Perhaps the most interesting exhibition I came across at the Interior Lifestyle China show was tucked in a quiet wing of the Shanghai Exhibition Center, opposite the Talents section. Where all of the dozen designers in the latter section manned their booths for most of the show, "Shine Shanghai" was acutely underdocumented: when I asked a hapless staff member for information about the special exhibition, he dryly noted that "there is no explanation."
Hou Zhengguang
Thankfully, the exhibition guide was slightly more helpful, denoting that this was the fourth time around for "Shine Shanghai," featuring well-known Shanghai designers who were invited to persent new work for the theme "built to last." Based on the designers' "independent research," the majority of the projects incorporated stainless steel, "this year's material," reflecting—often quite literally—the theme of enduring quality. Hou Zhengguang Hou and Ding Wei, credited as producers (curators?), are among the 18 designers who participated in the (presumably) annual group show.
Ding Wei
Yet the cursory background information only goes so far: I still have no idea why each piece is accompanied by a childhood portrait of the designer—with details about where he/she attended elementary school—alongside the designer bios, which greatly varied in length. Only a few included passable English translations of the Chinese wall text, which was often a bit poetic for my rudimentary language skills (and Google translate as well).
L: Zhang Zhoujie; R: Ding Lu
Even so, the work was strong enough to make an impression sans exegesis, and "Shine Shanghai" was an unexpected highlight from the predominantly commercial tradeshow. All in all, the special exhibit was a remarkably consistent showing from the rising and established stars of the Shanghai design scene.
NB: In the interest of comprehensiveness, I've included images of every piece in the show, though I've only included as much additional information as I can reliably offer.
Hou Zhengguang - "Beautiful Mountains"
Hou Zhengguang completed his Masters in Furniture Design in the UK before returning to Shanghai, where he's currently a designer at Moreless (he's behind the "Three Walkers" stool, which we saw in Milan this spring, among other designs). While the "Beautiful Mountains" turn up in some of his other designs for Moreless, the "Collective of Individuals" is actually an array of 81 IKEA ashtrays.
Today Tumblr and Paddle8 will announce their upcoming exhibition and call for submissions to Moving the Still, which will examine the GIF as an art form. If you've been making GIFs since their emergence 25 years ago, now's your chance to present your best mini animations to a selection council that includes Michael Stipe, the Rodarte sisters, Ryan Trecartin, Vinoodh Matadin & Inez van Lamsweerd, and James Frey, who will review the submissions when the open call ends on November 7, 2012, and decide whose work to include in the group exhibition scheduled to open in Miami in December for Art Basel Miami Beach.
Not sure what a GIF is? Patrick Davison of MemeFactory defines it as "an image that's been encoded using the graphics interchange format, where it has multiple frames encoded into a single image file and a web browser or other piece of software will play those images back in animated sequence automatically." The GIF has gotten a bad rap throughout the years, thanks to unfortunate pop culture icons like AOL's You've Got Mail icon and the infamous Dancing Baby, but it's recently reemerged as a viable art form of its own, thanks to people like Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, who created the Cinemagraph (above). You can use their smartphone app to make your own GIFs. Get inspired with this PBS mini doc and submit your own to "Moving the Still" via Tumblr or Paddle8.
Within the Passionswege ("pilgrimage ways") craft and design project of Vienna Design Week, Vienna-based designer Valentin Vodev was asked to collaborate with J. L. Lobmeyr, the renowned Viennese glassware manufacturer, now run by the sixth generation.
Vodev developed a series of pictograms to reveal "secret" information about the long-standing Lobmeyr product portfolio—information about the glassware that is never communicated to the buyer, yet passed on verbally from generation to generation to distributors and within the company.
These inside stories are based on technical as well as socio-cultural properties that have been discovered over the past 150 years of the Lobmeyr business. Vodev has brought these attributes to the surface to make them visible. Even though the unobtrusive symbol engravings are not clearly marked at first sight, the delight of discovering them at a second glance is part of the experience when looking through the Lobmeyr glasses.
For one of the Passionswege projects of Vienna Design Week, London-based designer Mathias Hahn was assigned to work with Staud's, a Viennese producer of fine vegetable and fruit preserves.
Hahn created an intriguing installation in which he approached the world of Staud's by poetically addressing color, material and the meaning of preserving for winter time. Each of the various vessels on display seemed to capture all the good stuff that summer has to offer; almost like a time capsule, recallable during a long, cold winter.
Mostlikely, a Viennese design collective, reproduced the Vienna Basilisk during Vienna Design Week. According to a Viennese legend from the 13th century, this mythological creature comes to life "when a rooster lays an egg which is hatched by a toad, and the offspring is reared by a snake". It was eventually forced to explode by being confronted with its own ugliness in a mirror that was held up in front of it by a brave young man.
Mostlikely rebuilt the Basilisk as a five metres tall paper structure—constructed from 360 single pieces, consisting of 3,780 different two-dimensional paper shapes, assembled with 22,680 joints. In order to produce this high number of technically complex forms rapidly themselves, the designers used low polygon modeling. This 3D computer technology, usually implemented for filmic visual effects, was put into manifestation with what they refer to as "low tech prototyping".
The 360 individual components were for sale at the finissage, the exhibition closing, to find a new life as lamp or whatever other function a buyer can imagine for their very own paper monster puzzle piece.
Industrial design graduate Lena Goldsteiner is currently showcasing her graduation project "Theatre of Destruction" during this year's Vienna Design Week. In the "Gschwandtner" location—a disused all-purpose-hall from the 19th century—she installed the complete set up to perform her project, which is all "about repair, destruction and reproduction".
Visitors are invited to bring apparently worthless and broken household devices, so they can be given a new life. Various squeezers and shredders on site encourage and enable people to chop up and fragment discarded plastic parts. These shards could then be re-processed into a plastic wire to feed a 3D printer, with which the new part, necessary to fix the broken household device, could be printed.
I am writing "could," as the machine for transforming various types of plastics into spools of plastic filament for 3D printers is not quite put into existence yet. But thanks to the Kickstarted project Filabot it will be soon.
An unusual liaison of material and function: pan and brush made from horn and pig hair by bespoke craftsmen.
The concept of the Passionswege ("pilgrimage ways") program—an integral part of Vienna Design Week—is to connect designers with local Viennese producers and businesses in order to enforce the exchange of expertise, the preservation and further development of knowledge and the virtuosity in craftsmanship and manufacturing.
The brush manufacturer Norbert Meier is one of the last of his trade (here holding up an untreated buffalo horn from Thomas Petz, the last Viennese producer of horn ware).
This particular Passionswege project deals with the work of two handicrafts that hardly exist anymore: the brush manufacturer Norbert Meier is one of the last of his trade still possessing a master craftsman's diploma. In contrast, Thomas Petz, only 26 years of age, is the last Viennese producer of horn ware.
An intriguing and incredibly soft make-up powder brush was one of the results of this project.
Polish-born designer, curator, scenographer and design blogger Matylda Krzykowski was invited to work with both manufactories to design a series of products to be produced with these two handicrafts that are at the brink of disappearance.
The hair for the brushes is imported from China. It used to be locally sourced—until literally over night China dropped the prices for the material to a fraction of the local price, which put all local businesses out of business.
The outcome are timeless pieces that compel through their formal simplicity. Krzykowski kept the horn as much as possible in its naturally grown shape, only treated the surface to reveal the intrinsic beauty of the material. The fascination lies in experiencing how well these natural shapes work—not only aesthetically, but also ergonomically and functionally.
Ana Berlin, the VDW Lady of Press, enjoying the softness of the horn powder brush.
The 2012 edition of Interieur—the European Design Biennale taking place in Kortrijk, Belgium, October 20–28—is bound to become one of the top global design destinations this year.
Curator and Interieur President Lowie Vermeersch (former head of design at Pininfarina and now CEO of the Turin-based GranStudio), set out to reconnect with Interieur's avant-garde roots through a selection of 300 carefully picked international exhibitors and an extensive cultural program, 'Future Primitives' installations, custom-designed bars and a pop-up 'bistro.'
Crucial this year is the expansion beyond the Xpo fairgrounds, into the city center and particularly the Buda Island.
Together these expanded locations will establish a new DesignCity with a continuum of lanes, diagonals, piazzas and unexpected places where installations, actions and encounters unfold.
Seven specially commissioned Future Primitives project rooms by Nendo (JP), Troika (UK), Makkink & Bey (NL), David Bowen (US), Ross Lovegrove (UK), Greg Lynn (US) and Muller Van Severen (BE), will offer different investigations into our future living environment.
When Lin Lin, co-founder of the Chinese design consultancy Jellymon says something, people usually listen. Her tiny frame conceals a ebullient personality and creative energy that has propelled Jellymon's unique graphic branding vocabulary into an insider's language of what's fun and cool in youth-oriented China.
At this year's Beijing Design Week, Lin Lin took over five rooms in a DashilarHutong to present her latest creative projects to the public—accessories and furniture, a new food endeavor and a sneaker branding concept.
Triple X Ohhh! Sauce from Jellymon's Spoonfull of Sugar Cafe
GFG is a personal project from Lin Lin that is an exercise of her passion for product design. The debut collection includes a range of accessories, furniture and tableware. I love the punchout DIY nipple tassles (after the jump) that are packaged in a beautifully designed paper envelope, perfect for gifting. A small group of linked, overlapping "Top Me" rings are an obvious nod to Vivienne Westwood's Knuckledusters but display a delicacy and femininity in the details.
Model of the Olympic cauldron designed by Thomas Heatherwick
With only 48 hours left to see "Heatherwick Studio" at the V&A in London, the fantastic exhibition about the progressive and experimental work by the studio established by architect and designer Thomas Heatherwick, it's not surprising that crowds are packing in to see the overwhelming array of projects developed and executed by the studio, so be sure to book your free ticket in advance. Given the expansive nature of the studio's work, it's not clear as to why the museum chose to hold the exhibition in a single, smallish room off the central hall. Still, if you can bear shuffling through the thicket of wonderstruck visitors it really is well worth the occasional bump or shove. The projects on view, which range in scope and scale from the recent Seed Cathedral to the Christmas cards his studio has been sending out every year since 1994 give you an idea not only of the full range of Heatherwick's abilities and expertise, but the smaller projects, proposals and materials experiments give a sense of perspective and deeper understanding of the studio's larger architectural structures.
Heatherwick, who studied 3D design at Manchester Polytechnic, began what would become a lifelong obsession with the relationship between architecture and practical craftsmanship when he interviewed architects, builders and contractors for his dissertation. "His research supported his view that there was a disconnection between the design of buildings and the craftsmanship of architectural details." To marry the two, he founded a studio in 1994 that focuses on the creative process and pushes fabrication techniques to the limits of the materials. Ideas for larger scale structures emerge from experiments with crushing or folding paper, or dropping molten metal into a beaker of cold water, for example. "One of their lines of enquiry has been that texture can define the form of a building rather than simply act as a surface detail or facade decoration." The textures the studio experiments with include everything from the spiky exploded form of B of the Bang, a metal sculpture located in Manchester, and the Seed Cathedral built for the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. The exterior, comprised of 60,000 acrylic rods embedded with plant seeds, has since been dismantled, but pieces of it are shown in the exhibition.
Heatherwick studio remains one of the only design and architecture practices that makes the majority of their models in-house in an effort to use model-making as an essential part of the overall design process. They're also the only studio, to our knowledge, that takes their Christmas cards so seriously. Until 2010, the studio used the annual tradition of creating and sending Christmas cards as an opportunity for even more experimentation with materials, and the meticulously crafted cards "were considered to be individual studio projects in their own right... Mini production lines were set up each Christmas. Bespoke tools, jigs and other devices were invented specifically for the fabrication of hundreds of cards." Taking in this huge range of projects in a single lap around the exhibition space at the V&A is the perfect way to wrap up London's season-long celebration, first with the Olympics and then with the city-wide engagement in London Design Festival.
Tobias Wong was a star in New York City, but he always remained close to his family, friends and his roots in Canada and especially Vancouver, where I had moved to several months before he died. In January of 2010, I had shown some of his work and curated a lecture of his in Toronto and was shocked and saddened at the loss of him; a colleague I had great fondness and respect for.
The idea for a show in Vancouver manifested in the months that followed. I felt strongly that attention was better directed toward his ideas and influence instead of his too early end. It seemed fitting that I was living out west at the time, and had the resources to make an exhibit happen. The city where he was born and raised, his family and friends and Tobi himself deserved a celebratory homecoming for his work that had made an indelible impression on the worlds of art and design. I set out to accomplish this with the utmost respect for Tobi's tight-knit community and am so grateful for their support (which in the end, was not only a buoying source of energy, but also integral to the exhibition itself).
I came at the show from a perspective of curatorial lightness, meaning the vision was already there (the work speaks strongly for itself), all I had to do was to make space for the community to relay the context; each piece on exhibit is accompanied by a short blurb of commentary from a friend, collaborator or curator. My intention with this show was to create the ultimate Tobias Wong project: an inspiration machine that would take his ideas up and out, inspiring others to see their surroundings as ingredients for making art... that art is everywhere and we can all use it to say something.
Todd Falkowsky is the curator of Object(ing): The Art/Design of Tobias Wong on view now through February 24, 2013 at the Museum of Vancouver.
Akin to MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program, which awards a young or fledgling architecture firm with modest funding to build a summer pavilion in the courtyard at PS1, Design Museum London's Designers in Residence program provides professional and financial support to young designers or design studios "in the often challenging years following graduation as they try to progress in their careers." Now in its fifth year, the 2012 program chose four designers and asked them to respond to a brief entitled "Thrift," and investigate the notion that "it is more difficult to produce a refined design for £10 than it is to produce the same design for £1,000," a fact that may seem obvious, but it encouraged the designers to explore whether "the limitations of economy require more resourceful, inspired and intelligent use of materials and processes." The four resulting projects and the designers' commitment to seeking out underutilized materials that are either extremely cheap or free and pushing them to their limits resulted in one of the most fascinating exhibitions we've seen all year. Each project is presented in its various stages so that you can see the work in process alongside the finished product. Each display is accompanied by a short, beautifully shot documentary by Alice Masters on each designer and their project for the Residence.
Freyja Sewell, who graduated from Brighton University in 3D Design in 2011, decided to work with wool for its naturally renewable, durable, biodegradable, flame retardant and insulating properties. Taking thriftiness into account, she sourced a wool by-product of the British carpet manufacturing industry available in mass quantities for next to nothing. To make something from the mixed bag of wool fibers and random bits of thread, Sewell tried wet felting, an ancient technique in which the wool is soaked in hot water and agitated until the fibers are worked together into a single piece.
If you're going to be at MakerFaire this weekend (and if you're anywhere near NYC then we know you will be!), don't miss a special panel devoted to design: "Design and DIY: How Makers Are Influencing Product Design." The panel will feature Smart Design's Carla Diana, Teague Design's Tad Toulis, Frog Design's Jered Ficklin, and New Deal Design's Gadi Amit. An all-star lineup moderated by Core77's Allan Chochinov, here's the pitch:
Hackers, modders, DIYers and makers of all kinds are influencing how product designers approach their craft. Come learn first hand how 4 top designers are embracing this new ethos, the implications it holds for their profession, and how maker culture is impacting the very nature of what it means to design.
The panel takes place on Saturday, September 29th, at 3:30 in the auditorium. Get bios and more info at the site, and we'll see you there!
Plus, Core77 has a few more pairs of tickets to give away—find out how to get them here
Though Swarovski may first call to mind bedazzling rather than design, their sponsorship of and collaboration with artists and designers over the past decade have allowed people like Maarten Baas and Paul Cocksedge to work with materials and resources that have "served as an experimental platform for leading figures in design to conceptualize, develop and share their most radical ideas." This year Swarovski partnered with Design Museum London on "Digital Crystal," a new exhibition for which they asked 13 artists, designers and design studios to use cut crystal in projects and installations that "explore the meaning of memory in the digital age," specifically how our intangible digital database of images and video have replaced more permanent methods of memory-saving like diaries, printed photographs and scrap books, and how that shift might impact that way we remember our past.
Image courtesy Mocoloco
You can Tweet a fleeting moment to "Lolita," Ron Arad's spiral chandelier (#DigitalCrystal or text +44 (0) 78 6002 1492) and watch your message swirl around and down its form, lasting only for seconds, or the lifespan of a typical Tweet. Yves Behar lights a black room with "Amplify," a cluster of faceted paper shades lit from within by a single crystal. The lanterns create a darker and moodier space than Arad's more ebullient crowd sourced installation. Nearby, Anton Alvarez made a high-speed spinning machine that wraps Swarovski crystal yarn at random around its clunky wooden body.
One the smallest yet strongest pieces comes from Hye-Yeon Park, whose "Unfamiliar Mass" takes an unintelligible circular swirl of solid crystal and slices through it to reveal the hidden silhouette of a polar bear.
With some 3,000+ products to his name (by some conservative estimates), Karim Rashid is as prolific as they come, and outspoken to the same degree: he all but dominated a recent IDSANYC panel discussion with his utopian outlook for a technologically-augmented future full of beautiful objects. So too is the work in 20 × 12 a degree or two removed from reality: the lenticular images might be described as "2.5D," where infinitesimally faceted layers—up to 20, thanks to new technology—result in a GIF-like illusion of movement.
20 × 12 continues Rashid's voracious desire to incorporate new technology into each facet of his artistic output. The exhibition features several large-scale lenticular 'paintings,' an imperfect word to describe the objects that hang in the current show. The works are a result of advanced lenticular technology, which has allowed as many as twenty different layers of two-dimensional images to be combined and, in effect, create complete 360-degree movement within a flat surface.
A hybrid of painting, sculpture, printing and digital design, the works in 20 × 12 also allude to film, and animation in particular. The subjects range from highly specific, easily recognized Karim-iconography to more exploratory studies. Ideas for this series flow from early creative stages to finished results, as they do for the artist's work with product design, architectural environments, textiles or sculpture. Rashid's outlook on the latest technology is reflected in his statement: "Historically the whole world was designed in 2D which in turn shaped the 3D world. Today we live in a kinetic, dynamic four dimensional world shaped by 3D tools." With advanced technology come opportunities to create new objects, however one wishes to label them, and to revisit ideas from a time when that technology did not exist.
Once again, Core fav Noma Bar will present new work during London Design Week, on display at Outline Editions' booth at DesignJunction. His latest series of work abides by his simple yet compelling vector aesthetic, a handful of visual puns with punchlines for titles.
L: "Ouch"; R: "Open Face"
"Pop Art"
In lieu of the "specially commissioned, Heath Robinson-esque embossing device/sculpture" (as in last year's exhibition), Outline Editions is offering new limited-edition prints from Bar, as well as Kristjana S. Williams, Anthony Burrill, Marion Deuchars, Malika Favre and more.
L: "Fatal Attraction"; R: "Therein Lies the Tail"
"The Last Emperor"
Outline Editions Stand C2 Designjunction 21-23 New Oxford Street London, WC1A 1AP Hours: September 19, 3–9PM; September 20, 10AM–7PM; September 21–22, 10AM–6pm; September 23, 10AM–5PM
We often think of architecture as an art first and foremost, and who can blame us—when have you looked at a building and truly understood the science and reasoning behind a particular design? Rather, we look at a building and take in its aesthetic qualities.
While this is no fault of our own, Considering the Quake, co-curated by Prof. Ghyslaine McClure and founder Dr. Effie Bouras of McGill University, investigates the other side of the coin, analyzing structures that go above and beyond conventional approaches to seismic design, including not only fully constructed seismic technology, but also models, renderings and other multimedia platforms.
Taipei Performing Arts, Courtesy of OMA
Every year we're reminded of the power of natural disasters, reminded of, in many cases, how unprepared we truly are in the wake of events such as throttling earthquakes. In a world where we can't predict when the next disaster will strike, advances in seismic technology such as those on display in "Considering the Quake," could one day, save your life.
Open to the public last Wednesday, September 13th, Considering the Quake is the accompanying exhibit to Vertical Urban Factory.
Talk about taking an idea and running with it: D*Haus of London is a design studio that is singularly fixated on a geometric trick of reconstituing a square into a triangle in as few parts as possible—four, to be exact.
In 1903, an English mathematician called Henry Ernest Dudeney worked out how to turn a perfect square into a perfect equilateral triangle by dissecting the square in to four distinct shapes, these shapes can be rearranged into the triangle. This concept alone is fascinating but and the possibilities are endless when applying the formula to world of architecture and design.
Although the schematics for the Dudeney-inspired designs are something like Tangrams-meets-Jacob's-Ladder, the natural extrapolations of the quadrilaterals—into 3D forms, each of which vaguely resembles Emilia Borgthorsdottir's "Sebastopol"—makes for compelling articles of furniture. Director David Ben Grünberg, who co-founded the company with fellow architect/designer Daniel Woolfson, recently noted in an interview with Futurespace, "Everything we design has to work in a number of ways. Our designs become parametric in the sense that everything is related to the other." The D*Light (get it?) comes in perspex and corian; the table comes in the latter, with over 100 custom color options.
But if the tabular extrapolation of Dudeney's discovery is a straightforward interpretation of the geometric marvel, D*Haus has Fuller-esque ambitions for the concept. The D*Dynamic is billed as the world's first dynamic house, which "can 'metamorphosize' and transform itself into eight configurations."
Conceived for the harsh, climatic extremes from 'Lapland to Cape Horn and Aleutians to Auckland,' D*Dynamic can respond dynamically to its environment by controlled adaptation to seasonal, meteorological and astronomical conditions...
If this sounds remotely interesting to you, hit the jump to see the video...
The twofold characterization of Sebastian Errazuriz as a designer and an artist has bedeviled his endeavors for over a decade now. This much is apparent in the dialectical introductory texts to his first monograph, The Journey of Sebastian Errazuriz (Gestalten 2012), to say nothing of the work itself, which resists characterization as a tightrope walker hovers between life and death. So too does the prolific 'creator-of-things' (for lack of a better term) walk a taut line of irony—navigating a narrow space between understatement and overstatement—and make it look easy.
Yet Errazuriz is also glad to show us that unerring lines of reasoning often lead to the absurd results. To mix the metaphor, he picks at the seams of a reality that is ready to burst, only to discover that nothingness trickles out. This sheer viscosity of meaning—i.e., its essential fiction—is precisely what drives the Chilean-born, UK- and US-educated, NYC-based polymath to simultaneously subvert and elevate objects, ideas and symbols into, well, art.
Autopsy Desk (2009)
Thus, the "Autopsy Desk" marks a felicitous opening to the survey of his oeuvre, organized loosely by medium to suggest a retrospective taxonomy to his broad practice. I would have preferred to see the work in chronological order... albeit partly because I was (pleasantly) surprised, every few pages or so, to discover works that I had never seen before. Nevertheless, the desk—commissioned by none other than meme-friendly persona Keanu Reeves—is an easy metaphor for Errazuriz's morbidly incisive body of work.
The Journey of Sebastian Errazuriz is available now in Europe and will be available in the U.S. shortly. Those of you in London for the festivals can see some of the work in person at the exhibition of the same name at Kenny Schachter / Rove Gallery, which runs through September 23; the book launch and reception will be this coming Wednesday, September 19, from 7–11PM.
Whether or not you make it to Hoxton for the opening, Sebastian has also obliged us with an exclusive Q&A on the occasion of the book and exhibition.
Nada de Nada (Nothing at All) (2002)
Core77: First of all, congratulations on the new book. How does it feel to realize the first of what will surely be many monographs?
Sebastian Errazuriz: It feels great, but It's funny you mention it, since the book is out I can't help thinking of the next one. Don't get me wrong: this is a really a fun book jammed with 10 years of projects and ideas; but as you pointed out every monograph is timely and therefore incomplete. It's impossible not to wish you had been able to include the latest project you finished yesterday or the one you are planning next week. Maybe digital books in the future will automatically upgrade to the new, latest version like our current computer software do.
Last month, Melbourne was graced by a special exhibition from Herman MillerTHEN X TEN: The Power of the Poster at fortyfive downstairs gallery space in Melbourne. "Simply designed to communicate a message, posters are all too frequently the tools of advertisers. But under the direction of a keen eye and talented hands, posters have the power to spark action, elicit emotion, and join the ranks of art."
Unfortunately, we didn't have a chance to see the show in person: the celebration of the print format, featuring classic posters from the Herman Miller archives alongside ten newly commissioned works, was only on view from August 14–25.
Thankfully, our friends in Zeeland and Australia HQ Sydney have documented the exhibition quite thoroughly, with photos from the opening, including Creative Director (and Curator) Steve Frykholm's talk at RMIT, and a few installation shots, as well as images of the work.
Steve Frykholm (1986)
Kam Tang, whose work is pictured above, writes: "A departure from the padding of traditional office chairs, Aeron's Pellicle material was like a new dawn; I wanted to capture that in my design by taking the chair out of the office and transforming it into a landscape." Check out additional artist statements here.
It's Miller Time! Miller Boombox by Manajans/JWT Istanbul, Beer Winner.
It's a par-tay! Pop a bottle and félicitations to this year's winners of The Dieline Awards...the award-winning package designs are coming to Paris. Join The Dieline's founder Andrew Gibbs, Diadeis package design agency and the Designpack Gallery on September 20th for the opening reception of The Dieline's Winners Exhibit.
The Dieline Awards 2012 Winners Exhibition Allée du Recyclage Gallery Galerie de Valois in Paris (inside the metro stop: Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre) Opening Reception September 20th Exhibition Opening September 21st RSVP here
2012's Dieline Awards recognized 38 winners across 12 different categories including editor's choice (below), food, drink, beauty and books. Check out the winners:
Alternative Organic Wine by The Creative Method. Show Winner.
Spirit No. 13 by Stranger & Stranger. Editor's Choice.
Vertical Urban Factory will study the history of factory design, considering important developments such as Henry Ford's Highland Park Assembly Line. Receiving high praise at New York City's Skyscraper Museum (where it was on show November 2010 - June 2011), the exhibit begs the question, "Can factories once again present sustainable solutions for future self-sufficient cities?"
Buckminster Fuller, Automatic Cotton Mill, 1952, model designed with North Carolina State University students. Courtesy North Carolina State University, College of Design. Photograph by Ralph Mills.
The accompanying exhibit, Considering the Quake delves into seismic design and the science of architecture. How, for fear of being exposed to seismic hazards, engineering and technological advances has often surpassed the importance placed on aesthetics.
Throughout late Fall and into December, the DX will accommodate samples of superior projects in technology and research, including Cast Connex's seismic technology which is to be included in NYC's World Trade Center 3 design, among others. In addition to how architecture is changing because of these advances, the exhibit will examine post critical disaster shelters from an architect's perspective rather than the traditional engineer's point of view, led by Dr. Effie Bouras Postdoctural Fellow and Professor Ghyslaine McClure, P. Eng, of McGill University, Department of Civil Engineering.
Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Shenzhen, China, by OMA. Image courtesy of OMA; photography by Philippe Ruault.
Van Nelle Factory, Johanne Brinkman and Leendert van der Vlugt with Mart Stam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1925-31. Photograph courtesy of Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek, c. 1932.
The latest installment at the Wellcome Collection in London 'Superhuman' explores the extraordinary ways people have attempted to improve, adapt and enhance their body's performance throughout history. Ethical debates around the augmentation of our bodies are becoming as widespread in everyday life as they are in sports. By including objects such as spectacles and false teeth, the curators of 'Superhuman' reflect on how technologically enhanced our lives already are, thereby drawing our societies fears of technology into question.
With artifacts ranging from mechanical limbs to sports equipment, and a winning mix of historical, technological and artistic perspectives, the exhibition had plenty of ID eye candy for the design-inclined and, for the equally philosophical, a delightfully constructed exploration of what it means to be a human in an age of 'transhumanism.'
Parklets (Various) / Photo Abby Wilcox and the Bold Italic Magazine
Just what is a spontaneous, urban intervention? According to the Institute for Urban Design, who's organizing the event this year, it's everything from "parklets to community farms, guerrilla bike lanes to urban repair squads, outdoor living rooms to pop-up markets, sharing networks and temporary architecture, the installation highlights viable citizen-led alternatives to traditional top-down urban revitalization tactics."
You may have seen Rockwell Group's Imagination Playground at some of the design festivals this year. The big blue blocks are designed to encourage children to build their own play spaces, and are specially suited for public outdoor environments. You've probably also heard of Seed Bombs, the seed-packed balls you can buy from old fashioned gumball machines and toss anywhere you'd like to see a little greenery - though we suggest aiming for a plot of dirt at the very least. But those are just two of 124 creative, ambitious and, more importantly, playful projects that will be on exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion. If you're not heading to Venice you can still check out the exhibition online.
"Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good" at the U.S. Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale from August 29 – November 25, 2012.
The games were over in a matter of weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds—and won in ever-finer spans that follow decimal points as a testament to our technological prowess—but the buildings themselves abide. London is just one of the dozen cities featured in filmmaker Gary Hustwit and photographer Jon Pack's ongoing project to document a representative sample of former Olympic sites in an effort to understand "what happens to a city after the Olympics are gone?"
We're still six months shy of a definitive answer, at least if we're holding them to their Kickstarter reward delivery dates, but seeing as the conversation will surely have shifted by then, Hustwit and Pack are presenting the work-in-progress at New York City's Storefront for Art and Architecture. If the salon-style presentation of the work—around 40 photos depicting half the cities in the final tally—is unbiased, the title of the exhibition betrays a hint of an answer.
Where the working title of the project was "The Olympic City," a strategically-placed prefix both clarifies and reframes their efforts in terms of bygone glory. (Tonight's panel discussion with the artists and several architects is a sporting play on 'aftermath.') The so-called "Post-Olympic City" comes in many shapes and sizes, but I was initially struck by how the sites (iconic landmarks notwithstanding) look remarkably similar, distinguished mostly by telltale signs of age and local graffiti tags. [NB: Those of you who can't make it to the exhibition before it closes this Saturday can see some of the work here.]
Malika Favre's Hide and Seek tells the story of an intriguing and sophisticated woman travelling from one pattern to the next, hiding from the unsuspecting viewer. The woman sometimes reveals herself to us for a short moment in time, only to run away towards her next mysterious destination.
Fascinated by patterns in everyday life, urban surroundings and architecture, French born Malika Favre has put together Hide and Seek, her first solo show in London. Malika's work is bold and minimalistic, exploring the relationship between positive and negative space.
The viewer fills in the gaps literally and figuratively: "Working within a narrative core, she always likes to play with the viewer's imagination."
The artist notes that "there is such beauty and intrigue in those repetitive concrete balconies, I felt like creating a series of abstract prints based on the architectural patterns that no one really notices." Thus, "the prints on show work together as a series of optical experiments, [which Malika hopes] will make people see the beauty in their everyday surroundings, leaving with a smile and feeling sightly dizzy."
The video (after the jump) is a tantalizing taste of what's to come...
FRIEZE NEW YORK 2013
INTERNATIONAL HOME + HOUSEWARES SHOW 2013
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2012
BEIJING DESIGN WEEK 2012
Hou Zhengguang
Ding Wei
L: Zhang Zhoujie; R: Ding Lu
Hou Zhengguang - "Beautiful Mountains"
Hou Zhengguang completed his Masters in Furniture Design in the UK before returning to Shanghai, where he's currently a designer at Moreless (he's behind the "Three Walkers" stool, which we saw in Milan this spring, among other designs). While the "Beautiful Mountains" turn up in some of his other designs for Moreless, the "Collective of Individuals" is actually an array of 81 IKEA ashtrays.
Hou Zhengguang - "Collective of Individuals"
Carl Liu - "Eames"
An unusual liaison of material and function: pan and brush made from horn and pig hair by bespoke craftsmen.
The brush manufacturer Norbert Meier is one of the last of his trade (here holding up an untreated buffalo horn from Thomas Petz, the last Viennese producer of horn ware).
An intriguing and incredibly soft make-up powder brush was one of the results of this project.
The hair for the brushes is imported from China. It used to be locally sourced—until literally over night China dropped the prices for the material to a fraction of the local price, which put all local businesses out of business.
Ana Berlin, the VDW Lady of Press, enjoying the softness of the horn powder brush.
Triple X Ohhh! Sauce from Jellymon's Spoonfull of Sugar Cafe
Model of the Olympic cauldron designed by Thomas Heatherwick
Photography courtesy of Rebecca Blissett 
Image courtesy Schon Magazine
Image courtesy Mocoloco
"Birdland"
L: "Ouch"; R: "Open Face"
"Pop Art"
L: "Fatal Attraction"; R: "Therein Lies the Tail"
"The Last Emperor"
Philippe Ruault, courtesy of OMA
Taipei Performing Arts, Courtesy of OMA
CCTV time lapse, Courtesy of OMA
Although the schematics for the Dudeney-inspired designs are something like Tangrams-meets-Jacob's-Ladder, the natural extrapolations of the quadrilaterals—into 3D forms, each of which vaguely resembles 
Autopsy Desk (2009)
Nada de Nada (Nothing at All) (2002)
Steve Frykholm (1986)
John Massey (no date given)
It's Miller Time! Miller Boombox by Manajans/JWT Istanbul, Beer Winner.
Alternative Organic Wine by The Creative Method. Show Winner.
Spirit No. 13 by Stranger & Stranger. Editor's Choice.
Breathing Factory, Takashi Yamaguchi and Associates. Osaka, Japan, 2009.
Buckminster Fuller, Automatic Cotton Mill, 1952, model designed with North Carolina State University students. Courtesy North Carolina State University, College of Design. Photograph by Ralph Mills.
Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Shenzhen, China, by OMA. Image courtesy of OMA; photography by Philippe Ruault.
Van Nelle Factory, Johanne Brinkman and Leendert van der Vlugt with Mart Stam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1925-31. Photograph courtesy of Van Nelle Ontwerpfabriek, c. 1932.
Imagination Playground, Rockwell Group / Photo Christ Amaral, courtesy Rockwell Group
Parklets (Various) / Photo Abby Wilcox and the Bold Italic Magazine
Greenaid Seedbomb Vending Machine, COMMONstudio / Photo courtesy COMMONstudio
New York Street Advertising Takeover, Public Aid Campaign / Photo Ji Lee, courtesy Public Aid Campaign
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