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Bold and unforgiving, the Brutalist landmarks and modernist housing estates which sprang up across Europe in the wake of the Second World War still dominate cities in the former Eastern bloc. [...]
The Calvert Journal talked to designers and creatives across the New East who are now reclaiming socialist-era Brutalism as a driving force behind their work, changing mindsets, updating old designs for the modern age and making their own statements on gentrification, nostalgia and innovation.
— The Calvert Journal
The Brutalism-inspired design products by (mostly Eastern) European creatives Calvert Journal talked to range from stylish Russian flower vases to nostalgic Slovak pre-fab panelák furniture, German post-war housing cuckoo clocks, a Modernist Belgrade Map, and Polish miniature tower block... View full entry
The Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson and the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea are teaming up to produce a range of accessible and affordable tools that function without mains electricity and use renewable energy.
Eliasson’s Little Sun project, co-founded with Frederik Ottesen, created a solar-powered torch for the 1 billion people worldwide who live off the power grid. It is now sold cheaply in more than 600 African outlets. [...] The products developed will be available in Ikea stores.
— The Art Newspaper
Olafur Eliasson is a busy man these days: after recently completing his first building, he's now announced a major design collaboration between his Little Sun initiative with IKEA to create a line of sustainable and affordable off-the-grid tools. Little Sun Original in Burundi. Photo: Aminata... View full entry
It's only been a few months since Zaha Hadid Architects' 520 West 28th development officially opened in Manhattan, and with its photogenic steel-and-glass split level facade, the 11-story condo mid-rise has quickly become a popular landmark of the adjacent High Line park. 520 West 28th, ZHA's... View full entry
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. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
“Fitts-Woolard Hall will be a state-of-the-art facility that truly supports our vision of collaborative, interdisciplinary instruction, research and innovation,” states NC State University Chancellor, Randy Woodson. “This project is vital to the future of the College of Engineering.” — NC State University
NC State University has broken ground on Fitts-Woolard Hall, a new $150 million engineering building on Centennial Campus. In the past 10 years, engineering undergraduate enrollment at NC State has grown by 22 percent, and graduate enrollment has more than doubled. Designed by Clark Nexsen, the... View full entry
Many big-name architects enjoy dabbling in product design and use their brand recognition to sell chairs, tableware, shoes, and anything in-between—but getting to design the new star topping the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City is one of the rarer commissions. Daniel Libeskind... View full entry
"To design is to see as in foresee; to draw visions not previously seen," says the groundbreaking designer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon in a new short documentary film about her work and life. A dancer-turned-graphic designer, Solomon was born in San Francisco but trained in Switzerland at the... View full entry
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... View full entry
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. (Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles!)... View full entry
A range of minimalist tableware is the result of Norman Foster's latest collaboration as a designer outside of the world of architecture, with Danish design house Stelton. Image: Foster + Partners.Combining simple sculptural form and soft geometry, the Norman Foster Collection spans a spectrum... View full entry
The first images of MUJI Hotel Shenzhen have been released, and they show that it has been built to reflect the ethos of the brand that is best-known for its minimalist homeware products. [...]
The company says the hotels have been designed to reflect “an anti-gorgeous, anti-cheap” concept. Its goal is to offer great sleep at the right price, provide a space supporting both body and mind while away from home, and connect travellers to local people and places.
— Lonely Planet
Bedroom inside the MUJI HOTEL in Shenzhen.After experimenting with houses for (strictly) dogs and (mostly) humans, Japanese lifestyle design retailer MUJI is now also entering the hospitality sector with two new branded hotels to open in Shenzhen on January 18 and in Beijing on March... View full entry
The future of brick-and-mortar bookstores has been in peril for at least a decade. But whether you’re actually shopping for a book or not, you might actually find yourself wandering into a bookstore by accident. Because fashion brands, from French icon Sonia Rykiel to New York City-based Warby Parker, are curating books not as objects to read but as objects of décor. — Quartzy
More and more trendy retailers that used to be exclusively online (think Warby Parker, Glossier, or Everlane) are beginning to open brick-and-mortar concept shops & flagship stores in major cities, and books appear to be front and center in store design — sometimes as mere decoration but... View full entry
[...] hostile architecture -- a controversial type of urban design aimed at preventing people from using public spaces in undesirable ways. [...]
CNN invited architect James Furzer, whose designs try to combat hostile architecture, to debate this issue with Dean Harvey, co-founder of the Factory Furniture: a company that produces many of the offending benches.
— CNN
"Is it really a bad thing that you're encouraging people to hang around those spaces?," asks architect James Furzer in his CNN debate with Dean Harvey of Factory Furniture, maker of the controversial Camden bench. "Is that not what architecture and design are about? If we designed a building... View full entry
This post is brought to you by klokers PLEDGE UNTIL THE 7TH OF DECEMBER TO RESERVE YOUR KLOK-08 AT $229 INSTEAD OF $442! KLOK-08 pays tribute to the Sixties, from where it inherited the spirit and aesthetic codes. THE SPIRIT: FREEDOM & NONCONFORMITY The creative and audacious 1960s broke the... View full entry
In Archinect's latest giveaway our readers had the chance to win a brand new K-series watch by Glasgow based design studio Instrmnt. Unlike their previous watches this series has an Italian made NBR compound rubber strap and new colour palette made up of fixed dilutions of 100% black. In case you... View full entry
