Hide and Seek

Walking on water with Christo’s newest project.

A saffron colored long floating peer of the famous artist Christo (81) connects the islands Monte Isola and San Paolo with the town Sulzano on Italy’s lake Iseo from Saturday june 18th, for 16 days. It belongs to the project The Floating Piers.  Visitors can experience how it feels to walk on water by walking on this work of art. The piers create a point of view that could not have existed otherwise.

The Bulgarian-American artist devised this floating pier project in 1970 with his wife Jeanne-Claude who passed away in 2009. In 2014, the artist and his team scouted the lakes of northern Italy and found lake Iseo to be the most inspiring location for the project. The artists’ goals has always been to create works of art of joy and beauty, without charging any viewing fees.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude have never accepted, nor will Christo accept in the future, any subsidies, royalties, grants, or sponsorships of any kind for their temporary public works of art. All of the artists’ income is derived from the sale of original works of art by Christo to private collectors, galleries and museums.

Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude have ‘transcended the traditional bounds of painting, sculpture and architecture. Together they changed the concept of “public art” by creating temporary works that are truly transitory by design’ (Christo).

The most special part of Christo’s art is that it no longer exists. All the projects that they made are literally shut down again after some time. There are only drawings, films and photographs left to see, but the work itself is always short-lived. By wrapping objects, buildings, landscapes etc. people suddenly start to look with an different eye to those objects and they become aware of the particular shape or color.

The lake of Iseo is not the only setting of a temporary installation this month, also Musee du Louvre in Paris played host to the latest installation of prolific French artist, JR.

JR au Louvre

The French artist, JR, makes the pyramid of the iconic museum dissapear trough optical illusion with his latest work ‘JR au Louvre’.
He has covered the pyramid with a gigantic but accurate picture of the façade of the Louvre, but entirely in black and white style that characterizes JR’s works. JR is renowned fir his large-scale works of art, optical illusions and his eye for social problems.

 

‘When I walked around the square, I saw how peopled turned their backs to the pyramid to take a selfie, but never really looked at the building’ (JR). With his art work, JR wants to encourage museum visitors to look at art with an active look.

He also wants to reopen the debate about modernism with his stunt, just like in 1989 when the glass pyramid was built. As a big fan of Ieoh Ming Pei, the Chinese Designer of the pyramid, JR was impressed by Pei’s ideas about/on the pyramid, which he wanted to blend into the surroundings.

Enjoy these beautiful photo’s of Christo’s other amazing wrapping installations!

 

 

 

Inside Outside

The summer has started now for real! Hopefully, we have had the worst rain showers for now and it’s finally time for the sun to start shining. The overlap between outside and inside in the interior design industry already has been happening for a while. Urban jungles are created inside the house and outside they are being decorated as a second living room with rugs, cushions, benches and outdoor workplaces included. We also see a growing number of big interior brands who start to present their own exterior collection next to their decoration collection, so you can keep on using the same style for both indoor and outdoor.

Is your 2nd leaving room already summer proof? Check out the serveral inspiring examples to connect your garden and living room.

Simon Watson – Lost in time        Hay – outdoor collection

 

TINY K HOME                     ZEN GARDEN

 

Bron: Blood and Champaign

 

WOOLLAHRA

 

LE SINOPLE, PARIS             GIANNI BOTSFORD – SUTHERLAND PLACE

 

Bron: Thestylebox             Francis Brodi House 

 

ZW6                          JJLOCATIONS

 

FERNANDA MARQUES

 

PIA ENGHILD            NEUMAN HAYNER ARCHITECTS

 

INSIDE OUT           NATHAN BURKETT 

 

Restaurant Vegetal                  Birgitta Wolfgang Drejer

 

Transparent

In the past two months, the Rotterdam based firm of architects MVRDV has realized three projects in which glass and tranparency were central, are the focus.

According to Winny Maas, one of the founders of MVRDV, “The glass enables global brands to combine the overwhelming desire of transparency with a couleur locale, and modernity with heritage. It can thus be applied everywhere in our historic centres.”

Transparent spaces are often experienced as more accessible, they are more open and spacious. We lose the dark corners because of more transparency and can therefore illuminate the entire space better. According to MVRDV, the use of so much glas and transparent materials can be traced back to the changes we see in our society.

“We are moving into a transparent society, businesses are becoming more open with the public, and people care more about what goes on behind closed doors,”  Winy Maas told Dezeen.

Crystal Houses – MVRDV

De big bubble – Alex de Witte              0,1,2,3,4 – Shaun Harris

Infinity Kitchen – MVRDV

133 WAI YIP STREET – MVRDV

Tribute to Domus – Fabrica / Benneton                             Drift Sconce  – Grain

Brute Platform – Gashetka              Urban Philosophy – Nissa Kinzhalina

Commodore – Glas Italia / Lissoni

Layers – Glas Italia / Nendo

Perspective no.2 – OS ∆ OOS

 

 

 

 

New Basics

Our interior is continuously changing. Where people previously invested in full interiors that could last for years and that were durable and timeless, we see nowadays that people regularly adapt their style and therefore also their interior.

Trough the shifts in the retail and hospitality sectors we also see more temporary ‘pop up’ concepts emerge and we rely on basic materials more often to create our interior with. This material relatively tend to be less expensive, it has a more natural look or it’s just less common in the field of decorative application and gives your interior therefore/thereby more personality.

Chipboard

Paris family house (Paris 10) – Atelier Premier Étage

 

Pocket Galerie – Atelier Premier Étage

 

Stories by the water

Matz Engdahl – Funt

 

Sophie Hardy – Breaking Surface

 

Jonatan Appelfeldt – Marbelous

Hemp & Electric cables

Henry&Co – Taaac & Ecoepoque

 

Colored MDF

Bang & Olufsen for Osloform – Serpentine

 

Osloform – Sleep wall clock

 

De intuïtiefabriek / Baars & Bloemhoff – Spatial

 

Daphna Laurens – Prototipi

 

MDF Italia – Minima42 (Units from colored mdf)

 

Bio laminate

Huis Veendam – Biolaminate

Mirror Mirror

I see I see what you don’t see.
I see an object, a consumer item, a piece of furniture design. I see myself, my surroundings, light and reflection.

Mirrors are no longer just an object. They are a surface, a material, that you can use to design withand create new shapes, perceptions and surroundings.

Lately, we see more and more often mirrored furniture and objects (and also in fashion). The mirrors will retain their original function but at the same time they add a new dimension to what they reflect. By playing with ‘Surface reflections’ the designers ensure that their influence goes beyond the furniture or the product. For instance, the designer affects the whole environment in which the object is placed. Mirros become more than the piece of equipment they were once before, they are transformed into art, furniture and objects that reflects both the users and the environment and it shows it from a different angle.

Nendo – Manga chairs

 

Fernando Mastrangelo – Drift (Mirror Series)

 

Elisa Strozyk – Ceramic Surface Reflections

 

Rooms – Raw meets geometric

 

Patricia Urqoila & Georg Jensen – Urkiola

 

Studio Roso – Eden

 

Cristina Celestino for Tonelli – Opalina Collection

 

German Ermics at Rossana Orlandi – Ombre Glass

 

Jordan Soderberg Millis – Anaglyphic

 

Moire effect

In interior design and architecture, nowadays, we see that the moiré effect is being used increasingly.

Moire patterns are created whenever one semitransparent object with a repititive pattern is placed over antoher. A slight motion of one of the objects creates large – scale changes in the moiré pattern.

David Derksen is one of the designers who used this effect in his designs, and showed it at last years Salone del Mobile 2015  with his Moiré lights.  He calls it ‘a celebration of the intriguing moiré effect. These lamps invite to play and become fascinated by the moire principle. Squares, hexagons or rings seem to appear and to move, making this into an almost hypnotic effect.

David Derksen – Moire Lights

One of David’s projects that was launched on Salone del Mobile last April in Milan were his Lucid lights. De collection consists of light objects with a perforated casing, which are carved out of aluminium.

David Derksen – Lucid Lights

‘There’s a lot to love about a humble shape that’s cut out repeatedly, creating large patterns across big scales. So many variations are possible with perforations overlaying them creating a moorish effect. Cutting out thick boards will express the edge of the material which creates a completely differen look to when a thin sheet is punctured, etc. Scale, proportion and material selections play a huge role when choosing and designing these types of patterns’ (yellowtrace).

Let inspire you trough the variety of products, fashion, interior and architecture from the past years >>>

Lululemon / Murdock Young Architects   

Agata Bielen – Gold Line                     Architecture 00

 

Nina Mair – Mashrabeya       Arch Studio 

Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec – Stampa Chair

Junpei Tamaki + Iori Tamaki – Snowscape cabinet

 

 

Álvaro Díaz Hernández – Wire Collection        Robert Morris – Sprüth Magers Berlin

 

MLZD – Janus Museum, Switzerland       Studio Gang

Tom Dixon                     Jesse Visser – Harold

Creating Spaces

Open, Transparent and Flexible. This is required by many people for a living and working space.

A space that posesses all these functions and fulfills all the requirements challenges the user to utilize the entire space, to engage and to interact. But a room with these features can also have it’s disadvantages. For the acoustics, privacy and the possibility to focus it’s not the best option.

Furthermore, in te interior of your offices you want to take into account different types of employees in order to get the most out or your people and the environment.

We are noticing that more and more designers come up with solutions to reduce the feeling of privacy and intimacy in open workplaces and public areas. The space is then often divided into various zones in a transparent manner. Hereby, you can both enjoy the openness and the privacy and it gives you the possibility to create multiple characters in one room.

The trend ‘creating spaces’ offers protection from overstimulation, it allows intimacy in varying degrees, meets the changing needs of both humans and environment and it shows the way in which design affects the space.

Fringe – Thijs Gilde

Free Standing Screen – Matteo Grassi & Franco Poli

Trois Conversations – Constance Guisset

Ear Chair – Jurgen Bey & Prooff

Tuango – Anne Sophie Goneau Design

Focus – Zilenzio

Standalone – Axia Design & Prooff

Modular Screen System – Benjamin Hubert

 

 

Touchable walls

Nowadays, we choose for walls with more statement, both inside and outside.
Trough the use of different shapes, materials, colors, reliëfs and textures, ”ontstaat er een bijzonder decoratief spel element van licht en schaduw”.

Trough this, a typical wall will be transformed into a three-dimensional visual festival. The wall won’t only become important for it’s function, it will also be used as a decorative element for interior and exterior. It provides additional space to show identity and adds tactility in and around the house.

We see, that the issue about tactility, is an important aspect for various architects and designers, not only for the young generation also for the established names.

There is an increase in experimenting with how tactility and texture influence, behavior, needs & perception and the need to add it to a physical environment, what the designer is feeling, reacts as a response to the digitalisation of our society.

Image copyright Assemble info@assemblestudio.co.uk

Assemble – Yardhouse                                 Bruce B./ Emmy B. –  Stuttgart, Germany

Buro Belen – Thomaskerk

Pauline Gorelov – Hyperstructure

Luffalab – Indigo

Zilenzio – Fazett                                                            Culdesac – Urbatek

            Giles Miller – Hemsworth leather                                   Kowa collection – Ichimatsu

Pia Jensen – The infinity of a room

 

Forbo – Bulletin Board Collection

 

Prismatic

In Februari started my internship at Broeinest. It’s a material library & meeting space where creators of physical environments get inspired, work, meet, learn & play.
During my internship I have learned a lot of aspects that are important for my development as a future lifestyle professional. One of my tasks, and the reason why I’m writing this blog,  was writing blogs for the website of Broeinest, focussing on materials and interior design that will inspire all the visitors of Broeinest’s website.

The first blog that I’ve wrote for Broeinest is: ‘Prismatic’ 
This link will guide you to the original blog that I’ve written in Dutch at the website of broeinest: http://www.broeinest.nl/blog/prismatic/

To make it readable for everyone, I like to share it with you on this blog in an English version.

In the interior and fashion industry the usage of Dichroic glas is increasing.
‘Dichroic’ means ‘two colours’, this material was developed in the late fifties by NASA to protect against the potentially harmful effects of direct sunlight and cosmic radiation. This type of glass has the unique characteristic that the transmissive color, totally differs from the reflective color.

Several designers respond to the infinite interplay of light and reflection.
The designs seem somewhat surrealistic and it creates a sense of illusion.
The objects protect natural phenoma of light in daily life and can make any dull room lively by creating complex patterns of light and shadow, that change depending on the position of the viewer or the light source.

Mise & Abyme Tunnel – Allegri & Fogale

 

PRISM – Studio22

 

HOLON – Jetske Visser & Michiel Martens

 

Anno Tropico – Formafantasma

 

Shimmer – Glass Italia & Patricia Urquiola

 

Eastpack – Sabine Marcelis  |  Seeing Glass – Brit van Nerven & Sabine Marcelis

 

Day & Night Light – Éléonore Delisse

 

Prismatica – RAW

 

Dichroic Glass – Chriss Wood

 

Biobased

In Broeinest, the place where I’m doing my internship, we have a permanent exhibition of ‘Materia‘. It is the global network in the area of innovative materials and every four months the theme off the exhibition changes. From January till April the theme off the exhibition was called ‘Biobased’. I wanted to get to know more about the various projects based on this theme and I want to share my selection of projects that caught my attention!

People use different meanings off the term ‘Biobased’. One of the explanations could be: ‘Derived from living organisms, both plant and animal, biobased materials feature a low CO2 footprint, low energy costs and generate no – or minimal – pollution. Examples include bioplastics, compostable materials, fungi and algae as a new raw material, ‘waste’ materials such as coffee grounds and nut shells or chitin from shrimp shells, and new materials made from wool, leather, hemp and nettles. The source of raw, biobased materials available is inexhaustible. Residual materials from the agriculture and forestry sectors also offer economically interesting material inspiration’ (Materia).

Studio Thomas Vaily – Reconfiguration of a tree
by David Derksen, Thomas Vaily, Gardar Eiolfsson & Lex Pott

The project of Thomas Vaily, ‘reconfiguration of a tree’, is a proposal to go back (return) to the basics and to develop new materials with natural building blocks. With this project, Thomas Vaily, is examing the pinus pinaster, a resinous tree that was cut down for the production of pitch.

Because of the wide range of synthetic alternatives for resin, the harvesting of resin has become a vanishing industry.

To re-examine the production system, studio Thomas Vaily focuses itself mainly on the qualities of the material. In this way, not only the tree, but all the parts of the pinus pinaster have been used to transform it into a black substance with completely new properties.

Then, four designers have been asked to create new objects with resin and wood.

Studio Thomas Vaily

Gardar Eyjólfsson

 

Lex Pott & David Derksen

Marlene Huissoud – Of insects & Men

Marlene Huissoud is a French material designer who comes from a family of beekeepers. She is ‘interested in the viability of utilising insects and their wase streams to create future craft artefacts'(M, Huissoud).

Insects & Men explores the beauty of honeybee bio resin. Her new piece has been shown on Salone del Mobile in Milan at La Terrace. Her stunning new piece continues her exploration of bio resin, the material produced by the honey bee as waste, but now combining it with commonly discarded human glass waste. The pieces question the idea of how two waste materials, natural and industrial can complement each other (given an up-cycling approach)
The honeybee ressin is used to bind the glass pieces together in those sculptural ‘alien look’ pieces.

‘It is questioning and underlying the way of how we use materials nowadays and in the future’ (Domusweb).

 

Fruit Leather

Designers from Willem de Kooning have been asked to design something to prevent food waste. They discovered that on a market near/close to the academy, more than 3,500 kilos of unmarketable fruits and vegetables remain everyday. They decided to use these products to create leather. ‘Food isn’t trash, you just need to find a different purpose for the existing material’ they said.

‘What we want to achieve with this project is to create awareness of the problem of food waste and show that there is a solution’.

By using the name ‘Fruit leather Rotterdam‘, the designers are experiencing with the material. Back in the days the technique has been used to produce candy and snacks (still). And now they have already created a bag made of mango’s!

Mandy den Elzen – Goat stomach Leather

Mandy den Elzen is a visual artist who approaches materials with a scientific and meticulous approach. Working with special left-over animal parts, den Elzen looks to expand the number of animal parts that can be tanned an used for leather, thus making better use of available resources.

With her work ‘The Equine Digestive System’, Mandy den Elzen continues her extensive research into the process of making leather from animal organs. She has worked with cow stomachs and now with goat stomachs as well. The stomachs of herbivorous animals especially, have beautiful structures. Possible applications include fashion and accesoires (Materia).

Her work questions’ society’s attitudes towards the use of animal parts in our everyday world and within the leather production industry in particular.