Spotlight> EXD’11 Lisbon Design Biennale Opening Week
An Image from the exhibition Utilitas Interrupta (Courtesy Lisbon Design Biennale).
EXD’11 Lisbon Design Biennale Opening Week
September 28–October 2
“Useless,” the theme of Lisbon’s the sixth design biennale organized by Experimentadesign, grew out of a desire to explore what the term “useful” means today. A number a guest-curated exhibitions form the backbone of the event: for Sidelines, design historian Emily King considers the motivations behind collecting art and objects, deploying Lisbon’s museums to display an eclectic series of private collections; in Utilitas Interrupta, Joseph Grima, editor of Domus, asks what abandoned infrastructure and its implements (above) say about our society. These shows run through November, but opening week highlights also include a series of lectures by design scene fixtures like Hans Ulrich Obrist and Zoe Ryan, as well as a specially organized film series.
Unveiled> SO-IL to Transform an Old School into a Winding Community Center
A rendering of the Wulpen Community Center (courtesy So - IL)
Wulpen Community Center
Architect: Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu
Client: Flemish Government Architect
Location: Wulpen, Belgium
Completion: 2013
The Brooklyn-based firm Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO–IL) recently won a design competition for a community center located in Wulpen, a small, coastal town in Belgium. Their design transforms an unused schoolhouse into a community center with three distinct parts: a multipurpose room in the former two classrooms, a youth space in a garden, and meeting rooms in the original teachers’ house.
Dutch Artist Imagines a Playground Rooted in Used Tires
Proposal for a playground made of tires called RubberTree. (Courtesy AnneMarie van Splunter)
Of the 85 proposals submitted to a playground design competition hosted by Go Play!, few were as innovative as AnneMarie van Splunter’s RubberTree, which landed an honorable mention. The Dutch designer’s imaginative reuse of old car and motorcycle tires recalls the simplicity of children playing around a tree, inspired, in fact, by the rubber tree and its heavily exposed root system. Van Splunter sought to create a place where refugee children on the border of Burma and Thailand can be “rooted in solid ground.”
Spotlight> Beijing Design Week
(Courtesy Beijing Design Week)
Beijing Design Week
September 26–October 3
Beijing Design Week, now in its second year, aims to change the catchphrase “Made in China” to “Designed in China.” The festival will bring together 30 local and international design firms for packed roster of events focusing on urban design and including Dutch artist/architect Daan Roosegaarde’s experiments with LEDs (above). Design Week will take over the whole city, staging happenings everywhere from the trendy 798 art district to Tiananmen Square, whose neighboring historic district will host pop-up shops and street art installations, to the site of the China Millenium Monument, where Paul Cocksedge will unveil an installation on October 1. This year London was invited to be Beijing’s “guest city,” and emissaries from the London Design Festival will translate some of their most successful ideas and activities into a new context.
The Justice is on the Jury, Oh Yeah and Zaha Too
Justice Stephen Breyer and Zaha Hadid (courtesy Pritzker Prize)
File under: “Say What?” Retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has joined the jury for the Pritzker Prize. Prize organizers say the Justice has a long and demonstrable interest in architecture. Who knew? Also joining the jury is 2004 laureate Zaha Hadid. Is it just us, or does it seem strange for Zaha to be upstaged by a guy in a black robe known for his rigorous legal scholarship and even temperament? Read More
London Design Festival
London Design Festival
September 17–September 25
This year’s theme for the London Design Festival is “Design from all Angles.” Home base for the event will be the main exhibition hall at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but design projects will also be scattered at 150 sites throughout the city. A three-story red oak latticework spiral called Timber Wave (above) will frame the V&A entrance; the installation is by Amanda Levete, who was recently commissioned to design the museum’s courtyard and expansion. Elsewhere: at St. Paul’s Cathedral, John Pawson creates an optical allusion that distorts distance and depth through lenses and mirrors; this year’s Size and Matterinstallation at the Royal Festival Hall, an annual event highlighting design and technology, is a collaboration between David Chipperfield and Arup, who are sandwiching reflective metal-coated fabric mesh between glass to explore translucent and reflective properties.
Prouve RAW’s New York Preview
For Prouvé RAW, a collaboration between Vitra and G-Star, Jean Prouvé's 1951 Direction Office Armchair No. 352 is reimagined
Jean Prouvé plus G-Star? The coupling at first seems an unlikely one, and not just because it is partially posthumous. But the fashion forward Dutch company, best known for its high-end jeans, counts the self-taught French architect and designer (1901-1984) among its inspirations. Two years ago G-Star called Vitra, who has owned the manufacturing rights to Prouvé’s furniture since 2001, and asked if the designer could come out to play. The result is Prouvé RAW, the latest edition in G-Star’s Crossover Series, design experiments that pair G-Star with designers outside the field of fashion. Prouvé classics like the 1951 Direction Office Armchair No. 352 (above) are reimagined as formal replicas in contemporary materials.
The collection was first unveiled on June 15 at Art Basel but makes its New York debut today, marking the start of a two-week preview (and pre-purchase) period before the line officially goes on sale in October. The launch was timed to coincide with the tail end of New York’s Fashion Week, with the idea that denizens of the runways might also be lured by a different kind of G-Star model, now posing in Vitra’s Meatpacking showroom.
Helsinki Design Week
(Courtesy Helsinki Design Week)
Helsinki Design Week
September 9–September 18
To warm up for its turn as the 2012 World Design Capital, the city of Helsinki will host a week-long design festival in September. A variety of sites throughout the city will be pressed into service, from public plazas to the Old Customs Warehouse. Architects and designers plan explore the relationship between the urban dweller and urban design. The exhibit I Am the City by the art and design collective, Ornamo 100, features Helsinki Throne (above) by interior designer Jouni Leino, and design think tank OK Do’s Museum of the Near Future transforms an unused office building into a library, bookstore, and public art studio. Design Week’s organizers trumpet Finland’s acclaimed education system, making architectural and design education practices a running theme throughout the week.
Spotlight> Copenhagen Design Week 2011
Thicket Installation at Copenhagen Design Week.
This past week in Copenhagen has been filled with a series of design exhibitions, fairs, conferences, and guided tours throughout the Danish capital city as part of Copenhagen Design Week, hosted by the Danish Design Center. Scandinavian architects, interior designers, urban planners, and filmmakers submitted work under the theme of “Think Human” and ranged from urban installations to furniture and industrial design. One exhibition highlight organized by the Center for Information Technology and Architecture is the project, Thicket Installation (above), that examines how technology and architecture impact connections between public and private life. Read More
Design Week> BOOMSPDESIGN in Sao Paolo
The work of the forum's honored designer, the illustrator Glauco Diogenes.
As we noted while visiting the Center for Architecture back in July, the Brazilian design scene continues to heat up. This week in Sao Paolo the BOOMSPDESIGN International Forum of Architecture, Design and Art is back for its fourth year. In addition to a series of symposia with international and native talent, this design week will also include on-the-street collaborative art and design projects.
Curator Roberto Cocenza has pulled together a diverse mix of talent from Tokyo to Miami. This year Studio Dror, Matali Crasset, Paul Clemence, Cat, Harry Allen, Chad Oppenheim, Mount Fuji, Jade Dressler, and Rene Gonzales will criss-cross the globe to join Brazilians Brunete Fraccaroli, FGMF, Glauco Diogenes, Guilherme Torres, Sergio Matos, and Zoe Melo. An exhibition of Karim Rashid’s work will also be shown, as will a multi-generational exhibition of Japanese architecture titled “reset .11.03.11 new paradigms.” BOOMSPDESIGN runs through September 2.
Pictorial>Henning Larsen in Reykjavik
(all images courtesy Henning Larsen)
On Saturday, Icelanders celebrated the opening of the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik. Designed by Henning Larsen, the building features a colorful, prismatic facade, developed in consultation with the artist Olafur Eliasson. The architects and the artist drew inspiration from basalt stone formations found along the Icelandic coast. The building has both a rugged power, and yet the colorful facade, which changes throughout the day according to light conditions, is inviting. Read More
Open-Source Architecture: Download Your Own WikiHouse
Wikihouse prototypes. (Courtesy Wikihouse)
Want to make your own home in 24 hours? Meet WikiHouse, a way to design and assemble a model structure within a single day. Wikihouse is designed to be easy to use with an online design community posting and editing open-source plans with Google Sketchup. Template plans can be downloaded and cut out with a CNC mill and then easily assembled with minimal skill.
From WikiHouse:
The first WikiHouse will be constructed in South Korea at the Gwangju Design Biennale 2011. We are now looking for architects, furniture designers, product designers, craftsmen, and makers from around the world who are interested in contributing to the WikiHouse process. If that’s you then please drop us an line on hello@wikihouse.cc!
Could downloaded design and “fabrication on the fly” be the future of architecture? How will open-source design impact the profession? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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