Hasta La Ideas

In the most extreme example yet of QR codes used as decor, the new Hotel Modez in Arnhem has a room covered entirely in scannable codes that link to “pornography, pin-ups and other piquancies”.

The room, designed by fashion designer Antoine Peters, features bespoke wallpaper, curtains, bed linen and furniture entirely covered in the black-and-white symbols, which can be read by smartphones and other devices to reveal pornographic images, texts and movies.

“The room seems as abstract as it can be, but secretly you are surrounded by porn,” says Peters. “The abstraction of the room symbolizes the fact piquancies are always extracted from the eye, but I think these just belong to hotel rooms. And anyway, aren’t we surrounded by porn everywhere nowadays?

The room features pillows and fabrics created in collaboration with Daphne de Jong while Quinze & Milan produced square stools with a QR-codes laser-cut into their surfaces.

The QR-Code room was commissioned by creative studio Piet Paris, who invited 30 Dutch fashion designers, most of whom are based in Arnhem or are graduates of the city’s Arnhem Art Academy, to each curate a room.

The hotel, which opened last week, is based in the city’s Klarendal district, a once run-down area that is now an emerging fashion quarter.

Other recent examples of QR codes used in architecture and interiors include the Russian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which featured an interior entirely covered with a matrix of codes, and call centre in Dijon by architects MVRDV, which features QR-code cladding.

Photography is by Eva Broekema.

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by Antoine Peters appeared first on Dezeen.

London Design Festival: the first project by MAP, the new studio of designers BarberOsgerby, is a digital laboratory at London’s Science Museum where visitors can interact with internet-users around the world using musical instruments and robots (+ slideshow).

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have founded MAP as an industrial design consultancy that will operate alongside their interior design company Universal Design Studio and their design studio BarberOsgerby.

The Google Web Lab was designed in collaboration with Universal Design Studio and comprises a series of physical devices that can either be operated in person at the museum, or online at chromeweblab.com.

“Web Lab offers the opportunity for visitors to be more than just spectators,” Universal Design Studio director  Jason Holley told Dezeen. “Online and in-museum visitors are equally able to enjoy a dialogue with the museum; engaging, interacting and affecting the exhibition content.”

One device is a electronically-controlled orchestra (above), where different instruments are controlled by different users, while another is a data tracer that maps the sources of images and information and shows where they’ve travelled to (below).

The Sketchbots (below) are robots that photograph the faces of users and draws them on a plate of sand.

Above: photograph is by Andrew Brennan

Other devices include a virtual teleporter (below), which functions as a set of windows to locations around the world, and a computer that charts the locations of everyone who has taken part in the experiments.

“Museums worldwide struggle with trying to understand how the digital can expand their reach to engage a wider and more diverse audience,” said Holley. “Web Lab offers the possibility of making the online experience integral, not secondary. It offers new opportunities for richer experiences online and physical spaces that expand beyond the walls of the museum”

Cameras are positioned around the exhibition, so users can continue to operate the devices when the museum is closed.

The project was also completed with interactive design and engineering group Tellart and graphic designers Bibliothéque.

See all our stories about London Design Festival »

See all our stories about Universal Design Studio »

Photography is by Lee Mawdsley, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a lengthier description from Universal Design Studio and MAP:

Universal Design Studio and MAP collaborate with Google on exhibition that merges physical and virtual

Universal Design Studio and sister company MAP are responsible for the 3D design and architecture of a dramatic new Google exhibition. Web Lab brings the extraordinary workings of the Internet to life through a series of interactive, web-connected physical experiments, aiming to inspire the world about the Web’s possibilities and to explain its complex technological processes. Exhibition visitors can make music with people across the world and trace the physical route taken by a simple web search. The exhibition at London’s Science Museum is open to the world online at chromeweblab.com, with online visitors experiencing the exhibition day and night through 24-hour web cams installed at the museum.

Above: photograph is by Andrew Brennan

Partnering with interactive design and engineering group Tellart, Universal Design Studio and MAP together designed the exhibition environment, creating innovative architectural and design archetypes for this new kind of physical/ digital collaboration. The design approach focuses equally on the experience of the space physically and the experience of it online via web cams. Architecture and design tools help to deconstruct technology and tell the story of how digital and physical realms are connected. New archetypes were created to separate users from their familiarity with objects, reinforcing the experimental nature of the exhibition, and to ensure each experiment could be appreciated both in the museum and online.

Universal Design Studio and MAP have created an immersive lab setting in the basement of the Science Museum, a scheme that foregrounds the idea of Web Lab as an interactive place of testing and continuous experimentation.

An industrial, functional aesthetic forms the backdrop to the series of playful experiments. At the exhibition’s entrance, a centrally positioned glass and wire mesh workshop provides a highly visible ‘curated lab’ space for events, simple repairs and displays. A key feature conceptually, it represents the ‘living lab’ nature of the exhibition, where visitors are not spectators but are engaged in and part of a working space.

Above: photograph is by Andrew Brennan

Universal Design Studio and MAP were challenged to design a space that would be experienced both physically and online through ‘the eyes of the web’. In order for online visitors to easily interpret the space, architectural planes are clearly and directly articulated. The ground plane maps out the territory as a graphic surface. Bibliothèque created graphics for the rubber floor which, as well as providing an additional narrative layer to the exhibition, creates zoning and flow of movement, and adds a supportive description of each experiment’s function.

The ceiling plane consists of a bright yellow steel grid delivering the network of cables that service the experiments. Rather than be concealed, the grid articulates the physicality of the web, illustrating its data flow – the ‘life source’ of the experiments. Throughout the exhibition, cabling to experiments is intentionally exposed, emphasising this physicality.

A secondary skin of semi-transparent wire mesh lines the walls of the museum gallery, blurring the distinction between the existing building and the new installation. The space is acoustically controlled creating an optimal environment for the Universal Orchestra experiment, which provides the soundtrack to the exhibition experience.

Above: photograph is by Andrew Brennan

Working with Tellart (who prototyped the experiments) and Universal Design Studio, MAP oversaw the industrial design, look and feel of the exhibition’s five Chrome Experiments:

Universal Orchestra: An Internet-powered eight-piece robotic orchestra creating harmonious music
Sketchbots: Custom-built robots able to take photographs and then sketch them in sand
Data Tracer: A map that traces where the world’s online information is physically stored
Teleporter: A series of web-enabled periscopes through which you can instantly access the world (including a 24 hour US bakery)
Lab Tag Explorer: A real-time visualisation of all Web Lab visitors from around the world that groups and categorises participants in incredible ways

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and MAP appeared first on Dezeen.

For those readers who asked to see more interiors from Zaha Hadid’s Pierres Vives government building in Montpellier, here’s a reading room lined with glowing bookcases by architect Stephane Hof (+ slideshow).

Hof previously worked for Zaha Hadid Architects and was the project architect for Pierres Vives, the regional government building of Herault, before forming his own practice last year.

The Alphabet Library is located within the building’s public archive department and houses books between a series of curved Corian panels.

Tables and information desks curve out from the bookcases, forming continuous surfaces.

Above: photograph is by Laurence Ravoux

“If you look at all the old reading rooms in libraries in France, the tables are always detached from the bookshelves,” architect Stephane Hof told Dezeen. “We wanted to create something that combined these two functions into one.”

Above: photograph is by the architects

Hof also explained how “the abstract forms of letters” inspired the shapes of the shelves and tables. “Not literally the alphabet, but L-shapes, H-shapes, T-Shapes, etc.” he said.

Above: photograph is by the architects

Strips of lighting are positioned beneath the Corian surfaces, illuminating the bookcases and framing the outlines of tables.

See more images of the Pierres Vives building in our earlier story.

Above: photograph is by the architects

Photography is by MC Lucat, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s a project description from Hof:

Alphabet Library

Located within the Pierres Vives building in Montpellier to serve as a reading room for the Archive of the Department of Herault.

Above: photograph is by the architects

For a public reading room such as this, we decided to provide visitors with a pleasant and comfortable space to read surrounded by a treasure trove of books that lend the space an overwhelming physical presence.

The new library comprises an entrance desk, an information desk, reading room tables and library shelves.

Above: photograph is by the architects

We combined the different functions of the program into a single object in order to create a new dialogue between the tables and the library and a continuous flow through the entire space. The tables bend around the back wall to form the library with each piece of the puzzle referencing a letter of the alphabet. The field of tables resonates with the lighting of the existing ceiling to form its “shadow”. At night the edge of the Corian material used throughout is back-lit and makes the ceiling, the library and tables appear as one.

Above: photograph is by the architects

The project palette is composed of: 2 functions: reading room tables and library shelving; 2 materials: timber and corian; 2 colours: black and white; 2 geometries: straight and curved. This reflects the duality of author and reader; the one’s intention and the other’s interpretation.

Above: axonometric plan

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by Stephane Hof appeared first on Dezeen.

A large glass vitrine holds rooms like exhibits at the centre of this apartment in Singapore by Chinese architects Neri&Hu.

Only the kitchen meets the walls of the Wu Residence, while other rooms are surrounded by a single corridor that lines the perimeter.

“The client was provoked by his kids that he was not cool enough,” Lyndon Neri told Dezeen. “So he selected the craziest scheme.”

Behind the layer of glass, Chinese stone defines the walls and surfaces of the study, the bathroom is lined with copper and the master bedroom is positioned in front of a single wooden wall.

Translucent curtains are all that screen the rooms from the surrounding corridor.

“By having this transparency the entire flat felt bigger,” said Neri.

See more stories about Neri&Hu here, including our interview with Lyndon Neri about the hotel they completed inside a former army headquarters.

See more stories about apartments »

Photography is by Pedro Pegenaute.

Plan – click above for larger image

Here’s a design statement from Neri&Hu:

Wu Residence: Design Statement

Shanghai-based architects Neri&Hu recently completed a 250 square-meter private residence in a high rise tower in the heart of Singapore. The client’s mandate was simple: “Give me three bedrooms and a project that will challenge the conventional notion of what a flat should be.” Rising up to this challenge, Neri&Hu initiated the project by questioning the fundamentals of the “house” typology itself, asking themselves: How can we free up the plan and make it feel light and loft-like? What is the relationship between the communal and private? When and how should privacy be maintained, if at all? What are the essential and non-essential program components that make a “home”? What is domesticity?

The resulting parti breaks though all conventions of the standard apartment layout by placing the rooms away from the building edge, reserving a continuous corridor along the entire perimeter. Rather than enter into the center and then radiate outwards towards individual rooms, a configuration often taken for granted as the ideal condition in high rise residences, here, the private zone forms the core of the space, while the public circulation zone envelops and ties everything together. The strategic insertion of three free floating volumes, clad in wood, stone, and copper, adds to the depth of the spatial layers, enclosing within them the most private and intimate rooms of all—the study and the two bathrooms. The remaining space is kept transparent, pushing the boundaries of how open and extroverted a room can be, while still maintaining privacy. The project rejects the parcelization of spaces found typically in apartment layouts, creating an openness and expansiveness that is more conducive to the contemporary lifestyle.

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by Neri&Hu appeared first on Dezeen.

London cyclists can hang their bicycles on the walls while they grab a coffee or browse at this Soho store for cyclewear brand Rapha by design studio Brinkworth (+ slideshow).

The Rapha Social Club is conceived as a social meeting place for road cyclists, where memorabilia is exhibited alongside the brand’s latest products and live racing is aired on screens surrounding a cafe area.

Like the company’s other spaces in San Francisco and Osaka, the London club has a Citroen H Van parked up inside it and uses a colour palette of black, white and pink that matches the aesthetic of the Rapha logo and products.

Metal-framed cabinets and tables can be wheeled around the concrete floor to provide flexible display stands.

“With Rapha Cycle Clubs, there is finally a permanent home for cycle fans to totally surround themselves in all the best aspects of road cycling in a great café atmosphere,” said Brinkworth Director David Hurren.

More clubs are due to open in Melbourne, New York and Tokyo and will have similar designs to the London branch.

Other cycling shops we’ve featured on Dezeen include one with chunky chipboard walls and artificial turf floors.

See all our stories about cycling »

Here’s a project description from Brinkworth:

Brinkworth design London Rapha Cycle Club.

Luxury cycling apparel brand Rapha appoint design consultancy Brinkworth to create their unique retail concept – Rapha Cycle Club.

Brinkworth were commissioned to develop the Rapha Cycle Club concept into an environment that would reflect the core cultural values of Rapha’s heritage, the glory and suffering of world road cycling. The first permanent UK Cycle Club now open in London’s Soho, builds on Rapha’s vision to provide a meeting place for the cycling community to eat, drink, watch racing and shop from the full Rapha product range, totally immersing themselves in a space dedicated to the pursuit of road cycling.

The Cycle Club aesthetic exemplifies the Rapha approach of premium design and materials while referencing workshop functionality. A flexible retail system has been developed to display not only apparel but unique products and Rapha’s collection of cycling memorabilia. A double height rear feature wall creates a backdrop to the iconic Rapha ‘H’ Van, a constant element of the brand, evoking a strong image of 60s racing.

Brinkworth have taken an intentionally unconventional approach to the layout, designing a space that places equal importance on the social and retail aspects, to deliver a truly blended experience. Bespoke cycle storage for visitors’ bikes and tools for basic bike servicing and maintenance are available, ensuring that the club is a key destination for both city cyclists and racers alike.

Integrated within the space is a custom-designed bar area with zinc-topped counter, reminiscent of timeless European café culture, underpinned by the Rapha branded cups and espresso machines. Visitors sit at laser-etched tabletops that feature famous alpine climbs, while watching racing on large screens positioned within the space. Solid concrete flooring combined with the unmistakable grey, white and pink Rapha colour scheme brands the overall space.

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by Brinkworth appeared first on Dezeen.