May 1, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Peace Bridge: Santiago Calatrava

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Not a typical design for Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Canada, was inaugurated at the end of this past March. A red twisting helix-shaped pedestrian bridge, the Peace Bridge is a low single-span bridge without Calatrava’s usual soaring vertical accents because of a no-fly zone above due to a nearby heliport. In addition, to minimize impact on the local environment, the bridge was constructed without supporting piers in the riverbed. The result is a striking tubular steel-truss bridge, with enough coverage to protect against the winter elements, yet open enough to keep cool in the summer. Beautiful!

Photos: Robert Coxwell; City of Calgary; CarlCarl; and Incremental Photo’s flickrs, as well as Santiago Calatrava.

via Canadian Architect

April 30, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Henrique Oliveira: Labyrinthine Installations

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Brazilian artist Henrique Oliveira, based in São Paulo, started as a traditional painter, but after some time he started experimenting with scraps of wood found in his father’s woodworking shop as well as on the streets. In many ways his installations are seen as his own unique style of painting. With these splintered scraps of wood as his pictorial material, Oliveira evolved from a painter and sculptor to simply an artist.

His large-scale, labyrinth-like installations burst through walls and façades in a sculptural, painterly, and collagey way. Inside, these works resemble the interiors of caves and, in some ways, the inside of the human body as entered through a vaginal-like entrance. The gigantic and jammed quality of these ‘paintings’ sprawl out of exhibition spaces and buildings in a beastial and amazing manner.

Oliveira’s most recent exhibit just closed yesterday at the Offenes Kulturhaus in Linz, Austria, but coming up in July he will be having another show in Galeria Millan in São Paulo.

via ok-centrum

April 27, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Liu Wei: Cityscape Installations

Chinese artist Liu Wei is a man to watch in the new Chinese art scene. He creates installations, paintings and videos oscillating between order and disorder. His installations/cityscape sculptures are at times sprawling and depict cities in a state of metamorphosis, something he can relate to in the development of his native city, Beijing.

Presently, Liu Wei has his first solo exhibit, Foreign, at the Almine Rech Gallery in Paris. The installations in this exhibit are, once again, cityscapes made from stacks of schoolbooks, held together by steel rods and wood clamps. These are unidentifiable skylines, including a range of iconic buildings from the Pentagon to Saint Peter’s Basilica.

His hanging installation above, is titled Don’t Touch and was exhibited at the Farschou Foundation in Beijing last year. That work is made of oxhide, wood, and metal. His earlier work Love It! Bite It! was made of edible dog chews.

Liu Wei’s exhibit at Almine Rech Gallery will be on view through May 16, 2012.

via saatchi gallery

April 26, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Boa Mistura: Order is Intangible

The Spanish art collective Boa Mistura (previously here) composed of five self-proclaimed ‘graffiti rockers’ created this cool anamorphic typography installation for the interior design fair Interiorissimo Decoracción 2011. Inspired by the poem “Order is” by Louis I. Khan, the words “El Orden es Intangible” (Order is intangible) were painted on an abstract furniture composition that is only legible from one specific angle. This sort of thing always blows my mind.

April 25, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Robert Currie: Videotape Installations

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English artist Robert Currie creates large scale installations using unspooled videotape transforming spaces into dramatic physical and optical experiences. Many of his works are actually titled by the length of the videotape, which I find sort of fun, such as 2 Days, 1 Hour, 59 Minutes and 47 Seconds.

Also interesting are his sculptures made of layers of black nylon monofilament creating both abstract three-dimensional structures as well as image-based ones that appear photographic.

You can see more of his installations here and sculptures here.

April 24, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

A Building in the Hand…

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Awhile back I came across a student project for a redesign of the Casino VLC in Valencia Spain, by interior design student Vicente Ortuño at Escuela de diseño Barreira. The design features a large sculpture of a hand wrapping around the building as if grabbing it. Ortuño’s design is meant to break with the traditional Roman architecture approach to casino design. He opted for a surrealist vision, with a dreamlike quality in a place where people hope for dreams of winning and wealth to come true. The hand was specifically chosen for its presence in such game-playing phrases as “a good hand” or “sleight of hand” as well as for its strength, not to mention making a clear indicator as the main entrance.

Shortly after, I came across a case study for a house in Los Angeles by Greek architect Andreas Angelidakis who maintains an experimental practice in Athens which involves “building, designing and speculating the contemporary ecosystem of screens and landscapes. He usually operates at the intersection of systems: Art and Architecture, Virtual and Real, Building and Nature, Ruin and Construction.” Angelidakis’ design for the Hollywood Hand House has an involved story behind it. Basically, a concrete hand of a giant girl punches through a mountain off Wetona Drive from the direction of the Hollywood sign. After the anger subsides the hand comes out of a reservoir water basin and elegantly holds a glass box building on a serving tray, perched over the cliff like a billboard. The punched-out cave and glass house are connected via the reservoir which is converted to a swimming pool…it’s quite a fictionalized and surreal story which you can continue to read about on Angelidakis’ blog.

Obviously, they seemed like natural projects to group together…you know, with the giant hands and all. Both projects have a creepy quality, but then, I think that’s what each designer was going for.

Images courtesy of the architects.

via Di* and PINUP

April 23, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Anthony McCall: 5 Minutes of Pure Sculpture

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New York based artist Anthony McCall has been creating unique light installations since the 1970s with a 20-year break in between. Currently, McCall has a solo exhibit in Berlin at the Hamburger Bahnhof, titled Five Minutes of Pure Sculpture – his largest to date – showing light installations created since 2003. His works are a combination of film, sculpture and drawing, though his more recent works are digital with complex forms created with the aid of computers. These light sculptures are ephemeral, yet seem tangible and physical. The projected beams of light — some vertical to the floor, others horizontal onto the walls — engulf the viewer in the slow-moving cones while animated lines, drawn in black and white, are projected into a haze-filled room, creating the sculptural forms.

The choice of space sounds and looks perfect, too; the spacious former railway station has been converted into a black box filled with haze and light. I vote for this coming back to NYC at the Park Avenue Armory!

Five Minutes of Pure Sculpture will be on view at the Hamburger Bahnhof through August 12, 2012.

Photos: Markus Schreiber (AP); David Levene (the Guardian); Hugo Glendinning; luyu2’s flickr; College des Bernardins’ flickr; Sean Gallup, Getty Images; AnatR’s flickr, and courtesy of the artist.

April 20, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

GAUD12: Pratt Institute Exhibit

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For their Graduate Architecture & Urban Design Student Exhibition, the students at Pratt Institute, under the tutelage of their professors Michael Szivos and Carrie McKnelly of SOFTlab (previously here), created this series of suspended tubular tunnels made up of over 2,400 lasercut cardboard triangles interconnected with 6,000 thin plywood clips, taking over the Robert H. Siegel Gallery. The walls of the gallery are papered with five years worth of student work which can be seen through the portals created by the cardboard installation, which are also used to display models by the students.

You can see the installation in progress in the time lapse video below.

via designboom

April 19, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Architect’s Eye: Speech Tchoban & Kuznetsov

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As part of this year’s Interni Legacy event at the Università Statale in Milan, in conjunction with Milan Design Week, Sergei Tschoban and Sergey Kuznetsov, partners of the Moscow based architecture studio SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov, have designed a high-tech sculpture titled The Architect’s Eye. A stainless steel sphere, completely smooth and reflecting, features an LED system to create the image of a huge human eyeball that rotates to look to the sky as well as at visitors and the ground. The iris changes color and the pupil increases and decreases in size. Very cool.

The theme of Interni Magazine’s event is ‘legacy’ and SPEECH’s sculpture dutifully works that in by including images and video of abandoned monuments of the Russian avant-garde, commenting on the importance of preserving our history and cultural legacy.

April 19, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Vitamins Design: Out of the Box for Samsung

This is so clever. London based design and invention studio, Vitamins, works “in the spaces between science, technology, business and wonder.” They came up with this Out of the Box manual for Samsung after working with users of all ages across Europe and analyzing the difficulties that some people have in learning to use their new cell phone, especially older people. Instead of creating a special phone, they came up with a different approach: a user-friendly way to learn how to use the handset. Instead of the usual complicated manuals they offer a set of books that can live on a bookshelf and actually contain the phone. Each page reveals the elements in their correct order, from sim card, to battery, to the case, and the second volume allows the phone to slide into a slot with arrows pointing to exact locations that the user should press.

The video above demonstrates the Out of the Box experience which has won an Interaction Award 2012 for Best Concept and was exhibited in the MoMA’s Talk to Me exhibit last fall.

Thanks to Daniela and Natan!

April 17, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Mathilde Roussel: Lifes of Grass

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French artist Mathilde Roussel created these suspended anthropomorphic sculptures titled Lifes of Grass using soil and wheat grass seeds that, just like a chia pet, slowly transform with the growth of grass.

From the artist’s website:
I strive to show that food, it’s origin, it’s transport, has an impact on us beyond it’s taste. The power inside it affects every organ of our body. Observing nature and being aware of what and how we eat makes us more sensitive to food cycles in the world – of abundance, of famine – and allows us to be physically, intellectually and spiritually connected to a global reality.

Roussel has exhibited these works in numerous gallery spaces since 2010, especially in Brooklyn and Manhattan, but most recently at Anatomia Botanica exhibition at the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville.

via feel desain via notcot

April 12, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Rivane Neuenschwander: Continent Cloud

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Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander is known for her poetic-styled installations. Currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, is her previously exhibited piece titled Continent-Cloud. Composed of a polypropylene lining that supports small styrofoam balls which occupy the entire gallery ceiling, the balls are moved around by hidden fans creating changing forms in constant movement. The way these forms rearrange themselves is evocative of clouds moving across the sky, while at the same time some of the solid masses are also reminiscent of land formations on the globe, hence its title.

Neuenschwander’s installation will be up at MCA as part of their Marking Time exhibit until June 3, 2012.

Photos: Reuters: Daniel Munoz; MCA; and Stephen Friedman Gallery

April 6, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Timotheus Tomicek: Video Portraits

One of my favorite exhibits at Volta last month was Viennese artist Timotheus Tomicek’s video portraits or moving photographs. In many cases these seemingly-still images are reminiscent of Renaissance paintings yet all have a subtle indication of modernity. Also, upon closer look, many of these are actually videos, where only the slightest of movement can be detected: a slight breeze, movement of water in a glass, or the shaking of a hand over a precariously balanced stack of dominoes. Though different in style, these works remind me of the wonderful VOOM Portraits by Robert Wilson exhibited five or so years ago, in concept.

You can see two of the moving photographs in action below, and more of Tomicek’s work, both still and moving, here and here. And more of his video portraits here.

April 4, 2012 by collabcubed - 2 Comments

Studio 400: White

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Now this looks like a fun class! Design, developed and installed by students in Professor Karen Lange’s Studio 400 class at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo College of Architecture and Environmental Design, White is their recent book show installation. White served as a showcase for Studio 400’s thesis books, filling the gallery with 80,000 square feet of plastic sheeting that was loomed, crocheted, stapled, bent, and tied over a 4-day period. The result was a fun, comfortable net, creating hammock-like reading spaces within which to peruse the hanging books. Must have been a blast.

You can watch the process in the video below:

If you like this you might also enjoy Ernesto Neto’s installations and For Use.

via sinbadesign/archinect

April 4, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

AVPD: Spatial Works

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AVPD, a Danish studio created by visual artists Aslak Vibaek and Peter Døssing, unites knowledge from fine arts, architecture, science and the humanities to create works that focus on the perceptual relation between man and space. These installations or spatial works have a fun house quality to them, with their mirrored hallways and infinite doors. The top photo shows their installation aptly named Hitchcock Hallway, while the next five images below are from their Broken View installation where a single corridor appears to become two. The bottom four images are from Diagonal View, which has an equally deceiving hallway.

From AVPD’s website:
We define our spatial works as meta-architectures where the normal perception of the spectator is challenged and displaced and a new experience of space is made possible. In our works, we try to rethink the triangular constellation of the subject, the object and the context. We are interested in how spatial constructions effect the perception of the spectator and how she/he grasps the space in a cognitive, emotional and intellectual way.

Our domain is reality and our artistic praxis is a spatial laboratory.

There are many, many more of these works to be seen on their site as well as videos and plans that explain each one, though I’m quite sure that nothing beats walking through them live.

via galeria leme

April 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Delancey Underground: the “LowLine”

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This is a project that I’m very excited about. Being a big fan of the High Line, the idea of revitalizing another set of unused train tracks to create an additional public park space in NYC sounds great. The Delancey Underground project (a.k.a. the LowLine) is the brainchild of James Ramsey (RAAD) and Dan Barasch (PopTech). They propose to convert the former Williamsburg Trolley Terminal – opened in 1903 but not in use since 1948 – into a 60,000 square foot underground green space beneath Delancey Street in the Lower East Side. They have found beautiful architectural details in the abandoned space such as cobblestones, vaulted ceilings and crisscrossing train tracks.

Dark and gloomy you say? Well, Ramsey has designed a new technology that would direct sunlight below ground via fiber optic cables. Solar collectors would be placed at street level, collecting sunlight throughout the day which would then be reflected below ground. This light would not emit the ultraviolet harmful rays, but would support photosynthesis enabling the growth of plants and trees.

Arup Engineers are now working with the team on a series of feasibility studies as well as on the sunlight irrigation prototype.

The project has a Kickstarter page with three more days to go and information straight from the creators. They have met their initial goal but, as always, a project like this could use more money. In addition, from now until the end of April, the Mark Miller Gallery on Orchard Street has an exhibit previewing the LowLine Park titled Let there be light, with large renderings, a 3D model of the space, animated video and protoypes of the solar reflectors.

via lowdownny and inhabitat

April 3, 2012 by collabcubed - 1 Comment

Key Frames: Groupe LAPS

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Key Frames is a light installation created by the French design/artist studio Groupe LAPS — six artists and designers with combined expertise and technical know-how who work in film development, light installations, and multimedia applications. Using LED light tubes, Key Frames consists of multiple static stick figures that, when paired with a dance soundtrack, flash on and off in a choreographed display that evokes movement. Totally fun.

Originally designed for the Fête des Lumieres 2011 in Lyon, France, Key Frames was just included as part of the iLight festival at Marina Bay in Singapore.

You can see it in action below:

Photo credits: Reuters; flometal’s flickr; bernardoh’s flickr; and Groupe LAPS.

via voanews

April 2, 2012 by collabcubed - 0 comments

Andreas Von Gehr: Re-Bio-Gehr

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Chilean artist Andreas Von Gehr is interested in the interaction between photography, digital media and painting. Much of his work involves his family and the theme of immigration. His installation Re-Bio-Gehr, which was exhibited at Scope here in NYC last month, is one such piece. Von Gehr fragments the image of his father into 256 separate framed portraits with a young German boy at the center base of each frame, his father in his youth (or maybe a representation of his father – I’m not sure). The larger portrait alludes to immigration in its typical passport or ID photo style.

It’s hard not to think of this as a 3-dimensional Chuck Close portrait. Very cool.

via artists wanted