Hasta La Ideas

Ithaca design studio CODA has installed a wall that squirts water and is clad with skateboard offcuts in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 in New York.

Party Wall was the winning entry of this year’s Young Architects Program, an annual contest organised by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for a temporary installation offering seating, shade and water during the outdoor events of the MoMA PS1 contemporary art gallery.

CODA‘s installation is a steel-framed structure that functions as a giant aqueduct. Water travels alongs the top of the wall and is forced by a pressure tank to form a fountain, feeding a misting station and a series of paddling pools.

The cladding is made from interlocking wooden panels, recognisable as the offcuts from a skateboard manufacturer. There are also 120 removable elements that can function as benches or tables.

Water-filled plastic pillows are suspended inside the structure and help weight it down. At night, these inflatable elements are illuminated and glow through the gaps in the facade.

Party Wall will remain in place until the end of August and will be used during the annual Warm Up event – a showcase of experimental music and sound.

CODA fended off a shortlist of five architects to win the competition in January, becoming the fourteenth studio to participate in the programme. Last year’s installation was a blue spiky air-cleaning sculpture by HWKN, while previous editions have been completed by SO-IL, Interboro Partners and Ball-Nogues.

See more stories about MoMA and MoMA PS1 »

Photography is by Charles Roussel.

Here’s some more information from MoMA:

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 Present Party Wall by CODA, winner of the 2013 Young Architects Program, at MoMA PS1 in New York

The Museum of Modern Art and MoMA PS1 announce the opening of Party Wall, the CODA (Caroline O’Donnell, Ithaca, NY)–designed winner of the annual Young Architects Program (YAP) in New York. Now in its 14th edition, the Young Architects Program at MoMA and MoMA PS1 is committed to offering emerging architectural talent the opportunity to design and present innovative projects, challenging each year’s winners to develop creative designs for a temporary, outdoor installation at MoMA PS1 that provides shade, seating, and water. The architects must also work within guidelines that address environmental issues, including sustainability and recycling. CODA, drawn from among five finalists, designed a temporary urban landscape for the 2013 Warm Up summer music series in MoMA PS1’s outdoor courtyard.

Party Wall is a pavilion and flexible experimental space that uses its large-scale, linear form to provide shade for the Warm Up crowds, in addition to other functions.

The porous facade is affixed to a tall self-supporting steel frame that is balanced in place with large fabric containers filled with water, and clad with a screen of interlocking wooden elements comprised of donated from Comet, an Ithaca-based manufacturer of eco-friendly skateboards.

The lower portion of the Party Wall’s facade is capable of shedding its “exterior,” as 120 panels can be detached from the structure and used as benches and communal tables during Warm Up and other diverse events and programs such as lectures, classes, performances, and film screenings.

A shallow stage of reclaimed wood weaves around Party Wall’s base to create a series of micro-stages for performances of varying types and scales. At various locations under the structure, pools of water serve as refreshing cooling stations that can also be covered to provide additional staging space or a shaded area from the direct sunlight.

Party Wall’s steel-angle structure is ballasted by water-filled “pillows” made of polyester base fabric that will be lit at night to produce a luminous effect. Party Wall acts as an aqueduct by carrying a stream of water along the top of the structure. The water is projected from the structure, via a pressure-tank, into a fountain that feeds a misting station and a series of pools.

“CODA’s proposal was selected because of its clever identification and use of locally available resources—the waste products of skateboard-making—to make an impactful and poetic architectural statement within MoMA PS1’s courtyard,” said Pedro Gadanho, Curator in MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design. “Party Wall arches over the various available spaces, activating them for different purposes, while making evident that even the most unexpected materials can always be reinvented to originate architectural form and its ability to communicate with the public.”

“CODA developed an outstanding, iconic design that will support the many social functions of our large-scale group exhibition EXPO 1: New York, while creating a unique and stunning object for our outdoor galleries,” added Klaus Biesenbach, Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.

The other finalists for this year’s MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program were Leong Architects (New York, NY, Dominic Leong, Chris Leong); Moorhead & Moorhead (New York, NY, Granger Moorhead, Robert Moorehead); TempAgency (Charlottesville, VA, and Brooklyn, NY, Leena Cho, Rychlee Espinosa, Matthew Jull, Seth McDowell); and French 2D (Boston, MA, and Syracuse, NY, Anda French, Jenny French).

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at MoMA PS1 appeared first on Dezeen.

Industrial designer Konstantin Grcic has furnished an apartment in Le Corbusier’s iconic Cité Radieuse housing block with his own products and blown-up pages from a punk fanzine (+ slideshow).

Appartement N°50 is a privately owned home in the Modernist apartment block in Marseille, France, which retains the original layout and features designed by Le Corbusier in 1952.

Konstantin Grcic chose to furnish the apartment with pieces including his 360° stools for Magis, Pro chair for Flötotto, chair_ONE for Magis, and Mayday lamps for Flos.

He also scanned pages of a punk fanzine, expanded them and hung them on the walls of the apartment, creating a deliberately enigmatic contrast with the sparsely decorated interior.

“The punk motifs are tempting a slightly devious link between two completely unrelated worlds: Le Corbusier’s architecture and punk rock,” says Grcic.

“Without forcing the idea of common grounds, I find that both have a rawness and uncompromising spirit which I have always found compellingly beautiful. Bringing both cultures together in this project felt most inspiring and, in the end, surprisingly fitting.”

Appartement N°50 has previously hosted temporary installations by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in 2010 and Jasper Morrison in 2008. Grcic’s edition will be open to the public from 15 July to 15 August 2013.

The Cité Radieuse was damaged last August when a fire broke out in a first floor apartment, while French designer Ora-Ïto has overseen the creation of a contemporary art space on the building’s roof that opened this month.

Marseille is the European Capital of Culture 2013 and has seen significant architectural projects completed this year, including a reflective steel canopy by Foster + Partners, an archive and research centre featuring a cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite and a museum clad in lacy concrete.

An exhibition of Le Corbusier’s work is currently on show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

In Milan earlier this year, Grcic launched a collection of furniture designed for Herzog & de Meuron’s Parrish Art Museum in Long Island with American brand Emeco, and a flat LED light inspired by Achille Castiglioni’s Parentesi lamp.

See more stories about Konstantin Grcic »
See more stories about Le Corbusier »

Photography is © Philippe Savoir & Fondation Le Corbusier/ADAGP

Here’s a short text about the installation:

APPT.N50 installation by Konstantin Grcic 2013

There is an apartment in Le Corbusier’s famous Cité Radieuse (radiant city) in Marseille, which is almost completely preserved in its original 1952 condition.

Appt.N°50 is privately owned and it is thanks to the generosity and passion of its owner/occupant that the place is made accessible to a wider public during the summer months of each year.

As proof that Le Corbusier’s visionary Unité d’Habitation has the same vibrancy today as when it was originally conceived the apartment is turned into a temporary stage for the ideas and works of contemporary designers.

A short series of scenographic installations has been realized over the years; my project is the third in line following Jasper Morrison (2008) and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec (2010).

Apart from placing a selection of my favorite furniture and objects I decided to tag the walls of the apartment with four blown up scans from an original punk fanzine. The punk motifs are tempting a slightly devious link between two completely unrelated worlds: Le Corbusier’s architecture and punk rock. Without forcing the idea of common grounds, I find that both have a rawness and uncompromising spirit which I have always found compellingly beautiful. Bringing both cultures together in this project felt most inspiring and, in the end, surprisingly fitting.

The objects in use are: 360° chairs (by Magis), Topkapi marble table (by Marsotto), Miura bar stool (by Plank), 2-Hands laundry basket (by Authentics), Pro chair (by Flötotto), Jerry stools (by Magis), Mayday lamps (by Flos), Medici chairs, side table and foot stool (all by Mattiazzi), 360° container (by Magis), Venice armchair (by Magis), Pallas table and Diana side tables (by ClassiCon), Myto chair (by Plank), Tip bin and H2O buckets (by Authentics), chair_ONE (by Magis).

In contrast to Le Corbusier ́s enigmatic color scheme of the interior, the intervention is kept in iconic red, black and white.

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Appartement N° 50 appeared first on Dezeen.

French designer Matali Crasset is showing a series of mysterious hooded furniture at an exhibition in Paris (+ slideshow).

The group of furniture is entitled the Permanents and is designed to evoke the habits and rituals of an imaginary human community.

Folded sheets of felt create structures that envelop the body and form hoods overhead.

Each piece is given a unique purpose – as a place to lie down, sit or come together – and some incorporate objects including a chair and a wooden bell.

Orange mats or chair coverings inside the felt structures highlight functions and represent the warmth of the body, while the grey shell emphasises its protective quality.

The furniture is being shown at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac together with a film directed by Matali Crasset and Paris and Berlin-based artist Juli Susin, which shows people wearing coloured versions of the hoods performing a series of rituals on an imagined journey to a mystical mountain.

Crasset says: “I think of the exhibition as a space for introspection. I’m interested in presenting elements of a moving and developing line of thought by using formalizations far removed from my usual practice with the ‘exhibition’ object.”

“I question my own practice as much as I question design in all its entrenchments, by thinking of it as an autonomous activity, detached from any basic premise,” she adds. “Thinking, and suggesting hypotheses, is what excites me in this context.”

The exhibition continues until 20 July.

Matali Crasset designed a sofa system comprising two removable upholstered chairs and pebble-like cushions that was launched in Milan earlier this year and she has also created a range of products and furniture made from concrete – see all projects by Matali Crasset.

A chair with armrests that extend to form a protective loop around the sitter was popular on Dezeen this week – see all furniture design.

Here’s some more information about the exhibition from Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac:

Matali Crasset, Voyage to Uchronia, Pantin

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac is delighted to be hosting matali crasset’s project Voyage en Uchronie (‘Voyage to Uchronia’) in our Pantin gallery. Following the exhibition of the blobterre at the Centre Pompidou in 2012, Voyage to Uchronia, crasset’s fifth exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, continues her reflection on experimental environments.

Voyage to Uchronia is a fiction that takes place in a separate time. This exhibition questions notions of utopia and rituals, which are central elements in matali crasset’s practice.

The exhibition is made up of a series of furniture pieces, the Permanents, built around the same structure and a film directed with Juli Susin of the Royal Book Lodge, titled Voyage to Uchronia, salvatico è colui che si salva.

The Permanents

Voyage to Uchronia brings together a group of furniture, the Permanents, that evoke a group of humans and their rituals.

The Permanents are built around a unique form that envelops the body and is present through its various activities. The module partially surrounds the body whilst standing, seated or laying down. The folded form protects the head, inviting us to meditate. The exterior grey color accentuates it’s protective side, the interior has orange areas highlighting an invitation to read, to sit, to lay down, to see, to remember, to listen…

These structures are in their simplest forms, closest to the human being. We recognize in the different elements in this scheme that evoke a primitive life: a chair, a cabinet of curiosities, a portrait gallery, a wooden bell, a puppet, one to lay down in, one used for thinking, for concentrating in and a module to meet others, composed of several Permanents. The pieces are made in felt, a material evoking protection and the unchanging.

Voyage to Uchronia: salvatico è colui che si salva

This film was born out of a collaboration between matali crasset and Juli Susin realized through his collaborative platform: the Royal Book Lodge. It is their first film together and includes Julia Rublow’s participation.

In the forest where the mystical mathematician Pythagoras lived and died, a tribe carries out imaginary rituals. Against the backdrop of water, air and sun, Uchronia’s universe unfolds, a world born out of a collision of figures and colors.

Do other worlds appear and disappear on the way to ours? What remains? Were the numbers at the origin of forms and colors there before us? This transformation of the Pythagorean question where the origin of our civilization crosses path with the future, is a temporal transgression and colorful introspection that gives birth to the film with a pulsating and hypnotic rhythm.
At the end of the film a herd of wild boar gathered around an airplane evoke Leonardo da Vinci’s metaphor “Salvatico è colui che si salva,” which means “Wild he who saves himself.”

Flee into the air? Flee in a dream? Flee in space? Flee human beings?

The artist will always remain an enigma.

About Uchronia

In 1936, Régis Messac offered this definition of Uchronia in Primaires, the review he edited: “An unknown country, discovered by the philosopher Renouvier, located at a remove from time or outside time, to which, like old moons, events that might have happened but did not are relegated”.

The word was invented by Charles Renouvier, who used it in the title of his 1876 novel Uchronie, l’utopie dans l’histoire, (‘Utopia in History’).

Uchronia is a 19th century neologism constructed on the pattern of ‘Utopia’, which Thomas More coined in 1516 as the title of his famous book Utopia. Where the Greek elements ‘u-topia’ suggested ‘no-place’ (ou – topos), ‘u-chronia’ suggests ‘no-time’ (ou-chronos in Greek). Etymologically, therefore, the word designates non-existent time.

This project is part of the Designer’s Days 2013 program.

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at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac appeared first on Dezeen.

These billboards by creative agency Ogilvy & Mather stretch outwards to double as street furniture (+ movie).

Designed for IBM‘s Smarter Cities campaign, the strategy fuses advertising with helpful additions to the street such as benches, shelters and ramps.

Ogilvy & Mather designed one billboard that curves over at the top to form a rain shelter and another that peels up from the wall to create a seat. A ramp covering steps assists those wheeling bicycles or suitcases through the streets.

Each ad uses simple graphics in bold colours to represent its function, with text encouraging users and passers by to interact online.

The billboards were first launched in London and Paris, and IBM intends to roll out the designs across other cities around the world.

Last month we reported that researchers from IBM had redesigned the bus routes across Ivory Coast’s largest city using data from mobile phones.

Other stories about street furniture include a bollard with a foot rest and handle to help cyclists keep their balance at traffic lights and a perforated street lamp.

See more street furniture design »

Ogilvy sent us the extra information below:

IBM & Ogilvy France Create Ads with a New Purpose

IBM is committed to creating solutions that help cities all over the world get smarter, in order to make life in those cities better.

That’s why IBM and Ogilvy are working together to spark positive change with the “People for Smarter Cities” project, and unite city leaders and forward-thinking citizens.

To spread the word, Ogilvy created outdoor advertising with a purpose: a bench, a shelter and a ramp that are not only designed to be beautiful, but to be useful to city dwellers as well.

Initially launched in London and Paris, IBM has plans to take this idea to cities around the world and inspire citizens to think about simple ways they can help make their cities smarter.

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by Ogilvy & Mather for IBM appeared first on Dezeen.

As the founder and creative director of yU+co, a renowned LA-based studio specialized in film title sequences, Garson Yu knows a thing or two about telling a story in a matter of minutes. Yu’s creative expertise…

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