.
“The visitor enters just seconds after the guests have left to smoke a cigarette in the garden. One can use this unguarded moment to look at the luxurious dinner table and the interior undisturbed. The music is playing softly…”
Architecture firm dRMM has combined fifteen staircases to create an Escher-style installation outside Tate Modern, ahead of the London Design Festival beginning tomorrow (+ slideshow).
“Stairs are always the most interesting things about architecture, they’re places where people meet,” dRMM co-founder Alex de Rijke told Dezeen at this morning’s opening presentation.
The interlocking wooden staircases are configured to create a maze of walkways and a viewpoints towards the city’s skyline across the Thames.
“It’s up to you what you want to look at, it gets you up high so you can see out over the river to St Paul’s,” de Rijke told us.
Visitors can climb up, down, over and under the structure, with some stairs leading from one to another and others to dead ends.
Steps and balustrades are made from cross-laminated timber panels of tulipwood taken from offcuts usually used for skirting boards.
The vertical panels used to form hand rails overlap to look like treads turned on their side, adding to the optical illusion.
“St Paul’s was an interesting site but it was very constricted, the project was difficult to realise there whereas this space is much more open,” de Rijke. “This seemed like the best possible place to put it.”
Canadian lighting brand Bocci has installed a giant chandelier of colourful glass spheres in the main hall of the V&A museum for the London Design Festival, which kicks off on Saturday (+ slideshow).
“To finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us,” said Arbel. “We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.”
The chandelier descends 30 metres from the ceiling of the first floor gallery and through a hole in the floor to emerge into the museum’s main atrium.
Glass lights are scattered down the column of copper wires that falls straight at the top of the piece, then splays outward haphazardly in the foyer.
A surreal light installation by Bocci created as part of the London Design Festival exhibits at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
During this year’s London Design Festival eleventh edition, the Canadian design brand Bocci will present a lighting installation at the festival’s hub venue, the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Entitled 28.280 and designed by Omer Arbel, the installation is a massive vertically punctuated light installation located at the main atrium of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The installation, featuring Bocci’s celebrated 28, will descend through the large existing void cutting through the entire length of the V&A building, with an astonishing height of more than 30 meters. The intent of the installation is twofold; On the one hand, it is a pure celebration of the monumental open height of the building, which uses light to crystallise a powerful phenomenological experience for the viewer. On the other hand, it is the most ambitious exploration to date of a novel glass blowing technique.
28 is an exploration of a fabrication process – part of Arbel’s and Bocci’s quest for specificity. Instead of designing form itself, here the intent was to design a system that haphazardly yields form, almost as a byproduct. 28 pendants result from a complex glass blowing technique whereby air pressure is introduced into and then removed from a glass matrix which is intermittently heated and then rapidly cooled. The result is a distorted spherical shape with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of which is made of opaque milk glass and houses a light source.
280 of these discreet 28 units will be hung within a 30 metre vertical drop, suspended by a novel, perhaps awkward and heavy copper suspension system, that promises to have as much presence or more than the glass it supports. The installation continues Omer’s personal research into the process of making, and documents Arbel’s remarkable journey as an articulator of form.
“We have always dreamed of mounting a light installation in a very very tall space… In the world of ideas, a tall space is the most appropriate environment for our pieces (abstractly speaking, I could say the ONLY environment for our pieces). Hence, to have the opportunity to finally build a piece in a very tall space, and at the V&A no less, really excites us on both a personal and professional level. We’ve envisioned the most ambitious iteration of our 28 to date.” – Omer Arbel
Norwegian design firm Hunting & Narud is exhibiting a range of large pivoting copper mirrors with stone bases in London during the London Design Festival, which starts on Saturday (+ slideshow).
The Copper Mirrors Series by London based design duo Amy Hunting and Oscar Narud of Hunting & Narud consists of a range of polished circular copper discs that are attached to mild steel frames.
The pivoting mirrors can be spun 180 degrees and each mirror has a large grey stone positioned at the base.
Hunting and Narud have said that the mirrors were “inspired by the visual language and movement of the different elements of the solar system.”
The mirrors were originally conceived for Fashion Scandinavia at Somerset House earlier this year, during London Fashion Week 2013. They are on display at Gallery Libby Sellers in London until 5 October 2013 and feature as a pre-cursor to London Design Festival 2013, which is open from 14 to 22 September.
Here are more public spaces on the back of bikes: a swarm of tiny mobile parks covered in grass are being pedalled around the city of Baku this month (+ slideshow).
Designed by John Bela of design firm Rebar Group and Till Wolfer of Scandinavian collective N55, the Parkcycle Swarm project consists of four pedal-powered miniature parks.
Each one has a bike in the centre and is surrounded by a rectangular metal frame with a grassy surface. One of the parks has a tree attached to the frame and another folds up like a sun lounger.
They can be cycled to a chosen location and installed for public use. Visitors to the micro-green spaces are encouraged to take a break, have some lunch, relax and sunbathe.
The project intends to highlight new possibilities of public installations and to raise awareness of cycling, community participation and the value of green space, according to the designers.
Parkcycle Swarm will be traveling around the Azerbaijan capital city as part of arts organisation Yarat’s Public Arts Festival called Participate this month.
A joint project by N55 and Rebar Group, Parkcycle Swarm has landed for August-September 2013 at PARTICIPATE: Baku Public Art Festival 2013, produced by YARAT.
The work joins YARAT’s founder comments, “Parkcycle Swarm is a brilliant addition to the Public Art Festival, helping expand our expectations of ‘public art’ and creating a social, green space wherever its components travel. We hope to inspire artists and the public alike with our programme, so we are delighted to welcome both the Parkcycle Swarm and Rebar group’s director John Bela to give a lecture at YARAT.”
Parkcycle Swarm consists of four small mobile parks, which are being cycled through the city. Described by Rebar group as a “human-powered, open space distribution system,” Parkcycle debuted in San Francisco in 2007, offering immediate access to green space for the neighbourhoods it parked in. By bringing the project to Baku, Rebar Group aims to expand the possibilities of public sculpture whilst raising awareness of cycle-power, community participation and the importance of green space.
Works at the Baku Public Art Festival 2013 range from a giant Rubber Duck by Florentijn Hofman (Netherlands), which arrives on 5 September, to Farkhad Haqverdi’s (Azerbaijan) Yard Art initiative, which has transformed Baku’s most neglected spaces, through to a performance and installation 9th Apartment by Georgian collective Group Bouillon, which questioned post-Soviet ideas of public and private space.
Parkcycle Swarm will be followed by Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck, landing in Baku 5 September.
About YARAT
Founded in 2011 by Aida Mahmudova, YARAT is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally.
Based in Baku, YARAT, (which means ‘create’ in Azerbaijani) realises its mission through an ongoing program of exhibitions, education events, and festivals. YARAT facilitates dialogue and exchange between local and international artistic networks, including foundations, galleries and museums. A series of residencies further fosters opportunities for global cultural dialogue and partnerships.
YARAT’s educational initiatives include lectures, seminars, master classes, and the Young Artist Project ARTIM (meaning ‘progress’ in Azerbaijani). ARTIM aims to encourage the next generation of Azerbaijani creative talent to seek a career in the arts and gives young practitioners the opportunity to exhibit their works in a professional context.
Founded as part of YARAT’s ongoing commitment to growing local art infrastructure, YAY Gallery is a commercial exhibition space. In line with this, YAY (meaning SHARE in Azerbaijani) shares all proceeds from sales between the artist and YARAT and supports a range of national and international artists.
“Cricklewood is a community with no public space: no town hall, no library, no square, not even a single bench,” explained the designers. “The square will take the form of a civic folly on the back of a rickshaw bicycle, housing everything necessary to create a bona fide town square, including benches, stools, a clock tower, games and signage.”
The miniature square will be installed at a number of temporary locations, including outside a DIY superstore, on a pavement near a bingo hall and a rooftop car park. It will be used to host events for the local community such as dances and film screenings.
“The project aims to show what public space can do for a community, and how even these scraps of land can be used to create a sense of place,” said the designers.
When the town square is fully installed it covers 10 metres squared. The mobile folly including the bicycle is 1.22 metres wide and 2.8 metres long. It rises to 3.2 metres in height.
It has a custom-made five-wheeled base with 12 millimetre plywood covering, faux-brick cladding and a hand-made clock. Inside, there is a collection of furniture including umbrellas, benches, tables and chairs.
“The structure is both a practical solution – a vehicle to move the kit around – and a folly, providing a civic backdrop, helping to frame the spaces,” said designer Kieren Jones. “I hope this playful solution can be the town hall that Cricklewood never had.”
Cricklewood Town Square will be travelling around north London until 28 September. It will also be exhibited at the RIBA Forgotten Spaces exhibition at Somerset House in London, which runs from 4 October to 10 November 2013.
Spacemakers produce the world’s first mobile town square
Spacemakers, the civic design agency behind the successful transformation of Brixton Village market, has enlisted Studio Hato and Studio Kieren Jones to create the world’s first mobile town square. Constructed from a clever kit of parts, the innovative town square will travel by bike and move across north London from 31 August to 28 September, inhabiting patches of disused land and turning them into vibrant public spaces for all.
Cricklewood, north west London, has an intriguing history but little civic amenities left to show for its heritage – not only is there no town hall or library, there’s not even a single public bench. Now the team that created the cult Brixton Village renaissance are turning their attentions north, seeking to highlight the dire lack of public space in Cricklewood via their ingenious mobile town square.
Designed and built by Studio Kieren Jones, the mobile town square will emerge in a series of forgotten spaces: from an unloved patch of grass next to B&Q, to an empty pavement outside a bingo hall, and even a rooftop car park. The square will take the form of a civic folly on the back of a rickshaw bicycle, housing everything necessary to create a bona fide town square, including benches, stools, a clocktower, games and signage.
To bring the Capital’s newest public space to life Londoners are invited to join in, with a dynamic programme of events running throughout the installation, from dog shows and chess championships, to tea dances and debates. Many of the events play on Cricklewood’s little known past, with film screenings on a car park roof referencing the area’s long lost film studios, and a DIY library where locals can read books by the town’s famous literary progeny.
Designer Kieren Jones explains: “In response to the relative lack of civic space in Cricklewood, I have created a miniature and mobile town hall, which will enable the activation of places and spaces within the town centre that have been previously underused. The structure will also house a set of bespoke furniture, using local suppliers, that can be flexibly deployed. The clock tower is a reference to the Smiths clock factory that used to exist in Cricklewood, and to the decorative clock that used to exist on Anson Road, but which was sold for scrap during the war.
The structure is both a practical solution – a vehicle to move the kit around – and a folly, providing a civic backdrop, helping to frame the spaces. Cricklewood has a thriving community, but no space for this community to exist. In a way, I hope this playful solution can be the town hall that Cricklewood never had.”
The fully installed space will be up to 10 metres squared, the mobile folly including the bicycle is 1.22m wide x 2.8m long x 3.2m tall and made from a bespoke, dip-coated 5-wheeled bike base, a steel frame, with 12mm plywood covering, faux-brick cladding (polyurethane, resin and brick dust) and a hand-made clock. The square’s furniture is made from a welded steel base, dip-coated in Cricklewood by local car-resprayers and finished with locally sourced, reclaimed wood.
Studio Hato were tasked with creating the signage and graphics for the square. Their solution was to come up with a DIY sign-making workshop, where local people could use stencils to create their own signs, and set their own rules, for the space.
A unique font, based on the standard British ‘transport’ font used on street signs across the country, has been created, and will be applied using stencils to pre-cut, temporary boards, with marker pens in official signage colours: blue, red, green and brown. Wayfinding signs will also be created, pointing towards the square, and re-positioned each time the square moves.
For Spacemakers it’s the incidental activities which take place on the structure which will be the most fascinating element of all, as project director Tom James reveals: “It’s these unplanned elements that will really generate the social life of these squares, attracting passers by. Our project is all about giving local people permission to sit, rest, play and meet in these spaces. This free, public space, open to everyone, is vital to making any place feel like a real community.”
James notes that the project aims to show people what’s possible, even in these scraps of land, but more than this, it aims to start a conversation. “We hope to use this project to get an idea into Cricklewood, to set a precedent that local people can use to help them work towards a permanent public space. The structure will stay in the community long-term: but just as important is the inspiration.”
Cricklewood Town Square is funded by the Mayor’s Outer London Fund, as part of a set of interventions in Cricklewood, led by Gort Scott Architects.
Cricklewood Town Square director Tom James is a writer and urbanist. His previous projects include GO, a cult fanzine about Sheffield which was named as one of Britain’s Top Ten Arts Secrets by the Observer, featured at the Venice Biennale for architecture in 2006, and is part of the V&A’s Permanent Art Collection; and Sheffield Publicity Department, an imaginary tourist board for Sheffield.
Furniture
Kieren Jones is a designer and maker. His award winning work includes the Sea Chair project, a method of harnessing waste plastic in the oceans to make furniture, and the Blue Fence project: a proposal to reuse olympic fencing to create social furniture. In 2006, his ‘Flatpack Rearranged’ project, repurposing Ikea furniture, gave rise to the ‘Ikea Hacking’ subculture. Kieren leads the Materials Futures MA course at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.
News:Jean Nouvel’s One Central Park residential tower in Sydney will feature the world’s tallest vertical garden by inventor of living walls, Patrick Blanc.
Blanc, who has been designing living walls for over 30 years, has been working with Nouvel to install plants and vines up the 166-metre facade of Sydney’s One Central Park tower – which when completed later this year will become the tallest living wall in the world.
“The building, together with my vertical garden, will be an architectural work floating in the air, with plants growing on the walls – it will create a very special result that will be very new to Sydney,” said Blanc.
The vertical garden consists of 190 native Australian and 160 exotic plant species. The shrubbery covers 50 percent of the building’s facade and according to the designers intends to extend the greenery from the adjacent park onto the building.
The Central Park project by Ateliers Jean Nouvel consists of two adjoining residential towers that house 624 apartments. Nouvel’s towers are 116 metres and 64.5 metres in height and are part of a larger mixed-use development that includes apartments, shops, cafes, restaurants and office units.
The tallest tower features a large cantilever that contains 38 luxury penthouse apartments. On the underneath, there is a heliostat of motorised mirrors that direct sunlight down onto the surrounding gardens. After nightfall the cantilever is used as a canvas for a LED light installation by artist Yann Kersalé.
Public tours of Central Park project were held in June and the development is due for completion by January 2014.
Patrick Blanc, the inventor of living walls, has completed his latest vertical garden, covering the side of a five-storey Parisian block with waves of 7600 plants (+ slideshow).
L’Oasis D’Aboukir (the Oasis of Aboukir) is a 25-metre-high green wall by botanist and researcher Patrick Blanc, which covers a building facade in the second arrondissement of the city.
The wall features plants from 237 different species and appears to grow up the facade in diagonal waves. It was planted in the spring and covers the previously raw concrete facade on the corner of Aboukir Street and Petits Carreaux street.
“I am very happy to contribute to the welfare and environmental consciousness of the inhabitants of a historic district in the heart of Paris,” said Blanc, who has been creating green walls for more than 30 years.
During Milan Design Week 2013 Nike introduced The Art + Science of Super Natural Motion, a live body-mapping exhibition developed by digital artists Universal Everything, Daniel Widrig and Quayola + Sinigaglia to interpret Nike Free…
Japanese architect Kengo Kuma has bent bamboo into walkways and seating areas at this year’s Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea, which opens today.
Kengo Kuma spilt the bamboo into three-centimetre-wide strips to make it easy to bend, so visitors to the Gwangju Design Biennale can walk over or recline on the springy surfaces.
Bamboo is a common material in both Japanese and Korean architecture and Kuma used it in this installation for its flexibility and tactility.
“The objective of my exhibit at the Biennale is to reconnect the human body with architecture,” said Kuma.
On each section the ends of the bamboo strips are attached along two edges of a fixed base, bowing up against each other where the two sides meet in the middle.
This causes one side to curl back on itself and the other to flow over the top, making a wave shape.
The curves create seating areas that can be leant up against or laid down on.
At the biennale the waves outside form a twenty-metre-long passage between two exhibition halls, where loose strands along the top quiver in the wind.
The direction of the waves is alternated so one side is always open but the walkway is constantly covered.
The same design continues inside one of the galleries, where staggered sections create smaller pockets of seating space.
In the dark exhibition space elements are lit from below, illuminating the splaying strands.
Open until 3 November, the Gwangju Design Biennale also features the travelling Designed To Win exhibition of sport equipment first shown last year at London’s Design Museum during the Olympic Games.
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