In the garden of the Case Study House, Eames Demetrios—grandson of Charles and Ray Eames—settled in a shell chair to share stories of his family heritage and legacy, architectural preservation and the world travels he undertook…
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Dutch Design Week 2013: Amsterdam designer Pieke Bergmans developed a technique similar to glass blowing to create these plastic lighting installations (+ slideshow).
Pieke Bergmans experimented with heating and rapidly inflating the PVC plastic so the final form is partly left open to chance.
“I don’t like to design as a designer and be very precise about how things should look,” Bergmans told Dezeen. “I prefer that shapes grow into their natural environment, so the only thing I decide is to add more or less air or maybe a few colours, time or material.”
One group of objects have been extruded into twisting, rippled pipes with a light bulb illuminating them from within.
Another series is made by blowing air into the plastic until it stretches into a delicate, translucent tube at one end.
Bergmans explained that the collection is called VAPOR because “the lighting objects fade away into nothing, like a gas that seems to dissolve.”
The collection follows Bergmans’ previous experiments with glass blowing, which included her hand-blown organically-shaped light bulbs and a series of polished bronze objects with blown-glass lamps spilling out of them designed in collaboration with Studio Job.
VAPOR was presented in an old pump house in Eindhoven as part of Dutch Design Week, with the first series displayed nestled amongst the pipes and the billowing second series suspended in the central double-height space.
Here’s a brief project description from Pieke Bergmans:
Vapor
This time Bergmans did not blow glass but plastic instead! As usual she has been exploring new techniques and it resulted again in a stunning body of work. Something that we have never seen. Six meters high, fragile mystical lighting-objects, hanging down from the ceiling. A translucent and solid body that fades away to almost no substance. Illuminated with light.
VAPOR refers to a liquid or solid state where the same substance at a high temperature turns into a gas phase. It’s beautiful, magical and seems almost from a different planet. Either angles or ghosts, I am not sure, but this time for sure they exist. They are real and can be touched.
Name: VAPOR
Designer: Pieke Bergmans
Year: 2013
Edition: Installation of 6 objects – Unique objects
Material: PVC, electric bulb
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collection by Pieke Bergmans appeared first on Dezeen.
Dutch Design Week 2013: design graduate Aagje Hoekstra has developed a plastic made of pressed insect shells.
Aagje Hoekstra took the armour of dead Darkling Beetles, which grow from larvae known as mealworms, to create the Coleoptera bioplastic that she showed at the Klokgebouw building during Dutch Design Week earlier this month.
“In the Netherlands mealworms are bred for the animal food industry but they transform into beetles,” Hoekstra told Dezeen at the show in Eindhoven. “After laying its eggs the beetle dies, so insect farms in the Netherlands are throwing away 30 kilograms of dead beetles every week.”
Before the beetles are disposed of, Hoekstra peels them so she is left with just the shells, which are made of a natural polymer called chitin that is also found in crab and lobster shells.
She uses a chemical process to transform the chitin into chitosan, which bonds better due to a variation in the molecular composition.
The material is then heat-pressed to create a plastic, with the oval-shaped shells still visible. “I wanted to keep the structure of the beetle in the plastic so you know where it has come from,” said Hoekstra.
She claims the plastic is waterproof and heat resistant up to 200 degrees centigrade.
Items Hoekstra has already produced from the material include jewellery and decorative pieces, but she hopes to develop the plastic for more practical applications. “In the future I want to make functional products such as plastic spoons and cups,” she said.
Hoekstra recently graduated from Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands.
She is one of several graduates experimenting with ways to make plastics from animal products that are normally thrown away, with other examples including electronic products made of crab shells and goggles made from fish scales.
She is one a number of graduates experimenting with ways to create bioplastics from animal products that are normally thrown away. Other examples include a
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by Aagje Hoekstra appeared first on Dezeen.
Italian plastic brand Kartell has released its first accessories collection of translucent bags with shoes to match (+ slideshow).
Better known as a furniture producer, Kartell has collaborated with designer Giorgiana Zappieri of fashion brand .normaluisa to create the range of plastic accessories.
Grace K drawstring handbags are made from translucent plastic with gold-coloured chain straps, named after actress Grace Kelly.
The bags come in black, coral, cream and gold, as well as a pair of two-toned variants including dove-grey and peach, plus bone and dove-grey.
Kartell’s first range of So K flat sandals with ankle straps is available in colours that match the handbags. Other shoes in the brand’s catalogue including ballerina pumps and platform shoes have been updated in new fluorescent tones.
Kartell’s move into fashion accessories follows the announcement that the brand will to open 50 flagship fifty stores across China over the next five years.
Furniture that resembles cut-crystal glasses by Tokujin Yoshioka and the world’s largest single-piece injection moulding by Philippe Starck are the most recent products for Kartell we’ve featured.
Earlier this year, Dezeen spoke to the head of Kartell and new president of Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile trade fair Claudio Luti about his plans to rebrand the event. We recently chatted to Patrizia Moroso about the state of Italian design and how Milan is “sitting in the past”.
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The brand sent us the information below:
Kartell is proud to announce its presence at Super with a stand dedicated to its collection of Kartell à la Mode accessories.
For Spring Summer 2014, Kartell is launching its first handbag, “Grace K”, designed in collaboration with .normaluisa designer, Giorgiana Zappieri. The timeless shapes of the so-called “drawstring bag” are given new life through the transparency of plastic combined with glittering gold-coloured chains for the strap. The name Grace K is obviously a tribute to the undisputed style icon Grace Kelly, bearing testimony to a relaxed elegance that’s never showy.
Grace K will be available in monochromatic versions in black, coral, cream and gold, and in two two-toned variants: dove-grey/peach and bone/dove-grey. These last two models sport contrasting shades on the top and bottom of the handbag, a duotone that is adorned with a coral-coloured drawstring on the first version and a black one on the second.
In addition to Grace K, we are also introducing So K, the catalogue’s first flat sandal to complete the already wide range of footwear. So K is available in four colours: black, gold, peach and coral. With a simple shape and minimalist design, So K adapts to lots of different occasions of use, adding a colourful and ironic, but always discrete touch to any look.
These two new items for next summer join Kartell à la mode classics which have been given new colours to keep up with the latest trends: Glue Cinderella ballerinas will be available in two new two-tone versions: fuchsia/lime and petroleum/lime. And the soft Lady platform shoes with be highlighted with fluorescent tones, in the same colours as the Cinderella ballerinas, and with two new, even softer, models in black/smoky and dove-grey/peach.
Our regular models are also available alongside our very latest items: Glue Cinderella ballerinas by .normaluisa and Bow Wow by Moschino, Lady platform peep-toe sandals with plateau sole by .normaluisa and Super Bow by Moschino, as well as Sofia boots and Demi Sofia ankle boots, both designed by .normaluisa, and also available in Metal and Wild versions.
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by Kartell appeared first on Dezeen.
An inflatable pavilion that looks like a soap bubble, by architects Plastique Fantastique, has been popping up around Copenhagen this month (+ slideshow).
Aeropolis is a transparent blow-up structure, designed by Berlin temporary architecture firm Plastique Fantastique, that can be inflated in any location and used as an enclosed event space.
The structure is made from a fire-proof PVC and when inflated industrial ventilators are used to retain the air pressure required to keep the bubble’s shape. Visitors enter the bubble through a zipped door on the side.
The Aeropolis pavilion has been used as an event hub for the Metropolis Festival 2013 in Copenhagen and has been erected in 13 locations, including a green park, under a bridge and inside a church.
Events held inside the bubble have included a light installation, dance performance, a star-gazing evening and a music concert.
Plastique Fantastique director Marco Canevacci told Dezeen the firm is looking to install the pop-up bubble at Remake Festival in Berlin.
Watch Aeropolis in use inside a church:
Here’s another movie, that features a yoga class taking place inside the bubble:
Our other stories that feature blow-up design include the entrance to last year’s Design Miami fair that was covered by inflatable sausages, a twisted tubular inflatable pavilion installed in east London and news that a giant inflatable rubber duck with be exhibited during Beijing Design Week 2013.
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Here’s more information:
Aeropolis by Plastique Fantastique
The Aeropolis community centre breathes new life into the city, and make the invisible visible.
The architecture of the 100 m2 pneumatic installation allows maximal mobility and will be installed in 13 different locations during the Metropolis Festival in August 2013. On its tour of the various Copenhagen districts, it will be a base for urban activities with all kinds of changing themes – all curated together with staff from the local community centres.
The scenography changes with the specific environment: there’s meditation and yoga by the lake, it opens up towards the sky above us in a cemetery, it invites us to a soundless discotheque at one of the noisiest intersections in the city, it provides performance at Islands Brygge, martial arts at Superkilen and Karom competitions in Versterbro, it blows up inside a church and shows a future cultural centre in Valby.
About Plastique Fantastique
Plastique Fantastique is a collective for temporary architecture that samples the performative possibilities of urban environments.
Established in Berlin in 1999, Plastique Fantastique has been influenced by the unique circumstances that made the city a laboratory for temporary spaces.
Plastique Fantastique’s synthetic structures affect surrounding spaces like a soap bubble does: similar to a foreign body, it occupies and mutates urban space. Their interventions change the way we perceive and interact in urban environments. By mixing different landscape types, an osmotic passage between private and public space is generating new hybrid environments.
Regardless the way people view a bubble, walk around its exterior or move inside it, the pneumatic structure is a medium to experience the same physical setting in a temporary extraordinary situation. A Plastique Fantastique installation has the ability to remove a subject from its surrounding context and transfer them into a new spatial realm.
Plastique Fantastique creates light and fluid structures that can lie on the street, lean against a wall, infiltrate under a bridge, squeeze into a courtyard, float on a lake and invade an apartment to generate an “urban premiere”.
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Plastique Fantastique appeared first on Dezeen.
Composée de plus de 17 000 bouteilles de Coca-Cola en plastique, le « Cola-Bow » est une installation publique réalisée par Penda et présentée dans le cadre de la Student Beijing Design Exhibition en Chine. Une création inspirée par la vague du logo de la célèbre marque à découvrir en images dans la suite.
In the 25 years since taking the reins at Kartell, owner and CEO Claudio Luti has collaborated with nearly every industrial designer of note, transforming the over 60-year-old company into the king of polycarbonate furniture and…
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As part of a movement in eyewear design to use sustainable materials, or at the very least adopt a certain rustic aesthetic, we have come across several creative ways to incorporate wood into glasses and sunglasses. While Shwood is the most recognizable name in the category, and Brooklyn Spectacles…
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L’artiste Pascale Marthine Tayou aime utiliser des objets du quotidien pour ces œuvres. Sa dernière création, exposée au musée d’art contemporain de Rome, s’appelle « Plastic Bags » et propose un structure de 10 mètres de haut composée de milliers de sacs pour symboliser le consumérisme de notre société.
Après le projet artisanal initié par le français Thibaut Malet, la marque japonaise Mokulock a eu l’excellente idée de proposer des briques similaires à la marque Lego entièrement en bois. Contenant 50 pièces, ces sachets de jouets sobres et élégants sont à découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
