Tag Archives: Dezeen

Fala Atelier uses new curving wall to reorganise Lisbon flat

Porto architecture studio Fala Atelier has overhauled a fragmented 19th-century Lisbon flat, creating a long narrow living area framed by a subtly curved wall.

The apartment is located on the first floor of a late-19th-century housing block overlooking the Tagus river.

Fala Atelier was tasked with transforming it into a two-bedroom holiday home for the client.

The original home was in poor condition. It was defined by several small rooms with little natural light, as well as an impractical outdoor bathroom.

In order to remodel the layout and make best use of the 60-square-metre floor plan, Fala Atelier started by adding the gently curved wall. This separates the communal areas from the more private spaces.

“We defined a very clear line,” studio co-founder Felipe Magalhães told Dezeen. “A curved wall, connecting both facades, separates the bedrooms, hall and bathrooms from the living gallery.”

By creating this “living gallery” containing the living, dining and kitchen area, the architects minimised circulation space and maximised natural light.

The wall also created enough space in the centre of the curve to fit in the toilet and shower room that were originally outside.

Five hand-painted doors, each in a different shade of blue, punctuate the curved wall, leading to the bathrooms, two bedrooms and stairwell.

Each of these “hang detached from the floor like a set of monochrome paintings”, according to Magalhães.

Fala Atelier chose to tile the floor of the main space and the bathrooms in marble, while the bedroom floors are covered in ash plywood panels.

The architects also created a range of furniture pieces from different types of marble resting atop metal frames – including a kitchen unit, side table, shelving and chairs.

“Marble is a very affordable material in Portugal and as such we used it very often against the abstract white background because it creates a very intense contrast,” Magalhães said.

“Marble has personality, soul. Each stone is unique.”

Fala Atelier also reclaimed a small patio area at the back of the property by demolishing the outside bathroom. Accessible from the living area and one of the bedrooms, this outdoor space has a cement-covered floor and walls.

“The new courtyard-like space provides an exterior addition to the living room, natural but unexpected for an apartment on a second storey,” said Magalhães.

Fala Atelier has completed several other small apartments in the Portuguese city – one featuring a series of sliding doors and another with a curving wall.

Source: www.dezeen.nl

Anish Kapoor flaunts use of “world’s pinkest pink” despite personal ban from its creator

Artist Anish Kapoor has got his hands on the “world’s pinkest pink”, which he is legally forbidden from using.

British artist Stuart Semple created the fluorescent pink paint pigment earlier this year, in retaliation to “rotter” Kapoor buying the exclusive rights to the Vantablack pigment, said to be the blackest shade of black ever created.

The cerise pink shade is available to all artists except Kapoor, who is legally banned from purchasing it.

It is sold in 50-gram pots on Semple’s website for no profit, with a price label of £3.99. But customers must confirm that the “paint will not make its way into that hands of Anish Kapoor”.

They are obliged to agree to a legal declaration that states: “You are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor.”

But despite the ban, the Indian-born British artist – the highest ranking figure on the Dezeen Artists Hot List – has got his hands on Semple’s Pink shade – a reflective powdered pigment that repels light to effect a powerful fluorescence.

Kapoor posted a picture of his middle finger dipped in the paint to his dirty_corner Instagram account with the caption “Up yours #pink”.

Upset by Kapoor’s actions, Semple put out a call to find out how he stole the colour. He claims it was a “very shoddy inside job”.

“I was really sad and disappointed that he felt so left out that he needed to orchestrate some conspiracy to steal our pink,” he told Dezeen.

Semple also said he is determined that Kapoor should be punished for his actions, or at least apologise.

“We’ll be dobbing him in, he will be told off and hopefully that will teach him to share his colours in future,” said Semple. “It would be nice if he owned up, said sorry and gave me my Pink back.”

Instagram commenters were also disappointed in Kapoor, describing his response as “petty”. They have resurfaced #sharetheblack – a protest hashtag against Kapoor’s monopoly of the black shade.

Not admitting defeat by Kapoor, Semple has also created the “world’s most glittery glitter”, “the “world’s greenest green” and the “world’s yellowest yellow” and is urging purchasers to “refrain from sharing any with him or his associates”.

The paints are all completely sold out on Semple’s Culture Hustle online shop.

Semple posted a video mocking Kapoor on his own Instagram page last night, which records himself writing “I will be good… I will share my colours” 100 times in white chalk on a blackboard.

Kapoor’s Vantablack is currently the blackest substance known – so dark that it absorbs 99.96 per cent of light.

Made up of a series of microscopic vertical tubes, when light strikes the pigment it becomes trapped instead of bouncing off, and is continually deflected between the tubes.

It was developed by British company NanoSystems for military purposes and astronomy equipment, but the company allowed Kapoor to be the only artist able to use it.

The news sparked outrage among other artists, including English painter Christian Furr – who told the Mail on Sunday that he felt Kapoor was “monopolising the material”.

“I’ve never heard of an artist monopolising a material. Using pure black in an artwork grounds it,” he said. “All the best artists have had a thing for pure black – Turner, Manet, Goya. This black is like dynamite in the art world.”

“We should be able to use it – it isn’t right that it belongs to one man,” he added.

Source: www.dezeen.com

Colorado architecture students build micro cabins clad in sheets of hot-rolled steel

Students at the University of Colorado Denver have designed and built a series of rustic dwellings for a base camp operated by an outdoor education program.

Called COBS Year-Round Micro Cabins, the project consists of seven insulated dwellings, each containing 200 square feet (19 square metres) of interior space and a 100-square-foot deck (nine square metres). Located deep within a pine forest, the shelters are accessed via a narrow dirt road.

The rugged structures were built for a base camp operated by the Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS), a nonprofit organisation focused on wilderness education.

The camp is situated in Leadville, a small Colorado town located 10,150 feet above sea level (3,093 metres).

“The orientation and articulation of each of the seven cabins react individually to the immediate site conditions present in the landscape,” the team said. “No two cabins are alike.”

The shelters were created by 28 students in the Colorado Building Workshop, a design-build programme in the architecture school at the University of Colorado Denver. The programme constructed 14 similar cabins for the COBS camp in 2015.

The new structures are skinned with sheets of hot-rolled steel, which form a low-maintenance rainscreen. Cedar-clad porches were carved out of the main rectangular mass.

The buildings are elevated off the ground by short metal columns with concretefootings. The composition is meant to “blend with the pine forest, minimising the visual impact”, while also reducing each structure’s footprint.

Source: www.dezeen.com

Antonio Citterio unveils design for glass Arte tower on Florida beach

Italian architect Antonio Citterio has been tapped to conceive a luxury residential building in Miami Beach, marking his first architectural project in America and the latest in a string of residential developments in the area.

Called Arte by Antonio Citterio, the 12-storey apartment building is slated to rise on a vacant, one-acre (0.4-hectare) parcel in Surfside, an exclusive beach community situated between South Beach and Bal Harbour.

The oceanfront tower will contain 16 “ultra-luxury condominium residences”, with Citterio-Viel and Partners – founded by Citterio and Patricia Viel – designing both the architecture and interiors. Units will measure 5,500 square feet (510 square metres) and larger, and will be delivered “furniture ready”, according to reports.

Renderings show a glass-clad, rectilinear building with protruding floor plates that form deep eaves and balconies. The beach-facing elevation appears to taper upward.

Interior materials will include Italian travertine with bronze accents, according to the team.

Based in Italy, Citterio has designed a number of hospitality projects around the world, including a series of Bulgari Hotels in Dubai, London, Milan and Bali. His residential work includes Salaino 10, a condo complex in Milan.

He also is a well-known product designer and has worked with B&B ItaliaKartell and Vitra, among other brands.

Encompassing 150,000 square feet (13,935 square metres), the Miami development will offer amenities such as a spa, fitness centre, and indoor and outdoor pools. Each residence will be allotted three parking spots in an air-conditioned garage.

The developer plans to construct an amenity building across the street that will contain a golf simulator, club room, cigar room and rooftop tennis courts.

The landscape will be designed by Enzo Enea, who has a Miami studio and two offices in Switzerland. The grounds will feature an aluminium sculpture by artist Robert Indiana, as part of his ART series conceived in 1972.

Kobi Karp Architecture and Interior Design, a local firm with studios in the Middle East, will serve as architect of record.

Source: www.dezeen.com

Customers arranged around one communal table inside Taiwanese hair salon

Visitors to this hair salon in Taiwan all sit face-to-face around one long table, which was custom-made by local studio Soar Design.

The hairdressers – which is based in Taiwan’s Changhua City – has a long and slender floorplan. To make the most of the space available, the designers chose not to section off the room into separate workstations and instead organised areas around a single communal table.

The custom-made long rectangular table divides the salon’s 45-square-metre room into waiting and haircut areas, with people sitting across the table from one another.

Circular mirrors rest in wooden bases for easy movement, allowing the owner to rearrange the space as needed. Long pendant lights hanging just above the table emit a soft glow.

Paint has been removed from the walls, which were hand-drilled and stripped back to their original materials to make the atmosphere “closer to nature”.

“Just like the artistic behaviour of the hairstylist, you can see the conversation between textures, perception and space,” said the studio.

The salon’s sinks sit on a raised wooden platform tucked away towards the back of the building, which is divided from the rest of the space by a steel counter.

Throughout the salon, products are housed in wooden shelves and on steel panels jutting out from the walls.

This Melbourne salon also avoids the typical hairdresser interiors, and features bold colours and geometric shapes based on the work of postmodernist designer Ettore Sottsass.

Other interesting pamper spots include a minimal Japanese salon with space for the owner’s books, art and music, and a Parisian hairdressers with a hexagonal-patterned ceiling made from sheets of plywood.

Cun-Design converts Beijing house into film studio with weathering steel and glass extensions

Chinese firm Cun-Design has transformed a typical suburban house in Beijing into a film production studio featuring glass and pre-rusted steel extensions.

Cun-Design was asked to oversee the refurbishment of the existing property in the Chinese capital’s Tongzhou District to create a new workspace for Blue Moon Films.

The detached house located on the bank of the Wen-Yu River in the east of the city was only built in the 1990s, but had already fallen into a state of disrepair.

The architects recognised that the house’s facades and structural framework could be retained and adapted, but sought to completely transform the cramped interior to give it a more modern feel.

“Our first impression on this house is that it is out of tune with today’s people and their way of living,” said Cun-Design. “We maintained its original structure during the renovation and formed a contrasting boundary between old and new within the project.”

The refurbishment began with the removal of all non-structural internal walls, resulting in more open and flexible spaces. Doors and windows were also removed to create uninterrupted circulation throughout the building.

GT2P melts rock from Chilean volcanoes to create Remolten furniture

Chilean studio GT2P has designed a set of boulder-like stools using re-melted volcanic rock.

The studio coated porcelain, stoneware and concrete – all of which are resistant to high temperatures – in the lava. The result is furniture with rough, smooth or drip-covered exteriors.

By controlling the temperature, GT2P could produce this range of different finishes, using heat to influence the final texture and colour.

“The control of this natural matter allows for the potential for soft and rough pieces, and through this unique sculptural process each piece develops its own unique texture,” said the studio. “The Remolten series celebrates nature’s ability to create beauty while paying homage to Chile.”

GT2P collected a porous lightweight rock known as basaltic andesite to create the stools, visiting the slopes of active volcanoes to collect it. The studio’s home country has 2,000 volcanoes, with 500 of them still active.

The furniture, which was created for New York gallery Friedman Benda, is a continuation of GT2P’s ongoing investigations into volcanic rock. It has already incorporated the material into a collection of lightsusing smoothed chunks of lava as dimmer switches.

As part of its early Remolten experiments, the studio also created smaller, solid objects, made using moulds. This allowed them to trial the effects of different temperatures and produce pieces such as jars, candleholders or kitchen tools – which make the most of the material’s durability and heat resistance.

Incorporating the lava with a base object allowed the studio to create larger objects, and progress to stools and other furniture.

“These experiences create a great potential for volcanic lava to be disseminated from Chile to the rest of the world, creating bridges between the academic, the artistic, the industrial and the artisanal world,” added GT2P.

As a result of its versatility, volcanic rock has also been turned into everything from shelves to cups and plates.

Source: www.dezeen.com

10 minimalist bathrooms that have barely anything in them

Although bathrooms tend to be the most minimal room in the house, we’ve rounded up 10 of the most extreme examples, including a lonely bathtub in a Dutch townhouse and a copper-lined washroom in an English countryside property.

This article is a great source for some minimalistic inspiration.
www.dezeen.com

O’Neill Rose creates elongated wooden home in the Berkshires

A long cypress-clad volume that projects from a hillside in rural Massachusetts forms this home, designed by US studio O’Neill Rose Architects for a nature-loving couple.Undermountain by O'Neill Rose Architects

Called Undermountain, the house is located in Sheffield, a town in the Berkshires region in western Massachusetts.

A popular getaway destination for city dwellers, the picturesque area is known for its tree-covered hills, sparkling lakes and swathes of farmland.Undermountain by O'Neill Rose Architects

The architects “took a simple house to the extreme” in order to strengthen the building’s relationship to its setting.

Studio Mumbai presents MPavilion 2016 built using seven kilometres of bamboo

Studio Mumbai founder Bijoy Jain has unveiled his completed MPavilionin Melbourne – a square structure built from bamboo and wood, but not the cow dung originally planned (+ slideshow).

The Indian architect used seven kilometres of bamboo, 50 tonnes of stone and 26 kilometres of rope to create this year’s MPavilion, an annual commission billed as Australia’s answer to London’s Serpentine Pavilion.

Jain had also planned to use karvi panels, which are made by mixing cow dung and earth. But this material – in use in India, and tested on several prototypes built in Mumbai – would have taken too long to dry in the Melbourne climate.

The completed 16.8-square-metre structure features an intricate bamboo framework pinned together with approximately 5,000 wooden pegs.

Its awning-style roof canopy is made from Karvi sticks, which extend down at the corners to create dramatic points, while the flooring is bluestone, sourced from a quarry in Port Fairy – about 300 kilometres west of Melbourne.

Source: www.dezeen.com