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British studio Snook Architects has overhauled a dilapidated eighteenth-century barn in Yorkshire to create a modern home with chunky wooden trusses, exposed brickwork and a double-height family kitchen (+ slideshow).
Cat Hill Barn was first built as an agricultural shed, but had been abandoned for years and was on the brink of ruin after previous owners had inserted a truss structure that was too weak to support the roof, causing the outer walls to bow.
Snook Architects was tasked with rebuilding the internal structure and roof of the barn, removing a floor added previously by a local architect, and transforming the space into a two-storey family home.
“Structurally the building was in a worse state than we first anticipated,” architect Neil Dawson told Dezeen. “As well as removing the entire roof, which frankly was on the verge of collapse, we ended up having to secure all external walls by means of a steel structural frame that sits within the existing masonry.”
The team replaced the existing roof structure with a system of pegged oak trusses that are revealed in the double-height kitchen and dining room at the centre of the building.
“Spatially we wanted to retain the spirit of the place by allowing the barn to reveal itself and its double-height volume at key points,” said Dawson.
A glazed first-floor gallery overlooks this space from above, leading through to bedrooms at both ends of the first floor, while living rooms and guest bedrooms occupy the end sections of the ground floor.
“Planning of the project concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn,” said the architect.
Interior fittings and finishes were designed to respect the honest utilitarian aesthetic of the old barn and include a stone fireplace, timber-framed windows and a poured concrete floor.
Photography is by Andy Haslam.
Here’s a description from Snook Architects:
Cat Hill Barn
Cat Hill Barn is the complete renovation and refurbishment of a previously dilapidated grade II listed barn in South Yorkshire. Originally built in the late 1700’s as agricultural storage for the neighbouring Cat Hill Hall, the building in recent years stood neglected and was at the point of complete ruin.
Snook have secured the existing structure of the barn with a new internal steel framework and rebuilt the previously collapsing roof. The project has attempted to retain much of the working aesthetic of the barn utilising a stripped down utilitarian palette of material.
Planning of the project also concentrated on creating drama within the existing structure by focusing on the tension and release formed between constricted single-height spaces and the double-height volume of the barn.
Brief
Prior to the appointment of Snook Architects the owners of the barn had commissioned a feasibility study from a local rural architect. Despite not having any prior construction experience both Mr and Mrs Wills were disappointed with the outcome. The scheme essentially inserted a new floor throughout the full length of the barn and created a series of boxes over the two floors. All drama and sense of space within the barn structure was destroyed.
Through a mutual client of Snook and Mr Wills, Mr Wills discovered the work of Snook Architects and set up a competitive interview with Snook and another practice. It was the production of Snook’s speculative feasibility study that largely set up the brief. In presenting the scheme and having a critical discourse about the previous scheme both the clients and Snook discovered a mutual appreciation and understanding of the essence of the project: a need to retain the sense of the barn in both use of volumetric space and utilitarian finish. It was this mutual understanding that ultimately won Snook the project.
Planning
However, despite an almost immediate synergy with the client and owners of the barn a less successful understanding was achieved with the local planning authority. Despite repeated attempts at dialogue with the local planning and conservation officer an application was ultimately refused. Reasons cited were numerous but all ultimately pointed to the planning and conservation officers feeling that the scheme was too ‘domestic’ (despite both the spaces and finishes proposed being anything but domestic). Following the refusal Snook launched an appeal and after removing a small balcony from the gable end permission was successfully granted almost 16 months after initially starting the project.
The project then stalled for a further couple of years as with the credit crunch in full swing the owners of the barn found it impossible to sell their current home to raise funds for the conversion of the barn. Finally, in summer 2011 Mr and Mrs Wills were able to sell their house, a caravan was purchased, drawings were resurrected, and the scheme began on site later that year.
Structure
Both client and architect had always been aware of the perilous state of the structure with the architect and structural engineer instructing the owners to seal the barn and keep out. It was no exaggeration to state that the roof could have literally collapsed in at any moment. In short when previous owners had rebuilt the barn they had installed trusses that were both too weak and too short for the cross sectional span.
To exacerbate matters the completely inadequate trusses were supported on breeze block corbels which were also crushing towards wholesale failure. In short the trusses were collapsing and pushing the perimeter walls out. Walls were seriously bowed out and it was immediately apparent that both the roof and the perimeter walls could literally collapse at any moment.
Method of Construction
Construction of the superstructure was relatively straight forward. The roof and one of the main perimeter walls were carefully taken down, a new steel supporting frame was inserted inside the building and walls and the roof were then re built around the steel frame (using the existing material).
Budget / Programme
Budget on the project was incredibly tight with the project initially tendered @ £231,000 and ultimately delivered for £234,383 – an astounding £710/sq.m (including all finishes).
Construction programme on the project at tender was nine months and it was delivered in just short of ten.
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modern home by Snook Architects appeared first on Dezeen.
Ben Davidson of London studio Rodić Davidson Architects designed this garden shed in Cambridge, England, to the exact proportions of his grandfather’s old workbench and added pegboard walls for displaying a collection of handmade tools (+ slideshow).
The Garden Workshop is one of two wooden sheds that Rodić Davidson Architects has built at the end of Davidson’s garden. The other functions as a home office, but this one is used by the architect as a model-making workshop.
The building is designed around the size of two components. The first is a series of glazed panels the architect had been given for free by a contractor several years earlier, and the second is an old workbench originally belonging to his grandfather that he inherited after the recent death of his father.
“My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented; he should have been a cabinet maker,” said Davidson. “I recall many summers in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.”
“My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in the garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985,” he added.
The building has a simple wooden box frame that is left exposed inside, fitting exactly around the old workbench.
The square recesses around the frame are infilled with pieces of lacquered pegboard that accommodate hooks for hanging the old tools, many of which Davidson says he made with his grandfather at the age of ten.
Modular wooden shelving boxes also slot into the recesses, while an extra workbench made from maple runs along one wall beneath a window.
Two skylights offer a view up to the sky through the canopy of an adjacent tree and a concrete base gives the shed its floor.
The exterior is clad with black-stained plywood over a layer of rubber waterproofing.
Photography is by the architect.
Here’s a project description from Rodić Davidson Architects:
Garden Studio, Cambridge
A black timber garden studio and model-making workshop
Hidden in amongst the trees at the end of a long garden in Cambridge, we have designed and built two separate timber-framed buildings for use as a home office/studio and a model-making workshop. The structures are clad in vertical black-stained softwood boarding of varying widths – wider on the studio and narrower on the workshop. On the studio, the cladding forms a continuous rainscreen and wraps the entire building. The larger studio building is very highly insulated (using 150mm Cellotex combined with Super Tri-Iso) and incorporates a super efficient air-source heat pump. Calculations indicate that the annual heating bill will cost less than £21 in electricity costs. The building is wrapped with a black timber rain screen over a complete wrapper of a rubber membrane for water-proofing.
Free glass
We moved to Cambridge in 2008 and, not long after having done so, I was offered – free of charge – some large Velfac glazed panels from a contractor that we were working with who had incorrectly ordered them for a new school. If I hadn’t have taken them, they would have gone in the skip.
The panels arrived at my new house in Cambridge on the same day that we moved in. For 4 years they sat in the garden under a blue tarpaulin.
Beautiful tools to restore and display
My father sadly died in 2012 and this led me to inherit my grandfather’s workbench and tools which had sat in his garage, unused and rusting, for almost 30 years since his death in 1985. My grandfather was a carpenter by trade and extraordinarily talented: he should have been a cabinet maker. I recall many summers, in my early teens, being packed off for two weeks to go and stay with my grandparents in Norfolk and spending the entire time with him in his workshop.
The two events – my father’s death and came together and led me to design and build the workshop. The design was led by numerous very specific criteria: The size of my grandfathers workbench, the size and number of glass units, the wish to not only store – but to display the wonderful tools (most of which my grandfather had made – indeed some we made together when I was 10).
The final briefing constraint was the wish to build the buildings under Permitted Development.
The design
The workshop is made using a timber frame on a concrete base. The frame is set out precisely so as to form internal square sections. The timber is cheap 6×2 softwood used for stud work. The frame was clad with ply (2 sheets on the roof) and then cross battened and clad again with staggered roofing battens (50x25mm). Internally, pegboard was cut and placed between the stud work squares and the entire internal space was then prepared and sprayed with 7 coats of Morrells satin lacquer. This was extremely time consuming. Birch ply cupboards were then fitted into the openings.
A workbench was made from maple accommodating a lower platform for the Meddings pillar drill and a sink. The elevation above the workbench is fully glazed and north facing.
Two roof lights were installed which look up into the canopy of the lime tree over.
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workbench and a collection of handmade tools appeared first on Dezeen.
This series of images by architectural rendering studio Hayes Davidson envisages how London‘s skyline might look in 20 years time.
Over 200 towers with a height of 20 storeys or greater are planned in the UK capital over the next two decades and Hayes Davidson has visualised how these new buildings will appear alongside existing skyscrapers such as Renzo Piano’s The Shard and Norman Foster’s The Gherkin.
The images were created for an exhibition opening later this year at New London Architecture (NLA) entitled London’s Growing… Up! which will chart the growth of tall building construction in London since the 1960s and look at the impact skyscrapers will have on the city in the near future.
“As London’s population gets bigger and bigger, and new development for London takes place within the constraints of the green belt, we have to increase the density of the city,” said Peter Murray, who is chairman of NLA and the exhibition curator.
“This results in our buildings getting taller. The huge number of towers in the pipeline will have a significant impact on the look of London.”
New buildings such as the so-called “can of ham” by Foggo Associates and The Pinnacle by Kohn Pedersen Fox are featured, along with nearly complete structures such as the Leadenhall Building by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners and Rafael Viñoly’s Walkie Talkie at 20 Fenchurch Street.
The exhibition opens to the public on 3 April 2014.
Here’s more information about the exhibition from NLA:
London’s Growing… Up!
The rise and rise of London’s tall buildings
London’s skyline is currently going through a massive change. Over 200 towers are planned in the capital in an attempt to meet the needs of the capital’s growing population. So how will London’s skyline change in the next 20 years?
This April, New London Architecture (NLA) – London’s Centre for the Built Environment will explore this new skyline with London’s Growing… Up! Through the use of images, video, models, CGI’s and visitor interaction, the exhibition will present a past, present and future view of London’s skyline as the capital’s developers focus on building upwards rather than outwards.
There are over 200 towers, each more than 20 storeys, currently planned in London, around 150 of them new residential blocks. London’s Growing… Up! offers a timely exploration into this hotly debated subject.
Since the emergence of skyscrapers in London in the 1960s, the capital’s skyline has changed irrevocably. Visitors will explore the history of London’s high‐rise architecture through images, models and construction videos, witnessing how iconic structures such as the Barbican and Centre Point set a precedent for the future of the skyline. A series of panoramic views of London chart the ever‐changing landscape, from the 1960s through to the modern day and demonstrating how London will appear in 10 years time.
Famous structures including Canary Wharf, The Gherkin and The Shard are examined in the exhibition, looking at their context, their economic raison d’etre and the impact they have on our understanding of the city.
The exhibition will also explore the significant growth in high‐rise residential development. High‐rise residential was once only seen on council estates and glass skyscrapers were reserved for the business world, but the growing trend of luxury towers is currently providing the majority of new developments in the capital. Areas such as Nine Elms, Waterloo and White City will be explored, looking at why these new areas are attracting high‐rise development and how luxury and affordable residential can coincide in London’s new vertical city.
Visitors will be able to have their say on what should or shouldn’t be in the London skyline. Touch screen will enable guests to rewind time and fast‐forward to the future to see how London has, and will be, developed. Visitors will have the opportunity to remove or change the location of buildings they don’t like and even add buildings from other cities, making their own metropolis which will be posted onto the NLA’s Twitter feed.
Thursday 3 April – Thursday 12 June 2014
NLA, The Building Centre, 26 Store Street, London WC1E 7BT
The post London’s future skyline captured
in new visualisations appeared first on Dezeen.
Latticed wooden screens form balustrades for a red pigmented concrete staircase inside this renovated mews house in west London by British studio Jonathan Tuckey Design.
Named Submariner’s House, the three-storey residence was redesigned by Jonathan Tuckey Design for a resident who used to work on a submarine. This client asked for a home that maximises space and includes a new basement and roof terrace.
The compact proportions of the building led to a simple layout with one main room on each floor and a focal staircase that runs along one wall.
“Our ambition was to provide a series of new domestic spaces that were pulled together as a whole by a new staircase and voids between the different levels to create a psychologically expanded space,” said project architect Ryuta Hirayama.
Red pigment was added to concrete to give a warm colour to the staircase. It is fronted by screens made from timber slats, which are white washed so that they appear bleached and have diagonal braces for handrails.
On the ground floor, an illuminated glass box sits at the end of the staircase to allow light to reach a shower room in the basement.
The rest of the newly excavated basement is used as a games room. Felt-lined walls slide back to reveal shelves and cupboards, and the room can also be partitioned to create a small guest bedroom.
More built-in cupboards line the walls of a ground-floor kitchen and dining room, while old stable doors open the room out to the quiet street.
The living room occupies the first floor and the client’s bedroom can be found on the storey above. There’s also an en suite bathroom including a limestone bath and a skylight with adjustable opacity.
Photography is by Dirk Lindner.
Here’s a project description from Jonathan Tuckey Design:
Submariner’s House
Reconstruction of a mews house in the conservation area of St Luke’s Mews, west London.
Brief
Full refurbishment of a three storey mews house and construction of a new basement for a private client who is an ex-submariner. The house consists of a kitchen/dining room on the ground floor, living room on the 1st floor,bedroom/bathroom on the 2nd floor and media room in the basement which can also be used as a guest bedroom.
This late Victorian mews house is located in a conservation area allowing us only minor alteration works to the external facade. Briefed to maximise both the living and storage space in this small mews house, our ambition was to provide a series of new domestic spaces that were pulled together as a whole by a new staircase and voids between the different levels to create a psychologically expanded space.
Concrete stairs and screen
The staircase is made from red pigmented concrete and is veiled in a delicate screen of whitened timber slats that acts as both balustrade and room divider. In places this screen parts to reveal views through the house and, together with the strategically positioned new windows, helps to join the different levels and spaces of the house into one. Polished plaster walls also tie the spaces together and draw light deep in to the building.
Basement
A newly excavated basement allowed for the addition of a new media room and guest accommodation and a sequence of felt-lined panels and cupboards allow this space to accommodate its mix of functions.
Ground floor
The main entrance garage door can be opened out a full 180 degrees and with an integrated folding table can create a dining room extended into the street. A glass box by the entrance door lets natural light into the basement shower room. The entire polished plaster wall alongside the kitchen/dining room conceals a cupboard with black MDF shelves.
First floor
Whitened timber slats and bookshelves create spacious open living room space.
Second floor
Skylight on the pitched bathroom roof allows natural light to flood into the bedroom. A control on the skylight allows the client to adjust the opacity of the glass while looking up at the sky from the bathtub. Bathtub is made of limestone and the floor is tiled with natural cement tiles.
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a mews house for an ex-submariner appeared first on Dezeen.
Microscopic views of flower petals informed the rippled timber facade of this flower kiosk in west London by British firm Buchanan Partnership (+ slideshow).
Buchanan Partnership used a combination of digital and handmade fabrication techniques to build the St Helen’s Gardens flower stall in Ladbroke Grove.
Horizontal timber slats were CNC-cut with wavy profiles to create a rippling effect around the facade. These were then layered up and bolted to a galvanised steel structure that sits on the lozenge-shaped concrete base.
The studio wanted to look beyond conventional floral motifs for the small commission. “We took inspiration from electron scanning microscopic images of flower petals, which reveal tiny three-dimensional ridge patterns across the petal surface,” said architect Kyle Buchanan.
The kiosk doors rotate open during the day, creating space to prepare and wrap the flowers on the Accoya timber countertop.
Stainless steel letters spelling out “THE KIOSK” sit on the roof of the structure.
The flowers are displayed on shelves that are placed on the surrounding pavement, and are stored and locked in the kiosk at night.
This project came about as part of a change of use application for a neighbouring shop, which had previously been a florist. Initially turned down by planners, the project won approval after gaining huge local support.
In researching the proposal, the practice looked at Thomas Heatherwick’s Paperhouse, a set of newspaper kiosks also in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, CZWG’s nearby public lavatories at Westbourne Grove as well as other kiosks throughout London, says Buchanan.
“London has an interesting history of kiosk buildings, including the ornate ironwork public toilet on Foley Street and the police station in Trafalgar Square, which is in the base of a lamp post and was the smallest police station in the world when it was manned,” he said.
The project is one of the first completed by the practice’s recently opened London office.
Photography is by Charles Hosea.
Here’s a project description from Buchanan Partnership:
Flower Kiosk
A new permanent flower kiosk in Ladbroke Grove, built using digital and handcrafted fabrication techniques.
This project, for a permanent flower kiosk in Ladbroke Grove, came about as part of a change of use application for the neighbouring retail unit, which had previously been used as a florist.
The concept for the rippling CNC-cut timber layers of the facade resulted from an ambition to reinvent the conventional idea of a floral motif.
We took inspiration from electron scanning microscopic images of flower petals, which reveal tiny three-dimensional ridge patterns across the petal surface. These ridges intensify the colour of the flower and act as a graspable surface for bees and other insects.
Using both digital and traditional fabrication techniques, the ridges are referenced in the external form of the kiosk, so that the nano-condition of the petal is translated into a contemporary interpretation of the floral motif in the architecture.
The lozenge shape of the kiosk rotates to be open during the day, creating space to prepare and wrap the flowers. The flowers are displayed on shelves that are placed on the surrounding pavement, and are stored and locked in the kiosk at night.
Contract value: £47,000
Location: St Helen’s Gardens, London
Client: Mountgrange Heritage and The Cundall Partnership
Fabrication: William Hardie Design
Planning Consultant: Ian Fergusson of Turley Associates
Structural Engineers: Tall Engineers
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flower kiosk by Buchanan Partnership appeared first on Dezeen.
The window of London department store Selfridges has been dressed with a selection of new inventions by British designer Dominic Wilcox, including a reverse listening device and binoculars for viewing the future (+ slideshow).
Dominic Wilcox chose ideas from his Variations on Normal collection of absurd but logical inventions for the window display, which is part of Selfridges’ Festival of Imagination.
“The theme I was working to was extremely broad, simply ‘Imagination’,” Wilcox told Dezeen. “I started adding ideas into my sketchbook one at a time and eventually filled a few pages with a rough outline of thoughts. Once I started selecting materials and making the ideas into real objects they naturally changed and developed.”
His handmade sparkling beard is made from 2000 crystals and a Wedgwood cup and saucer has been modified to include a fan for cooling a piping hot brew.
An umbrella with inbuilt flowers pots is designed so the user can water their plants and stay dry at the same time. The Reverse Listening Device – shown in the short movie above – allows the wearer to listen to sounds on their left side in their right ear and vice versa. “It was interesting to use the device and find out that it actually worked well,” said Wilcox.
He created a pair of binoculars through which the user could view the future and past, simply by inputting their chosen date and looking through the eyepieces.
An alarm clock with a brass bugle attached to the side is powered by mini compressor to create a noise loud enough to ensure you wake up.
Metal objects are given a punk makeover by covering them in spikes include a faucet, a teapot and a hip flask.
Wilcox proposes attaching small aeroplane wings to the sides of London’s black cabs to alleviate the city’s traffic congestion.
A suitcase with legs so it can walk on its own instead of being dragged along and toothbrushes with maracas on the bottom to make cleaning teeth more musical also feature in the display.
The items are suspended in the window beside bubbles of text to explain their functions.
Wilcox’s No Place Like Home GPS shoes are on display in Selfridges as part of the Imagine Shop curated by Dezeen, which also features an augmented reality watch store and giant yacht – watch our movie about the pop-up here.
Wilcox will give a talk about his creations and other work in the OMA-designed Imaginarium in Selfridges’ basement, at 12:30pm on 7 February.
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displayed in Selfridges’ window appeared first on Dezeen.
London studio Scott Architects has added a curvy timber extension to a terraced house in Hackney, featuring a bowed wall that cuts through the centre of a green roof.
De Beauvoir House is a nineteenth-century brick building that was originally the home of Scott Architects‘ directors Jez and Tonya Scott. The architects decided to renovate the house and add a larger kitchen and dining room, and an extra bedroom.
The residence is located within a conservation area, so the architects designed an extension with smooth oak surfaces and plant-covered rooftops to allow it to sit comfortably with its surroundings.
“The forms at the back of the building were designed to connect with the garden as much as possible,” Jez Scott told Dezeen.
The new ground-floor kitchen and dining room curves out around a decked terrace. Its sloping roof angles down to meet the garden and is blanketed by a surface of plants and wildflowers.
Inside, the kitchen is positioned beneath a long skylight, revealing how an internal partition is also an exterior wall.
“When you’re in the kitchen you can look up at the double-height timber and get a real feel for these gestural shapes,” said Scott.
Limestone was used as a flooring material, contrasting with the restored pine floorboards elsewhere in the house, and a stretch of glazing defines the junction between the new and old structures.
An added doorway leads through to the new bedroom from the house’s main staircase. The room also opens out to the rooftop garden.
Existing walls were stripped back to the brickwork in various rooms. The architects also reinstated decorative ceiling mouldings and added a new fireplace.
Photography is by Craig Sheppard .
Here’s a project description from Scott Architects:
De Beauvoir House
De Beauvoir House is a four-bedroom Victorian terraced house that has been sensitively refurbished and boldly extended as a sculptural form that draws in light from the sky and embraces views of its garden and surrounding trees.
Set within a Hackney conservation area, original period features have been reinstated using traditional methods while a rear extension of sweeping spaces gives new life to a house that was slowly being outgrown by its family’s modern requirements.
The form of the new extension has evolved from the language of the site: its gardens, its brickwork and its neighbouring buildings. Its curved forms are clad in solid oak boarding to add to a carefully selected palette of natural materials – limestone flooring, exposed brickwork walls and restored Baltic pine floorboards. The interiors are expressed as a series of fluid surfaces and flowing spaces that weave through the home, leading one towards a rear garden that gently extends over the dining room as a green roof of wildflowers.
Generously lit indoor family rooms open up and connect with west-facing outdoor spaces. Contemporary forms reveal and celebrate the character of the original house, allowing vertical pools of natural light to wash over exposed brickwork and cleanly composed surfaces. Oak boarding extends through to internal spaces to add texture and visual warmth.
The original building has been fully thermally insulated and includes low energy lighting, under floor heating from a highly efficient boiler and a sloping green roof.
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features a sloping grass roof appeared first on Dezeen.
British designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby have curated an exhibition at London’s Design Museum containing a selection of objects paused part-way through the manufacturing process, which they joked reveals their obsession with aluminium.
The 24 objects on show at Barber and Osgerby‘s In The Making exhibition have all been paused at a different stage of completion, chosen to demonstrate the way it’s made or to show it when its most visually interesting. “Some of the items are more beautiful and sculptural than the finished pieces,” said Barber during a tour of the exhibition.
At the entrance to the exhibition sits an aluminium section that would form the front of a London Underground train. The chunk of metal is instantly recognisable as belonging to a tube carriage even taken out of context.
Seeing the train front in isolation also allows visitors to gauge the scale of the piece and the qualities of the material, which is true of all the objects on display.
Other aluminium items include the flat perforated outer skin of the duo’s Olympic Torch before it has been joined into its 3D form, a drinks can without its top and the case of an Apple MacBook Pro.
“This could have be called the aluminium show,” said Osgerby. “There are a number of aluminium pieces in this exhibition, which I think demonstrates the importance of the material – not least in its recyclability but also its malleability.”
Arranged along two black corridors, the objects are presented under spotlights like sculpture or jewellery. “Each object has been lit in this way to really try to animate the design and give it an importance,” said Osgerby.
Some of the manufacturing techniques are easily recognisable in the objects, such as the creation of pencils, while other more abstract forms are harder difficult to guess, like the conical top of a silicon cylinder used to create semi-conductive chips for electronics.
A sheet of leftover lurid yellow felt with cut out strips used for tennis balls and the splayed upper of a Nike GS Football Boot were chosen for their graphic shapes.
“We were quite struck by the amazing graphic quality, which is something we’ve really paid attention to in our work,” said Barber.
Aside from the torch, Barber and Osgerby have also included their designs for a £2 coin to mark the 150th anniversary of the London Underground and the injection-moulded Tip Ton chair for design brand Vitra.
Positioned at the ends of the displays are two larger items: a sofa by furniture brand B&B Italia that has been formed into shape with foam but not yet upholstered and a long cuboid of clay that would be sliced up into bricks.
Three screens are installed to show the manufacture of the items and visitors can take pamphlets containing more information about each object as they exit the exhibition space. These booklets were designed by London studio Build, which created all the graphics for the show.
In The Making runs until 4 May at the Design Museum in London. Photography is by Mirren Rosie, courtesy of the Design Museum, unless otherwise stated.
The post Barber and Osgerby’s Design Museum exhibition
“could almost be called the aluminium show” appeared first on Dezeen.
An events space designed by Rem Koolhaas’ OMA has opened in the basement of London department store Selfridges, featuring a circular amphitheatre, vivid green columns and a stripy monochrome floor (+ slideshow).
The Imaginarium was designed by OMA as “a school of imagination” and will be used to host a series of lectures, debates and activities as part of the Festival of Imagination taking place over the next six weeks.
The space centres around the semi-circular sections of the main amphitheatre, which were built on wheels so that they can be moved into different configurations. Pushed together, they form an intimate enclosure for up to 72 people, but can also be separated to surround a mobile stage.
The hollow structure of the seating is clad with translucent polycarbonate, allowing light to shine through from dozens of fluorescent lighting tubes installed within.
Elsewhere, cube-shaped stools are laid out in a grid to create another seating area, but can be moved into different layouts to suit various events and activities.
The floor of the space is painted with an Op Art-style pattern of black and white stripes that were applied using a road-painting machine.
Surrounding columns are painted in a shade of green often used to overlay a background in televised news and weather reports.
The perimeter walls are covered with mirrors that disguise the boundaries of the room.
The Koolhaas-designed auditorium is one of three Imaginariums installed at Selfridges‘ department stores across the UK. All three will host daily events during the Festival of Imagination, which is intended to “explore the power of the mind”.
The Oxford Street Selfridges also features the Imagine Shop, a pop-up store curated by Dezeen that contains an augmented reality watch store and a walk-around digital model model of a yacht designed by Zaha Hadid.
Photography is by Andrew Meredith.
Read on for more information from Selfridges:
Selfridges launches the Festival of Imagination, with the unveiling of the Imaginarium – the first school of imagination of its kind
Selfridges London previews its Festival of Imagination with novelist Lucy Hawking (daughter of scientist Stephen Hawking) and Selfridges’ Creative Director Alannah Weston in the Imaginarium, ahead of the official launch to the public, tomorrow, Friday 17 January.
Based on Harry Gordon Selfridge’s belief that imagination is the antidote to routine and the mother of originality, The Festival of Imagination is Selfridges’ new campaign to encourage people to explore the power of their own imagination with the help of some renowned personalities (the festival’s bright imagineers) who are helping to shape and inspire our future.
Following on from the resounding success of No Noise in 2013, Selfridges’ first wellbeing campaign, the Festival of Imagination continues to explore the power of the mind. This time, instead of celebrating silence, meditation and all things ‘less is more’, Selfridges focuses on what happens when our creativity is stimulated and imagination takes flight.
The line up of imagineers giving one of the 100-plus talks, lectures and discussions in Imaginariums in Selfridges stores in London, Manchester and Birmingham include Lucy Hawking, Jeanette Winterson, Carol Ann Duffy, and Nicola Formichetti.
The stunning London Imaginarium was designed by iconic Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, under whom Zaha Hadid, the world’s most famous female architect once studied and trained.
The Festival of Imagination officially launches on Friday 17 January and runs until 2 March. The Imaginariums’ schedules and all details about the festival are available at selfridges.com.
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in Selfridges’ basement appeared first on Dezeen.
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