Archinect - News

Archeology of the Digital

2013-05-08T12:41:00-04:00

Now is the time stop starting with "in the future" in relationship to digital technology. This show will tell, "in the past digital technology did this." It is time to write its history.

Greg Lynn aims to pull the curtain on the digital positioning of sci-fi and other camps and record the history of the subject for what it really is or was. This could help the recent debates of what is what, and, depending on the curation, place certain legacies in place.

Editor's Picks #313

2013-04-30T11:21:00-04:00

SDR complained "The Saratoga Community Center is ‘traditional’ ? Really ? Brickwork with masonry or ceramic trim is no longer a viable architectural material ? What'll be declared dead, next -- the rectangle ?...I don't defend the example above as a work of architecture. I know nothing about it. But it's a surprising contender for 'traditional'--- isn't it ?)".

News
Christopher Gray reviewed John Hill’s book A Guide to Contemporary New York City Architecture, reflected on the current revival of traditional architecture in the United States, and asked Mr. Hill if he has "a bias against the neo-traditional movement?”.

SDR complained "The Saratoga Community Center is ‘traditional’ ? Really ? Brickwork with masonry or ceramic trim is no longer a viable architectural material ? What'll be declared dead, next -- the rectangle ?...I don't defend the example above as a work of architecture. I know nothing about it. But it's a surprising contender for 'traditional'--- isn't it ?)".

observant summarized Mr. Gray’s argument "Ok, so the world is getting tired of peeling Gehry's buildings and the odd cowlicks in Morphosis's buildings, and we're headed back to another swat at post-modern, except that this one is Prairie School revival. I would not have been able to deduce that very easily. It's really watered down. And if the people in the...

Rem Koolhaas and "Tools for Life" called into The Principals Office

2013-04-12T20:19:00-04:00

...even for a big gun like Koolhaas, the global depression has had an impact. Thus his new furniture line for Knoll called “Tools for Life.” It’s a pretty standard track for any architect when the commissions start to dry up; have some interns fart out designs for a furniture line, ship it off to China for production, then slap a price tag on it with no less that 4 zeros and BOOM! you’re back makin’ Bentley payments and wearing Prada suits in no time.

Every week The Principals call someone new into their office, this week it's Rem Koolhaas and "Tools for Life."

Design Museum London Announces the Designs of the Year 2013 Category Winners

2013-04-10T17:56:00-04:00

Back in January, we had published the shortlisted nominees in the Architecture category of the sixth annual Designs of the Year Awards, hosted by London's Design Museum. Today now the final winners across the seven categories—Architecture, Digital, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Product, Transport—were announced, too.

Rudy's pink by Stephen Prina, as he remembers it

2013-04-07T13:59:00-04:00

“brave new color, for a brave new world.”

"It’s 1980s Los Angeles. Nighttime. (Freshly graduated Michael Asher students from Cal Arts,) Stephen Prina and fellow artist Christopher Williams walk along La Brea Avenue and a pink shape in a glowing storefront display catches their attention. Unable to identify the object, they approach the store and discover the puzzling unit is a desk designed by Austrian architect R.M. Schindler. Something feels odd about the desk, and the artists soon learn it was once built-in to a Schindler house; but, having been removed from its original architectural context, the desk has been painted pink and is now presented, awkwardly, as a freestanding object.

Looking back on that noteworthy discovery nearly three decades later, Prina says of the desk, “it appeared to us as an amputated limb.” Thus the seed was planted for Prina’s installation As He Remembered It, opening as part of his solo exhibition in BCAM and in the Pavilion for Japanese Art. The exhibition is open to members starting toda...

Gert Wingårdh's stunning installation at this week's Stockholm Furniture Fair

2013-02-06T19:49:00-05:00

Swedish architect Gert Wingårdh and Finnish illustrator Kustaa Saksi have joined creative forces to design the installation that will set the stage for talks on design and architecture at the fair. They have each started out from their own perspective while adhering to a shared vision.

“From the very beginning, the idea has been to create a spatiality for communication in which furniture and design have a presence in words and images, as well as a physical presence. To explain the concept behind an item of furniture, what you were thinking and how you arrived at the design, gives a deeper dimension to the object. This is something we’ve wanted to focus on more this year and so we’re giving furniture companies a chance to introduce themselves, their products and designers by communicating through a new program item we call Show 'n Tell,” explains Sanna Gebeyehu, the producer of the project.

  The design suggests a church interior, with rows of high tables in front of an ‘...

OMA Creates Prada’s Ideal House

2013-01-18T14:45:00-05:00

The staging was called the Ideal House, and it was a fully furnished modern home, but one with an audience, a runway wrapped around it, and “windows” projected on the walls with scenes of the outside world. It was the latest in many intricate and avant-garde pairings between Prada and OMA... The 12-piece furniture collection, designed by OMA for Knoll, will debut at the Salon Internazionale del Mobile in Milan in April.

Cahier d'Exercices by Saucier + Perrotte Architectes

2013-01-10T14:58:00-05:00

Cahier d’Exercices is located at the entrance level of the historic Ross warehouse-store. The stone façade, its cast iron columns, and an expansive brick wall (punctuated with pieces of wood and metal) that runs the length of the store recall the 19th Century building’s industrial past as a retailer of large tissues, leathers and furs.

Crossing the threshold, the visitor is invited to explore the boutique by the clever use of a “degradé” — or gradient effect — on the ceiling. The colour changes gradually from a reflective, latex-like black to a pure diaphanous white, drawing visitors toward a reflective, opalescent mirror that extends the perspective of the space.

Placed at distinct intervals and delicately suspended from the ceiling, the racking system was custom designed by the architect to permit the clothing displayed to be perceived as a changing and evolving building material. Slightly reminiscent of the sculptural work of artist Fred Sandback, the straight, c...

Pharrell Talks Jean Prouvé, Gio Ponti, Zaha Hadid, And “Other Super Genius Guys” at Design Miami/

2012-12-10T18:19:00-05:00

The budding industrial designer also gave his top picks from the fair, which unsurprisingly all feature bright swaths of primary colors: a Charlotte Perriand bookshelf from Galerie Downtown accented with yellow squares; a Pierre Guariche chair from Demisch Danant, a Riteveld chair from Galerie Vivid; and a desk from Galleria Rossella Colombari by Gio Ponti, whom he was so delighted to have discovered: “He tried to make the office fun!”

BOARD wins the Second Prize in the "Krajicek Playground Competition"

2012-12-03T13:40:00-05:00

The Rotterdam-based Bureau of Architecture, Research, and Design (BOARD) won the Second Prize with its entry entitled “Het hergebruikte appartement” (“The Recycled Apartment”) in the open competition for “Sustainable Krajicek Playgrounds”.

We took the wish of the competition’s organizers, the Richard Krajicek Foundation (RKF) – to involve the surrounding buildings as closely as possible in the design of the playground - literally and picked a typical apartment from a building in the neighborhood, enlarged it five times, and used it as the ground plan for the new playground. This proposal was based on the conviction that reproducing an apartment from the neighbourhood would make it easier for the inhabitants of the area to identify with the new playground, which would eventually lead to a socially sustainable place and a strong sense of belonging among people.

New Office Trends Boost Productivity Through Flexibility

2012-11-26T11:34:00-05:00

With a growing understanding between the correlation between space and productivity, designers and major companies are now working together to maximise the potential of office spaces and make the daily grind a little more palatable to workers.

Symposium sheds light on Nelson

2012-11-12T11:36:00-05:00

In the lecture series “Context and Collaboration” given by Paul Makovsky of Metropolis Magazine, Pullman and architect Jane Thompson of the Thompson Design Group, Nelson was described as rejecting the Howard Roark paradigm of the “hero architect” due to his socially conscious approach and his choice to work on interiors during the mid-20th century when furniture design was considered “feminine.”

Architects, artists create lights for MAK Center auction

2012-11-08T17:34:00-05:00

Some of L.A.’s best known architecture firms and artists have designed one-of-a-kind lamps to be auctioned Nov. 2 at a fund-raiser for the MAK Center in West Hollywood. Among those who designed, produced and donated their work for the event, dubbed “Light My Way, Stranger”: Ball-Nogues Studio, Cory Buckner, Ehrlich Architects, Hodgetts & Fung, Eric Owen Moss, Barbara Bestor, Dewey Ambrosino, Liz Larner and Sam Durant.

Brad Pitt is now a furniture designer

2012-11-05T17:55:00-05:00

The unveiling, which will take place November 13 through 15 in New York, has been years in the making. “I’ve been doodling ideas for buildings and furniture since the early 1990s, when I first discovered [Charles Rennie] Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright,” says Pitt. “Actually, I found Wright in college, when looking for a lazy two-point credit to get out of French. It forever changed my life.”

Rich X Rich

2012-10-30T00:09:00-04:00

Double happiness by Zaha Hadid and Philippe Starck .

A house for Russian billionaire and his gf Naomi Campbell. And a Steve Job design directed yacht called Venus.

Architects + Architecture + the power of money.

"Taking over the galaxy? Naomi Campbell's Russian billionaire boyfriend builds her a house that looks like a spaceship by Zaha Hadid, who specializes in ecostyle buildings and was also the brains behind famous buildings including the opera house in Guangzhou and the Olympics Aquatics Center in London." The Mail

“I know that it’s possible I will die and leave Laurene with a half-built boat. But I have to keep going on it. If I don’t, it’s an admission that I’m about to die.” Mashable

The Classics, Circa 2050

2012-09-13T13:30:00-04:00

I asked a dozen contemporary furniture experts for their opinions on which objects produced in the last decade or so would occupy the design-conscious home of 2050, just as, say, the Eames lounge chair, a mid-20th-century creation, resides in ours. The result is a showroom’s worth of potential design classics, against which I offer my own list of five. But first, what makes a classic?

Robert Peck, ousted head of Public Buildings Commission at the General Services Administration, is hired by Gensler

2012-08-28T17:02:00-04:00

What constitutes a modern professional workplace is changing rapidly, and Gensler, the San Francisco design and architecture firm, is betting those changes will factor more heavily not only into clients’ interior design decisions, but every single real estate decision they make. That bet led Gensler to hire a well-known name locally in both design and real estate circles: Robert A. Peck.

IKEA's New Catalogs: Less Pine, More Pixels

2012-08-27T12:14:00-04:00

"It's a clever way to save money," Anneli Sjogren, head of photography at IKEA, said during a recent interview at the company's sprawling photo studio in this sleepy southern town. "We don't have to throw away kitchens in the Dumpster after the photo shoot." Instead, sets for entire rooms—spanning kitchens to bathrooms to porches—can be mocked up and created on a computer screen without the help of a single camera.

An Ever-Expanding House of Architectural Salvage

2012-08-16T14:22:00-04:00

When Mr. Archer, 62, finds something intriguing (and it’s usually a very large something), he often builds a new wing around it. His house, which he bought 30 years ago for $135,000, was once a 3,000-square-foot, two-story box. Now it is somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 square feet, with wings flying every which way, a pterodactyl of architectural detritus.

Ikea home away from home comes to Paris airport

2012-07-13T17:43:00-04:00

Ikea has opened a pop-up lounge at Paris's Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport for passengers to relax in between flights during the busy summer travel season. The lounge, situated in the airport's terminal 3, is open from July 13 to August 5, and includes various spaces laid out like bedrooms, a living room and a play area for children. Covering a total of 220 square meters, the Ikea space is open to all passengers.

Ten Top Images on Archinect's "Furniture" Pinterest Board

2012-07-13T13:29:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Furniture.

↑ B+K Furniture Design inside Union Park townhouse in Boston, MA by Butz Klug Architecture

↑ Auditoriums A, B, C at Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice, Poland by ZALEWSKI ARCHITECTURE GROUP

↑ Box construction by Droog Design through Moss inside Loft of Frank and Amy in New York, NY by Resolution: 4 Architecture

↑ Furniture by Oehm Design Inc

[UPDATE: project Scenography l'hallali removed by editor]

↑ Max Mara Soho in New York, NY by FZAD Architecture & Design

↑ sooshi seat by David McDermott

↑ Chelsea Workspace in London, UK by SYNTHESIS (Photo: Peter Guenzel)

↑ Amorfurniture in Novi Sad, Serbia by Alter Ego Architects

(Cover pic: MYchair, Walter Knoll, 2008 by Ben v...

DUNE Street Furniture System by FERPECT Collective

2012-07-06T17:56:00-04:00

French design collective FERPECT has shared with us their project DUNE, winner of Forme Publique 2011, the Biennale of Street Furniture Design at the futuristic business district La Défense near Paris. DUNE is being exhibited from March 28 until December 31 on the La Défense square.

AMERICAS DESIGN COMPETITION

2012-07-05T16:32:00-04:00

The Battery Conservancy invites students and professionals from the Americas (North, Central, South and the Caribbean), to design an iconic moveable outdoor seating element. The winning design will be fabricated for use in The Battery, the 25-acre park at the tip of Manhattan, which annually welcomes six million visitors.

Kickstart this!

2012-07-03T22:04:00-04:00

Check out some new architectural Kickstarter projects we've added to Archinect's curated Kickstarter page...

RoboChair
A Product Design project in Fargo, ND by Brad Benke of Stahl Architects

Nerds Rejoice! RoboChair is foldable lounge chair that doubles as wall art--it's functional art! Unlike most folding chairs that get stored in a closet or tucked away when not in use, RoboChair hangs proudly on your wall with an easy mounting bracket. RoboChair is less than 1.5 inches thick when hanging and folds into a sleek lounger that is sure to liven up any room of the house. Each one is custom labeled with a unique name and binary equivalent of a product number. Finally a modern folding chair that is fun! Go

OpenUrban
A Technology project in Istanbul, Turkey by Reed Duecy-Gibbs

Open Urban is an open crowd sourced map and forum on urban development. It is a space for civic collaboration, a venue for debate, and an outlet and archive of information. It uses crowd sour...

Jacob Slevin sums up NeoCon 2012

2012-06-28T17:09:00-04:00

I'm not an analyst nor economist, but my observations are as follows: 1. Private-sector construction as a percentage of total construction appears robust considering the state of our economy. 2. Without question, digital content consumption is no longer the future, but rather the present. More interesting, there are nearly more architects and designers consuming content on their mobile devices than in magazines.

Designer Pages' CEO Jacob Slevin summarizes this year's NeoCon for HuffPo with video coverage, interesting attendee demographic data, and some of his personal favorite stand-outs.

Winners of AZURE Magazine’s 2012 AZ Awards

2012-06-15T19:08:00-04:00

Big names of the international architectural and design community recently gathered at Toronto's Thompson Hotel as AZURE Magazine revealed the winners of its second annual AZ Awards, the only international, multi-disciplinary design competition in Canada. Representing a global snapshot of the world of architecture and design, submissions were open to designers, architects, firms and manufacturers of all disciplines, as well as students in these fields.

Character Building by Design With Company

2012-05-30T17:17:00-04:00

Stewart Hicks and Allison Newmeyer of Design With Company have shared with us their project "Character Building," a series of functional, identity-creating objects they designed for a local Independent Media Center situated inside an old former post office building.

Gary Anderson, architect and designer of the recycling logo

2012-05-18T14:31:00-04:00

When I finished my studies, I decided I wanted to go into urban planning and I moved to LA. It seems funny, but I really played down the fact that I’d won this competition. I was afraid it would make me look like a graphics guy, rather than an urban designer. I didn’t even mention it on my résumé. Also, the symbol itself languished for a while. I remember seeing it once on a bank statement, but then it disappeared.

The Financial Times has an interesting story about Gary Anderson, an engineer/architect/urban planner that designed the famous recycling logo in a competition in 1971.

The Founder of TreeHugger and His Apartment of the Future

2012-05-18T13:57:51-04:00

This laboratory, as Mr. Hill calls it, for small-space, sustainable and — it must be stressed — high-end living is the first tangible product from his fledgling company, LifeEdited. It comes with an awkward manifesto that nonetheless manages to gather an armful of social and economic trends and philosophies, including happiness research, the booming field of collaborative consumption and data on the proven efficiencies of cities.

Cosmic Quilt

2012-04-17T17:06:00-04:00

We were thrilled when our friend Drew Seskunas, one of the founders of the fledgling design studio The Principals- based out of Brooklyn, shared their latest project with us. The "Cosmic Quilt" is an awesome exploration of interactive architecture being created for May's New York Design Week. Check out their video above, and their Kickstarter profile here to contribute to the advancement of design, architecture and a promising young studio.

Cosmic Quilt is a new installation/student workshop planned by The Principals for NYC Design Week 2012. The installation will be a responsive architectural environment where space changes form in relation to it's inhabitants. Continuing their commitment to unite new technologies with traditional craftsmanship, The Principals designed a limited edition furniture line inspired by the installation entitled Quilt to be sold through Kickstarter to help fund the project.