Hasta La Ideas

Turkish studio Yerce Architecture have transformed the headquarters of a furniture company in Izmir into an indoor garden with an olive tree, a pergola, a parrot and a wavy wall of perforated bricks (+ slideshow).

The wall separates the office from a new corridor, which leads beneath a row of timber beams towards meeting rooms and toilets.

In the office, chairs and desks are surrounded by plants on a floor of unpolished travertine, which architect Nail Egemen Yerce explains was ”inspired by the piazzas of Italy”.

Four glass doors in the exposed blockwork side wall open up the room to a row of cypress trees just outside.

See more stories about office interiors on Dezeen »

Photography is by Emin Emrah Yerce.

Here’s some more information from Yerce Architecture:

OrfiSera

Looking at the design and realization process of the project one can notice that the challenge was to build up the perception of a firm through the ‘atmosphere’ it has and the ‘activities’ it hosts; instead of adopting a design approach which focused only on product display and aimed for a space with only showroom function.

Concept of ‘street’, ‘garden’ and ‘square’ were the key elements of the design. One was entering a luminous hall thanks to the light coming from its roof from a dimly lit existing showroom space. Naturally this was causing one’s eyes to be dazzled. We thought about connecting these two spaces with a buffer zone. In this way one could have entered to the luminous space with ‘slow’ but ‘balanced’ change of light after a curiousity awakening trip in a curvilinear path. This has become the expression of the ‘street’ idea. On one side our street we designed a brick wall in which the holes of the bricks were laid horizontally. This wall, as seen from the holes of the bricks forming it, gave mysterious information about the space lying behind it. Moreover the street was illuminated with the light passing through the holes of the bricks and thus its ground was showing the lacework created by light.

One full façade was facing amazing cypresses. We wanted to make this facade more transparent so that the exterior landscape could integrate with the inner space. Together with the transparency concept; a sculptural olive tree in the space, few bambu’s, ceiling ventilators circulating the air and a parrot reminding the tropical forests became the expression of the ‘garden’ idea.

Moreover we imagined a central space where various activities such as meetings, presentations, celebrations, plays, exhibitions, speeches can take place. We were inspired by the piazza’s of Italy made up of unpolished natural travertine. We chose the same material and used unpolished natural travertine in this central space which became the expression of ‘square’.

Last but not least, we realized that the abundant light which the space was receiving and the green plants it was containing made the space look like a greenhouse. This became the inspiration for the name of it, ORFISERA; ‘Orfis’, the name of the firm and ‘Sera’, greenhouse in Turkish.

Project name: OrfiSera
Client: Orfis Orçelik Office Furniture
Location: Izmir, TURKEY
Project year: 2011
Architect: YERce Architecture, Nail Egemen YERCE
Lighting design: YERce Architecture, Nail Egemen YERCE
Electrical engineer: Orfis Orçelik Office Furniture
Mechanical engineer: Orfis Orçelik Office Furniture
Construction: Nano Buildings, Hilmi Aydın NİĞDELİ
Landscape design: Nesil Landscape, Hakan ERDOĞAN

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Yerce Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

This apartment by Taiwan firm KC Design Studio features rotating walls, allowing four rooms to be converted instantly into one (+ slideshow).

One of the moving screens pivots to either combine or divide the living room and kitchen, while a second is positioned between the bedroom and study.

Both partitions have bevelled edges so that from at certain angles they appear razor-thin.

Televisions and bookcases are housed within the recesses.

Earlier this year we also featured a house with a stone wall that slides across a window – see it here.

See more apartments on Dezeen »

Here’s some more explanation from KC Design Studio:

The main concept of this project is that using two rotatable partitions to divided four area in a one open-plan space. The rotatable TV-Partition can be turned in different angle.

Client can decide to having bigger dining area or living area. Another partition is actually a big bookshelf, it divides study room and bedroom. Using slide door to save privacy needs.

A part of bookshelf can be moved to study room. The idea of this function is to make these two rooms become in a one big master room.

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KC Design Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

Chunky chipboard surfaces have been sanded and stained to look like marble at this Aesop skincare shop in Tokyo by Japanese studio Torafu Architects (+ slideshow).

A muted brown stain coats the wooden walls and countertops and bottles sit within recessed shelves and openings.

Two island counters accomodate hidden drawers and cupboards, sinks and a cash register.

Other Aesop stores we’ve published include a shop filled with translucent boxes on stilts and a kiosk made from newspapers.

See all our stories about Aesop »

See all our stories about Torafu Architects »

Photography is by Takumi Ota.

Here’s some more information from Torafu Architects:

Aesop Shin-Marunouchi – Torafu Architects

For Aesop, an Australian skincare brand celebrating its 25th year anniversary this year, we proposed an interior fit-out located in the Shin-Marunouchi Building. Concurrent to this, we also designed Aesop Yokohama Bay Quarter, which opened at the same time.

Aesop’s skincare products emphasise on maintenance to restore the skin’s natural health, and in a similar way we had chosen a key material that reflects this idea for the two stores. OSB (Oriented Strand Board) is a wood which has characteristic textures and patterns, and of which are accentuated are accentuated once sanded and stained in different ways. While associated as a rough material typically used in construction, as it is stained the wood adopts a stone-like appearance. The result is a distinct materiality which be felt throughout the store space.

At Aesop Shin-Marunouchi, the OSB has been stained with a brown colour to distinguish the store with its neighbours within the bright surrounding environment. The central band of display seen stretched across the back wall binds the store space to a single point of focus, naturally drawing customers towards the products.

In the foreground of the shops are stand-alone functional counters that allow the corner shop space to be freely circulated. Small stores require an efficient use of space, so the activities essential to the shop’s operation have been carefully considered and housed into the ‘floating’ boxes to assist in operational processes. We thought about how the volumes of these counters can be opened at various parts when required, and eventually closed back into a simple box.

Even located within a large commercial building, we have focused on how we can clearly reflect Aesop’s brand image into these stores.

Principle use: shop
Production: Ishimaru
Credit: Graphic design: Aesop
Building site: Shin-Marunouchi Building, Marunouchi, Tokyo Total floor area: 22.53m2
Design period: 2012.02-2012.06
Construction period: 2012.06

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by Torafu Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Students at the Geneva University of Art and Design have formed a travelling commune inside a collection of shipping containers and have been staging performances around Switzerland.

Under the direction of Bureau A designer Daniel Zamarbide, the students created the community in a courtyard at the university and spent several nights living there as part of their research into domestic rituals.

Photographer Regis Golay also joined the community by staying at the site for a few days and capturing all of the activities on camera.

Installations include a dining room intended to demonstrate habits of gluttony and lust, plus a bedroom where students are testing the effects of short-term sleeping by taking naps whilst wearing foam sleep-suits.

In the bathroom, students carry out a ritual dance as they take off their clothes and wash themselves, while the meeting room is a fabric filled tube that attendees stick only their heads and arms inside.

Other performance spaces include a dark smoky sound room, a dream room funished with car seats, an energy-generating room filled with Ikea furniture and a series of cupboards for climbing inside.

The ninth installation is a modular framework of bamboo that surrounds the eight containers to provide outdoor lighting and decoration.

See more projects featuring shipping containers »

Photography is by Regis Golay of Federal Studio.

Here’s some more explanation and details of each of the performances:

The Commune
Summer semester 2012. February-June 2012

Geneva University of Art and Design students, under the direction of Daniel Zamarbide of BUREAU A have just finalised a series of living units forming an autonomous community. With the purpose of questioning our living habits and inspired by the social experimentations of the 70’s, The Commune has produced and lived in for a short period of time an ensemble of 8 shipping containers located in the courtyard of the school.

The Commune will travel around Switzerland in different cultural events and festivals reproducing the experience and aiming to engage debate in the contexts where they will be welcomed. Régis Golay of Federal Studio has produced as series of images of the event.

Description of the 9 projects realised during the semester.

DREAM
Students: Celine Mosset, Charles de Oliveira

In a David Cronenberg type environment and atmosphere, this project proposes an installation based on the transformation of automobile pieces that create a dream-like experience. The dreamers, comfortably seated on ergonomic and transformed car seats will adapt their own sleeping rhythm to the one of the living engine.

THE COMMITTEE
Students: Gaspar Reverdin, Paolo Gnazzo

Decisions are taken in a communal consensus and in a specific space conceived uniquely for this purpose. Like a Cistercian gathering, the cultural differents among the members disappear behind a binnacle-suit that embraces the 18 members of the commune. Faces and hands participate to the ritual. Bodies are left outside, in the black. Faces and hands are inside, in the white.

SLIPING BATHS
Students: Jessica Brancato, Danja Uzelac

The space for bathing is sequenced in a way that pushes the bathers to a rhythmic and ritual dance. They strip of their clothes pulling them out of the visual reach and then slip into an all-over soap space highly suggestive of sensitive sensations. The drying sequence is a friction of the body against a series of black towels suspended in the air in a black space. The clothes are found at the end of the loop.

SOUND CONTEMPLATION
Students: Aurélien Reymond, William Roussel

This is a space for sound and sound objects. This is a place where the body interacts with sound and noise provoking and producing unexpected relations between the. The atmosphere is dark and intense. The relief of the architecture-sculpture can be seen as furniture and sound design environment creating an acoustic vacuum where solitude is confronted to reflexion.

ENERGY
Students: Violaine Bourgeois, Youna Mutti

Within the irony of simple and comfortable 100 % Ikea set-up, a strange creature, an aesthetic parasite, inhabits this space for work. Six electrical batteries manifest their presence here and there to remind us that there might be a relation between comfort and producing energy. This projects suggests that the notion of work in our society could be seen otherwise.

SLEEP
Students: Zoé Simonet, Valentine Revaz

Poly-phasic sleeping is at the origin if this projects conceptual approach. The possibility of sleeping during short periods of time could replace our all night sleeping therefore opening new possibilities of the utilisation of our everyday life and the spaces that accompany it. A series of bespoke suits have been designed in order to allow the members of the commune to experience a diversity of possibilities of sleep. A specific space has been designed for the optimum and most profound sleep. It proposes a range of foam qualities to allow different comfort possibilities.

EAT
Students: Vincent de Florio

Two capital sins are put into play in this project: Gluttony and Lust. The communal meals are moment of entertainment and fun. 4 objects of furniture have been designed for the event and the eating accessories, glasses, vases, food itself, recipients, have been also thought and realised to accompany the eating performance. All conceived as mobile pieces they contribute to the questioning of the bourgeois institution of the politeness related to food. A Buñuelesque piece.

THE LIMITS OF BANALITY
Students: Antoine Guay, Barbara Jenny

A Standard environment is brought to a perfected replica in this project. The saturation of our corporate society spaces produces inevitably a counter reaction, a subversive space. The space outside the rules occupies empty holes left by society and is always ready to a potential explosion. The duality of these two spaces is presented in an intense manner in this project.

VERNACULAR
Students: Léa Villette, Clémence Dubuis et Amélie Freyche

The exterior spaces have participated to the global concept of the commune. The students have reacted to the architecture of these lieu in a vernacular manner. From a simple and cheap material, bamboo, they have crafted a triangular modular structure forming spaces, partitions, decoration and furniture. A light system has been produced articulating the diversity of entrances and circulation. Finally, the system simply and efficiently invites to conviviality.

Drop City Revival Team:
Daniel Zamarbide, architect (BUREAU A), professor and workshop leader.
Sebastien Grosset, philosopher and dramaturge. Responsible of the workshop theory.
Juliette Roduit, interior designer. Teaching assistant.
aReanne Clot, interior designer. Teaching assistant.

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of Art and Design students appeared first on Dezeen.

Architect Frank Gehry filled a stage with crumpled paper for a recent production of the Mozart opera Don Giovanni (+ slideshow).

The performances took place at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the venue designed by Gehry that opened back in 2003.

White platforms were scattered amongst the scrunched-up lengths of paper and could be moved around to create a huge staircase at the centre of the stage.

The orchestra surrounded the performance from the back rather than the front, bringing the audience closer to the action.

The production was the first in a trilogy of operas written by Mozart and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte that the LA Philharmomic is staging over three years and the other two will reportedly feature set designs by architects Zaha Hadid and Jean Nouvel.

Frank Gehry also recently designed a theatre in New York, which you can see here.

Other architects to have designed stage sets include OMA and John Pawson.

See all our stories about set design »

Photography is by Autumn de Wilde.

Here are the full details of the show from the organisers:

The Los Angeles Philharmonic have revealed the complete creative team and full cast for Don Giovanni, the first installment of an ambitious three-year Mozart/Da Ponte opera project presented at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Joining Gustavo Dudamel, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Frank Gehry are Kate and Laura Mulleavy, founders of fashion house Rodarte, and acclaimed director Christopher Alden. One of the most celebrated young interpreters of the role, Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien will lead an international cast as Don Giovanni, sharing the stage with equally notable soloists.

Three of the greatest operas ever written were collaborations between librettist Lorenzo da Ponte and composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. Over the next three years, the LA Phil will present the trilogy (one opera each season), each conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Set designs will be created by three of the most influential architects of our time, and each architect will work with leading fashion designers to create a unique and distinctive visual setting for each of these timeless masterpieces. Each complete opera performance will be a Walt Disney Concert Hall first.

In a fitting beginning, Don Giovanni brings together an acclaimed, Los Angeles-based team. Architect Frank Gehry returns to Walt Disney Concert Hall – the landmark building of his own design that not only transformed Los Angeles, but is now one of the most recognized architectural structures in America – to create an environment uniquely imagined for this auditorium.

“This is an inspiring opportunity to work with my friends at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This is a project very close to Gustavo Dudamel’s heart. He knows the music like the back of his hand, and has a unique vision that I find very exciting,” says Gehry. “Kate and Laura’s work reminds me of my early days – it is free and fearless and not precious.”

Gehry envisions a set that he describes as a “moving still-life on the stage” that works in concert with the costumes and supports the music of Don Giovanni. Gehry’s modifications will place the orchestra upstage on raised lifts approximately three and a half feet above the action taking place downstage. The choir benches will be removed to allow space for the orchestra. This layout aims to create a unified ensemble between the orchestra and soloists, with a focus on the action at the front of the stage, creating intimacy between the soloists and audience. This configuration has recently been tested in a rehearsal with Gustavo Dudamel and Yasuhisa Toyota, the chief acoustician who collaborated with Gehry and the Los Angeles Philharmonic to develop Walt Disney Concert Hall’s visual and acoustic designs.

California natives, Kate and Laura Mulleavy- the creative force behind the internationally recognized fashion house Rodarte- make their operatic costume debut. Founded in Los Angeles in 2005, Rodarte is the winner of the Cooper Hewitt 2010 National Design Award for fashion and the designers and creators of the ballet costumes for the Academy Award winning film, Black Swan. Admirers of Gustavo Dudamel and Frank Gehry, Kate and Laura are honored to be a part of the Don Giovanni creative team. “Frank Gehry is an incredible artist and brilliant innovator whose unparalleled vision has redefined the modern landscape. We are great admirers of Gustavo Dudamel’s masterful and inspired direction,” says Kate and Laura. “Opera has always been a part of us; our grandmother was from Rome and studied it as a young girl. To be a part of the legacy of Don Giovanni is an amazing opportunity. Working with Frank Gehry in the concert hall that he designed, alongside Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a dream.” Kate and Laura’s ambition is to create a timeless context for Mozart’s characters, bringing together tradition and their unique point of view.

Director Christopher Alden belongs to a generation of modernist directors known for his use of contemporary imagery and, on occasion, minimalist visual style. He has an eye for bold theatrical gestures that are dramatically effective and his approach to stagecraft is driven by a desire to reveal how powerfully opera stories can resonate with modern experience. Alden has said that “however fascinating the era in which an opera was composed may be, I have a primary responsibility to the world we live in now.” Christopher Alden replaces Paul Curran, who had to step down from the production due to scheduling issues.

Le nozze di Figaro, the second installment of the LA Phil’s Mozart/Da Ponte trilogy, will be performed in May 2013, and the trilogy will conclude with a production of Così fan tutte in May 2014.

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by Frank Gehry appeared first on Dezeen.