Hasta La Ideas

Swiss architects Bureau A have created decorative steel gates to discourage nocturnal “illegal activities” in the entrance to their Geneva studio.

Instead of designing an opaque barricade, the architects came up with a concept for a perforated gateway that would be both secure and ornamental.

The elaborate designs draw inspiration from textile designer William Morris and artist Kara Walker, and are laser-cut into the 10 millimetre-thick steel.

Bureau A also recently worked with students to create a travelling commune inside a collection of shipping containers – see the project here.

Photography is by Federal Studio.

Here’s some more text from Bureau A:

The realization of THE PORTAL, the latest design of Leopold Banchini and Daniel Zamarbide of BUREAU A, has just been completed. Located in the centre of Geneva, Switzerland. Régis Golay from federal studio has produced some images of the design piece.

Designer’s statement:

NEWS FROM SOMEWHERE

Like many places within the urban fabric the tiny area of intervention was of problematic nature. By the slight retreat of the street it formed a dark entrance close to some of the hot places in Geneva, hidden from direct views. It constituted thus a perfect place to hide and realize some of the things that are not allowed in our institutional life, a perfect nightspot for illegal activities. The portal appeared thus as a problem-resolution sort of project, the sort of project that is best served by the design of a wall with the pragmatic ambition to solve social issues or report them somewhere else. Within the modest size of the intervention it emerged during the short process of design a belief in the utopian decoration claimed by William Morris. The portal wanted to demonstrate the pleasure of designing and fabricating a decorated surface that could scape from the problem solving design formula. The modest utopia in this case would be to replace vandalism and nightlife odours by a naïvely ornamented pleasure. The same ingenuity sincerely believed in the Alice in wonderland effect that transforms a simple door into a magical threshold to be enjoyed on a daily basis. The portal proposes a game of light and shadows, appearance and disappearance through a very classical pattern that has been playfully modified by filling in or emptying the metal surface.

On another angle, the project was confronted to urban and city regulations and official commissions that lack of real competence on historical matters when it comes to intervene on sensitive ancient sites. They tend to find shelter on standards of contemporary recipes and catalogues of possibilities that might or might not be adequate when studied thoroughly. The portal wanted to play around the idea of what is classical and how much the question of contemporaneity needs to be addressed and constitute an issue or not. Manipulating a stereotype pattern borrowed to a traditional French blacksmith the design wanted to address the question of modern craftsmanship as much as the transmission of a certain vernacular classicism in dialogue with our own 2012 culture. The installation of the portal in this context of debate around classical, vernacular and contemporary languages in our city was an attempt to address the absurdity of these debates and place the aesthetic pleasure of design and craftsmanship at the centre of our preoccupations. In a sort of Kara Walker approach (particularly her work on black cut-paper silhouettes in dialogue with folklore traditional images from the south of the United States) the Portal uses the communicative potential of traditional patterns.

‘Before I leave this matter of the surroundings of life, I wish to meet a possible objection. I have spoken of machinery being used freely for releasing people from the more mechanical and repulsive part of necessary labour; it is the allowing of machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays. And, again, that leads me to my last claim, which is that the material surroundings of my life should be pleasant, generous, and beautiful; that I know is a large claim, but this I will say about it, that if it cannot be satisfied, if every civilized community cannot provide such surroundings for all its members, I do not want the world to go on”

“How We Live and How We Might Live”
William Morris in a lecture of 1884

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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.

Creatures on canvas, cast in metals, suspended in air and more at Switzerland’s massive show

Whether the main subject of a taxidermy-inspired sculpture or an allegorical reference within a larger composition, animals are an evergreen source of inspiration among a diverse range of media and genres. The pivotal role creatures play was apparent in fresh, provocative ways at this year’s Art Basel, where we encountered several works that shed new light on a classic subject. See the works that got our goat below.

The “Nice Bird of Prey Shoe” (1975) was constructed by Austrian artist and avant-garde feminist Birgit Jurgenssen. The surrealist escape offered by Juergenssen’s work aims to appease the tension wrought by the socio-cultural turmoil of the 20th century. Constructed of metal, feathers, and chicken claws, the unsettling accessory is from Galerie Hubert Winter in Vienna.

The Swiss arts foundation Not Vital, which promotes preservation and exchange between cultures, presents “Peking Duck” (2009-2011), a glossy update of the Chinatown staple in 18k gold. The sculpture is on view at NYC’s Sperone Westwater Gallery.

“Kuriere” (2012) by German artist Dirk Lange combines pencil, colored pencil, and ink to create an abstract portrait of a war general and his pigeon. Sweet pastels juxtapose the subject’s obliterated face for a conceptual riff on the stately pose. The piece is available at Berlin’s Galerie Michael Haas.

Both a hunter and an artist, Marc Swanson has established a body of work around a breathtaking set of bedazzled crystal deer-antler sculptures. According to the gallery, Swanson’s five-piece “Untitled (Crystal Hooking Left)” (2011) edition stems largely from his personal history, started as a way to “explore, both physical and spiritually, the duality of masculine identities he was experiencing.” The piece was constructed from polyurethane foam and crystal, and is from Richard Gray Gallery.

“Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs (or The Witches)” (1985) by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely fuses together a hodgepodge of metals into eight motorized sculptures. From wrought iron bits and scrap to bicycle frames and axles, the seemingly creaky contraptions are laced together with strips of fabric and animal skulls for a slightly macabre vibe. The piece, made in the late years of Tinguely’s life, is from Galerie Hans Mayer in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Known for his irreverent sculptures, Athens-based artist Dionisis Kavallieratos turns to oil on canvas in the detailed work “A Ballad for Chicken Banana” (2010). In monochromatic gray tones he manages to cast a subject that’s at once mighty and absurd. The piece was on view at Athens’ Breeder Gallery.

“Pollinator” (2011) by E.V. Day casts the reproductive organs of flowers—specifically those from Claude Monet’s famous lily pond in Giverny—into a demonstration of the animal-like ability to reproduce through pollination. Day sifted through a pile of clipped flowers (those that are weeping in the garden are cut by the gardeners) and then pressed and scanned and ultimately processed the best of each type of flower into three-dimensional form. The sculpture is made of a resin core, with polished nickel-plated copper and is from Carolina Nitsch in New York.

Spotted at the W Hotels Designers of the Future exhibit, the aptly titled “Go-Round” by Tom Foulsham comprises a balance of a miniature giraffe kissing a miniature whale on a single sharpened point. Rather than being propelled mechanically, it is moved by everyday objects like hair dryers, fans, balloon dresses, or by simply blowing.

A tabletop is transformed into an illusion of a deep-sea abyss with “Octopus (Krake)” (2012) by Swiss-born, Munich-based artist David Bielander. The limited-edition cast-bronze candelabra is available at the Ornamentum Gallery in Hudson, New York.

Images by Josh Rubin

Swiss architect Aurélie Blanchard has lined every wall and surface in the bar of this Basel restaurant with copper, while a dark green dining room looms just behind.

The green walls of this room were inspired by the colours of painted doors throughout the city and are subtly highlighted by a series of wall-mounted light bulbs.

Spherical copper pendant lamps are suspended above a row of long oak tables, where diners sit in large groups.

In the bar, slightly flatter lamps illuminate a table and bar at standing height, both of which have chamfered edges.

Other dark restaurants worth a look include one with a chandelier made from jam jars and another with a fanning timber canopy.

Photography is by Mark Niedermann.

Here’s some more information from Aurélie Blanchard:

Situated in the heart of Kleinbasel, UNION restaurant is a new hotspot of this multicultural neighbourhood where immigrants, expats, students and creative industries coexist. Jérome Beurret and Stefan Grieder, owners of the well-known Rhyschaenzli in Basel, along with their new partner Pascal Salathe, appointed the architect Aurélie Blanchard to design their new restaurant.

The architecture aims to capture the spirit of a traditional American kitchen with fine Eastern influences. At UNION rustic meals such as burgers and ribs are revisited with contemporary touches. The design intends to create a warm dining environment with a vibrant metropolitan bar for both evening and daytime.

The dark green dining room with its oversized oak tables engages with the street whilst the dark envelope creates an intimate environment despite the room’s size. Basel’s traditional painted wooden doors inspired the room’s colour. Copper globes suspended above the tables cast warm islands of light between the diners who sit in clusters around these large communal dining tables. Domestic bliss of home-cooked meals and candle-lit dining atmosphere finally tie the room together.

The bar in contrast is a precious copper niche that opens onto the dark green dining room at the back. Shelves and standing tables emerge from the copper walls; masking the room surfaces with a seamless copper coat. The oversized standing table and new bar are an extension of the wooden floor, finished with a thick copper plate. Rounded corners, solid copper elements and cast glass lamps evoke metropolitan industrial times.

Throughout the space, a dark wooden floor unifies the restaurant and bar. Touches of copper jump into the green room through the folded bar, globe lamps and vintage copper vases.
Next to the bar, the existing courtyard is a lush and fresh space where the green of the plants echoes the Basel green of the restaurant.

Address: UNION restaurant – 95 Klybeckstrasse 4057 Basel
Clients: Jérome Beurret, Stefan Grieder, Pascal Salathe
Architect: Aurélie Blanchard
Graphic design: Ludovic Balland
Completion: March 2012
Area: 200 sqm
Cost: 150’000 SFr

This dark red concrete enclosure in Scharans, Switzerland, contains a work studio for a poet and musician.

Completed by Swiss architect Valerio Olgiati in 2007, the building’s walls are embossed both inside and out with a circular flower-like symbol.

A rectangular grass courtyard is located inside Atelier Bardill and is opened out to the sky through a large circular opening in the roof.

Sliding glass doors separate this courtyard from the studio space, which only occupies around a third of the overall interior.

Other recently featured projects from Switzerland include a faceted bronze museum extension – see them all here.

Photography is c/o Archiv Olgiati.

Here’s some more explanation from Valerio Olgiati:

Atelier Bardill, Scharans, Switzerland

The Bardill Studio building has replaced an old barn in the protected centre of the village of Scharans. Building permission was granted by the local authorities on the condition that the new building would have exactly the same volume as the old barn.

The client, Linard Bardill, who lives in a house a very short walking distance away from the site, required only a single space to work in. This working space occupies less than a third of the stipulated volume. The rest of it is taken up by an atrium that is lent a monumental character by a large, round opening to the sky. It is this element that invests the building with its grandeur and clarity in contrast to the arbitrary geometry of its external appearance and the small dimensions of its village surroundings.

Oobject: private atelier – one working space
Location: Scharans, Switzerland
Client: Linard Bardill, musician + poet
Architect: Valerio Olgiati
Collaborators: Nathan Ghiringhelli (project manager office Olgiati), Nikolai Müller, Mario Beeli
Construction supervisor: Linard Bardill
Structural engineer: Patrick Gartmann, partner of Conzett, Bronzini, Gartmann AG, Chur
Materials: red in-situ concrete, steel, copper
Begin of planning: 2002
Begin of construction: July 2006
End of construction: August 2007
Volume: 665 m3
Area:
atelier space: 70 m2
garage, storage, technic: 65 m2
courtyard: 150 m2
Technical information: heated by solar energy, tabs, controled air ventilation system

Atelier Bardill is open for the public on Fridays between 1 pm and 5 pm