Hasta La Ideas

The interior for this clothing boutique in Japan designed by Kazutoyo Yamamoto of Japanese Studio Dessence is filled with stone partitions that have arched doorway openings.

Full-height mirrors have been placed between the archways on the walls of the Cornet Boutique to give the impression that they continue infinitely.

Customer fitting-rooms are located in the centre of the shop, to aid accessibility for middle-aged customers.

Photography is by Toshiyuki Yano.

More retail interiors on Dezeen »

Here is some more information from the architect:

Concept :

A re-location plan for a boutique focusing on mid-high aged, in an area of low-rise office buildings.

Due to the decrease in floor space (from 264m2 to 107m2), there was a need to take in consideration the relationship and spacing between each customer within the given space available. In addition it was necessary to avoid the eyes from the outside and to maintain a level of privacy within the boutique.

By carefully installing mirrors, the narrow space was created into an endless, extraordinary town like atmosphere, also making it easy for each customer to check themselves on the mirrors.

Various details have also been added to fit the needs of the middle aged such as installing 2 tables for conversation, and placing the fitting room in the center to reduce moving distance while covering them with mirror doors, successfully merging the fitting into this newly made town.

While maintaining focus on its main target (the mid-aged), this boutique creates an illusion between the relationship of the inner and outer space, isolating the mind of the customers from the savage outer world, welcoming them into a town with only themselves and the merchandizes they face.

Site : Kumagaya,Japan
Completion Date : September,2010
Designer : Kazutoyo Yamamoto / dessence co,ltd.

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Garden by Kazutoyo Yamamoto	Note by Case-Real	ASOBIO shop by Nendo

Photographer Jason Strong has sent us his images of the new Skype offices in Stockholm, designed by Swedish firm PS Arkitektur.

Created within a former brewery, the project comprises audio and video studios, offices and social areas for 100 staff.

The scheme features white walls, wooden floors and colourful rounded furniture, with custom-made wallpaper featuring Skype’s logo and symbols.

More offices on Dezeen »

Here’s some information from the architects:

Skype moved from a smaller office at Slussen, Stockholm to the Münchenbrewery 11 april 2011.

The office design is based on the spirit of Skype, how it is a useful and playful tool that connects the world.

The in-between shapes of interconnected nodes has given us romboid and triangular shapes that is visible in the flooring and in the design of some of the hard furniture.

The playful happy theme in colours and soft furniture comes from the Skype graphics and the Skype cloud logo is reinterpreted as cloud-shaped lighting throughout the office space.

The Stockholm office predominately works with audio- and video development and this is manifested in the special made wallpapers with cables, earphones and other devices linked to audio-video technique.

Furniture: Blå station (round soft furnishing), Hay( string furniture), Crassevig (white chairs and bar-chairs with a net pattern), Arper (conference seating), Martela (workstations), Offecct( green big soft seating), Johanson design (poufs and sofas)

Customized furnishings: It is pS Arkitektur who has designed the furniture and Olle Lindelöf AB/Linjon AB has built them
Lighting: Stockholm lighting (the big skype cloud), Foscarini/Diesel, Next, Zero, fagerhult

Location: Munchen Brewery, Stockholm

Size: 1680 sqm ( 100 workplaces)

Team: Mette Larsson-Wedborn (head project architect), Peter Sahlin, Beata Denton, Thérèse Svalling and Erika Janunger.

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Facebook Headquarters by Studio O+A	Google office by Scott Brownrigg	Wieden + Kennedy offices by Featherstone Young

French designer Matali Crasset has created this Paris hotel in collaboration with Patrick Elouarghi and Philippe Chatelet, where visitors check-in, order food and exchange tips on the city with other guests via the hotel’s online system and a plethora of screens throughout the building.

The HI matic hotel allows guests to choose and change music in the public areas, collaborate on an ever-evolving city guide and collect meals from an automatic machine in the restaurant.

42 rooms are spread over five floors, envisioned as cabins where the specially designed furniture systems can change function throughout the day as required.

See also: Dar Hi hotel in the Tunisian desert by Matali Crasset

More hotels on Dezeen »
More stories about Matali Crasset on Dezeen »

Photographs are by Simon Bouisson.

The following is from the designers:

HI matic by Matali Crasset with Patrick Elouarghi and Phillipe Chatelet

HI matic, an urban eco-lodging facility. HI matic, when sleeping in Paris becomes easy. Located in the Rue Charonne, a stone’s throw away from Bastille. Welcome to South Bastille where restaurants, organic shops, store concepts, specialized book stores are blooming. Young designers meet here, young chefs open their restaurants, you can cruise around and meet your friends. The area is as popular as it is trendy, a condensed version of Paris in Rue de Charonne. This is where HI matic has been established, a new urban eco-logding concept.

Matali Crasset has collaborated once again with Patrick Elouarghi et Philippe Chatelet to inject a new vibe in the Paris lodging. With 42 cabin rooms, HI matic combines the codes of an urban hotel with that of a country lodging. Economical, ecological and automatic, this warm cocoon in the heart of the city revives the best Japanese Riokan, the youth hostel or the rest house. An ecological accommodation with a precise choice of materials (wood, rubber, natural paintings) that entice areas of conviviality and sharing.

Contemporary in its layout, warm in its the choice of living areas, affodable in terms of price and sincere with regards to environment awareness, Himatic is what was missing in quality city accommodation. It is adapted to current needs, ideal for green attitude addicts or more casual ecologically concerned individuals.

HI matic is a small hotel perfect for a city like Paris. It answers the need of the characteristics of urban tourism, for short and longer stays, a pied à terre for those who come regularly to the Capital for business or leisure trips. For a day or a year, you will want to come back to HI matic to enjoy a good night’s sleep! Because everything here is simple, informal and friendly.

HI matic is 100 % internet the web site created by the hotel without any intermediary, dealing directly and simply with the hotel. You are welcomed and guided in the same simple way. You live the experience in full autonomy as comfortable at the HI matic as you are with social networks.

HI matic, the pied à terre experience:

Hi matic has to be experienced as a direct link to the city. You can live your stay in a simple and casual way, free to move in an explanatory environment. Turned towards the exterior because of the lobby that is open to the street with large windows but also a protective cocoon in the interior. It allows you to rest in comfort and to regenerate while getting acquainted with Parisian life style. An hotel to rest, and catch your breath before plunging back into the urban rhythm. Staying at HI matic is enjoying the pied à terre experience in Paris. You move in with all the autonomy and freedom, you are never alone, for you are sure to meet friends in a new community with whom you can share each other’s experiences and tips about the city.

Flexible Cabins

The first impression when you discover the rooms is an appropriation of space. The 42 rooms occupy 5 floors and are conceived on a model of a cabin. Space is available and flexible. All is done to allow you to spend time. Each cabin offers all the services of a comfortable room. Flexible in its play with spaces and elements, the experience of living closer to the ground is what gives you that impression of freedom. Nothing is hung on the walls, the cabin is its own structure that leads to all services. The cabin has an extension that is a small desk. The bed is on a platform with its memory shape mattress that was custom-made. It is in the centre of the cabin. At night it becomes a large and comfortable bed for a good night’s sleep. During the day it’s a sofa for lounging, dining, working … A real freedom of action that entices you to possess the room as if it were a cabin made for children. Fluency, autonomy, simplicity: the client is in a universe without formalities while very structured.

The automatic dispensers and the restaurant:

When you arrive you are swept by the sound music of the label Kompakt and you can enjoy the rhythms of the HI radio. The lobby as well as the restaurant is conceived to favor encounters, meetings allowing for tips to be exchanged before going off to discover the city. You can meet people, you can leave messages, addresses. The ipad is at your disposal to discover music selections and to see various practical informations, it is a communal tool. HI matic is networking within the city. A giant map of Paris is present in the meeting point. ParHI Link is fed by important people chosen by their expertise in music, art and cooking…. they will share their experience of the city. it might become Paris’ best city guide.

HI matic shop:

The HI matic shop is conceived like a gift package available 24/24. This playful boutique proposes a selection of useful, pleasurable and practical objects ready to use. Guides, books, cd’s, toothbrushes and other necessities are available in an original dispenser. A real organic breakfast is available in the restaurant from automatic dispensers. You are free to take whatever you please and place it on your tray and then seat around the large communal table.

The new born of HI Life:

After the HI hotel in Nice and Dar HI in Nefta in Tunisia, HI matic is the new project of the HI life group. As usual, Matali Crasset, Patrick Elouarghi and Philippe Chapelet want to offer an accomodation concept shakes up conventional hotel business codes. They came up with new ways to welcome you and to allow you to live together in a hotel. They have managed to create very diverse entities from urban city hotel to the eco-retreat in the desert. HI matic adopts Matali’s beliefs about hospitality which were her main concerns when she first began -ie hospitality column.

“When Jim comes to Paris”. HI matic respects the same logic as the Hi hotel in Nice in its contemporary, dynamic yet friendly dimension. A living experience that will be renewed at your next HI Life destination.

HI matic
71 rue de Charonne
75011 Paris France

See also:

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Dar Hi by Matali Crasset	Hotel Forsthaus by Naumann Architektur	Pattaya Hotel by Dept. of Architecture

Pictured from left, Roslyn Cole, Joshua Aidlin, and Adrienne Swiatocha of Aidlin Darling Design and Eng San Kho and Peter Tashjian of Love and War. (Photos: Kent Miller)

The event-soaked month of May rolls on! Last night, an elite mob of foodies descended upon Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall for the annual James Beard Foundation Awards, where chef-trepreneurs Tom Colicchio, Ming Tsai, and Traci Des Jardins served up coveted medals—which we’ve long suspected are chocolate-filled—to top chefs (and Top Chef itself, which won a best television show award for its seventh season), restaurants, and, yes, designers. San Francisco-based Aidlin Darling Design bested the competition in the restaurant design category for its work on Bar Agricole, housed in a dazzling and eco-friendly building that began its life in 1912 as a corrugated-zinc warehouse. Meanwhile, a hometown favorite won in the category of outstanding restaurant graphics, as Love and War took home a James Beard medal for graphic designer Katie Tully‘s swell branding for New York’s The National Bar and Dining Rooms (the project also recently snagged a silver cube from the Art Directors Club). Oh, and some chefs and fine dining establishments also got awards! Here’s the full list of winners.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Back in March, we told you about Artsicle, essentially “Neflix for art,” wherein subscribers in the New York area would pay $50 per month, per piece, to have something interesting to hang on their walls, made by an up-and-coming artist. Now another instant-art-for-hire service has popped up: Framed. For a fee, you’ll receive a 40″ television that hooks up to your wi-fi. Visit their site and purchase a piece of motion-based art or conceivably, like Artsicle, sign up for a rotating subscription service. Created by interface designer Yugo Nakamura, in collaboration with interior designer Yoshihiro Saitoh and the design and engineering firm, Om. Inc., Framed is described simply as “a new platform for digital art, designed for everyday interior spaces.” We don’t particularly see it as being the most inviting thing to have in one’s home, given that the constant motion seems like it would serve as a major distraction (and what about screen burn out and power consumption?), but we’re certainly sure there’s a market out there for people who aren’t us. And, of course, if priced right, it seems like it might be a viable service for certain types of businesses (i.e. probably not appearing in your dentist’s office anytime soon). Here’s their explanatory launch video:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.