I love seeing people really elevating the art form of graffiti. This is from Libson, Portugal. I have no idea whose work this is. Please let me know if you do so I can give proper credit.
French artist Vincent Ganivet makes beautiful and sculptures using mostly common building materials. The appear simple until you actually realize the work involved in making a free standing arcs and circles from cinder blocks. Have you ever thought about making a big trail using cinder blocks instead of dominoes? Yeah, we all have. But he actually does it! His non-building material pieces are also interesting and worth taking a look at.
I'm sure many of us have thought about the possibility of adding to our body's natural architecture. Well Australian artist known as Stelarc (Stelios Arcadious) actually does! Seen here is one of my personal favorites called simply Ear On Arm. The artist went through a series of surgeries to have a prosthetic ear implanted into his arm with a microphone that would send audio to the web. Yeah, really intense and just in the name of art. Think about the possibilities. Here's a brief explanation in the artists' own words.
I have always been intrigued about engineering a soft prosthesis using my own skin, as a permanent modification of the body architecture. The assumption being that if the body was altered it might mean adjusting its awareness. Engineering an alternate anatomical architecture, one that also performs telematically. Certainly what becomes important now is not merely the body's identity, but its connectivity- not its mobility or location, but its interface. In these projects and performances, a prosthesis is not seen as a sign of lack but rather as a symptom of excess. As technology proliferates and microminiaturizes it becomes biocompatible in both scale and substance and is incorporated as a component of the body. These prosthetic attachments and implants are not simply replacements for a part of the body that has been traumatized or has been amputated. These are prosthetic objects that augment the body's architecture, engineering extended operational systems of bodies and bits of bodies, spatially separated but electronically connected.
Definitely go to his site and learn about his other crazy projects such as 1/4 Scale Ear and Ping Body. Click > HERE <
This year's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery is one of the best pieces of architecture constructed this year. Designed by the team SANAA, this structure is meant to reflect on the natural environment of the park both figuratively and literally. The amoeba-like form seems to naturally flow as if it were water or a cloud. It's a shame this will only be here for a short time. Since the Serpentine started it's annual pavilions in 2000 it has hosted some of the most important contemporary architects today including: Zaha Hadid, Daniel Liebeskind, Frank Gehry and Toyo Ito. Click on those links to learn more or do a search on Google or Bing.
The pavilion at PS-1 this year by MOS architects is awesome! It's actually palm fibre but it looks like hair from a wooly mammouth to me. Actually, I was disappointed when I learned that it is not synthetic fur. Yeah, I know this is technically more 'sustainable' but this is more about making something cool on a smallish budget. I still like last year's installation by Ball-Nogues Studio better, but this is really good.
I'm really feeling this project. I've seen similar methods of using optical illusion to transform architectural space and have wanted to explore that stuff myself. This is just one of the best landscaping solutions I've ever seen for a tight space. Great work by Faulders Studio from Berkley, CA.
This building is NOT in The United Arab Emirates' city of Dubai as you may expect for some outlandish piece of architecture like this. It's actually in Huainan, Anhui providence, China and serves as the local urban planning exhibition hall for the developing region. This reminds me of the work of Claes Oldenburg, especially the building he and Frank Gehry collaborated on.
The newly built Parish Church of Santa Monica by Vicens & Ramos architects is amazing!!! Beautiful building all around. If I'm ever in Santa Monica I will definitely be going here. The exterior of the building is made of steel that was meant to rust which gives it the orange color. A metal exterior for a church is an interesting concept..plus it will probably prevent people from using their phone in church! Read about the building and process >HERE<
I really like this firms' work. Their use and understanding of materials & technology to make temporary installations that leave a long-lasting impression on patrons is very impressive. The way they transform a space with form, color and light & shadow is brilliant.
WOW! Remember the cardboard sound cube I posted a while back? (here) Well this is a similar idea just waaaay better! This piece was an installation for 100% Design Tokyo and co-designed by two amazing firms from Amsterdam, Elastik Architecture and Mat Studio. Together these firms transformed a standard shipping container into a very unique and personal aural experience that is meant to be a blissful retreat in contrast to the turmoil of this high profile event in Tokyo.
I know...this looks like some bad bastardization of a Lamborghini Gallardo maybe from a Lampoon's vacation movie but it isn't. It's actually a really bad design for a blood mobile by an Indian architecture firm called Matharoo Associates. Now, I'm all for humanitarian design (see here) but this is atrocious. Personally I think they should stick with architecture. This thing is fugly!! Happy Pi Day!
Love him or hate him, Marc Newson is one of the most important designers of our time. This special by the BBC gives some insight into the world of one lucky and very talented dude. Watch all 5 parts.
I've seen a ton of cool architecture lately but this is by far the best concept I've seen I quite some time. Sure, I've seen cooler looking spaces but very few buildings are truly adaptable and even less actually move and can be reconfigured. This concept by a group of MIT researchers (SPARC) are proposing to do just that- a building with moving parts that can evolve and adapt to create new environments and new user experiences. The part that really takes this to the next level is the fact that they've actually investigated the real possibility of this and how it would be engineered. Apparently a panel of jurors felt the same way and awarded this a 1st place prize in the London Architecture Gallery International Competition 2008.
There is still no word on if this is real or not. The pictures look very convincing however, the company does not seem to be selling it anywhere and the picture credit is for some Belgian architecture blog. Still a great idea and I want it. Tadao Andois one of the few architects I know more than a little bit about and I really admire his work. The Koshino House is an icon in the world of architecture and Tadao Ando is perhaps the most prolific and most decorated architect alive today.
I first stumbled upon this man's work a little over a year ago and got more into him while researching for a project. His compositions are usually just very simple geometric patterns. What's fascinating about his work is the execution scale of some of his projects. I was surprised not to see his name mentioned in a New York Times Magazine article last year about another artist that does similar work...shame on you NYTM editor! haha..Varini is not a big name in America though and the majority of his work is in Europe. You can see more of his work at Varini.org
Here's one of several videos of his work on YouTube>>>
This one is actually a 'real' woman and not android although she may as well be. She is extremely brilliant and beautiful. Her name is Neri Oxman and if you're geek or just into material science, architecture, design or art you already know the name or at least her work. I forget name pretty easily unless I'm reminded again. In this case, when I was reminded it was one of those, "Duh! Of course I know her work!" kind of things. Amazingly, she's still working on a pHD in Design & Computation from MIT. Her body of work is very extensive and her list of awards and achievements is probably as long as she is tall. She's studied all over the world, been showcased in Seed Magazine and featured in nearly any architecture or design magazine around the world, been in shows at museums around the world, spoke at several lectures and somehow stays very grounded. Perhaps it's her medical background and growing up in Israel? In any event, she is destined to become one of the major players in architecture, design and material science in the 21st century. So what does she do?
" M A T E R I A L E C O L O G Y was formed in 2006 by Neri Oxman as an interdisciplinary research initiative that undertakes design research in the intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, biology and ecology. As such, this initiative is concerned with material organization and performance across all scales of design thought and practice. Material is interpreted merely as any physical entity which corresponds and reacts with its environment. As such, it seeks to promote and define a design research agenda which is ecological in nature, in ideology and in material practice; it aims at embracing the evolving elements of change in both (and indeed related) social constructs and environmental descriptions of the ever changing built environment."
For a proper explanation of what she does, just go to her site- MaterialEcology
To see her most current award or project go to her Blog
The Experimental & Performing Arts Center is part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. Completed earlier this year by Grimshaw Architects. Absolutely beautiful.
This is an art museum in Austria and is awesome. Not only is the form unlike anything else, the exterior is a skin that is also a giant screen for motion graphics. Plus, they showcase some very different contemporary art. You can see more on their website- Kunsthaus Graz.
It's been recommended to me that I start posting some of my own designs. I've been meaning to make an 'about me' section where you'd learn that I do a lot of things. One of the main parts of my life is being a designer and currently being in school for industrial design (that's why I don't update the site often enough).
This is a Buddhist temple in Thailand made almost entirely from beer bottles! Brilliant! Talk about dedication...the local people held a huge 3 day event to drink this much beer which is about a million bottles. There's only 20,000 people in the town so do the math....they even had the kids helping them.
*just kidding...they didn't make kids drink or have a big rager for three days...they were collected over time using Heinekin and Chang bottles.
This is a cool video showing design process but it's clear that the designers are out of touch with the purpose of raising awareness about the water crisis that nearly half of the world's population deals with. Somehow a giant expensive foam & plastic sculpture doesn't raise awareness about anything other than form and expensive CNC modeling. The end result is cool but waaaaay off target....hint: for the cost of this sculpture about 5 or more play pumps could have been installed somewhere in Africa and provide clean drinking water to thousands of people. Yeah, come to think of it, maybe it's better that the money was spent on some expensive temporary sculpture.
Ikea pack furniture in it. Gehry has made furniture from it. Now architects are shaping spaces with it. Is there any limit to the creative re-use of corrugated cardboard? With its unique physical consistency, its decidedly axial strength, and its deadening acoustic absorption, corrugated cardboard has many inherent qualities. As such it was the perfect material for this particular sound installation:
Made from 720 half square sheets of 7mm thick corrugated cardboard, stacked in 360 layers, this cavernous sound space is set within a 2.5m cube. As a space for listening to and experiencing music, the initial concept for the design developed from the architect’s ambition to create a strong spatial intensity and a distinct internal atmosphere. With an irregular free-form interior set within a regular cubic volume, the object has a profound duality. Made from one material it also has an implied solidity that strengthens the architect’s distinction between inside and out – a distinction that is heightened when the full acoustic ambience is experienced from within.
Cutting the cardboard took three working days, and assembly just one. The structure sits under its own dead weight, without any fixings or glue. And, for those of a technical persuasion, a simple calculation reveals that the combined compression of the 360 layers of cardboard is 20mm over the 2.5m height, or an average of 500ths of a millimetre per sheet. All services are integrated within the stack, including cable runs and apertures for the six-speaker surround sound system.
*I wish I knew the names of the designers to give them credit for their work. This site on which I saw this rarely gives credit to the artists/designers. I asked why and they told me they do not make an effort to give credit to the artists because: " We're a trends agency - we don't give all our content away for free and we only put a limited of posts up - Most cases we do -but on larger posts we keep these for our paying customers
We'll soon be launching a section for those who want more high end content which you'll have to pay to access it
Thanks
Bill" Well Bill, this is a 'lifestyle' site too so I guess I don't have to them credit either.?
This is what happens when people don't speak up in those boardroom meetings. Great a giant fucking loop on a freeway making miles of road unusable to people without balls. At least the people that let this happen won't be in our way! Maybe it was the civil engineer's last day before retirement and decided to finally have some fun? Either way, they've created something amazingly awesome!
I just saw this and had to post. Some guy in San Francisco has A LOT of free time. So much free time that he built a sculpture entirely out of toothpicks...over 100,000 of them! Just click the link and let him explain why he does what he does.
So, now on the list of things to go to next time I'm in NYC is the new exhibit at MoMA called 'Home Delivery'. I've only taken a very quick look at site and it's about the idea of prefabricated housing & construction options for the urban environment. There will be 5 pre-fab structures there on site. If you care to share thoughts on prefabrication please use the comments section. I'll start by asking- Do you think that quality, craftsmanship or originality is worth compromising for prefabricated structures? Or, are these variables not affected by prefabricated processes? Also, feel free to add opinions or insight on the social, economic and environmental effects.
Progression in design and culture starts with a conversation. Let's see some dialogue!
Definitely go to MoMA's site for this exhibit> Home Delivery
