Click to enlargeFrench artist Vincent Ganivet creates gravity-defying sculptures using concrete cinder blocks, bricks, straps, sometimes wood, and metal. These mostly large-scale works arch and twist in impressive ways, all the while staying balanced in place. Pretty amazing.
Click to enlargeI love this new metro/subway station Estación de Metro Carolines-Benimàmet in Valencia, Spain, designed by architect Luis Ferrer. The multi-colored glass boxes-within-a-box design not only gives the station a light appearance, as if floating over a bed of stones, but each box serves a purpose as well: two function as emergency stairs, one as office space, and the largest contains the ticket booths, elevator banks, and escalators. The colors and prints on the glass, apart from looking great, refer to the basic elements of earth, water, fire, and air, adding increasing warmth as one descends to the lower levels (perhaps a nod to the underworld?) The light fixtures and furniture were all designed in the architect’s studio with the idea of mass-production in mind for future stations.
It’s all fun, smart and beautiful as all design should be.
Click to enlargeHere are some of our suggestions for free and cheap cultural events in New York City this weekend:
1. Theater – Slowgirl by Greg Pierce, with Sarah Steele and Zeljko Ivanek, at Lincoln Center’s new Claire Two Theater. All tickets $20. Extended through August 5, 2012.
2. Art – Ghosts in the Machine at the New Museum. The new exhibit spans fifty years and traces the complex historical passage from the mechanical to the optical to the virtual. FREE Saturday (7/21/2012) 12-5pm with a visit to the museum’s block party. Otherwise $14 General Admission/$10 Student. FREE every Thursday 7pm-9pm. Through September 30, 2012.
3. Music – B.o.B FREE Secret Show at the Highline Ballroom; Sunday, July 22 at 9pm. Doors open 7:30pm. FREE with Ticket. Tickets available at the box office.
Also: Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra at the Brooklyn Bowl, Sunday, July 22, at 8pm. Doors open 6pm. $5.00
4. Comedy/Performance – D’FunQT: Stand Up or Die at Dixon Place (LES) Fri and Sat, July 20 & 21 at 9:30 pm. Tickets: $15 advance, $20 at the door, $15 students / seniors
Written and performed Leguizamo-style, this one-person show celebrates the joy of survival in a world often intolerant of difference. As a queer boy/stud/trans person, D’Lo unapologetically takes center stage and uses his fluidly morphing form and spot-on timing to bring the fierce with the funny.
5. Architecture – New Practices New York 2012 exhibit at the Center for Architecture. Mon-Fri: 9am to 8pm Sat: 11am to 5pm, through September 8th. FREE
6. Design/Performance – GlassLab Glassmakers from Corning Museum of Glass create pieces with contemporary designers. Glass blowing and all. Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 6:30 through July 29th. This weekend designers include Peter Buchanana-Smith and Paul Sahre. On Governors Island. FREE.
7. Art – Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective at the Guggenheim. Large-scale color photographs. Portraiture with a twist. Through October 8, 2012. Pay-what-you-Wish Saturdays from 5:45 to 7:45.
8. Theater – Uncle Vanya at the Soho Rep in Tribeca, through August 26th. 99¢ Sundays same day at the door. Line forms one hour before show. Limit 2 tickets per person. 7:30 pm. 99¢.
9. Dance – Pilobolus at the Joyce Theater. Through August 11, 2012. A limited amount of tickets available for $10 by calling the box office (212-242-0800). At the time of posting, only 1 ticket was left for this weekend, so best to try in advance. Showtimes and programs vary.
Also in Music: Bebel Gilberto/Criolo/Flavio Renegado/Beco Dranoff Saturday, July 21, 3-7 pm, Summerstage at Central Park. FREE
Also in Food: Les Salonnieres Country Blues Potluck Under the Stars. Dinner and Wine tasting. Bring a country-themed dish. Saturday, July 21, 7pm – 1am. Williamsburg Private Residence. Tickets $10.
More Food: 3rd Ward’s 5th Annual Pig Roast. Saturday July 21, 4pm to midnight. 195 Morgan Ave, Bushwick. FREE with RSVP
Also in Film: Coming Home: Short Films. Friday, July 20, 8pm. Rooftop Films at Metrotech Commons. FREE
Art on the Beach: Coney Island Annual Sand Sculpting Contest and Unity Day. (Here’s a video on last year’s event) Saturday, July 21, 12-5 pm. FREE.
Check last week’s Culture on the Cheap for additional (ongoing) events.
Click to enlargeA unique kind of café has just opened a few avenues over from us: Molecule – A Water Café. The idea behind this new shop is to serve filtered (“purified”) NYC tap water using their $25,000 filtration system; a seven-stage processing treatment to create what the owners call “pure H2O.” There’s the to-go option, in a nicely designed glass bottle for $2.50 which you can have plain or with vitamin supplements and/or herbal infusions at an additional cost. If you bring your own container, water refills are provided at a range of $1 for a canteen to $10 for 5 gallons. A delivery service is in the works as well as “water blessing” events.
Being a big fan of unfiltered NYC tap water, I’m not sure I’ll be consuming Molecule’s water for now. The whole concept makes me chuckle a bit (I guess a Brita filter doesn’t cut it anymore) but I do like their branding.
Here’s co-owner Adam Ruhf discussing Molecule in a WSJ Video.
via gothamist
Click to enlargeContemporary Mexican artist Pedro Reyes tends to combine the fantastical with the functional in his art. Trained as an architect, many of his projects convey an underlying interest in structural design. His Capulas are such works. These cocoon-like capsules are woven using traditional Mexican techniques at an architectural scale. People are invited to interact with these structures by sitting inside or walking through them. Some of the Capulas hang from above, while others are elevated from below.
Reyes appears to have a kind of manifesto as part of his Capula projects, which reads as follows:
via molaa
Click to enlargeHolmenkollen near Oslo, Norway, has a history of hosting legendary ski jumping competitions, but after their ski jump was deemed too small in 2005, a competition was held to build a new jump. JDS Architects, based in Copenhagen, were the winners out of 104 entries. Their dramatic design is clad in a mesh of stainless steel with a 69-meter cantilever that rises 58 meters in the air.
Some of these shots alone give me vertigo. I can’t even fathom plunging down on skis, being that I barely make it down a bunny slope.
via frame
Click to enlargeHeineJones, an interdisciplinary design consultancy based in Melbourne, was approached by the city council of Footscray to design an interpretive solution describing the function and intent of a new “rain garden” installed as part of a streetscape redevelopment for Leeds Street. HeineJones’ solution presented the function and intent of a water garden as a piece of poetry, laser cut though the 10mm steel plate of the tree grates. Presented in different scales and languages, the urban poems include large words that form abstract snippets of information about the rain garden, with the poem in its entirety reproduced in smaller type.
The intent of the design is to engage the public in an emotive and legible way, whereby the passage and movement of the water into the system is through the information itself.
via segd
Click to enlargeSwiss artist Jonas Etter, based in Zurich, works in many mediums, including burnt sugar. These typographic sculptures and framed wallpieces are all made using the aforementioned substance. The burnt sugar melts due to heat and air moisture, turning the pieces into a sort of performance. The typographic sculptures are their own self-defining captions. As they melt and spread over the base, the works transform and invade the viewer’s space with their sticky puddles. The Wallpiece I-III are put on the wall immediately before the opening reception and the content slowly starts to flow out onto the ground.
via eye
Click to enlargeWell, this is certainly an interesting design for a chapel. The Kamppi Chapel of Silence, designed by Finnish studio K2S Architects, is a small wooden tub of a structure supplying a bit of silence and peace from its urban surroundings in Helsinki’s commercial center. The wood tones in this sculptural volume exude a natural warmth which is only amplified by the indirect sunlight that enters through the top.
via A10
Click to enlargeLocated in Alicante, Spain, the Plaza Mirador El Tossal Community Center, designed by Crystalzoo Architects boasts beautiful views of the mountains and pine forest as well as being part of the contemporization of the countryside landscape. A neighborhood community center, the unique and elegant building includes an outdoor meeting square and an auditorium inside. Love the circle theme throughout.
via A10
Click to enlargeNow here’s a pretty singular bus station. Spanish architect Eustáquio Martínez completed the Intercambiador Padre Anchieta (Interchange Station Padre Anchieta) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, this past February. The unique structure looks more like a massive sculpture than your average bus transfer station. The top-heavy quality makes for dramatic protective overhangs with interesting irregular geometric red cavities excavated from beneath. Those green buses complement nicely as well, don’t you think?
Click to enlargeLast month when I was on Snarkitecture’s website getting information on their recent Odin Pop-Up Shop project, I noticed this project earlier in 2012. Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, the Snarkitecture duo, reconstructed the 10-foot letters from the old Miami Orange Bowl and whimsically scattered around the east plaza of the new Marlins Ballpark. Created as a sort of memorial to the stadium that was demolished in 2008, A Memorial Bowing feels like a mix of ruins and renewal, with some of the letters submerged and others standing tall.
The alignments of the letters spell out new words and are a nice complement to the new stadium, which can be viewed through the type at different points.. Really, you can’t go wrong with monster-large type.
Click to enlargeTriggered by the collapse of one of the palm trees in the center of town in Daya Vieja, Spain, architect Joaquin Alvado Bañon created El Mirador del Palmeral with the excuse of a structural support for the tree. A lookout tower with a spiraling promenade that culminates in a spectacular narrow overpass that jutts out and over a major town thoroughfare, El Mirador del Palmeral offers stunning views of the Vega Baja, Rojales and La Marina. In addition to the nice views and fun structure, the idea of making the trees a focal point and working with them is an example of the sustainable thinking that infiltrates much of today’s architecture.
Here’s a video to appreciate the structure from all angles:
via treintaycuatro
Click to enlargeThe former parking lot at the Place des Arts in Montreal, has been transformed into a cool urban lounge and event space: Salon Urbain by Sid Lee Architecture and Ædifica. Adjacent to a new concert hall, the space is meant to be a meeting place pre- and post-concert or exhibit. The central focal point of the space, under the spectacular ceiling, is the bar shaped as a sound wave in physical form. The goal of the architects was to create a space that would continue the magical feeling that comes with attending a concert.
Pretty darn cool.
Click to enlargeJust back a few days from their amazing trip to Japan, Em and Dan had lots to report. High on their list in terms of cool fun was the CupNoodles Museum in Yokohama, about 30 minutes from Tokyo. Opened last fall, the interactive museum chronicles the history of the instant ramen noodle created by Momofuku Ando in 1958. Included in the museum is a Design-your-Own Cup Noodle from content to package design, a replica of the shed where the instant ramen was invented, A Noodles Bazaar Food Court, and a theme park. Oh, and of course, a gift shop selling all things ramen, including the lovely set of chopsticks that they brought back for me, which I might just have to frame instead of actually use. When I questioned the relevance of the fun graphic logo, Em and Dan immediately responded with “No, it’s perfect. That’s exactly the feeling you experience the minute you step through the door.” ’Nough said.
Update: I just noticed that the exclamation points refer to the decorative border on the CupNoodle cup, so there’s that too…
Click to enlargeThai multidisciplinary design studio Supermachine based in Bangkok has been working on a several projects for Bangkok University, including their BU Creative Center, BU Lounge, and, most recently completed, BU Brand Unit. They are all fun, colorful, and clever designs that complement each other, yet each with different challenges and budgets. The BU Brand Unit was the most low-budget of the projects, and Supermachine was able to convert the space into a fun creative office, mostly by adding paint; the splashes of colors and circles, while not expensive, made for a complete transformation. The other two projects, with larger budgets had every aspect of the projects designed by Supermachine, including a unique pool table, shelving system and chandelier in the Lounge project, to a pixel wall in the Creative Center.
Fun all the way around.
via the coolhunter
Click to enlargeMelbourne architects Sarah Crowley (previously here and here) and Charlotte Fliegner have designed a community sharing project called I Have I Need. Using speech bubble-shaped chalkboards, they have created a series of installations where the community can write down goods or services they have to offer, or items they need along with contact details.
Crowley and Fliegner are currently looking for more wall space to install their project around Melbourne. If you have some to offer or suggest, get in touch with them here.
This project is a perfect example of collaborative consumption!
Thank you, Sarah.
Click to enlargeHow sleek is this bridge?! I love it. Designed by Lisbon-based João Luís Carrilho da Graça (JLCG Arquitectos), this pedestrian bridge spans 220 meters over a valley and the Carpinteira brook/stream.
Spectacular, though I don’t understand the choice of spiraling cylindrical columns… kind of takes away from the sleekness.
Definitely not for the vertigo-inflicted.
via architizer
CollabCubed 