Italian naval blankets and deadstock linen in an upcycled coat from Denham
Found recently in a London boutique, the Orkney DGL jacket by Denham is an outerwear piece with a fascinating story. Denham—a Dutch studio focused on denim products—keeps a substantial archive of vintage clothing and sourced the design from a number of styles, although the most immediate influence comes from…
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German designer Gitta Gschwendtner and Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves have planted a garden on a derelict barge in Bristol Harbour using the kinds of foreign seeds that were once mixed up in ships’ ballast before being dumped in the river (+ slideshow).
Seeds of Change is a floating garden on a disused concrete grain barge containing a variety of plants not native to Britain.
Raised beds line each side of the garden and an elevated central path disguises the raised opening where grain was once loaded into the barge.
Through her research into old shipping routes, Alves discovered that ships returning from ports around the world would fill their hulls with earth and stones to stay weighed down on their return journey.
Once back in Britain, the earth – which contained seeds – was offloaded into the river. Alves discovered that if the riverbed were excavated, the dormant seeds could be regerminated to grow into plants.
Inspired by this possibility, Alves and Gschwendtner designed a garden full of the types of plants that might once have had their seeds dumped in the river below.
“Some of the plants are very familiar to us now, like marigold or rocket, but did not exist in Britain prior to shipping trade,” Gschwendtner told Dezeen.
Gschwendtner is also taking part in Seven Designers for Seven Dials, an aerial installation in Covent Garden curated by Dezeen that will be on show throughout London Design Festival, which takes place between 14–23 September.
The designer is also making a one-off three-seater version of her Bodge Bench for the Stepney Green Design Collection curated by Dezeen.
See all stories about Gitta Gschwendtner »
See all stories about gardens »
Photographs are by Max McClure.
Here’s some more information from the designer and artist:
‘Seeds of Change’ is a floating garden; the result of a collaboration between the designer Gitta Gschwendtner and the artist Maria Thereza Alves.
The title ‘Seeds of Change’ stems from an ongoing ballast seed garden project from Brazilian artist Maria Thereza Alves. Between 1680 and the early 1900s, ships’ ballast – earth, stones and gravel from trade boats from all over the world used to weigh down the vessel as it docked – was offloaded into the river at Bristol. This ballast contained the seeds of plants from wherever the ship had sailed. Maria Thereza Alves discovered that these ballast seeds can lie dormant for hundreds of years, but that by excavating the river bed, it is possible to germinate and grow these seeds into flourishing plants.
Working with the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, Arnolfini and Bristol City Council and utilising a disused grain barge, Gschwendtner and Alves have created a Ballast Seed Garden on Bristol’s Floating Harbour, populated with a variety of non-native plants, creating a living history of the city’s trade and maritime past. Gitta Gschwendtner’s design for the ballast seed garden aims to give the visitor an opportunity to experience the garden from various levels and perspectives. The raised bed structure with its sunken paths and seating areas immerses the visitor into the garden, while the elevated central area allows an overview of the entire ballast seed garden as well as its unique position on a floating barge.
The architecture of the garden works with the structural constraints of the concrete barge; the elevated section in the centre conceals and covers the raised aperture where grains were originally loaded into the barge. Sustainability is an important aspect of the project’s objective. Both the garden’s irrigation system – pumped straight from the river – and lighting are powered by solar panels, and the construction material used is sustainable pine treated with an environmentally friendly oil stain to soften the pine’s appearance and preserve it from weathering.
Location: Floating Harbour (north side) between Bristol Bridge and Castle Park Water Taxi stops. Visible from Castle Park. Access by appointment
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and Maria Thereza Alves appeared first on Dezeen.
The UK’s newest electronic music tour that’s worth shouting about
A brilliant new initiative that’s as exciting as it sounds, Make Noise aims to raise awareness about the importance of recycling electronics by supplying the UK with a host of free club nights around the nation this November. The project is the brainchild of Heavenly Recordings and European Recycling…
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Natural bodycare products hand-blended in the UK
UK-based skin, body and haircare line Green & Spring employs a simple philosophy for their packaging design: let the ingredients speak for themselves. Listed in full on the front of the bottles and containers alongside lovely illustrations of pastel-hued birds, the natural herbal and plant extracts that make up…
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Dezeen Wire: here’s the first image of a new 190-metre skyscraper for the City of London designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox to house the European headquarters for insurance company W. R. Berkley Corporation.
The office tower will have 35 storeys plus two basement levels and two roof plant levels, and the proposal includes a new a new public square.
Subject to planning, construction is expected to start next year.
Kohn Pedersen Fox are also the architects behind the Heron Tower, which was the tallest in the Square Mile until overtaken by the completion of The Shard earlier this year, and The Pinnacle (formerly known as the Bishopsgate Tower), under construction but stalled since March due to lack of letting commitments.
Other skyscrapers under construction in the area include the Leadenhall Building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, 20 Fenchurch Street (nicknamed the Walkie-Talkie) by Rafael Viñoly, and 100 Bishopsgate by Allies and Morrison with Woods Bagot.
See more stories about skyscrapers on Dezeen »
Here’s some more information from W. R. Berkley Corporation:
W. R. Berkley Corporation to build new European headquarters in the City of London
W.R. Berkley Corporation, one of the world’s premier property casualty insurance providers, has submitted a planning application for a major new European headquarters at 52-54 Lime Street, London EC3, in the heart of the City of London.
Demonstrating the strength of W.R. Berkley Corporation’s commitment to London as one of the world’s leading insurance centres, the company, whose member insurance companies are rated A+ by Standard & Poor’s, will be funding the 35-storey building, which will draw together all of the company’s London presence into one place, from its own balance sheet. W. R. Berkley Corporation London companies will initially be occupying approximately 25% of the building. Other occupiers have already expressed interest in the building.
Designed by multi-award winning international architects, Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), who also designed the Heron Tower, the planned building is approximately 190m tall, consisting of 35 floors of offices above ground and mezzanine levels with an additional two basement and two roof plant levels. Entrances to the building would be on Leadenhall Street and from a new public square.
Floor plates will range in size from 9,000 sq ft to 22,000 sq ft and are arranged around a side core located to the south of the building, which optimises floor plate dimensions, limits solar gain and offers views of London to the, north, east, west and south west.
Public space created by the development will include a ‘square’ of approximately 11,000 sq ft which will complement the existing precinct around the Willis Building. The space will include public seating and planting as well as potential space for public art and tables linked to a specialist ground floor coffee shop, echoing the 17th century origins of the specialist insurance markets at Lloyds Coffee House.
With Lloyd’s of London and Willis adjacent to the new public square and Aon to occupy 122 Leadenhall Street, W.R. Berkley’s new European headquarters will effectively create a global ‘HQ’ of the insurance industry in London.
KPF’s work is being led by Bill Pedersen, one of the world’s most decorated architects and seven time winner of the American Institute of Architects National Honour Award.
Subject to planning, work on the project is scheduled to start by 2013 and it is anticipated that the development could be ready for occupation by 2017.
William Berkley, founder and chairman of W.R. Berkley Corporation comments:
“The proposed development of 52-54 Lime Street is an integral component of our international growth strategy. With the continuing expansion of our operations here, it makes sense to invest in a landmark building which will provide a strong base for that growth.
“This major investment is a signal of our belief and confidence in London as the centre of the global insurance market. Creating a new European headquarters on Lime Street, alongside of some of the largest companies in the industry, is an affirmation of the City of London as the centre of the insurance and reinsurance industries.”
About London’s insurance industry
Insurance companies and pension funds are crucial to the UK and City of London economy, accounting for £32.5bn in GDP contributions
The City of London is the home of the specialist insurance sector, with gross premiums on the London market conservatively estimated at £36.9bn in 2010, and Lime Street is the heart of the sector – from historic players like Lloyds, to world leading brands like Willis, Aon, and Aviva.
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headquarters by Kohn Pedersen Fox appeared first on Dezeen.
Herringbone parquet covers the walls and floor of this photography studio in east London by local design practice Post-Office.
Partitions around retouching booths contain vertical slats covered in grey felt to provide a colour-neutral background for viewing images on a computer screen and dampen the noise from the open workspaces.
The slats are finished in light wood on the side facing the communal areas and can be swivelled to control the levels of light in the booths.
Dark furniture in the reception and communal areas stands out against the wood.
We’ve also featured herringbone parquet on the floor of a Parisian boutique, the walls and ceiling of a personal shopping suite in London and seats in a Zurich cafe.
Post-Office is lead by designer Philippe Malouin and you can see more of his work plus interviews we’ve filmed with him here.
Photographs are by David Giles.
Here’s some text from the designers:
Touch Digital offices, Shoreditch, London.
Post-Office was commissioned to design the new offices of Touch, London’s leading fashion photographic service. Digital retouching agencies need a minimal amount of light in order to correctly visualise the computer screens. This constraint usually makes retouching studios a dark environment. We took this challenge to heart as we wanted communal areas of the new Touch offices to be bright and airy while providing low-light environments to facilitate the retouchers’ work.
The new touch offices maximise the already generous amounts of space and light the warehouse had to offer. The space owes its aesthetic and choice of materials to Scandinavian classic modernism as well as 60s corporate American grandeur and the minimal art movement. The central retouching booths appear as minimal sculptures in a grand setting rather than individual work spaces. All of the retouching environments are lined in grey felt in order to offer a colour-neutral background for the retouchers while helping to noise-proof the open workspaces.
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by Post-Office appeared first on Dezeen.
The visual identity of the London Games was uncomfortable, like a shattered stained-glass window. But iconoclasm does have its fans; and the more ways we can look at something, and look through something, the better off we are.
The stated intent of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) was to focus on youth; naturally this extended to the visual identity system, the centerpiece being the logo, which has received little love. The logo’s severe angularity does not mesh with the reality that for virtually everybody (except the parents of athletes) the Olympics constitute a pleasant vacation, or a comfy staycation – they’re not about stress or tension. Television “censorship” attests to this clearly, and this clash might be what puts people off.
To me the logo looks like how middle-aged men (coincidentally my own demographic) tend to feel about teenagers: uncomfortable. The logo also makes me think of the 1980s ski boots I once bought via Craigslist. And the Opening Ceremonies also betrayed the reality of who consumes the Olympics, of who the customer is – and it’s not young people. Looking at it that way, the logo just might be perfect. And adherents of the maxim “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” require no justification beyond the fact that the logo is indeed highly memorable.
2012Headline by Gareth Hague, the official typeface of the 2012 Olympic Games.
What is also memorable is Gareth Hague’s typeface for the London Olympics, 2012Headline. Besides being fervently discussed – and ridiculed – in typographic circles, it was also featured in the mainstream media, both at home and abroad. Unlike the logo however 2012Headline is quite difficult to wrap one’s head around. If you look at it as a formal outgrowth of the logo it just might make perfect sense. But if you look deeper, if you consider its genesis, it feels very different: uncomfortable. Fortunately it has one superb redeeming quality, one that’s highly relevant to the enclave of typeface design…
The logo of the London Olympics is based closely on Hague’s Klute typeface of 1997, a unique design that draws ideas from blackletter and graffiti. And in the context of the Olympics it’s possible to imagine the influence of Ancient Greek lettering on 2012Headline. The inherited visual language of the Olympics also seems to be what caused the “O” and “o” to be circular (inspired by the venerable five-ring symbol), a direct formal contradiction with every other glyph in the font. Hague reveals that the circular “o” was supposed to be an alternate; he had provided the expected angular “o” as the primary form.
It’s easy to agree that using the circular “o” was a confused, bad decision. I figured to see if that’s really true, so I decided to make an angular “o” glyph based on how I interpreted the font’s “internal consistency”. The first one I made didn’t have very happy proportions, so I decided to bend the rules and make a different one, which I found less jarring.
This one I subbed into the logo and was pleasantly surprised to conclude that opting for the circular “o” was a good decision after all – it seems to add a nice softness, whereas the angular one might just make the whole too mechanical. Olympic Games logos come and go, but apparently the rings are forever!
Although 2012Headline was designed after the logo was approved by LOCOG (so was presumably constrained to being a follower and not a leader) according to Hague himself the only thing the two typefaces share is a general angular spikiness; no blackletter, no graffiti, no Greek. But people will see what they see – the designer is never around to tell them what to think. What I myself see most prominently – something shared by Klute and 2012Headline but virtually no other design – is what motivated me to write this article: it might be a better way to make an italic.
Italic has long been a personal sore spot – to me a sort of drive-by shotgun wedding. Roman and italic might be able to tolerate each other after all these years, but pairing them up was still a bad joke. Now, if they can indeed tolerate each other, why worry? It’s a bit like the search for an energy alternative to fossil fuels, with its tinge of desperation. But to some it does seem like an alternative is the only way forward, or at the very least a break from the despotism of cursiveness being at the heart of emphasis in running text. The unduly reviled slanted roman has had its champions and svengalis, but even if I for one believe that can be an answer, it cannot be the only answer. And one answer might just be rotation, which is essentially what makes 2012Headline (and Klute) so special.
Gareth Hague might not have invented the idea. The passing of time has only cemented Frederic Goudy’s “the old fellows stole all our best ideas” and this is probably no exception. One can easily imagine the ATF boys making rotated glyphs a century ago with a quick adjustment of the pantograph – they certainly did everything else with it. Also, neither Klute nor 2012Headline can serve for emphasis since they have no roman. Rotation as a means of emphasis – dubbed “rotalic” – seems to have first been floated by Filip Tydén, but that was a decade after Klute. Also, virtually all rotalic fonts have been created via brute mechanical rotation, and thus deserve the derision they typically engender. This is clearly not the case with 2012Headline – it’s been designed with intent. So Hague deserves credit for applying the idea quite early with Klute, and maturing it before anybody else with 2012Headline.
Jackson Cavanaugh plays with an italic from his Harriet Series.
As with any novelty, rotalic’s potential for ridicule is great; people like to have fun. This is the sort of ridicule reserved for things that can be consciously evaluated by everybody: display fonts. The magic of text face design kicks in when novelties are applied so subtly as to escape general rejection… although there is no escape from rejection by some fellow type designers. We are now seeing a trickle of rotalic fonts including one that elevates the style to a fully respectable level: TypeTogether’s Eskapade.
Perhaps unsure what to do with the unusual orientation of 2012Headline, Olympics designers often resorted to a rotated baseline.
For many people however letters that seem to be falling over are… uncomfortable. So much so that many applications of 2012Headline – including high-profile ones – have resorted to rotating lines of type counter-clockwise, effectively eliminating the slant, even though the result is an often awkward “uphill” line of type. Then there’s Hubert Jocham’s Keks: older than 2012Headline but more recent than Klute, it seems to vie for the same sort of angularity, but critically without the “discomfort” of rotation. In a way Keks is to 2012Headline what Excoffon’s Chambord is to Peignot: they share a style, but the former avoids the latter’s iconoclasm (Cassandre’s design was nothing less than an effort at alphabet reform), resulting in something easier to sell. In fact it’s nice to imagine a retrofit of 2012Headline that would serve as an italic for Keks (similar to the genesis of Triplex Italic), which might become a first in terms of having a roman and an italic that are equally slanted!
It’s not possible to see 2012Headline as a text face, or even as an italic for a text face. But anybody who can see in it something that will enrich typeface design, that will perhaps propel a new generation of italics, is better off. To quote from a poster made by Hague promoting Klute: “It’s not what this is that’s important, it’s what it could or might be”. This is nicely parallel to a founding principle of the Olympics: “The most important thing is not to win but to take part.” Let’s not worry merely about making sellable fonts – let’s see where 2012Headline can take us.
Dezeen Wire: plans to develop the London 2012 Olympic Park after the Games end in September were unveiled by mayor of London Boris Johnson yesterday, including the transformation of the press centre into a technology, design and research centre, and the creation of up to 8000 new homes in addition to the athletes’ village (+ movie).
The area will be renamed Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the first phase, the North Park, is set to open on 27 July 2013, exactly one year after the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
The second phase, South Plaza, will open in spring 2014 and include the main stadium and Aquatics Centre, which will open for public swimming.
Five new neighbourhoods are planned for the next 20 years, including schools, health centres, playgrounds and 102 hectares of open space.
Read more on the project website, see a 360 degree tour here or the Olympic Park Legacy Company’s brochure here.
See our interactive aerial photo of the Olympic Park here and see all our stories about the London 2012 Olympics here.
Here’s some more information from the Mayor of London’s office:
“A golden Games to be followed by an incredible legacy” says Mayor
After delivering what are expected to be the best Olympic Games ever London is now set to deliver an incredible legacy that will set the benchmark for future host cities to follow, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson said today.
Even before the world had witnessed London’s incredible opening ceremony, followed by impressive organisation of the competitions, it had hit all its milestones on the road to the 2012 Games on time and budget. It had also secured the future of six out of the eight venues on the Olympic Park – something that had never been achieved before, with serious and credible plans on the table for the Olympic Stadium and the Press and Broadcast Centre.
Speaking at his London 2012 Legacy Press Conference he was joined by some of the major investors inspired by the opportunities the Games and the regeneration of east London are providing. This includes ICity who outlined their proposals for transforming the Park’s media centre into a technology, design and research centre with the potential to generate more than 4,000 jobs. This will build on the 10,000 jobs being delivered by Westfield Stratford City whose owners brought forward their investment plans for east London by at least 15 years after seeing the potential of the area from staging the 2012 Games.
What was once an industrial wasteland is also seeing private money from around the world transforming it into a brand new district of thriving communities with 10,000 new homes planned over the next 20 years served by new schools and medical facilities. Developers Taylor Wimpey and London & Quadrant explained how it will be building nearly 8000 new homes mainly for families as well as the brand new educational academy at Chobham Manor.
But the London 2012 legacy doesn’t end at the boundaries of the Olympic Park as the Mayor is continuing to promote the incredible investment opportunities across the capital including The Royal Docks, Silvertown Quays, Vauxhaull and Nine Elms as well as in riot-affected Tottenham and Croydon where the Mayor is investing £70 million from his regeneration fund. All these areas are benefitting directly and indirectly from the £6.5 billion upgrade of the capital’s transport network as it prepared to stage the Games and with the arrival of Crossrail in 2017 London will be the best connected city for business in the world.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “The doom and gloom merchants who said our great city would implode as we tried to stage the greatest show on earth have been proved wrong. And they will be proved wrong again as we use the catalyst of the games to attract investment into the wealth of opportunities arising in London now and in the coming years. Put simply there is no other place on the planet where investors will see greater returns.”
Daniel Moylan, Chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation said: “Central London is moving east. Bringing the Games to east London has accelerated investment in an already growing area and now the world’s attention is focused on this fantastic part of the city.
“The Legacy Corporation, working with partners, will harness the momentum of the London Games to create a new piece of the city, bringing together the best of east London and the Olympic spirit to provide jobs, homes, schools, sports and entertainment opportunities to local residents, Londoners and visitors.”
Gavin Poole CEO iCity said: “We are really excited about the opportunity to transform the Press and Broadcast Centres into a world-class centre of technological innovation and enterprise. iCITY will create thousands of jobs, provide investment and highly advanced infrastructure for East London’s flourishing creative industries, and deliver a sustainable legacy for the local community, London and the UK.
Peter Redfern CEO Taylor Wimpey who were recently appointed to construct the first of five new neighbourhoods in the Olympic Park said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to deliver the first phase of new housing in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Taylor Wimpey are already one of the biggest contributors to new housing in London and our plans for Chobham Manor provide a unique opportunity to develop an exciting new residential quarter in one of the key growth areas of the UK.
Chobham Manor was designed with families in mind and will provide East London with much needed spacious homes designed by a team of signature architects. The exemplar design and sustainability credentials combined with the unprecedented transport connections and lifestyle amenities will provide a new residential address of the highest quality.
Speaking on behalf of Qatari Diar Delancey, appointed to transform the athletes village, Stuart Corbyn said “East Village will be a place for everybody to enjoy the best of city living; new homes will be joined by first class education, outstanding sports and leisure facilities, local shops, cafes and restaurants, and unrivalled connections to the rest of the capital. This will be one of the most exciting places to live in London.
East Village provides much needed homes, investment and jobs in East London, and reconfirms our long term commitment alongside Triathlon Homes to the local community, quality, partnership and sustainability.”
Transforming the Park
After the Games, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) will begin a £300m construction project to transform the Olympic site into the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. This will involve removing temporary venues, transforming permanent venues into everyday use, building new roads and bridges and the first neighbourhood.
» The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park will be an exciting new visitor destination. Iconic venues and attractions will sit alongside new homes, schools and businesses, amongst open green spaces and pieces of art in the heart of London’s East End.
» The new Park will open in phases from 27th July 2013, exactly one year after the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games. The LLDC was set up three years before the Games in 2009.
» The Park will be 560 acres (226 hectares) in size, equivalent to Hyde Park or 357 football pitches.
Venues and Sport
» The future of six of the eight permanent venues has already been secured (Aquatics Centre, Orbit, Multi-Use Arena, Olympic Village, Velodrome, Eton Manor).
» We are in advanced stages of work to complete the remaining two (Stadium and the Press and Broadcast Centre).
» The Park offer sporting programmes for everything from grass roots community use to high performance competitions.
» Price pledge: the cost of a swimming in the Aquatics Centre or court hire in the Multi-use Arena will be the same as that of a local leisure centre.
Employment
» Up to 8,000 permanent jobs on the park by 2030 plus 2,500 temporary construction jobs
» Training and apprenticeships with a focus on opportunities for local people
» Venues such as the Press and Broadcast Centres have been developed so they can be adapted for commercial use after Games.
New Neighbourhoods
» Five new neighbourhoods developed over 20 years
» Up to 8,000 new homes in addition to the 2,800 in the athletes’ village
» A target of 35% affordable housing
» 3 schools
» 9 nurseries
» 3 health centres
» 29 playgrounds
Transport
» Best connected most accessible place in Europe.
» Direct connections to a third of London’s rail and underground stations.
» There are nine public transport lines feeding into Stratford station; after the Games this will increase to ten. This means that a train could arrive at the station every 15 seconds.
» By 2016, it’˙s estimated that the number of passengers using Stratford station each morning will reach 83,000.
Visitor Attraction
» Expected to become one of London’s Top 10 visitor destinations by 2020 attracting local, regional, national and international visitors.
» The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park could attract more than 9million visitors per year from across London, the UK and abroad from 2016.
Green Space
» Over 22 miles of interlinking pathways, waterways and cycle paths.
» 252 acres (102 hectares) of open space.
» 6.5 kms of rivers and canals running through the Park
» 111 acres (45 hectares) of biodiverse wildlife habitat on the Olympic Park, including reedbeds, grasslands, ponds and woodlands, with 525 bird boxes and 150 bat boxes.
The post London 2012 Olympic Park
legacy plans unveiled appeared first on Dezeen.
Design collective Assemble and a team of volunteers have constructed a temporary theatre in West Sussex, England, out of scaffolding, chipboard and plastic pond liner (+ slideshow).
Behind the waterproof plastic exterior, Theatre on the Fly is filled with exposed ropes, pulleys, spotlights and scaffolding platforms, just like the fly tower on top of most theatres.
The audience sit on chunky chipboard steps to face both the stage and a set of huge doors behind, which open for performances taking place on the lawn outside.
Completed on a tight budget, the theatre is hosting a nine-week programme of plays, workshops and talks over the summer as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the Chichester Festival Theatre.
Assemble previously constructed a temporary cinema beneath a motorway flyover in London.
Other temporary theatres we’ve featured include one made from spray-painted straw bales and an outdoor stage made entirely from timber batons.
See all our stories about theatres »
Photography is by Jim Stephenson.
Here’s some information from Assemble:
Theatre On The Fly is a temporary theatre space commissioned by Chichester Festival Theatre as part of their 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Inspired by the fleet-footed Tent productions that gave birth to the Minerva Theatre, Theatre On The Fly is playing host to a 9 week summer program based around three plays directed by Chichester’s three apprentice directors.
Theatre On The Fly is conceived by Chichester Festival Theatre as an opportunity to express the extraordinary spirit and strength of support for the Theatre, both across the city and throughout the rest of the UK.
The existing Festival Theatre was built on public subscription, which, as well as being an expident way to raise funds during difficult economic times, also fostered a sense of shared ownership and acted as a testament to the importance of the theatre to the wider community that was harnessed through the involvement of an extremely varied group of participants during construction.
The construction was managed on site by Assemble and construction carried out, in the main, by over 40 volunteers ranging in age from 16-68.
Chichester Festival Theatre chose award-winning design-and-build collective Assemble, whose working method on previous projects including The Cineroleum and Folly for a Flyover reflects this participatory and experimental spirit, to lead the project.
Assemble’s design, which sits on the boundary between indoor and outdoor theatre, provides an extraordinary performance space for the summer programme and provides a capacity, in the form of fly-tower, that is absent in the main theatres on the site.
Assemble worked closely with the directors to create a project that is envisaged as a continuation and reassertion of Chichester’s history of innovative theatre and ground-breaking design; a small but vital part of a wider project to affirm and grow Chichester’s unique position at the fore-front of UK theatre. The space reveals and plays with the machinations and techniques of theatre-making.
The design is based on the fly tower, a theatrical device used for the hoisting and lowering of objects and scene out of and into audience view during a performance.Theatre on the Fly exposes the fly-tower mechanisms which are normally hidden from view, creating a chameleonic space capable of hosting both intimate productions and opening up to offer views of to the surrounding parkland. Over the course of the summer the space will also host an open programme of talks, workshops and screenings.
Built almost entirely from re-useable and recyclable materials and materials donated in-kind, the project sought both to maximise the possible scale of the project on a limited budget. One example of this is the facade, clad in a changeable, translucent fiberweb material typically used as a pond liner or road underlay and at a cost of just £300. Detailed with tall, structural seams that fix back to the scaffolding sub-frame with cable ties, this material is almost silent in wind and rain and, in combination with the corrugated bitumen roofing material contributes to an extraordinarily quiet exterior structure.
With the support of the Heller Foundation and Arts Council England, three young directors have trained at Chichester Festival Theatre during the last five years and it is their debut Chichester productions – Blue Remembered Hills, Playhouse Creatures and Fred’s Diner – that are at the heart of the Theatre on the Fly season. The space will also house an eclectic season of late night comedy, live music and cabaret, the Youth Theatre’s production of Noah, theatre activities for children, and Anniversary readings.
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by Assemble appeared first on Dezeen.
Bold patterns based on natural adventures
Aptly named “Nature’s Edge,” the inaugural collection from UK-based label Sara C comprises a range of woven bamboo tops and dresses printed with unique patterns hand-drawn by designer Sara Cohen and produced locally.
Cohen was inspired to leave her demanding job in the advertising world to embrace her passion for print design after attending the Do Lectures. The small-but-mighty annual ideas conference held in West Wales gave her the motivating jolt she needed to embark on a seven-week adventure around England in her family campervan, known fondly as Able Mable. Inspired by the surrounding landscape, Cohen turned the period of reflection into the genesis for her new business and creative venture.
Cohen describes her designs as “graphic natural shapes infused with bright washes of color. The intricate designs harken back to what she saw on her journey, and the world to which she was longing to connect. “Nature tells millions of tiny, perfect stories,” she says, translating those narratives into a vibrant everyday wardrobe that travels as well through the city as the rich flora of Cohen’s far-flung and often remote travels.
The collection’s designs are adapted from photographs and drawings Cohen has amassed along her way, not only in the UK, but also in the more exotic climes of Australia and Mexico. In the creation section on the Sara C site you can find the story and visual evolution behind each design and the natural beauty that inspired it. The line is also available through the designer’s online shop.
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.
