Memory Cloud Taps Tradition At Texas A&M
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Memory Cloud embodies Texas A&M tradition with an active matrix of animated LEDs. (Courtesy Metalab)
Re:site and Metalab’s site-specific installation for Texas A&M’s 12th Man Memorial Student Center uses 4,000 networked LEDs to create an animated display that speaks to tradition as well as to the future.
The Corps of Cadets. Kyle Field. The 12th Man. Reveille. Texas A&M has more than a few strong traditions, most of which are centered around and given expression by the university’s football games and its alumni’s illustrious history of military service. At the same time, the school is well known for its robust and forward thinking science and engineering departments. Both of these characteristics factored into the conception for a permanent sculpture to inhabit A&M’s new Memorial Student Center (MSC). Created by art collaborative RE:site and design and fabrication studio Metalab (both located in Houston) the sculpture, titled Memory Cloud, is a chandelier of 4,000 white LEDs that are animated by two distinct feeds: one derived from archival footage of the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band, the other from live infrared cameras that monitor people passing through the center’s atrium.
“To interpret tradition visually we thought of moving patterns of people,” said Norman Lee of RE:site. “A&M has a strong marching band. If you remove the specifics of what the band is wearing and focus on the movements, they’re the same from 1900 to now. Once you reduce the figures from archival footage to silhouette patterns, you can’t identify the different points in time. Time and space collapse and bring together the school’s tradition in visual terms.”
Flint Public Art Project’s Free City Fest Reclaims Razed Chevy Site
Raphaele Shirley, Spinning Circle/Shooting Cloud, 2013. (RA Littlewolf and Whisper Willow)
The ongoing efforts of artists and designers to reignite the spark of downtown development in aging industrial cities face no simple task. But as architects and developers begin to put pencil to paper, the best public art projects draw on the spiritual side of that renewal.
Flint, Michigan’s inaugural Free City Festival, held May 3-5, did just that when it revived a mile-long stretch of now-razed Chevrolet plants with public art, transformational lighting displays and a reverberating gospel choir.
Q+A> Design Week with Todd Bracher
Todd Bracher, right.
For the final installment of AN‘s New York Design Week Q+A series, we talked with Todd Bracher about his Nest and forthcoming Asa collections, his design philosophy, and inspirations. And Kevin Stark stopped in to visit, as well.
How did your collaboration with HBF come about?
I reached out originally to Kevin Stark a few years ago, who was the vice president of design at that time. I’ve been in the [design] business for 15 years but worked mostly overseas, so I wanted to find the right partner [stateside]. HBF entered my radar because they produce European craftsmanship; their products are really high quality. A year later a mutual friend reintroduced us and that ignited the relationship.
Providence Considers Plan for a More Pedestrian Friendly Kennedy Plaza
All images courtesy TimNelson3D.com / Union Studio Architecture & Community Design
Not unfamiliar with daring urban design endeavors, Providence, RI is gearing up for a $20 million transformation of Kennedy Plaza, a major transportation hub and park dating to 1848 in the city’s downtown. The overhaul designed by Providence-based Union Studio Architects was announced in late April and call for upholding the plaza’s principal position as a public-transit terminal, preserving the 2002 intermodal station. Change in the site’s layout will relocate bus kiosks to the perimeter of the plaza so as to create supplementary space for public and private activities to enliven the space.
Plus Pool Needs Money For Mock-Up
Rendering of the Plus Pool on the East River. (Courtesy Plus Pool)
For nearly a decade now, New Yorkers have been turning their focus on revitalizing the city’s waterfront, a trend that has only grown in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. WXY Architecture’s East River Blueway and Bloomberg’s Vision 2020 are two examples of initiatives that seek to build sustainable, accessible, and engaging shorelines for the city. But with summer approaching and the days heating up, what city dwellers may want most from their estuaries is a cool, clean dip. Brooklyn-based design firms Family Architects and PlayLab hope to make that dream possible, but they still need $250,000 to get started.
Q+A> Design Week with Christian Rasmussen
Christian Rasmussen. (Courtesy Fritz Hansen)
On the opening day of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) at the Javits Center, AN sat down with Christian Rasmussen, the head of design for Fritz Hansen, to discuss the company’s design strategies, its philosophy on collaboration, and to test out the new Favn and Ro seating that has just been released in the U.S.
What are your impressions of ICFF?
It’s getting better every year and I’m seeing more interesting stuff. I was surprised last year and this one is even better. Last month we were in Milan but it’s so big. I like that ICFF is more focused and offers a tighter overlook. You can spend more time in each booth as opposed to Milan where you have to move very fast to see everything. Overall it’s really positive.
Oyler Wu, The Graduation Experts, Design Another Pavilion for SCI-Arc
Looking up at Storm Cloud (Clifford Ho)
After creating their 2011 and 2012 graduation pavilions for SCI-Arc, Oyler Wu has once again produced a striking structure LA-based school, this time on the occasion of their 4oth anniversary. Dubbed the Storm Cloud pavilion, the structure salvages the existing steel from the 2011 Netscape, which served as the school’s graduation pavilion two years ago. Looking at Storm Cloud, one can hardly tell it shares much of the bones that made up the older pavilion.
Xavier Veilhan’s “Architectones” Transforms Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein House
Onlookers admire the Sheats Goldstein festivities. (Elizabeth Daniels)
Yesterday, AN reported on the incredible new entertainment complex that millionaire James Goldstein is building next to John Lautner’s Sheats Goldstein Residence in Beverly Hills. But even without an adjacent nightclub, the house often hosts splashy events, the most recent of which was the latest art/architecture installation that’s part of artist Xavier Veilhan’s Architectones series. As he did at Richard Neutra’s VDL House and Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House 21, Veilhan created several site specific installations for the site, ranging from a life size statue of John Lautner to a series of cords stretching over the home’s pool. The project was curated by architect Francois Perrin and organized by Galerie Perrotin.
A Nest-Like Treehouse Will Perch Among the Rainforest Canopy in…England
Treehouse by Jerry Tate Architects & Blue Forest for the Eden Project. (Kilian O’Sullivan: kilianosullivan.co.uk)
Jerry Tate Architects has revealed the design for a dynamic treehouse called the Biodiversity Nest to be built inside the Eden Project facility in Cornwall, UK. The London-based firm’s design unites architecture and nature, much like the Eden Project’s massive Grimshaw-designed overlapping geodesic domes comprising the world’s largest enclosed rainforest.
The Biodiversity Nest, part of the new Rainforest Canopy Walkway project, will sit between two 52-foot-tall bridges in the Eden Project’s Humid Tropics Biome. The timber enclosure will provide a shady education space perched in the tree canopy.
MOCA’s “New Sculpturalism” Show Moving Forward
Rendering of Surface-to-Volume by Tom Wiscombe Design, part of the PST show.
AN just heard from MOCA that their embattled show, A New Sculpturalism, Contemporary Architecture in Southern California, is moving ahead. The date has been pushed back from June 2 to June 16, but it will still take place inside MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary, presumably featuring the same roster of both emerging and star architects, minus Frank Gehry, of course. The show had been put on hold for several weeks for reasons that vary according to whom you ask. Curator Christopher Mount had blamed mismanagement at MOCA, while others had blamed apprehension about the show’s direction, and Gehry’s withdrawal.
The Final Turn: Architect Tom Kundig Designs a Minimal Funerary Urn
The Final Turn. (Kevin Scott)
While few items should garner as much respect as those of which hold the memories of our loved ones, high-design has long had an aversion to memorialization. Seattle-based architect Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig Architects and artist Greg Lundgren hope to change that with their new funerary urn, “The Final Turn,” for Lundgren Monuments. With this object, Kundig brings the rough materiality and crisp design that he has become known for with his acclaimed houses to create a timeless vessel.
“The Final Turn” is composed of two halves of an eight-inch sphere, handcrafted from blackened steel or bronze. The two halves are threaded together, but are noticeably offset when they meet. “While the sphere implies perfection and eternity, the offset nature of the urn is inspired by the people left behind—the people whose lives are thrown off-kilter by the passing of their loved one,” Kundig said in a statement. “The perfect world is no longer perfect for those who remain—something is amiss.” The top half contains a compartment to house mementos, while the bottom half provides a receptacle for remains.
Architects Take Milan, Part 2: Collaborations Abounded At This Year’s Furniture Fair
Parrish Collection from Emeco.
AN had boots on the ground at the 2013 Milan Furniture Fair, taking the air and parsing the differences. This year saw an abundance of collaborations between furniture designers and architects. What follows is the second half of our greatest hits, everything from modular shelving and sleek hardware to design-forward consoles and practical seating. View even more architect-designed furniture from Milan in the first section of our roundup here.
Parrish Collection
Emeco
In conjunction with its collaboration with Konstantin Grcic on the mobile interiors of the new Parrish Art Museum, Emeco released the Parrish Collection of modular indoor–outdoor chairs and tables. Chairs are available with three recycled aluminum frame designs that can be combined into four seat options, including one made of locally sourced wood from Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
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