(small) creative initiatives that challenge (big) traditional ideas
• ( egoistic ) • activistic • architectural • audible • cinematic • conceptual • graphic • strategic • surface • urban • wireless
Posted by Sebastian on Mar 10, 2005
Swedish furniture retailer IKEA and construction-firm Skanska has teamed up and launched a series of attractive apartment buildings throughout Scandinavia.
The BoKlok (literally: LiveSmart) apartments have been specifically developed for average-income families and are highly flexible and easy to decorate.
Furthermore, when buying a BoKlok apartment, the new owners receive a welcome gift that includes: inspiration and proposals for the interior decoration, a handyman that will assist when moving in and finally, a voucher for furniture and accessories at the local IKEA store.
Posted by Sebastian on Mar 01, 2005
Freedom of Creation (FOC) is an Amsterdam based design duo who carries out research in the field of Rapid Manufacturing, which is a term used to describe the process of fabricating physical objects directly from CAD files, using a three-dimensional laser printer.
The potential advantages of Rapid Manufacturing are numorous. Complex objects can be made on demand, rather than being under- or over produced. Production costs can be lowered and the objects themselves can be continuously updated and adjusted to the individual customer, simply by modifying the data.
Supported by Materialise - a Belgium Rapid Manufacturing producer - Freedom of Creation have been experimenting specifically in printing techniques and materials for lighting objects and fashion accessories.
Rapid Manufacturing is still in its infancy but it is believed that the technique might become as important to future objects as today's inkjet printers are to paper.
Although, the website hellomrpresident.com looks to be deserted, it still contains bits of documentation of the interactive laser hack performed at the World Economic Forum's annual conference in Davos, Switzerland in 2001.
During the summit, people were not allowed to gather in public protest due to *security reasons*, so the usual demonstration format had to be redefined.
Swiss media artist Johannes Gees came up with the concept of projecting digitally relayed messages by laser on to the snowy mountain slopes overlooking Davos. The messages were submitted from all around the globe and could be seen by the hundreds of journalists and thousands of politicians and business leaders attending the conference.
On behalf of its client 3M, a Canadian advertising agency has created a 3 dimensional bus shelter billboard to promote a new security glass product.
The billboard construction, which is made of the very same material that it promotes, is transparent and contains what appears to be real money up for grabs to anyone who can break the glass.
The billboard was only up for a day and half and was strategically placed in front of the agency's own office, closely monitored by security guards across the street - just in case the publicity stunt would get out of hand...
Galleria Hall is a Department Store in Seoul which in September 2004 had a façade-lift done by Dutch architects UN-Studio.
4330 glass disks were applied on the metal substructure of the existing façade. The discs were treated with a special iridescent foil, which causes constant changes in the perception of the façade.
At night, a special lighting scheme, designed cooperatively by UN Studio and ArupLighting, illuminates the discs by reflecting the dynamics of the weather conditions that happened during the day.
UN-Studio also renovated the interior of the building, using bright light-colored walkways to improve orientation as well as to give the store a totally new and fresh makeover.
Posted by Sebastian on Feb 13, 2005
A recent article by Bruce Sterling in Wired, features the French architect François Roche (studio R&Sie) who is internationally renowned for his organic and conceptual architectural creations.
One of Roche's projects - Silverelief (Dusty Relief) - is a future Contemporary Art Museum in Bangkok that utilizes the city's pollution to generate mutating shapes and forms. The museum is surrounded by electrically charged wires that attract airborne dust particles, thus gradually transforming the building into a mountain of dust that reflect its immediate environment (Bangkok is grey and polluted).
Roche's interest in 'chameleon-architecture' is also expressed in the R&Sie dynamic studio logo, which continuously changes, as was it a living organism itself.
Posted by Sebastian on Jan 08, 2005
Canadian design-duo Molo is working on a product line called Soft, which utilizes paper, or paper-like materials. The Soft-products can transmit or absorb light and are compressible for storage and transport.
The paper Softwall will be the first product in the line of soft products. It is an expandable partition with a moody ambient light quality; light falling onto the Softwall from windows or light fixtures is absorbed and contained within its layers, giving off an inner luminosity similar to a block of snow or ice.
Softwall can be manipulated by the user to make any larger open space more intimate or dynamic. The honeycomb walls also serve to dampen sound.
FogScreen is an innovation that creates a thin white screen of fog that can be projected onto, touched, and even walked through.
With the addition of an add-on interactive set, FogScreen also makes it possible to write and draw in the air.
Chris Glaister, Afshin Mehin and Tomas Rosen from the RCA Innovation-Unit has developed the project 'Chronos Chromos Concrete' that combines heating elements and ink to display graphics, words and numbers within concrete.
Thermochromic ink is mixed with concrete. Nickel chromium wires, which heat up when electric current is passed through them, are set beneath the concrete surface. The area above the wire changes colour when a certain temperature is reached. The arrangement of these wires beneath the concrete allows the display of graphics and information.
Posted by Sebastian on Dec 23, 2004
The world's first fully-revolving apartment building has been inaugurated in Critiba, which is known as the most modern and well organized city in Brazil in terms of urban planning, environment and education.
The building is located in a neighbourhood called Ecoville and each of the 11 storeys turn independently, giving the lucky - and rich - residents a 360˚ degree view of the area.
The revolving speed and direction of the apartments can be adjusted by the owner via a touch screen panel.
Contact: Sebastian Campion