Hasta La Ideas

Giles Miller’s London design studio has positioned a target of reflective pixels in front of a medieval gate for this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, which kicks off in London today (+ slideshow).

Giles Miller Studio designed a single, curved pixel element and collaborated with metal manufacturers Tecan to create 2433 stainless steel and etched brass pieces for its exterior.

The metal pixels are arranged at angles over the curved surface, forming patterns that change according to light conditions.

“We wanted to celebrate Clerkenwell as an architectural hub,” Giles Miller told Dezeen, “the target shape stamps the district on the map.”

A bullseye of brass panels sits in the centre of the glimmering structure, placed in front of a stone gate that was once part of St John’s monastery. “St John’s Gate is very iconic,” said Miller. “We enjoyed the contrast of what we do against the old brick.”

The installation in the central London district is Giles Miller Studio’s latest iteration of imagery created by pixellated or reflective surfaces. For last year’s Clerkenwell Design Week, the designers created an archway from 20,000 wooden hexagons at the entrance to the Farmiloe Building and designed a bar for a former petrol station the year before.

This year’s event continues until Thursday 23 May. Find out who is exhibiting here or register to attend here.

Dezeen Watch Store also has a pop-up shop in the Farmiloe Building at Clerkenwell Design Week, where we are presenting a selection of our latest and best-selling watches – more details here.

Photography is by Jon Meade.

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Giles Miller Studio sent us the following information:

Giles Miller Studio and Tecan present The Heart of Architecture, Clerkenwell 2013

Critically acclaimed Giles Miller Studio is delighted to team up with British precision metal fabricators Tecan, in presenting ‘The Heart of Architecture’. This innovative installation has been constructed at the iconic Saint Johns Gate as a part of this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week.

London’s Clerkenwell boasts the highest number of architects per square mile in Europe. The ‘Heart of Architecture’ consists of a giant sculptural target built to stamp Clerkenwell and its inhabitants on the world stage, and to represent this thriving area as the creative core of the British Architectural and Interior design world.

Giles Miller Studio has created this unique installation alongside Tecan, a precision metal manufacturer based in Dorset, who’se intricate and specialist manufacturing process has generated the latest in the studio’s range of reflective surface systems.

Featuring Giles Miller’s signature technique of manipulating light and shadow to show intriguing imagery, the installation has been formed from thousands of systematically hand laid stainless steel and brass ‘pixels’. By angling the specifically designed elongated pixels at opposing angles the surface of the installation will become an observation of light and shade, reflecting and bouncing light patterns in a celebration of its historic yet creatively progressive surroundings.

The post The Heart of Architecture
by Giles Miller Studio appeared first on Dezeen.

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Patterns of colourful tiles line the walls and counters of this north-east London pizza bar by architects Gundry & Ducker (+ slideshow).

“We wanted to see what we could do with the 150-millimetre square-format tiles” Christian Ducker told Dezeen. “Our medley of references included graphics from New York in the 1950s and 1980s.”

The tiles spell out “pizza” in large letters along the wall running from outside the restaurant parallel to the serving counter, though the top of the word is cut off by the ceiling.

Dark blue tiles cover the surfaces and seats along the same wall, while columns and beams are wrapped in yellow and red.

The late night pizza slice bar was converted from a nightclub so the architects had to start from scratch in the space.

“We completely gutted the whole place, took out all the flooring and built in a slope at the entrance,” said Ducker. “The space is all tiled at the front, and they gradually fade towards the back where there are just a few clusters left.”

“We left some exposed brickwork because we wanted the one-tile-thick insertion to be noticeable,” he added.

The tiles extend out and around the building’s entrance, branded with a red neon sign by graphic designers Studio Partyline.

Voodoo Ray’s is named after a 1988 acid house track by UK artist A Guy Called Gerald, who switched on the sign at the restaurant’s opening party.

Gundry & Ducker‘s other projects in London include a sushi restaurant in Soho and a blackened larch house extension south of the city.

Photography is by Hufton + Crow.

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Here some further details from the architects:

Voodoo Rays is a late night pizza slice shop and restaurant in Dalston East London.

The design is intended to sit within, and celebrate its location on Kingsland High Street, a typical inner London high street strip with its ad-hoc signs and frontages. Its neon signage and brightly light interior is intended to be part of the nighttime street scene.

The design of all surfaces is formed predominately from coloured  6″ ceramic tiles. We wanted to form the interior as a sequence of volumes, reducing in scale and density to reveal the original building interior as you move towards the back of the shop. Each element is expressed in a different colour, the larger elements incorporating giant abstracted text.

A long pizza counter runs the length of the shop and projects beyond the shop frontage, which is recessed, so that the counter feels like part of the street. A hidden door leads to a basement club.

The design is intended to have multiple references taken from both East London and New York, and from between the 1950s -1980s. The references range from launderettes to pie shops, to seaside amusement arcades all of which are reinterpreted with a cartoon sensibility.

The post Voodoo Ray’s by
Gundry & Ducker appeared first on Dezeen.