Architects Take Milan> Part 1: Collaborations Abounded At This Year’s Furniture Fair
Kelly Seating from Tacchini.
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 first 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 second section of our roundup here.
Kelly Seating
Tacchini
Multidisciplinary design office Claesson Koivisto Rune was inspired by American artist Ellsworth Kelly when they created the Kelly seating collection for Tacchini. The line features three pieces—Kelly E, H, and L—with cushions that reference the bold colors and irregular shapes common in the artist’s sculptures atop delicate frames coated in matching paint.
A Sartorial ‘Shop in Shop’ for Neil Barrett
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A series of curvaceous, modular display shelves by Zaha Hadid Architects creates a powerful store image for Neil Barrett. (Virgile Simon Bertrand)
Zaha Hadid Architects designed 16 bespoke polyurethane display units for fashion designer Neil Barrett’s shops.
Fashion designer Neil Barrett hired Zaha Hadid Architects to design a cohesive display concept for a new flagship store in Tokyo that could be easily rolled out to his other locations as well, which include four shops in Seoul and one in Hong Kong. The result had to be as sartorial as Barrett’s fashions, so Hadid’s team came up with the idea of cutting the displays for all of the stores from a single block of material. The concept resulted in 16 bespoke display elements, which all fit together like pieces of a puzzle.
“We wanted to design a project that always belongs together but offers a choice between different sizes,” said project architect Claudia Wulf. “The reason we designed a modular landscape is that we have extremely different area requirements [across all of the shops].” The units, which are carved from a solid unit, range in size from 13 1/2 feet by 13 3/4 feet to 4 feet by 6 feet. Paired, the units create a sinuous artificial landscape that unfolds across multiple display levels. The pieces can be grouped to suit the scale and space of each boutique, and display shoes, bags, or accessories just as easily. Read More
Unveiled> One Thousand Museum, Zaha Hadid’s First Skyscraper in the West
Zaha Hadid’s 1000 Museum Tower in Miami. (Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects; Via Curbed Miami)
Miami’s real estate market is climbing yet again after a few years of tense halts in new projects following the 2007 recession. Among the towers set to rise in the Magic City’s downtown is a residential high-rise designed by Pritzker prize-winner Zaha Hadid, who is also designing a dramatic parking structure in the city. Expectations of the new structure are soaring, and a set of renderings of the tower have recently been released. Developed by local hotshots Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman, the One Thousand Museum luxury condominium will be built amid a row of existing condo towers along Biscayne Boulevard just across from what will soon be Museum Park.
Miami’s Development Booming: Top 11 Starchitect-Designs Remaking the Magic City
The Grove at Grand Bay by Bjarke Ingels Group. (Courtesy BIG)
After a tumultuous few years, Miami’s real estate market is on the rise once again. When the recession hit the city in 2007, new developments came to a dramatic halt and abandoned construction sites became ubiquitous. But now, a surge of new projects—running the gamut from residential and retail to hotels and cultural institutions—are cropping up around Miami with many more slated for construction in the next few years. And some heavy hitters, such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog and de Meuron, and Bjarke Ingels, have signed up to lend their design sensibility to Miami’s changing landscape. The Miami Herald reported that the city now boasts 20 new condo towers with an additional five towers in the works for neighborhoods just north and south of downtown Miami. AN has compiled a list of the most significant projects taking shape in the Magic City.
What’s My Type? Zaha Hadid Speaks Up For Women Architects
Zaha Hadid. (Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects)
In a recent interview with the London newspaper The Observer, architect Zaha Hadid made the point that female architects are typecast. “It is thought they [women] understand interior shapes, and I am sure they do understand them better than men actually, but the idea is that they will prefer to deal with a single client, rather than with corporations and developers,” said Hadid, noting that women practitioners often ended up with residential or leisure-related projects rather than large-scale commercial work. Hadid spoke out following publication of a research report by the Architects’ Journal on gender issues in British architecture. The report, deploying a rather Shakespearian tone, claims to have uncovered a “sinister and rotten kernel of inequality.” Women “need to be encouraged and to have their confidence built up,” said Hadid, a notoriously tough boss herself. We’d like to see Hadid team up with Facebook COO turned working-woman activist Sheryl Sandberg for a road show.
Product> Tread on Gehry, Zaha, Tigerman, and Friends
Arabesque by Michael Graves.
ARZU STUDIO HOPE and live/work furniture company Coalesse have teamed up with six leading architects to design a series of bold rugs and also provide economic opportunities for Afghan women. Chicago-based ARZU first approached Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry to design a collection of contemporary rugs, the proceeds of which support hundreds of rural women and their families through economic activity, and educational and health services. Rug weaving, which takes place in private homes, is one of the few industries where women can work safely.
Photo of the Day: Hanging Out With Zaha and Rem in the 70s (Updated!)
Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas.
Spotted on a Chinese Twitter account and now making its way around various online social networks, behold Zaha Hadid as an up-and-coming young architect working at OMA and her boss, with a full head of hair, Rem Koolhaas likely taken sometime in the 1970s. Hadid split from OMA in 1979 to start her own firm. As an added bonus, check out another photo of Zaha Hadid as a child in front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome after the jump.
Update! A reader sent in proof that the above photo, of unknown Chinese provenance, is a forgery. While showing both Zaha and Rem, the two were stitched together digitally. Take a look at the Zaha Hadid above photographed solo after the jump.
Zaha Falls Victim to Archi-Piracy in China
Zaha Hadid’s Wangjing Soho project (left) and the Meiquan 22nd Century project (right). (Courtesy Zaha Hadid Architects / Sina)
In 2010, AN wrote about an identity theft scandal involving some high profile British architects and Chinese impostors leaving some observers at the time to wonder if starchitects like Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid might be next. It now appears the archi-pirates have indeed set their eyes on Hadid’s curvaceous designs, setting of a construction race to see whether the copy-cat can outbuild the original and an international debate about intellectual property. Spiegel reported that Hadid’s Wangjing SOHO tower complex, proposed in 2011 for Beijing and now under construction, has been copied and rebranded as the Meiquan 22nd Century in Chongqing. When placed side by side (above), it’s tough not to see the distinct resemblance.
Zaha Hadid to Design Residential Tower in Downtown Miami
Zaha Hadid to design tower at 1000 Biscayne Boulevard. (Courtesy Bing Maps / Jason Schmidt)
New York said no, but Miami says yes. After losing out to Norman Foster to design a tower in Midtown Manhattan, Zaha Hadid has been asked to design her first skyscraper in the Western hemisphere in downtown Miami, the Miami Herald reported. No design has been released, but the new residential tower will be located at 1000 Biscayne Boulevard on the site of a BP gas station on the city’s waterfront Museum Park, seen in red above. The site is part of a row of condo towers along the boulevard known as the “Biscayne Wall.” Developers Gregg Covin and Louis Birdman aren’t releasing details, but told the Herald the project will be officially unveiled early next year.
As AN previously reported, Hadid is also building a new parking garage in Miami, which was approved for construction in November. Elsewhere in North American, Hadid is working on a dramatic house in San Diego and has been designing smaller-scale interiors and products. Also check out renderings of Hadid’s Manhattan proposal here.
Hadid Supreme: Starchitect Racking Up Pages in the Glossies
Zaha Hadid and Naomi Campbell. (Courtesy Interview Magazine)
“If Zaha is in Paris, ask her to text me and make an appointment.” So read the text message from Karl Lagerfeld to Naomi Campbell. La Campbell was having a sit-down with Zaha Hadid, who happens to be designing the supermodel’s new house outside Moscow. But this wasn’t a meeting to review floor plans—it was an on-the-record chat (including incoming texts) for the German edition of Interview magazine. The conversation ranged from the subject of Hadid’s new book (on the Russian Suprematist movement, one of her foundational influences) to 3-D printers.
Funnily enough, Campbell covers a lot more ground than architecture writer Aaron Betsky manages in his recent and rather fluffy profile of Hadid for Glamour magazine, which named the architect as one of its Women of the Year. Here, Betsky cites Mame rather than Malevich as an early influence: “My house was like Auntie Mame’s, with my mother redecorating every season,” said Hadid.
SHFT+ ALT+ DEL: November 16, 2012, Extreme Accolades Edition
‘Tis the season for bestowing “Best Ofs”, and this edition of SHFT+ALT+DEL includes some of the recent laurels laid upon architects and designers by business and consumer press…
Zaha Hadid is named one of Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year for 2012. (Glamour seems to have latched onto Condé Nast sibling The New Yorker calling Hadid “The Lady Gaga of Architecture…”)
Across the pond, David Adjaye is at the tippy-top of the 2013 Power List, ranked number one in the annual publication’s list of the most influential black people of the UK.
This year’s Pritzker Prize winner, Wang Shu, gets tapped as 2012 Innovator of the Year in Architecture by The Wall Street Journal.
South of the border, GQ Mexico named Esteban Suarez of BNKR Arquitectura, pronounced Bunker, Architect of the Year.
Congratulations to them all! Meanwhile, back in the salt mines…
LEAD’s “Golden Moon” Shines Over Hong Kong
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LEAD’s “Golden Moon”
Digital design meets traditional Chinese craftsmanship in a pavilion constructed like a paper lantern
Hong Kong-based architects Kristof Crolla (LEAD) and Adam Fingrut (Zaha Hadid) married traditional Chinese craftsmanship and digital design technology in their temporary pavilion, Golden Moon, which won the Gold Award in the Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Wonderland last month. The 60-foot-tall structure was built in just 11 days atop a reflection pool in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, proof that “complex geometry can be built at high speed and low cost with the simplest of means,” said Crolla and Fingrut, who sought to rethink digital design by “anchoring the paradigm in a strong materiality.”
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