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Savio Firmino unveils chair collection inspired by architectural landmarks, underwritten by the Blockchain

2021-10-01T12:42:00-04:00

Italian furniture and interior design studio Savio Firmino has unveiled a collection of 16 chairs inspired by some of the world’s most iconic architectural landmarks. Titled CITYNG, and designed in collaboration with artist Cosimo De Vita, the collection was exhibited at the 2021 Salone del Mobile in September. The iconic design event, which was curated this year by Stefano Boeri, came one month after the Salone del Mobile appointed Maria Porro as its new president.

Image courtesy of Savio Firmino

The collection of 16 chairs depicts both a geographical journey between West and East and a temporal journey between tradition and contemporary design. “The chair not only becomes a symbolic object of the cities but also symbolically represents their values, traditions, and cultural substratum,” explains Savio Firmino. “It starts in Europe from Florence, the hometown of both Cosimo and the Savio Firmino company, continues to Milan, the city of the Salone and of design par excellence, to t...

Architectural historian and curator Irene Sunwoo joins Art Institute of Chicago as new Architecture and Design Chair

2021-02-15T20:19:00-05:00

Art Institute of Chicago names Irene Sunwoo the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design. Sunwoo's extensive background in architectural history, exhibition, and curatorial studies create an exciting chapter for the Institute and its leadership.

Sunwoo served as Curator of Columbia GSAPP's Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and Director of Exhibitions since 2016 and curator of the Ross Gallery. Her writing has been featured in the Avery Review, Getty Research Journal, to name a few. She is in the process of writing two books focusing on Alvin Boyarsky and Arakawa and Madeline Gins' architectural experiments. Well-versed and heavily invested in Chicago's architectural history and curatorial community, Sunwoo served as Associate Curator and a key team member for the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial launch in 2015.

Sunwoo completed her undergraduate studies at New York University in Art History. She also holds two MAs from Bard College in History of Decorative Art...

UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design appoints Mariana Ibañez as new chair

2021-01-18T13:36:00-05:00

Architect, educator, and researcher Mariana Ibañez joins as the new chair and associate professor at UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design. She is taking over from Heather Roberge who has served as chair of the department since July 2017.

She is a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires, where she received her BA in architecture and a Master's of Architecture and Urbanism from the Architectural Association in London. Her experiences in academia and professional practice will add to UCLA's passion for research and "critical engagement with the history and theory of architecture and the future contingencies of contemporary culture."

Strange Weather, 2017 Seoul Biennale of Art and Architecture, Seoul, Korea. Image courtesy of UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design

Before her new position as chair, Ibañez taught at Harvard GSD for over a decade and most recently taught at MIT as Associate Professor of Architecture. She has also held teaching positions at the Daniels F...

Architecture students from the Royal Danish Academy create a "Guide Book Of DIY Chairs"

2020-04-27T21:38:00-04:00

“We decided to treat the situation as an opportunity to reflect, unite and create together with a group of young talented architecture students, who were all crawling the walls due to lock-down and home isolation.” A-A Collective

At a time where the world is closing down and consumerism is on hold, A-A Collective completes a digital based workshop for 80 architecture students at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation - Institute of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape.

Chair by Helene Engehagen

Students and teachers in home isolation around Europe, from a total of 5 different countries, completed the virtual workshop in one week. Students could only build with household work tools and materials available from their local builders merchant.

Chair by Elen Finstad

Due to current restrictions the workshop draws inspiration from the principles of Enzo Mari’s classical Autoprogettazione collection. The students were challenged not only to design a chair, but also to do a manual of their design, allowing other people to “copy” it.

The guidebook, containing a total of 63 different chair designs, can be downloaded for free here.

Iconic Eames chair is transformed into intriguingly obscure art by British artist and designer Chris Labrooy

2019-06-05T13:00:00-04:00

There’s something Duchamp-esque about the latest work of Chris Labrooy. The British artist and designer’s ongoing remix project, Garden of Eames, transforms the classic Eames shell chair, designed in 1950, into surreal fine art that packs an absurdist punch.

There is no doubt about the long-lasting contributions Ray and Charles Eames have made in architecture and design. When their classic shell chair was created in 1950, its creation was initially a submission idea for the Museum of Modern Art's sponsored competition "International Competition for Low-Cost Furniture Design." The chair's material and straightforward style was designed for families to have an inexpensive alternative for furnishing their homes after the war. Produced in a variety of colors, patterns, and materials, the chair still lives on as an iconic furniture piece found in many homes, offices, and restaurants.

Eames interlocking fiberglass remix. Work and Image © Chris Labrooy

Eames greenhouse remix. Work and Image © Chris Labrooy

Understanding the chair's long-lasting impact on the design world, British artist and designer Chris Labrooy decided to take a different approach to the chair's look and use. Part of his ongoing remix project, Garden of Eames, Labrooy turns t...

Dora Epstein Jones appointed as chair at Texas Tech College of Architecture

2019-05-15T12:01:00-04:00

Architecture educator, theorist, and scholar Dora Epstein Jones has officially been appointed as Chair of Architecture at the Texas Tech University College of Architecture, the school announced today. Succeeding current architecture chair Upe Flueckiger, Epstein Jones will begin in her new position on July 1.

Epstein Jones will also join the school as a faculty member to conduct scholarly research that “increases the knowledge and the operations of thought paradigms” and will create new processes that forge stronger interdisciplinary collaboration between architecture, philosophy, and history.

“A lot of relevant issues come together here [at TTU CoA], issues of cultural diversity, geographic and environmental issues, and of course, how we will design the built environment into the future. I'm excited to be here, to continue my practices in a research-oriented university, and to furthering essential discourses with my colleagues and beyond,” Epstein Jones said in a statement.

Epstein...

Meet Hazel Ruth Edwards, Howard University's first female architecture chair

2019-03-04T18:34:00-05:00

“My journey with this institution began when I was seven years old when my mother started teaching at Howard,” [Edwards] says. “I am proud to know that some of the projects I worked on either as a student or as staff have shaped the campus.”

Appointed in 2016, Hazel Ruth Edwards is the first woman to chair Howard University's Department of Architecture in the College of Engineering and Architecture, ever since architecture education began at the school in 1911. She is also a third-generation graduate of Howard, where she received her bachelor of architecture degree.

With 30 years of experience as a researcher and a strong background in grantsmanship, Edwards has worked as a member of Howard's planning and development team and served as the principal designer for many projects that have influenced the campus. Some of her notable projects include the Founders Walk crime-mapping system, a shuttle circulation plan that is still largely intact today, and the seminal book “The Long Walk: The Placemaking Legacy of Howard University” that she co-authored with then-Vice President for University Administration Harry G. Robinson III. The book retraces the 127-year history of the campus' development.

Edwards' role as chairperson a...

Can you guess which famous architect designed this newly re-released chair?

2018-12-03T16:31:00-05:00

The iconic designs of famous architects seen in buildings and furniture is visible through out the practice. Design figures like Ray and Charles Eames, Marcel Brueur, and Zaha Hadid are a few of the many architects that have made an impact in chair design. However, the architect infamously known for his characteristically specific design aesthetic is Frank Lloyd Wright. "Origami in wood" is what best describes the 607 Taliesin chair.

607 Taliesen Chair Image © Cassina

The angled components and geometric structure of the chair is a reflection of Wright's organic architecture design aesthetic. Reminiscent of the Japanese art of paper folding, the piece is manufactured from a single piece of folded plywood.

Chairs featured inside Garden Room of Taliesin West Home Image © FrankLloydWright.org

The chair was created in 1949 by Wright for his Taliesin West home-studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. Italian furniture design company, Cassina, who originally manufac...

Zaha Hadid Architects design 3D-printed chairs for Nagami's Milan debut

2018-04-18T16:20:00-04:00

Milan Design Week just kicked off, and one impressive highlight is the debut exhibition Brave New World: Re-thinking Design in the New Age of Technology by brand-new Spanish company, Nagami.

Marking the brand's official launch event, the show at the Nagami pop-up showroom in Milan's Brera Design District features four exquisite chairs—designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, Ross Lovegrove, and Daniel Widrig—that combined computational design and large-scale robotic 3D printing.

The Robotica TM and Bow chairs © Delfino Sisto Legnani + Marco Cappelletti

Bow & Rise by Zaha Hadid Architects for Nagami

Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Patrik Schumacher
Design Team: Sebastian Andia

The Bow and Rise chairs © Delfino Sisto Legnani + Marco Cappelletti

Design description: "Bow and Rise are the latest results of the extensive, ongoing research that Zaha Hadid Architects is conducting within the domains of 3D printing and material experimentation. These chairs combine pristine design informed b...

Cornell Architecture Chair named after AAP alumnus Richard Meier

2018-01-29T13:15:00-05:00

The chair of the Department of Architecture in AAP will bear the name of one of the college's renowned alumni: Richard Meier (B.Arch. '56). The Richard Meier Chair of the Department of Architecture was announced by the college and by Richard Meier & Partners Architects, Meier's New York City– and Los Angeles–based practice for 55 years.

The first person to hold the new title of Richard Meier Chair of the Department of Architecture will be AAP associate professor Andrea Simitch (B.Arch. '79).

The 83-year-old Meier is the only Cornell alumnus to have received the Pritzker Architecture Prize (1984).

Rethinking furniture as 'symbiotic objects'

2017-07-26T00:41:00-04:00

Xiang Guan, a recent graduate of Central Saint Martin's Industrial Design program, made a collection of furniture that can only function in the presence of its users—featuring a desk and chair that can't stand without support, and a lamp that only turns on when worn as a hat, his work re-imagines the relationship between people and objects.

Watch the hypnotizing video of the designer working, communicating and playing with the furniture below!

Jems Architecki's Polish conference center is built on an old coal mine

2016-07-29T14:52:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Figueras International Seating.

Katowice, a city of 300,000 inhabitants in the South of Poland, wants to leave its past of mining industry behind. In the heart of the city, and on what was formerly a mine and its inevitable mountains of mining residue, today we find there the new City Conference Centre: MCK ‐ International Conference Centre (ICC), designed by the most internationally known group in Poland, Jems Architecki.

The building, a unique block of 388,500m3, was erected (or submerged, depending how you look at it) in the new cultural area of the city, right next to the Spodek (saucer in English), the emblematic building of 1962, symbol of the city and which needed to be complemented in both aesthetics and in what it had to offer. Together they form Poland's largest Conference Centre.

After three years of construction, the ICC shows colossal dimensions. The structure is divided in two and at the intersection, the architects have created hills that ...

Unique seating for the Philharmonie de Paris: How to create a seat with low acoustic absorption for a perfect symphony hall

2016-07-20T09:00:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by Figueras International Seating.

The building of the Philharmonie de Paris, designed by Jean Nouvel, is a unique architectural work in the Parc de La Villette in the French capital. The seating installed inside was specifically created for the hall by Jean Nouvel in partnership with Figueras. Up to 10 acoustic tests, in laboratories in Paris and Barcelona, were needed to achieve the desired product.

Jean Nouvel gave the Philharmonie concert hall a unique shape, as it is an adjustable space that surrounds the spectator. The Grande Salle of the Philharmonie is not designed in a “vineyard” or “shoebox” shape like traditionally. The Grande Salle starts a new model, enveloping and moveable. Jean Nouvel chose a unique solution to offer a total and enveloping experience, placing the spectators in hanging balconies at different heights. In this way, they are immersed in the hall with the feeling of heading toward the orchestra. The sound literally wraps each of ...

Designing a transparent chair for toy storage

2016-02-17T17:05:00-05:00

The "Mom" chair is a kid-sized acrylic seat with an opening on top where kids can drop their toys. It makes the dreaded toy clean-up exceedingly simple—and looks damn good to boot—but the true genius is in its transparency. Unlike opaque storage systems, toys can be easily spotted and dug out from within its clear walls.

Anyone who has lived through the chaos of a child playing (the point of which can seem to be to maximally distribute their toys across a given floor area) will appreciate this inventive, highly functional design by Carlo Contin:

For more of Furniture February:

"Charles and Ray Eames, meet Freddy Krueger": artist creates deformed furniture

2016-02-03T13:38:00-05:00

...the pieces in [Wurm's] latest show, Lost, appear as thought your living-room furniture took a nightmarish turn for the worse. Wurm modeled all of the objects in clay before distorting their form by stomping, smashing, or walking on them (the latter method can be seen clearly in the footprints on the torn-up chaise lounge). Wurm then cast the deformed pieces in bronze or polyester and painted [them].

A few pieces from the show:

February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigations for review to be featured on our site. The open call for submissions is effective immediately.

More details here.

To satisfy your fix, check out some of Archinect's past furniture-related coverage:

Forget standing desks – just wear your chair

2016-02-01T13:18:00-05:00

Japanese researchers have developed a wearable chair called Archelis that can help surgeons when they are performing long surgeries. [...] The wearer of Archelis will not get full comfort of sitting on a chair but the gadget actually wraps around the wearer's buttocks and legs, providing support that effectively allows them to sit down wherever and whenever needed.

Check out Archelis in action (in Japanese) below (h/t BLDGBLOG):

The top five finalists for The Battery Conservancy’s Draw Up A Chair competition

2013-11-26T21:02:00-05:00

The Battery Conservancy is one step closer to finding the winning outdoor chair design of their Draw Up A Chair competition for The Battery park in New York City. The competition began with 679 submissions in July 2012. Then the jury selected the Top 50 designs, which were exhibited for the public to see and use over the past six months.

The top five designs are:

Fleurt by Andrew Jones Design: Andrew Jones (Toronto, Canada) — see top image

Maple Chair by Maria Camarena Design: Maria Camarena Bernard (Zapopan, Mexico)

Pivot Chair by Independent Design Group: Simon Kristak & Aidan Jamison (Brooklyn, USA)

South Chair by Jason Bird (Redwood City, USA)

U Rock by Pitanga: Davi Deusdara, Érica Martins, Tais Costa & Rafael Studart Alencar (Falcão, Brazil)

All images courtesy of The Battery Conservancy Americas "Draw Up A Chair" Design Competition.

For more details, read the Bustler article.

MARI AND LYN

2013-10-07T17:12:00-04:00

BOARD designed a chair called MARI and a stool named LYN to be used for free.

In financially difficult times we have to be innovative when it comes to spending money on objects for daily use, such as seats and office furniture. Thus we designed two very simple and very affordable pieces of furniture that can be self-built within just a few hours: a chair called MARI and a stool named LYN. Both seats complement each other, just as Bonnie and Clyde or Laurel and Hardy, creating a whole, just like the names of the two seats complement each other: MARILYN. While MARI’s function is rather limited to that of a chair, LYN can be used, for example, as an extension of MARI to create a bench, or as a simple footstool, as a table, or even a bookshelf. Nevertheless, both pieces of furniture can be used and produced separately as well.

Styrofoam
The material used is one of the most profane, unglamorous and affordable substances: Styrofoam boards, in this case blue ones, usually utilized for the thermal insulation of buildings. It was invented in the 1940s by a group ...

Parabola Chair Wins 2013 ICFF Studio Award

2013-05-08T15:27:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based architect and product designer Carlo Aiello has shared with us his Parabola Chair design which recently won him the prestigious International Contemporary Furniture Fair Studio Award. The chair will be exhibited during the upcoming ICFF, May 18-21 in New York, and is currently on display at Bergdorf Goodman windows.

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.