Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2014: Brooklyn-based designer Marc Thorpe is showing a range of tables inspired by leaves and stems in Milan this year (+ slideshow).

Designed by Marc Thorpe for the Italian brand Moroso, the collection is called Morning Glory and is made from powder-coated welded steel rods for the stems and laser cut bent steel plates for the leaves.

The collection takes its name from the flowering vine that fills Thorpe’s garden in New York.

“The Morning Glory project is a personal story,” Thorpe told Dezeen. “My home garden in Brooklyn is covered in the vine. We live with it everyday. I’m inspired by the world around me and always look for what I like to call the modernism within.”

While in real life the leaves of the vine would catch water, Thorpe said his leaves were designed to hold something stronger – “like beer”.

Morning Glory is designed to be arranged in clusters. The tables come in a mix of autumnal and earth tones including forest green, burnt red and beige.

The table is on display in Pavilion 16 at the Salone Del Mobile in Milan until 13 April.

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to create steel table appeared first on Dezeen.

La firme anglaise Haptic Architects a installé dans son appartement « Idunsgate » un escalier en acier suspendu et flottant au dessus du parquet et du salon : un vrai objet design et minimaliste qui optimise l’espace. Des clichés de Inger Marie Grini et Simon Kennedy à découvrir dans la suite.

Steel reinforcing bars are used for shelving and partitions at this coffee shop in Dublin by VAV architects.

VAV created storage spaces at the Bear Market Coffee shop from a series of vertical steel bars usually used to reinforce concrete in buildings. The bars also run from floor to ceiling in the centre of the space, holding up a chunky wooden table.

“Our intent was to fill the space with vertical lines, and thus gently fragment the space, filtering the views and people within it,” said the architects. “This forest of steel would, we hoped, create a brutal yet honest space.”

Sourced from a local steel manufacturer, the bars create gridded units that are built into the wall behind the coffee bar and have wooden planks inserted between them to display products.

Bronze-coloured pendant lamps hang above the counter, which is made from stacks of oak sleepers.

Thick wood planks have also been reused as table tops and the floor is made from recycled timber.

The ceiling is left exposed and brick walls are painted white.

Here is some more information from the architect:

Bear Market Coffee

The coffee shop is located on Main Street, Blackrock Village, County Dublin. Within tight budgetary constraints our objective was to fit various functions, café related, into a minimal preordained space, with limited construction alteration and modification possibilities.

The concept for the design was to explore and question materiality, test the qualities of everyday materials and techniques available, while at the same time creating something unique and totally distinctive.

The chosen material we selected for exploration purposes was reinforcement steel. Our intent was to fill the space with vertical lines, and thus gently fragment the space, filtering the views and people within it. This forest of steel would, we hoped, create a brutal yet honest space.

The finished cafe would be perceived through the filtered vertical lines of the reinforcement bars, with shelving and benches hidden and supported within them. With steel dominating the interior, all other elements would simply act as a backdrop. Thus the original interior was stripped back to the core.

Ceiling was totally exposed, walls were treated minimally, while existing tiles were roughly pulled off, leaving gridded screed surfaces. The floor was roughly laid with recycled timber, interlaid with steel rods, where the verticals connected with the ground.

This timber flooring softened the space and hid the supports of the shelving units, with the reinforcement bars piercing through it to the hidden supports below.

These two new elements – horizontal lines of timber and vertical of steel, intersected each other, griding the interior.

Client: Stephen Deasy
Location: 19 Main Street, Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
Architects: VAV architects: Darragh Breathnach, Pablo Bolinches Vidal, Daria Leikina.
Construction: Stephen Deasy & VAV

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partitions in Dublin coffee shop appeared first on Dezeen.

This engineering research facility at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, by NAPUR Architect has a steel-panelled facade that can fold open to let daylight penetrate the laboratories inside (+ slideshow).

Budapest firm NAPUR Architect designed the steel-framed building to accommodate the university’s power engineering department, which researches and demonstrates electrical systems including generators, motors and transformers.

The two lower levels of the building house laboratories and teaching areas, while an open-air metal cage-like structure on top of the building functions as a research area for solar and wind energy.

The corrugated steel facade panels slide back to reveal windows on three corners of the ground floor and at the entrance, increasing or decreasing the amount of light inside each laboratory.

“The mobile frontal elements can provide full daylight or full darkness in internal spaces at any time of the day,” said architect Marcel Ferencz.

“The panels at the entrance are also used to dim the central space for lectures,” he added.

The first floor contains the power-engineering systems, a control area and service spaces.

The interior is heated via panels on the walls, floor and ceilings, while exposed concrete surfaces and work benches feature throughout.

Other laboratories we’ve featured are an electrical testing facility wrapped with crinkled polished metal, a pair of concrete laboratories elevated on red metal stilts and a cement manufacturing laboratory with a tapered concrete roof.

See more stories about laboratories »
See more architecture and design in Hungary »

Photography is by Tamás Bujnovszky.

Here’s a description from the architects:

DEM Power Engineering Demonstration Centre

The unique 300 m2 power engineering laboratory building realised in Hungary at the campus of the University of Debrecen explores and demonstrates the architectural and building power engineering connections of the climate change.

In the building open to the public the most up-to-date power engineering systems are presented in a manner understandable also by nonprofessionals, including technical solutions from the future of architecture installed freely, outside the walls without any covering.

The mobile frontal walls of the steel cube consisting of 15×15 m regular square elements hide a building embedded in a perfect sheath of power engineering built according to the ‘house in a house’ principle.

The building’s internal spaces – facing the four directions – demonstrate different usage comfort levels adjustable individually for each room by employing a variety of wall, floor, ceiling and air heating.

The mobile steel frontal providing for shading can be moved as desired by the time of day.

The mobile frontal elements can provide full daylight or full darkness in internal spaces at any time of the day. The solar power systems installed on the roof and the geothermal probes ensure that the building’s power consumption is nearly zero.

Architects: Marcel Dla Ferencz and Gyorgy Detary.

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by NAPUR Architect appeared first on Dezeen.

Réalisée par JL Design et KORB pour l’identité visuelle de la chaîne CCTV, « Human Movement » est une série de 4 vidéos proposant de traduire le mouvement humain en diverses matières telles que l’acier, le bois ou encore l’eau. Une réalisation d’une incroyable beauté à découvrir en vidéo dans la suite.